"I know,” said the young man sadly. “Anything he wouldn't want my mother to know about, you mean? No, I don't think so. If there was anything like that he didn't share the secret with me."
I sighed. I was going to have to go back to Lily with nothing to report, but I could think of nothing more to ask. “All right. If he does appear let him know that Tiger Lily wants to see him, won't you?"
As I turned away, and Cloud Eagle picked up his pole again, a thought struck me. “How are you going to carry on now that jug's gone in the water?” I asked curiously.
"Oh, that happens all the time.” He laughed. “I'll just dive down and get it again. We've lost it in deeper water than this before! It's only waist-high here, that's one of the reasons we use this spot."
* * * *
Lily was, as I had anticipated, not particularly pleased at my failure, and the prospect of her two years’ free deliveries vanished somewhere beyond the city limits, but she was even less pleased the next morning.
"I don't believe it!” The words, uttered in her shrillest voice, echoed around the courtyard of her house. “Both of them gone now?"
The bearer of the news was none other than Flint Knife: Cloud Eagle's cousin.
"That man owes me a good deal,” Lily was saying, “and if you're telling me his son's gone missing as well..."
"What happened?” I asked Flint Knife. “And why are you here?"
The man was almost as angry as Lily. His face was a peculiar purple colour. “How should I know what happened? All I know is, when I went to fetch my boat this morning, it wasn't there. I thought my cousin might have borrowed it so I went to his house. But his mother told me he'd vanished in the night—just like his father before him! I came here because I knew you'd been looking for Blue Feather and you spoke to his son yesterday—I thought you might have some idea where he's gone.” The man breathed heavily, and added: “I need that boat, you understand? It's all very well helping out a relative in trouble, but I have to have it back, or else how am I supposed to live?"
The pitiful note in his voice did not impress Lily. “I don't understand what made you think we could help. I've got enough troubles of my own—what?"
Her last word was snarled at me, because I had just cleared my throat. “I don't know,” I said. “Maybe we can help, after all.” I turned to the water seller. “Just one question, though. When you spoke to Blue Feather's wife this morning, did she seem upset at all?"
He stared at me incredulously. “What, a woman who's just had both her husband and her son vanish into thin air?” He paused, frowning. “Actually, now you mention it, she didn't seem all that concerned. She didn't look as if she'd been up all night crying, anyway."
"What are you thinking, Yaotl?” my mistress demanded.
I glanced up at the sky. It was cloudy, but I sensed that the Sun had not yet climbed very high. “It may not be too late,” I muttered to myself. “If he waited until dawn ... And he would, he might not find the place in the dark...” I looked at my mistress. “We'll have to go now, though,” I said. “In fact, if we can run, so much the better!"
* * * *
I was to regret my suggestion four hundred times over before we had come to the water seller's house. As a former priest I had been trained to endure pain and exhaustion by the endless round of fasts, ritual self-mortifications, and vigils that our rites demanded, but that had been years before. By the time we reached our objective my lungs felt as though they had been seared by hot smoke and my legs were twitching and threatening to double up under me. Flint Knife looked and sounded worse than I was. Lily, who had kept pace with us with her skirts gathered about her knees, seemed, surprisingly, a little better, although in truth for the last part of the journey we had all more or less slowed to a brisk walk. All the same, as soon as the little house hove into sight I realised we had got there in time.
We all paused for a moment, panting. It was Cloud Eagle's cousin who was the first to utter words, staggering two further, exhausting steps towards the canoe moored by the house. “That's ... my ... boat!” he gasped incredulously.
"Yes,” I muttered, starting forward myself. “And there's your cousin, and look what he's holding under his arm! Stop!"
The young man wasted only a moment staring at me and my exhausted and desperate-looking companions. Then he leapt straight into the canoe, the object still cradled under his arm, and seized a paddle with his free hand. At the same time his mother appeared from the house, screeched once, and ran along the bank towards us.
Cloud Eagle managed one-handed to get the boat to move. It did not get very far. Flint Knife let out an angry howl and jumped into the waist-deep water in front of it, waving his arms wildly. The canal was too narrow for the vessel to pass, and Cloud Eagle could not get enough speed up to run his cousin down. He bellowed in frustration, lashing the water with his paddle. Then he raised it to strike at Flint Knife, which was when I drew level with the canoe, jumped in, and wrested the trophy from the crook of his arm.
At the same time Lily raced past me to confront Cloud Eagle's mother. Recalling the words they used to each other still makes me blush. It took Cloud Eagle's despairing voice to call an end to the brawl. “It's all right, Mother,” he moaned, tossing the paddle into the canal. “It's no good. They're on to us. They've got it now."
* * * *
There was barely room for all of us to squat or kneel in the courtyard of Blue Feather's house. The water seller's wife—widow, I reminded myself—did not offer us anything to eat. She stood in the corner and glared at us.
I set the thing I had taken from her son on the hard earth in front of me. The goddess Jade Skirt's emerald eyes gleamed into mine, sparkling as if with mirth. Well, I thought, nobody ever claimed the gods had no sense of humour.
"Well, now I've got my boat back, I'll be off,” Flint Knife said.
"Not so fast!” snapped Lily. “I still want to know what happened, and where's Blue Feather?” When no one else answered she turned to me. “Yaotl?"
"In the lake, near where the aqueduct enters the city, I should think.” I looked at his son. “But I don't think he'll be coming back from there, will he?"
The lad said nothing.
"You'd better explain,” Lily said.
"It's easy enough. You remember how the water seller wanted me to describe the ceremony at the aqueduct in detail—even down to things like exactly where the priest was standing when he threw the idol in the water? He claimed it was because he wanted to make sure it was all done right, but of course that was nonsense. Why should it matter to him? He's just an ordinary trader, and not a very successful one at that, judging by the state of this place.” The grey-haired woman hissed reproachfully. “Which reminds me—I noticed tobacco tubes in the trash heap outside, and couldn't think what they were doing in such a poor household.
"I didn't work out what was happening when the old man vanished, but when we heard his son had disappeared, too, it was suddenly obvious. They were after this statue—or at least the gold and jewels in it. This is what I think happened: Both Blue Feather and Cloud Eagle went out the other night, in Blue Feather's canoe. They knew where the statue was, thanks to my description. However, they were a bit wary of just going straight to the place to fish it out, because it was inside the city and someone might see what they were up to. So instead, they took their boat to the point near the shore of the island where the aqueduct first enters the city. Cloud Eagle here climbed up to the aqueduct and made his way along it. I'm not sure how deep it is when it's full, but I suppose he used one of those tobacco tubes to breathe through.
"He would have had to grope around under the water for a while, but he obviously found what he was looking for. Then he made his way back and threw the statue down to his father in the boat."
A groan from the young man told me I'd got it right. “That's where it went wrong, isn't it?” I said. “Because Blue Feather didn't catch it—and being solid gold, it went through the bottom of the boa
t, straight into the lake. And by the time Cloud Eagle here realised what had happened, the boat and his father had both vanished."
Lily gasped. Even Flint Knife muttered something under his breath that may have been an expression of shock. Cloud Eagle looked at the ground. Only his mother was impassive.
"And that's it, really. The young man had to go home and tell his mother what had happened. She knew about the plot all along, of course—she could hardly fail to, with both of them out overnight—and they agreed that he should go back the next night and try to retrieve the statue from where it had sunk. He's a good diver—unlike his father, alas! Blue Feather and the boat will still be there, of course.” Even if Cloud Eagle could have retrieved the body, I knew he would not: The drowned were sacred to the Rain God and only priests could touch them. “They must be in the lake—someone would have noticed them in a canal."
There was a long silence, which Lily eventually broke. “So, I'm not going to get my free water.” She sounded philosophical enough about it. “What do we do with these, though?” she asked, indicating our unwilling hosts.
* * * *
Aztecs rarely went out at night, except with good reason; but Lily and I had a good reason. Besides, I had been a priest, and knew how to fight any demons we might encounter. And we had the gods on our side, I thought, as I extended a hand to help my mistress up to the edge of the aqueduct; one of the gods, at least.
"Amazing, the risks some people will take,” I mused, as I gazed for the last time into Lady Jade Skirt's glittering green eyes.
"What, us perching here, you mean?"
"No, I mean fooling around with the gods, the way that water seller was prepared to do, and for what? For something he could sell in the marketplace."
We had not reported Cloud Eagle and his mother to the authorities. Losing Blue Feather and the boat had seemed punishment enough.
I smiled and, after a brief glance at my mistress, tossed the gold statue back into the water, where it belonged.
I watched it sink with a twinge of fear. What if it were looted a second time? What about all the other precious things that were tossed into the water and, as the workman had told me, never seen again? What if, in the end, the goddess never got anything but the kind of rubbish the labourers found when they dredged the aqueduct?
If that were the case, I thought, then we had better get used to drinking lake water, after all.
Copyright © 2006 Simon Levack
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©2006 by Will Ryan
C SEVEN H FOURTEEN O TWO—OR—THE APOTHECARY'S LAMENT by Prof. Theophilus Amadeus Gotlieb Zeus
So...
You say you'll adore me the whole of my life.
C seven H fourteen O two!
You state we are fated to be man and wife.
C seven H fourteen O two!
You claim that no other could possibly be
Who'd worship my being to such a degree
And I should regard you reciprocally.
C seven H fourteen O two!
* * * *
The authorities somehow have failed to connect
The many unfortunate lives you have wrecked.
Yes, As2 O3 I'd likely expect
Were I sharing quarters with you
(I'm referring, of course, to the arsenic powder
I'd no doubt encounter in my evening chowder).
* * * *
Yet...
You tell me it's kismet. You claim it is Fate.
C seven H fourteen O two!
And Destiny sent me as your future mate.
C seven H fourteen O two!
As you prattle on thusly I ponder each lie;
Now, “Balderdash!” seems much too harsh a reply;
I find it more soothing to say with a sigh:
C seven H fourteen O two!
(That's “oil of banana” to you:
C7 H14 O2.)
Copyright © 2006 Prof. Theophilus Amadeus Gotlieb Zeus
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CHARLADY'S CHOICE by Neil Schofield
In the five years since we first published Mr. Schofield's work,—when he was a newcomer to the field, with only a few pub-lished stories—he's gone on to become one of the best and most prolific writers of the short mystery. In his latest tale he has some fun at the expense of “big-name” writers and the publishing business.
Thus Mrs. Ethel Hoskins and her great friend Mrs. Vera Bumstead, friends of forty years, widows both, cleaning ladies both, in the snug bar of the Ring O’ Bells in Camden Town: Ethel was a small port and lemon, Vera was a Gin and It, because the vermouth helped her di-gestion, she said. Both had the thin, tired faces of women who had been through it a bit, but who believed firmly that you mustn't grumble, worse things happen at sea, look on the bright side, it could be worse. Both wore clothes suited to their calling of charlady: worn dresses that had seen better days, pinafores with multiple pockets for holding dusters and other ephemera and impedimenta, and flat, comfortable shoes. It was a treat for both of them to slip off their shoes under the table and sip their drinks while waiting for their buses. Vera took the 13 up to Chalk Farm, while Ethel caught the 29 to Holloway. The Ring O’ Bells was their way station and their Wailing Wall.
"Writers,” said Ethel, taking a vicious sip from her port and lemon, “I wouldn't give them house room.” Ethel was a stocky, aggressive woman with a pronounced chin and blazing blue eyes. Vera was smaller and fainter, like a bad photocopy of herself.
"Playing you up, then, is he, your bloke?” said Vera with sympathy. She knew as well as anyone just how a customer could play you up.
"Missis Hoskins, I wender,” said Ethel, her voice modulating into an excruciating parody, “I wender if it wed be too much to ask you to hoover more thoroughly under the tables in mai steddy?"
"Steddy, is it?” said Vera.
"Steddy, my arse,” said Ethel, “pardon my French, Vera, but I speak as I find. More like a rubbish dump. Paper everywhere. Piles of it. Never saw so much paper in your life. Mr. bloody Jolyon Carstairs. You believe that? Jolyon. What sort of a name is that? Mind you, I had a Jasper once. What's happened to the good old names? Wilf. Arnold. Walter."
"Bert,” said Vera, invoking the name of Ethel's defunct husband, who had been as stocky and aggressive as Ethel.
"Ah yes. Bert,” said Ethel, a nostalgic look in her eyes. “But Jolyon. Writers,” she said again, plunging her nose into her glass, “I can't be doing with them. If I'd known it was going to be a writer, I'd ‘ave told the bloody agency to stick their job up their jacksy."
She was talking about the Golden Mop Agency in Camden Town who supplied cleaning services to that gilded little neighbourhood adjoining Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, peopled in large part by writers, artists, actors, and other bohemians. If you lived in NW1 and you needed a duster wafted round your bibelots of a morning or an afternoon, Golden Mop was your man. Or your woman, as was more popularly the case.
Vera nodded.
"I wouldn't mind,” said Ethel, “but it's that click, click, click all the time on their computers. Drives you round the bend."
Vera said, “Well, you won't have that with Mr. bloody Mervyn Fincham while I'm in Margate. He won't have a computer. Uses a real old-fashioned typewriter. Clack, clack, clack, he goes."
"Won't have a computer?"
"Won't even have a phone."
Ethel considered this outlandish concept for a moment. She said, “What is he, then? Barmy?"
"No, ‘e's not barmy. Not dangerously barmy anyway. He's just a bit wossername—eccentric. That's it, eccentric."
"Well, he'd better not come near me with his eccentric,” said Ethel.
"Oh, he won't come near you. He doesn't like people. He doesn't talk to anyone, no one comes to the flat."
"Hermit sort of affair, is he then?"
"A bit like that. But don't worry. You won't have any trouble with him. I've told him you're taking over for me for two w
eeks and it's all right with him. You won't even know he's around the place. He goes out for a walk in the morning. He's like clockwork. Two hours he's out. The rest of the time, he's clacking away like the clappers. He doesn't like to talk. He leaves notes all the time. ‘Please polish the floor in the front hall.’ ‘Do not answer the door on any account.’ Stuff like that. In this really rotten spiky writing. Terrible. I've never seen handwriting like it. Worse than a doctor's, it is."
But Ethel was only half listening, brooding into her drink.
"I always wanted to try that writing lark,” she said musingly. “I mean, can't be that hard, can it? I mean, I've read loads of stuff, Agatha Christie, that Mary Higgins Clark and that P. D. James. Jack Frost is good, too. Doesn't seem to me it'd be too difficult."
Vera had the look that said Ethel was reaching above her station.
"You got to know stuff,” she said warningly.
"I know stuff, Vera,” said Ethel scornfully. “I seen things you wouldn't believe, I have. Be nice having people reading your books, have a nice house, going on Woman's Hour, being interviewed and that. Have three names. I like writers with three names. There's lots. Mary Higgins Clark. That Barbara Taylor Bradford. That Joyce Carol Wossername. Three names adds something."
"Authority,” suggested Vera.
"Maybe,” conceded Ethel. “What I'm saying is it can't be hard. I've read some of my bloke's stuff, he leaves it lying about all the time. Mr. Jolyon Carstairs. Tripe, it is. Complete and utter tripe. I could do better than that with me eyes closed, wearing boxing gloves. And here's me with my legs under the doctor, doing the charring for ‘im. Does that seem right to you? It doesn't to me."
"But you have to have the typing,” said Vera.
"Oh, I got the typing. Piece of piss that is, excuse my French, Vera. My Norma taught me all that. Gave me lessons. Type away like a good'un, I can. Computers and everything. Only on a computer it's not called typing. Word Pro-cessing, it's called,” she added kindly and carefully.
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