‘Or next,’ added Noksam helpfully. ‘Summer flu permitting.’
Jopi shrugged regretfully.
Singay drew an indignant breath, but before she could speak, someone else did.
It was Rose. He still looked like death warmed over, but he was sitting up.
‘Demons eat people, don’t they?’ he said. ‘Body and soul?’
‘That’s what I’ve heard,’ said the jailer. ‘But what would your point be in mentioning it, eh?’
‘Well, poor Noksam here has been trapped in a cell with three demons for quite some hours now. Who knows what might have happened to him in that time? Demons get hungry, I expect, just like anybody else.’
The little Driver and the jailer looked thoughtfully at each other for a long moment.
‘Body and soul,’ said Jopi slowly. ‘But not, if I understand these things, clothing.’
Rose nodded. ‘That would be most convincing, I feel. No blame could possibly be placed on the custodian in such a situation.’
‘Can’t be expected to control hungry demons. Wouldn’t be reasonable,’ Jopi agreed, nodding sagely. Then he took a step towards Noksam.
‘What in the name of Snow are you talking about?’ demanded Singay, but Pema was beginning to get the inkling of an idea. He grabbed Singay’s arm and swung her to face the door. ‘Don’t turn around,’ he said.
‘Yes, please don’t,’ said Noksam. He sounded a bit muffled, as if someone were vigorously pulling his shirt over his head.
Jopi chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, a blanket or so missing is not going to be noticed. Here, use my belt.’
‘Can I look yet?’ asked Singay, exasperated by not knowing what was happening.
‘Soon . . . not yet . . . almost ready . . . Now!’
Pema and Singay turned, and there was Noksam, looking like a pleased – if embarrassed – scarecrow, wrapped up in a prison blanket. He pointed down at the stone floor and grinned.
‘That’s demonically clever, wouldn’t you say?’ said Jopi. ‘No offence!’
The jailer had taken the accountant-thief’s clothes and laid them out on the stone floor in the shape of a man, flattened and contorted as if the body had been sucked out by extreme force.
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of,’ exclaimed Singay. ‘And it just might work!’ She could feel hope ballooning inside her. We’re going to get out – we’re going to get out!
Jopi chuckled smugly.
Pema turned to Noksam. ‘But what will you do now?Where will you go?’
Noksam put his head to one side, thinking. ‘Well, I find I prefer accountancy to thievery, and from what you say, upriver there’s not so much oil to get in the way of the numbers. So that’s the what and the where for me, I’m thinking. Though I also think it would be no bad idea to drop off at my rooms first and put on some clothes!’
He hitched his blanket up a little more securely, smiled shyly and trotted out of the cell.
They were about to follow when Jopi suddenly turned, blocking the door.
They stared in horror.
He lied to us! thought Pema.
It was all a horrible game, thought Singay. He never
meant to let us go!
But the jailer had just paused to rummage in his pocket. ‘Goodness, there was me almost forgetting. I was supposed to give the smallest demon this.’ And he bent over and presented Rose with a small metal disc.
‘What is it?’ asked the Driver, bewildered.
‘No idea,’ replied Jopi, stepping into the corridor. ‘Come along!’
He led them through the jail, to the front door.
‘Look at that! There’s even a bit of fog, for easier disappearing into. Nothing but the best from Cliffton Prison!’ Then, as they hesitated on the threshold, he added, ‘Off you go!’ before moseying cheerfully back to the guardroom to count his cash.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Through the Fog
Madame Phophor made her way back to the Square with a light step and a quickly beating heart. She had taken time after her errand at the prison to go home, change into her best dress and freshen up her make-up and hair. Just a way of showing respect, she said to herself in the mirror. It’s good to show respect.
Father Impeccable had told her to meet him by the platform where the Tower of Faith had so recently stood. It was fully dark now, and as she arrived a fog was beginning to blur the light from the oil lamps around the Square.
She hurried forward, a bit breathless.
‘Well, I did what you asked, Father. Father?’
There was no one there.
She peered about, searching for that well-loved figure. She began calling his name, tentatively at first, and then more and more wildly, while questions and fears raced desperately about in her brain. Where is he? He said he’d meet me. What can have happened?
When the answer came to her, she staggered and almost fell with the horror of it. They couldn’t have! But what other explanation could there be? Father Impeccable certainly wouldn’t have just walked away without waiting for her. It must have been those awful, evil, dastardly . . . Her mind found its way to vocabulary she didn’t know she knew, but even that wasn’t adequate to express what she was feeling.
Those people had taken the gift of freedom that the Father had given them – through me! – and used it against him. While she had been foolishly, thoughtlessly wasting time on her appearance, they had circled round here and vanished Father Impeccable!
She realised there were tears running down her face. Stop that immediately, she scolded herself with a big sniff. This isn’t the time for crying – this is the time for finding those demons, forcing them to un-vanish the dear, endangered Father and then to punish them to the fullest extent imaginable. And her imagination was more than up to the job.
What Madam Phophor needed just then was a mob, preferably one with flaming torches in their hands and unleashed fury in their hearts. What she had was the Tower of Faith Steering Committee, which was just as good.
If not better.
The three demons had almost made it to the Pier when they heard the sound of an angry crowd coming up behind them.
‘Run!’ cried Singay, her heart leaping into her mouth.
Pema was carrying Rose on his back. ‘Hold tight!’ And he plunged forward.
The Pier was a maze of wooden wharves, sporadically lit by pools of lamplight that were weirdly fuzzy-looking in the fog. They could feel the jetty swaying under their feet as they ran and knew they were over water now. All Singay could think of was getting them onto a boat – any boat! – and out of sight before the hunt could catch up with them. But Pema, as he pounded along, was scanning frantically from side to side, peering closely as one boat after another loomed up out of the murkiness, and then running on again.
She tried to stop him. ‘Wait! Pema! What’s wrong with this boat? Or that one? We need to get on board somewhere and hide! What are you looking for?’
But Pema just gritted his teeth and ran faster. He was going so fast he almost ran right past it. As Ker had said, the sign was not obvious – he just caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye.
Someone had painted the Jathang rune as part of a decorative border round the boat’s name.
Pema stopped so suddenly that Singay shot by him and had to turn back.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped, holding her side. ‘Have we lost them?’ She tried to still her breath to listen.
Pema set Rose down and pointed up at where the name of the boat showed in the lantern light. ‘This one! We want this one.’
The others read the name in silence. Singay turned to Pema.
‘The Aubergine? We just ran past all those other boats so we can hide on the one named after a vegetable?’
‘What? It’s called what?’ Pema looked up. He hadn’t noticed anything but the rune. ‘No, never mind that now. There’s no time to argue. Come on!’ He tried to herd them towards the gangplank th
at angled up onto the Aubergine’s deck.
‘But why this boat?’ Singay stuck out her chin, set to argue every step of the way, but then Rose commented quietly, ‘The jetty is still wobbling, even though we are no longer running on it. I think the people who are looking for us might be about to arrive.’
There was a moment of frozen horror. Then Singay babbled, ‘Vegetables – you gotta love ’em!’ and, grabbing Rose between them, she and Pema pelted to the gangplank and raced up it at full speed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Aubergine
The moment their feet touched the deck, a man the size of a barn loomed up at them. His face was all squashed and bent, as if someone had been using it for a punching bag.
‘Sorry, no passengers this trip,’ he rumbled.
‘Oh, but listen, we’re being chased!’ Singay wailed, but Pema interrupted her.
‘I need to speak to the captain. Right away.’
‘Eh?’ said Singay and the big man in unison, while Rose murmured, ‘Oh dear, you don’t want to sound rude. What makes you think he’s not the captain?’
‘Oh, he’s right, sir,’ the big man said earnestly to Rose. ‘I’m not the captain.’
Singay shoved Rose behind her protectively. ‘And you’re mistaken – he’s not a sir, he’s just a little boy, aren’t you, Ro— Roger?’ It was a shock having Rose addressed as an adult, when so many people had accepted his child disguise. What can this giant see? she wondered, when sudden shouting from the pier made her crouch in fear, dragging Rose with her. Pema took one look over the railing and dropped down beside them. The big man looked down at the three, bemused.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in a too-loud whisper. ‘Are you hiding? Why are you hiding?’
‘Shh!’ hissed Singay. ‘Please!’
Pema clutched at the man’s trouser leg. ‘Look, right, we’re in trouble, but it wasn’t our fault. You’ve got to let me speak to your captain. I know she’ll want to see me! Please, if you’d just give her this.’ And he thrust the marked stone Ker had given him on the plateau into the big man’s hand. ‘Please!’
‘Hey! You there!’
‘Don’t tell them we’re here,’ Singay whispered frantically.
‘You up there! We’re searching the boats on this jetty and we have reason to believe you may have dangerous demons aboard,’ came a voice of self-appointed authority from the pier below. Others in the mob were muttering to each other.
‘Wouldn’t it be safer just to burn it now?’
‘What are we waiting for?’
‘But we don’t even know if they’re on this boat—’
‘Burn it anyway!’
‘Down to the waterline!’
The big man leaned over the railing and called down to the heaving mass of torchbearers, ‘Hello, my name’s Bob. Can I help you gentlemen and ladies?’
There was a growl from the crowd. They were not here for polite conversation.
‘We’re chasing three demons in disguise who have vanished, or possibly even killed, a priest,’ said a rather dumpy middle-aged woman. It was Madame Phophor, though the excitement of the chase had left her cauliflower coiffure in an unrecognisable state. ‘We’re going to search this boat of yours from deck to doorknob until we find them. And then we’re going to deal with them the way they deserve. And you too – don’t think we won’t! – for taking on criminals as passengers.’
Bob shook his head. ‘It’s not my boat, ma’am. I’m not the captain,’ he said calmly. ‘And I’m sorry, but we have no passengers on this trip.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Oh yes. I may not be the captain, but I do know whether or not we’ve accepted any passengers – and we haven’t.’
At this point Bob stepped up onto the gangplank and the sheer size of him was made clear to the group below. Some of the torch-holders backed away so quickly they were in danger of falling off the other side of the pier, and the comments that drifted up to the deck of the Aubergine definitely shifted in tone.
‘Well, of course he’s sure.’
‘What do you think – the man doesn’t know who’s on his own boat?’
‘Goodness me, if that’s just a crewman, imagine what the captain must be like!’
‘We’ll be on our way, then. Now that I think of it, I expect it was one of those other boats they boarded.’
‘Yes. We’re going. Leaving you in peace. Um, goodnight!’
Madame Phophor was not easily cowed. She was a short woman, and when everyone you meet looms over you, you become less impressed by it, as a rule. Her voice could clearly be heard as they bundled her away, arguing with her Committee about how they should stop behaving like this immediately and search that boat properly. But this time she was being briskly overruled.
Bob stared after them, a troubled look on his big, crumpled face. He lifted his hand to scratch his nose, only to discover he was still holding Pema’s stone. ‘Ah. Right. You and your rock and my wife. Well, I can’t imagine she’s still asleep after all the hubbub. You’d better come with me.’
He led the way towards the stern of the boat and ushered them inside the steering-house.
‘Captain Gata?’
‘Well, Bob? What was all the fuss about?’
‘Them, Captain. Oh, and this.’ He handed over the stone.
The captain was a tiny woman. She had obviously just got up from the bed in the corner and was busy running a comb through her tawny hair. She had light brown skin as well, and tawny eyes and . . .
‘You’re a Jathang!’ exclaimed Rose. ‘How exciting!’ For a moment enthusiasm overcame his weariness and, before Pema or Singay could stop him, he babbled, ‘We’ve been hearing all about you being throat-slitting barbarians who would rather steal than work, and you have to keep travelling because no decent town will let you inside its walls and, and, what was the other thing? Oh, I remember – you eat baby, though I never found out baby what. I’m so glad to have a chance to meet you!’ The little man beamed, oblivious to the pool of horrified silence he’d created around himself.
Gata’s face was unreadable. She leaned forward and stared into Rose’s innocent, silvery eyes for a long moment. ‘You travel with a straight-speaker, it would seem,’ she said at last to the other two.
‘We travel with a suicidal fool,’ muttered Singay, not quite quietly enough.
The woman nodded. ‘They are often one and the same. You should know that the Jathang are a people of many rules and complex customs. At the same time we have always found room for the one or two who live outside the safety of rules and beyond the constraints of custom. The suicidal fools, the innocents, the ones who speak without calculating the price. They have a place.’
‘That’s very enlightened,’ said Pema tentatively.
‘And in your case, it’s also very lucky. Imagine what I might have done to you if we didn’t appreciate certain forms of candour?’ She smiled at them, slow and wide, revealing sharp, white teeth. ‘And you can stop gawping at me like a numpty, Bob, any time now!’
He certainly was looking astonished. Then a radiant smile crossed his face and he clasped both his hands over his heart. ‘Oh, Gata, you are fabulous when you do that!’
The little woman gave him a regal sort of wave and giggled.
‘You mean, you’re not Jathang?’ spluttered Singay.
‘Oh, I’m Jathang all right,’ said Gata. ‘I’m just not all that traditional about it. It’s good fun messing with people’s preconceptions – you should have seen your faces! Though I did mean it about the little one there. He does seem to be somewhat out of the ordinary. And now, perhaps you’d like to tell us how you came by this safe-passage stone?’
‘Yes, we’d be interested to hear that too,’ muttered Singay, staring at Pema meaningfully. He blushed, but before he could explain, Gata turned her attention suddenly away from them. ‘What’s wrong, Bob?’
The big man shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable.
‘Ah, Captain, I think I can hear that overexcited group of townspeople getting closer again. I think they’re coming back.’
‘My husband has excellent hearing,’ the captain told them. ‘That being the case, Bob, and all things considered, I think casting off round about immediately might be no bad plan. I’ll wake the Philosopher, and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Righty-tighty, captain wifey,’ said Bob cheerfully. But then he stopped and his face fell.
‘What is it, Bob?’
‘Er, Captain, I’m not sure, but I think I may have said, pretty categorically, that we didn’t have any passengers for this trip.’
‘Bob is uncomfortable with lying,’ Gata told the three in a stage whisper. ‘We always try to accommodate that.’ Then she raised her voice again. ‘And who said anything about them being passengers? I’ve just taken these good people on as crew.’
Bob beamed, and it lit up his big ugly face like a lamp.
‘Casting off, Captain, dear,’ he bellowed cheerfully, and took himself off.
‘Crew?’ said Pema.
‘Casting off?’ said Singay.
‘The Philosopher?’ said Rose.
The captain of the Aubergine smiled her sharp-toothed smile.
‘Later,’ she said. ‘Later.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Gata, Bob and The Philosopher
‘Later’ turned out to be some way downriver from Cliffton, moored on the eastern bank, just as the moon was setting. The new crew hadn’t had much to do with getting them there, though they managed to get in the way quite a lot. The real crew were tolerant, however. Not counting Ferdinand, the ship’s pet ferreck, there were only the three of them: Captain Gata, Bob and the Philosopher – a tall, thin man with no name.
Singay found this disconcerting. As they waited for him to bring breakfast for them all (it was his turn) she turned to the captain and asked, ‘But what do we call him?We can’t just go around calling him “Philosopher”!’
‘Yes, you can,’ said Gata.
‘And you don’t find it a bit . . . odd?’
Gata returned her gaze steadily. ‘Do you have a problem with things that are odd? That must be inconvenient.’
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