“Wondered where you’d got to,” the boy said as Thaddeus came aboard. “Didn’t stop to get breakfast, did you, by any chance? No? Never mind, I’ll pop out myself and grab some of those curly bread things the Frenchies are so partial to.”
“Croissants, J,” said Thaddeus absently, still thinking about the poster. “They’re pastry, not bread.”
“Whatever they is, I like ’em,” said J. “A nice bit of bacon and eggs would be better, but they’ll do . . . ’Ere,” he said, concerned. “What’s up?”
Thaddeus sat down on one of the bunks, holding out the poster to J, who took it.
“What’s this all about?” the boy asked. “I mean, I know this involves the Comte, and whatnot, but what has this got to do with us?”
“J,” Thaddeus said, after he’d briefly explained what Dorfmann had told him. “What if we’re wrong about why Cantal wants Rémy?”
The boy blinked. “You ain’t saying you fink Rémy’s this Lost Comtesse, are yer? She’s too young, ain’t she?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “It can’t be Rémy. We know the story of her parents, and Desai knew it too, so that’s not in dispute. But what about Rémy’s friend? What about Claudette? Think about it, J — Dorfmann said she and Yannick quarreled, and then after that, she started avoiding the cities and going south, almost as if she was running from something. And we know that the other thing the German said was true — that they’re like sisters.”
“Rémy ain’t had a letter from ’er for weeks,” J said. “They was s’posed to write each other all the time, but Rémy’s been worried lately cos she ain’t ’ad one.”
“And then Yannick turns up,” said Thaddeus, “out of the blue, just like that, and persuades Rémy to go back to France. None of them are here. What if Yannick’s using Rémy to find Claudette?”
They were both silent for a moment, thinking it all through.
“Why would she not want to be found?” J asked.“If she was this missing girl, like, and she could prove it, why wouldn’t she want to do that? She’d be in for a shed load of money, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes. I don’t know the answer to that,” said Thaddeus.
J sighed. “It don’t change nuffin’ for us right now, do it?” he said. “I mean, we still got to find Rémy. Maybe now it’s for a different reason, but either way . . .”
Thaddeus nodded. “Exactly.”
“Well, then,” J said grimly. “Better get on wiv it then, ’adn’t we?”
Another crowd gathered to watch the airship take off, drawn by the hissing of the ruby’s gas as the balloon billowed and swelled skyward. There was a great cheer as they lifted away. J waved through the window at the enchanted spectators, who slowly shrunk to the size of ants as the airship rose higher and higher.
“Come on, old girl,” J muttered, wrestling slightly with the controls.
“What’s the matter?”
J shook his head with a slight frown. “Prolly nothin’. Just seems to be something off, that’s all. Feels like she’s listing a bit — like she’s trailing something under her. You didn’t see nothin’ caught, did yer? None of that circus bunting, or a bit o’ tent?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “Nothing. We’re probably just getting used to how she moves, J.”
J nodded. “Right enough. She seems to be all right, anyway. It should even out once we’re up. So then, where’d Dorfmann say we needed to head?”
Thaddeus spread out the map Constanto had given them and found the name of the town on the map. “Périgueux. That’s where the circus was when Dorfmann left it. The circus will have moved on by now, but it’s a start.”
“And that’s south of here, that’s what he said, right?” said J. “The Professor’s dial ain’t no good for anything but big cities, so we’ll have to navigate our way there ourselves.”
“Not to worry, J,” said Thaddeus. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’ve read a map before.”
The ship tipped as J turned her into the prevailing wind, moving in a graceful curve over the city to bring her around. There was a clunk and the sound of something rolling, briefly, bouncing across wood. Thaddeus and J both jerked around to look, but there was nothing in the cabin.
“What the bleedin’ ’eck was that?” J asked.
“I don’t know.” Thaddeus went to the other end of the ship, searching for any sign of something coming loose, but there was nothing. “I can’t see anything.”
“It were under the floor, in the ruby chamber,” J said. “Better take a look. If we’ve got a problem, we’ll need to put down quick-sharp.”
Thaddeus went to the hatch and pulled it up. There was nothing wrong with the ruby assembly — it sat peacefully in its coupling, glowing slightly from the exertion of filling the balloon. Everything else seemed to be in its rightful place, too. He leaned in farther, peering into the gloom of the small space beyond. Was there something there, at the back? He couldn’t make it out.
“Well?” J called over his shoulder. “See anything?”
“I don’t know,” Thaddeus said, straightening up and feeling the blood rush from his head in a whoosh. He blinked. “It’s too dark, J.”
“Hang on,” J said, a determined look on his face. “Give me two ticks, then take another look.”
The boy began to bank the ship again, hauling her around in a tight circle that forced Thaddeus to grip the edge of the hatch to stop himself sliding the length of the cabin. From below, there was another clunk. He ducked his head into the hole again as J continued to turn the ship as sharply as he could. Through the darkness, Thaddeus saw something move, thrown to the other side of the airship’s hold as J pulled her in the opposite direction.
“There’s definitely something there!”
“Can you see what?”
Thaddeus straightened again. “Not a chance. It’s just too dark. And I can’t fit down there.”
“Any idea where it’s come loose from?” J asked, “I can’t think of nothin’ that could break down there. It should be empty ’cept for the ruby and its fittings. ’Ere — you take the controls, I’ll have a look.”
Thaddeus swapped places with him and watched as the boy stuck his head into the hole. He wriggled down so far that he disappeared up to his waist. Thaddeus half expected J to vanish completely, but after a moment, he gave a muffled yell and scrambled backward.
“’Ere,” said J, pulling his head out of the hole and staring with outright indignation at Thaddeus. “You won’t believe this!”
“What?”
“We’ve only got ourselves a bleedin’ stowaway!”
“What?” Thaddeus exclaimed, but the boy had already scrambled back under the floorboards, this time disappearing completely.
“Oy!” J shouted, as angry as Thaddeus had ever heard him. “You! Come ’ere! Think you can make this ship your own, do yer? Well you’ve got another fing coming, and no mistake!”
There came the sounds of a scuffle. The ship juddered slightly.
“J,” Thaddeus shouted, trying to hold the airship steady. “Take it easy, would you? Whoever’s down there, we’re all in the same boat — literally!”
There came a faint, muffled scream from below as J ignored him.
“Aha! Got you now, ain’t I?” came J’s triumphant yell. “Right — out you come, sunshine!”
Thaddeus looked over his shoulder as, with great effort and not a little yelling, J hauled a tangled bundle of rags out of the hatch. He dumped it on the floor.
“There,” J said, still scuffling with the bundle. “Let’s see what we’ve caught, shall we?”
The bundle threw out an arm, tossing away the ragged old blanket it had wrapped itself in.
There was a moment of silence.
“It’s . . . it’s a . . . girl!” J exclaimed in horror.
And so it was. Their stowaw
ay was a thin child, not much older or younger than J himself. Her hair was a mass of tight, jet black curls. From beneath this mop, angry green eyes stared from a bronzed face. She jumped sharply to her feet, scolding J in broken English.
“Stupid bengel!” she shouted with a strongly German accent. “You ruin my blanket! You owe me.”
“Like hell I do!” J retorted, to which the girl responded by stepping forward and slapping him smartly across the face. J’s shocked mouth formed a perfect O as she stepped back.
“For language, blasphemiker,” she announced stoutly.
“She — she —!” J spluttered, when he found his voice, holding one hand to his reddening cheek. “She hit me! God darn it, I’ll —”
He took a step toward her.
“J,” Thaddeus warned.
“Fine,” said the boy. “Set the ship down, Thaddeus — let’s get rid of her, right now.” J stared angrily at the girl, who was standing with her chin jutting out in defiance and her arms crossed.
“We can’t, J. How long did the ruby take to recharge last time — it was all night, wasn’t it? We can’t waste another day waiting.”
“Oh, well, nothing for it then,” said J. “I’ll just open the gangplank and chuck ’er out as we go.”
The girl took a step back, wary and scared despite her defiance.
“J, we both know you’re not going to do that. Let’s just all calm down, shall we?” Thaddeus checked that they were heading in the right direction and stood up. “Come and sit down,” he said to the girl. “Tell us who you are and why you did this.”
J made an outraged grumbling sound in his throat, but Thaddeus held up his hand for quiet. The girl watched them both suspiciously.
“Please,” said the policeman, indicating his bunk. “J, sit. We’ll talk this out like civilized people. Understand?”
After another moment of complaint, J did as Thaddeus asked. They both sat side-by-side on J’s bunk. Their stowaway looked around the cabin for a moment, as if deciding whether there was some way to escape. Having decided there wasn’t, she walked slowly to the bunk opposite and sat down.
She was small, Thaddeus realized — smaller than J. When she sat on the bunk, her bare brown feet didn’t reach the ground. She still held the torn blanket around her shoulders. Beneath it she was dressed in a tattered dress that may once have been black, but had faded to gray. It looked a little too small, even for her. The sleeves, which would once have been wrist-length, were now hovering around her elbows.
“Good,” said Thaddeus. “Well, that’s progress of sorts, I suppose. Hello. My name is Thaddeus Rec, and this is J. What’s your name?”
The girl set her jaw, as if she was about to refuse to speak and then apparently changed her mind. She sighed and shrugged, still with her arms crossed. “Dita,” she said. “I am Dita.”
“Dita!” J mocked with a howl of laughter. “I never heard nothin’ so daft in my life!”
“Oh, yes?” Dita spat back. “And what kind of name is ‘J’? Nothing, ya? Because you came from nowhere and have nowhere to go. Yes?”
“Stop it, both of you,” Thaddeus ordered, before they could start another argument. “It looks as if we’re stuck with each other for the time being, so at least try to be pleasant. Dita, why did you do this? Why did you stow away on this airship?”
Dita didn’t answer for a moment, looking around her. Then she shrugged again. “I wanted to see. Then I wanted to fly.” She paused. “It is herrlich. Magnificent.”
“Yeah, it is,” chipped in J. “And it’s mine.”
“Yours,” Dita scoffed. “Pfft. How can it belong to a dirty boy?”
“I ain’t dirty, I ’ad a bath last week,” J retorted. “And the ship’s mine cos I built ’er, that’s why, and that’s more than you could do, useless hellcat that you are!”
“J,” Thaddeus said, “please!”
A look of surprise had settled on the girl’s face. “You built this? The truth?”
“Yeah, truly,” growled J, and then he added, “Well . . . bits of it.”
Dita shrugged. “Okay for a smelly boy like you.”
“Dita,” Thaddeus said, before the fighting could begin again. “Where we’re going, it’s not —”
“I know. I heard you talk to Herr Dorfmann.”
“You know him?”
She nodded. “He is good man. Kind to me, got me work at Circus Maximus.” Dita wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Cleaning after the elephants. Not a good job, but —”
J hooted with derision, pointing at the girl and slapping his leg. “A dung sweeper! The girl’s a dung sweeper, and she calls me smelly!”
Dita glowered. “Better than to starve, dirty boy. Not that you know what that means.”
J stopped laughing and scowled. “I’ve been starving more often than you’ve had years of your life,” he growled. “And proper starving too, like there’s something eating your bones and —”
“Enough!” Thaddeus shouted, smacking his hand against the wooden bulkhead above him. “Stop squabbling, this minute, or I’ll gag you both, do you understand?” J and Dita looked at him with faint reproach but nodded. “Right. J, you will refrain from speaking until Dita has finished her explanation. Dita, what was it about our conversation with Dorfmann that made up your mind?”
Dita bit her lip. “You are going south. I want to go south. My father was German but my mother, Spanish. Andalucia. I want to go to her village. My grandmother is there, and maybe other . . . sippe.” The girl looked down at her feet, which were bare. “I want . . . nach hause. In English — home.”
There was a brief silence. Thaddeus nodded. “I don’t suppose the circus pays enough for you to travel there with money you have saved, eh?”
The girl shook her head, her ringlets flying. “And alone — it would be riskant. But this wonderful machine . . .” She shook her head. “Anyway, I can be useful to you. I can pay my way.”
J let out a snort at this. “We ain’t got an elephant, in case you ’adn’t noticed.”
Thaddeus sent him a warning glance. “Dita, what do you mean?”
“So far, you have luck,” she said. “People in circuses speak languages. But down there?” Dita shook her head. “No one speak English. I speak it — you see?”
“I do. And do you speak French, too?”
“Oui, tres bon. And Deutsch. And Spanish. So — I can earn my keep. You have room. If you don’t want me up here, I will sleep down there.” She pointed at the hatch in the floor.
“Not likely,” muttered J. “First chance you ’ave, you’ll be off with that ruby and we’ll be stranded in Frenchie land without a pot to p—”
“Then perhaps you should sleep there,” suggested Dita, her eyes flashing, “so we do not have to smell you.”
Thaddeus sighed as the pair began to yell at each other, and wondered whether there was something aboard he could make into earplugs.
{Chapter 25}
SWIFT PROGRESS
The ruby airship flew south all day, over landscape that bucked and sprawled between patchwork fields and the curlicues of towns and villages. Dita was fascinated by the chance to see the earth from the air. Leaning beside Thaddeus’s elbow at the controls, she pushed herself up on tiptoe to see through the window to the land below. She pointed out towns she recognized — Angers, Saumur, and others — displaying a sense of direction that Thaddeus found remarkable. J merely huffed and sulked, constantly telling the girl not to touch this and that.
“There’s Poietiers,” Dita piped up. “We are in Vienne now. I think we reach the mountains by sundown.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” J scoffed.
Dita looked at him. “In ordnung. We find out soon enough,” she said, serenely.
The landscape grew rockier as they flew on, chunks of gray granite littering the g
round as if a giant had been playing jacks and grown bored. J and Thaddeus took turns at the controls, guiding the airship ever south. As the day drew onward, a mountain range rose over the horizon to loom ahead of them. Dark rain clouds twisted around the peaks. They gathered with the dusk, turning the sky from blue into an indigo-blackened bruise, full of foreboding. With them came a strong wind that buffeted the airship. Below spread a forest that seemed to go on forever. It pooled around the feet of the mountains, blocking out the ground in an endless sea of deep green. Here and there between the thick branches, they glimpsed a road meandering slowly between the ancient trunks, but more often it was invisible beneath the weight of leaves.
“Look,” said Dita at one point, leaning past J to stare down at the road. “What is that?”
J and Thaddeus leaned over, too. Through the trees came brief flashes — shafts of sunlight glinting on something beneath the leaves.
“It must be people on the road,” said Thaddeus.
“Looks as if there many,” Dita remarked, as the forest parted for a second, to reveal a column of uniformed men riding quickly along it on horseback. “Sie sind soldaten. They are soldiers,” she said.
“Well, if they carry on in this direction, they’re going to get wet,” said J, nodding at the horizon. “I don’t like the look of that.” A slash of lightning burst like a white-hot whip crack over the trees and shortly afterward, a roll of thunder rumbled after it.
“I don’t suppose flying through a thunderstorm will be very healthy for this rig?” Thaddeus asked.
“Not very healthy for any of us, truth be told,” the boy said grimly, as he glanced at one of the dials and pulled the left rudder around. “The wind’s bad enough, but if we get swiped by a lick o’ lightning, we’re done for.”
Dita craned to see out of the window. “There is nowhere to land. Just trees. I cannot see the road, or where it leads.”
J pointed ahead, to a pass between two of the largest mountains they’d seen so far. “We’ll ’ave to try and make for that,” he said. “The road must go above the tree line and over — stands to reason. Let’s just ’ope it’s wide enough for us to land and that we can reach it before the storm does.”
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