Toymaker, The

by Quidt, Jeremy De

  ‘Sssh!’ she hissed, and pushed her face close to his so that he could see who it was. Her heart was pounding. ‘Sssh!’

  She saw his eyes widen in startled recognition and took her hand from his mouth. She tried to pull him up by his arm. He moaned and she realized that he must be hurt, but there was no time for kindness. With both hands she caught hold of his collar and dragged him inside. He could hear voices, louder now, as men came round the back of the inn. They stopped momentarily beneath the window where he had fallen. It was only an instant before they saw the barn and realized that he was probably there.

  Katta pulled him over the floor. The tar-soaked planks scraped against his face. He could feel her, one-handed, pulling at something that creaked, then moved. There was a draught of cold, damp air around him. She pulled him down into it as the men burst into the old building. Mathias fell heavily against soft earth. He reached out to steady himself, but his fingers found only empty air. There was a quiet thump, as though something had closed above them, and then damp, dark quiet. He could hear the sound of the girl breathing. She pressed close against him and laid a finger across his lips.

  ‘Sssh,’ she whispered. He found himself, with stupid clarity, wondering if it were the only sound that she could make.

  He could hear other things now, the noises of the search – voices, things being dragged about – but they were muffled, as though all that was happening in another place. Then the sounds grew suddenly close and he felt the girl tighten against him. The pain in his chest made him whimper, but he bit it back. Leiter would find him now. He could still feel Valter’s hand around his throat, see the ground far below his dangling feet. He wanted to shout out for somebody to come and help him, but the girl had her hand over his mouth again as though she’d guessed what he might do.

  In the barn the men from the inn, the groom and stable lads had searched everywhere. Peered into every place. Now they had lost interest. They looked at Leiter.

  ‘He’s not here, sir,’ they said.

  Leiter, an unasked question on his face, turned to Valter. The dwarf had taken no part in any of it. He stood indifferently in the middle of the floor, collar up, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his thick coat. He returned Leiter’s look and gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head, barely moving it at all. But Leiter knew exactly what it meant.

  ‘Well,’ Leiter said, ‘it seems the young wretch has got away. It was not too much he took, I suppose.’

  He put his hand into his pocket and drew out a few meagre coins. ‘This is for your trouble,’ he said, and tossed them to the men to share out amongst themselves.

  As an insult it was well calculated. They’d expected more reward for their help than a few paltry coins. What little interest they had left in Leiter evaporated in an instant. One of them contemptuously spat on the coin he’d been given, but he still took it. They trailed from the barn, one or two looking back sourly. Leiter waited until they were out of sight and then turned to Valter. The dwarf still hadn’t moved.

  ‘He is hiding here?’ said Leiter.

  Valter nodded.

  Leiter smiled. ‘Then you had better find him,’ he said.

  Valter got down onto his hands and knees, like a large dog. He bent forward and smelled the ground, then put his head to one side and listened. He did this several times, all the while moving closer to where a pile of barrels stood against one wall of the barn. Finally he got up and looked at Leiter.

  ‘Here?’ said Leiter.

  Valter nodded. He began to move the heavy barrels away, rolling each one as easily as if it had been made of paper, until there was nothing left but one barrel and the bare floor.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Leiter.

  Valter gripped the barrel. But it didn’t move as the others had done. He looked at it as though puzzled. Then he pushed it. With a click, it tipped backwards. Where it had stood was an open hatchway, and a darkness from which a draught of cold, damp air came. It was the place where Mathias and Katta had hidden.

  Only now it was empty.

  7

  Through the Dark

  Katta had not been able to make Mathias understand just what it was they had to do. She hadn’t dared speak above a whisper, and though she kept tugging at his coat, she couldn’t get him to move. He slumped in the dark, his breath coming in short, painful gasps. It was pitch dark all about them. So dark that he couldn’t see what she already knew – that they were at the opening of a low tunnel, not quite high enough for a man to stand fully upright in. It ran beneath the barn and curved away into the forest. At its other end there was a track. Not a track that was meant to be noticed, but it was there all right. A lot of people came and went from that inn. A lot of things too, not all of them meant to be seen – small barrels and rolls of fine cloth – things that had never seen an excise man or paid the tax due. Things that took the back roads and were gone the next day. That’s what the tunnel was for. That was what the inn was really about, and anyone who interfered or asked too many questions just wasn’t seen again.

  Katta had found the tunnel quite by accident one wet day, climbing amongst the barrels in the old barn. She had even been down it, just once. It had scared her so. The roots of the trees trailing through the earth roof, the smell of the damp, the small showers of soil falling on her as she passed beneath. She’d been terrified that at any moment the roof might come down on her in one suffocating collapse, burying her deeper than any grave. She’d gone just as far as she could dimly see, then her nerve had given out and she’d scrambled back to the opening, her heart pounding and her skin wet with fear.

  But it was the first thing that came to her when she’d seen Mathias trying to reach the trees – that she could hide him in the tunnel. It was only as she closed the hatch above their heads and felt the suddenly irresistible weight of the barrel drop back down with that ominous thump that she realized she couldn’t open it again. She hadn’t needed to close it the time before – she’d found it open and left it that way. Perhaps Mathias could have helped her push it, but he was barely able to stand. She could feel the cold damp air against her face and instantly knew what they would have to do. That air had to be coming from somewhere. With the hatch shut there was nothing for it but to go down into the dark until they came to the other end of the tunnel and hope that there was a way out. It was as this was running through her mind and she was trying in whispered words to make Mathias understand that she heard the sound of the barrels, one by one, being slowly and purposefully cleared from the floor above them. There was no time left. She grabbed Mathias by his coat and, not caring about the noise he made, shook him until she got him to stand up; then, taking hold of his arm, she pulled him after her into the dark.

  Valter did not make a noise as he dropped through the hatchway into the dark space beneath it. Leiter stooped above him but made no effort to climb down. He had found a lamp and lit it.

  ‘It will be something small enough for him to have hidden,’ he said. ‘Find it, do you understand? Pull each one of his teeth from his head if you have to, but find it and bring it back to me.’

  He handed Valter the lamp. Valter took it, grinned and, like a cat, was gone.

  The tunnel curved and wound. About halfway along it had been dug wider to make a place in which things could be stacked. Katta, with one hand outstretched, the other dragging Mathias behind her, had groped her way along the wall until, not knowing it, she had come to that place. She couldn’t see a thing in the blackness, but there was a different smell in the damp air – sweet, of tarred wood and apples. It was as she stopped and tried to understand, to catch her breath and listen, that she realized that where a moment before it had seemed quite dark, now she could see the palest glimmer of light. It was just enough to make out dim shapes. For an instant she felt a wave of relief. She thought that they must have arrived close enough to the other end of the tunnel for the daylight to reach in. But then she went quite cold inside. The edge of the light was moving
along the wall. It wasn’t daylight at all. There was someone with a lamp coming down the tunnel behind them.

  *

  Valter didn’t have to rush. This was the kind of game he liked best. The kind where people thought they could hide from him. Sometimes he liked to let them think that he couldn’t find them. He’d pretend just long enough so they believed that they were really safe. Then he could watch their faces as all hope vanished, and they understood not just that there was nowhere they could hide from him, but that he had known where they were all the time.

  That was when Valter’s fun really began.

  There was something else too. Something that Valter knew which Leiter didn’t. As he dropped down through the floor, he had breathed in. Yes. He was right. The boy was here – he could smell him. But he could smell something else too, and for a moment he was puzzled. He could smell almond paste and cooking, sweeping and hard work. It was a smell he could not place at once but vaguely recognized. Then it came to him. It was the smell of the serving girl. The one who had listened at the door. For an instant he hesitated. Should he tell Leiter? But Leiter didn’t need to know and it would make for so much more fun, there being two of them to play with.

  He held the lamp out in front of him, drew a long, sharp knife from beneath his coat and began to walk slowly down the tunnel.

  Katta looked desperately about her. Mathias didn’t understand what was happening at all. He had lumbered along behind her in the dark; now he stood still, swaying on his feet as though he might drop at any moment. She could run, but he couldn’t. The light was growing stronger. She could clearly see what the shapes around her were now: barrels and boxes. Lengths of wrapped oilcloth, all tied and strapped ready for the pack ponies. It was all piled up against the walls. She had to decide – there was no more time: the lamp would come round the bend in the tunnel at any moment and they’d be seen. They had to run or hide.

  There really was no choice.

  They had to hide.

  Valter came round the bend. In the lamplight he could see the stacked boxes, the barrels and the oilcloth, and he knew at once that was where they were. He stopped. He couldn’t see them, but he didn’t have to. He could breathe them in amongst the brandy and barrels, the smell of boy and the smell of girl, close by. He cocked his head a little to one side and listened. He could even hear the quick sound of their hearts beating. No. No one had ever managed to hide from Valter.

  Through the narrowest crack between a pile of barrels, Katta watched the dwarf. He stood with his back to her, holding the lamp up as he searched amongst the boxes on the other side of the tunnel. She ducked down just before he turned and the light swept past the place where they hid. She heard him moving things about and held her breath. But he didn’t find them. He walked on. She could hear the soft sound his coachman’s boots made on the earth floor as he went by. The light of the lamp grew fainter and fainter as he moved away. Then it was dark again. She let her breath go in a long, quiet whisper of relief. But now he was between them and their way out. Maybe, she thought, he would reach the end and come back above ground through the wood. Either way they were safe for the moment. They would just have to wait a bit longer. She settled back, and it was at this moment that Valter’s hand came slowly out of the dark and gripped her hair.

  She screamed.

  The dwarf had crept silently back in the darkness, the lamp and knife wrapped beneath his thick coat. Now he had Katta by her long hair, he drew the lamp out again so that he could look at her face as he pulled her from between the barrels. The boy was on the ground behind her. He hadn’t moved even when she screamed, but he was looking up at Valter with wide-eyed terror.

  This was going to be a good game.

  Valter flung Katta away – it was the boy he wanted first; he could play with her later. She crashed hard into the heavy boxes, all the breath knocked from her. The boxes swayed and fell on her. Pulling the knife from his coat, the dwarf reached down and, in one quick movement, passed it straight through Mathias’s shoulder.

  ‘Where is it?’ he said.

  He pushed the knife through again. There was nowhere for Mathias to go. The dwarf dragged him out over the top of the barrels, threw him roughly to the ground, then sat astride him with the knife sideways between his teeth and his thumbs pressed hard into Mathias’s eyes.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Katta’s head was ringing. She could see the dwarf on Mathias. She looked about for something she could use to hit him with. There was only the oil lamp. The dwarf had put it down on the ground beside him. She got unsteadily to her feet, picked it up and swung it as hard as she could. It hit Valter on the back of the head with a dull crack. The glass shattered, and instantly he was on fire. The oil from the lamp was thick in his hair; it soaked into his coat. He leaped up wildly, beating at the flames with his hands, but he was like a burning torch. The more he beat at them, the more the flames caught hold, until he was all fire. Screaming, he blundered blindly into the walls. The wooden struts that held the roof cracked and gave way where he hit them. Soil began to spill from above, first in small amounts, then in bucketfuls. Katta could see what was going to happen. The roof was going to give way. She caught hold of Mathias and began to drag him away. The flames from the burning dwarf lit up the whole tunnel.

  Valter was still screaming as the roof fell.

  8

  The Stranger on the Horse

  Katta saw the roof fall. It seemed to happen so slowly, though it couldn’t have been like that. Streams of earth, like sheets of cloth, fell on the burning dwarf; then it all came down in one rush, burying him and the flames beneath tons of soil. The tunnel plunged into an instant darkness that one moment was full of noise – of earth and splintering wood – and the next was suddenly silent like a grave. The whole roof above where the dwarf had been had come down on him. Katta stood absolutely still in the dark, holding her breath, not daring to move so much as a muscle, lest the rest of the roof come down on her. She could hear the timbers above her head creaking and groaning. Very slowly, she bent down and put her hands under Mathias’s shoulders. The boy didn’t move; didn’t make any sound at all. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Whimpering with the terror of doing it so slowly – so slowly – she dragged him away, backwards through the dark, while the tunnel roof creaked and groaned, and it only needed for her to brush against the walls to bring it all down and bury them too.

  But she managed it. She turned a bend and there was a weak, grey light all around her that had nothing to do with any lamp. She looked backwards over her shoulder and could see a square of daylight. She didn’t feel so frightened now that she could see it, but she didn’t dare go any faster. She made herself concentrate on Mathias’s face. It was ashen, but now there was enough light to see by, she was sure that he was still alive. She wondered what on earth he had done that could have made this happen? What was it that the dwarf had wanted?

  Branches had been piled across the opening of the tunnel to hide it. She pushed them away, then dragged Mathias out through the litter of fallen leaves into the cold daylight. She stood and caught her breath. The wood was thick with frost and silence. She knelt down beside Mathias, scared of what she would find. Very carefully she undid the buttons of his coat. She could see the two slits in his shirt where Valter’s knife had gone clean through. The shirt was sodden with dark blood. She tore at the hem of her skirt to make a bandage, but even as she did so, something very hard and cold was pressed firmly into the back of her neck. She felt, as much as heard, the click as the hammer of the pistol was pulled back.

  Her shoulders dropped. They must have been waiting there all the time. It was so unfair. Her eyes filled with tears.

  She was pulled to her feet and turned round, but it wasn’t Leiter that Katta saw, or anyone else from the inn. There were four men standing before her. A fifth – a tall man – sat astride a big bay horse. His coat and boots were soiled with mud as though he had ridden a long way. The collar of his
coat was turned up against the cold, but not enough to hide the scarf of finest Spanish lace that was wound around his neck.

  ‘And what have we here?’ he said.

  Katta was still holding the strip of cloth she had torn from her skirt. She wiped her wet eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘He’s hurt.’

  The man’s eyes went slowly from her to Mathias and back again. ‘What were you doing in there?’

  It was as though he hadn’t heard.

  Then she realized who these people must be. The barrels and the oilcloth bags in the tunnel, all the things stacked and waiting – they were waiting to be collected. These must be the men. With that thought, she knew that there was no hope. Everyone knew what these men did to people who interfered, who found out what they shouldn’t know. She had to think quickly. She had to make them believe that she hadn’t seen anything.

  ‘We was playing,’ she said. ‘It’s a cave in there, but you can’t go in very far ’cos the roof’s all down.’ She pointed to Mathias. ‘He got hurt on some sharp stuff. I don’t know what. It’s all dark in there.’

  The man’s face became a frown. He turned to one of the other men. ‘Go and see,’ he said.

  There were packhorses standing quietly nearby. Katta hadn’t seen them until then. One of the men fetched a lamp from a saddlebag, then, bending over it, lit it from the flint in his pistol and disappeared into the tunnel.

  Katta could feel the tall man looking at her, but she didn’t want to look back. Instead she stared around, up into the bare trees, the sky above them, anywhere else but at him.

  The lamp man came back. ‘It’s all down,’ he said. ‘Just before halfway.’