Secret Guardians

by Lian Tanner

  Pummel let out a whoosh of breath. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, smiling. ‘They’ve got striped faces. It’s the Honourable Traders!’

  ‘Dear boy,’ whispered Lord Rump, ‘your innocence is charming but dangerous. If their faces are striped, they are indeed traders, but there is not a scrap of honour about them. They are Old Lady Skint’s crew, and their trade is human flesh. They are slavers, every one of them.’

  Meanwhile, a hundred miles to the north, and deep inside the Strong-hold, a woman was arguing with a dead man.

  Or rather, she was arguing with a man who should be dead, but wasn’t. Not quite.

  ‘I brought you back from the grave to kill the Heir of Neuhalt,’ snarled the woman. ‘That was your single instruction. And have you done it? No! You have killed a beekeeper, a soldier, two cooks and Grafine von Stich. You have allowed the three outsiders to escape from the Strong-hold, along with Arms-mistress Krieg and her useless son Otte.’ Her voice rose. ‘But you have not killed the Heir! Why not? Are you a fool? Are you an idiot?’

  The man who should be dead growled, ‘I … Was … Once … Margrave … of … Neuhalt. Now … I … Am … The … Harshman.’ With every word, his iron teeth clattered and his eyes burned like coals. ‘Do … Not … Insult … Me.’

  ‘I will insult you as much as I wish,’ snapped the woman, and she took a pin from her sleeve and jabbed it into the tip of her finger, whispering the words that bound him to her will.

  The Harshman flinched. The room grew so cold that crystals of ice formed in midair and fell like daggers to the floor. In the rafters, an enormous hawk shifted from foot to foot, as if readying itself to attack.

  The woman felt an unexpected trickle of fear. The Harshman could not harm her, not while she had the pins. But his bird was a different matter. Perhaps she should take a little more care.

  She glanced at the tattered book that lay open on the table in front of her. Some long-ago graf or grafine had brought it from the Old Country, and it had been lost for generations – until she found it.

  It was not a book of witchery, of course. The woman did not believe in witchery. No one in the Strong-hold believed in witchery.

  No, this was a noble Mystery, which was an entirely different thing. A noble Mystery belonging to a noble, warlike people. And the woman was going to use it to achieve her life’s ambition.

  ‘Five hundred years ago,’ she said, in the most reasonable voice she could manage, ‘the natives of this land sabotaged the Strong-hold’s gates and walls so that no one who lived here could leave. They have continued with their sabotage to this day, though the Privy Councillors claim they are trying to stop it.’

  She scowled. ‘I think the councillors are too busy lining their own pockets to bother. I think they do not want us freed. So we must take matters into our own hands. If you kill the Heir, his blood will make you powerful enough to break through the sabotage and free us all. We will escape from our long imprisonment. We will rejoin the world.’

  The Harshman’s ancient armour clanked. ‘Then … I …Will … Rule … Neuhalt. I …Will … Live … Forever.’

  ‘You will indeed,’ said the woman, though she had no intention of letting either of those things happen. When the Strong-hold was opened at last, she was the one who would rule Neuhalt.

  ‘So. Tell me why you have not killed the Heir,’ she said.

  ‘I … Cannot … Find … Him.’

  ‘What do you mean? This is Brun we are talking about, not some ragged pot boy. He was in the Great Chamber just a few minutes ago, and tonight he will sleep in his own bed, as he always does.’

  The Harshman’s iron teeth snapped together. ‘I … Cannot … Find … The … Heir.’

  ‘You said that already.’

  ‘He … Has … Gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, he has gone?’ snarled the woman. ‘Of course he has not gone! He is—’

  She stopped. There was a thundering in her ears, and her palms were suddenly damp with sweat.

  ‘He has gone?’ she whispered. ‘The Heir of Neuhalt has gone from the Strong-hold? You are sure?’

  ‘He … Has … Gone.’

  The woman felt breathless. In five hundred years, the only people who had ever escaped from the Strong-hold were the three outsiders, plus Arms-mistress Krieg and her son Otte, who had been born within minutes of the Heir.

  What if—

  A terrible rage surged through her, and she cried, ‘They must have swapped the infants! The Heir was born with only one leg, and they knew the grafs and grafines would not accept a ruler who could not fight. So they put Krieg’s son in his place!’

  What’s more, it had worked. In the ten years since, she had not heard a whisper of doubt. Everyone in the Strong-hold believed that Otte was the son of Arms-mistress Krieg, and the boy Brun was the Young Margrave. When in truth, it was the other way round.

  The woman ground her teeth. ‘Someone will pay for this,’ she whispered. ‘I will not be made a fool of.’

  In her fury, she had almost forgotten the Harshman. When he spoke, she jumped.

  ‘I … Will … Kill … Someone … Else … Instead.’ And he left her, stepping through the stone wall as if it was an open doorway, with the hawk flying above his yellowed skull.

  ‘Kill as many as you like,’ the woman hissed after him. ‘I do not care. The only reason I raised you from the dead was to get us out of the Strong-hold, and now that cannot be done.’

  She sank back onto the table. All her dreams were lost. All her hopes ruined. Maybe she would kill someone too. She would take her sword and swipe off a dozen heads, and the first one would belong to—

  ‘Wait!’ she cried.

  By the time the Harshman returned, the woman was drumming her fingers on the table and whispering to herself. ‘Everyone he kills makes him more powerful, so what if he killed someone really important? Not the Heir, who is out of reach, but someone else. Would that give him the power to break himself out of the Strong-hold? To go after the Heir?’

  She looked up at the Harshman, who was awaiting instruction. ‘I have a new task for you,’ she said.

  The Harshman’s eyes flared like molten lead. ‘Who … Shall … I … Kill?’

  The woman smiled. ‘That is the beauty of it. You cannot kill the Heir, not yet. But you can kill his mother, who rules us. You can kill the Margravine of Neuhalt.’

  ‘It’s them all right,’ whispered Duckling, as she watched the striped faces come closer. Her heart thumped against her ribs. Her stomach clenched horribly. ‘It’s Old Lady Skint’s crew.’

  ‘Naaasty,’ growled the cat.

  ‘Shh!’ whispered Duckling. ‘Don’t let them know that you can talk, Frow Cat. Don’t let them know anything.’

  She’d never actually met Old Lady Skint and her men, but she’d heard stories about them, stories that were stained with blood from beginning to end.

  The slavers sailed the oceans north of Neuhalt, snatching people from the peninsula of Faroona, the mainland of Nor, and the Beastie Isles. According to rumour, they sold their captives to the salt mines, and no one stolen by them was ever seen again.

  Duckling edged a little closer to Otte, and smiled and waved, as if she was as innocent as Pummel. None of the men striding down the road towards them waved back. Their stripes seemed to shimmer across their faces. Their hands hovered over their pistols.

  Krieg reached for her sword.

  ‘No,’ hissed Duckling. ‘They’ll shoot us.’

  The arms-mistress’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can run them through before their weapons are half-loaded.’

  ‘They’re already loaded,’ whispered Duckling. ‘They’re not like those old-fashioned blunderbusses you have in the Strong-hold. They don’t have to pour gunpowder down the muzzle and ram a bullet after it before they can fire. If you attack them, we’re as good as dead.’

  ‘Please, Arms-mistress,’ said Otte, wrapping his arms around the chicken. ‘Do not try to fight them. They do no
t know who we are. They have no reason to harm us.’

  ‘That depends,’ murmured Grandpa, out of the side of his mouth. ‘I have heard a very quiet rumour that they have some sort of arrangement with the Privy Council, whereby they do not enslave the people of Neuhalt. So they should not harm us. And they may wish to keep up their pretence of being ordinary traders – though how they get away with it I do not know. Hopefully they are just passing by on other business, and if we keep our heads, we will be able to bluff our way to safety.’

  Then he smiled as broadly as Duckling, and called out, in the voice of Dame Swagger, ‘Good day, friends! I have just made tea. Would you care for a cup?’

  The men strode up to the cart, their faces as hard as the rocks that littered the side of the road.

  Grandpa made a curtsey. ‘Dame Swagger’s Glorious Travelling Theatre Troupe at your service, gentlemen! You are welcome to our little campfire.’

  One of the men said something over his shoulder. An instant later he was dragged backwards by a beefy hand, and a huge woman took his place. Her grey hair flew in all directions; her eyes were small and black. There were no stripes on her face, but half a dozen beetles crawled across her chest, tethered by silken thread.

  She smiled, and her smile was like a crack in an icy lake, with nothing beneath it but cold water and death.

  Duckling’s stomach clenched tighter than ever. Old Lady Skint herself! I hope Grandpa knows what he’s doing.

  Old Lady Skint put her hands on her hips and said, ‘I ain’t never ’eard of a travellin’ theatre by the name of Swagger.’

  ‘Our days of fame are behind us,’ Grandpa said smoothly. ‘But we can still make a living, my little troupe and I, and that is what counts. Tanglefoot, will you find some cups for our guests? We only have a few, but I am sure the gentlemen will not mind sharing. Ember, let them pass, if you please.’

  Duckling stepped around to the back of the cart and started digging for cups. But Arms-mistress Krieg stayed where she was, blocking the slavers’ path. Her sword was in her hand, though Duckling hadn’t seen her pick it up.

  One of the beetles on Old Lady Skint’s chest came to the end of its thread, and she stroked it with a blunt finger, while it struggled to escape. ‘An actor with a sword?’ she said.

  Krieg bristled, and Duckling braced herself for disaster.

  But Grandpa merely rolled his eyes and said in a stage whisper, ‘In our last play, Ember took the part of Ferocio, a trained mercenary, and it has gone to her head. A few lessons from a book, and she thinks she is a swordswoman. Humour her, I beg you. The sword is as blunt as an old boot, and she will hurt no one but herself.’

  Old Lady Skint laughed, a booming sound that sent her beetles scuttling for cover. ‘Ferocio, eh? I’d like to see this play of yours.’

  ‘And we would happily show it to you,’ said Grandpa, ‘if only we had not lost all our costumes and most of our props just this morning.’ He scowled at Krieg. ‘A swordswoman? Ha! Where were you when those villains were ransacking our cart, eh? Hiding behind a bush with the rest of us.’

  The slavers laughed, as if they’d never heard anything so funny. One by one, they strode past the cart and sat around the fire.

  But three of them stayed where they were, with their hands near their pistols and their eyes fixed on Arms-mistress Krieg.

  We’ll be lucky to get out of this alive, thought Duckling. And she grabbed five cups and hurried over to Grandpa, looking as cheerful as she possibly could.

  Pummel stood by the cart, wondering how he could ever have believed these people were Honourable Traders. Their faces were scarred and brutal. The air around them seemed to twitch with the promise of violence.

  He tried to relax; tried to be Clodhopper the theatre boy, whose only worry was remembering his lines and staying out of reach of Dame Swagger’s cane. But he’d never been good at pretending.

  Duckling handed the tea cups to Lord Rump, then climbed up into the cart, saying as naturally as anything, ‘No room around that fire for us, Daisy. We’d better stay up here.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Pummel. ‘I’ll sit up there too.’ His words didn’t sound natural. They fell out of his mouth like logs of wood.

  Old Lady Skint looked up, her black eyes gleaming. ‘No room round the fire? Poor liddle things. We’ll make room, won’t we, shipmates? Come on, shift your worthless carcasses!’

  The men shuffled around until there was a space just big enough for the three children. Pummel looked at Arms-mistress Krieg, hoping she had some sort of plan for protecting Otte. But the arms-mistress’s face gave away nothing.

  ‘Come on, Clodhopper,’ said Duckling. ‘Help Daisy down from the cart.’

  As Otte grabbed his crutches and wriggled across the seat, the chicken on his lap protested.

  One of the men who’d stayed by the cart said, ‘Ooh look, supper.’ And he reached for the bird, crooning, ‘Nice chicky. Come to daddy. I’ve got a fine cooking pot for—’

  ‘Leave her alone!’ said Otte, leaning away from him. ‘She is not for eating.’

  ‘She is now,’ said the man.

  But before his fingers could close around the chicken’s neck, a grey paw flashed out and drew four bright streaks of blood on his hand. With a squawk, the chicken flew out of the cart and into the trees. The cat slunk after her. The man cursed.

  ‘Keep your noise down,’ bellowed Old Lady Skint. ‘And stop interferin’ with the livestock.’

  ‘What marvellous projection you have,’ said Lord Rump in an admiring voice. ‘Have you ever thought of joining a travelling theatr—’

  ‘Ain’t those snotties down ’ere yet?’ interrupted Old Lady Skint.

  Otte wriggled to the side of the cart again, and tucked the crutches under his arms.

  The man who’d tried to catch the chicken said, ‘Where’s your other leg, girlie?’

  ‘Bitten off by a shark,’ lied Otte. ‘When I was three.’

  The man roared with laughter. ‘Ain’t you a bold liddle thing. ’Tis a wonder you didn’t whack the shark over the ’ead and eat it for supper.’

  Duckling grinned, as if they were all the best of friends. Pummel tried to copy her, but his face was as stiff as a fencepost.

  Old Lady Skint looked up again. ‘What’s the joke, shipmate?’

  ‘Liddle girl’s only got one leg, Cap’n,’ said the man. ‘Shark took the other one.’

  ‘And nothin’ done about it?’ said Old Lady Skint. ‘You should get ’er a wooden one, Dame What’s-er-name. They’re not ’ard to come by. Fiddle, show the nice people your leg.’

  Fiddle had a great scar down the middle of his face, so that one side of his mouth smiled and the other side scowled. He rolled up his trouser, exposing a finely carved bit of wood.

  ‘There, you see?’ said the slaver captain. ‘Much better than crutches. Course, we can ’ear ’im comin’ from miles away, can’t we, Fiddle. He can’t creep up on folk no more.’ She chuckled, and added, ‘Sit yourselves down, snotties.’

  The children squeezed into the space that had been made for them, and the slavers crammed back in on either side. ‘Now ain’t this cosy?’ said Old Lady Skint.

  But Pummel’s only thought was, We’re trapped.

  Duckling’s grandpa always had a pack of cards in his pocket. Now he pulled them out, saying, ‘Would you care for a game of Scorpion, Frow – ah – I did not catch your name.’

  ‘You can call me Ruby,’ said Old Lady Skint. ‘Queen of the Honourable Traders.’

  Her crew sniggered. Grandpa said, ‘Delighted, Queen Ruby.’

  He dealt the cards clumsily, as if he wasn’t used to them. Ten each to begin with, and the top card turned over. Grandpa’s top card was the Beggar Maid. Old Lady Skint’s was the Dog.

  ‘A good start,’ said Skint. ‘My Dog bites your Beggar Maid.’ And she threw down three cards in quick succession, without looking at them.

  Scorpion wasn’t an easy game to follow. The value of each c
ard changed, depending on what came before and what came after it. What was said was important too. It was a game of negotiation, and Grandpa was a master player.

  But after ten minutes of seemingly friendly play there was still no sign of the Sting in the Tail. Whoever had that card would almost certainly win.

  ‘Oh ho,’ cried Grandpa, sliding a card from his sleeve in such a way that it seemed to come from the pack. ‘I have the Blind King. You will have to watch yourself now, Queen Ruby.’

  ‘But I,’ said Old Lady Skint with a smirk, ‘have the Blood-Stained Sword.’

  Duckling had watched her grandfather play Scorpion many times, and knew that for the next few minutes nothing must distract him. She clenched her fingers in her lap and sat very still, breathing as quietly as she could.

  Lord Rump’s hand hovered over the cards. Old Lady Skint’s eyes narrowed.

  It was then that Otte grabbed his crutches and began to haul himself upright.

  Duckling knew straight away that something was wrong. Otte’s eyes were glazed, as if he was seeing something other than the clearing. Krieg looked as if she’d swallowed a porcupine.

  Old Lady Skint paused, with a card in her hand and her eyes fixed on Otte.

  If there was one thing Duckling was good at, it was quick thinking. ‘The privy, Daisy?’ she said, in a loud whisper. ‘You’ll have to go in the trees. Come on, I’ll help you.’

  And she stood up, with Pummel only a second behind her.

  Otte made his way across the clearing as if pulled by a string. Duckling called out to Krieg, ‘She’s feeling sick again, Ember. Got the collywobbles.’

  Grandpa cleared his throat. Like Duckling, he had no idea what was happening, but he knew a problem when he saw one. ‘Little lass has been poorly for the last couple of days, Queen Ruby. Now, where were we?’

  Otte reached the cart and dragged himself up into it. By then, Duckling was close enough to Krieg to hiss, ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, he’d better stop doing nothing,’ whispered Duckling. ‘Look!’ And she nodded in the direction of Old Lady Skint, who was still watching Otte.