by Alex Bell
The gypsies had been fidgeting about nervously ever since; discussing what was to be done about their troublesome guests and their bothersome bracelets. Montgomery Schmidt was being predictably vocal in the debate but Lex wasn’t paying the proceedings much heed. At one point, one of the gypsies had suggested that tipping the pair of them overboard would be the best way to placate the Gods for any enchanted evil Lex had brought on board, but the suggestion had not been warmly received by the others and Lex had not been overly worried. He knew gypsies and that was not the gypsy way. Hospitality and honour were very important to them as a people — more important than the fear they felt of the nameless enchanters.
Lex had been leaning against the rail until the sun had made it too hot. Then he had switched to idling with his hands in his pockets and had continued his conversation with Cara. Actually, she was doing most of the talking, babbling on agitatedly about what a disaster the bracelets were and what trouble she would be in with her family over this whole affair and so on and so on. Lex thought she was overreacting a bit. After all, she would probably only receive a mild chastisement from her family, so he didn’t trouble himself to reassure her.
He liked the gold hoops that hung from her ears. They glimmered in the light from the sun, casting golden freckles onto the bare brown skin of her shoulders. And she had the characteristic strong, dark eyes of the gypsies and a prominent nose. If she wasn’t exactly beautiful, she was still something pleasant to look at whilst this tedious altercation was going on.
Lex realised that he had been admiring her too openly when one of Cara’s older brothers took her by the arm with a sullen glare at Lex and led her away to the other side of the ship. Lex sighed and, with no other diversion to occupy him, decided he’d better get involved in the main debate that was still raging between the indecisive gypsies and the incensed lawyer.
He cleared his throat loudly. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, spreading his hands and breaking easily into the group conversation. ‘Sorry to interrupt but I’d just like to reiterate my apologies once again. I know you’re busy people and you don’t have time to be bothering about this kind of thing, but I can assure you that the bracelets are in no way dangerous — you have my personal assurances on that. If you would just be so good as to honour our agreement of passage and set us down on the eastern shores of the Fallows — I believe that’s where you’re going anyway? — Mr Schmidt and myself will then go about our business and this problem will cease to be yours. And thank you again for agreeing to help us so graciously. We really are both very grateful. But please don’t linger up here on our account. I know you must all be busy with the running of the ship to attend to.’
He beamed at the assembled crew and then turned away as if fully confident that that was the end of the matter. It was undoubtedly something about Lex’s manner. It was the sincerity there. Lex was a law student. He was also a thief. And a wastrel. But what he really was, deep down inside, was an actor. Lex knew how to play the necessary roles. And he knew how to be utterly convincing. Of course, it certainly helped that he had what was generally considered to be an honest face. It was something about the set of his eyes.
After a moment of hesitation, the gypsies wandered away back to their various tasks, looking slightly bemused and possibly wondering how they had managed to be dismissed in such a manner. Lex and Schmidt were left alone at the prow of the ship, with Heetha’s sun beating down in searing pulses and salt spray blowing in every now and then from the white froth of the sea. It never stained the planks of the deck for long since it evaporated in the heat within moments.
‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ Mr Schmidt snapped, rounding on Lex as soon as the gypsies had gone.
‘Pardon?’ Lex asked.
He wasn’t to know the further anger he had just caused the lawyer who had been reasoning and arguing with the gypsies for almost an hour until Lex had troubled himself to tear his eyes from the gypsy girl and intervene. And then, he had managed to do with a few sentences what Mr Schmidt (who had always considered himself quite the eloquent orator) had not been able to do in a whole hour of discussion, and get the gypsies to calm down and disband. It really was most vexing.
‘How could you possibly give them your assurance that the bracelets were not dangerous when you know absolutely nothing about them?’
‘My dear Mr Schmidt — may I call you Monty? — I hardly think that truthfulness would be a pragmatic virtue at this particular time. Do you wish them to throw us overboard? If we’re careful, we should be able to make it to the Farrows.’
‘Whence, be assured, I will be taking every available action to have you deported straight back to the Wither City where you will be properly charged with all due-’
‘Excuse me for interrupting, Mr Schmidt, but the sun is very strong out here and you have no hat,’ Lex said smoothly, slipping straight back into the respectful manner he had been forced to adopt towards his employer at work. ‘I have no wish to seem presumptuous, sir, but perhaps it would be better if you sought shade somewhere on the ship. I would hate for you to become dehydrated or suffer heat rash and, as I’m sure you are aware, there is perhaps not quite so much hair on your head as there once was-’
Lex broke off from his arrogant monologue as the lawyer made an angry gesture of impatience, for he had been pushed almost to the limit over the last twenty-four hours.
‘Enjoy it, Lex,’ Schmidt hissed. ‘Just enjoy it whilst you can. I’ll find a loophole once we reach the Farrows. A legal loophole, Lex, you remember them? Believe me, you will be deported back to the Wither City and I’ll have you strung up before a jury before you even know what’s hit you.’
He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Lex alone at the prow. Lex grinned, gave an easy shrug and turned back to the railings, watching the ship skim along the foaming surface of the sea. The truth was he had no intention of sticking around once they reached the Farrows. He had no doubt that Schmidt could achieve his aim, given time. He knew him to be a formidable and determined advocate and there was no doubt that he hated Lex with a vengeance. But another thing Lex was good at was running. The Farrows would be a mere blur to him. It would be an easy enough thing to give the elderly lawyer the slip at the harbour and after that he need only linger in the Farrows long enough to secure transportation. And then it hardly mattered where he went. Lady Luck would be watching over him, as long as she didn’t choose this inopportune time to go off on holiday or something, and he would go wherever the wind took him until he found a town of likely-looking suckers waiting to be scammed. That was the wonderful thing for a fraud like Lex — the world seemed to have an endless supply of willing suckers who were practically begging him to take their money.
CHAPTER FIVE
MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
It took the Breathless two days to reach the Farrows. It would usually have taken much longer but, after that first day, Heetha’s sun fled far from the sky to be replaced with Holli’s — Goddess of Tranquillity and Gentleness. Hers was a mild, lukewarm sun at the best of times but, as often happened, she was closely followed by her jealous sister, Gersha. It was said that Gersha had originally been the Goddess of a noble and virtuous province. But in the aftermath of her jealous rage at not being given her own sun along with her sister, Gersha had evolved into the Goddess of Resentment and Bitterness and her savage gales were often twinned with Holli’s sun so that what little warmth the gentle Goddess gave was quickly snatched away by her poisonous sister.
But this was so much the better for Lex, who was eager to reach the Farrows quickly. He did not suffer from seasickness and, on the contrary, keenly enjoyed standing at the prow of the ship as it bucked, flew and crashed back down upon the ferocious waves. There had only been one spare cabin on board and Lex had let Mr Schmidt claim this without argument. This wasn’t due to any particularly charitable outburst of feeling on Lex’s part but rather a certain disinterest, for Lex enjoyed sleeping in the huge storage room. Not only
was it much bigger than the tiny, claustrophobic cabins, but it was also closer to the cold sea and so was probably the coolest part of the otherwise stuffy ship. The gypsies gave him some spare blankets and pillows and with these he was able to make himself quite comfortable down below.
But he wasn’t accustomed to living on the sea and, although he enjoyed it during the day, at night he had trouble adjusting to the bucking movement of the ship, for Lex was a light sleeper and often found himself jerking awake from dreams of falling. But the storage area was comfortable and it was at least a large area all to himself. There were even a few useful things stored away down there that he took the opportunity of placing, solely for safekeeping, in his own bag.
Lex hadn’t seen her Ladyship since the night he was arrested but this did not unduly bother him. Lady Luck was a flighty, fickle being and there had been times when she had taken off and Lex had not seen her for weeks. The protection she gave him helped, but Lex had managed fine before she came along and he would be fine without her again if he needed to be.
For the last few days he had wandered about the ship, making sure to keep out of the gypsies’ way apart from at the evening meal when everyone ate together. Mr Schmidt had been confined to his cabin the first day due to seasickness. Lex had felt rather pleased about that. Served the vicious old stick right for chasing after him and causing so many complications.
Lex knocked on his door that first evening and told the lawyer that the gypsies had prepared dinner down in the galley and that he’d better come and eat something or he would be seen as offending their hospitality — and an offended gypsy was an angry gypsy. This was quite untrue. The gypsies couldn’t have cared less who came down to eat in the evenings but it was quite fun for Lex to watch Schmidt valiantly try and eat something for a few minutes before rushing upstairs to throw up over the side of the ship.
When he came up on deck the day they docked at the Farrows he still looked slightly green and was glaring daggers at Lex as if he were responsible for all the lawyer’s worldly problems. Lex gave him a cheerful grin, sauntered over, and politely inquired as to his health. He was answered with a snarl and a promise that the lawyer would be sticking to him like glue as soon as they landed. Lex shrugged, completely confident in his abilities to give Schmidt the slip.
They docked at the harbour at about midday. The sun was still weak and the gales still stormy when they landed. Lex had been to the Farrows last year on his way to the Wither City. He had an excellent memory and so had a pretty good idea of the layout of the town.
As they made their way down the gangplank, Schmidt had his hand clamped tightly around Lex’s upper arm. The old man actually had a stronger grip than Lex had imagined and he had to tug forcefully, finally pushing the lawyer over hard to get away. Schmidt went sprawling into one of the shut-up stalls of the midnight market that was, as usual, set up around the harbour, and by the time he got to his feet again, Lex was several paces away, weaving through the crowd towards Jani’s Tavern.
You had to do what they weren’t expecting you to do, that was the nub of it. Speed alone was rarely enough. Any unintelligent thug could bolt for it. Schmidt was probably expecting Lex to head for the nearest transportation dealership and get out of the Farrows as fast as he possibly could. He probably wasn’t expecting him to go and have a drink in a tavern. Such an action, after all, would have been arrogant beyond words.
The Farrows had sprouted up in a haphazard manner and was a very ancient town. The buildings were crooked, as they had all been added to over the years, and second and third floors often didn’t fit properly on the first ones so that layers would jut out over each other. Many of them had dark, thatched roofs and signs above the doors pronouncing the occupier’s trade. Of course, most of the Farrow folk were miners as a result of the town’s proximity to the great mineral mines.
Jani’s Tavern was near to the station that transported workers to the mines and, as such, was a much-favoured haunt for miners as well as sailors. When Lex went in, the tavern was full of miners on their lunch break. He was glad of the smoke-laden air for it would help to hide him if Schmidt did turn out to be bright enough to search for him there.
Not being a huge fan of gypsy food, Lex was glad to order a proper meal and squeeze himself onto the end of one of the tables. The miners paid him no heed since he was still wearing his sailor-boy clothes and it was not unusual for sailors to come and eat at Jani’s whilst their ship was in the docks. Lex still wasn’t old enough to enjoy any of the real ales that the miners were drinking, but he ordered a pint of Grandy to go with his meal and settled down to enjoy some good Farrian cuisine.
He carefully tore the bread roll in half, dipped it into the bowl of delicious-looking soup and had just put it in his mouth when there was a kind of shing noise and a horrible lurching feeling and a man handed him a few copper coins and the reins of a mantha beast.
‘You’ll be pleased with this one, sir, she’s a bargain for the price.’
Lex kept his cool. He didn’t scream or shriek or jump back. But the fact was that he was outside, at a mantha stables in the centre of town when moments ago he had been at Jani’s Tavern about to eat his lunch. His plan had been to travel to the stables later on in the afternoon once he could be sure that Mr Schmidt would no longer be in the town. For a moment, he feared that he must have had some kind of mental memory gap.
But then he became aware of the strange feeling. He glanced down at the mantha beast — a sort of shaggy cow thing, with lots of hair — cropping on the scrubby grass at his feet. It seemed to be further away than it should be. He glanced at the seller and was alarmed to find that the man was shorter than him. Lex was not a tall person. He was shorter than most other men. The joints in his wrists ached and so did his feet. And his stomach had that horrible empty feeling, as of one who had spent most of their time during the last couple of days with their head down a toilet. A horrible, incredible, disgusting, revolting suspicion crept over Lex.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ the mantha seller asked, suddenly looking concerned. ‘Only you’ve gone all white and sickly-looking, like.’
Lex automatically went to assure the man that he was fine. He had learnt long ago that it did not do to attract unwonted attention to oneself. ‘Thank you, but-’
And it was after those three words that his usual self-assurance shattered into so many tiny fragments. For the voice he had spoken in had not been his own. There was no mistaking the cold, hard, slightly nasally tones of his employer, Mr Montgomery Schmidt.
He almost screamed. He almost did. But discipline was an inbuilt thing with Lex and he clapped a hand over his mouth just in time. Misinterpreting the action, the mantha seller took a hasty step back and asked Lex if he’d like him to go and fetch a bucket. Lex knew the sensible thing would be to tell the seller that he had just remembered an important engagement and to ask him to hold the mantha for him. But he found he just couldn’t face speaking only to have Mr Schmidt’s voice coming out of his mouth. So he shook his head and stumbled away in the general direction of Jani’s Tavern, tugging the mantha beast behind him. It took him a while to adjust to the longer legs and the added height.
He was in Mr Schmidt’s body. Somehow his consciousness had been transported into the body of his employer… urgh, urgh, urgh! But he was remaining calm. He was being logical. If he was in Schmidt’s body, then it only made sense that the lawyer would be in Lex’s body. Lex was at Jani’s Tavern, about to eat his lunch. It must have been the bracelets, Lex thought, glancing down at the white one on Schmidt’s wrist. The wretched bracelets he had taken from the enchanter. For once, there was no long-term plan in Lex’s mind. All he could think to do was to get the both of them together again. Then everything would surely sort itself all out. Spring back together like a released cosmic elastic band.
It was only once he’d arrived at Jani’s Tavern and was tying the mantha beast up outside that the thought occurred to him that Mr Schmidt… Lex Trent… whoe
ver, might not be in there any more. On discovering what had happened, Schmidt had most likely had the same idea as Lex and set straight off for the mantha stables to find his body. The Farrows was a large town; they could end up wandering about for ever without finding each other.
Not feeling at all cheered, Lex went into the tavern anyway on the off chance that Schmidt would still be inside. Luck, as it so happened, was with Lex, for as soon as he walked in he experienced the strange sensation of seeing himself sat where he’d left him, at the end of one of the tables. Schmidt was holding a soup spoon with a trembling hand and gazing at his reflection in the back of it.
It must have been a twenty-minute walk from the mantha stables. Surely Schmidt had not been sat there staring at himself in the spoon for all that time? A few of the miners had gone back to their shifts and the tavern was now a little quieter. As Lex made his way towards the table he saw Jani approach Mr Schmidt.
‘Is everything all right, lovey? Is there something wrong with the soup?’
‘Yes, it’s cold,’ Lex said, pulling up a chair and inwardly shuddering at the sound of his employer’s voice. ‘Take it away and heat it up, please. He ordered it for me but I was unavoidably detained. Bring a crust of bread or something for the boy too, will you?’
Jani gave him a bit of a dirty look but took the soup away without questions. Lex Trent was a grubby, skinny kid wearing old sailor-boy clothes and Mr Schmidt was an elderly, well-groomed lawyer. It was commonplace on the Globe for distinguished professionals to take young male servants who were lower down the social scale, could be paid a pittance and were expected to be grateful for it, too.
Schmidt slowly lowered the soup spoon onto the wooden table where it rocked a little on the uneven boards before settling. He stared at Lex in silence for a while. He still hadn’t said a word and Lex guessed that he too was struggling with the alien sensation of speaking with someone else’s voice. The situation wasn’t at all funny to either of them but, in spite of himself, Lex found he wanted to laugh. Schmidt, despite being a lawyer, was not as accomplished as Lex when it came to hiding his emotions. And right now he looked as he felt: absolutely and completely horrified to the very marrow.