by Eoin Colfer
“Can I use me bludgeon? I never fights without it for reasons of balance.”
Malarkey was shocked. “Use yer bludgeon? Of course you can use yer bludgeon, Mr. Skelp. I would never deprive a brother of his beloved weapon of choice.”
Skelp drew from behind his back a blackthorn club the size of Chevie’s leg. As if its dimensions were not formidable enough, Skelp had hammered on armored plates that had doubtless once been shining steel but were now dull with congealed liquid and matter.
“Charming,” said Chevie. “You guys are a classy bunch.” Malarkey laughed. “Skelp is one of our more sophisticated brothers. Betimes he reads stories to the illiterates.
“The odds are ten to one on Skelpy. Cash only, no markers. Give yer coin to my accountant.”
A small man in a waistcoat was suddenly besieged by aggressive men with money and dealt with them all efficiently, using a complicated system of facial tics and swearing. Once the betting was done, a space was cleared in front of the dais. Riley guessed that this was the traditional bareknuckle arena, and he hoped that the dark splashes on the floorboards were simply wine or beer.
Chevie did not seem anxious, though there could be nothing familiar to her about the proceedings.
Riley realized that the attention of every man in the room was on Chevie, and that this was a perfect time to look for a way out for them both. He couldn’t abandon her now. We are partners, till the end of this affair.
The Battering Rams jostled for a ringside view as the opponents readied themselves for the competition. Chevie carefully stretched her muscles and tendons, while Skelp stripped to his waist and spoke soft words to his darling bludgeon. “I will call the match,” said Malarkey through his speaking trumpet. “Last man . . . or woman . . . standing shall be proclaimed victor. Both parties prepared for the bout?” Skelp spat a gob of chewed tobacco, mostly on his own boot. Chevie simply nodded and balled her fists.
“Then begin!” called Malarkey.
The Rams were expecting the little lass to be brim-full of vinegar and take a run at Skelp, possibly causing him to fall down laughing. They were prepared to berate their comrade good-naturedly as he was eventually forced to tap the girlie on her noggin in order to claim his winnings.
They were utterly unprepared for what actually happened, and several burst out laughing, presuming that it was some manner of jape orchestrated by King Otto for a bit of a giggle. Before the echo of Malarkey’s words faded, Chevie rushed in low, used a basic judo disarming maneuver to twist the club out of Skelp’s grasp, then unleashed an out-of-the-ballpark uppercut with the man’s own beloved bludgeon that knocked out three of his teeth and sent him flying into a gaggle of his comrades. The whole lot went down like ninepins.
“Next,” said Chevie, which was a bit melodramatic, but no more so than the entire situation.
A silence followed Chevie’s victory, the like of which hadn’t been heard in this arcade in twenty years, not since Gunther No Nose Kelly earned his nickname during a rat-eating contest. “Wait for it,” said Malarkey out of the side of his mouth. When the assembled Rams realized that their invested chink was in serious danger of disappearing beyond their grubby grasp forever, the short-lived silence was shattered by a collective moan that rose like an ululating wave and crashed in a sea of objections.
“Hold on there!”
“Unfair! Unfair!”
“Will you beat a man with his own club?”
“She ain’t no female. She’s a witch.”
Malarkey silenced the clamor with a bellow through his trumpet, then addressed the stunned congregation.
“You fellers seem a mite surprised by my little whirling dervish here. I warned you, but no—you fine gentlemen knows better than yer beloved regent.”
Malarkey rubbed Chevie’s head as though she were a favored puppy and even instructed Riley to relax in his throne. “Here,” he said, tossing a purse of gold to Riley. “A share for the Injun princess, even though that were not part of the deal; but I am a fair and benevolent monarch.”
Malarkey faced his subjects.
“Listen, my gallows-bound busters, there is another twist to this tale. You have witnessed what my champion can do, so maybe yer regretting monies wagered. So I offer you one chance to retract yer wager without penalty. But if you leave yer ill-gotten gains in the kitty, then among the benefits that will accrue to you are shorter odds, a free toddy, and the admiration of your peers. And who steps up to spill the blood is your affair. You coves have leave to select the burliest muck-snipe from among your ranks to set against my little girlie. Choose whomsoever you fancy, so long as he bears the mark.” Riley found his discomfort swelling with every passing second. This was a fine penny-show for the Rams, but Chevie and himself were sitting ducks. If Garrick had managed to dump his carcass into the tunnel-of-time, it wouldn’t be long before some tidbits concerning a battling squaw dropped into his ear hole. And then the Thames water rats will be raking two extra floaters out of the dawn currents.
Riley perched on the throne’s cushion.
“Chevie,” he whispered, “do the business quick as you like, then we can make ourselves scarce. My skin is crawling with the feeling that Garrick is coming.”
“Roger that. We need to be on our way,” said Chevie.
Every one of Riley’s Garrick is coming hunches had been bang on the money so far.
Malarkey overheard the exchange. He plucked Riley from the throne, depositing him at his feet like a royal puppy, or jester. “Don’t worry about Albert Garrick. My best team of murdering scum have been lying in wait for him at his digs, their time bought by the very same fancy gent who ordered your deaths. As to you two foundlings being on your way, I think you have misremembered our arrangement.”
Chevie punched her fist into her palm and several large men jumped backward. “What arrangement?” she asked. Riley’s chin dropped to his breastbone, and he answered the question for Malarkey. “We are fighting our way into the Rams, the alternative being a sudden case of violent death—yours and mine. Once we are in, then we are Malarkey’s for life.” Malarkey pointed at Riley. “A shilling to the boy for keenness. You fight for the very breath in your lungs, little lady.
And if you wrestle your death from my grasp, then I still hold your life. Remember that well.”
He swiveled on the balls of his feet like a trained swordsman until his riding crop pointed at Riley. “Take this one and mark him. He is ours now.”
Hands descended on Riley from the crowd, so many that it seemed as though he were being swallowed by a sea anemone.
Riley fought, dropping several of his captors with well-placed blows, but whenever one fell another sprang to take his place.
The Rams lifted him high and carried him through the throng to a far corner of the room, where a decrepit old man sat surrounded by books, boxes of needles, and little ink bottles of dense, jeweled colors. The man’s fingers were small like a child’s but gnarled and inked in the wrinkles, each knuckle a rainbow. Riley found himself plonked in a wooden chair and held in place by viselike fingers on each shoulder.
“A young recruit, is it?” said the man.
“That is the case, Farley,” said Riley’s restrainer. Farley set his store of needles tinkling as he poked through them. “Not really a Ram,” he muttered. “More a lamb than a Ram. Still, mine is not to wonder why . . .” He selected a thin needle to make the mark.
“Mister, ain’t you going to a-sketch it on first?” Riley asked nervously.
Farley’s cough rolled in his throat. “Sketch, is it? Boy, I been doing the ram for years, could do it in me sleep, I could. Now, quit yer vibrations, or it’s a goat adornment you’ll be sporting in place of a ram.”
“That needle is clean, ain’t it? I don’t want to lose an arm.” “Worry not, the tool is sterilized better than any steel in St. Bart’s. No one ever saw a bubble of pus from Anton Farley’s needles. I will do her small and quick, and the time will pass.
And
presently I will select a second, alcohol-swabbed needle to pick out the ram on your friend.”
At the mention of his friend, Riley craned his neck, trying to look back toward the boxing circle without moving his shoulder. From his seat he couldn’t see so much as the top of Chevie’s head, just a throng of Rams who had set up a chant.
“Golgoth, Golgoth,” intoned the criminal coterie, and again, “Golgoth, Golgoth.”
“Ah, me,” said Farley sadly. “Just the one needle, then.”
Chevie was not yet accustomed to the sheer pungency of Victorian London. Even the air seemed to have a sepia tinge to it, and mystery flakes landed on her head and shoulders, mottling her skin.
That can’t be good, she thought. I don’t even want to think about where those flakes come from.
The Rams had formed a loose human cordon around her and seemed to have developed a certain prudence in approaching the Injun maid, probably due to the large club dangling from her dainty fist and the blood dripping from its howjadoo end.
And now the men were chanting the word Golgoth, which Chevie suspected would turn out to be some particularly vicious incarnation of Battering Ram.
Battering Rams. If these guys got any more macho, they could have their own show on cable TV fixing motorcycles and pumping iron.
The ocean of men parted and a malevolent hulk strutted into the circle like he was the world’s best at something violent.
So this is Golgoth, thought Chevie. It’s probably going to take two wallops to knock out this guy.
Golgoth reached up a delicate forefinger and thumb, pinching his crown and removing his hair, which apparently was some kind of hairpiece.
“Hold Marvin for me, would you, Gilhooley?” said Golgoth, dropping the hairpiece into the hand of his much smaller friend, who did what his far larger friend requested of him, which was probably the basis upon which their relationship was built.
Two things about Golgoth surprised Chevie.
One: his creepy hairpiece had a name.
And two: no one besides her seemed to find the word Gilhooley hilarious. It sounded a little bit rude, but she wasn’t sure why.
“Okay, Golgoth,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “I will try to hurt you humanely.”
“I ain’t no Golgoth,” said the giant. “I is his little bruvver.”
Which was the last thing she heard before something the size of a cement block hit her square in the chest with the speed of a freight train.
• • •
Chevie may have been strong and quick, but she was also small and light. The blow from her mystery attacker knocked the FBI agent over and set her skidding across the floorboards, picking up dozens of splinters in the process.
The pain was so huge that Chevie wondered if her lungs had been crushed, and she was relieved when her breathing started up again.
“Oooh,” she groaned, a blood-string swinging between her lip and the ruined shards of her Timekey on the floor.
I am stranded here.
“No fair.”
“Golgoth! Golgoth!” chanted the Rams, stamping their boots to set the floorboards a-jumping.
Chevie raised herself to all fours, wondering if her skull was fractured, thinking, Where is this Golgoth guy? Can Victorians do invisible?
She struggled to her feet, shaking her head to extinguish the stars in her vision, casting around for her attacker. There was no one in the fighting arena but Otto Malarkey.
“Where is he?” Chevie asked blearily. “Point me toward Golgoth.”
Malarkey touched two fingers to his lips, a gesture of guilt. “I am afraid, princess, that I am Golgoth. My old circus strongman name.”
Oh, crud, thought Chevie. “But I’m fighting for you!”
Malarkey removed the fingers from his lips, wagging them at the assembled Rams. “I said they could pick any Ram, and the clever bleeders picked me. After all, who better? Now I must choose between purse and pride.”
Let me guess, thought Chevie. Pride wins.
“And in that tussle, pride wins every time. I must sacrifice my wager to save my position.”
Chevie adopted a boxer’s stance, dipping her chin low behind raised fists.
Not that it matters much. With those hands, Malarkey could punch straight through my guard. I will have to rely on my speed.
The crowd’s attitude shifted from raucous encouragement to quiet, feral anticipation. There was much at stake here. Both combatants were being tested, but while Chevron was fighting for her life, Malarkey fought to prove himself loyal to his men, and he knew that there would be more than one Ram praying for him to fall and leave a vacancy for the top position.
The contestants circled each other with wary respect. Chevie’s ear was ringing with what she couldn’t help feeling was the Star Trek theme tune, which was extremely distracting. Malarkey rolled his shoulders and danced light-footed back and forth in a complicated jiglike routine that was almost as distracting as the ringing.
After a minute or so of sizing each other up, both fighters attacked at the same moment, to a tumultuous roar from the Rams. Malarkey’s swiftness was limited by his sheer bulk, and only his eyeballs could move with sufficient quickness to capture Chevie darting under his ham-fist to punch him twice in the solar plexus. Which had about as much effect as throwing a snowball at Mount Everest.
Punches not working, Chevie realized, straightening her fingers and jabbing them into Malarkey’s kidney. It does not matter if a man is as big as a house and made from red brick: if he gets a solid poke in the kidneys, it is going to hurt.
Malarkey roared and reflexively jerked his torso, which bumped Chevie into the human cordon around the fighting arena.
Rough hands tousled her hair and one cheeky so-and-so even patted her bottom.
“See that? What she done with her fingers there?” said one Ram, behind her.
“Fingers? I coulda sworn she used her thumb,” replied his comrade.
“Nah, dopey. Four fingers, held stiff, like so.” And the Ram demonstrated the move on Chevie, sending her lower back into spasm and giving Malarkey enough to time to get a grip on her neck.
Game over, thought Chevie, as her feet left the ground.
She chopped at Malarkey’s forearm and pinched the nerves in the crook of his elbow, just as Cord Vallicose had assured her would break the grip of the biggest son of a gun on this green earth. Apparently he hadn’t taken Victorian crime bosses into account.
Malarkey laughed in her face, but Chevie thought she detected a spark of relief in his eyes.
“You had help, Otto. Remember that when you’re gloating on your throne.”
Malarkey squeezed her windpipe, choking off the accusation along with her air. Chevie hung on to his arm, taking the strain off her neck, trying to avoid spinal damage, but already the lack of oxygen was blurring her vision and draining the strength from her limbs.
“Riley,” she croaked, though she knew the boy was under guard outside the throng. He could neither see her nor help her if he did catch a glimpse.
Malarkey drew back his free hand. “This pains me greatly, little maid. Yes, I prove my physical supremacy once again, but it will cost me a pretty pound to honor all the chink bet against you, not to mention the fact that I lose me own wager. I bet on you, girl, and you let me down.”
Malarkey clenched his fist, his knuckles creaking.
“I won’t kill you,” he promised. “And you should wake up with most of yer teeth and marbles.”
Chevie tried to draw away, but she was held fast. The ringing in her ears changed from Star Trek to something more strident. A simple bell. Was her subconscious trying to tell her something?
Malarkey cocked an ear, and Chevie thought for a second that he could hear what was inside her head; then the Ram king called, “Shush! Shut yer babbling gobs. Can you not see I am listening?”
Silence fell almost instantly, except for Mr. Skelp, who was just waking up.
“Wot’s occurring, m
ates? I remember having me porridge this morning and then . . . nuffink.”
Malarkey took three steps into the crowd and silenced Skelp with a boot to the chin.
“I said quiet, you dolts!”
There was dead silence, except for the curious ringing.
Malarkey’s eyes widened as his mind connected the noise with an object. “The Telephonicus! ’Tis the Telephonicus Farspeak!”
A chorused Awww rose through the Hidey-Hole’s ballroom, and all the heads swiveled, lemminglike, toward Malarkey’s throne. On a walnut parlor table stood a device, carved from ivory, in two parts: a base and cylinder, connected by twisting cables. The device jangled with each ring.
Malarkey summarily hurled Chevie into the arms of the throng.
“Hold her. Not too tight now, boys. No one hurts the maiden but me.”
He ran to the Telephonicus Farspeak and delicately answered the call, little finger raised like a duchess taking tea.
“Helloooo,” he said, his accent a little more refined than usual. “This is Mr. Otto Malarkey speaking from the HideyHole. Who is it on the hother end?”
Malarkey listened a moment, then pressed the earpiece to his chest and hissed to the Rams.
“It’s Charismo. I can hear him so clear, like he’s a fairy in my ear hole.”
No one was particularly surprised to hear that it was Charismo’s voice emanating from the earpiece, as it was Mr. Charismo who had installed the Farspeak in the Hidey-Hole. Even so, at the mention of his name, several of the villains blessed themselves, and a couple of the Catholics genuflected. A few more Rams formed triangles with their thumbs and forefingers, an ancient gesture to ward off evil.
“Come now, brothers. Mr. Charismo is a friend to the Rams,” said Malarkey, but his words sounded forced and hollow.
Malarkey listened some more, his face falling. When Charismo had finished speaking, Malarkey nodded as if that could be transmitted over the phone line, then replaced the ivory earpiece in its holder on the base.
“Well, Rams,” he said. “There’s good and bad in it. Mr. Charismo has heard somehow of the Injun and the boy. He instructs that we deliver them direct to his residence. There is not to be a mark on either, he says.”