The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “The law is what a court decides. But no court has examined such a question. There is no law to cover it.”

  Thoughts ricocheted inside my head. The Patent Office was beholden only to the Great Accord and its amendments. Therein were the limits laid down by the founding fathers.

  “What would happen if this were found out?” I asked.

  He raised both his hands, palms towards me, as if signalling a speeding coach to stop, an expression of horror on his face. “That can never happen! Some knowledge is too much. We may fear the Patent Office, but it’s all that stands between us and the chaos that lies beyond the Gas-Lit Empire.”

  “Who could bring them to account if they had broken the rules?” I asked. “Could a government do it?”

  “Enough!” he said, suddenly loud. “That is enough!”

  The woman in the walking dress gasped. Others turned to look.

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. If you still wish to seek ruin, then go to the Patent Office and tell them what’s been done. I can’t stop you. But I have nothing more to say. Come tonight for your book, or I’ll throw it in the fire. Our agreement is at an end.”

  CHAPTER 6

  August 2009

  However many questions another may ask, you must always ask more. That is the way of the illusionist.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  In the days following Tinker’s discovery of the watch, which was still more than a week before my first meeting with Professor Ferdinand, I went back several times to lift the loose board next to the stove. Each time I carried his silver repeater to the light and examined the inscription, trying to imagine what could have brought Captain Bill “Lightning” Brooks north across the border and into Lincolnshire.

  In retirement, he might have returned to settle in an ancestral home. But few Royalists find life in the Republic to their liking. Even as a child, I’d found the culture oppressively austere. I thought it unlikely an old man would be able to adapt. He could perhaps have come on a short visit, though few tourists were brave enough to stray beyond the highlights of the main cities.

  There were two other possibilities. Either a Republican had ventured into the Kingdom and brought the watch back. Or the owner, a retired man-at-arms, had crossed on a specific mission – to capture me and claim the reward.

  Since the age of fourteen, I’d been running from the Duke of Northampton. He had plotted the ruin of my family, gathering our debts and bribing an agent of the Patent Office. All this he’d done with the design of owning my indentured servitude – of owning me.

  The court gave him what he wanted, but I had fled. Each time I evaded capture, the duke offered a bigger reward. It was certainly enough to tempt an old soldier across the border. But I could think of no way he could have tracked me into Lincolnshire.

  I was still immersed in these thoughts as I steamed back along the Trent towards Nottingham. Steering the boat had become so natural to me that I hardly needed to think about what I was doing. I stood with one hand on the tiller, gazing towards the next bend. On this day Tinker kept me company, sitting on the cabin roof, whittling away at a stick with his knife.

  My thoughts were so far distant that at first I didn’t notice the man waving to me from a narrow boat moored on the right bank.

  “Ahoy there!” he called.

  I waved back and was about to look to the distance once more when he beckoned.

  “Are you the Harry?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “If you’ve got an Elizabeth on board, I’ve a message for her.”

  I steered to the side and cut the engine. Tinker jumped down and quickly had us tied and secure. I turned a valve and a rush of steam vented into the air. It was not uncommon for messages to be passed boat to boat. Only the small community of the North Leicester wharf knew the name of my boat, so I should have been safe enough. But, as I approached the man who had hailed me, my senses were alert for danger.

  “Are you Elizabeth?” he asked.

  “I might be.”

  He held an envelope up for me to see. “It’s to be put in her hand only.”

  “Then I’m she,” I said. “Who gave it to you?”

  “A barge on the Grand Union. Captain heard I was heading north and asked me to look out for you.”

  I took the envelope and read: For Elizabeth on paddle boat the Harry. The handwriting was unmistakeable. Julia, my friend and one-time student, had written it. I turned my back on the man and ripped it open.

  July 18th 2009

  My dear sister,

  This is the seventh letter to you from my hand. As ever, I let it loose in the hope that it will find you, and find you well.

  I am comfortably set up now in London, and am finding university studies to be just as fascinating as we imagined. Whilst I am learning the law of this country (they don’t teach Republican law) much of it is rooted in the Great Accord, which is a foundation common to the legal systems of all civilised nations.

  As you will understand, I do not wish to mention names or addresses in a letter dispatched in this way. But if you are able to write back, which is my ardent hope, do so via my parents’ house. They would pass it on. Or, if you venture as far as this great city, you will find me every Tuesday and Friday afternoon with my fellow students watching cases argued in the courts of Fleet Street.

  You are ever in my thoughts.

  J

  “Good news?” asked the man.

  I folded the letter into my sleeve and turned to face him once more. “I’m in your debt for delivering it.”

  “Seeing a pretty girl smile is payment enough.”

  I looked at him closely for the first time. Pale blue eyes looked out from beneath a thatch of black hair, giving him a striking appearance. His cheeks and upper lip were shaved, but a beard hung down several inches from the point of his chin. I guessed him not much older than myself. Smoke rose from his boat’s chimney and I could hear the hiss of steam from the engine, suggesting he was ready to be off.

  “I’ve a pot of stew in the cabin if you’d eat with me.”

  I could smell it from the towpath. My stomach gurgled in protest. “Thank you, no,” I said, not about to take the risk. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

  “I’m not leaving just yet,” he said. “And you’ve no need to worry. The boy can eat, too. I’m Zachary, by the way.”

  Tinker grabbed my arm and gave it a squeeze, to indicate the intensity of his hunger. Zachary stepped back and gestured with his hand. When we stepped up onto the deck, he flashed perfect white teeth in a smile that seemed genuine. Then he ducked through the hatch, saying, “Give me a moment to tidy.”

  I bent close to Tinker and whispered, “Give me your knife.”

  The boy seemed to understand and complied without hesitation. I tucked it into my other sleeve, ready to use, then followed the man inside where Zachary was in the process of bundling clothes into a drawer under the cot.

  To a country person, one cabin might have seemed much the same as any other. The confined space left little room for variation. There were certain essential fixtures – a cot, a stove, a seat and built in cupboards. Perhaps because of this very sameness, each boat family strove to create differences: a display of china, embroidery and quilting, painted decoration of roses and castles. By this standard, Zachary’s cabin felt starkly underdecorated.

  “I told you to wait,” he said, though he seemed pleased enough to see us.

  A billhook and various other tools lay across the shelf where ornaments might have been displayed. Two pairs of men’s boots lay next to the steps. Both muddy. The promised pot of stew sat on the floor next to the stove.

  “The place wants a woman’s touch,” he said. And then, when we still hovered near the hatch, he gestured us to the cot to sit.

  “What are you carrying?” I asked.

  “I’m waiting for a load,” he said. “They told me it’d be here yesterday. But you know how it is. I’m expec
ting it any time. What of yourself?”

  “Packages.”

  “It’s just you and the boy?”

  “We manage.”

  “No doubt.” He wiped out two bowls with a drab cloth and ladled stew into them. “There you go,” he said, handing them to us.

  Tinker raised his spoon. I put out a hand to stop him before the food got to his mouth.

  “Won’t you be eating?” I asked.

  “Had mine already,” he said. Then he lifted the ladle from the pot and took a mouthful straight from it. After he had swallowed, he said, “See? No poison.”

  I released Tinker’s arm and he set to eating with purpose.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Zachary shrugged. “You’re right to be careful these days.”

  The stew smelled better than it tasted. The chunks of meat were tough, yet the vegetables were somehow overdone. For all that, it was warm and filling and I felt grateful.

  “Thank you,” I said, when my bowl was scraped clean.

  “You’ve got the reading then?” asked Zachary.

  I nodded.

  “But here you are, running packages. And hungry too.”

  “We get by.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Tinker had been licking out his bowl. Having extracted every bit of nourishment, he now put it to one side and rested back against the cabin wall.

  “What’s your delivery going to be?” I asked.

  “Won’t know till it gets here.”

  “You get by though. Just like us.”

  “I wasn’t meaning no insult,” he said. “It’s just that you’ve got your boat. You can read contracts. Write them too, maybe? There’d be fleets as would love to have you. Or you could make your own.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So you could eat steak all week and twice on Sunday.”

  “You’re part of a fleet?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “But there’s meat in your cooking pot.”

  “I do alright.”

  “There you go then.”

  “Except that you were hungry,” he said. “And I had stew.” He winked.

  Tinker turned to face the hatch. His muscles had tensed as if he expected someone to arrive. I’d heard nothing beyond the faint hiss of steam.

  “The boy’s jumpy,” said Zachary.

  “He’s got good ears,” I said, folding my hands on my lap, surreptitiously feeling the hasp of the knife.

  Tinker stood.

  “Perhaps he wants more stew. Hand me his bowl, will you?”

  But the boy was off up the steps and gone. The hatch banged closed behind him. Zachary was smiling again, but I had caught a flicker of alarm on his face. I stood. He matched me. I took a step towards the hatch. He took two steps towards me.

  “I really like you,” he said. “Please don’t go.”

  I let the knife slip half into my hand, but still concealed.

  “I need to check on the boy,” I said, then backed up the steps and pushed out onto the deck.

  Immediately, I knew something was wrong. Tinker was sprinting back up the towpath towards the Harry. Then he was beyond it and I saw that a small launch was steaming away at speed. Understanding came to me all at once. I ran after him. The hatch of my boat gaped wide. The lock had been ripped away. Tinker had closed the gap on the launch, but it would be too far out into the water for him to reach. A man standing at the back of it waved to us, holding up stolen objects for us to see – my father’s pistol and what I took to be Tinker’s silver watch.

  He shouted, “Thank you and goodbye!”

  Though my feet were pounding the ground, the launch had started to pull away from me. Tinker was drawing level with it. Another man on the boat started throwing lumps of coal at him. The boy lost a yard every time he had to dodge.

  The hoot of a steam whistle signalled a boat approaching from the opposite direction. Around the bend came a barge, wide beamed and taking up the middle of the canal.

  Seeing what was about to happen, I shouted, “Stay back!”

  But Tinker was hot on the chase and would not hear me.

  The launch made a violent turn towards the bank to avoid being run down. Seizing his chance, Tinker leapt towards it. He cleared the water and landed half on the awning over the thieves’ heads. The man with the pistol took aim. But Tinker had scrambled up and was a moving target. I saw a puff of smoke as the gun fired, then heard the crack of the shot. Tinker jumped or fell, I couldn’t tell which. He was among them. Then the wash of the barge hit, tossing the small launch from side to side. I saw Tinker fall, hitting the water, his arms flailing. The launch continued on its way. In moments it was around the bend and out of view.

  I ran till my lungs burned and kept running after that. At the place where Tinker had fallen, reeds fringed the edge. At first I could not see him. Then a splash called me further up the canal and I found him clambering out. He lay on his back, panting and black with mud. I took hold of him and rolled him over, searching for a bullet wound. He wriggled free of my grip and sat up.

  “You could have been killed!”

  He shook his head and held out what appeared to be a clump of water weed. When he placed it in my hand, I felt the shape and weight of my father’s pistol.

  “I got it back for you.”

  It came to me that he was unharmed, though another of his lives must surely have been used. I hugged him then, and kissed his cheeks, though the mud on him stank of sulphur. He had lunged for my gun and snatched it from them instead of going for his own precious watch. And he was alive. For that moment it seemed that I was the richest woman in the Gas-Lit Empire.

  We could have run back and confronted Zachary. But there was no proof to present and no force that I could use to press my accusation. So we took time to wash away the mud as best we could before setting off back around the bend of the canal. By the time we reached the Harry, Zachary’s boat had already steamed away.

  The cabin was a mess. The drawers had been pulled out and emptied on the floor. Our hiding places had all been discovered. The money was gone. They had even taken the remaining sacks of coal. There wasn’t enough left in the bunker for us to steam after them and alert the river police.

  “Pirates and thieves,” I said. “They must have stolen the letter from another boat. Probably they’ve a stack of others too.”

  “Sorry,” said Tinker.

  “Why?”

  “I was hungry.”

  “No. You were perfect. I should have seen. There were signs, but I didn’t read them.”

  Tinker frowned at the mention of reading.

  “Two pairs of boots but bedding for only one. I should have asked myself where the other man was. I didn’t think. And look what you did, you clever boy. You saved my gun. It’s all we’ve got left. Though I’m loathe to sell it. My father gave it to me for a purpose.”

  “You can sell this as well,” said Tinker, scooping The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook from under a pile of clothes. He held it out for me, the leather hanging limp from the board.

  I turned it in my hand. It seemed the damage I’d done to the cover had been its protection. The thieves had seen it as worthless. But then, so would others.

  “Who’d buy such a wrecked thing?” I asked.

  “Someone who can read,” said Tinker, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  “We must collect firewood,” I said. “Enough for us to steam back to Nottingham. Then I’ll do as you say – find someone who can read. Someone who understands what it’s worth. We’ll see what they’ll give us for it, eh? And then we’ll eat. Sausage and mash and gravy till we can’t eat anymore.”

  I don’t know if it was the mention of food or if it was the delayed shock of facing death, but Tinker chose that moment to give me a hug. It was the first time he did so of his own accord.

  CHAPTER 7

  September 2009

  There is no lie but what they discover. There is no truth but wh
at you can make them believe.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  Under scant moonlight, I picked my way through the gardens of the university. With a grand dinner underway, there was no one to challenge me. No need this time for me to carry a box on the pretence of making a delivery. The smell of roasting meat hung in the still air around the back door of the kitchens. I could hear the clatter of pans and a shouted order to plate up the puddings. Then I was through into the lawned quadrangle and quickly under the ink shadow of a pergola. All the windows of the ivy clad building were dark but one.

  I had not yet knocked when the door opened and Professor Ferdinand drew me inside. His office felt different in lamplight. Objects that had been mere curiosities in the daytime now seemed menacing. Shadows made statues appear to lean forwards from their shelves.

  The picture had been removed from the wall behind his desk. He stepped to the safe door and pulled it open, for it was already unlocked. I received the book.

  “You tricked me into this,” he said.

  “You were keen enough to have it.”

  “It was still a trick.”

  “I’d like to be open,” I said. “Lay my life bare for everyone to see. I just don’t have that luxury.”

  “If you try to blackmail me again, I’ll say I’ve never met you.”

  “So you do understand that the truth’s a luxury.”

  “That’s different!”

  I let his words hang. The silence became uncomfortable. He looked down to the floor, ashamed, I thought. Perhaps it was different. I was well used to living on the ragged edge. For him the experience must have been a shock.

  At last he said, “This isn’t just dangerous for us. There are powerful men who’d use what I’ve told you if they knew it. People who’d rather the Great Accord had never been signed. You must burn the book. Please.”

  I found myself holding it more tightly to my chest. “You’ve given me what I asked. So our bargain has been honoured. I won’t trouble you again.”

  I had turned and was reaching for the door handle when he called me back.

  “Miss Barnabus. Your story – it reminded me of something I’d read. I traced it and… Well, it’s here if you want it.” He held out a white envelope. “Read it later. I only hope it’ll bring more help than sorrow.”