The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  Chapter 23

  Consuming fascination and fastidious revulsion are but the same emotion travelling under different guise. By their aid will the benches of your theatre be filled. And by their whim will the mob drive you from your pitch under a rain of firebrands and rotting fruit.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  The two agents sat on the opposite side of the large carriage from us, both still wearing their hats. Farthing’s arms were crossed, his expression unreadable. The other man was examining the list of names and occupations. His swordstick leaned against the seat next to him.

  “Sam is short for Samuel?” he asked, not looking up from the paper.

  I gave Tinker’s arm a squeeze. In all the upset, I feared he might have forgotten the name he’d chosen for himself.

  “Just Sam,” said Tinker.

  “When did you join this...” he hesitated, as if searching for the correct designation, “...this circus?”

  “Summer.”

  “And where are your parents?”

  “Ain’t got none.”

  “Your guardian then?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Then you should be in an orphanage. What town do you come from?”

  “This is his home,” I said.

  “The purpose of an orphanage is to raise orphans. The purpose of a circus...” He faltered, as if voicing his thought might render the idea yet more distasteful. “I hardly need to elaborate on the implications for his moral education if he remains exposed to all of this... this burlesque cabaret.”

  “All this what?” I asked, indignation making me sound more waspish than was seemly, or indeed safe.

  “Thievery and dwarves,” he said, as if the words belonged together. As if they made his argument unanswerable.

  Indignation rose in my throat like bile. When all people acted within the bounds of approved moderation, would the Patent Office then be satisfied? Would the human character one day require a patent mark and all those that fell beyond their narrow approval be stored away in warehouse prisons like so many unseemly machines?

  “I would rather be born a dwarf than cut a man with a sword for no just reason!”

  “Don’t take that tone. I am an agent of the Patent Office!”

  “I’ll look after the boy,” I said. “Put me down on your list as his guardian if you will.”

  “We’re behind schedule,” said John Farthing. “Orphans aren’t our business today.”

  Both agents were staring at me now. Farthing with what could have been irritation, the other man with evident anger. I felt a blush rising in my cheeks. Looking down, I saw the mud that caked my blouse. Fouled straw from beneath the beast wagon had become caught in the fabric of my skirt. My impulsive words seemed suddenly ridiculous.

  “From this offer of guardianship, I gather you regard yourself to be of good character,” said Farthing’s companion. His gaze returned to the list of names. “Elizabeth Brown. Your age is?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Your home?”

  “Here. This circus.”

  “Your real home, please?”

  “This is my real home,” I said.

  I braced myself for Farthing’s contradiction, but he remained silent. His mouth had thinned to a pale line and he seemed to be avoiding my gaze. Either he was playing a different game from his colleague, or this was a charade which they had devised together. Surely they could not believe that a game of “hard man soft man” would win my trust and that I would simply confess my secrets when Farthing next had me on my own.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I was born in the circus, if that is what you mean.”

  From within the folds of his cloak, the agent produced what I took to be a silver and gold cigarette case. But when he snapped it open, I saw it to be the hinged frame for two miniature portraits. Each picture showed the same young man. In one he stood face forward. The other showed his profile.

  “Have you seen this man?”

  For a moment I stared, amazed by the object held before me. A scroll of inlaid lapis lazuli curled around the outside of the frame. Here and there diamonds caught the light. But it was the pictures of the young man that rendered me unable to speak. So fine was the brush work that it seemed more like a real person than a painting. And what a face – the chin finely sculpted yet strong, the cheekbones high, the eyes like sapphires. He was clean shaven, contrary to the prevailing fashion.

  The Republic’s austere guardians had power and money, no doubt. But they would never display it so conspicuously. Only an aristocrat of the Kingdom would have both the means and the appetite to flaunt their wealth with such a trinket. A lifetime of labour from a working man might not earn sufficient money to pay for such a thing. It was surely the picture of the Duchess’s brother, of which she had spoken.

  I knew that the Patent Office could seize property. But in taking an object of great value from a person of influence, they had demonstrated their power with shocking clarity.

  The agent lowered the picture. “Well?”

  I could sense Tinker’s anxiety through the tightening of his grip on my arm.

  “It’s a pretty picture,” I said. “Who did you take it from?”

  “It’s not your place to ask questions.”

  “I should like to meet him,” I said. “He’s a handsome man.”

  “We’re wasting our time.” The agent folded the case closed with a sharp click. “You boy,” he said. “Come with me.”

  No sooner had the carriage door closed than John Farthing was on the edge of his seat and whispering at me. “Don’t you understand? I can’t protect you.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Keep your voice down!” he hissed. “You’re on the watch list. You’ll be taken if your identity’s discovered. Tell me what you know and I’ll try to keep your name hidden.”

  “I know you’re searching for the man in the picture,” I said. “He must’ve been here, else why would you be? And coming in force tells me that he must be in possession of some device you think unseemly.”

  “Don’t play games. Where’s he gone? And where’s the device?”

  I folded my arms and pressed my lips together, mirroring his position of a few moments before. I should have been scared. But for some reason the only emotion I could feel was fury. This man who had pretended to be so charming on our first meeting – how could he think he would fool me again against all the evidence? Perhaps I was angry with myself for having been so completely taken in.

  Seconds passed as we stared each other down. It was Farthing who broke.

  “Was the warning I gave not sufficient?” he said. “I know it’s for your brother that you do these things. But the Patent Office is blind to sentiment. It can’t afford to see the person – only the action. I might think of you in a positive light. But the law can’t know the difference between your neck and the neck of an anarchist.”

  “How do you think of me then?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Maybe I am an anarchist.”

  “If you knew the forces at work in the world, you’d not joke so.”

  “Don’t mistake this for humour!”

  “There are people who’d have the Gas-Lit Empire come crashing down. If they could.”

  “I’m flattered you think me so dangerous.”

  “I don’t!” He bunched his fists, as though he was the one who had the right to feel anger. “I’m trying to protect you,” he said.

  “Are you indeed? I’m presented with two agents, bad and good. It’s the oldest trick of interrogation! You suppose me so dim-witted?”

  “By all the codes of office, I should deliver you for prosecution.”

  “Then tell me why you haven’t.”

  “A feeling.”

  “Feelings are permitted?”

  He sat back and looked down at the floor of the carriage, his expression strained. “Now you make a joke of me. But
there’s something about you. I can’t rid myself of the hope that you might be redeemed–”

  “Redeemed!”

  “–and that the Patent Office might benefit more by your freedom than your punishment.”

  “The Patent Office! You can’t know how much I hate it.”

  “Why must you take all my attempts at generosity and throw them back in my face? I’d see you set free. But you push me. You provoke. As if you want me to be a tyrant. And the last thought on your mind as you’re led to the gallows will be self-righteous conceit believing all your prejudices proved true!”

  I un-gritted my teeth to speak. “I need no more proof of tyranny.”

  “Our only desire is the wellbeing of the common man.”

  “I am not a man.”

  “Of that,” he said, “I’m well aware.”

  Chapter 24

  Without story, your illusion is but trickery and hoax. With story it is transmuted into magic. That is the greatest trick of all.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  Two hours after the men of the Patent Office had departed, Silvan drove the missing wagon back onto the field. He did not pull in the reins, but brought the horse to a halt with a word. Then he beckoned me over. I followed him around to the back of the wagon, the door of which was opened from within by Harry Timpson, his eyes hidden by the smoked glass of his goggles. He reached out a hand. “Help me,” he said.

  With Silvan holding his right arm and me on his left, we guided him down the steps and across the rough grass to his usual wagon. When we were inside, Timpson lowered himself onto his cot and dismissed Silvan with a wave. The door closed and I found myself alone with the great impresario.

  “Why did you leave?” I asked.

  “The Patent Office and I have a long history,” he said. “I don’t wish to unnecessarily put myself or my collection of devices in their gaze.”

  “Then the devices are illegal?”

  “Do you know what that means – illegal? The Patent Office has built great libraries of books, the only purpose of which is to attempt to divide the seemly from the unseemly, the legal from the illegal. Two centuries of precedent. The wisdom of generations of lawyers and judges. They drew a line, but the harder they laboured to sharpen it, the wider it became. It’s now a chasm into which the entire Gas-Lit Empire might fall and be lost forever. The question is not whether my machines are illegal, it’s whether our glorious Patent Office is positively disposed to my case. As it happens, they are not.”

  My eyes had started to become accustomed to the gloom in Timpson’s windowless wagon, which I now saw to be in a state of disarray. Boxes lay overturned on the work bench. Clothes had been strewn in a haphazard fashion over the floor. Even the cot mattress lay askew.

  “Did they find what they were looking for?” I asked.

  Timpson unbuckled and removed his goggles, revealing the milky opalescence of his irises. “The Patent Office moves in mysterious ways. I doubt even their agents understand the objective that the leviathan is bent on achieving.”

  “The wellbeing of the common man,” I said, the slogan feeling even more jaded than usual.

  Timpson pointed to a flask that lay on its side under the work bench. Once I had fetched it, he unscrewed the cap and took a long draught, swilling it around his mouth before swallowing. He coughed then, sending his shrunken frame into a series of paroxysms. When I tried to offer help he held up his hand to ward me off. At last he accepted a handkerchief from a pile on the floor, with which he dabbed under his eyes and around his mouth.

  A minute passed before he had the breath and composure to speak again. “I’ve spent my life searching for the elixir,” he said. “That substance which, when perfected, will transmute base metal into gold. You’ve seen my show?”

  “I wasn’t permitted, sir.”

  “And that would stop you? I recognise a kindred spirit, Elizabeth Barnabus. You’re like your old man. Do you want to know why I’ve kept my troop here for so long? It’s dangerous, as you’ve witnessed. Staying still we’re too easily found. And we’ve already emptied the purses of the locals. No more money’s going to flow in.”

  “Then make some gold,” I said.

  Bending forward he selected three playing cards from a spilled deck on the floor – the queen of spades and a pair of twos. Having shown me each in turn, he placed them face down on the cot next to him, the queen in the middle. He then slid them around, middle to edge, edge to middle, back and forth, slowly enough to follow. Though old, his fingers were still dextrous.

  “Now,” he said. “Where’s the queen?”

  Knowing what to look for, I had seen the trick. But not wishing to reveal my knowledge, I placed my finger on the centre card, the one that should have been the queen but for his sleight of hand.

  He turned the card over, revealing the queen of spades, which absolutely should not have been there, for he had switched it. I had seen him do it.

  “You honour me,” Timpson said.

  “How so?”

  “In the Bullet Catcher’s Handbook it’s written that the great illusion is the one the audience doesn’t see. But greater than that is one that makes a fool of another illusionist.”

  “But I chose correct.”

  “Then why the widening of your eyes as you saw the card? Did you think it was only Tania who could read minds from faces?”

  “I did see a sleight,” I admitted. “Or thought I did.”

  “Good. We shall have the truth from each other. And you’ve seen also the secret of my alchemy?”

  “I thought I had. The crucible is the gimmick. Gold is hidden in its walls. The lead runs out through a hole in the base. But then I saw you sell the gold for half its value. Do you take the loss for fame alone?”

  Timpson smiled. “You honour me again. But that secret must remain with me.”

  He paused to take another sip from the flask. This time he did not cough. “How old am I do you suppose?”

  “My father met you. That must have been before I was born.”

  “Long before,” Timpson said. “I was a grey hair even then. And him just starting out. He wanted a place in my troop, did you know that?”

  “He never said.”

  “I turned him down. He would have been ashamed to admit it.”

  “He wasn’t good enough?”

  “Too good. A man like that needs a troop of his own. He’d never have stayed.”

  Timpson fell silent. The act of talking seemed to have tired him. I waited, thinking about my father, trying to imagine him as a precocious young conjuror of my own age perhaps. If I had been born male, everything would have happened differently. The Duke of Northampton would never have moved against my family. My father would still be alive and I would be the apprentice ringmaster in the Circus of Mysteries as it meandered through the lanes of the Kingdom.

  Timpson screwed the top on the flask he had been sipping from. “I once believed that the elixir, when found, would lead to the prolongation of human life,” he said. “Perhaps indefinitely. But every year that passes brings the truth home to me more forcefully. Death is not our enemy. It is decrepitude that we must fight.”

  “You’re fortunate,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “My father never achieved your age.”

  “But he died in full vigour. To manage the pain I must take laudanum. But that fogs my mind and puts my goals beyond reach. I choose to leave the opiates on the shelf and rely on weaker tonics. I’ll not live much longer. But I’d have immortality for my name at least. And that, the elixir may still offer.”

  “Then you do give your gold away for fame.”

  “I seek the end of illusion. The elixir is close to me now. I’ll pay any price to possess it. Do you understand that? Any price. The pieces are in place. I wait for the other side to make its move. I’ve kept the troop here in this field so that those who’ve been following may find us. And I believe you, Miss Barnabus, to be one of those
people. Thus I’ve suffered you to remain while I discover whether you’re a pawn or a queen. Perhaps you’re an agent of the Patent Office.”

  “Never that!”

  His opal eyes held me for a moment. “You’ll be confined until such time as your role is proved. Then we’ll decide what to do with you.”

  I backed away, treading clothing underfoot. He reached for the smoked glass goggles, placing them over his eyes as I opened the door. I turned, ready to sprint for the lane. But Silvan was waiting for me, one hand resting on the hilt of his knife. Sal stood beside him, a full foot taller, the small bundle of my clothes and possessions clutched to his chest and an expression of infinite sadness on his face.

  When bargaining with Silvan to join the troop, I had suggested the beast wagon as a place to sleep. I could not have guessed that within a week I would find myself locked there in the cage opposite the two lions.

  I was given a bale of fresh straw, half a loaf of dark bread, a hunk of salty ham and a wine bottle filled with water. Then the gate was closed and the wooden flats to either side were raised, hiding me from casual view. No sooner had they left than I was busy with the work of escape. Reaching my arm through the bars I stretched out towards the vertical rod that would, if raised, unlock the gate. My fingers groped air, inches short of their goal.

  Having tried until my shoulder was sore, I gave up and settled down for the night, wrapping all my clothes around me and burying myself in straw. There I lay, listening to the breathing of the lions in their cage and trying to fall asleep. But each time I drifted off, the cold crept into my body, waking me again. I clenched and relaxed my hands and scrunched my toes in my boots until blood and feeling returned. In my few moments of sleep, dreams came rushing in – Fabulo swearing at me, Silvan gripping a knife, Timpson removing his goggles to reveal holes where his eyes should have been.

  When grey lines marked out the cracks between boards and side panels, I knew that dawn had started to spread from the east.