by Webb, Holly
When they were still at anchor she had been anxious to go below, but now she found it very odd to be moving whilst enclosed in this little wooden box. However strange it would be to see the water crashing past them, surely it would be better than airless confinement.
‘No.’ Bella shuddered. ‘Actually, I would prefer it if you would put that blanket around my head, so as to block out the awful watery noise.’
Gus groaned in agreement. Rose sighed, and resignedherself to a long and boring journey. But some time later she realised that Bella’s moans were dying away, and she was sagging back against the bedclothes. Gus had crawled under the blankets, and was now only a sullen lump. Carefully, Rose wriggled away from Bella, standing up slowly and stretching her cramped limbs. Then she crossed eagerly to the porthole.
She was only torn away from the terrifying, spellbinding sight of the solid walls of greyish-green water by the strange noises that suddenly broke out overhead: angry shouts, scuffling and the banging of hatches. Footsteps began to race past outside her cabin, and Bella stirred, turned over, and thankfully slept on.
Rose wrapped herself in the old Macintosh cloak that had served her so well through the snowy winter, and quietly opened the cabin door, following the young midshipman who was pelting down the gangway.
He seemed surprised to see her, but was polite in helping her up the ladder to the deck.
‘What is all the noise, do you know?’ she ventured to ask, half-expecting him to laugh and tell her that it was some strange ritual of the sea.
‘I’m not sure, Miss,’ he replied, with an odd bob of his head, almost a bow.
Rose nearly fell backwards down the ladder. It was just as Bella had said. In her good dress, and Bella’s laces, even swathed in that strange old cloak, they thought she was a gentlewoman.
‘Should I help you across the deck, Miss?’ the boy enquired, but he looked anxious.
‘Oh, no. Please. You must attend to your duties.’ Rose didn’t want the poor boy to get into trouble with that Tartar of a captain. She caught hold of a helpful bit of wood – which probably had some important purpose, though she had no idea what – and gripped it tightly. The ship swayed underneath her like a huge animal. A sea monster, perhaps. She smiled grimly at the thought as a wave slopped over the side with a crash, the water sloshing perilously close to her best boots.
Slowly, she worked her way around the deck, holding tightly onto anything she could find. The shouting was coming from the forecastle, where she could see a group of uniformed officers, gathered around some object lying on the deck.
‘Throw it overboard,’ one of the men roared, and Rose was unsurprised to see that it was the captain.
‘Sir, really—’ another officer disagreed, but he wasinterrupted by a small blond fury.
‘You can’t! I know he’s a stowaway, but I tell you, I know him! He’s our kitchen boy, he must have stowed away in the hold for a lark. Sir, I promise you, just let me fetch Mr Fountain to vouch for him.’
‘He will be pressed into service. Confine him below decks on ship’s biscuit and water,’ the captain snarled.
‘No!’
Rose forgot about holding on and dashed headlong into the knot of dark coats to help Freddie fight. He was standing there with his fists raised, looking desperately small against the men, his eyes wide with panic.
Lying on the deck boards at his feet was a pitiful figure, white with sickness, and bleeding from a cut on his face. He was completely still, and for a horrifying moment Rose thought that Bill was dead.
Dropping to her knees beside him, she pressed her hands to each side of his face, and felt him still warm under her fingers. ‘What have you done?’ she cried angrily, looking around at the men.
But none of them seemed in the slightest bit ashamed.
‘They hit him,’ Freddie told her angrily, crouching down beside her. ‘The great beasts.’
‘Stand away from him, young lady!’ the captain ordered. ‘He’s a criminal.’
‘He is not!’ Rose wrapped her arms tightly around Bill, and felt him begin to wake out of his faint.
‘He was stowed away in the hold.’ One of the younger officers tried to take her arms and pull her away, but she shook him off. ‘Believe me, Miss, he’s not someone you should be associating with.’
‘Where’s the master?’ Rose demanded anxiously, and Freddie stood up.
‘Can you wait, if I fetch him? I didn’t want to leave Bill alone before.’
Rose nodded, but one of the officers seized Freddie’s arms. ‘Not so fast.’
‘Let go of me!’ Freddie pulled angrily, and the man laughed. It was probably the laugh that did it – if he hadn’t laughed, Freddie would not have been quite so furious. As it was, Rose stretched out a hand, wanting to stop him, but it was too late. Freddie’s eyes had turned even darker than usual, black as coals against his pale skin and white-blond hair. And then they closed, and a faintly satisfied smile curved Freddie’s lips, and there was a sudden rush of air, and a crash,and the tight group of officers looming over the children was scattered as a heavy block fell from the rigging.
The young lieutenant couldn’t have proved it was Freddie who made it hit him on the shoulder. No one could. But they all knew. Tearing his sleeve from the man’s loosened fingers, Freddie turned away, dusting down his jacket with a look of cold amusement at their frightened eyes.
A worried whisper ran through the officers and the sailors who were gathering in the rigging. None of them followed Freddie, even when he turned and began to run for the hatchway. A few of the officers even backed away from Rose and Bill a little. Rose wasn’t surprised. Sailors were known to be terribly superstitious, and that block had clearly not fallenby accident.
‘Is she one as well?’ she heard one of the midshipmen whisper, and she tried to look forbidding and dangerous. But she had never felt less magical. Bill’s blood was dripping onto her cloak, and the sight of it made her feel far sicker than the movement of the ship. She stayed huddled next to Bill, one arm round his shoulders, trying to pillow his head, the other hand clutching the little hanging pocket under her cloak, where her china doll was hidden.
‘What is going on?’
Rose’s sickness faded slightly at that lazy voice, and she turned in relief, spotting a familiar pair of pointy-toed boots through the white-trousered legs surrounding her.
‘Why is my apprentice being treated like this? Rose, my dear, are you hurt?’ Mr Fountain’s voice was outraged, and the men fell away to let him stand next to her. ‘And what has happened to this boy?’
‘One of my men found him climbing out of a trunk in the hold.’ The captain had not given ground, and he was glaring furiously at Mr Fountain. ‘Would you like to explain why?’
‘Certainly not.’ Mr Fountain sounded affronted – as though explanations were beneath him. ‘I can, however, confirm that he is a member of my household. I had not intended to bring him with me, but now I find he will be very useful. Clearly the standards of behaviour aboard this vessel are not what I was expecting, and my daughter and my apprentice will require a male servant for protection among such company. You.’ He pointed to one of the midshipmen. ‘See that he is brought to my cabin. I shall have to expend precious energy on healinghim. I only hope it will not slow down my work for His Majesty. Rose, Frederick, come with me.’
‘Has that boy woken up yet?’ Freddie leaned over Rose’s shoulder, peering down at Bill.
Rose shook her head. Bill had lapsed back intounconsciousness as he was carried below deck, and he was now sleeping white-faced in Freddie’s bunk.’What on earth was he doing?’ Freddie muttered, curling himself onto a sea chest and peering over at Bill’s bandaged head. ‘If he had such an ambition to go to sea, why didn’t he just talk to the master? And I still don’t understand how he did it.’
‘Bill was in charge of bringing the trunks down from the attics,’ Rose explained. ‘He must have made sure there was an extra one.’
‘And then barricaded himself inside it?’ Freddie sounded doubtful. It was rather extreme.
Rose sighed. Freddie would never understand. ‘He doesn’t have any magic, Freddie. How else could he do it?’ She shivered, thinking of yesterday’s long, boring coach journey, bumping over the rutted roads, as the carriage had grown colder and colder. Bill had had no fur rug, and he wouldn’t have had any idea how far they had gone. Endless blackness, broken only by moments of panic when someone opened the door of the baggage coach to check that everything was stilltightly lashed. ‘What if someone had loaded the trunk upside down?’ She gulped, feeling suddenly sick again. ‘And how did he get out?’
‘Had a knife, didn’t I?’ someone muttered, and Freddie and Rose swung round. Gus leaped out of a hammock to take up a position on Bill’s feet.
‘You are very foolish,’ he told the boy sternly.
Bill stared back at him with dislike. He regarded Gus as a devil in disguise, and usually refused to acknowledge him at all. But the bang on the head seemed to have loosened his tongue.
‘I’m not leaving her alone with you lot,’ he slurred.
Rose stared down at him. ‘You did this because of me?’
‘Couldn’t let you go gallivanting without anyone to look after you.’
‘I would have looked after her!’ Freddie protested angrily.
‘Oh! No one needs to look after me, except me!’ Rose cried.
‘I’m so very glad to hear it.’ Mr Fountain was seatedsuavely on the sea chest, gazing at Rose in amusement. ‘First Gus, and now the kitchen boy. People do seem to want to protect you, Rose.’
‘He’s an apprentice footman,’ Rose answered crossly. ‘And I never asked him to come!’
‘How did he get there?’ Bill muttered, lifting himself up on one elbow, and wincing. ‘He wasn’t there before.’
‘Magic, my dear William. You didn’t see me arrive, that’s all. You know, if you had told me you wished to go abroad, I would have gladly brought you with us.’
‘Don’t want to go abroad!’ Bill retorted. ‘Can’t imagine anything worse. But you don’t know what Rose’s like! She walks under horses’ hooves, and you can’t drag her past a shop. She isn’t safe out. Who knows what she’ll do somewhere foreign?’
‘That’s not fair, that was ages ago, I’m not like that now!’ Rose wailed. Bill was making her sound like an idiot.
‘Like I said, sir. I’ve come to protect Rose. Her and me both being orphans, she’s got no one else to have a care for her. But I’ll do any other duties you have for me, sir,’ he added hastily.
‘So far it’s been me and Freddie protecting you,’ Rose snapped. ‘The captain wanted to throw you overboard! That most definitely makes up for the horse.’
‘Try to be a little more gracious, Rose. You may not have wished for the boy to protect you, but he has put himself in danger for your sake.’ Mr Fountain stood up. ‘What I came to say was that amazingly enough, we have a strong following wind.’ He coughed lightly, and looked at the ceiling. ‘Most fortunate. And so we shall be landing at Cormanse in an hour, or so the only officer brave enough to speak to me seems to think.’ He paused at the door and cast a rather guilty look atRose. ‘Which does mean that someone ought to see about waking Bella up…’
‘I hadn’t known we was going by train,’ Bill muttered, wide-eyed, to Rose, as they watched the cloud of steam roll towards them out of the tunnel, eerily lit with flashes of red and white light.
‘Not you as well.’ Rose eyed him irritably. ‘What is it about trains? I don’t see that they’re so very special.’ She was excited too, but not about the train. They were abroad! Foreign parts looked surprisingly similar to England, though, she had found with surprise. She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected.
But the inn, where they had spent the night! Miss Bridges would have been ashamed to have such damp beds, and there had been no tea at breakfast, only coffee that was more chicory and mud than anything else, Rose had thought. If this was the great Talish Empire, she was certainly glad the channel had never frozen over, and let them come invading.
‘It’s only wheels,’ she muttered irritably. She missed tea.
Bill glanced at her disgustedly, and then over her shoulder at Freddie, who shrugged. Quite clearly they agreed with each other, for once.
‘Fifty miles an hour…’ Freddie sighed. ‘Horses can only manage fifteen, Rose. And that’s a team of the very best horses. Oh, look…’
There was a mournful hooting sound, the clang of a bell, and the train drew out of the tunnel, gliding surprisingly smoothly for such a heavy iron beast. Freddie and Bill waved their hats in the air and cheered, and even Rose laughed at how grand it seemed. Bella was sitting on one of the trunks looking grumpy. She hadn’t recovered properly from her seasickness, and constantly complained of the cold. She coughed ostentatiously as the steam swirled around her.
There was a babble of Talish voices across the platform at once, as their fellow travellers demanded that their baggage be stowed away. Railways were far better established in Talis than they were in Britain, since the emperor had taken an interest very early, realising that trains were the perfect way to carry men and weaponry to the battle-front. Now, as the Talish Empire expanded, it went by rail. The newest additionto the railway was the branch that led over the Alps, by which they were to come into Italy, following the advance of the emperor’s forces.
Rose could not be as excited about trains as Freddie and Bill, but it was very gratifying to see the countryside slipping by so swiftly all that day, and to feel that every minute brought them closer to Venice.
Pine forests rattled past, and Rose smiled, thinking of the gingerbread house back at the provision merchants. Perhaps there were gingerbread palaces nestling in these woods. She leaned against the window glass, and dreamed of beds, pillowed with chocolate satins.
‘Sir…’ Rose turned from the window at last, and looked across the compartment to Mr Fountain, reclining thoughtfully against the overstuffed red velvet seat. ‘How is it that Venice has not been brought into the Talish Empire? They have taken Genoa, I remember it being in the newspaper.’
Mr Fountain looked thoughtfully at Bella, asleep under a grey woollen rug that a stewardess had provided. Bella and Gus seemed to share the same attitude to travelling – that it was better to sleep through it. Gus was the strange lump on Bella’s legs.
‘Would you like to invade a city full of Bellas, Rose?’
Rose shook her head, her eyes widening. ‘Is everyone in Venice a magician then?’
Mr Fountain laughed. ‘No, thank goodness, or perhaps we would be living in fear of a Venetian Empire instead of a Talish one. But the whole ruling elite are magical. And there are a lot of noble families in the city. It’s teeming with magic. You’ll like it, Rose. Far more of the sort of magic you want to see – practical things done by spells. The duke even has a fleet of magical ships, so I’ve been told, though that could just be a tale.’
Rose nodded, and leaned back in her seat, watching the trees as they raced past, mile after mile through thegathering night, to the magic city.
The train did not run all the way into Venice, Mr Fountain had explained, as they drew nearer. There was no bridge for it to run over. The city floated alone in the greenish-black lagoon, refusing to be tied down to the mainland. They would have to board another boat to cross to Venice itself, and then another to reach the palazzo of the British Ambassador. The railway line ended rather sadly, almost at the water’s edge, and the huffing engine had to back away into a siding, staring out across the water and denied those last few miles.
Rose stood huddled in her cloak at the ship’s prow, feeling the salt spray splash up, and squealed with delight at their first sight of the city. The glowing orange lamplights reflected in the water, the domes and bell-towers were only shadows against the stars. Almost there… The mask, and Gossamer, flashed into her mind, blurring the shining picture. But Rose shook her head. Gossamer might
have brought them here,but she refused to think of him now.
Stepping into the strange, dark gondola for the very last part of their journey, Rose blinked drowsily at the glimmering blackness of the water. She was trying to work out what day it was. How long ago had she waved goodbye to the tall white London house, wishing that Bill had come to see her off? She smiled to see him now, squashed up at the front of the strange black boat, staring just as much as she was. A day for the carriage ride, and then sailing the next morning. The night at that horrid, dirty inn. A whole day in the train – sothen it was still only the third day? Cormanse had seemed much like London, but here, they were surely more than three days from home. It felt wonderfully unfamiliar. And magical. A whole city floating on magic.
Rose gazed up at the elaborate buildings on either side of the canal, the palaces of the great Venetian families. It was late evening, but many of the buildings had lights showing, or glowing shutters pulled across their windows, and here and there a painted face shone out in the flickering light, or a jewelled mosaic pattern sparkled. It was nothing like London. The water seemed to change everything, making it shimmeryand dreamlike.
Bella, who was still feeling seasick, declared that Venice smelled, but Rose thought it was no worse than the horse smell of her own city. She sighed delightedly as they rounded a bend in the canal, and swept past a palace lit with flaming torches on either side of its water-door. It was surrounded by more of the eerie black gondolas, and party guests in sumptuous satin costumes were being gracefully handed out into the torchlight. Rose’s eyes widened as she noticed thatmany of the guests wore delicate, jewelled masks. Fiori had been right. Rose suppressed a shiver, wondering what those masks could do.
The palazzo of the British Embassy, by contrast, was dark, and it had taken quite five minutes for a disapproving servant to unbolt the front door. Now they were inside at last, their welcome had not improved. Lord Lynton stared at them mournfully, his lank greying hair and drooping eyebrows giving him the look of a depressed wolfhound. ‘The despatcharrived yesterday. And your letter. I hadn’t realised that you would be with us so soon. And at such a late hour.’ The tall man regarded them through his eyeglass, shuddering a little at Gus’s blue and orange eyes, which made him so clearly not a normal cat.