by Ana Salote
Oy nodded.
The door made a thin whine, not loud, but to the two boys it tore the night- deadened house like a shriek. They looked up to the Master’s room just above their heads.
The faint sound broke into Jeopardine’s restless sleep. He opened one eye.
Oy and Alas linked arms, steadying each other. There were three steps down. Cold pooled on the stone floor chilling their ankles. Alas held the candle higher. A squirret looked at him through yellow liquid. It appeared to have just dived into the jar. Its front paws seemed to be testing for a way out while its tail floated above it. There were two rows of lamps above a scrubbed table. A tray of instruments held scalpels, scissors, scrapers and forceps. In a rack were saws of different sizes. Turning slowly, Alas let the candlelight reflect on lizards, fish, coiled snakes, birds and mammals of all kinds.
Oy picked up a jar. ‘A baby dimil.’
Its lip ballooned out and its eyelashes wafted at him.
Alas nudged Oy and pointed to a clip above the table. A pair of stained hide gloves hung from it. Alas stared at them, and exhaled, letting his head fall forwards. They moved further into the room.
‘What’s this?’ whispered Oy. Hanging on the back wall was a cloak of feathers. Oy stroked it, then pulled his hand back with a jump.
‘What?’ Alas said, snapping with nerves.
‘I don’t know. Feels funny.’
Underneath the cloak was a table like an altar. On it was a basket heaped with small dead animals. Mouse feet, tiny beaks, dull eyes and worm-like tails could be seen in the mass of fur and feathers. Alas’s face showed disgust; Oy’s, pity. Below the table was a black curtain. Alas drew it aside revealing an iron chest, heavily chained and padlocked. He touched the cold chains.
‘Let’s go.’
He grabbed Oy’s arm and pulled him towards the door. Oy tried to close the door soundlessly but only made the whine longer and louder.
Jeopardine slung his legs out of bed and aimed for his slippers. It was beyond him. His brain could not connect with his legs but he managed to stand up. He tried walking across the room but his legs wheeled him round in circles. By luck he hit the door, stepped out much too far and took the steps outside his room in one pace.
Alas and Oy heard the bump and the curses. They ran, swinging on the banisters, taking the stairs in flying strides.
Lucinda stood in alarm as they came tumbling down the basement steps.
‘He saw you!’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Alas panted.
‘Well, did you get in? What’s in there?’
‘It’s bones – like I thought.’
‘What sort of bones?’
‘Animals, but there’s a chest we couldn’t get into.’
‘Leave it at that then,’ said Lucinda. ‘At least you might sleep better now.’
‘I’d like to,’ Kurt sat up angrily, ‘if you would all stop running around and shut up.’
He dropped back pulling the cover over his ears.
Jeopardine had fallen just short of the steep Basalt Staircase and lay like a beetle stranded on its back. Eventually his long shanks keeled to one side like a collapsed cricket and he slept.
Pashley carried up his breakfast tray. As her eyes came level with the Master’s legs, her head retracted like a turtle’s. His nightshirt was in serious disarray. The shirt so snowy, the black hair on his legs so glossy and long. She spun on her heel and went straight back down. ‘I’ll carry that picture with me for weeks,’ she told Inch. ‘In fact I doubt if I’ll ever be able to look at him again without seeing it.’
‘Arnica for the bruising,’ said Dr Sandy later, ‘but don’t try to get out of bed again. You could easily have killed yourself on those stairs. Run a’bed and stairs do not go together.’
‘But I heard someone moving around in the Ossiquarium.’
‘Doubtless it was the delirium.’
‘Possibly not. I have some extremely rare and valuable specimens down there.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Stealing to order happens frequently in ossiquary. Skinnitar, you know, my rival for the presidency: he’d stop at nothing. Could you just put my mind at rest? Take those keys and check that there are no signs of disturbance.’
Dr Sandy locked the Ossiquarium and returned quickly with the keys. ‘Everything secure, just as you left it I’m sure.’
Jeopardine eased himself back on the pillows and sighed wearily as his legs began jerking again.
Alas waited under the staircase. ‘Dr Sandy, you’ve got to help us. Last night we…’
‘Your Master was hallucinating last night,’ Dr Sandy interrupted, ‘about the theft of his rarer specimens.’ He handed Alas a piece of bent wire. ‘You left it in the lock.’
9 Auction
Against Doctor’s orders Jeopardine got up and walked. It was painful and his hips made a sound like a chain off its cogs, but he had to do it. There were bones to buy.
It was the last day of the bone auctions. He limped through Crust’s cobbled square with Raymun as his crutch. They passed beneath an archway topped with crossed thigh bones. The bone markets opened out before him and a boyish excitement took over.
Stalls as far as the eye could see, all laden and strung with bones. Bones were so clean, the lines so pure, stripped of all that could spoil or moulder. Bones were all that lasted. Bones mattered. Without bones what were we but collapsed jelly and empty rags? So Jeopardine mused. And what did his rival, Skinnitar, see? – standing over there with his cronies. Money, that’s all. None of the charm of bones, none of the stark beauty. The man did not deserve to be President.
The familiar smells of sealer and bone balm hung over the stalls. Afflish children bought bags of small, mixed bones for two thummers. They sat in circles on the ground haggling with each other and swapping spares. Jeopardine smiled, bowed and tipped his hat to anyone with a vote as they pushed through to the auction ring. He took his favourite seat on a high tier. Raymun made himself small on the floor. Jeopardine put his hand in front of his mouth and talked to Raymun. ‘I drop out at two hundred and fifty. You know what to do if I go higher.’
The auctioneer stood behind a table surrounded by the veiled humps of the larger lots. ‘Welcome to our biggest sale of the year,’ he began. Talk around the ring tailed off. ‘We’ve all got elections in mind so whether you’re running for the committees or going for the top job, here at Garrat’s we’ve got things to suit.’
The auctioneer warmed up with the cheaper lots. In the catalogue these were marked with C for common. Then he moved to the rares. ‘Butter-brained tardy crow with head. Nice colouring on this one, blue-black bones. Plunger birds like to snack on its head, hence the rare grade.’
Jeopardine needed the crow to make a set. He bid for it and won. Then came the very rares. A pulse under Jeopardine’s jaw began to throb.
‘The next lot is one for the connoisseur.’
‘This is the one,’ Jeopardine alerted Raymun.
‘It’s a recent find from Delvers & Co: a very rare gaol-tail otterine.’ The cover was removed to murmurs of admiration. ‘It’s seventeen years since I’ve handled one of these,’ said Garrat, signalling to his assistant.
The man lifted the tail. ‘The little fish go in,’ he said, making swimming motions with his hand. He drew the lower ribs together and the tail bones followed forming a trap. ‘The little fish can’t get out,’ he said.
What a piece of design. Jeopardine had craved one for seventeen years. Seeing it afresh, the bones called to his bones. It would make the perfect centrepiece to his election show.
‘We’ve had record viewings for this, and the seller has asked for a double-me sale.’
Jeopardine swore, he hated the gimmicky double-me sales. At a fixed price the auctioneer would stop the sale and offer the lot to anyone prepared to double the bid at that point, with a surprise lot thrown in.
‘Who’ll start me at two hundred gildans?’ said Garrat.
Jeopardine kept his n
erve and waited. The room waited with him till the auctioneer dropped to 100 gildans.
The first bid lit a fuse. The sale blasted off at alarming speed.
Garrat took a huge breath and began:
‘A hundred I’m bid, one ten, who’ll give me one ten? One ten, one ten, one twenty, one thirty, one forty, one fifty, one fifty I’m bid, one sixty at the back, and seventy, eighty, thank you, sir; ninety anywhere? And ninety, two hundred.’ He pointed at each bidder with his pencil, stabbing all over the room. On and on the bidding streamed. People were carried along. They hardly knew if they had bid or not. They sometimes left with bones they did not want. It was a hazard of the auction room. Garrat’s voice rolled on in one long breathless yodel. Jeopardine came in at two twenty. As arranged, Raymun tugged his sleeve at two fifty, but Jeopardine shook him off.
Garrat took a breath. ‘Double-me stops it now,’ he said. There was an excruciating pause.
‘Dig deep and take it home now. At two fifty, who’ll double me? Double and win.’ Jeopardine and Skinnitar willed each other not to nod, wink, wave, twitch or even to breathe.
Garrat pointed his pencil at one then the other. ‘Last chance. Once, twice, no takers?’ He recommenced his yodel. ‘I’m selling again at two fifty, and sixty…’
Jeopardine was dragged over his limit and higher, and higher again.
‘A sure-fire vote-winner. I have three twenty. With you, sir, at three twenty.’
Only Skinnitar and Jeopardine remained in the battle. Raymun kept on tugging but Jeopardine simply slapped his head and kept on bidding. It was always the same. He wanted to stop but he couldn’t. He was so far above his limit he felt sick, but the excitement and the craving won. He made a final desperate bid of four fifty.
Skinnitar was cool at four hundred and sixty gildans. Easy to be cool when your new wife is an heiress with digging rights.
Jeopardine dropped his eyes. ‘Going,’ Jeopardine slumped in his seat, ‘going,’ he sank further, ‘gone.’ Bang.
He didn’t even notice as the final lot was wheeled in and uncovered by four men. The buzzing, gasping crowd made him look up. What he saw was breathtaking. It screamed U for unique. ‘A pre-flood bullibeast with coral tusks and fine striations,’ announced Garrat. It was out of Jeopardine’s league. The flashy museum pieces always went to Odol. If only Jeopardine’s grandfather had thought to add some digging rights to the waif rights it could have been him, not Odol, up there on the private balcony. Waif rights just weren’t the gildan minters they used to be.
Odol was the sole bidder for the bullibeast. He took it at the reserve price, just short of two thousand gildans.
Raymun reported the day’s failure to the waifs that night. ‘Don’t know when I’ve seen Master in a worse temper,’ he told them. ‘Normally I gets to go on top of the carriage. On the way back he put the crow in my seat and stowed me underneath.’
‘What’s all the fuss about old bones?’ said Gritty.
‘Wants to be the president of something, don’t he?’ said Blinda.
‘He could still pull it off,’ said Raymun. ‘Needs a unique though to be sure of it. Black markets are his best bet. And there’s always the dinner – a good pie goes a long way with Odol. But, like I said, he’s feeling sensitive, so don’t cross him.’
He left them wondering who would be the first to feel the Master’s temper. Alas knew that he was high on the list.
10 Rook’s Feast
It was the fourth of the month. Alas looked at his chart. Rook’s chimney. He didn’t need the bird symbol anymore; he could read the words. So that was back on the list. He’d never cleaned that chimney before. Rook’s Parlour had been locked and out of bounds since his arrival.
‘You’re to clean the chimney before the dust covers come off,’ said Raymun, sorting through his heavy keyring. ‘You’ll need the master hatch key.’
Alas took it gloomily. He had a growing dread of his work. The sweep’s brush with a line drawn through it meant it was a large chimney, a climber. Climbers were what he really hated. He knew that he was in a growth spurt in spite of the lack of food. Once that would have caused him to rejoice but not any more. He was afraid to leave, afraid to stay and afraid of the climbers which kept on getting tighter. Mrs Midden had never been able to find a rhyme for chimney, so there was no relief in other work. She had considered hearths and baths but decided against it on the grounds that sweeps could dirty a bathroom just by being in it.
Alas picked up his roll of sooty cloths and ducked into the hatch just outside the boot room. He moved without thought to the farthest end of the east wing. The ground floor layout was mapped in his brain. Rook’s Parlour was the third hatch after the turning. By feel he unlocked the hatch, slid it aside and crawled out into the cool, resting room. Rooms where people did not go had a special atmosphere. They changed, but minutely, over ages. Webs were spun. Insects turned transparent in death. The air was only breathed by moths and moulds. It should have felt peaceful, yet, as Alas looked around at the shrouded furniture he felt uneasy, as though something watched him.
Standing on the hearth, he touched the birds carved into the ebony fire surround. Rooks: he tested the wicked points of their beaks with a grimy finger.
The mantel was high above his head. He need barely stoop to look up the chimney. At least it was good and wide. Some of the smaller chimneys left him breathless with his knees crushed up against his heart.
He pulled his cap down low, lit a wax spill, stuck it in his cap band, and tied thin muslin over his nose and mouth. Using a short ladder to raise himself inside, he leaned against the back wall of the chimney and braced his knees against the front. By the light of the spill he could see that the chimney was without the usual velvet pile of soot, but there must be some blockage ahead: there was no daylight above him. As he climbed further he could see why. The chimney branched into two narrower tunnels.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the left – looks a bit wider than the other.’
It was awkward to shift across without slipping. He rested with his head under the smaller chimney and looked up. Twigs. A bird’s nest. He put his arm in and started to pull at the nest. Sooty rags were worked into it. It felt like there were whole branches in there; hard and heavy, almost like bones. The flame of the spill rose towards the straw of the nest. He was about to put it out but then he saw the ribcage, still wedged up against the wall and above that, a skull.
Alas jerked back and slid some way down the chimney before jamming his knees against the bricks. He shinned the rest of the way recklessly, finally falling into the hearth where he crouched on the cloths and coughed aside from the settling soot. A finely shod foot rested on the fender.
‘Ah,’ said Jeopardine, ‘have you seen to the blockage?’
‘Sir, I…’
‘No need to elaborate. It’s come to my attention that you’ve been conferring with Dr Sandy. It is not your place to initiate conversation with your betters.’
Alas raised himself. His eyes and brain turned sharp as he waited to hear how much the Master knew.
‘You are, I hear, distressed by the accidents which sometimes befall your fellow servants, so you lay blame rather than accept life’s random cruelty.’
‘Sir, I…’
‘Don’t understand? Accidents will happen, is the usual way of putting it. And now we come to the point. Mishaps such as…’ he pointed to the chimney with the knob of his cane, ‘may be avoided or they may be hastened toward. You, I notice, are for hastening. Do you really long to provide a feast for the rooks?’
‘No, sir.’
‘As to the blockage, perhaps you are not keen to remove it.’
‘No, sir, no – I couldn’t, my knees wouldn’t… carry me back up there.’
‘Let it be then, as a reminder of the mishaps that lie in wait for the indiscreet, for those who meddle. Do you understand me?’
Alas tried to read the cold eyes, but all he saw was his own miniature image reflecte
d back and he knew that he was no more to Jeopardine than that: a tiny disturbance in his eye. ‘I understand most clearly, sir.’
‘One more thing: it may be that in seeking out mishap you attract it, not just to yourself, but to your friends. Take my advice: observe Raymun, follow his example, work cheerfully, don’t strive to grow and all may be well. And be assured of this, I will be watching. Clear up that soot, lock the hatch and return the key to Raymun.’
‘Before me, who was chimneys?’ Alas pressed Lucinda when he was sure that the others slept.
‘That was Owin. We were good friends; he looked after me when I first came. He was a bold one. He’d steal whenever he got the chance; from the dairy, the butcher’s cart, the swill tubs. One time he altered the setting on Midden’s sausage machine, so it made ‘em all a bit shorter and one extra which Owin ate raw. He’d do anything to get over that measuring line. And it worked. He shot up like rhubarb under a bucket. He was wide as well, wide for chimneys. You never saw a waif as stocky.’
‘Can you remember his leaving?’
‘It wasn’t regular. It was just before a measuring. Miss Spindle came to do it and Master had to explain how he’d measured Owin himself; said Owin had asked for it. Owin was a long way over the line and keen to leave so Master had to let him go.
‘Miss Spindle wasn’t happy about that; said how she’d been solemnly invested with responsibility for measuring and it wasn’t for just anyone to usurp her. Master looked offended and she looked offended and they went away and had extra long refreshments, and came out all smiling.’
Alas was nodding slowly to himself. ‘And was anyone there to see Owin off?’
‘None of us. He didn’t even tell us he was going. Maybe that was part of the deal with Master. Raymun might know.’
‘Don’t mention it to Raymun.’
‘What’s wrong Alas?’
Alas listened for the regular quiet motions of sleep all around him. ‘It’s… it’s bad. It’s as bad as you can imagine.’