On the edge of the crowd stood a tall man who stroked a thin moustache and leant upon a cane. He watched the game attentively, hissing gently to himself, for it was Snizzleslide true as true, who in the end stepped up to play. He watched as Greychild switched the cups, he watched as he shifted them and shuffled them about.
“Watch the cups…” Greychild stuttered. Then he stopped. Snizzleslide stared straight into his eyes, but Greychild did not recognise him.
“Well, sir,” he said, lifting the cup. “It seems you have won… let me pay you…”
Snizzleslide pocketed three of the silver shillen that he had given Greychild that morning, then slid back into the shadows to watch the game in play.
“Let me win,” a small boy pleaded. “I need to buy new teeth for my grandmother.”
“My father needs a wheel for his cart,” another wailed, “else he cannot go to work.”
“My sister needs strong medicine to cure her from crying each time the full moon comes…”
Greychild smiled at them all.
“My master Snizzleslide is wise and kind. He likes to see people play. He likes to see people win. He wants everyone to be happy!”
Snizzleslide slid away, slithering up the sides of buildings, along windowsills, clinging to gutters, all the time squinnying for baubles that might glitter like stars. When he returned to the basement he called Scumknuckle to him.
“Fetch me the new boy,” he hissed. “Fetch me Greychild. He is standing in the market square giving away all our shillen.”
Scumknuckle snarled and lumbered to the door.
“Quickly,” Snizzleslide urged.
Scumknuckle nodded and in a trice was a dog again, then a hump-backed rat scurrying through the gutters till he came to the market. It was sunset. There stood Greychild, rummaging frantically through his empty pockets. He glanced about, but there was no-one in sight. He did not see the rat scuttling behind him, trailing him down the alleyways, then suddenly cutting in front of him and appearing as a dog.
Greychild smiled. He was used to dogs and patted this creature on the head, even though it bared its teeth and snarled. Greychild stroked its matted fur.
“Are you hungry, lad? Come with me. My master Snizzleslide is generous. Come home with me and I’m sure that he will feed you.”
At this Scumknuckle rose to his full height, a man again and more. He pressed his face up close to Greychild.
“Your master Snizzleslide is angry at your generosity and wants to see you right away.”
Snizzleslide was waiting at the end of the wharf. A small boat bobbed in the water, rising and falling with the swell of the river.
“Get in,” he hissed as Scumknuckle pushed Greychild roughly into the craft which rocked alarmingly, shipping a slop of dull grey water.
Snizzleslide scrambled in as Scumknuckle seized the oars, hauling them out right to the very middle of the river. Greychild’s eyes were closed tight. He felt sure they meant to bind his arms and legs and tip him over the side. He gazed back to see the dying sun glinting off the windows of Arleccra.
Scumknuckle paused and rested on his oars. Snizzleslide shot him a glance.
“Keep going,” he urged.
Scumknuckle guided them through the swell and suck of the water. Soon enough they slipped under the shadows of the trees that edged the shore on the far side of the river. Scumknuckle lashed the boat to a mooring post and Snizzleslide led them up a winding path onto an esplanade lined with silver trees.
“Who lives here?” Greychild asked.
“Who lives here?” Snizzleslide hissed. “Who lives here? – Let me tell you. I don’t live here, and Scumknuckle don’t neither. Where do we live? In a cold damp basement at the back end of an alleyway on the other side of the river. We’ve come a long way, you and me, Greychild my lad. Come from Brunt Boggart, down along the Pedlar Man’s Track. Come a long way – but we don’t live here. Why don’t we live here?”
Greychild squinted sideways at Snizzleslide.
“We ain’t got no shillen,” he replied.
“Quite right,” said Snizzleslide. “We ain’t got no shillen. And what little we got, we trick and steal. I make no secret of that. Always have done, always will. Trick and steal – it’s what I do. But what do these folk do?”
Greychild shrugged.
“What do they do?”
“Let me tell you,” Snizzleslide confided. “They trick and steal – same as me and you. These folk own the workrooms where girlen go to toil in the darkness. And when they go to collect their pay, these folk tell them they have spent it all in the slop kitchen buying soup and crusts to keep up their strength through the long working day. They own the mulchsheds where they squeeze the grease from cargoes of nuts to feed to those who can afford nothing more. And down on the dockside they run the taverns where sailors come and drink their wage. When the men are drunk they lock them up and send them off to sea again before they’ve ever made it home to see their wifen and childern.
“Never mind no game of cup and shell. These folk are the real winners. These folk trick the money out of poor’uns who can’t afford to lose it.”
A high gate swung open and a large man confronted them, his pot belly barely concealed by a silken robe. His long tongue lolled lazily, dull purple with salt lick and red ruby wine. His gut rolled and rumbled, uneasy with sweetmeats and sourmilk, heavy with offal and undercooked veal.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Be off with you.”
But Snizzleslide smiled.
“We have come to do you a favour,” he said.
Lollingtongue frowned as he stared down his nose at the troublesome snake and his two companions.
“What favour can you do me?” he sneered.
“What favour do you wish for?” Snizzleslide replied.
“My head is seized with dreams,” Lollingtongue sighed, “of all that I have, and yet all those things I cannot buy. What I dream is beyond my reach…”
“We are here to help you,” Snizzleslide smiled as he pulled out three cups and a pink-edged shell.
Then to Greychild’s amazement, he pulled out the Eye of Glass and held it up for Lollingtongue to see.
“This glass,” he hissed, “is worth more than all your wishes. This glass will let you see the one thing you truly desire.”
Lollingtongue made a grab for it, but Snizzleslide quickly pulled the glass away.
“Put down a shillen,” he said. “If you find the shell, the Glass is yours.”
Lollingtongue rolled his eyes.
“Don’t carry no shillen in these pockets. But if this Glass is worth winning, then win it I must…”
And from his ample robe he poured fistfuls of gold, a diamond-studded pin and an emerald ring. Greychild blinked and looked on as Snizzleslide cried –
“Under one cup the shell is cast, be it first or be it last…”
He switched the cups around and about, as slickly as he ever did. Lollingtongue rubbed the back of his neck. He was sweating now as his hand hovered above first one cup and then another. Then picked up the third. Snizzleslide paused and looked him in the eye.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Lollingtongue nodded slowly.
Snizzleslide raised the sup.
The shell was gone.
Quick as a flash, Snizzleslide flipped over the far cup to show the shell, and as he did so, Scumknuckle seized up their winnings before Lollingtongue could protest and the three of them bundled away down the path to the waiting boat.
Back on the other side of the river, Snizzleslide set up the game again. It was night now, but the waterfront was alive with flame dancers, fire eaters, knife throwers, jugglers, beggars and gangs of roaming girlen whose pale faces were painted with blood red smiles.
“You play,” Snizzleslide hissed, pushing Greychild forward. “You still owe me your settle. I’ll give you till dawn.”
Greychild stood nervously beside the table, watching as Snizzleslid
e and Scumknuckle stood and watched him from the shadow of a doorway.
“…watch the cups and you will see – do you give me one shillen, or do I give you three?” he called out half-heartedly.
A shillen lost, a shillen won as people came and went, more eager to see the dancing bear who was roaring inside a small striped tent. Snizzleslide sidled up beside him.
“Listen boy,” he said. “Let me give you a tip. If you think your player has found the shell, just cry – With your shillen three, tell me what do you see? Close your eyes and dream of your prize. You won’t believe how many will shut their eyes just for a moment… and then you switch the cups again.”
Snizzleslide winked and slipped back to Scumknuckle who was devouring a hot meat pie from one of the stalls.
“Under the cup the shell is cast…” Greychild called again. And then before him at the table stood a young woman. She looked lost and alone, her eyes rimmed with crying and her hand clutching her belly.
“I am hungry. I am thirsty,” she whispered.
Greychild stopped and stared at her face, half lit by the flickering shadows. Could it be? At last this was his mother, lost in the city, same as he remembered her lost in the woods. In his head he heard the words turning, “Coddle me, coddle me, my darling son…” The woman moved closer. Greychild held out his hand, hoping to feel the warmth he remembered, her hair soft as leaves draped all around him, her lips sweet as berries as she kissed him, her body warm as sun-baked earth as she held him, her tongue sharp as thorns when she scolded him. But as their fingers touched, all he could sense was numbness and cold.
His head was spinning. Was this his mother? He could not be sure. He peered at her again in the half light and then looked down at the cups on the table. He knew Snizzleslide was watching him.
“Do you have a shillen?” he asked.
“Yes sir, I do.”
Greychild hesitated.
“Well don’t give it to me,” he whispered under his breath. “Take your shillen with you and buy a bowl of hot soup.”
The woman shook her head.
“If I win this game,” she said, “then I won’t have only one shillen, why then I will have three!”
Greychild glanced at Snizzleslide. Snizzleslide nodded and Greychild took the money. The woman watched, sucking one finger and gazing with eyes that were tired beyond hunger as Greychild slowly shuffled the cups. He stopped. The woman stroked her belly and pointed slowly. Then Greychild heard Snizzleslide hiss from the shadows.
“Switch the cups like I showed you,” he urged. “Switch the cups.”
Greychild’s heart was heavy. Here was his mother who had fed him. Whether she knew him or not, he had to feed her. He had to let her win. But Snizzleslide needed his settle and Scumknuckle began to grow restless.
“Close your eyes and dream of your prize…” Greychild intoned.
The face of the woman who stood shivering before him was suddenly lit by a flare of flame from the fire-eater’s torch. Her features were blotched and scarred. She coughed and bit her lip as she closed her eyes. Greychild turned away. It was not his mother at all. He was about to switch the cups when Snizzleslide slid from the shadows and stayed his hand.
“Leave it be,” he insisted. “Leave it be.”
Greychild raised the cup. There was the shell. The woman’s tired face spread into a smile.
“I’ve won,” she cried dreamily.
“Yes, you have won,” Snizzleslide declared and gestured to Scumknuckle who stepped forward from the doorway. Snizzleslide nodded.
“Here is your prize.”
Scumknuckle handed the trembling woman the bag that they had taken from Lollingtongue back across the river. The bag that was filled with fistfuls of gold, the diamond-studded pin and the emerald ring. The young woman ran off, not even daring to open it to see what was inside. Snizzleslide met Greychild’s puzzled expression.
“Sometimes to win is to lose,” he said. “And sometimes to lose is to win.”
“But where is the Glass?” Greychild asked. “And how did you come by it?”
Snizzleslide shrugged. “Scritch is quick, but I am quicker.”
Scumknuckle jerked it out from his pocket.
“And I am quicker again!” Greychild cried as he made a grab. Snizzleslide struck too, but both of them missed as the Eye spiralled upwards then fell to the ground where it shattered into splinters.
Greychild turned and walked away. Now he knew that if his mother was in this city at all, he would have to find her all by himself, for the Glass would help him no more.
When dawn broke, and all the flame dancers and fire eaters and knife throwers were gone, who should appear but Scritch, who scooped up the fragments of glass as they glistened on the cold damp cobbles like so many stars, and laid them all out on his tray.
The Woman in Blue
Let me tell you… let me tell you how Ravenhair woke on a cold narrow bed wound in threadbare sheets at the back of a rackety boarding house. From along the dank grey corridor she could hear dull voices grumbling and wheezing, the swill of water and the cracked rattle of cups. Ravenhair dressed quickly, pulled her shawl round her shoulders and clambered down the wooden steps that led to the alley outside.
The market traders were setting up their stalls, a tarnished array of trinkets and baubles, while a one-eyed cat scurried out of the gully. Ravenhair called it over, but the cat arched its back and bared its claws before slinking away.
Ravenhair followed the cobbled streets that slid slow and slippery down to the river where overloaded boats plied back and forth. Ramshackle warehouses rose high around her, where sharp-faced boys and grizzled old men unloaded barrels and bales hauled up from the harbour. Beside the quay stood a sagging collection of tents, painted bright colours but faded and torn. A crowd of finely-dressed women drifted in and out, trailing children in silk brocade. Their faces seemed to shine although their skin was so thin it was almost transparent, as if they had never seen the sun. As Ravenhair watched she felt a hand touch her shoulder and turned to see one of the women standing before her smiling a stern chill smile. She wore a long blue dress and her face was as pale as the morning. High above them lost gulls swirled, skimming along the harbour front, while smoke billowed from a brazier outside the gaudy tent.
“Come with me,” the woman said suddenly, and before she could reply, Ravenhair found herself tugged away from the river, through a swirl of winding streets, past pot-swills and lantern-gardens, dimly-lit taverns and money-lenders’ stalls.
“Stop!” gasped Ravenhair. “Where are we going?”
She tried to slip from the woman’s grip, but the woman held fast and strong. They paused by a courtyard of tailors’ shops where bundles of silks and taffetas spilled out on the uneven flagstones. Ravenhair stared at the woman’s face. She had no idea how old she might be. Her skin was so pale, as pale as the snow, but her eyes seemed a little warmer now.
“Come quickly,” she said and dragged Ravenhair on through a bewildering maze of alleys and gullies, past flower-sellers and hawkers, knife-sharpeners and beggars. Suddenly they stopped in front of a tall house on a narrow street. Two worn steps led up to a shabby front door, its grimy windows curtained with a mesh of dull drapes.
Ravenhair was trembling. The sky above was heavy with smoke, shading out the sun. As the woman let go of her hand, Ravenhair looked this way and that, wondering which way to run, but the street was as long to the left as it was to the right.
“Follow me,” the woman said, holding out her long slender hand. Ravenhair stood quite still in the hallway, staring up at the high marbled ceiling and the chandelier which hung above them, glittering like ice. Before them a wide white staircase swept up to the floor above.
The woman smiled.
“Don’t be surprised, my child,” she said. “Nothing is ever what it seems. Not here, not anywhere.”
And she led her on along a corridor hung with a hundred mirrors. Ravenhair peered into them as th
ey hurried by and she saw herself side by side with this woman and then not a woman at all. In the next mirror she was running with a deer and then a tall white mare and then a wolf and a fox and an eagle. Each mirror reflected in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall until Ravenhair found herself lost in a forest of reflections with a dance of creatures spinning around her.
“Stop! Stop!” she cried and they stopped. The woman stood beside her again. She was smiling kindly now and her hand felt soft and warm. They both stood breathless and laughing and the woman’s laughter was happy and full. For a moment she held Ravenhair close in a sudden embrace.
“But who are you?” Ravenhair wanted to know. “And what is this place?”
The woman gazed into Ravenhair’s eyes.
“I am Ashblossom,” she replied as she pressed one finger against Ravenhair’s lips and led her out into a courtyard with a high glass ceiling. It was warmer than a summer’s day and everywhere orchids flowered, vivid reds and purples and yellows. All around echoed the cries of a hundred exotic birds, their wings even brighter than the flowers.
Ashblossom sat down on a low stone wall which surrounded a pool in the centre of the courtyard where a fountain flowed, sending cascades of water in ever-changing patterns. Ravenhair dipped a hand in the water. It was warm and luxurious. Ashblossom bent over and let her long silvery hair fall forward. The nape of her neck was slender and white as she lowered her head and slowly began to wash her flowing tresses. Ravenhair watched in fascination as Ashblossom raised her head, her face sparkling with rivulets of water.
“Why don’t you join me?” she asked.
Ravenhair unfastened the ribbon from her locks, the ribbon dark as night which her Grandmother Ghostmantle had given her. She hung it carefully over the wall of the pool then bent her head forward as Ashblossom had done. The water was soft as milk to her touch and she let it soak gently into her scalp, rubbing her fingers in circular movements. She rinsed her hair and shook it as she rose to her feet so that a shower of silver droplets flew through the air and the birds in the trees rose with a flap and a clatter of wings, clamouring and squawking to the higher branches.
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