The Hatmakers

by Tamzin Merchant

Cordelia banished the thought.

  They don’t believe my father is alive! She made her voice as fierce as she could inside her own head. I’m going to prove them wrong.

  Being fierce seemed to help burn away the feeling of clammy guilt that chilled her. She refused to imagine how her family would feel when they found her bed empty. She slipped down her ladder onto the landing. Great-aunt Petronella was asleep in her chair, face lit palest mauve by the embers from her fire.

  Cordelia knew that there were several squeaky stairs right outside the Hatmaking Workshop, and she also knew that sliding down the bannister to get past them would be very risky. Aunt Ariadne’s hearing was as keen as an owl’s. There was only one way down to the ground floor. …

  She sneaked past the door to the Alchemy Parlor, slunk into the Hat-weighing Room, and folded herself into the hat hoist. She perched on the purple velvet cushion, knees under her chin. A tiny brass crank glinted on the wall next to her.

  This was the tricky part.

  Cordelia reached for the crank and turned it. The hoist jolted, she pulled the door shut and, for a breathless second, nothing happened. Cordelia opened her eyes wide but it was black as ink inside the hoist.

  The dark lurched—then she felt herself sinking smoothly downward. She breathed a small sigh of relief.

  Outside, anybody who might have been watching would have seen an elegant wooden box, large enough to hold the most flamboyantly feathered hats, slowly descending to the ground floor of Hatmaker House.

  Ding!

  The tiny glass bell pinged as the hat hoist came to a stop on the shop level. Had Aunt Ariadne’s owl-ears heard it?

  Cordelia waited a hundred heartbeats to make sure nobody was coming to investigate, then she opened the little door.

  The shop was shadowy and strange in the dark. Hats threw weird shapes on the walls. Dove feathers became the crests of monsters and frilled ribbons were suddenly dragons’ tails.

  Cordelia took a deep breath. She squeezed herself out of the hoist.

  With steps as soft as velvet, she moved across the shop.

  She unlocked the door and eased it open slowly so the brass bell didn’t ring.

  Foggy London was framed in the doorway. A church bell donged quarter to midnight.

  She went out into the night.

  CHAPTER 23

  THE WATCHMAKERS’ WAS DARK. AN UPSTAIRS window yawned open like a hungry mouth.

  Sam Lightfinger was already inside.

  Cordelia opened her eyes wide as moons, but the sprinkled starlight was not bright enough to see much by. A faint scratching sound and a silvery tinkle came in a wisp through the open window.

  She stretched up, but the wall below the window was too high to climb. It would take a jump to a brick ledge, a shimmy up a drainpipe, then a dangerous inching along to reach the windowsill.

  I’ll just have to wait here for him to come out, she decided.

  After a minute, an uncomfortable realization dawned on Cordelia: she was loitering. The very thing she had been accused of doing by Mrs. Bootmaker. She tried to look purposeful and not at all suspicious, which was hard while skulking in a dark side street.

  Oh no! Now I’m skulking too! she thought.

  A lantern-lit carriage rolled past on the main street. The soles of Cordelia’s feet itched as she made herself stand still and not bolt.

  Her whole plan had been:

  BREAK OUT OF HATMAKER HOUSE.

  CATCH SAM LIGHTFINGER IN THE ACT OF CLIMBING THROUGH THE WATCHMAKERS’ WINDOW.

  EXTRACT A PROMISE FROM SAM TO TELL GOOSE THE TRUTH.

  HITCH A RIDE ON A CART TO THE COAST.

  BORROW A FISHING BOAT TO GO AND FIND HER FATHER.

  But this unexpected lull between stages 1 and 2 was making her nervous.

  A lamp flared farther up the road. Around the corner a horse whinnied softly. Cordelia’s palms were sweaty. She was just about to decide that she would wait for twelve more seconds when a foot appeared in the open window.

  Then the rest of Sam Lightfinger reversed into view.

  Cordelia could not help but admire Sam as he inched, shimmied, and leaped with surprising grace down from the window. But when the boy landed lightly on the street, Cordelia was waiting, arms folded.

  “Well, well, well,” said a voice.

  A voice that did not belong to Cordelia or Sam.

  Both children looked up. Thieftaker Sternlaw’s face flared above them, flickering flame-red and black in the lantern light.

  Sam bolted.

  The Thieftaker lunged for Cordelia and she dived out of the way. She heard him curse as he lumbered into the iron railings. She whipped around and spied Sam sprinting across the main street and into an alley. She darted after him, fast as a bird.

  Sam’s silhouette stood stark for a second at the end of the alley.

  “Hey!” Cordelia cried. “I want to talk!”

  He fled. Cordelia followed.

  The Thieftaker was pounding the pavement behind her, long arms reaching for her like a mad marionette.

  “COME BACK HERE!” he bellowed.

  Sam pelted down Oxford Street and into the shadows of Soho Square. He scuttled around a corner, Cordelia galloping behind him. But the Thieftaker could not turn the corner as quick. He slipped in a pile of horse dung and went sprawling into the gutter.

  Cordelia heard him thud to the ground with a squelch and yell, “BLAST!”

  But she did not stop. Sam Lightfinger was almost lost in the gloomy streets. Then she caught a flash of silver—the Peace Watch! It was like a taunt. She put on a spurt of speed.

  She was gaining on him.

  They burst onto Piccadilly Circus. There were very-late-night or very-early-morning carts rolling along the street. A pair of dandies, ruddy with brandy, were reeling around, singing. They paused when they saw two kids run hell for leather in front of them, the boy a blur of rags, the girl a whirl of skirts.

  “Wait!” Cordelia panted. She could almost touch him. She reached out—

  But Sam sprang across the street in front of a carriage. The horses reared, eyes rolling, and Cordelia skidded to a stop.

  “Oi! Wotcha playing at?” the driver snarled, flicking his whip.

  “Sorry!” Cordelia gasped, doing a sort of dance around the lurching carriage. Through the spokes of the wheels she could see Sam getting away.

  She dodged around the pawing hooves as Sam bolted down a wide side street.

  “Please come back!” Cordelia called. “I want to talk to you!”

  He swung around and stared at her for a moment, eyes wide.

  “Don’t follow me!” he yelled. “Go home!”

  He slipped down a dingy alley and, for a second, Cordelia paused. There was something feral about him, a shadow stealing beneath the black shoulder of the building.

  She felt a little shiver of fear. She could just let him go, into the dark of the London night. Now was her chance: she could turn tail and run for the light that was her father.

  She stood there in the dark street, gritting her teeth. As Sam slipped away, he was stealing more than the Peace Watch. He was stealing her friendship with Goose. He might even be stealing the last chance for peace itself.

  Cordelia took a deep breath and took a step. Then she was following him—along the twisting alleyway, pressing herself against the brick wall when he glanced back.

  He started to climb, scaling the sheer face of a building like a sailor climbing to the top of a mast. But, unlike a rope-swagged ship, there was no rigging on the building. He was holding on to notches in the crumbling brick wall with just the tips of his fingers. He climbed lightly, as though the earth would not pull him back down if he slipped.

  Cordelia held her breath as Sam climbed past a vast stained-glass window and continued up a thin tower, stupefyingly high. When he clambered inside through a narrow window, Cordelia sighed with relief.

  It was only then that she recognized the building: the Elizabethan Makers in the sta
ined-glass window were unmistakable.

  Sam was inside the Guildhall.

  Cordelia held her breath as Sam climbed past a vast stained-glass window and continued up a thin tower, stupefyingly high.

  CHAPTER 24

  CORDELIA DID NOT HAVE A HOPE OF PURSUING Sam up the side of the building like a spider. It took her several minutes to follow the zig-zag alley around to the front of the Guildhall.

  Only Makers and Monarchs can open these doors, her aunt had told her.

  Cordelia reached out and turned the handle. It was warm to her touch.

  The door opened.

  She was ready for the dark and it did not frighten her.

  She felt her way across the hallway, through the dusty magic and the prickly curtains, into the big space of the great chamber.

  An ashy taste hung in the air and a wisp of smoke burned her nostrils. Sam must have lit a fire in one of the ancient grates.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the enormous mahogany staircase rising, like the spine of a great dragon, to the upper floors. She began to climb.

  At the top was a long gallery. Cordelia froze, her heart clapping in her chest.

  Dozens of people stood waiting for her in the moonlight. They stared, silent and perfectly still.

  She gasped. One of the silent people was headless.

  Then she realized.

  They were not people waiting for her: they were life-sized mannequins, dressed in slivers of old capes. Creepily, even the ones with heads did not have faces. Pale plaster models of hands were strewn across the floor and carved wooden lasts for shoes had tumbled off the shelves. Snapped canes littered the floor like spilled matchsticks.

  A lilting song lifted through the air. Someone was humming. It was a tune faintly familiar to Cordelia, soft and sad and slightly disquieting. Like a lullaby about dying.

  At the end of the gallery was a staircase—up to the tower! A shaft of moonlight lay on the narrow stairs like a silver carpet. Sam must be up there, singing to himself.

  Cordelia crept upward. Strangely, the soft song faded as she climbed. She reached a door at the top of the stairs and pushed it open.

  It creaked and Sam turned, saying, “I gotcha the Peace Watch, Boss—”

  He saw Cordelia and his face fell.

  “You!”

  Cordelia stepped into the room. Six Cordelias were reflected back at her, and six Sams looked dismayed from every angle: there were mirrors hung on all the walls of the hexagonal tower. An old wooden trunk stood open in the middle of the room and a narrow wardrobe fitted neatly between two of the mirrors. Cordelia supposed this must have been a fitting-room in the heyday of the Guildhall. Now the only clothes in here were heaped in a corner, where someone had made a kind of child-sized nest.

  “Is this where you sleep?” Cordelia asked, aghast.

  Two of the windows were broken and the wind whistled around the ceiling.

  “I told ya to go home!” Sam whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Cordelia looked steadily at Sam.

  “I’ve come for the Peace Watch,” she said. “You have to give it back to the Watchmaker. And you have to tell Goose I’m not the thief, and admit you stole my handkerchief and put it on his schoolroom floor.”

  “I never!” Sam protested. “What handkerchief?”

  “You know the one I mean,” Cordelia said sternly. “The one with my initials on it. You have to promise not to steal things any more. It’s bad. You should do something more honest with your life.”

  Sam blinked at her. Slowly, he sank onto the edge of the trunk and sat there, studying his knees.

  “Easy for a Maker to say,” he murmured. “Do somefing more honest … It’s hard to be honest when you’re hungry and cold and ya got no safe place to sleep.” He hugged himself miserably and sniffed.

  This was not the scene Cordelia had imagined. She had imagined Sam, sheepish and full of cheerful remorse, promising to do the right thing. But here he was, hunched wretchedly on the trunk, looking sick and ashamed.

  “D-don’t you have any family?” Cordelia asked, patting his back. His ragged clothes were rough against her hand.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Me brother’s gone. We used ta live in the bell tower of St. Rigobert’s in Seven Dials. It was cold and we got all the worst of the rain ’n’ wind, but it was better than sleepin’ on the street. He’d go out and get food ’n’ try ta earn a penny or two. I’d try ’n’ sell flowers, if I could get ’em. But one day I got sick. I was feverish and shaking and there was no food and Len, me brother, got desperate and nicked a chicken off a market stall.”

  Cordelia’s eyes were round. “What happened?”

  Sam’s mouth twisted as he tried not to cry. “You dunno what happens to thieves? They get thrown in the bellies of ships and sent to the underneath of the world. They never come back.”

  Cordelia felt an ocean of sadness contained in Sam’s thin ribcage. She tried to think of something kind and hopeful to say, but what words could bring a ship back around the world?

  Sam wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

  “Ya shouldn’t have followed me here!” He was suddenly on his feet. “I told ya to go home! It ain’t safe. If he catches ya—”

  Sam’s head went up, like a fox sensing a hunter. He turned terrified eyes to Cordelia.

  “Ya gotta hide!”

  Sam looked frantically around. There was the thud of boots on the stairs.

  “Here!” He hustled Cordelia into the tall wardrobe. “Keep dead quiet.”

  Cordelia managed to nod. She felt sick. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed the bitterness back down. The last thing she saw was a sliver of Sam’s frightened face as he closed the wardrobe door.

  CHAPTER 25

  IT WAS STUFFY AND DUSTY INSIDE THE WARDROBE. Cordelia shuddered as the ribbon of an old cloak brushed her cheek.

  “Lightfinger!” A cold voice rang through the room.

  “G-good evenin’, sir,” she heard Sam reply.

  Very slowly, so she did not make a sound, Cordelia crouched down and carefully put her eye to the keyhole.

  A figure stood in the doorway. A sinister black hood shrouded his face and the cloak swept down so low that only the shiny tips of his boots could be seen. He prowled into the room. Sam cringed as he advanced.

  “I got the watch, sir,” Sam mumbled.

  He fished in his pocket and, with a whisper of silver chain, drew out the Peace Watch.

  The stranger swathed in the cloak chuckled softly. “Well done, well done.”

  His voice was a growl.

  A meaty red hand with thick gold rings emerged from the black folds and wrapped itself around the beautiful watch.

  Cordelia clenched her fists, helplessly furious.

  The stranger dangled the watch from its silver chain, walking softly away from Sam, who watched him like a mouse watches a cat. He got nearer and nearer to Cordelia’s hiding place. She shivered as the silver watch arced to and fro.

  “Excellent work, little criminal,” the stranger whispered. “That’s all the Peace Clothes stolen. The full set.”

  He was so close to the wardrobe now that Cordelia could hear the click of clockwork as the watch ticked.

  Tick.

  She did not dare breathe.

  Tock.

  In one violent motion, the stranger flung the Peace Watch to the floor and stamped on it.

  It crunched like the bones of a bird under his black boot. Cordelia clamped a hand to her mouth. The beautiful Peace Watch was crushed into a sad mess of spilled cogs and mashed metal. The stranger kicked its remains with his toe.

  “And the Watchmaker’s Menacing Cabinet?” he demanded, rounding on Sam.

  As the stranger turned, both of his boots were visible, and their gold buckles flashed from beneath his cloak:

  MM

  Cordelia frowned at the bright letters on the boots.

  Sam reached inside his jacket. “There wasn
’t anything in the Menacing Cabinet,” he muttered. “Only this.”

  He pulled out a heavy iron key, bearded with brown rust. The stranger took it.

  “The final master key,” he breathed. “Most excellent thievery.”

  He loomed over Sam, tucking the key into the folds of his cloak.

  “Sir, p-please,” Sam stuttered. “I done everyfing you asked. I stole all the stuff you wanted me to steal.”

  “Indeed you have, my little cutpurse,” the stranger purred.

  “So—so—can I go free now?” Sam asked. “Like you promised?”

  The stranger’s laugh shivered through the room.

  “Ah, Master Lightfinger,” he said, closing his heavy red hands around Sam’s shoulders. “If only life were kind to lawbreaking orphans.”

  “What d’ya mean?” Sam went pale.

  “I can’t very well put you back where I found you, can I, little delinquent? Back to stealing ladies’ handkerchiefs in Covent Garden,” the stranger whispered. “You might tell somebody what you’ve been up to. You could ruin all my plans.”

  “I—I promise I won’t! Thieves’ honor!”

  The stranger gave a mirthless shout of laughter and flung Sam into the open trunk. Before Sam could stumble up, the man crashed the lid down over his head and shot the heavy iron bolt across, locking him inside.

  “NOOOOO!” Sam howled. “LEMME OUT!”

  “Quiet!” the stranger snarled, thumping the heavy oak lid.

  Sam stopped howling but Cordelia heard muffled sobs.

  “In the morning, I shall announce I’ve found the culprit,” the stranger hissed with horrible relish. “And you’ll be thrown in prison. By then, all those traitorous Makers will be locked in the dungeon of the Tower of London. Another excellent headline to feed to the newspapers: MAKERS MAKE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE.”

  Cordelia scrabbled at the wardrobe wall for support as her head swam. The Makers—traitors? Locked in the Tower of London?

  The stranger paused. For a terrible second, Cordelia thought he had heard her. But then the cloak twitched, as if he was thinking, and he said, “Perhaps I shall wait a few days before telling anyone you’re here, Lightfinger. I don’t want you blabbing before the Makers are sentenced … and if you’re no more than a skeleton when the Thieftaker eventually comes to get you, well, that’s one less ragamuffin burdening the city.”