“We won’t let them!”
“Ya gotta run!”
“Why did you come back?”
Cordelia shook her head, still catching her breath. “You all have to hide so they don’t take you, too,” she said.
There was a shout in the street and Jones yelled, “Miss! They’re here!”
Cordelia turned back to Goose, Sam, and Cook. “The princess is in danger—she’s being controlled—they’re coming to arrest me—someone needs to stop Lord Witloof—”
But Goose and Cook were shaking their heads in confusion—there was no time to explain everything to them, no time to tell them everything that needed to be done! In despair, Cordelia turned to Sam.
“Sam! What shall we do?” she cried.
In response, Sam took off his cap.
For a breathless moment nobody spoke. Sam’s hair tumbled around his shoulders and down his back, bright chestnut brown and curly.
Goose’s mouth fell open.
Sam Lightfinger was a girl.
“Take off yer coat, Cor, and yer hat,” Sam whispered. “Quick.”
Head spinning, Cordelia tore off her hat, coat, gloves, and dress. Like a strange mirror, Sam peeled off her rags and left them in a grimy heap on the floor.
In a windmill of arms and legs, Sam was dressed in Cordelia’s clothes.
They heard soldiers’ feet clattering on the street outside.
Sam reached toward Cordelia and plucked her aunt’s gold hatpin out of her hair. “Hide!” Sam hissed.
Cordelia and Cook dived behind the wooden counter.
Sam fed the hatpin up her sleeve.
Cordelia yanked Goose down beside her.
The door crashed open.
Sam took a deep breath—
—and the soldiers were upon her.
Cordelia dug her nails into her palms as Sam screamed and struggled against the mob of soldiers. Goose and Cook hunched against her, making themselves as small as they could. The door banged closed and their brave friend was carried away to the Tower.
A minute passed. When she was very sure every soldier was gone, Cordelia raised her head. She stood up and went to the window. Jones, splayed on the pavement, groaned and rubbed his head. The Hatmaker carriage lay on its side, wheels broken and horses cut loose. The donkey brayed mournfully from the mews.
Goose unfurled slowly, wiping tears off his face. “He—she—is very brave,” he uttered solemnly.
“Yes,” Cordelia said fiercely, “she is.”
Goose sniffed loudly and said, “What do we do now?”
Cordelia gingerly lifted the lid of the hatbox and peered inside. Despite the escape from the palace and the wild ride home, the Peace Hat remained neat and serene, with not a feather out of place.
“All right,” she said in her most determined voice, “I think we might have to stop a war.”
“If you have grand ambitions like that, Dilly, you really should put some clothes on,” Cook suggested.
Cordelia remembered she was only dressed in her underwear. Goose blushed and examined the paintwork on the ceiling.
Cordelia buttoned up her father’s jacket over her dress. It was very roomy and she had to roll up the sleeves several times before her hands appeared, but wearing it made her feel courageous and capable.
Suddenly there was a BANG, BANG, BANG! on the front door five floors below.
Goose leaped into Cordelia’s arms, his eyes wide with fright. Bootmaker and Hatmaker froze, listening.
“I’ll see who it is,” Cook called from downstairs.
For several dreadful seconds Cordelia was afraid the soldiers had realized their mistake. She strained her ears, heard a faint groaning, and then, to her surprise, a giggle.
“Oh, do come down, Dilly,” Cook trilled. “He’s making such a fuss, poor dove.”
Mystified, Cordelia and Goose went down the stairs. Cordelia was glad she had her father’s jacket on. She could feel his courage cocooning her, making her braver. She gripped a fire poker like a sword and Goose clutched a candlestick in a vaguely dangerous manner.
Cook, pink-cheeked, hurried them toward the door. Cordelia peered out.
“Sir Hugo?”
The actor was slumped on the doorstep, pounding the ground with his fists and wailing.
“Aye, me!” he howled. “Aye, me!”
Cordelia opened the door wide and Sir Hugo fell into the shop.
“Ah! The hallowed halls of Hatmaker House!” he crooned, laying his cheek on the floor and stroking the carpet lovingly.
“Can I help you, Sir Hugo?” Cordelia asked loudly, putting down her poker.
“Young Mistress Hatmaker!” Sir Hugo cried, shuffling to her on his tummy and kissing the toe of her boot. “O nymph of hats! O great creatrix of headwear! I beg your bountiful hands to bestow on mine unworthy head another hat!”
“What?” said Goose, completely confused.
Cook was fanning herself. Cordelia rolled her eyes.
“I am to play Romeo in Shakespeare’s greatest love story,” Sir Hugo moaned. “And I fear that without a hat made by your fine and fair hands—” here Sir Hugo scrabbled to his knees, grabbed Cordelia’s hand and kissed it feverishly—“my performance will not be as loudly applauded as was my Hamlet!”
Cordelia pulled her hand away and wiped it on her dress. She frowned, looking out of the window. The sky was turning pale in the afternoon light.
We must leave within the hour, Your Highness, Lord Witloof had said. The royal coach would already be setting off for the coast. She had to get to the princess somehow!
She turned to tell Sir Hugo that she was not allowed to Make him a hat and, anyway, she did not have time to help him play dressing-up.
But then she had a better idea.
“If I find you the perfect hat, Sir Hugo,” she said, “Will you do me a very important favor?”
CHAPTER 34
THE HEAVY WOODEN DOOR TO THE DEEPEST dungeon in the Tower of London clanked open. Inside, Aunt Ariadne, Uncle Tiberius, and Great-aunt Petronella looked up hopefully as a fiery torch flickered in the passage. But their hearts sank when Cordelia was thrown inside by the guards.
The door slammed shut and the iron key rasped in the lock.
Cordelia raised her head—and the Hatmakers realized it was not Cordelia!
“Hallo, Uncle!” the stranger who was not Cordelia said brightly. “Hallo, Aunt and Great-aunt!”
The Hatmakers stared back at her in complete confusion. Then the stranger who was not Cordelia slid her eyes sideways toward the grate in the door, where the dark outline of a guard loomed.
“Ah—Cordelia! Hello!” Uncle Tiberius said loudly.
“Cordelia,” Aunt Ariadne whispered. “You’re looking … well.”
Great-aunt Petronella watched the stranger with eagle-sharp eyes. The stranger glanced back at the guard’s shadow outside the door, before peering at the crusts left over from the Hatmakers’ sad supper of dry bread and water.
“Ya gonna eat those?” she asked.
Aunt Ariadne shook her head.
The stranger devoured the crusts in two bites.
“Best get some sleep,” she advised, settling down in a corner. She winked and added, “Busy day tomorrow.”
Aunt Ariadne and Uncle Tiberius exchanged amazed glances, but when they turned back to the stranger she was asleep and gently snoring.
Great-aunt Petronella smiled.
By moonrise, three black-clad highwaymen were galloping south on the road from London.
They rode three swift dark horses. Silk scarves the color of midnight disguised their faces, and they wore coal-black capes and tricorn hats. One of them had insisted on adorning his hat with a stylish black ostrich feather.
“It gives an air of mystique and aplomb,” he had explained.
By moonrise, three black-clad highwaymen were galloping south on the road from London.
If you had looked carefully, you would have seen that they were not, strictly
speaking, three highwaymen. There was one highwayman, one highwaygirl, and one highwayboy. And one horse was, technically, a donkey.
That same night, Le Bateau Fantastique sailed out from the shore of France on a stiff breeze. The French king sat in the cabin of his royal vessel feeling slightly seasick as the waves buffeted the bow. He wondered if anything Princess Georgina could say the next day would change his mind about her. After all, she had sent him so many unforgivably rude letters.
The princess sat perfectly straight and still in the royal carriage as it trundled through the night. She barely blinked and the glistery crown on her forehead shed a strange light on her face. Opposite her, Lord Witloof checked his glass pocket watch. He smiled as he did sums in his head.
“STAND AND DELIVER!”
The tallest highwayman pointed his pistol, glint-eyed and menacing in the moonlight.
“Stand … and deliver?” the highwayboy repeated, somewhat fearfully.
“No, no, no! STAND—it has to come from your belly, from your guts! STAND AND—go on, you try.”
“STAND AND … deliver?” the highwayboy tried again.
“DELIVER!” The highwayman delivered, as though he were on stage at the Theatre Royal.
“De-LIVER?” the highwayboy shouted.
“Excellent! Now, you have a go.” The highwayman waved his pistol at the highwaygirl.
“Don’t point that at me!” she cried.
“Sorry,” he replied. “Though it is only a prop.”
The highwaygirl pointed her pistol at the highwayman and said ferociously, “STAND AND DELIVER!”
“Tremendous!” the highwayman cried. “We are ready for the great performance! On we ride!”
They spurred their horses up over the crest of the hill and, on the silvery road winding below them, they saw a gilt carriage glinting as it trundled along.
“Only two outriders,” the highwayman muttered. “This will be very easy.”
He turned in his saddle to address his comrades.
“Right. Here’s the plan,” said the highwaygirl quickly. “We stop the coach—”
“I’ll do a speech,” the highwayman interrupted.
“All right,” the highwaygirl agreed. “Then we get the princess out, give her the Peace Hat and then escort the coach all the way to the royal galleon.”
“I shall do some more speeches on the way, if Her Highness would like it,” the highwayman put in.
Before they could answer, he gave a very dramatic “YAH!” and galloped down the hill. The highwaygirl and highwayboy followed.
They reached the silver road just as the carriage rounded a bend and came rolling toward them. If the driver of the carriage had been keen-eyed, he would have seen the highwayman throw several bangers on the ground as he fired his pistol into the air. But the gunshots cracked and echoed between the hills and the driver only saw the flash of the highwayman’s teeth, the mystique of the ostrich feather in his hat, and the whites of his rearing horse’s eyes.
“STAND AND DELIVER!” the highwayman cried.
“STAND AND DELIVER!”
“Stand and de-LIVER?”
Two smaller, slightly less intimidating highwaymen echoed his cry, waving their pistols.
The driver wrenched the carriage to a halt in a cloud of dust. The two outriders on their pure white horses hung back. The tallest highwayman pointed his pistol at them.
“On the ground, lads!” he ordered.
The trembling riders slid off their horses and dropped to the ground. The highwayman smacked the white horses on their shiny flanks and they bolted off down the road.
“You too!” the highwayman barked at the driver.
He clambered off his seat and lay face down on the ground next to his colleagues.
“Keep your pistol on them. If any of them moves so much as a finger, shoot ’em,” the highwayman snarled to the highwayboy.
The highwayboy pointed his pistol at the three men. If any of them had looked up (which, luckily, none of them dared to do), they would have seen the pistol trembling. They might also have noticed that the pistol was made of wood, painted silver.
The highwayman jumped nimbly off his horse.
“Ho, Sally,” he said, to nobody in particular, though possibly it was to the horse.
He strode around to the side of the carriage and knocked, rat-a-tat-tat, on the door.
“Princess,” he pronounced, “I give you my word as a gentleman of the highway, no harm shall befall you!”
There was silence from inside the carriage. Not even a curtain twitched.
“Do not fear, O Highness!” the highwayman continued, as the highwaygirl dismounted and walked around the carriage, trying to peer inside. “I would sooner harm a rose in full bloom or a little leaping lambkin than hurt so much as a single royal hair upon your princessly head.”
There was nothing but silence from the carriage, and the highwayman began to look a bit peeved. He was not used to his speeches receiving so little reaction.
In a slightly louder, less chivalrous tone, he added, “But it really is rude to keep a man waiting for too long.”
The highwaygirl, sensing something was amiss, pulled open the carriage door. She immediately gagged.
“Zounds!” the highwayman cried, as stinking air billowed out.
It was the same foul smell that had surged through the Guildhall the night before.
Through watering eyes, the highwaypeople saw a lone woman sitting inside the carriage. She held a silver needle poised in the air and she was surrounded by an ugly mass of pelts from scabby beasts, severed claws and yellow fangs, tarry feathers and a tangle of putrid animal guts. She was in the middle of sewing a live, writhing millipede onto the brim of a cadaverous black hat.
The highwaygirl gaped at the woman.
“You’re not the princess!” the highwayman barked, disappointed.
Indeed, it was not the princess. It was—
“Miss Starebottom!” the highwayboy gasped, poking his head between the highwayman and highwaygirl to peek into the carriage. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same question, Lucas Bootmaker,” Miss Starebottom snarled through a dangerously curled lip. Both her eyebrows were at full-menace height.
The highwayboy (Goose) gulped.
“Hatmaker and Bootmaker are still friends, I see!” Miss Starebottom sneered. “So, the handkerchief didn’t work.”
The highwaygirl (Cordelia) gasped.
“It was you!” she cried. “You put my handkerchief on Goose’s floor after the Bootmakers were robbed!”
The realization set her mind twisting like a Whorlpod. She was dizzy with indignation.
“W-why would you do that?” Goose spluttered.
“I lent you that handkerchief when you were sad about your suitor waiting ages to propose …” Cordelia muttered.
Everything was beginning to make a horrible sort of sense.
“But he wasn’t your suitor, was he—the man in the boat in Hyde Park? It was Lord Witloof! You’re working together!”
“If only you were this clever in your lessons,” Miss Starebottom taunted.
“So it was you at the Guildhall last night!” Cordelia breathed. “And all these things—they’re from the Guildhall Menacing Cabinet you opened!”
The governess laughed her longest and pointiest laugh as Cordelia stared in horror at the revolting contents of the cabinet. Beneath black spikes of sea urchins and a heap of poison-green toadskins, Cordelia saw—
“Clothes! You’re making clothes!”
Miss Starebottom struck like lightning, her cane flashing through the air.
The highwayman shrieked, “Gad-ZOOKS!” as the cane slashed in front of his face.
“YAH!” The carriage gave a great jerk and all three highwaypeople leaped backward as a wheel threatened to roll over their feet.
“By Iago!” the highwayman cursed as the carriage lurched away, the driver and outriders clinging to t
he front bench and whipping the horses into a panicked frenzy.
“Goose!” Cordelia cried. “You were meant to be guarding the driver!”
“I’m sorry, Cordelia!” Goose said shakily, tearing off his silk handkerchief. “I wanted to see who was in the carriage!”
“I told you both! Never break character halfway through a scene!” wailed Sir Hugo, throwing his ostrich-feathered hat to the ground.
Cordelia’s brain was whirring faster than a wound-up watch. The stink still lingered in the air as the second-best royal carriage disappeared around the bend in a plume of dust.
“They’ve probably been planning this for ages!” she muttered.
“Planning what, exactly?” asked Goose.
“Can somebody please tell me what in Othello’s name is going ON!” Sir Hugo bellowed.
Cordelia checked the Peace Hat. It was snug in the hatbox, which was tucked inside her father’s jacket. There was enough room in the voluminous jacket for Cordelia and the hatbox, though the hatbox made her a rather strange shape. She turned to Sir Hugo.
“That woman is working for the enemy,” Cordelia explained. “She’s Making clothes for the princess to wear at the peace talks, but they’re made out of Menacing ingredients. Things that will fill her with hate.”
“Ah! A villainess! A vile saboteur!” Sir Hugo cried.
“What?” said Goose.
“She’s going to ruin the peace talks,” Cordelia translated. “She’s Making … sort of Rage Clothes. They’ll make Princess Georgina declare war against France!”
For an awful moment, all Cordelia could see was roiling sea, overrun with battleships and thrashing with cannon fire. Her father would have no hope of surviving it. He would be gone forever beneath the churning waves.
Cordelia! His voice echoed in her head and his arms reached for her desperately, flailing in a violent sea.
“NO!” she shouted.
Goose and Sir Hugo stared at her.
Cordelia stared back. Looking into Goose’s frightened eyes, she realized that if war came, it would not only mean that she would never find her father. Thousands of children just like her would lose their fathers too.
The Hatmakers Page 17