The Hatmakers

by Tamzin Merchant

  Cordelia chose her rope carefully.

  Lord Witloof struck a match.

  Cordelia took aim—

  Since King Louis would not move, Princess Georgina stood in front of him. Right between the king and the cannon.

  Cordelia pushed back with her legs—

  Lord Witloof touched the match to the gunpowder fuse.

  —and she jumped!

  Wind whirled around her as she sailed in a graceful arc through the air, clinging to the end of the rope.

  With a thud, Cordelia collided with the triumphant lord.

  He staggered backward, flipped over the wooden railing, and disappeared over the side of the ship.

  Cordelia hauled the cannon with everything left of her strength as the fuse sizzled down inside the iron fusilage. The cannon kicked like a carthorse, throwing her onto the deck. Smoke and iron blasted out of the metal mouth and seconds later she heard the cannonball splosh into the sea.

  “That was close,” Cordelia croaked.

  The deck thundered with footsteps as the crowd rushed to the railings to see Lord Witloof floundering in the waves.

  “Oh, bravo!” a French baron cried, then helped the English duke out of the barrel.

  Suddenly, all over the royal galleon, French and English courtiers were bashfully dusting each other off, muttering apologies in timid English and hesitant French. An English sailor released a French Maker from a headlock and straightened out his clothes. Lords and courtiers shook hands. Ladies and sailors smiled sheepishly as they disentangled themselves from their opponents.

  “Fetch Lord Witloof out of the sea,” the princess ordered.

  A looped rope was tossed over the side and Lord Witloof was hauled up, dripping with seawater and fury. He was deposited on the deck at Princess Georgina’s feet and immediately surrounded by a bristling circle of guards, all leveling their glinting halberds at him.

  “Lord Witloof, you are evil,” the princess declared. “And you are also defeated. England and France are at peace.”

  The lord pulled a wriggling fish out of his wig and flung it at her. “I’m not evil, I’m a good businessman!” he snarled. “War creates fear. Fear makes money. It’s a very simple equation.”

  He lurched to his feet, water pooling on the deck around him. His fine clothes were sodden and his wig was plastered over one side of his face.

  “It’s an equation your blasted father the king refused to listen to,” Lord Witloof went on. “So I got him out of the way. And that French blockhead kept writing you love letters—”

  Lord Witloof jabbed a furious finger at King Louis.

  “So I burned them,” Lord Witloof leered. “And forged some new letters to stir up talk of war.”

  “You burned zem?” King Louis bleated.

  “Love letters?” the princess repeated, rolling her eyes.

  King Louis blushed and batted his eyelashes.

  “My Ironfire Cannon Factory was READY TO BEGIN!” Lord Witloof roared. “It would have made me SO MUCH GOLD!”

  His wild eyes lit on Cordelia and he became very still, like a snake about to strike.

  “Still, there are other ways to make gold,” he hissed, quiet as poison being poured. “War is the simplest, but there are greater and more terrible ways to do it.”

  He lunged at Cordelia through the circle of glinting halberds. Cordelia twisted out of his hands and, in a heartbeat, five guards had the lord in their grip. His nose was an inch from Cordelia’s and she felt his sour breath on her face.

  “I will have my gold, Miss Hatmaker,” Lord Witloof whispered. “Gold is power. Your father could not stop me and nor shall you.”

  “What?” Cordelia gasped. “What do you mean about my father?”

  “Throw this villain in the hold with the bilge rats!” the princess commanded magnificently.

  The guards dragged Lord Witloof across the deck.

  “If I’m going in the hold, she’s COMING WITH ME!” Lord Witloof bawled, pointing at a French lady’s maid in the crowd.

  All eyes turned to the lady’s maid, who was hiding behind a wide fan.

  “Moi?” she said innocently.

  The king’s poodle bounded up and snatched the fan out of her hand, revealing—

  “Miss Starebottom!” Cordelia cried. She turned to the princess. “Your Highness, she’s working for Lord Witloof!”

  “Working for that devil?” Miss Starebottom spat. “No!”

  She swaggered forward, flourishing her cane. “I have only ever worked for myself, Miss Hatmaker.”

  With a violent thrust, Miss Starebottom shoved a guard aside with her cane. He fell back, bleeding.

  Only when the glinting point of the cane quivered an inch from Cordelia’s nose did she see what it truly was:

  A swordstick.

  CHAPTER 40

  AT THE OTHER END OF THE SWORDSTICK, THE narrowed eyes of Cordelia’s governess were slivers of pure hate.

  “I don’t care about war or peace, or getting rich, or having power,” she spat. “All I care about is revenge.”

  “Revenge?” Cordelia repeated. “For what?”

  “Thirty years ago my family was expelled from the Guildhall,” Miss Starebottom hissed. “My father was executed. My mother, brother, and I were thrown into a workhouse. We were shamed and abandoned. Left to die. I was nine years old.”

  Cordelia frowned. She remembered her uncle telling her a similar story …

  “But I did not die,” the governess continued savagely. “I held my mother and my brother’s hands as fever burned the life from them. But I survived!”

  Cordelia searched her governess’s face, wild with malice and grief.

  “I am the last living Canemaker!” Miss Starebottom howled. “And I want revenge!”

  The governess lunged for Cordelia. Cordelia ducked and the swordstick plunged into the mast.

  Before Miss Starebottom could pull out the swordstick, strong hands seized her and dragged her back.

  “No!” Miss Starebottom cried. “No!”

  Cordelia looked from the swordstick, still quivering in the mast, to her governess, struggling in the arms of the guards. She felt pity fluttering in her fast-beating heart.

  Left to die at nine years old.

  “The last living Canemaker?” the princess repeated. “Is this true?”

  “My uncle said they’d all died …” Cordelia whispered shakily.

  Miss Starebottom jerked, trying to get free. “Of course all those smug Makers thought everyone was dead. Nobody bothered to find out what happened to us! I was left alone, with no family, no friends. Nobody to take care of me! I was a child—”

  Miss Starebottom’s voice cracked, barely able to contain her fury.

  “So I waited, and I planned. I took a job with the Hatmakers, and another with the Bootmakers. I spent three years hiding in plain sight, tutoring those ghastly children so we’d be ready to strike! It was I who wound the Summoning Clock to call the Makers to the Guildhall. The Makers have hated each other for years, and I knew if they were gathered together, a fight would be inevitable—and it would be impossible for them to Make the Peace Clothes successfully. Lord Witloof arranged for the Thieftaker to stage an assassination attempt at the theater—”

  “Don’t tell them everything, you fool!” Lord Witloof lashed out.

  “Don’t call me a fool!” Miss Starebottom snarled.

  “Take these two traitors away,” Princess Georgina ordered the guards.

  “Wait!” Cordelia cried. She was trembling but she had to know the truth.

  “Lord Witloof, what do you know about my father?” she demanded. “What did you mean when you said he couldn’t stop you?”

  Lord Witloof’s lips curled into a sneer.

  “Answer her,” Princess Georgina commanded, flashing imperious eyes at the leering lord. “By order of the Crown.”

  A guard poked his halberd into Lord Witloof’s side, and he winced. Then he muttered reluctantly, “The night t
he Hatmaker ship was due to return, I traveled to the coast and extinguished the torch in the Rivermouth lighthouse. Then I waited until nightfall on the cliff with a lantern. The Jolly Bonnet came sailing over the horizon and, thinking my lantern was the lighthouse, took the wrong course and steered onto the rocks.”

  Lord Witloof looked directly at Cordelia and a terrible smile split his face in two.

  “The crash was a symphony of destruction. And I saw the captain, standing at the ship’s wheel, get swallowed whole by the sea. He went down, tangled in the rigging. I watched Captain Hatmaker drown.”

  Cordelia looked into the lord’s eyes and knew it to be true. She felt—numb.

  “It was a pleasure, seeing my oldest rival die. I’ve hated him since our days at Cambridge,” Lord Witloof went on. “After watching the ship disappear beneath the waves, I galloped to Hatmaker House to tell them of the terrible calamity. Their ship had been sunk, and Prospero lost! Oh, what a tragedy!”

  Cordelia was dizzy with despair as she grasped for the last shred of hope. “But—Jack, the cabin boy. He knew something …”

  Lord Witloof clenched his teeth. At a nod from the princess, the guard prodded him with the halberd again.

  “Yes, the cabin boy survived,” Lord Witloof sneered. “As soon as I got wind of it, I made haste to the docks at Wapping and drugged him. I could not risk him revealing the truth about the shipwreck.

  “And when I found out you were meddling, Cordelia, I nailed him in a crate and put him on a ship to Jamaica!” Miss Starebottom cackled. “And I bribed the seadog to lie about it!”

  “Take them both away!” The princess turned from them with contempt and wrapped her arms around Cordelia’s shoulders.

  Cordelia was stupefied with shock. The truth was sinking in slowly, like a body drifting to the bottom of the sea.

  The villains were dragged over to the hatchway that led down to the hold.

  “No!” Miss Starebottom suddenly whimpered. “Please! I—I’m afraid of the dark!”

  But her wails were ignored by the burly guards. Miss Starebottom and Lord Witloof were booted through the hatch.

  Goose and Sir Hugo were freed. Cordelia watched in a daze as Goose bounded toward her.

  “You did it!” he cried, bowling her over in a great bear hug.

  Sir Hugo emerged shakily from the hold, his eyes haunted.

  “’Twas as black as a hangman’s heart down there,” he quavered. “We have survived many nights without a shred of hope.”

  Goose laughed. “Sir Hugo, we were in there about forty-five minutes!”

  Cordelia smiled, but she felt as though she was drowning.

  “You stopped the war, Cordelia!” said Goose in amazement.

  She looked over at the princess and the king. His French Majesty was draped over the princess’s shoulder, moonily playing with a bow on her sleeve, the Peace Hat still perched on his head.

  “I think we can safely agree,” the king crooned, “zat we are lovers, not fighters. For after all, I have lost my heart to you, Princess. I would surely have lost a war also.”

  Everybody around Cordelia cheered, except the princess, who removed the king’s arm from around her shoulder.

  “I hope I don’t have to marry him as part of the peace treaty,” Cordelia heard the princess mutter to herself. “That would be such a bother.”

  Cordelia turned her face into the wind and her eyes to the vast ocean. There—far away—was the hard line of the horizon. She had been foolish to think she could have found her father at sea: it was as wide as the sky.

  Then something within her stirred. The sea air was brazen on her face and the mewing of the wheeling gulls was suddenly sharp and urgent as she remembered in a rush.

  “Goose! We’ve got to rescue our families!”

  CHAPTER 41

  AT THE TOWER OF LONDON THERE WAS ALREADY a rescue afoot.

  Sam Lightfinger surveyed the miserable Hatmakers. Uncle Tiberius, Aunt Ariadne, and Great-aunt Petronella all stared back at her. They had spent most of the morning like this, studying each other across the gloomy dungeon. Every so often, Sam glanced at the shadow of the guard at the door.

  After a particularly long silence … “Lunchtime,” Sam remarked cheerfully.

  “How do you know that?” Aunt Ariadne asked.

  “Guard’s gone.” Sam grinned, jumping to her feet.

  AWOOOOOOOOO-AWOOOOOOOOO!

  A terrible yowling echoed down the dingy tunnel. Sam peered out of the barred window. In the dungeon opposite, a man with wild hair and a crazed smile was hopping up and down, howling.

  “Who the blazes is that?” Sam asked.

  “That,” said Aunt Ariadne wearily, “is the king of England.”

  Great-aunt Petronella cackled with dry laughter from her armchair as Sam waved at the king.

  “’Ello, Your Majesty!” she called.

  The king paused midway through a howl and blinked at her. Then he licked his hand like a cat and cleaned his ears, purring.

  “Right,” Sam announced, getting down to business. “Let’s get outta here, shall we?”

  Uncle Tiberius opened his mouth to explain that they were in the deepest dungeon at the end of the darkest tunnel of the Tower of London, and that the damp dripping through the ceiling was the River Thames seeping downward because they were so far below ground. But before he could even begin to explain how hopeless their situation was, Sam Lightfinger whipped a golden hatpin out of her sleeve and twiddled it in the keyhole.

  “Is that my hatpin?” Aunt Ariadne spluttered.

  Sam grinned over her shoulder. “Useful little fing, ain’t it?”

  Click!

  “Most sapient!” Great-aunt Petronella cried.

  “Who are you?” Aunt Ariadne whispered.

  “By St. Catherine’s Holy Cap!” Uncle Tiberius exclaimed as the dungeon door swung open.

  Sam put a finger to her lips and poked her head out to check there were no guards prowling. Then she sprang over to the king’s dungeon and began twiddling the lock with the hatpin.

  Click!

  The king was freed. He flapped his arms and crowed.

  “Come on, Your Majesty,” Sam said, chuckling.

  The king did look rather funny with his wild hair, scarlet jacket, bloomers, and purple snakeskin shoes as he scampered out of the cell.

  Sam slipped along to the next dungeon and peered in through the door. She saw three glum people slumped on the stone floor.

  “’Ello,” Sam said. They all looked up. “You must be Goose’s family.”

  It was indeed Mr. and Mrs. Bootmaker and Goose’s older brother, Ignatius.

  “Do you know where my little Lucas is?” Mrs. Bootmaker asked in a tremulous voice.

  “Not quite sure just at this minute,” Sam replied, wiggling the hatpin in the lock. “But I fink he’s probably saving us all from a war.”

  Click!

  The Bootmakers were amazed. Sam let them out of their cell and they sidled into the tunnel, joining the Hatmakers and the king. Hatmakers and Bootmakers eyed each other suspiciously.

  Quickly, and with a series of satisfying clicks, Sam freed the Glovemakers, the Watchmakers, and the Cloakmakers from their dank prison cells.

  The last cell of all contained a lone French manservant with a basket of rotten pineapples. The crowd of Makers watched in silence as Sam fiddled the hatpin in the lock. It was easier than trying to make small talk with each other.

  Click!

  The last lock was picked.

  “Here ya go,” Sam said cheerfully, handing the hatpin to the astonished Aunt Ariadne.

  A Tower guard appeared at the end of the tunnel. “What’s all this palav—huh!”

  His mouth fell open when he saw the Makers, Sam, the pineapple-wielding Frenchman, and the king standing there.

  “Get ’im!” Sam cried.

  She snatched a pineapple and threw it at the guard. She had very good aim. She knocked the guard out cold.


  Ten seconds later, Sam, the king, the Makers, and the French manservant, armed to the teeth with pineapples, surged up out of the dungeons and into the guardroom. The guards, who were just tucking into their lunch (a rather delicious roast chicken), saw them coming and fled.

  The prisoners chased the guards through the wide courtyard, scattering a rabble of ravens, and down to the huge gates in the inner wall. They were almost free! They could see the way out—they just had to get through the archway beneath an ancient tower … With a deafening crash, an iron portcullis smashed down in front of them. Ravens wheeled, squawking, in the air.

  “No!” Sam cried.

  On the other side of the portcullis, the guards jeered at them.

  “We’re stuck in here!” Uncle Tiberius panted, as he brought up the rear, carrying Great-aunt Petronella in her chair.

  “RELEASE ME!” the king bellowed magnificently. “For I am your KING!”

  “Nonsense! You ain’t the king! You don’t look like the bloke on the coins,” one guard sneered.

  The king shrugged and cawed at a watching raven.

  “We’re trapped!” a Glovemaker wailed.

  Sam frowned. A raven hopped toward her.

  “Only if you fink ’bout it negative,” Sam said, narrowing her eyes at the guards. “Maybe they’re the ones who’re trapped.”

  The raven cocked its head.

  Sam dropped her pineapple onto the cobbles and it broke into bright yellow shards. She tossed a bit to the raven. The bird snapped it up and croaked for more.

  “Right-oh, ’ere ya go!” Sam grinned. She tossed another bit of pineapple through the iron grille of the portcullis, into the midst of the sneering guards.

  Moments later, a black feathery missile with a razor-sharp beak hurtled down on the guards from above. Uttering freakish screams, the other ravens joined in.

  The guards shrieked, diving for cover, as the air around them was torn apart by the ferocious birds.

  Encouraged, all the Makers copied Sam, throwing bits of pineapple through the portcullis. The ravens gleefully snapped up the food as it landed around the dancing guards.