Fever Crumb (13 page)

Fever climbed inside, and Kit got in with her and shut the door. As the chair set off she heard a sound, and she thought that it was thunder, but it went on and on, coming from the lower end of the city; a shifting, snarling sound, which made her think of some vast and dangerous animal stirring in its sleep. All down the street the shopkeepers were putting up their shutters, and knots of working men stood talking, turning to stare as the chair went past.

***

The day was dark by the time Charley Shallow got back to London -- still not noon, but the sky gone black as a winter's evening, as if the clouds themselves were putting on mourning for old Bagman Creech.

He hadn't dared to go skirting back round Nonesuch Hill to find the coracle, but had run blindly through the marshes till he stumbled on a plankway, a path built by scavengers or hunters, which he followed till it brought him to the southern edge of the city. He was mud-caked, and leech-nibbled; dirty water spewed from his boot tops at every step. A wind tram was passing and he leaped on board, ignoring the old-fashioned looks that the other passengers gave him when they got a whiff of his marsh-steeped clothes. The tram was moving slowly, with the whole crew busy poling it along, and Charley thought that, with a bit of luck, he might get several stops nearer home before anyone bothered asking him to pay. When they did, he'd have to jump off quick, 'cos he was skint.

But when the conductor finally appeared in front of him, he changed his mind. He wasn't just the pot boy from the Mott and Hoople no more. He was Bagman Creech's 'prentice. And now Bagman was gone, that made Charley his heir, didn't it? You're
the last of us,
Bagman had said. The last of the Skinners. Charley pulled himself up stiff and straightened the old bowler hat on his head and said, "Sorry, mate, I've got no money. I'm on Skinners' business."

"Skinners?" said the conductor, checking his natural urge to throw this filthy, smelly urchin off his tram.

"Bagman Creech is dead," said Charley. "We was hunting a Scriven and she had a friend and he shot Bagman down. I've got to ... Here he hesitated, for he wasn't quite sure what he had to do. "I've got to sort it."

The conductor still looked uncertain, till one of Charley's fellow passengers, a woman, said, "That boy's all right. I saw him with old Bagman up in town yesterday."

"Bagman's dead!" said someone else, passing on what Charley had said to their neighbor. The news was spreading down the tram. Even the crew were looking at Charley now.

The conductor took an oyster shell from his satchel and looped its string over Charley's head. "Good luck, boy. Anything you need, you just ask."

Charley looked at him, and at the faces of the other passengers. He wasn't used to this. To power. He wondered what Bagman would have told them. He said, "Just keep a look out, that's all. She was in the marshes, but she could be back in town by now. She looks like a girl and she dresses like one of them Engineers what live in that old head. She's got a human gent protecting her, an archaeologist name of Solent."

The track swung east toward the distant Terminus, and the sails flapped and then tautened, filling with a sudden breeze. The sky astern, over the marshes, was smeared with rain. Charley sat down again, and no one complained now about the smell of marsh that rose from him or the stain he'd leave upon the seat slats. He'd not been sure where he was going, but he knew now. Back to Bagman's house to clean himself up and find himself a new weapon. And then he'd finish the job. Find that Patchskin, and kill her.

Charley hadn't reckoned on the power of rumors, though. The story he'd told had a life of its own, and it moved faster than he could. At every stop the tram made, passengers got off and told the news of Bagman Creech's death in pubs and street markets. Diggers told it to their wives, and their children overheard it and went shouting it through the shabby streets. Along 'Bankmentside and up Cripplegate and through all the rookeries of St Kylie the story spread and grew. Drinkers carried it from pub to pub. In the Crate of Codlings and the Rose Reviv'd, wild rumors got hammered into hard fact. There was a Patchskin loose. Maybe more than one. They were in league with the Movement, and hoping to seize power and have all London for their own again. Bagman Creech had found this out, and one of the 'Skins had killed him for it. And worst of all, the murderess had human help....

A ripple of anger moved through the cheap parts of town. By the time Charley hopped off the tram at Celebrity Square people were yelling about it in the streets and smashing the windows of any old-tech shop that had ever done business with the traitor Solent.

Charley went past them, wondering what the fuss was all about. He was halfway down Stragglemarket on his way to Bagman's house when a big hand grabbed him from behind and heaved him hard against a wall. He hung there, pinned, kicking at empty air and staring up once more into the large, red face of Tedward Swiney.

"Crice, you stink of the bog," exclaimed the pub keeper. "I been looking for you all over. Is it true what they're saying? Bagman's croaked?"

Charley couldn't answer. It was all he could do to breathe, with Ted's big fist clumping his coat collar in a tight knot against his windpipe. Ted was wearing his old oilcloth outdoor coat, which stank like a wet dog. The wind flapped it open and in an inside pocket Charley glimpsed the handle of the blunderbuss which usually lived under the counter at the Mott and Hoople in case anyone tried to rob the place or complained about the quality of Ted's beer.

"What about this Patchskin girl?" Ted growled. "Still live an' large, is she? Well?"

Charley managed a nod, and Ted gave another growl and let him drop. He knelt on the cobbles, hacking and gasping.

"You sound worse than the old man did," said Ted. "Where is she then? 'Ow do we find her? Pity to waste all this community spirit you've roused up. I ain't seen the commons look this lively for years. So how do we get hold of her? Out in the marshes, you say?"

"Kit Solent," choked Charley.

"An' who the blog is Kit Solent?"

"He's an archaeologist. He's helping her. He murdered Bagman. Maybe he's a Scriven, too. I didn't see no speckles on him, but then the girl ain't got none neither. This Solent lives up on the hill. I can't remember the street. I can take you there."

Ted Swiney cursed viciously under his breath, which helped him to think. Then he reached down and grabbed Charley by both shoulders, lifting him to his feet. He patted the dust off him with both big hands, trying to look friendly, even fatherly, for the benefit of the gang of onlookers who had gathered to watch. He could sense the anger of the mob building. They needed a leader, but with Bagman gone who could they turn to? Ted meant to make sure that it was him.

Charley stood there uneasily while Ted set his hat straight. Rain was falling heavily now. A chair passed, its bearers tramping along like dray horses with their heads down and the rain slicking their hair. Charley watched it going by so that he didn't have to look at Ted Swiney's attempt at a cheery smile. He saw a girl's white face framed in the window space; the familiar curve of a shaved head. "Ted! Look!
It's her!
"

***

The chair slowed a little as the rain came on, the bearers growing mistrustful of the greasy cobbles. Rain rattled on the roof and speckled the window glass as Fever peered out to see where they were. She saw the sign outside a tram stop, celebrity square . She saw more groups of men, sheltering under shop awnings as the downpour increased. She saw a barrel-shaped man lurch forward out of one of the groups. He had his finger pointed straight at Fever, and he was shouting something.

"Damn that bald pate of yours," said Kit Solent. "You stand out like a beacon." He thrust Fever back against her seat, out of the sight of anyone outside, but the damage had been done, and Fever could hear the roar of angry voices spreading. Her breath came in little shallow gasps, and she was afraid that she was going to be sick. Kit Solent leaned past her. He had his pistol in his hand, and he used the handle to pound on the woodwork behind her head, shouting to the lead bearer, "
Faster! Faster!
"

The chair started to lurch as the bearers broke into a heavy trot. Fever craned her neck, looking out through the small glass pane in the back wall. She saw the barrel-shaped man flagging down a passing taxi-chair. She saw his mouth move, and knew that he was shouting, "Follow that chair!"

"They're coming after us!" she said.

"They won't catch us...." Kit Solent twisted round to look, and for a moment his head and shoulders obscured Fever's view. "Damn! That's Swiney!"

"Who's he?"

"Landlord of the Mott on Ditch Street. A real troublemaker. A big man in the bad parts of town ... He turned back to hammer on the wall behind Fever's head again, shouting, "Faster, man! Faster! I'll make it worth your while!"

A moment later the chair was racing up Cransbeigh Notch and crossing Cripplegate. The bearers were fit and fresh and too heavily dosed with lifting drugs to question Kit's order. People who saw them coming just had to dive aside to let the chair go past.

But the chair Ted Swiney had commandeered was fast, too. Fever could see it twenty feet behind, a lean red chair with go-faster stripes and three bearers, one at the front and two behind. The publican's angry face could be seen shouting from a side window. After a few hundred yards he wriggled one hand out, too, clutching something silvery that he pointed toward Fever's chair. Fever couldn't make out what it was until his hand jerked and a flare of orange sparks and white smoke hid him.

Something struck the corner of the chair above her with a startling crack.

"He's shooting at us!" she said stupidly.

"Two can play at that," said Kit Solent, tugging a window open. He leaned his whole body out into the rain, and Fever heard his gun go off and saw the pale puff of smoke whipped sideways on the wind. He must have missed, though, for a moment later Ted Swiney's gun fired again and a hole the size of a two-quid coin appeared in the woodwork of the chair's back.

Kit Solent twisted himself round' and threw his empty pistol into Fever's lap, followed by the ammunition pouch and powder horn. "Reload that!" he shouted, drawing out a second, identical gun. He had been half expecting this sort of trouble, she realized; he had armed himself for a battle while he had been upstairs fetching her things and Mistress Gloomstove's money. She felt hopelessly, helplessly grateful to him for daring to come with her, and she hurried to do as he said, gripping the pistol with trembling fingers, terrified she'd drop it. "A charge of powder, wadding, then the ball, ram it all home with the rod," Kit told her, shouting to make himself heard over the roar of the rain on the roof. Coarse-grained powder, black as pepper, sprinkled down her coat. Kit fired his second pistol as she pushed the ball home, and she was still busy with the ramrod when he reached back in, dropping his empty gun on her and groping for the other.

The rain grew suddenly heavier. Gutters gurgled, and the bearers' boots skidded as the chair turned another corner. Ted

Swiney's three-man rig was still close behind. Other chairs were joining the chase now, as word got round of who it was that the publican was pursuing. One of them slammed into a fruit and veg stall at the side of the street, scattering apples and cabbages into the path of another, whose bearers stumbled and went down, the thin boardings of their chair splintering as it hit the cobbles.

***

Crouched in Ted's chair, Charley Shallow watched the juddering view, rain-spattered, gun-lit. He flinched each time a panicked pedestrian dived out of the chair's path, ducked whenever Solent's pistol fired from the chair ahead. Once a ball came through the boarding beside his head, making a big, splintery hole that the rain gusted in through. It
couldn't be worth all this, could it,
he kept thinking. They were all going to end up as dead as Bagman....

But there was no telling that to Ted. The publican was cursing steadily, happy and fierce in the excitement of the chase, pulling his thick body back inside the chair to reload his old blunderbuss and then cramming himself out into the rain again to shoot, bellowing abuse at the straining bearers: "Faster, you bloggers! Faster, you useless cloots!" The gun going off again, smoke blowing through the chair with a sharp, scorched smell. "Got him.' I got the blogger!"

***

Fever finally managed to get a pistol filled before Kit asked for it, and then realized that she'd only managed it because one of Swiney's shots had hit him. He groaned as she pulled him back inside. He had dropped his pistol and there was a scorched hole in the front of his coat, near the shoulder. He looked dazed and white and disbelieving. She let him sink to the floor, thinking he'd be safer there, and looked down and saw that she was still holding the loaded pistol.

The chair went pounding along a tight, brick-paved street, past pubs and eel bars and dodgy archaeopharmacies. Fever leaned out and saw that Ted Swiney's chair was still behind, though the others had missed the turning and were bunched up at the street's end, bickering about who should go first. Swiney had ducked back inside his chair to reload.

What had he
and
Kit
been thinking
of,
she wondered,
shooting at each other?
If you wanted to stop a chair it was not at the
passengers
you should be shooting...She pushed herself out farther, until her hips wedged in the window space. Rain battered at her face. She held on grimly to the pistol and tried to aim at the legs of Ted Swiney's forward bearer. She was about to pull the trigger when her own chair plunged suddenly into the rookeries of Kitesbridge, a tangle of grim little streets barely wide enough for it to fit through. A jutting window ledge smacked the gun from her hand and she threw herself back inside as mossy brickwork scraped against both doors. She had a hopeless afterimage of the lost pistol glinting as it bounced on the cobbles. Maybe Ted's bearers would trip on it....