Leif Frond and Quickfingers (6 page)

Suddenly my granny's voice popped into my head. “Our fjord's so deep it goes right down to the toes of the mountains – down… down…”

Not now, Granny!
I yelled silently, trying to fight down the cold, black panic I was feeling.
I need to concentrate!

There was one more hurdle – getting the skite back up onto the ice on the other side. Get it wrong and I would wham
us into
the ice, Queue would certainly lose hold of the kite, and we would very likely not survive long enough to decide whose fault it was.

But our luck held and a sudden extra gust of wind at the crucial moment gave us just enough lift. I pulled up the keel, slammed the ski lever hard and we leapt onto the ice with a teeth-jangling smash and away.

Did I say there was only one more hurdle? When I said that I wasn't thinking clearly. The real hurdle was coming up
now
, and it was coming up fast.

“How do we stop this thing?” I yelled back at my companion, but there was no answer.

“Queue?”

The shore was getting closer by the second, the rocks were getting more vicious-looking and the trees were getting bigger. There was dread growing inside me that threatened to crawl up my throat and throttle me.

“Queue!”

I risked a look back over my shoulder and realised that the dread was well-founded.

It was clear from the expression on Queue's face that he had no idea whatsoever how to stop.

Closer. And closer. And then…

WHAM! SMASH! WALLOP!

Stopping seemed to have taken care of itself.

“Queue? Are you all right?” I croaked through a mouthful of snow.

Queue was flat on his back with his legs in the air but, miraculously, he wasn't dead. His neck wasn't broken either, nor any other obvious bits or bones.

“Hmmm. That'll need some work,” was all he said.

Our luck had held. True, we were both battered, bruised, dishevelled and scraped pretty much all over. But what a ride!

We picked ourselves up out of the shattered remains of the skite, and looked about. There, behind us, was Frondfell, tiny on the far shore of the fjord. Above, the mountains loomed and the sky was darkening. Ahead lay the battle we had come to fight.

“Let's go,” said Queue.

The light was fading fast as we stumbled through the trees, angling up from the shore to where the Pass over the mountains began. Up until now I hadn't doubted for a moment that we would find him still here, but suddenly the plan seemed too crazy to succeed. Against all the odds, we'd come this far, but the Pedlar could be long gone already, and The Book with him. We were just an old man and a boy. It was hopeless.

Then Queue grabbed my arm. There, flickering through the trees ahead, we could see someone's fire.

We crept forward, making no noise, using the trees for cover, closer, and closer until there it was – the thief's campsite, only a few strides away. The thief himself was sitting on a log by the fire. The pack of stolen goods was at his feet. He was cradling Queue's Book in his arms, wrapped in a scarf, almost as if it were an ailing child.

I could feel Queue tensing beside me, ready to rush forward and overpower him. I got set to do the same – when suddenly a log in the fire shifted and the light flared up and we could see our quarry clearly for the first time.

And then I realised what it was that had been bothering me all along. Quickfingers the old Pedlar wasn't an old pedlar at all.

Quickfingers the old Pedlar was a boy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Pedlar's Story

W
hen it came down to it, there was no overpowering to be done. When we walked into the circle of firelight he just stared, owl-eyed, for a moment, then handed the bundled Book back to Queue, and shuffled over on his log to make room.

We sat down. Now that we were here, neither Queue nor I knew what to say. I began to wonder if we would just sit there all night – maybe all winter – maybe they wouldn't find us till the spring, three silent ice statues – but then Quickfingers suddenly started to talk.

“My master taught me everything I know about disguises,” he said in a dull, sad voice. “He also taught me everything I know about stealing. My real name is Sigli, but he called me Quickfingers, because I was so good at nicking things. I've travelled with him for as long as I can remember.”

“You had a master?” I asked – and then I remembered Quickfingers – Sigli – asking Queue the same question. “What about your family?”

Sigli shrugged. “I don't know. When I was little I used to ask him, but he never told me anything about them. So after a while, I stopped asking.”

That made me shiver. Of course my family drove me crazy – but having no family
at all?
It sounded so bleak.

Queue said, “Where is your master now?”

“He died. Last winter. We were snowed-up in a shepherd's hut and he got ill and he didn't get better.” He shrugged again. “At first I couldn't think what to do, and then I realised there was only one thing I could do. I could go on travelling, trading – and stealing. Only now, I'd be the Pedlar, and not the servant.”

“But why the disguise?” It didn't make any sense to me.

“Isn't it obvious?” Sigli said. “People accept you if you're old. They aren't always pestering you with questions and telling you what to do. Think about it. If you're my age – our age – people want to know where your master or your family is, and why you're not with them, and what a mere boy is doing on the road, without any adults in control of him.”

“Not unreasonable questions,” said Queue mildly.

“Maybe. But then the nice ones want to take you over and mother you and the nasty ones…well, at best they see you as free labour. No, my way's been best. And some day I'll
be
old. Then I won't need to wear a white wig or paint wrinkles on my face with walnut juice and a feather.”

“You had us all fooled,” said Queue. “A master of disguise.”

“Oh, well. All you have to do really is hobble a bit, and talk in a creaky old voice, and remember not to jump up too quickly from a bench – ”

“Or keep wanting to be the one who tests the dangerous flying machine,” I muttered.

He pulled a face. “Or that. Oh, I was
so
jealous!”

It was strange hearing him say that when I remembered how jealous
I'd been of him!
I shifted about on the log. I couldn't seem to get comfortable.

“You're very good at making things,” said Queue into the silence.

“The moment I walked into your workshop I knew there was nothing on earth I wanted more than to do what you do. Be an Artificer.” The look on Sigli's face was so eager and shiny-eyed as he spoke that I felt all strange in my stomach. I had to turn away.

Suddenly I wished we could just forget why we were here. There was an uncomfortable pause and then Queue said the thing that had to be said.

“You stole my Book.” His voice was low and very, very sad.

Sigli hung his head. “I know. And I know you can never forgive me for that, no matter how sorry I am. And I
am
. Sorry. I… I just panicked. I'd been so caught up in what we were doing, and so happy, and so, I don't know… It was as if I
belonged
, and I just forgot everything else. I forgot about how I needed to watch the weather, and time my leaving just right, and get my pack filled up with goods again for the next settlement, and make sure I didn't give myself away…” He turned suddenly, grabbed hold of the bulging pack and thrust it at us. “Here! Take it back. Take it all back!” Shockingly, he began to cry.

And then Queue said something that made me want to cry too.

“I know what it's like to be lonely,” he said quietly. “I don't have any family either.”

I felt cold inside. I mean, I can imagine just about anything, but I couldn't imagine what it would be like, not being up to your eyeballs in family. I'd longed to be shot of mine so many times, but would I really want to be free and on my own? If I were in Quickfingers' boots, would I have done the same as he did? (Come to think of it, Wandering Nell was in Quickfingers' boots, but that wasn't the point.) Would I have been brave enough to go on alone? What would Leif the Hero have done?

I was so busy wondering that I missed the next bit. Something seemed to have passed between the other two, though I wasn't sure how. Maybe they hadn't used words.

“But we're not the same blood,” Sigli was saying. “We couldn't be family.”

“It doesn't have to be blood,” said Queue. “Salim al-Basri was more family to me than my father or my mother. We were a family up here.” And he tapped his forehead.

Sigli just stared at him, while all sorts of expressions wandered across his face – hope, doubt, wishfulness. And suddenly, I was feeling all those things too. I wanted more than anything for Quickfingers to have a home and a family, and I wanted more than anything for that to be at Frondfell, and not anywhere else.

And when you want something so much, sometimes it makes your brain work extra hard.

“I can never go back to Frondfell,” Sigli was saying. “They know I've stolen from them – they're not going to forget it. And even if they did, somebody from some other settlement I've stolen from might show up someday and denounce me.”

“That's true,” I said, trying to sound calm, as my brain bubbled with a truly cunning plan. “But answer me this. Since your master's death, have you always disguised yourself the way you were at Frondfell?”

“I never use
exactly
the same disguise. That would be asking for trouble.” Sigli frowned, uncertain where this was going.

“But you were always disguised somehow?” I persisted.

“Yes.”

“And can you, by any chance, paint fake bruises or wounds on yourself, as part of a disguise?”

“Easily.” Sigli looked even more bewildered.

“Right then,” I said. “This is what we're going to do…”

CHAPTER NINE

Leif's Cunning Plan

I
didn't sleep much, and judging by the tossing and turning on either side of me, neither did Sigli or Queue. Thinking in the dark hours of the night, I realised my plan was crazy, ill-advised and downright stupid. In the cold pre-dawn light, it didn't look any better. We scuffed out the fire anyway, and headed for home, back along the northern shore of the fjord.

By mid-morning we met with my father and the others. They were astonished to see us, and delighted that we'd retrieved all the stolen goods. They were also surprised to see a strange boy with us – a strange boy with a nasty-looking head wound.

“His name is Sigli, Father,” I said as I clambered up behind my father on his horse. “There was an attack. You see – ”

“Tell me when we're safe at home, Leif,” he rumbled. “I don't like the look of those clouds one bit.”

He was right. Men and horses were already tired but there was no time to rest. By pushing hard, my father got us round the head of the fjord and almost back to Frondfell before the snowfall got serious.