Museum of Thieves (23 page)

.

he Fugleman’s ruined office was halfway up Old Arsenal Hill. There was a plaza out the front, with a statue of the Fugleman in the middle of it. Goldie crouched behind the statue, peering at the shattered building.

Someone had rigged temporary gaslights, and she could see the smashed doors and the twisted railings. Six militiamen stood halfway up the wide steps with their rifles cocked and their faces wary. At their feet lay Broo, trussed up with so many ropes that his black coat looked brindle. A leather strap bound his jaws shut. Another three or four tied him to the railings.

Despite this, the militiamen seemed nervous. They stamped their feet as if they were cold, and whispered to each other out of the corners of their mouths. The whites of their eyes glinted in the gaslight.

All the way up the hill Goldie had been sure that Toadspit would be here, waiting for her. But away from the steps, everything was still. The only sound was the restless stamping of militia boots. She stared into the shadows until her eyes ached, but there was no sign of Toadspit.

Bongggg. Bongggg. Bongggg
.
The faint sound of the Great Hall chimes floated up the hill. It was midnight. Across the plaza, the militiamen changed places.

Goldie chewed her lip. ‘Come on, Toadspit!’ she breathed. ‘Come
on
!’

Her right leg began to cramp. She stretched it carefully, then forced herself to be still again. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest.
Ka-thump ka-thump ka-thump.

One of the militiamen sneezed, and his companions swore at the unexpected sound. Broo lay as still as death.

Ka-thump ka-thump ka-thump
.

Goldie told herself that Toadspit would come before her heart beat sixty times.
One, two, three—

Just before the count got to sixty, she changed it to a hundred. Then five hundred. Then a thousand . . .

Still Toadspit did not come.

When she realised that she was going to have to rescue Broo on her own, Goldie’s spirit almost failed her. The militiamen weren’t nearly as frightening as the soldiers behind the Dirty Gate, but they were big and strong and there were six of them against one of her. How could she get them away from Broo for long enough to cut all those ropes?

She leaned her forehead against the stone plinth and thought back over the things she had learned. Concealment, eggshell-walking, interpretation of footsteps. Making a lie sound like the truth. Stealing secretly and stealing boldly.

She had a feeling that this one had to be a mixture. A lie that sounded like the truth. A Concealment. A bold theft . . .

She thought of Lamb and Rosie screaming at the tops of their voices.
‘He said he was going to eat us! Like an idlecat!’ ‘Like a slommerkin!’

Before she could lose her nerve, she got to her feet. As silent as smoke, she crept around the edge of the plaza until she was back on the street that led down the hill. There was a brick wall there, with narrow recesses that she had noticed on the way up. They weren’t deep enough to hide her properly, but they would have to do.

Carefully, she tucked herself as far into one of them as she could. Then she thought of the girls in Care – and began to scream.

‘
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
The slommerkin’s got me! The
slommerkin’s
got me! It’s carrying me away! It’s going to squash me!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
’

She knew that if she had done this the night before, it wouldn’t have worked. These days, hardly anyone except children believed in slommerkins, with their enormous bulk and their habit of rolling on their victims to soften them up before they ate them. But hardly anyone believed in brizzlehounds either, or slaughterbirds, and these militiamen had seen them, had been
attacked
by them, just a few hours ago.

And if a brizzlehound and a slaughterbird can come out of the museum
, thought Goldie,
why not a slommerkin
?

The militiamen clearly agreed. There was a shout from the direction of the plaza. Boots thudded on the stone cobbles.

‘It was a girl!’

‘Where did her voice come from?’

‘Up the end!’

‘She’s not here!’

‘She must be somewhere!’

‘You men go that way, we’ll go this way.’

‘What about the brizzlehound? The Fugleman’ll kill us if it gets away!’

‘Brizzlehound’s not going anywhere! If you see the blasted slommerkin, don’t take any chances. Shoot it! But don’t hit the girl!’

As the boots pounded towards her, Goldie closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow down.

I’m a brick wall
.
I’m a shadow. There’s nothing the least bit interesting about me . . .

The militiamen raced past her, heading down the hill.

Goldie was out of the recess and running up the street before the sound of their boots faded. She dashed across the plaza to the iron railings, the scissors ready in her hand. ‘Broo!’

The brizzlehound’s eyes were open. There was a bloody furrow across the side of his head where the bullet had passed, and dried blood covered his muzzle. He gazed up at her.

‘You have to help me!’ hissed Goldie. ‘They won’t be gone for long!’

The scissors were sharp, and it only took her a moment to saw through the strap that held his jaws together. As she started on the ropes that tethered him to the railings, Broo tore at the rest of his bonds with his teeth. They fell away like string.

Goldie heard a shout from somewhere down the hill. ‘Quick!’ she hissed. ‘We have to get out of here!’

Broo’s legs were stiff and his muscles were cramped. He staggered to his feet, and fell down again. Goldie tried to lift him, but he was too heavy.

‘Can’t you make yourself small?’ she whispered. ‘Then I could carry you.’

Broo shook his head. ‘It is . . . not something I can choose,’ he wheezed. ‘If the small does not come . . . I cannot make it.’

Another shout, closer this time.

‘Broo, come
on
!’

The brizzlehound made an enormous effort and managed to drag himself to the bottom of the steps. There he stopped, panting for breath. The wound on his head was oozing blood.

Goldie could hear the militiamen coming back up the hill, calling to each other as they ran. She put her arms around the brizzlehound’s neck.
‘Please
try again, Broo.
Please!’

Broo sighed, deep in his chest. He staggered, once, twice, and shook his head. He braced his legs against the cobbles and stretched until his joints cracked. His wound still bled, but some of his old strength seemed to come back to him.

He turned to Goldie, his eyes glowing like rubies. The darkness around him trembled. ‘If we are to save the city,’ he rumbled, ‘we must go NOW!’

.

he Fugleman was feeling pleased with himself. Despite what he had discovered on the night when he broke into his sister’s office, he had still not been completely sure that the Dirty Gate existed.

But now here it was, right in front of him! And what’s more, it was wide open!

Behind him, Hope and Comfort were urging the militiamen to hammer the last few nails into the last few planks.

Your militia have been very helpful, sister
, thought the Fugleman.
But I won’t be needing them for much longer . . .

He raised his hand and beckoned the lieutenant marshal to his side. ‘We are still quite some distance from danger,’ he said. ‘I would like you and your men to go forward another two hundred paces or so and set up an observation post. I will give my Guardians their final instructions, then we’ll join you. Just leave one of the lanterns for us, if you will.’

‘Yes, Your Honour!’ The lieutenant marshal snapped out an eager salute and began to muster his men. He did it efficiently enough – the Fugleman supposed that all those parades must have taught them
some
thing. Although
he
wouldn’t have marched into hostile territory in quite such close formation.

As the militiamen passed through the Dirty Gate, he saluted them. But as soon as they were gone, he took three quick steps sideways so that he was hidden from anyone on the other side of the gate. Hope copied him.

Comfort, who had always been the slower of the two, didn’t move. Even when the first shot rang out, and the second, and the third, and then a great volley of them, he stood there in the light of the lantern, his mouth open in astonishment.

A single bullet knocked him over backwards. He gave a choking cry and was dead on the instant. The shooting stopped.

Silence.

The Fugleman reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a large white kerchief and a silver ingot. He was surprised to see that his hands were shaking. He forced them to be still. He inched forward and waved the kerchief around the edge of the gate.

Silence.

With his other hand, he held the silver ingot out, and turned it back and forth so that it gleamed in the lantern light.

A guttural voice shouted, ‘Kom!’

The Fugleman waited another moment or two, to show that he wasn’t to be hurried. Then he edged through the Dirty Gate, with Hope close on his heels.

He had only gone a few steps when he tripped over something. He looked down. At his feet lay the lieutenant marshal. His uniform was drenched with blood, and he had a look of astonishment on his face. Scattered around him were the bodies of his men.

The Fugleman’s hands were shaking again, and he felt a sudden urge to giggle. ‘It seems I was wrong about the danger,’ he murmured to the lieutenant marshal’s corpse. ‘I
do
hope you’ll forgive me.’

He heard a noise, and looked up in time to see a troop of soldiers striding towards him with flaming torches in their hands. The same soldiers that were described in the blue book.

They were an ugly bunch. Bloodthirsty barbarians, every one of them. Look at their brutal faces and their ancient costumes! Their swords and pikes and muskets! They should have been dead hundreds of years ago. For all he knew they
were
dead – though he’d never heard of a ghost that stank like this lot.

The main thing was, their primitive bullets were real. He smiled to himself. Everything was going exactly the way he had planned. It was time to make the next move, before Hope did something stupid. He didn’t want to lose her, not yet. It was always useful to have at least one disposable underling close by.

With his eyes fixed on the soldiers, he flicked at a speck of Comfort’s blood on the front of his robes. Then he drew himself up to his full height and said, ‘I am the Fugleman of the city of Jewel. Take me to your commanding officer!’

The museum was in turmoil. Goldie could feel the walls straining furiously at the planks that nailed them down, the way Broo had strained at his ropes. The floor rippled underfoot. Piles of broken glass lay everywhere.

The Staff Only door was completely off its hinges. Goldie clambered over it and ran into the back rooms. There she stopped, appalled at what she saw.

Most of the glass cases were broken wide open. The ones that were not broken bulged dangerously, like over-stretched balloons. Inside them, everything was in disarray. Costumes and skeletons and suits of armour twitched and rattled as if they were alive. Old surgical instruments scraped at the glass with a sound that made her skin crawl.

Broo raised his massive head and sniffed the air. The hackles on his back rose. ‘They have breached the Dirty Gate!’ he growled. ‘How DARRRRE they!’

He bounded away and Goldie ran after him. Above her head, the lights flickered. An ominous rumbling came from somewhere beneath her. The walls around her heaved and strained against the nailed planks.

Broo was waiting for her at the edge of the Vacant Block. Last time Goldie had seen the ditch, there had been no more than an inch or two of muddy water in the bottom. But now the current raced past her, black and foul, cutting away at the edges and spilling over the brim in hungry streams.

Someone had made a bridge out of tables and broken display cases. Broo loped across it, and Goldie followed, trying not to let the foul water touch her. She ran across the Vacant Block, following the nailed planks. Mud snatched at her feet and thornberry bushes snagged her clothing. She tore herself away and ran on.

The planks led directly to the bottom step of Harry Mount. Goldie put her hand on the banister, and—

‘STOP!’ growled Broo. He snuffed the air. ‘Something is not RRRRRIGHT!’

Goldie hiccuped with frightened laughter. ‘
Nothing’s
right!’ But she stopped all the same, and looked at the brizzlehound uncertainly.

Broo’s growl rose to a crescendo. Goldie heard a scratching noise. The hair on the back of her neck stood up—

An enormous rat was crawling down the stairs towards her. Its fur was matted and filthy; its head swung from side to side as if it couldn’t see properly. As she backed away in horror, it staggered off the bottom step, dragged itself along the floor a little way . . . and fell over.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ she said in a small voice.

Broo’s whole body was stiff with fury. ‘Plague. The PLAGUE RRRRROOMS are on the move.’

After that, Goldie didn’t want to go up Harry Mount. But there was no alternative. And so, slowly, carefully, with her head low and her eyes peeled for danger, she began to climb.

There were no more rats. But Harry Mount was even steeper than usual. It rose up high and narrow, like a staircase in a nightmare. Before long, the banister petered out, and in its place was an enormous drop that seemed to go down and down forever. Goldie crawled upwards on all fours, keeping as close to the brizzlehound as she could, and trying not to look over the edge.

Once, she thought she heard gunfire, and she stopped and pressed herself against the wall. Planks and nails dug into her back. Broo stood over her, trembling with rage.

They were nearly at the top when Harry Mount began to tremble in exactly the same way.

‘It’s trying to shift!’ gasped Goldie.

She was right. The step she was standing on heaved up and down like a ship in a storm. Planks creaked and groaned, but did not break. Nails screeched but did not come loose.

‘Hurry!’ growled Broo. He bounded up the last few steps and loped through a doorway. Goldie followed him.

‘Look!’ she cried, pointing upwards.

They were in the Lady’s Mile. But the banners that usually hung from the ceiling were gone. In their place were long hempen ropes, and at the end of each rope was a hangman’s noose.

‘Hurry!’ growled Broo. ‘HURRRRRRRY!’

Goldie raced down the Lady’s Mile, ducking her head to avoid the dangling nooses, and ran through the doorway at the far end. And there before her –
much
closer to the front of the museum than it should have been – was the Dirty Gate. It was wide open, and Morg was sitting on top of it. On the ground below her was Guardian Comfort. A little way past him, piled up like logs of wood in the moonlight, were the militiamen.

They were all dead.

Goldie stared, stricken, at the crumpled bodies. Nothing had prepared her for this. ‘I hope it didn’t hurt,’ she whispered.

Broo growled.

‘Sshh,’ whispered Goldie, as if the dead men were merely asleep and she didn’t want to wake them.

Broo growled again. Morg clacked her beak. Her hungry eyes were fixed on Guardian Comfort’s face.

‘Get out of it, Morg,’ said Goldie. ‘Leave him alone.’

The slaughterbird gave a disappointed croak and flapped off into the darkness. Broo shifted impatiently. ‘These men are dead,’ he growled, ‘and we cannot bring them back to life. If we want to save the living we must go ON!’

‘But we’re too late!’ said Goldie. ‘The soldiers must have broken out already.’

‘If they had come through the Dirty Gate,’ growled Broo, ‘do you think I would not SMELL them?’ He shook his great head. ‘No. This was just a skirmish. They have not yet made their move. But,’ he snuffed the air, ‘there is something happening in the army camp. The Fugleman is there.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘I do not know,’ growled Broo. ‘But I will not cower here like an unweaned pup while there is a chance we might yet STOP HIM!’