The Lunatic's Curse (11 page)

‘He didn’t tell me anything.’

But what was it she thought he might know? Something about the mysterious Andrew Faye? Whatever it was, Rex knew she was watching his every move. But he hardly cared any more. His world had
disintegrated. He could not get the last sight of his father out of his mind: dragged away like an animal carcass over the shingle, two deep troughs left in the stones by his feet.

But as the days passed his despair was replaced with the realization that he had to take matters into his own hands.

He had to get to Droprock Island.

Acantha relented somewhat and now only locked his room at night. In fact he had heard her turn the key only half an hour ago, but Rex didn’t care. With his skills, and his father’s
picklock, this was hardly his greatest obstacle. Acantha would be sorry she had dismissed him so easily.

Rex had pondered his father’s last cryptic words and actions until the early hours. He was determined to carry out Ambrose’s wishes and expose Acantha for what she was. In his mind,
she was responsible for his father’s death and that made her a murderer. But there could be no more procrastinating. Action was required now. The last time he had failed to take action, Stradigund had invoked the Law of a Hundred Days and look what had happened after that.

Stradigund had been over to the house with more legal papers, but there was no sign of Chapelizod. He had not attended Acantha’s meal as Rex had presumed the night his father had returned.
In fact it transpired he had not been seen since the breakout at the asylum.

Rex thought again of his father’s words.
Don’t fly too close to the sun.
He knew the Classical reference, to Daedalus and his son Icarus – his father had read him the
story many times. In Greek mythology Daedalus had been an engineer too. Trapped with his son in a maze, he had made wings from feather and wax upon which to escape. Icarus’s downfall was to
ignore his father’s warning. ‘Maybe that’s what Father meant when he said “
On your head be it
”,’ murmured Rex. If he didn’t do what his father said
then he would only have himself to blame. But for what? Suddenly Rex’s heart began to race. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He should fetch the book itself!

The book, however, was downstairs in the library.

Rex listened at his door and, certain no one was coming, he crossed swiftly to the fireplace and splayed his fingers on one of the decorative roundels of wood. He turned it twice and it came
away to reveal a small hiding place. He reached in and took out a piece of soft cloth which he spread open on his palm. There lay within its folds two items: a diamond the size of a pea and his
father’s picklock. These were his father’s last gift to him that night on the shore. He had hidden them in his trouser cuff until he was safely home. Presumably the diamond was a source
of money – for a bribe perhaps, to pay someone to take him to the island.

And I know exactly what a picklock is for, he thought, and merely seconds later his door was open and he was out on the landing. He knew that at this time of night Acantha would be snoozing in
the sitting room in front of the fire, sated after dinner and, no doubt, a few glasses of expensive wine. The library was right next to the study.

Shortly after, Rex stood again between the shelves, scanning the spines. He knew exactly where the book would be. It was a rare first edition that his mother had bought for him when he was a
baby and it was kept safe here in the cool atmosphere. Rex ran his hand along the tops of the books, delighting in the smell of old leather and paper, until he came to it: an insignificant-looking
slender volume with a soft brown cover.

He left the library but paused at the study door. Decisively he turned the handle and entered. It looked much as it had the last time he came in; all that had changed was the thickness of the
layer of dust. There was little here at first sight to help Rex in his quest for answers. He opened both desk drawers; one held envelopes and calling cards, ink and quills; the other some old
sketches. He gave them a perfunctory look but lingered upon the last. ‘I remember this,’ he said softly. ‘The Perambulating Submersible. I had no idea Father had drawn it in such
detail.’ He held it up and saw that Ambrose had sketched in one of Rex’s own suggestions. ‘I knew it was a good idea,’ he said in delight.

Rex took the sketch but as he closed the drawer something rolled and bumped inside. He reached in again to retrieve a small oval-shaped brass object. It was smooth to the touch and most pleasing
to the eye. Rex let it rest in his palm.

‘The brazen egg,’ he said with affection, and put it in his pocket. Then with one last look around the room he left.

Once safely upstairs and locked in again, Rex settled on his bed with the book. He realized that he actually felt a little better now, perhaps because he had a purpose. He turned the book over in
his hand. It was wrinkled and creased, grease-stained from when he had fingered it after a piece of pie (his father had been very cross with him for not washing his hands) and the pages were
dog-eared. The front cover had a line drawing of Icarus, the winged boy who had flown too close to the sun, and on the back there was a drawing of a labyrinth. The book itself was a compilation of
myths and tales of ancient civilizations. He knew the stories well. He looked at the flyleaf and read the inscription.

He turned the pages slowly but by the end he was still uninspired. Perhaps it is just something to treasure, thought Rex, and no more than that. Something to remind me of
better times. Of before Acantha.

He shook his head slowly at the thought of the woman. He felt deep disappointment. He had been so sure the book held the answer. But perhaps he was looking in the wrong place.

So he turned his thoughts to the island. It wouldn’t be that difficult to get across – there was a ferryman – but as soon as Acantha found out he had gone there she would just
come to get him. If he hadn’t managed to find the evidence his father had left for him it would all be for nothing. Perhaps he should concentrate instead on finding the elusive Andrew Faye.
Certainly Ambrose had bristled at the name. Did
he
hold the key to the puzzle? But how to find him, when he was stuck here in a house full of memories waiting for Acantha to decide his
future?

Rex sighed heavily and lay back, more conscious than ever of the ticking of the clock beside him.

17

While Rex slept in the relative comfort of his bed, on the outskirts of Opum Oppidulum Hildred Buttonquail, a girl similar in age to the troubled boy, was not in quite such an
enviable position. She stood on tiptoe on the edge of a rickety covered wagon, clinging to the window ledge with her fingers, peering inside. It was a clear night, and cold, and she would certainly
have preferred to have been somewhere else.

It was not easy to see anything much but she could make out the curled-up shape of the man sleeping on the narrow cot opposite the window. His snoring was so stentorian that she could actually
feel its vibrations through her fingers. And the man from whose throat and nose the noises emanated was Rudy Idolice.

Twenty minutes or so before Hildred looked in at the window, Rudy had been slumped in a thoughtful muddle in his small wagon, sadly contemplating its faded glory. How had it come to this? His
bloodshot eyes swept the compact interior of his wooden home on wheels. Where once there had been silks and satins, now he saw only ragged curtains. Where there had been bright colours and polished
wood, now he saw cracked and peeling paint. Evidence of his downfall was everywhere. In the moth-eaten rug, the crooked door swinging on its hinges, the window held in place with string. Rudy
shifted on his seat; the cushion was worn through and his scrawny cheeks ached. He grunted and with some difficulty stood to look at himself in the cracked mirror. Its decorative gesso edge was
chipped and the gold leaf was long gone.

Rudy Idolice was a man who was always on the verge of something. Unfortunately, on account of his love of whisky, it was never obvious exactly what that something might be.

I am as dilapidated as my wagon, he thought.

He brought a bottle to his lips and felt at the back of his throat the burning consolation. But even that feeling was only half what it used to be. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ he
asked himself, and as is often the case the answer was staring him right in the face. On the floor there was a crumpled flyer stating boldly:

Perhaps things’ll be better in the next town, he thought, as he did almost every evening at this time. ‘Opum Oppidulum,’ he said out loud, and he felt a small
surge of hope rise in his stomach. ‘We’ll set off tomorrow at sunrise.’

Now he had a plan he felt better and went to lie on the narrow shelf that acted as a bed and began to snore. He missed, as a result, Hildred’s face at the window. And by choosing to snooze
Rudy inadvertently set his life on a very different path. Such is the nature of Lady Luck, ever fickle, always unpredictable.

Hildred dropped lightly to the ground and ran in an odd, loose-legged fashion across to another wagon, similar in size to Rudy’s and in no better condition. She took the steps in one bound
and opened the door to enter the dim and cramped interior, where every available inch of standing room or sitting surface was taken by the crew of travelling performers before her. Undeterred, she
squeezed herself into a narrow space on top of a cupboard. If you hadn’t seen her there you would have thought it impossible for a person to fit.

‘Well?’ asked a deep voice.

‘Guess what he’s up to,’ said Hildred.

‘Asleep,’ rejoined a chorus of voices.

At the other end of the wagon sat the stout owner of the deep voice, sporting a rather thick, luxurious beard through which she ran her fingers, picking out crumbs and occasionally larger
morsels of food. When she thought no one was looking she popped them quickly into her mouth. Barbata, the Bearded Beauty – for she was a lady – let nothing go to waste.

Beside her, eyeing the veritable cornucopia of a beard, half sat, half stood Stanley. He always found it difficult to get comfortable owing to his third leg (a fully functioning appendage). As
part of his act he tap-danced with two legs while resting on the third. ‘If there was money to be made from snoring Rudy could have retired years ago,’ he commented wryly.

‘We could all have retired,’ said someone else soberly. ‘That is exactly the problem. We will be working into our graves while Rudy slumbers on his cot.’

This particular speaker sat near the door. He stood out from the rest of the occupants of the wagon on account of the fact that he appeared to have no physical attributes that might cause a
person stop and stare. He was tall, broad-shouldered and muscular. His hair, cut in a classical Roman style, was short and curly, like a shorn sheep, and he sported a soft blonde beard cut close to
the chin. Hildred smiled. You could always rely on Mr Ephcott, the only surviving ‘centaur’ in the world (obviously he was not in his costume right now, which consisted simply of the
back end of a horse), to get to the point.