Dishonour Among Thieves
Dishonour Among Thieves
Paul Durham
“How little you know of your own father. He took something I cherished long ago and hid it away. You will help me find it”The legendary Luck Uglies are the most deadly, dangerous band of men Riley O’Chanter has ever met – and her father, Harmless, is their high chief. Having been in exile for ten years the Luck Uglies are back in Village Drowning, but bringing them out of the shadows and back together was never going to be without its perils. There is bad blood between Rye’s father, and a sinister masked man named Slinister Varlet. As Harmless and Slinister vie for control of their men, Rye finds herself caught up in their dangerous game. Throw in a vengeful son, a dark curse, and a collection of thieves and smugglers and the stage is set for another page-turning adventure.
Copyright (#u8efeb755-8766-5b65-9762-d01867ddc919)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
The Luck Uglies: Dishonour Among Thieves
Text copyright © Paul Durham 2015
Map illustration copyright © Sally Taylor 2015
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2015
Cover illustration © Jeff Nentrup
Paul Durham and Sally Taylor assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007526925
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007526932
Version: 2015-03-05
For my three muses, who inspire me even when I’m a grump.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u94528e72-05a2-51f1-9c8e-d8bdf9ac9865)
Title Page (#u90255a6f-db9a-5110-b3d9-0c39bf4ed42f)
Copyright
Dedication (#u4f4e0628-4148-579f-8a94-15666dc40533)
Map of the Isle of Pest
A Shanty about Bargains
1. ONLY TROUBLE KNOCKS AFTER DARK
2. THE MUD SLEIGH
3. GRABSTONE
4. MESSAGES UNDELIVERED
5. THE SNIGGLER
6. A VILLAGE DROWNING
7. SCALES AND SWINE
8. WHERE NOBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME
9. THORN QUILL’S
10. SPIDERCREEP
11. FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES
12. IN SHAMBLES
13. A LOSING HAND
14. THE SLUMGULLION
15. THE SALT
16. THE PULL
17. BELONGERS
18. THE CURSE OF BLACK ANNIS
19. THE STONE ON THE SILL
20. THE WAILING CAVE
21. TIES THAT BIND
22. THE SHOEMAKER
23. KISS OF THE SHELLYCOATS
24. THE UNINVITED
25. WHAT THE WIND BRINGS, THE TIDE TAKES AWAY
26. UNDER THE CRIMSON HAT
27. GRIT
28. THE BELLWETHER
29. TREASURES
30. A FORK-TONGUED CHARMER
31. REVENGE OF SLINISTER VARLET
32. THE TOLL
Epilogue: Beyond the Shale
A Seafarer’s Guide to Mumbley-Speak and other High Isle Chatter
About the Publisher
Map of the Isle of Pest (#u8efeb755-8766-5b65-9762-d01867ddc919)
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Come all would-be heroes and join me in song,
And curse the dread outlaws plagued this Isle for so long.
So take heed my warning, of no favours ask,
Beware the dread outlaws in shadows and masks.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread outlaws
In shadows and masks.
Our troubles were many, our hopes they were slim.
A dark stranger arrived, he packed promise with him.
On the greyest of nights a bargain was struck,
What then seemed good fortune turned black ugly luck.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread strangers
In shadows and masks.
They’ll promise you freedom and all that you dream,
But look past their guise, they’re not what they seem.
Your sons and your daughters, in bed safely tuck,
Hold tight what you cherish for that they shall pluck.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread scoundrels
In shadows and masks.
My son he now stalks the dark b’yond the sea,
Family forgotten, but what matters to he?
So take heed my warning, of no favours ask,
And curse the Luck Uglies in shadows and masks.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Curse the Luck Uglies
In shadows and masks.
– ‘Shadows and Masks’,
From Songs of Salt and Stout
and other High Isle Favourites
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T WASN’T OFTEN that anyone thumped the cottage’s rusting iron door knocker after dark, but Rye O’Chanter still never expected to find three twisted, leering faces on the other side. They loomed down at her from behind flurrying snow. Rye knew what the masked figures were, if not who they were, so perhaps there was no need for alarm. Then again, Luck Uglies had never just shown up on her doorstep before. She took a careful step backward.
Abby O’Chanter joined her, a cloak flung over her nightdress. She’d already untied her hair ribbon for the night and her dark locks fell loose past her shoulders. In her arms she held the family pet, a regal beast with thick black fur and keen yellow eyes. He was as big as a young child, and as he stretched his long forelegs, he extended sickle-like claws for the benefit of the visitors. Shady could be a ferocious guardian when motivated, which wasn’t all that often. Abby combed his luxurious mane with her fingertips and raised an uninviting eyebrow. Rye’s mother had never been one to spook easily.
“What is it?” she demanded of the visitors.
The tallest of the three ducked his head under the fresh evergreen garland strung along the doorframe. Shady let out an unexpected rumble from deep inside his throat, the kind he generally reserved for unwelcome denizens of the bogs. Rye saw her mother slip her fingers around his runestone collar in case he decided to misbehave.
The masked figure hesitated, then opted to lean forward without stepping inside. The gnarled leather of a long, beakish nose jutted from under his cowl, so close to Abby’s ear it seemed it might jab her. Under Shady’s careful watch, the man whispered something that sounded like the rustle of dead leaves. He cocked his head as he spoke, and the mask’s hollow black eyes met Rye’s own.
The figure leaned back and snow once again settled on to his cloaked shoulders.
“He can’t come for her himself?” Abby said, an edge in her voice.
The figure shook his head.
“Come for who?” Rye asked.
Abby ignored her and seemed to bite back harsh words on the tip of her tongue. Instead she said, “I’ve got porridge on the fire if you’d care for some.”
The masked figure just shook his head again.
“Be off then,” Abby said. She didn’t seem at all disappointed that they’d declined her invitation.
The figure nodded by way of goodbye and vanished into the shadows of Mud Puddle Lane with his two companions. Rye squinted to see where they went, but spied only the flickering lantern lights of their neighbours’ cottages. She turned to her mother.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Your father,” Abby said. “He’s sent for you. You leave to meet him tomorrow.”
“But it’s finally Silvermas,” Rye protested. “And the Black Moon. How often does Silvermas fall on a Black Moon?”
Silvermas was Rye’s favourite tradition. Where once the holiday was intended to honour deities long forgotten, it had since evolved into a family celebration – a time for one last great feast before the chills and hardship of a long winter. Of course, in practice, Silvermas followed whatever night Good Harper actually happened to arrive in a particular village on his Mud Sleigh. This made for a great amount of speculation and excitement among the children. Rye’s mother and the other parents found the suspense to be of less amusement, particularly this year, since it was already early spring and Good Harper was only now making his way to Village Drowning.
The Black Moon – the darkest night of every month – well, that was something else entirely. Villagers locked their doors with the Black Moon’s rise, for the men who prowled the night under the moonless sky weren’t always so benign. Three of them had just left the O’Chanters’ doorstep.
“I don’t think your father’s timing is a coincidence,” Abby said. There was a weight on her face that Rye couldn’t quite gauge. “You’ll only be away for a day or so.”
“He’s been gone all winter,” Rye mumbled to herself. “Why now?”
It wasn’t that Rye didn’t want to see her father – she was just getting to know him when he’d abruptly departed to tend to some pressing matters outside the village. He had recently taught her all sorts of useful skills her mother would never approve of – how to shimmy down a drainpipe while blindfolded, how to hide a key under your tongue and still sing an off-colour limerick without slurring your words. He’d promised he would see her again as soon as he was able. But all winter she had been looking forward to meeting her friends and trading their Silvermas treats. Folly was usually willing to part with a few caramel pralines and Rye always convinced Quinn to take the green liquorice off her hands. Quinn actually seemed to like green liquorice – he was odd like that.
“He wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important,” Abby said stiffly, then softened. She gently pushed an unruly brown lock out of Rye’s eyes. Rye had never been one to fuss over her hair – it was too short to braid but too long to ignore.
“I know you’re disappointed, but he’s arranged a Silvermas surprise for you. Trust me, I think you’ll be pleased.”
Rye raised an eager eyebrow.
“You have to wait until tomorrow,” Abby said, anticipating her next question.
Abby flashed her a smile, but Rye noticed her mother’s hesitation before closing the purple door carved with the shape of a dragonfly. Abby stared down the northernmost end of Mud Puddle Lane, towards the dense pine forest known only as Beyond the Shale. Rye had seen that look before.
“Something in the air?” Rye asked, reaching out to scratch Shady’s furry ears. His bushy tail swayed in appreciation.
“Something,” was all Abby said, and they went inside for bed.
Morning’s first fingers of light had barely cracked the windowsill before Rye and her sister Lottie rushed from their room in their nightdresses. The cottage was already warm with the smell of Abby’s brown-sugar-and-raisin porridge, but the girls ran straight past their bowls, jostling for position at the cottage door. Lottie had strength beyond her years when there were sweets to be had and Rye found herself knocked against the doorframe by the compact but determined three-year-old.
For centuries throughout the Shale, in towns large and villages small, residents would fill their shoes with coins and set them out on their doorsteps for Silvermas. Good Harper would then ride the Mud Sleigh through each village and collect the coins while the townspeople slept, to be distributed later to the needy and downtrodden. Good villagers received sweets in return. Bad villagers received a potato or, if they were really awful, mouse droppings. The more coins left, the better the fortunes of the family for the coming year. Woe betide the man, woman, or child who failed to leave at least one miserly bronze bit.
Rye crammed her hand deep into the toe of one oversized boot, then the other. The boots had belonged to Rye’s father when he was her age. They were ragged in the heels and probably contributed to her numerous stumbles, but Rye wore them every day. They came in particularly handy on Silvermas – more room for candies. And yet, that morning, they had done no good at all.
“Pigshanks,” Rye cursed.
Lottie had already emptied the bulging contents of her shoes and was busy stockpiling treats in her cheeks with the expertise of a chipmunk. She opened her chocolate-filled mouth. “You said a bad word,” she garbled.
“Then you’d better not repeat it,” Rye said, holding an empty boot to her eye to get a better look. She couldn’t believe that Lottie, of all children, had gotten a full shoe while she had nothing. Not even a potato.
“Wait …” Rye said, finally discovering something deep inside the toe.
She removed a hard, heavy object and examined it in her hand.
“You got coal!” Lottie cackled.
“It’s not coal,” Rye said, rolling the stone over in her palm. It was the size and shape of a somewhat flattened egg, flawless ebony in colour, and smoother than glass, as if polished by centuries of tides. It was also frigid. Instead of warming to her touch, it seemed to draw the heat from her fingers. She’d never seen a stone like it before.
“Rye got coal!” Lottie repeated when their mother appeared behind them. Abby pulled back Lottie’s thick red hair so it wouldn’t stick to the nougat on her cheeks.
“And she said a bad word,” Lottie added quickly. She pretended to share a chocolate with Mona Monster, her pink hobgoblin rag doll.
“Maybe that’s why she got the coal,” Abby said, shooting Rye a look of disapproval.
“It’s a rock,” Rye said glumly. Embarrassed, she tucked it out of sight in her pocket. “Why would Good Harper leave me a rock?” This was shaping up to be the worst Silvermas ever.
“Mistakes happen sometimes, Riley,” Abby said. She shifted her leg so that the hem of her dress concealed her own overflowing shoe. It was too late; Rye had already seen it. “One year the Quartermasts’ hound got loose and ate all the Silvermas shoes,” Abby volunteered. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Rye just frowned. It didn’t.
“Speaking of which—” Abby began.
“Rye! Lottie!” a voice called. A boy in red long johns hopped on one foot from the cottage three doors down, one boot on and the other in his hands. He was tall and reedy, the sleeves of his undershirt ending well short of his wrists.
“Quinn Quartermast,” Abby said, “where in the Shale are your britches? You’ll get icicles in your lungs … or somewhere worse.”
Quinn shrugged and his cheeks turned as red as his long johns. He balanced on one foot and held out a boot full of treats.
“Do you want to trade?” he asked eagerly.
“Rye got coal,” Lottie said, examining Quinn’s haul with a discerning eye.
“I got a stone,” Rye clarified. That had a nicer ring to it than rock.
“Oh,” Quinn said in disappointment, but he quickly put on a happy face for Rye’s benefit. “You can have some of mine. I’ve got plenty of green liquorice.”
“Thanks, Quinn,” Rye said half-heartedly. Lottie turned up her nose at the liquorice and pulled her own pile closer.
Rye saw Quinn’s eyes suddenly go wide. He blinked hard, as if clearing blurry vision. He pointed to the far end of Mud Puddle Lane. “Is that …” he stammered, awestruck.
Rye and Lottie both turned to look. There, at the furthest end of the frozen dirt lane, was an enormous, weatherworn coach pulled by four heavily muscled draft horses. At their reins was a hefty, grey-bearded man in a wide-brimmed hat the colour of a ripe plum. A matching woolly scarf enveloped his neck, its ends draped down to his boots.
Rye looked to her mother, mouth agape.
“You can’t say your father doesn’t have a flair for surprises,” Abby said. There was a tight smirk at the corner of her mouth that told Rye she remained both impressed and exasperated by her father’s special brand of flair. “You, my love, are going for a ride on the Mud Sleigh. Now let’s get you loaded up before Good Harper finds himself overrun by every child in Drowning.”
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EVER IN ALL of Good Harper Killpenny’s many years had the Mud Sleigh been robbed, accosted, or otherwise bothered by bandits or highwaymen. In fact, he rode under the protection of the most fearsome outlaws of all. Thanks to a bargain struck between the Luck Uglies and generations of Good Harpers before him, Killpenny travelled safely without guards, comfortable in the knowledge that a harsh and swift reckoning would befall any opportunist foolish enough to trouble him on his journey.
That was what he told Rye anyway as they left Drowning under a clear morning sky. She suspected that this was precisely the reason her father had arranged for her passage on the Mud Sleigh, and the only reason her mother had allowed it. Rye looked back, waved to Abby, Lottie and Quinn, and examined the contents of the coach. Its hold was loaded up with more gold and silver than a flush noble’s treasure hole.
The River Drowning was still frozen over in long stretches, light snow cover transforming it into a wide, smooth roadway. Rye twitched with the excitement of a new adventure as the village’s twisted rooftops disappeared behind them, the horses pulling the sleigh along the ice so swiftly that the wind rustled her hair. Soon she was shifting in her seat to get a better view of the Western Woods as they travelled southwest, further from home than she had ever been before. Eventually, however, all the trees began to look the same. She asked Good Harper four times if they were almost there, until he said something about having a bad ear and stopped responding altogether. She sang a song to pass the time. Rye’s voice must have miraculously cured Good Harper’s hearing, because he begged her to stop it right away. She sighed and thrust her chin into her hands. It was only midday.
Dusk came early and by nightfall Rye’s boredom had been replaced by a dull anxiety as she huddled under a heavy blanket on top of the driver’s box. They had stopped to make camp on the frozen river itself, at a particular bend where Good Harper said they were to wait for Rye’s father to come collect her. Rye tried to take comfort in the Mud Sleigh’s unblemished history as she listened to howls in the distance. The horses kicked at the ice and shuffled nervously around their camp. These animals must have seen and heard it all in these woods over the years, but tonight something had them spooked.
From his seat next to Rye, Good Harper scratched his beard and popped a cinnamon sweet into his mouth. He offered one to Rye but she just shook her head. It would have been a whole lot nicer if he’d left some for her last night. Good Harper offered her a potato. She turned that down too.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he remarked, which wasn’t entirely true. The fact was, Rye could hardly sneak a word in between his own ramblings. After his long months alone on the Mud Sleigh, Good Harper was well-practised in talking to himself.
“It’s a shame,” he said with a snort. “Good conversation, or even polite small talk, has become harder and harder to come by.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be—”
“The Shale folk have grown stingy,” Good Harper continued, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “Nowadays they fill their shoes out of nothing more than habit. There seems to be no genuine concern for the needy, not even a healthy fear of bad luck. Drowning is the worst of the lot. It’s a glorified mud hole with its creeping bogs and notorious forest. Most of its residents barely muster up more than a few token bronze bits, and those who do put out shoes that smell like last month’s cheese.” He cast her a quick glance. “No offence, by the way.”
“None taken,” Rye said flatly. That was all true, she had to admit.
“The Earl didn’t even invite me to his Silvermas Eve Feast this year,” Good Harper grumbled on. “He’s got himself a new Constable – can’t say I care for him one bit. The wag turned me away at the gates without so much as a carrot for the horses.”
Nobody had seen much of Earl Morningwig Longchance all winter – not that anyone was complaining. But Rye had heard he’d enlisted the services of an infamous lawman-for-hire in recent days. The law seldom found its way to Mud Puddle Lane – its residents too poor or unimportant to warrant protection – but Folly said this one had already made some harsh changes in other parts of the village. Rye doubted he could be any worse than his predecessor.
She gazed up at the sky and sighed. Behind the cloak of the invisible Black Moon, the stars shone like a thousand glowing candles on the Dead Fish Inn’s bone chandelier. She wished she was there right now, celebrating Silvermas with Folly and her family. Her thoughts were interrupted by another howl from somewhere across the ice. Good Harper seemed to be paying closer attention to the howls himself.
“Good Harper,” Rye said, now that he’d finally fallen silent, “why did you leave me this? Was I really so terrible this year?” She held out the black stone she had found in her boot.
Good Harper pursed his lips and took the stone between his fingers. “Eh?” he said, examining it closely. “This isn’t from me. Someone’s playing a joke on you.” He huffed and shook his head. “Drowning – those villagers are rotten to the core.”
With a flick of his wrist he threw the stone out across the river. Rye heard it hit the ice and skid for a long distance before finally coming to a stop. When she looked out towards where the stone might have settled, she noticed the three distant torches streaking in their direction.
“Over there,” she said, and pointed.
“Hmm,” Good Harper grunted, and peered out from under the wide brim of his hat.
“What are they?” she asked.
Good Harper rubbed his beard again and sucked his sweet. “Can’t say for certain, but they look to be sledges.”
They were in fact three sledges, pulled by teams of enormous black dogs. They came to a halt in the shadows just outside of Good Harper’s camp. The animals’ claws scraped at the ice and their eyes glowed in the torchlight. They snapped and snarled at one another. Angry and distracted, they were too big to be sledge dogs. Wolves?
Rye fidgeted in anticipation. A hooded figure stepped off the lead sledge and approached. Other cloaked men stayed with their sledge teams and shifted in the shadows. She reached back to get the satchel her mother had packed before climbing down to meet her father.
Good Harper placed a hand on Rye’s shoulder before she could get up. “Lass, why don’t you duck inside the coach?”
“Are they not Luck Uglies?” Rye asked, peering at the animals and sledge drivers. Although, now that she thought about it, this is not how she would expect her father to greet her.
“It would seem so,” Good Harper said quickly. “I’ll call you out as soon as I know for certain.” He stepped down from the driver’s box. “But,” he added, in a coarse whisper, “if you hear anything amiss, get out and run for the trees. Don’t look back.”
Rye clambered into the back of the Mud Sleigh as she was told, ignoring the chittering of dozens of caged mice – “treats” for those on Good Harper’s naughty list had to come from somewhere. She parted the sleigh’s heavy curtain so she could peek through. Good Harper met the cloaked man by the small campfire. Rye could see that he was wearing a mask under his hood.
“Fine evening, neighbour,” Good Harper said in an even tone. “That’s a most unusual sledge team you and your men ride.”
“Indeed,” the man replied, and looked towards the animals, who erupted into a choir of howls. “The wolves can be quarrelsome, but their size allows them to pull much larger loads than dogs.”
The man’s voice was a faraway hiss that resonated like an echo from a bottomless well. It wasn’t Rye’s father’s voice. She didn’t like it one bit.
“I see,” Good Harper said with affected cheer. “And what loads are you carrying that you need such a team?”
“None just yet. But you have quite the heavy cargo in your sleigh. I think I shall need the strength of each and every one of these wolves to haul it.”
Rye gripped the curtains with both hands. What was going on here? Good Harper’s tone shifted quickly, his voice now stern.
“Neighbour, do you know who I am? This charity is for the needy and downtrodden. The Luck Uglies have ensured my safe passage on these roads for many years, and for that reason I pass no judgement on you or your kind. But I suggest you be on your way in search of a more appropriate mark.”
“If it gives you some solace,” the man said, “let’s just say I am the neediest soul I know. Now step aside.”
He placed a firm hand on Good Harper’s arm, showing no intention of asking again.
Good Harper gritted his teeth and, to Rye’s great surprise, lashed out in anger with an old knotted fist. His blow didn’t buckle the marauder, but it knocked his mask to the ice.
The man smiled, revealing the red patchwork seams of his gums. Then he returned the blow. It crumpled Good Harper to his knees.
Without thinking, Rye lurched from inside the coach to help. The assailant towered over the fallen Good Harper and moved as if he might kick him. But Rye’s appearance on top of the Mud Sleigh caused him to pause and glance upwards. His gaze froze her before she jumped down. Most of the man’s ashen white face was shrouded in the shadows of his hood, but she could see that Good Harper’s blow had drawn blood from his black lips. He licked the corner of his mouth with his tongue. Rye recoiled when she saw that it was forked like a snake’s, the two pink ends dancing over his lips like blind, probing serpents.
Rye darted back inside the coach. She clambered over the mountain of coin purses and kicked aside the mouse cages so she could shove open the back door of the Mud Sleigh. The woods were straight ahead. But as she leaped down, her boots skidded out from under her and she landed hard on the ice. By the time she regained her footing, the fork-tongued man had stepped in front of her, blocking her way to the river’s edge. He affixed his mask back over his face.
Rye took a deep breath, her heart pounding. Her mother had told her once: Walk strong, act like you belong, and no one will be the wiser. If these were Luck Uglies, she should have nothing to fear. She took a step to her left. The man moved to block her path. She took a step back to the right. He did the same.
“Who are you?” Rye demanded, doing her best to channel her mother’s voice.
The reply came from deep inside a hollow. “Names are a precious paint to be shared cautiously. Offer yours first, and I’ll tell you mine.”
“Rye O’Chanter,” she said, forcing herself to stand straight and stare hard at the masked face in front of her.
The man reached forward with a long gloved finger. Before she could flinch, he pulled her hood from her head. He leaned in closer, as if studying her. His mask was scaled armour the texture of an adder’s skin, his own eyes just slits behind its red-ringed eyeholes. Unlike all of the other Luck Uglies’ masks she had ever seen, this one had no nose. But a gaping maw loomed open, part of a grotesquely distended chin that extended all the way to his chest.
“I’ve seen you before.” He was close enough that she felt his breath when he said it.
“What’s your name?” she asked sternly, ignoring the knot tightening in her stomach. “Before you do something you’ll regret, you should know that my father is a Luck Ugly too.”
“Slinister,” he said from deep behind his mask. “Now you say it.”
“What?” Rye asked, in a retreating voice that was very much unlike her mother’s.
“You asked me my name and I told you. Now repeat it.”
“Slinister,” Rye said quietly. If words had taste, this one would have rolled sour off her tongue.
“That’s correct,” he said. “And yes, I know very well who your father is. In fact, I know him better than you do.”
The hollow of his masked mouth was so black and wide it seemed it might swallow her. She took a step away. When he didn’t move to follow her, she took another.
“You may go,” Slinister said, waving a dismissive hand. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to meet another day.”
Rye’s steps quickened as she moved along the ice, never taking her eyes off the man named Slinister. She found Good Harper struggling to regain his feet. She grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him up, then hurried him across the frozen river. His plum-coloured scarf dragged behind them.
“Remember my name, Rye O’Chanter,” Slinister called as he watched her go. She glanced back over her shoulder just once, and was relieved that the night now shrouded his fiendish mask.
As Rye and Good Harper took refuge in the safety of the woods, Slinister’s cohorts slipped from the shadows and plundered the Mud Sleigh, loading their own sledges with every last gold grommet and silver shim. They unhitched the horses and led them away. Finally, when the sleigh was stripped to nothing more than an empty shell, the looters lit a raging ring of fire around the camp. Their sledges had disappeared far downriver by the time the sleigh broke through the melting ice and sank beneath the frigid water.
Rye and Good Harper huddled under a tall pine. Rye shivered, more from the shock than the cold. She couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
“A pox on the Luck Uglies and their bargains,” Good Harper muttered. “Mouse droppings for the whole lot of them.”
No sooner had he uttered his curse than a spectre clad in black leather and fur appeared like a flickering shadow. In the moonless night, Rye could have mistaken it for a massive wolf rising up on its hind legs, but in its hands, two blades glinted in the light from the fire. Rye pressed her back against the tree. There was nowhere to run.
“Come to finish the job?” Good Harper called defiantly.
The shadowy figure loomed for a moment then, stepping forward, violently thrust its swords downward. Rye pinched her eyes tight. She heard the steel sink into something moist. Perhaps she was just too numb to feel their bite. But when she cracked open one eye, fearful of what she might find, she saw both blades embedded in the ground.
The figure pulled off its wolf-pelt hood and clutched her by the shoulders.
“Riley,” the man whispered, his familiar grey eyes wide in a face of faded scars, “what in the Shale are you doing out here?”
“Harmless!” Rye exclaimed. She blinked in disbelief. “You tell me – you’re the one who sent for me!”
He gently touched her cheek. His hands, like the rest of his body, were etched with tattoos, and while Rye didn’t think there was anything magical about the circular patterns on his palms, whenever he did this it seemed to warm her whole body, his night-chilled skin notwithstanding.
“Make no mistake, I’m always glad to see you,” he said softly. “But I did nothing of the sort.”
Rye shook her head as if she didn’t hear him correctly.
“Three Luck Uglies came to our cottage with a message. And here, on the river, there was a man – a Luck Ugly, I thought. He called himself Slinister.” She shuddered at the thought of his split tongue. “He said he knows you well.”
Harmless’s jaw hardened. A darkness seemed to creep through the lines of his scarred face. Rye had only seen brief flashes of that look before and each time it had unnerved her. Harmless must have sensed her unease and pulled her close. His embrace and tender tone shielded her from the fire in his eyes as he scanned the burning river.
“Don’t fret,” he whispered. “We’ll sort this out in due course. But right now we must be on our way. I know a safe place to spend the night.”
The hour was late by the time Harmless escorted Good Harper to the closest roadhouse on the path back to Drowning. But to Rye’s surprise he then led her away from the warmth of the inn. They travelled not to the village, but over the edge of a tall bluff and down the jagged coastline. Waves crashed around them as Harmless navigated a rocky shoal that seemed to lead directly into the sea. He only stopped when they reached a mountainous outcropping nestled among the tide pools.
“Here?” Rye asked in disbelief.
Harmless put an arm over her shoulder and waved a hand above him. “Here.”
What looked to be a massive sea stack loomed over them. But now, within spitting distance, it became clear that it was nothing of the sort. The battered rocks had been hollowed out and rising from the waves were two enormous doors. Each the width of a castle’s drawbridge, they were wide enough to sail a ship through with the tide out to sea, but would once again become a submersed secret when the water rolled back in. A towering, weatherworn mansion seemed to grow out of the craggy rocks, its crooked gables, twisting turrets and jumbled archways slinking upwards like coral in search of sun.
Rye shot Harmless a wary glance from under the folds of his fur cloak.
“You’ll like it. It’s a secret – even from the Luck Uglies,” he said, appealing to her insatiable curiosity. “We won’t stay long. I promise to return you to Drowning in short order.”
But as luck would have it, the lingering hand of a stubborn winter delivered one last blow the next morning. And no one, not even Harmless, the High Chieftain of all the Luck Uglies, was going anywhere at all.
(#ulink_fd21afe6-d46d-5e95-bea6-064670b80392)
YE SAT ALONE on a cold, black rock jutting out from the sea. She counted in her head as she stared at the violent, churning waves. Two hundred and eighty-nine. Two hundred and ninety. Rye hated being alone. She liked waiting even less. But she didn’t dare move for fear of slipping on the barnacles and being dragged out by the current.
A dusky brown gull struggled to fly against the wind.
Rye squinted at the bird. It gave her the sudden sense that she’d been in this spot once before, which was odd, since she had never travelled outside of Village Drowning. She shook off the unnerving feeling and resumed her count.
Two hundred and ninety-nine. Three hundred. Five minutes now.
A gale sent the gull hurtling off in the wrong direction and it disappeared into a brightening sky that had been grey with fog and snow since Rye’s arrival.
Rye pulled her new seal-leather coat tight at the collar, its thick hood snug over her head and its long hem covering her to the knees. Even in an ocean storm it kept her remarkably warm and dry. The seal whose hide it was made from met no harm. The reclusive northern salt seal was the only mammal in the world known to shed its skin. Harmless had given her this coat as a belated twelfth birthday present. He’d missed that birthday over this past winter, just as he’d missed all the others before it.
Harmless might seem like a strange name for a girl to call her father, but Rye’s father was – to put it nicely – an unusual man. Rye hadn’t even known that she had a real live father until last autumn. That was when he appeared like a wisp of smoke out of the ancient forest known as Beyond the Shale. He’d been gone for over ten years.
Not everyone had been happy to see him. Harmless was a Luck Ugly. An outlaw so notorious that he and all of his kind had been driven into exile by Earl Morningwig Longchance. But, with Rye’s help, Harmless was able to summon the Luck Uglies and once again save Village Drowning. It had been under attack by a fierce clan of Bog Noblins – vile, swamp-creeping beasts who had threatened the lives of the villagers. One would think that such an achievement would have earned a certain degree of appreciation from the Earl, but Longchance’s hatred of Harmless only grew. It was Harmless’s threat – that the Luck Uglies would be watching – that had kept Longchance at bay ever since.
Rye pulled her knees into her chest to avoid the whitecaps that snapped at her oversize boots like frenzied sharks. Finally, when her count reached three hundred and thirty, Harmless broke through the surface of the water. He pulled himself on to the rock and refilled his lungs with a great gulp of air. His long dark hair was tied into a wet knot on top of his head. The leather-and-tortoiseshell goggles over his eyes made him look like a bug-eyed flounder. Where the skin of his bare chest and arms wasn’t etched in the green ink of faded tattoos, it flamed pink from the cold. He dropped a heavy bag at her feet.
“How long was I down?” he asked with an expectant smile.
“About five and a half minutes?” Rye said.
Harmless frowned at himself. “Poor showing. I made it six the dive before.” He threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders and clasped on a runestone necklace that matched the chokers Rye and the rest of her family wore around their necks.
“Well,” Rye said, picking her numb fingernails, “I did lose track of my count once or twice.”
“Nonetheless, it was quite productive,” he said, brightening.
He reached inside the bag and retrieved a strange black object, holding it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. It was the size of an ordinary stone, flat on the bottom, but with long, sharp spines jutting out in all directions.
“What is that?” Rye said, and reached out to touch it.
“Careful. This is a midnight sea urchin,” he said with delight. “The most toxic creature in the northern oceans – one prick of its spine is enough to fell a draft horse. They make excellent darts.”
Rye pulled her hand back warily.
“It also happens to be our lunch.”
He unsheathed a sharp knife and cut open the bottom of the sea urchin. Rye peeked inside the shell. It looked like something Lottie might have expelled from her nose.
“Would you care for the first one?”
“Um, no thank you.”
“No worries, plenty for later,” he said, and slurped the creature up from its shell. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, carefully placed the prickly remains of the first sea urchin into the bag, and removed another.
Rye stared out at the churning waves around them. She couldn’t see more than ten yards in the swirl of snow, fog and ocean spray.
“Harmless, aren’t you cold?” Rye asked.
“Spring is finally in the air,” he said cheerily, eating the second sea urchin. “And the tide’s on its way out. Our path back to the house will soon be clear.”
Rye saw nothing but an impenetrable blanket of fog that consumed the earlier hints of sunlight.
“There’s always a path, Riley, you just need the courage to take the first step.” Harmless pointed into the fog. “Look, you can see the top of the first rock right there. Follow me.”
Harmless skipped across the slick rocks as if they were a well-worn trail through a meadow. Rye had improved with practice over the past few days, but the slippery brown seaweed still pulled her boots out from under her with the slightest falter.
A staircase rose from the waves, ending at a landing high above their heads. Scowling, barnacle-pocked faces loomed over them as they carefully climbed the hand-carved steps, the mansion’s walls sculpted into the shapes of hungry sea monsters, wailing hags and nautical gargoyles lifelike enough to put a scare into even the hardiest seafarer.
This was where her father had brought Rye after rescuing her from the woods. The place he kept secret – even from the Luck Uglies.
Harmless called it Grabstone.
They ate at the large table by the main fireplace, surrounded on all sides by salt-sprayed windows and sweeping views of the sea. One window was cracked open and a rather frosty-looking rook peered in from the ledge, sleet accumulating on its inky black wings.
“Have the rooks brought any word from Mama?” Rye asked.
“Nothing yet,” Harmless said. He broke off a crust of bread from their loaf and dangled his hand out over the ledge. The bird eagerly took it from his fingers with its long, grey beak. “Don’t be too troubled by it, though. I wouldn’t be eager to fly in these winds either.”
Harmless had sent word of their whereabouts to her mother by way of a rook, much the way Rye and Folly used pigeons to convey messages back home. But even after several days and two more birds, there had been no reply.
“And what about him?” Rye asked.
In addition to carrying handwritten notes, Rye had seen the clever rooks communicate with Harmless in other ways. Occasionally they brought him what looked to be random nesting items; a scrap of leather, or piece of fishing line. But from them Harmless could glean distant comings and goings.
“Slinister masks his movements well,” Harmless said, and Rye tried not to cringe at the mention of his name. “But I suspect that, like everyone else, he and his allies hunkered down somewhere to ride out this storm.”
Harmless had explained to Rye that while Slinister was in fact a Luck Ugly, he was a man who harboured radically different notions from her father. They had once been fast friends, but a rift had grown between them over some matter Harmless didn’t elaborate upon. Slinister became the leader of a small but ruthless faction of Luck Uglies called the Fork-Tongued Charmers. They masked themselves in ghoulish white ash and blackened their eyes and lips with soot. Their name came from their gruesome custom of splitting their own tongues as a display of commitment. The disfigurement symbolised a pledge that could not be easily undone.
Harmless must have noticed the lingering look of concern on Rye’s face as she fidgeted with her spoon.
“I won’t lie to you, Riley. Slinister is a dangerous man, one haunted by wounds of the past. Even his name is an old jeer that he’s embraced and now wears defiantly. I am sorry that you ever had the misfortune of meeting him, and I’m afraid that I’m to blame for that. I’d heard the Fork-Tongued Charmers planned mischief for Silvermas – under cover of a Black Moon. I had been tracking them for weeks, but obviously I underestimated Slinister. And it turns out, I was an hour too late.”
Harmless shook his head, as if still puzzled by his own misstep.
“But why me?” Rye asked. “Why send a false message only to rob Good Harper and leave me freezing in the woods?”
“He lured you on to the Mud Sleigh so that I would find you there,” Harmless said. “Slinister wanted to show that he was one step ahead of me. It was wrong of him to use you that way, and I promise he will be held accountable.” There was a fleeting hint of darkness in Harmless’s tone. “But the message was a forewarning meant for me, and you are in no jeopardy.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked. She remembered Slinister’s parting words. Perhaps they would have a chance to meet again.
“We have rules – unwritten but understood – not unlike the House Rules your mother raised you with,” Harmless explained. “Answer the Call. My Brother’s Promise Is My Own. Say Little, Reveal Less. Lay No Hand on Children of Friend or Foe. Those are just a few. Sadly, ours don’t rhyme as cleverly as your mother’s,” he added with a smirk. “But the consequences of ignoring them are, shall we say, severe. No Luck Ugly would break them.”
“You realise it wasn’t so long ago that I broke every one of Mama’s House Rules?” Rye muttered. And besides, she thought, if Harmless was so confident, why did he feel the need to bring her here to Grabstone?
“You mustn’t worry, Riley,” he said reassuringly. “I knew that calling the Luck Uglies back to Drowning after all these years would bring with it certain … complications. Ten years is a long time for men of independent spirit to be apart. But the Fork-Tongued Charmers are still Luck Uglies. Once a Luck Ugly, Always a Luck Ugly, Until the Day You Take Your Last Breath. That is perhaps the most important rule of all. And as brothers, we will settle our differences in our own way.”
“And what way is that?” she asked.
Harmless pushed himself up from the table and bowed his head.
“More often than not,” he said solemnly, “by way of a dance challenge.”
“Harmless …” Rye said, pursing her lips and crossing her arms.
“It’s true,” he said, and did a few steps of jig so poorly it made Rye blush. “And if that doesn’t resolve it, we have a baking contest. The man who serves the best dumplings wins.”
“Then you’re doomed,” Rye said with a laugh, swirling her spoon in his homemade stew – a medley of sea urchins and other slimy things that crawled out of tide pools.
Harmless smiled and turned to look out the windows.
“There’s another blow coming in,” he commented, and Rye sensed he was happy to change the subject.
Rye reached out and snatched the rest of the bread while Harmless studied the approaching storm. She hid it in the folds of her shirt.
“Can we watch it from the Bellwether?” she asked. The Bellwether was the room nestled in Grabstone’s tallest turret – a chamber sealed shut at all times behind a door so bare it didn’t even have a latch or keyhole. Harmless had told her it was off-limits.
“You’re nothing if not persistent, Riley, but no.” He looked back at her. “When I bartered for Grabstone, the Bellwether wasn’t part of the arrangement. And you know I never break a deal.”
Harmless was always negotiating bargains of one sort or another. He didn’t seem eager to explain who Grabstone belonged to before, or what he had to trade to get a whole house, either. Well, the whole house except the Bellwether. Harmless seemed to do a lot of things other people might describe as dishonest – but breaking deals wasn’t one of them.
Rye shrugged and belched loudly after finishing the pungent stew.
“You’re welcome,” Harmless said. He burped too, and they both laughed.
Harmless had once told Rye that, in some cultures, a loud belch was how you thanked your host for a good meal. She and Lottie had eagerly adopted the custom. Their mother had not been pleased.
Rye climbed the stairs to her room. Grabstone was built tall and narrow. Instead of halls there were stairways – a great number of them. The bedchambers were situated in the tallest tower, beyond the reach of even the highest waves. This high up, she could hear the wooden timbers straining against the wind.
Pausing briefly at her own door, she continued up the last flight of dark steps. They ended at the Bellwether. No one – not even Harmless – was allowed in there, and yet Rye had heard footsteps on the floorboards overhead. On her first night at Grabstone, she saw shadows under the crack of her door. When she jumped from the covers and threw open the latch, the stairway was empty. Rye wasn’t persuaded by Harmless’s suggestion that it must be rats.
Seeing strange things in the dark didn’t frighten her any more. Not seeing them – that was still the scary part.
Rye removed the leftover bread from her shirt, crouched down and carefully placed it at the base of the Bellwether’s formidable door. Only a small glass peephole adorned its stark face. She peeked over her shoulder to make sure Harmless wasn’t coming, then pushed up on her toes, craned her neck, and was just barely able to press her eye against the circlet of glass. The distorted lens revealed nothing but cloudy shapes, as it had when she’d tried this before. Rye struggled to stay on her tiptoes, wishing she was an inch taller.
An ear-splitting noise rattled the entire tower and Rye leaped back.
Thunder.
She could tell the clouds had opened up, and a fierce, freezing sleet pounded the roof. Rye climbed back down the stairs to her room. The sky danced with light outside her window. Lightning bounced from cloud to cloud. Snow lightning was considered bad luck. The worst kind.
Rye sifted through a pile of unusual trinkets until she found her bronze-and-leather spyglass. Grabstone was full of oddities and minor treasures, the likes of which she had never seen before. Harmless had little use for them and Rye had already collected the most interesting ones here in her room. Rye squinted at the thin band of rocks and sand that stretched from below her window to the beaches and cliffs. Grabstone was connected to the shore by a treacherous shoal jagged enough to sink ships and thwart the curious who might attempt to venture there by foot. Normally, pipers, gulls and the occasional seal inhabited the shoal, but that day only waves and sleet battered its rocks.
Then Rye jolted in surprise. There was something out there. A light?
She lifted her spyglass for a closer look. It was indeed a light – a lantern. It bounced and bobbed, pausing as waves hit, moving forward quickly but clumsily through an afternoon that was now as dark as night. Rye held her breath. Who would be out in this storm? Another wave and the little light seemed to topple to the ground. Whoever was carrying it slowly regained their footing. Then, one final wave crested over the entire shoal, making it disappear beneath the sea for a just a moment, and the little light went out entirely.
Rye rushed down the stairs. She found Harmless in a small sitting room, its windows thrown open. He snoozed in a hammock strung to the beams of the house, the howling winds from the sea strong enough to rock him gently back and forth.
She shook him awake, the hammock now bouncing like a ship in a squall. He blinked away the sleep.
“Someone’s trying to reach us,” Rye said. “There is – well, there was – a light. Out on the shoal.”
“Hmm,” Harmless said, “I’m certainly not expecting anyone. Don’t worry, the rocks make quick work of uninvited guests.”
He folded his hands back on his stomach.
“Harmless, someone’s in trouble,” Rye said.
“Indeed. The sea is a more ferocious watchdog than the most ill-tempered hound.”
Rye shook his arm.
“Harmless, isn’t there only one person in whole world who could know where we are?” she asked urgently.
Harmless furrowed a brow. He was beginning to understand.
That person was Rye’s mother. She wouldn’t venture out to Grabstone unless it was of dire importance. And she wouldn’t stand a chance out on the shoal in that storm.
(#ulink_3598cf61-a9ff-51f8-84c8-59f42aa242ee)
ARMLESS TRIED TO make Rye promise not to follow him out on to the shoal. Even if a wave dashed him against the rocks he wanted her to stay put – at least until the storm blew over. Rye had just frowned. Surely Harmless had got to know her well enough to realise she couldn’t promise that.
He’d been gone nearly thirty minutes when she finally threw caution to the wind and gathered the supplies she imagined she might need for an ocean rescue – a lantern, a coil of rope, a flask of hot stew. Fair Warning, her mother’s knife that had once bitten the hand of Morningwig Longchance himself, was sheathed inside her boot, although the fiercest thing Rye had ever done with the blade was shuck an oyster. Icy rain slashed her face as she stepped on to the slick stone steps, but she stopped abruptly as a drenched figure emerged from the fog.
It was Harmless, a shivering body in a sleet-crusted cloak dangling from his arms. Rye was shocked to see that it wasn’t her mother. It was the body of a girl.
Rye and Harmless huddled by the fire in the entry hall, where Harmless had carefully laid the child. “Were you going on a picnic?” Harmless asked with a smirk, nodding at her flask.
Rye’s eyes flared.
“Sorry, a poor time for humour,” he said softly. “Your friend is most resourceful. She found a little cove to hole up in and wait out the storm. It was dry …” He glanced down at his sopping clothes. “Relatively speaking.”
Rye looked at the girl in anticipation.
“Give her a drink of stew,” Harmless said. “I’ll fetch some dry clothes.”
Rye watched for any movement in her friend’s face, her white-blonde hair frosted to the colour of snow, glassy eyes flecked as blue as ice chips.
“Folly,” Rye whispered.
Folly’s eyes focused at the sound of Rye’s voice. Her red cheeks creased into a grin.
“Here, drink,” Rye said, and pressed the flask to Folly’s purple lips.
She accepted a big mouthful and swallowed it down, her grin turning into a frown.
“Ugh, what is this?”
“Snails, whales and sea bug tails.”
“Really?” Folly said, her eyes now brightening with interest. “Can I take some for an experiment?”
“Of course,” Rye said, and smiled at her best friend, the ever-aspiring alchemist. She handed the flask to Folly, who cupped it in her cold hands.
“How did you find us?” Rye asked.
“Your mother was talking to my mum at the inn,” Folly said. “She received your message from the rook but was worried that you hadn’t replied to hers.”
Rye wasn’t surprised that Folly had overheard her mother. She suspected her friend must have the biggest ears in Drowning – there was scarcely a story or secret whispered around the Dead Fish Inn that she didn’t catch wind of sooner or later. But the fact that Rye and Harmless had missed a message from her mother was more troubling.
“What message?” Rye asked eagerly.
But Folly’s cheeks had lost their colour after their brief exchange and she fell silent, her teeth chattering so fiercely she could barely part them long enough to swallow sips of the steaming stew. Only after Folly was good and dry, bundled in blankets and dressed in Rye’s extra shirt and leggings, did Harmless and Rye bring her upstairs to the big table by the fire. Harmless busied himself in the pantry. Folly’s blue eyes were wide, marvelling at the most unusual surroundings.
She took notice of Harmless, who appeared to be wringing the neck of a very recently deceased fish over a tumbler.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered to Rye.
“Mackerel oil,” Harmless replied from the pantry. Rye had long since discovered that there was little Harmless didn’t hear or see.
“Helps keep the mind sharp,” he explained, tapping his temple as he examined the cloudy liquid that now filled the glass. “Care for some? I know better than to ask you, Riley.”
“Uh, all right,” Folly said.
Rye cringed at Folly’s mistake. Harmless looked most pleased to bring an extra mug as he joined them at the table.
“So, Folly,” Harmless said, “as delighted as we are to have you pay us a visit, I must ask what brings you out here in such foul weather. Riley mentioned a message.”
“It looked to be a pleasant day when I left the village this morning. It finally felt like spring,” Folly said. She took a sip from the mug Harmless had offered. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, strained to swallow, and politely slid it away. “The weather turned rather suddenly,” she rasped.
“Indeed,” Harmless said. “A fickle storm this late in the season is not a good omen. But, more importantly, the message?”
Folly seemed to hesitate. “Mrs O’Chanter sent a message by rook. Two days ago now. You never received it?”
“No,” Harmless said. “The fellow on the ledge turned up yesterday but bore no message. He seems to have had a rough go of it.”
Folly swallowed hard. “You heard what happened to the Mud Sleigh? On Silvermas?”
Harmless and Rye exchanged looks, and Harmless nodded to Folly.
“They say it was …” Folly began, and peeked over her shoulder out of habit, “… the Luck Uglies.” She whispered the name, even though she knew very well who and what Harmless was. “After the attack on Good Harper, the Earl’s new Constable made some immediate changes. ‘Valant’ he’s called, and from what I’ve heard, he’s not like the other lawmen.”
Rye saw Harmless lean forward, listening intently.
“My father says Valant has a long reputation – whatever that means. He doesn’t stay in one town for more than a few months. I heard he came from Throcking most recently. He makes the prior constables seem like lambs.”
Folly paused, shifting in her seat before continuing.
“Among other things, Valant has …” Folly hesitated.
“It’s all right, Folly,” Harmless said. “You can speak freely.”
“He …” She looked at Rye with eyes that made Rye’s stomach sink. Folly swallowed hard before forcing out her words. “… Burned the Willow’s Wares.”
“What?” Rye shouted in alarm. The Willow’s Wares was her mother’s shop.
“Your mother and Lottie are fine,” Folly added quickly. “There was no one inside.”
Rye was dumbstruck. “He … how could … what about …” Her eyes jumped from Folly to Harmless and back again. “Why?” She gasped and, for the first time she could remember, found herself speechless.
Harmless sat back without emotion, but Rye could see the grey-flecked stubble of his beard twitch as he tightened his jaw.
“Your mother and Lottie have moved out of your cottage. They’ve been staying with us at the inn,” Folly said. “Just to be safe.”
That was a relief, although Rye’s ears now burned red in anger. The Earl had displaced her family once again. It seemed the safest place for the O’Chanters had become the most notorious tavern in the most dangerous part of town.
Rye tried to settle herself. “Did my mother send you here?”
“No. Nobody knows I came.” Folly shrugged at Rye’s look of disbelief. “I thought you should know.”
Rye shook her head, but not without affection. She couldn’t hope for a more loyal – and at times more foolhardy – friend.
Rye glanced at Harmless. He rubbed his jaw and pinched the stubbly beard on his chin. Finally, he said simply, “We’ll leave with tomorrow’s first light, whether it brings sun, snow or hail. Longchance didn’t heed my warning, and now the weight of that decision shall come heavy and swift.”
The gravity of Folly’s news bore down on her, but Rye put a hand on Folly’s arm as she considered her friend’s own reckless journey. “Your parents will be worried sick about you.”
“It may take them a few days before they even realise I’m gone,” Folly said flatly. “They’ve been a bit distracted lately. Mum’s got another one on the way.”
Rye raised an eyebrow. “Another what?”
“Another Flood,” Folly said.
Rye couldn’t believe her ears. Folly was already the youngest of nine children, the rest of them boys. After twelve years, Rye assumed Folly’s parents were finally done stocking the inn.
“Folly, I didn’t even know she was …” Rye’s voice trailed off.
“Me neither,” Folly said. “She didn’t mention anything, so I just assumed she’d put on a few winter pounds to warm her bones. Mum says that after nine children, delivering babies is like cleaning out the wine cellar – an important job you do once a year or so, but not worth fretting about until you finally run out of room.”
“Well, that’s great news,” Rye said, pasting a broad smile across her face. “You’re going to be a big sister.” Rye knew, as someone who served that same role for a little red-headed firestorm back home, it was no easy task.
“Isn’t that great news, Harmless?” Rye coaxed.
Rye’s question seemed to pull Harmless from his thoughts. He looked up, his eyes returning from somewhere far away.
“Yes, yes, indeed. Fabulous news, Folly. You’ll be an expert in screaming infants and soiled linens in no time I’m sure,” he said with a smile.
Rye frowned. That wasn’t exactly the type of encouragement she’d had in mind.
“I need to tend to a few things before morning,” Harmless said, pushing himself up from the table. “Folly, make yourself at home. Riley, be sure to pack whatever you wish to take from this place. We won’t be returning any time soon.”
Rye’s night proved to be a restless one. She was still staring at the timbers above her bed when Folly nudged her. The creaks and groans of Grabstone took some getting used to and must have woken Folly too.
“Rye,” Folly whispered, and nudged her again, harder. “Are you awake?”
“Ouch, Miss Bony Elbow. Yes, I am.”
“Do you hear that? Someone’s outside.”
Rye heard the familiar shuffling in the hallway. A shadow broke the dim crack of light under the bedchamber’s door.
“It’s just the ghost from the Bellwether,” Rye said.
“What?” Folly asked sitting up. “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts any more.”
“Oh, right,” Rye said. “In that case it’s just a big rat. Try to get some sleep.”
“With ghosts and giant rats outside the door?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Rye said, slipping from under the covers and lighting a candle.
“Where are you going?”
“Shhh,” Rye said. “Just watch.”
She tiptoed towards the door silently. She reached for the latch without making a sound. But as her fingertips touched it, the shadow disappeared from under the door and there was a creak on the stairs, followed by silence.
Rye opened the door quickly. The stairway was empty.
She looked at Folly over her shoulder. “See?”
Rye carefully climbed the stairs to the Bellwether. Her small candle barely penetrated the shadows, but it was enough to illuminate the landing at the top. The door was shut tight, but the bread she’d left earlier had disappeared, just like the other offerings she’d set out each of the past several nights.
Whatever lurked in the Bellwether, real or imagined, it seemed to be restless too.
(#ulink_1afa8530-7dfe-5525-881f-93437f31046b)
ARMLESS HADN’T BEEN exaggerating when he said they would leave at first light, and after their fitful slumber, Rye and Folly found themselves sleepwalking across the shoal and up a rocky beach. Their departure had been hurried, but Rye was careful to stash her spyglass in her pack. She also brought a stout walking stick made of hard black wood that she’d found in Grabstone’s assortment of trinkets. It came with a leather sling so she could stow it over her shoulder when she wasn’t using it. She found the walking stick particularly useful now as they navigated the uneven stones.
Harmless took notice of it and raised an eyebrow. “Where did you come across that?” he asked.
“In one of the bedchambers. Do you like it?”
“Hmm,” Harmless said. Then, after a moment, “Yes, it does seem to suit you.”
The light of dawn grazed the dunes as they arrived at the edge of a tall bluff. Rye squinted against the wind as she watched the whitecaps roll into shore, but even though they had just hiked from Grabstone, she couldn’t see the shrouded mansion through the morning’s mist.
Harmless was busy examining a simple farmer’s cart. It was empty and horseless.
“Folly,” Harmless inquired, “how did you manage to get out here?”
Folly’s shoulders slumped. “There was a horse hitched to that cart yesterday. I guess it got tired of waiting.” She sighed and shook her head. “My father’s not going to let me leave the inn again for a month.”
“I guess we need to find another ride then,” Harmless said. “Come on, girls. This way.”
They followed Harmless along a narrow sand path that traced the edge of the bluff. Before long they came to a wind-beaten fisherman’s shanty that looked to have weathered one too many storms. Behind it was a small, sheltered stable.
“Ah, there we are,” Harmless said, and quickly made for the paddock.
“Will we ask the fisherman if we can borrow a horse?” Rye asked, hurrying to keep up.
“I’d hate to trouble him at this hour,” Harmless said, a glint in his eye. “But stay here and keep a lookout for him, would you, Folly? Just in case he happens to wake up.”
In the stable they found nothing more than a few bales of rotting hay and a sad, grey nag with ribs Rye could count.
Harmless frowned. “Not much of a selection. I guess this old girl will have to do. Riley, set her reins, would you?”
As Rye got to work, Harmless searched the stable and found a farrier’s bag. He took a nail and a small hammer, removed a swatch of fabric from his pocket, and nailed it to a post.
“Just in case someone misses her,” he said with a wink.
The fabric was cut into the shape of a ragged four-leaf clover – its colour black as night.
Rye had seen one like this before. In fact, she had it in her very own pocket at that moment.
It meant a Luck Ugly had promised you a favour. Hers had been given to her by someone other than Harmless and, at her mother’s request, she still hadn’t told him about it.
They rode for most of the morning, staying on the hard-packed sand so that the wagon’s wheels wouldn’t become stuck. Folly snacked on some strips of dried meat as Harmless tended the reins. Rye fidgeted, as she was prone to do when forced into long bouts of inactivity. Harmless seemed to sense it.
“We’re taking the back way, but it won’t be much longer now,” he encouraged. “See, there are the twin culverts.”
Rye and Folly looked ahead. From the bluff, fortified on all sides by enormous boulders that looked like they could only have been assembled by giants, were the mouths of two gaping tunnels. Each was wide enough to fit not only their mare and wagon, but an entire fleet of draft horses. Dark but shallow currents flowed and gurgled from the culverts, etching a lattice of scars into the packed beach as they meandered to the sea.
“The twins are restful today,” Harmless noted. “When the Great Eel Pond rises too high, this stretch of beach can be impassable.”
He must have seen Rye’s quizzical look.
“The culverts drain the surrounding waters under, rather than over, the village. Without them, Drowning’s name would become quite literal.”
As their horse splashed through the run-off, the pungent smell of sewage and salt rot permeated Rye’s nose. She tried to peer into the blackness behind the culverts. Rye saw nothing in the darkness, but there, on a rock by the edge of one tunnel, stooped a small, hunch-shouldered man in a heavy cloak. He dangled a hand in the icy run-off. Next to him was a covered pail.
Harmless took note of him too.
“A sniggler,” he said, with a hint of curiosity. “Let’s bid him good morning.”
Rye knew that snigglers fished for eels by thrusting baited hooks into the dark places where the creatures were known to lurk. Eels fetched a good price at Drowning’s butcher shops.
Harmless directed the cart towards him.
“Morning, good sir,” Harmless called.
The sniggler cast an eye towards them. He pulled his hand from the water and thrust it into the warm folds of his cloak.
“Good day to you, traveller,” he croaked in return.
Harmless stopped the cart a short distance from him and flashed a smile.
“How is the day’s catch?”
“Fair.” The sniggler placed a hand atop the pail. “Quite good actually.”
“Really?” Harmless said, jumping down from the farmer’s cart. “That’s splendid news.”
“Yes,” the sniggler said with a tight smile. “So good in fact, I was about to call it a morning.”
Rye saw the sniggler rise slowly, his shoulders slumped. His bones must have ached from years at the backbreaking work. He picked up his pail.
“I am so glad to have caught you then,” Harmless said taking a step forward. “I do enjoy a fresh eel. Might I buy one or two from you before you are on your way?”
On the cart, Rye exchanged glances with Folly and shrugged her shoulders. Her father seemed to have an insatiable appetite for slimy creatures.
The sniggler stiffened. “I’m afraid these eels are spoken for. The butcher will be expecting me.”
Harmless cocked his head. “You can’t spare but one? I have silver shims and will pay more than a fair price.”
The sniggler eased himself down from the rock on to the sand, his back so stooped that he stood barely taller than Rye. He dragged a foot behind him, the hem of his cloak covered in sand. Rye could tell that he must be lame.
“I’m sorry, but no. I must honour my bargain.” He looked Harmless over carefully.
“I can certainly appreciate a man of scruples,” Harmless said, and came to a stop a short distance from the sniggler. “But perhaps you will at least allow me to see your catch? For surely these are extraordinary eels.”
The sniggler stopped as well. He cast his eyes towards the cart, examining Rye and Folly in a manner that seemed less than friendly.
“I’m but a simple fisher,” the sniggler said. “Mine are ordinary saltwater eels. And small ones at that.”
“Don’t be so modest, sniggler. You must have a magic touch.” Harmless looked him hard in the eye. “For the Great Eel Pond was fished dry long ago. It has not been home to eels in my lifetime.”
The sniggler hesitated. “Odd luck is in the air,” he said, carefully removing the top from the pail. “You may see my catch,” he went on, reaching inside. “But take care. They bite.”
The sniggler snatched his hand from the pail and flicked his wrist so fast that Rye hardly saw it. A flash of steel caught the sun and Harmless dropped to all fours like a cat. A thud echoed below her. She looked down. A sharp throwing knife had just missed Harmless’s chest and embedded itself in the side of the farmer’s cart. A second blade cut through the air. Harmless rolled quickly and it only pierced the tail of his cloak, pinning it to the hard sand.
The sniggler cursed. He shook his own cloak from his shoulders as he stood at full height. He darted towards the culverts at a speed that would put Rye and Folly to shame, his lame leg and bent spine miraculously healed.
Harmless ripped his cloak free and checked on the girls. Finding them unharmed, he eyed the culverts. The sniggler had already disappeared inside.
“He’s a scout,” Harmless said. “For who I don’t know. But my gut tells me we must make it to the village before him.”
Harmless reached back over his shoulders. Two short swords appeared in his hands.
“Ride that way,” he said pointing the tip of a blade down the shoreline. “It will bring you straight to Drowning. But stay clear of the main gate. And, to be safe, don’t take the hole in the wall.”
Rye knew exactly what he meant. Mud Puddle Lane ended at a crumbled hole in the village’s protective wall. Harmless wanted her to stay away from the cottage.
He pointed the other blade towards the culverts. “I’ll follow our friend the sniggler.” He flashed a predatory smile. “Perhaps, with luck, I can slow him down.”
And with that, Harmless disappeared into the dark mouth of a culvert, the splash of his footsteps trailing behind him.
(#ulink_e25a4798-9d3e-5d7f-858e-50143cbb3efc)
YE AND FOLLY abandoned their horse and cart at a farm near the village limits and were able to slip into Drowning along a well-worn cow path. They blended in among some farmers taking their skinny, winter-weary livestock to market.
“We’ll want to move quickly through the streets,” Folly was saying as they splintered off from the pack. “The Constable and the Earl’s men have been stopping villagers for questioning ever since Silvermas. Considering who your father is, I don’t think we’ll have the right answers.”
“And what about the Shambles?” Rye asked. The Shambles was the part of the village where Folly and her family lived. “Will soldiers be there too?”
“The Shambles still keeps its own order – or disorder,” Folly said with a touch of pride. “No constable or soldier dares to go there. Just as it’s always been.”
Drowning rose up around them as they walked briskly through the neighbourhood called Old Salt Cross. The day turned balmy as winter finally surrendered, the spring snow mashed into mud on the cobblestones under the traffic of boots, hooves and wheels of horse-carts. Rye and Folly kept to the middle of the roads like the others, wary of sharp-toothed icicles that dripped from the eaves and rooftops, promising a wicked braining for anyone caught underneath one at the wrong time. The faces of the villagers were dour and they seemed to go about their daily chores with little cheer. As Folly had warned, the Earl’s soldiers were conspicuous and plentiful, stationed at every corner, and ever-watchful with suspicious eyes.
Rye spotted a huntsman loping past with what looked to be bundles of withered black leaves in each hand. Upon closer inspection, she was stunned to see that they were the feathers of a dozen black birds the man carried by their lifeless feet.
Rye grasped Folly’s arm. “What’s he doing with those rooks?”
“Off to the butcher’s, I’d guess,” Folly said without stopping. “The Earl’s put a bounty on them … a bronze bit per pound. Rook pie’s sure to become a village staple.”
Maybe that was what happened to her mother’s message, Rye thought, chewing her lip. A bounty on rats she might understand, but one on rooks – the Luck Uglies’ messengers – that seemed like more than just coincidence.
Rye didn’t have a chance to ask anything else before she was interrupted by the sound of a jingling bell coming their way. She looked to find its source, expecting a donkey or perhaps a farmer’s cow, but instead a woman hurried by them with a small child in her arms.
The woman wore a locked, iron-framed mask over her face. A metal bar stretched between her teeth like a bridle. Between her cheeks, the branks were fashioned into a long pointed nose like that of a mole, and the bell dangled at the end. The woman’s eyes caught Rye’s for an instant, then dropped to the street in shame as she passed.
Rye heard the mocking jeers and laughter of two nearby soldiers. She stopped to gawk in disbelief. Folly clutched her by the sleeve and pulled her forward before the soldiers took notice.
“What is that? What have they done to her?” Rye demanded.
“It’s called a Shrew’s Bridle,” Folly said quietly. “For women accused of speaking ill of Earl Longchance. Men stand to fare much worse.”
Rye’s ears began to burn. “Let me guess, the new Constable’s doing.”
Folly just nodded. “He seems fond of harsh devices.”
Rye was still simmering when Folly headed for the shortcut to Dread Captain’s Way. Rye held her back and insisted that they take Market Street instead.
“It will be crawling with soldiers,” Folly pointed out. “Trust me, Rye, you don’t want to go there.”
“Yes, Folly, I really do.”
Folly sighed. “Fine, we’ll stop and get Quinn. He should be at his father’s shop. Keep an eye out for the feral hogs, they’re extra surly. They’ve been foraging by the canal since yesterday, so it’s best to stay out of the back alley.”
The winding cobblestones of Market Street were as busy as ever, clogged with merchants, villagers and soldiers. They hadn’t made it more than a block when Rye realised that this was not ordinary midday traffic. Rather, the crowd seemed to bottleneck at Market Street’s widest point, the mass of bodies so thick that Rye and Folly could only inch forward.
Rye stood on her toes for a better view. An elaborate pillory had been erected in the middle of Market Street – an iron cage on top of a raised wooden platform. It must have been built in the past few days – she’d never seen it before. Fortunately, the stocks and shackles inside the cage were empty. Above the pillory a black-and-blue banner fluttered in the breeze. She knew the emblem well.
An eel-like hagfish coiled around a clenched fist. The crest of the House of Longchance.
“The new Constable’s doing,” Rye said matter-of-factly.
“They’re calling it the Shame Pole,” Folly explained. “I’m just glad there’s no one in the cage.”
A small procession pushed through the crowd on foot. Three soldiers in black-and-blue tartan and a teenage boy who looked to be a squire took positions at the pillory’s base. A lean, broad-shouldered man garbed not in Longchance tartan but a fine black vest, climbed the steps. He wore a thin leather war helmet fitted snug on his head and on top of that sat a rather handsome crimson hat shaped like a stovepipe. No moustache covered his lip but thick, golden hair burst from his jaw, his beard waxed into five elaborately curled points like hairy fingers beckoning. Coiled on his belt was what looked to be a multi-tailed whip made of knotted red cord, and in his fist was a length of chain. Collared at its end, an enormous, mottled grey dog followed him on long haunches.
The man wore an unexpected, almost pleasant, smile on his face as he addressed the assembled villagers. His hard-edged eyes did not match his smile.
“Constable Valant,” Rye said, under her breath. He looked more like a sellsword than a lawman.
Folly nodded.
“Residents,” the new Constable called out, in a voice that was strong but silky. “As you can see, our Shame Pole is now complete.”
Valant waved a hand at the open cage door and empty shackles. His tone of appreciation quickly darkened. “But today it remains unoccupied. That tells me you have been less than forthcoming with me.” He cast an accusing glare out at the crowd.
The teenage squire puffed out his chest and flared his narrow-set eyes, doing his best to mimic the Constable’s severe gaze.
“I expect each of you to remain ever-vigilant by bringing me information on those who break the Laws of Longchance or otherwise seek to do harm to our most honourable Earl,” he continued. “To help you do your part, hear this list of villagers who have committed crimes against Drowning and the House of Longchance. Provide me with their whereabouts so they may serve their time on the pole, and may their lingering shame help guide their future deeds.”
The squire handed Valant a parchment scroll, which he unfurled nearly to his feet. The Constable cleared his throat and hooked a thumb in his belt as he began to read.
“Emmitt Adams – guilty of touching the Earl’s cloak while it was being mended at the tailor. Three hours on the Shame Pole.” As he called out the names, his words fogged the chilly air like the smouldering breath of a dragon. “Sarah Barley – guilty of sticking out her tongue at Lady Malydia Longchance in the noble schoolyard. Sentenced to a vigorous tongue-scrubbing by way of a horse brush and two hours on the Shame Pole.”
Villagers began to return to their toils while Constable Valant worked through the long list of minor offences and their excessive penalties. Rye’s ears reddened in frustration – it seemed the Earl had emerged from his winter slumber even pettier than before. As the crowd thinned, Rye scanned the familiar Market Street shop fronts: the butcher shop, the fishmonger’s stall, the coffin maker’s and Quartermast’s blacksmith shop, among others. But one shop was now very different. Rye felt a lump in her throat as she stared at the husk of scorched brick and timbers. The Willow’s Wares, or what was left of it, was no longer a colourful standout among Market Street’s weathered grey facades. Rather, it was a charred skeleton – a permanent pillory.
“Jameson Daw,” Constable Valant was calling out from his list. “Guilty of public drunkenness and uttering untruths about the House of Longchance. Repeat offender. Sentenced to five stripes at the thrashing stump and eight hours on the Shame Pole!”
Rye looked over her shoulder at the Constable – the man responsible for doing this. Her ears had turned as crimson as his hat.
Folly seemed to want to say something, but just bit her lip. She put a hand on Rye’s shoulder.
“We should go,” Folly said after a moment. “I’ll find Quinn, then we’ll get out of here.”
She darted across the street to Quartermast’s, but Rye couldn’t take her eyes off the remains of her family shop. Villagers wandered past it without a second glance, as if they’d already become numb to the black eye or simply forgotten about it altogether. All except for one. A bent figure sifted through the rubble, almost invisible in the shadows of the burned-out frame. Rye watched carefully as he reached down to pick something from the ashes.
A looter! There might not be much left to take, but there was no way she was about to let someone pick through their belongings.
She dodged a foraging piglet as she hurried across the street and ran through the empty, blackened doorframe. Muted afternoon light filtered through the hollow windows but she could not see anyone in the shadows. Instead, a yellow sheet of parchment nailed to a timber caught her attention. Thanks to her mother’s refusal to follow the Laws of Longchance and Quinn’s informal lessons, Rye was one of the few village girls who could read.
PROCLAMATION
OF EARL MORNINGWIG LONGCHANCE!
Generous Rewards Offered for the Capture of
Abigail O’Chanter and her Two Offspring!
Wanted for Crimes Against the Shale!
The proclamation included a drawing of her mother, with pouty lips and evil, smouldering eyes; a small, wild-haired girl with a ferocious look on her face; and someone who appeared to be a rather skinny, unkempt boy. Why did they always think she was a boy?
Rye’s blood ran cold. She was officially a fugitive, but why? Had the Earl decided to goad Harmless by targeting his family? She pulled the hood of her coat tight around her head and peeked out nervously at the villagers wandering past. When she was sure no one was looking, she tore the parchment from the post, crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket.
The sound of nearby activity caught Rye’s ear. Skipping over the rubble, she crouched and hid behind the remains of a brick wall at the back of the shop. She heard hooves on cobblestones. Snorts. She peeked over the wall where she could see straight into the back alley behind the Willow’s Wares. It was just several large hogs rooting through the refuse with their long snouts.
Rye breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled the parchment from her pocket, unfolded it, and read the proclamation again.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a stern voice said behind her.
Rye spun around to find the man she’d spotted rummaging through the shop, a scorched tin box tucked under his arm. From under his hood, long inky-black hair framed his sharp-edged face. He studied Rye with pale blue eyes the colour of robins’ eggs, and couldn’t conceal a hint of a smile at the corner of his thin lips.
“In fact,” he added, “this is the very last place you should be.”
(#ulink_028e520a-52d9-5f7c-b36a-b9a18bfe025d)
RAMBLE?” RYE ASKED in disbelief.
The man lowered his hood. “It’s good to see you again, niece,” he answered warmly.
Bramble Cutty was her mother’s brother. That made him Rye’s uncle, of course. Not that she really knew him at all. They’d met ever so briefly the prior autumn, and it was quite some time before her mother got around to telling Rye who Bramble actually was.
Bramble also happened to be the Luck Ugly who had given her the black swatch of fabric that she kept in her pocket. The Ragged Clover.
A furry head with round, dark eyes popped out from the folds of Bramble’s cloak. Rye leaped back. The small black monkey shrieked and bared its teeth. She knew him too. The little ape had never been particularly pleasant to her.
“Quiet, Shortstraw,” Bramble hissed, and stuffed the monkey’s face back under his cloak with a shove of his palm.
“He’s not fond of the cold,” he explained. “Makes him ill-tempered.”
Bramble handed the charred tin box to Rye. “This is for your mother if you see her before I do. It’s all I could find.”
Rye ran her fingertips over it, turning them black with soot. She slipped the box inside her coat.
“Tell me, Riley,” Bramble said, “what are you doing back in Drowning?”
Rye looked up at the burned beams and rafters around them. The lump returned to her throat. “Folly told us about … this.”
Bramble nodded gravely. “Well, now you’ve seen it for yourself. Abby’s been in quite a twist, as you can imagine. It’s a brazen gesture on the part of Longchance and his Constable – especially given the warning he’s under.”
Rye vividly remembered the warning Harmless had given Morningwig Longchance. She’d been there in the courtyard of Longchance Keep along with the small band of masked Luck Uglies. Harmless spared Longchance’s life, but promised that the Luck Uglies would be watching – and he would show no such restraint if Longchance were to ever trouble his family again. The Earl had either forgotten the warning – or no longer feared it. Had the new Constable emboldened him or were the Luck Uglies too preoccupied with their own differences to be bothered?
“And where in the Shale is your father?” Bramble asked. “Surely he hasn’t sent you back here alone?”
Rye told Bramble of the sniggler and Harmless’s pursuit into the culverts. Bramble’s face darkened.
“That man would drop everything for the thrill of the hunt,” Bramble muttered, then seemed to catch himself. “Not a problem, though. I’ll see you to the Dead Fish myself.”
It wasn’t the first time she had heard Bramble express frustration with her father.
“Bramble,” Rye said, lowering her voice out of habit, “what do you know about Slinister and the Fork-Tongued Charmers? Have they been heard from since the attack on the Mud Sleigh?”
Bramble narrowed an eye. “These are complicated times,” he said, in a manner that seemed dismissive of her question. “I won’t miss Silvermas anyway. I’ve gotten one too many potatoes … and mouse turds … in my boots.”
Whether or not Bramble missed Silvermas wasn’t exactly her point.
Bramble cast his attention to something over her shoulder. Rye turned to see Folly and Quinn stepping through the debris, hurrying towards them.
“There you are,” Folly said, and then paused at the sight of Bramble. “And … hello.”
“Greetings, young Flood,” Bramble said. “Floppy, is it?”
“Folly.”
“That’s right. Hard to sort out your lot with all the names.”
Folly frowned.
“You’re back,” Quinn called to Rye, his kind face bright. “When I heard about the Mud Sleigh I was …”
He pursed his lips tight as if grasping for the words, then simply threw his long arms around her. She awkwardly accepted his hug. He had a steel helmet tucked under his elbow. It poked Rye in the ribs.
“Sorry,” he said. “I smithed this one myself,” he added proudly. “Or started it anyway.”
“You’re the blacksmith’s boy, no?” Bramble asked.
Quinn nodded. He lived alone with his father, Angus, the blacksmith, and always did his best to please him. That sometimes made him a bit of a rule follower like his father, but, for the most part, Rye and Folly had broken him of that bad habit.
“It’s not the worst work I’ve seen,” Bramble commented. “But your hands may be better suited to the quill than the forge.”
Quinn looked at his blackened hands and sighed in agreement. All of his fingers were swollen, bandaged, or both.
“Enough chatter then. Let’s be on our way to the inn,” Bramble declared, casting a wary eye around them. “Before the villagers begin to wonder what’s so interesting in here.”
“I’m coming too,” Quinn said eagerly.
“We’ll split up and meet at Mutineer’s Alley. I’ll go first – I’m most likely to draw attention coming out of this place. You three wait a few moments then head out after me. Just try to look like nosy little scamps. Can you manage that?”
Bramble looked them over. They just blinked back at him.
“Perfect,” he said.
Bramble pulled his hood over his head, climbed through an empty window frame, then paused and looked back at them. “Step lively and stay inconspicuous,” he warned, before disappearing.
Rye, Folly and Quinn waited for several minutes, then pulled their hoods tight and ventured out on to Market Street.
The Constable was still reading from his list. “James Whitlow. Guilty of fouling the Earl’s private privy at the Silvermas Eve Feast. Fine of ten silver shims and one hour on the Shame Pole.”
“We missed you at Silvermas,” Quinn whispered as they moved quickly down the cobblestones.
“Yes, we should talk about that,” Rye said with a frown. “Next year, let’s save our coins and buy our own candy—”
Rye stopped abruptly. The Constable’s words had caught her ear from the pillory.
“And now for the most egregious offenders,” he said, running his finger down the length of the scroll. “Abigail O’Chanter,” he read. “Guilty of trafficking in stolen goods, harbouring known criminals, and conspiracy to commit treason. Punishment is seizure and destruction of the guilty’s property and imprisonment in the dungeons of Longchance Keep for not less than …”
Rye’s head instantly flushed with a rage so great she couldn’t hear the rest of his words. Someone whispered to her to ignore it, to keep on moving. She thought it might be Quinn. They were in front of the fishmonger’s stall. Rye thrust her bare hand into the trough of ice and pulled out a stiff, frozen mackerel by its tail. She couldn’t feel the cold.
Rye marched towards the pillory. Someone else grabbed at her arm. It might have been Folly. The Constable had moved on to the next name on the list.
“Harriet Wilson. Guilty of—”
Rye flung the fish. It knocked the parchment scroll from the Constable’s grasp and bounced off his leather vest before landing at his feet. He considered his empty hand with surprise then glowered out at the crowd. The soldiers and the squire looked her way as well. The Constable’s dog growled and strained at its leash.
Suddenly Rye was aware of her surroundings again, and found herself back-pedalling away from the Shame Pole. She bumped hard into two bodies. It was Quinn and Folly, who had caught up with her a moment too late.
“Tell me you didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” Quinn said as he carefully eased his helmet over his head.
Rye looked at the shimmering scales stuck to her palm. “I didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” she replied.
The squire spotted Rye and pointed. The three soldiers leaped down from the pillory.
“Scatter!” Rye yelled, and the three friends did just that. Growing up together on Drowning’s winding streets, they’d practised this many times before.
Rye darted down one end of Market Street while Folly and Quinn tore off in different directions. Rye pushed past a merchant and nearly ran headlong into a cow’s rump before glancing back over her shoulder. She saw Folly’s head of white-blonde hair sprinting safely down a narrow lane. But she was shocked to see that all three soldiers had taken off in pursuit of Quinn. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The soldiers should have split up to chase each of them. There wasn’t a man in Drowning the children couldn’t out-manoeuvre individually but, once outnumbered, things could get tricky. She saw Quinn’s wobbly helmet disappear down the alley near the remains of the Willow’s Wares. The soldiers had left him with no other option.
“Pigshanks,” Rye cursed. She knew the alley dead-ended at the canal. With three soldiers behind him, Quinn would be trapped. She changed course and ran back for him.
Rye turned the corner at full speed and skidded to a stop. She found just what she had feared. The three soldiers stood menacingly in the middle of the alleyway. Quinn had pulled up at the far end, where its cobbles met the foul-smelling canal that drained swill from the village to the river. The shallow water was filled with more pigs than Rye could count, their heads rooted up to their ears in the run-off. Each looked heavier than a full-grown man. Quinn glanced from the soldiers to the pigs and back again, weighing an impossible decision.
Rye looked around the alleyway. A young piglet snuffled about, having wandered off from the rest of the animals. It sniffed something interesting on her boots. She reached down and scooped him up in her arms. He oinked and squirmed but didn’t seem overly alarmed.
“Sorry, little fella,” Rye whispered in the piglet’s ear, then gave him the gentlest pinch on the tail.
The piglet squealed as if jabbed by a butcher’s blade and lurched to free itself from her grasp. The sows pulled their snouts from the murky water and grunted in reply. A soldier looked back at Rye and the little pig.
“Quinn! Get out of the way!” she called, and set the piglet down. It ran back towards its mother on the opposite side of Quinn and the soldiers.
Quinn knew exactly what was about to happen – village children were taught early never to get between a sow and her young. He darted to the side of the alley out of the pigs’ path, pressing himself against a building. The soldiers weren’t as quick, and found an army of wet, angry hogs bearing down on them with their tusks.
Rye and Quinn didn’t stop to catch their breath until they’d made it to where Bramble was waiting at Dread Captain’s Way. Shortstraw had climbed out from his hiding spot in Bramble’s cloak and now perched on his shoulder, his furry arms crossed impatiently.
Folly arrived just behind them. “There you are,” she said, gasping for breath.
Quinn struggled to remove his helmet.
“What happened back there?” Bramble demanded. He grabbed Quinn’s helmet and yanked it off with a pop. Quinn rubbed the red welt it had left across his forehead.
“Rye hit the Constable with a fish,” Folly said.
Bramble looked at Rye in disbelief and shook his head. “Perhaps we need to discuss the meaning of inconspicuous.”
They followed him to an obscure flight of carved stone steps tucked under a crumbling archway. It was called Mutineer’s Alley. No guards or gate blocked their path, but everyone in Drowning knew where those steps led. And it was no place for the unwelcome.
Rye glanced over her shoulder as they started down. No soldiers followed, but someone was standing in the shadows of the backstreet she and Quinn had taken to reach Dread Captain’s Way. She thought it looked like the Constable’s squire.
Bramble nudged her with an elbow. “A fish, eh?”
Rye shrugged sheepishly.
“That’s my niece,” he said with a wink.
She looked back again, but the squire, if he had been there at all, was now gone.
At the bottom of a deep embankment, below the village itself, sat the Shambles. Its black-market shops, grog houses and gambling dens had grown up like persistent weeds on the damp edges of the village, until eventually the Earl had stopped trying to pluck them. The Laws of Longchance weren’t enforced here. The Shambles was not a safe place for allies of the Earl.
Shortstraw chittered happily as they worked their way down Little Water Street, the snail trail of a dirt road that traced the banks of River Drowning. Dinghies bobbed at the docks. In the distance, where the mouth of the river met the sea, Rye could see the tall mast of an anchored schooner silhouetted against the sky. Rye was sure the invisible eyes of the Shambles were on them, but their faces were familiar here.
At the end of the street, a four-storey inn squatted in the shadow of the great arched bridge that spanned the river’s narrowest point. Overhead, a black banner with a white fishbone logo snapped in the wind. The thick iron doors of the Dead Fish Inn rose above them like portals to a castle, and they always struck Rye as more suited to withstanding a siege than welcoming guests. But at that moment, there was no place she would rather be.
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HE AIR WAS stale with stout and sailor sweat, which made perfect sense since a small fleet of grog-swigging boatmen had congregated at the centre of the inn. They’d pushed aside the tables and chairs and huddled in a large circle around two blindfolded, bare-knuckled combatants. The men traded wild, flailing punches over the cheers and groans of the onlookers.
Folly’s two oldest brothers, the twins Fitz and Flint, leaned against a heavy beam and watched with interest from under their manes of white-blond hair. The twins, each massive individually, had been born conjoined at the hip, giving them the formidable aura of a two-headed giant. Their matching glowers and otherworldly appearance ensured even the surliest patrons of the Dead Fish behaved themselves.
So it was that Rye, her uncle and her friends arrived relatively unnoticed. Rye pulled her hood from her head and the inn’s roaring fireplaces immediately warmed her chilled cheeks. A woman bustled past balancing a full serving tray of empty glasses on her round belly with one hand. She paused at the sight of the children, blinked in disbelief, and abruptly dropped her tray on to a table. The woman’s hair was as white-blonde as Folly’s except for a single streak of silver that she pushed behind her ear.
“Riley O’Chanter!” Faye Flood exclaimed. “What in the Shale are you doing here?”
Before Rye could answer, Folly’s mother threw her arms around her and pressed her tight. Faye’s stomach was as hard as a melon and, when she saw the look of concern on Rye’s face, she waved it off.
“Don’t worry about my little shelf,” she said, rattling her fingers on her belly. “Flood babies are a hardy lot. More important, how did you get here?”
Folly jumped in excitedly. “I went to find her. There was a storm—”
“Rat in the jacks! There you are, Folly,” Faye interrupted. “I’ve hardly seen you the past two days, love. Your chores are piling up.”
Folly’s face fell.
“We’ve got freebooters in port,” Faye continued, with a nod to the crowd of sailors circling the brawlers. “There are bar rags and linens in need of washing. You can play with your friends after you’ve finished.”
Folly frowned at Rye with a look that said I told you, and slumped off.
“As for you, Riley dear, Abby is around here somewhere.” Faye glanced about.
But Rye’s gaze had already found her. Her mother’s face seemed even more lined with worry than it had just days before, but to Rye she was still the most beautiful woman in the whole village. Rye felt her eyes well up with tears.
Abby opened her arms wide. Rye stepped forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t let go for a long while.
Rye started to ask questions but Abby just pressed her head back to her shoulder and held her close. Once Rye had settled, Abby eased her towards the Mermaid’s Nook, the secluded corner of the inn that housed Rye’s favourite table. Rye set her walking stick on the carved tabletop and sat down.
“Mama,” Rye said finally, “the Willow’s Wares?”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Abby said quietly. “It was just a building. No more than brick and wood. What’s important is that we are all safe now.”
“Are we?” Rye asked.
“Of course,” Abby said.
“But we were attacked this morning.”
Rye explained their encounter with the sniggler and detailed the Constable’s announcement on Market Street. Abby listened intently.
“And this,” Rye added, unfurling the crumpled parchment in her pocket.
Abby looked over the Earl’s proclamation. Rye watched her mother’s grim face. Abby was silent.
Finally, Abby spoke. “Do I always look that cross?” She arched a playful eyebrow.
“Sometimes,” Rye said, but she was not calmed by her mother’s jest. “The Earl is searching for us,” she said matter-of-factly.
Abby nodded. “It seems so. Not that he’ll find us easily.” She gave Rye just a hint of a knowing grin. “No one here knows our names.”
The correct answer when asked about someone’s identity at the Dead Fish Inn was always, Who? Never heard of him. Abby tossed the parchment into the roaring fireplace.
“But why come after us now?” Rye asked. “Does he believe this new Constable will protect him?”
Abby shook her head gravely. “That I don’t know. But if Longchance seeks trouble hard enough he’s sure to find it sooner or later. I expect your father will be here shortly. When he arrives … he, your uncle, the others … will be certain the matter is addressed.”
Rye looked across the inn to where Bramble had joined two men at the bar. They sat casually over numerous empty mugs, their mud-caked boots tapping on the rungs of their stools. But Rye sensed a wariness in their constantly shifting eyes, like hungry predators watchful for their next mark.
“Bramble told me to give you this,” Rye said, remembering the battered box. She took it from her coat and handed it to Abby.
“Did you look inside?” Abby asked as she pried apart the bent clasp. She opened it a crack.
“No,” Rye said, shaking her head, and was surprised to realise that, for once, her curiosity hadn’t got the better of her. “What’s in there?”
“Memories,” Abby said. A warm thought seemed to cross her mind.
Abby removed a small metal object from the box. It was a hair clip in the shape of a dragonfly, its silver so tarnished it was almost black.
“Someone gave this to me long ago, but it seems you could best use it now,” she said. She pushed Rye’s unruly hair from her eyes and clipped it back. “Much better.”
Quinn arrived and placed two mugs of plum cider on the table along with his handmade helmet. His eyes widened and he stared slack-jawed at the realistic, life-size mermaid carved into the tabletop. Abby strategically slid the helmet across the table to afford the mermaid some degree of modesty.
Bramble joined them with goblets for himself and Abby. “What do you have here?” he asked Rye, examining her hand staff on the table. “May I see it?”
“My walking stick? Sure.”
Bramble felt its heft in his hands. He squinted and examined its polished features.
“A walking stick, you say?” He sounded amused. “This, my dear niece, is a High Isle cudgel. Made from the hardest blackthorn ever felled. I haven’t seen one in years.”
Abby raised an eyebrow.
“Like a club?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, like a club,” Bramble said. “But nastier.”
With two lightning-quick strikes, he brought the cudgel down against Quinn’s helmet on the table. Rye, Abby and Quinn all jumped at the sound. Shortstraw fled under a chair. The rest of the inn hardly noticed.
The steel crown of the helmet was crushed as if pummelled by a boulder. Rye was relieved nobody’s head was in it.
Bramble chuckled and handed the cudgel back to Rye. “This is a rare find. Guard it closely until you learn how to use it.”
Quinn stared at his bashed handiwork.
“Apologies, Quinn,” Bramble said. “I’ll buy you another.”
Rye noticed Quinn’s fallen face and didn’t think that cost was the point.
“Your uncle and I need to discuss a few matters,” Abby said to Rye while shooting Bramble a reproachful look. It always amazed Rye how a glare from her mother could give pause to even the most dangerous of men. “Why don’t you and Quinn go find your sister? She’s made herself quite at home here so I can’t say where she is … in trouble, no doubt.”
There was a heavy thud in Rye’s lap and a warm furry mass stretched across her like a blanket.
“Shady!” Rye hugged him around his thick neck.
“Obviously someone else has missed you too,” Abby said. “He’s taken a liking to the inn himself. The twins guard the door well, so he’s stopped trying to escape.”
Shady’s kind were known as Gloaming Beasts – mysterious cat-like creatures who could go years hiding in plain sight. Rye had always taken him for a simple house pet. That is, until he revealed his true nature by helping Harmless thwart a clan of ruthless Bog Noblins. Gloaming Beasts were the bog monsters’ only natural predator. They were also renowned for their wanderlust, which was why Abby kept him under lock and key.
Rye set him on the floor and she and Quinn headed off to find Lottie. Shady snaked in and out of Rye’s gait as she walked, rubbing his back against her legs.
The freebooters were still hard at the grog and their gambling.
“Round six!” barked a man at the centre of the crowd.
His thick hair was the colour of steel and tied into a ponytail that stretched down his back. One eyelid sagged at half-mast, a hollow, empty socket peeking out from under it. He held six fingers in the air.
“Get your bets in now,” he shouted. Gold grommets and silver shims began to change hands. “All right, spin the lads six times apiece!”
Leathery hands grabbed each blindfolded fighter and began to turn them in circles.
“Wait!” he called out, and Rye started in alarm.
The ringleader pinched his dead eye shut and used the other to examine Rye, Quinn and Shady.
“What’s going on around here? I’ve never seen so many children or animals in one tavern,” he grumbled. “And not one looks to be of the edible sort. Animal or child.”
Rye took a step back.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m looking for a little girl.”
“Is Fletcher Flood running an orphanage now?”
“She has red hair. Carries a pink rag doll wherever she goes. She’s loud—”
“Wait a moment. Pickle?” he asked.
“No, her name’s Lottie,” Rye began, “although I can see why someone might—”
“Yes, yes, Pickle. You know her?” the man asked.
“Er, yes,” Rye said, shocked. “She’s my sister.”
“Why didn’t you say so? In that case, come, come.” He waved a hand. “Out of the way, you deck rats.”
As the sailors moved aside, Rye spotted the three-year-old on the shoulders of a hulking brute at the back of the crowd, her perch giving her a bird’s-eye view of the fighting. Lottie’s face beamed when she spotted Rye and she slapped the sailor on his bald head with Mona Monster until he lowered her to the floor.
Lottie rushed forward and threw her arms around Rye’s waist with such force she nearly knocked her down. Rye kissed Lottie on her tuft of hair that always smelled like straw and syrup drippings, and for a moment it brought her back to the bed they shared on Mud Puddle Lane.
Lottie pulled herself away and demanded, “Come,” tugging Rye by the sleeve to be sure there was no misunderstanding.
She picked up a wire birdcage and hurried to the Mermaid’s Nook, placing it on the table in front of Abby and Bramble.
“My baby blue dragon,” Lottie announced proudly as she opened its little door and reached inside.
Rye and Quinn exchanged curious glances.
“Lottie was very proud to finally learn to use her chamber pot,” Abby explained. “So for Silvermas we got her this … a baby blue dragon. As promised.”
Lottie extended both hands. “Newtie!” she proclaimed.
A rather small speckled lizard cocked its head and looked up at them. It seemed perfectly at ease in her hands.
“It’s so little,” Rye said.
“And brown,” Quinn added.
“Him’s just a baby,” Lottie said with a roll of her eyes, as if she’d explained this a dozen times already.
“Yes, Riley,” Abby said, nudging her gently. “It’s just a baby.”
“He no be blue until he’s older,” Lottie explained.
“Oh, of course,” Rye said.
“Much older,” Abby clarified.
Shady licked his lips at the sight of the little creature.
“No, no, Shady,” Lottie said crossly, shaking a finger. “Mice good. Newtie – no eat him.”
“Where did you find such a handsome dragon?” Rye said, looking at their mother and playing along. She had to admit, she’d never seen a lizard quite like this one in the bogs. He seemed to glisten in the light and had folds of skin, like fins, under each of his front legs.
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Paul Durham
“How little you know of your own father. He took something I cherished long ago and hid it away. You will help me find it”The legendary Luck Uglies are the most deadly, dangerous band of men Riley O’Chanter has ever met – and her father, Harmless, is their high chief. Having been in exile for ten years the Luck Uglies are back in Village Drowning, but bringing them out of the shadows and back together was never going to be without its perils. There is bad blood between Rye’s father, and a sinister masked man named Slinister Varlet. As Harmless and Slinister vie for control of their men, Rye finds herself caught up in their dangerous game. Throw in a vengeful son, a dark curse, and a collection of thieves and smugglers and the stage is set for another page-turning adventure.
Copyright (#u8efeb755-8766-5b65-9762-d01867ddc919)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
The Luck Uglies: Dishonour Among Thieves
Text copyright © Paul Durham 2015
Map illustration copyright © Sally Taylor 2015
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2015
Cover illustration © Jeff Nentrup
Paul Durham and Sally Taylor assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007526925
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007526932
Version: 2015-03-05
For my three muses, who inspire me even when I’m a grump.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u94528e72-05a2-51f1-9c8e-d8bdf9ac9865)
Title Page (#u90255a6f-db9a-5110-b3d9-0c39bf4ed42f)
Copyright
Dedication (#u4f4e0628-4148-579f-8a94-15666dc40533)
Map of the Isle of Pest
A Shanty about Bargains
1. ONLY TROUBLE KNOCKS AFTER DARK
2. THE MUD SLEIGH
3. GRABSTONE
4. MESSAGES UNDELIVERED
5. THE SNIGGLER
6. A VILLAGE DROWNING
7. SCALES AND SWINE
8. WHERE NOBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME
9. THORN QUILL’S
10. SPIDERCREEP
11. FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES
12. IN SHAMBLES
13. A LOSING HAND
14. THE SLUMGULLION
15. THE SALT
16. THE PULL
17. BELONGERS
18. THE CURSE OF BLACK ANNIS
19. THE STONE ON THE SILL
20. THE WAILING CAVE
21. TIES THAT BIND
22. THE SHOEMAKER
23. KISS OF THE SHELLYCOATS
24. THE UNINVITED
25. WHAT THE WIND BRINGS, THE TIDE TAKES AWAY
26. UNDER THE CRIMSON HAT
27. GRIT
28. THE BELLWETHER
29. TREASURES
30. A FORK-TONGUED CHARMER
31. REVENGE OF SLINISTER VARLET
32. THE TOLL
Epilogue: Beyond the Shale
A Seafarer’s Guide to Mumbley-Speak and other High Isle Chatter
About the Publisher
Map of the Isle of Pest (#u8efeb755-8766-5b65-9762-d01867ddc919)
(#u8efeb755-8766-5b65-9762-d01867ddc919)
Come all would-be heroes and join me in song,
And curse the dread outlaws plagued this Isle for so long.
So take heed my warning, of no favours ask,
Beware the dread outlaws in shadows and masks.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread outlaws
In shadows and masks.
Our troubles were many, our hopes they were slim.
A dark stranger arrived, he packed promise with him.
On the greyest of nights a bargain was struck,
What then seemed good fortune turned black ugly luck.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread strangers
In shadows and masks.
They’ll promise you freedom and all that you dream,
But look past their guise, they’re not what they seem.
Your sons and your daughters, in bed safely tuck,
Hold tight what you cherish for that they shall pluck.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Beware the dread scoundrels
In shadows and masks.
My son he now stalks the dark b’yond the sea,
Family forgotten, but what matters to he?
So take heed my warning, of no favours ask,
And curse the Luck Uglies in shadows and masks.
In shadows and masks, in shadows and masks,
Curse the Luck Uglies
In shadows and masks.
– ‘Shadows and Masks’,
From Songs of Salt and Stout
and other High Isle Favourites
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T WASN’T OFTEN that anyone thumped the cottage’s rusting iron door knocker after dark, but Rye O’Chanter still never expected to find three twisted, leering faces on the other side. They loomed down at her from behind flurrying snow. Rye knew what the masked figures were, if not who they were, so perhaps there was no need for alarm. Then again, Luck Uglies had never just shown up on her doorstep before. She took a careful step backward.
Abby O’Chanter joined her, a cloak flung over her nightdress. She’d already untied her hair ribbon for the night and her dark locks fell loose past her shoulders. In her arms she held the family pet, a regal beast with thick black fur and keen yellow eyes. He was as big as a young child, and as he stretched his long forelegs, he extended sickle-like claws for the benefit of the visitors. Shady could be a ferocious guardian when motivated, which wasn’t all that often. Abby combed his luxurious mane with her fingertips and raised an uninviting eyebrow. Rye’s mother had never been one to spook easily.
“What is it?” she demanded of the visitors.
The tallest of the three ducked his head under the fresh evergreen garland strung along the doorframe. Shady let out an unexpected rumble from deep inside his throat, the kind he generally reserved for unwelcome denizens of the bogs. Rye saw her mother slip her fingers around his runestone collar in case he decided to misbehave.
The masked figure hesitated, then opted to lean forward without stepping inside. The gnarled leather of a long, beakish nose jutted from under his cowl, so close to Abby’s ear it seemed it might jab her. Under Shady’s careful watch, the man whispered something that sounded like the rustle of dead leaves. He cocked his head as he spoke, and the mask’s hollow black eyes met Rye’s own.
The figure leaned back and snow once again settled on to his cloaked shoulders.
“He can’t come for her himself?” Abby said, an edge in her voice.
The figure shook his head.
“Come for who?” Rye asked.
Abby ignored her and seemed to bite back harsh words on the tip of her tongue. Instead she said, “I’ve got porridge on the fire if you’d care for some.”
The masked figure just shook his head again.
“Be off then,” Abby said. She didn’t seem at all disappointed that they’d declined her invitation.
The figure nodded by way of goodbye and vanished into the shadows of Mud Puddle Lane with his two companions. Rye squinted to see where they went, but spied only the flickering lantern lights of their neighbours’ cottages. She turned to her mother.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Your father,” Abby said. “He’s sent for you. You leave to meet him tomorrow.”
“But it’s finally Silvermas,” Rye protested. “And the Black Moon. How often does Silvermas fall on a Black Moon?”
Silvermas was Rye’s favourite tradition. Where once the holiday was intended to honour deities long forgotten, it had since evolved into a family celebration – a time for one last great feast before the chills and hardship of a long winter. Of course, in practice, Silvermas followed whatever night Good Harper actually happened to arrive in a particular village on his Mud Sleigh. This made for a great amount of speculation and excitement among the children. Rye’s mother and the other parents found the suspense to be of less amusement, particularly this year, since it was already early spring and Good Harper was only now making his way to Village Drowning.
The Black Moon – the darkest night of every month – well, that was something else entirely. Villagers locked their doors with the Black Moon’s rise, for the men who prowled the night under the moonless sky weren’t always so benign. Three of them had just left the O’Chanters’ doorstep.
“I don’t think your father’s timing is a coincidence,” Abby said. There was a weight on her face that Rye couldn’t quite gauge. “You’ll only be away for a day or so.”
“He’s been gone all winter,” Rye mumbled to herself. “Why now?”
It wasn’t that Rye didn’t want to see her father – she was just getting to know him when he’d abruptly departed to tend to some pressing matters outside the village. He had recently taught her all sorts of useful skills her mother would never approve of – how to shimmy down a drainpipe while blindfolded, how to hide a key under your tongue and still sing an off-colour limerick without slurring your words. He’d promised he would see her again as soon as he was able. But all winter she had been looking forward to meeting her friends and trading their Silvermas treats. Folly was usually willing to part with a few caramel pralines and Rye always convinced Quinn to take the green liquorice off her hands. Quinn actually seemed to like green liquorice – he was odd like that.
“He wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important,” Abby said stiffly, then softened. She gently pushed an unruly brown lock out of Rye’s eyes. Rye had never been one to fuss over her hair – it was too short to braid but too long to ignore.
“I know you’re disappointed, but he’s arranged a Silvermas surprise for you. Trust me, I think you’ll be pleased.”
Rye raised an eager eyebrow.
“You have to wait until tomorrow,” Abby said, anticipating her next question.
Abby flashed her a smile, but Rye noticed her mother’s hesitation before closing the purple door carved with the shape of a dragonfly. Abby stared down the northernmost end of Mud Puddle Lane, towards the dense pine forest known only as Beyond the Shale. Rye had seen that look before.
“Something in the air?” Rye asked, reaching out to scratch Shady’s furry ears. His bushy tail swayed in appreciation.
“Something,” was all Abby said, and they went inside for bed.
Morning’s first fingers of light had barely cracked the windowsill before Rye and her sister Lottie rushed from their room in their nightdresses. The cottage was already warm with the smell of Abby’s brown-sugar-and-raisin porridge, but the girls ran straight past their bowls, jostling for position at the cottage door. Lottie had strength beyond her years when there were sweets to be had and Rye found herself knocked against the doorframe by the compact but determined three-year-old.
For centuries throughout the Shale, in towns large and villages small, residents would fill their shoes with coins and set them out on their doorsteps for Silvermas. Good Harper would then ride the Mud Sleigh through each village and collect the coins while the townspeople slept, to be distributed later to the needy and downtrodden. Good villagers received sweets in return. Bad villagers received a potato or, if they were really awful, mouse droppings. The more coins left, the better the fortunes of the family for the coming year. Woe betide the man, woman, or child who failed to leave at least one miserly bronze bit.
Rye crammed her hand deep into the toe of one oversized boot, then the other. The boots had belonged to Rye’s father when he was her age. They were ragged in the heels and probably contributed to her numerous stumbles, but Rye wore them every day. They came in particularly handy on Silvermas – more room for candies. And yet, that morning, they had done no good at all.
“Pigshanks,” Rye cursed.
Lottie had already emptied the bulging contents of her shoes and was busy stockpiling treats in her cheeks with the expertise of a chipmunk. She opened her chocolate-filled mouth. “You said a bad word,” she garbled.
“Then you’d better not repeat it,” Rye said, holding an empty boot to her eye to get a better look. She couldn’t believe that Lottie, of all children, had gotten a full shoe while she had nothing. Not even a potato.
“Wait …” Rye said, finally discovering something deep inside the toe.
She removed a hard, heavy object and examined it in her hand.
“You got coal!” Lottie cackled.
“It’s not coal,” Rye said, rolling the stone over in her palm. It was the size and shape of a somewhat flattened egg, flawless ebony in colour, and smoother than glass, as if polished by centuries of tides. It was also frigid. Instead of warming to her touch, it seemed to draw the heat from her fingers. She’d never seen a stone like it before.
“Rye got coal!” Lottie repeated when their mother appeared behind them. Abby pulled back Lottie’s thick red hair so it wouldn’t stick to the nougat on her cheeks.
“And she said a bad word,” Lottie added quickly. She pretended to share a chocolate with Mona Monster, her pink hobgoblin rag doll.
“Maybe that’s why she got the coal,” Abby said, shooting Rye a look of disapproval.
“It’s a rock,” Rye said glumly. Embarrassed, she tucked it out of sight in her pocket. “Why would Good Harper leave me a rock?” This was shaping up to be the worst Silvermas ever.
“Mistakes happen sometimes, Riley,” Abby said. She shifted her leg so that the hem of her dress concealed her own overflowing shoe. It was too late; Rye had already seen it. “One year the Quartermasts’ hound got loose and ate all the Silvermas shoes,” Abby volunteered. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Rye just frowned. It didn’t.
“Speaking of which—” Abby began.
“Rye! Lottie!” a voice called. A boy in red long johns hopped on one foot from the cottage three doors down, one boot on and the other in his hands. He was tall and reedy, the sleeves of his undershirt ending well short of his wrists.
“Quinn Quartermast,” Abby said, “where in the Shale are your britches? You’ll get icicles in your lungs … or somewhere worse.”
Quinn shrugged and his cheeks turned as red as his long johns. He balanced on one foot and held out a boot full of treats.
“Do you want to trade?” he asked eagerly.
“Rye got coal,” Lottie said, examining Quinn’s haul with a discerning eye.
“I got a stone,” Rye clarified. That had a nicer ring to it than rock.
“Oh,” Quinn said in disappointment, but he quickly put on a happy face for Rye’s benefit. “You can have some of mine. I’ve got plenty of green liquorice.”
“Thanks, Quinn,” Rye said half-heartedly. Lottie turned up her nose at the liquorice and pulled her own pile closer.
Rye saw Quinn’s eyes suddenly go wide. He blinked hard, as if clearing blurry vision. He pointed to the far end of Mud Puddle Lane. “Is that …” he stammered, awestruck.
Rye and Lottie both turned to look. There, at the furthest end of the frozen dirt lane, was an enormous, weatherworn coach pulled by four heavily muscled draft horses. At their reins was a hefty, grey-bearded man in a wide-brimmed hat the colour of a ripe plum. A matching woolly scarf enveloped his neck, its ends draped down to his boots.
Rye looked to her mother, mouth agape.
“You can’t say your father doesn’t have a flair for surprises,” Abby said. There was a tight smirk at the corner of her mouth that told Rye she remained both impressed and exasperated by her father’s special brand of flair. “You, my love, are going for a ride on the Mud Sleigh. Now let’s get you loaded up before Good Harper finds himself overrun by every child in Drowning.”
(#ulink_c5d1f188-5e4d-5166-a70d-8df440e1b1e1)
EVER IN ALL of Good Harper Killpenny’s many years had the Mud Sleigh been robbed, accosted, or otherwise bothered by bandits or highwaymen. In fact, he rode under the protection of the most fearsome outlaws of all. Thanks to a bargain struck between the Luck Uglies and generations of Good Harpers before him, Killpenny travelled safely without guards, comfortable in the knowledge that a harsh and swift reckoning would befall any opportunist foolish enough to trouble him on his journey.
That was what he told Rye anyway as they left Drowning under a clear morning sky. She suspected that this was precisely the reason her father had arranged for her passage on the Mud Sleigh, and the only reason her mother had allowed it. Rye looked back, waved to Abby, Lottie and Quinn, and examined the contents of the coach. Its hold was loaded up with more gold and silver than a flush noble’s treasure hole.
The River Drowning was still frozen over in long stretches, light snow cover transforming it into a wide, smooth roadway. Rye twitched with the excitement of a new adventure as the village’s twisted rooftops disappeared behind them, the horses pulling the sleigh along the ice so swiftly that the wind rustled her hair. Soon she was shifting in her seat to get a better view of the Western Woods as they travelled southwest, further from home than she had ever been before. Eventually, however, all the trees began to look the same. She asked Good Harper four times if they were almost there, until he said something about having a bad ear and stopped responding altogether. She sang a song to pass the time. Rye’s voice must have miraculously cured Good Harper’s hearing, because he begged her to stop it right away. She sighed and thrust her chin into her hands. It was only midday.
Dusk came early and by nightfall Rye’s boredom had been replaced by a dull anxiety as she huddled under a heavy blanket on top of the driver’s box. They had stopped to make camp on the frozen river itself, at a particular bend where Good Harper said they were to wait for Rye’s father to come collect her. Rye tried to take comfort in the Mud Sleigh’s unblemished history as she listened to howls in the distance. The horses kicked at the ice and shuffled nervously around their camp. These animals must have seen and heard it all in these woods over the years, but tonight something had them spooked.
From his seat next to Rye, Good Harper scratched his beard and popped a cinnamon sweet into his mouth. He offered one to Rye but she just shook her head. It would have been a whole lot nicer if he’d left some for her last night. Good Harper offered her a potato. She turned that down too.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he remarked, which wasn’t entirely true. The fact was, Rye could hardly sneak a word in between his own ramblings. After his long months alone on the Mud Sleigh, Good Harper was well-practised in talking to himself.
“It’s a shame,” he said with a snort. “Good conversation, or even polite small talk, has become harder and harder to come by.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be—”
“The Shale folk have grown stingy,” Good Harper continued, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “Nowadays they fill their shoes out of nothing more than habit. There seems to be no genuine concern for the needy, not even a healthy fear of bad luck. Drowning is the worst of the lot. It’s a glorified mud hole with its creeping bogs and notorious forest. Most of its residents barely muster up more than a few token bronze bits, and those who do put out shoes that smell like last month’s cheese.” He cast her a quick glance. “No offence, by the way.”
“None taken,” Rye said flatly. That was all true, she had to admit.
“The Earl didn’t even invite me to his Silvermas Eve Feast this year,” Good Harper grumbled on. “He’s got himself a new Constable – can’t say I care for him one bit. The wag turned me away at the gates without so much as a carrot for the horses.”
Nobody had seen much of Earl Morningwig Longchance all winter – not that anyone was complaining. But Rye had heard he’d enlisted the services of an infamous lawman-for-hire in recent days. The law seldom found its way to Mud Puddle Lane – its residents too poor or unimportant to warrant protection – but Folly said this one had already made some harsh changes in other parts of the village. Rye doubted he could be any worse than his predecessor.
She gazed up at the sky and sighed. Behind the cloak of the invisible Black Moon, the stars shone like a thousand glowing candles on the Dead Fish Inn’s bone chandelier. She wished she was there right now, celebrating Silvermas with Folly and her family. Her thoughts were interrupted by another howl from somewhere across the ice. Good Harper seemed to be paying closer attention to the howls himself.
“Good Harper,” Rye said, now that he’d finally fallen silent, “why did you leave me this? Was I really so terrible this year?” She held out the black stone she had found in her boot.
Good Harper pursed his lips and took the stone between his fingers. “Eh?” he said, examining it closely. “This isn’t from me. Someone’s playing a joke on you.” He huffed and shook his head. “Drowning – those villagers are rotten to the core.”
With a flick of his wrist he threw the stone out across the river. Rye heard it hit the ice and skid for a long distance before finally coming to a stop. When she looked out towards where the stone might have settled, she noticed the three distant torches streaking in their direction.
“Over there,” she said, and pointed.
“Hmm,” Good Harper grunted, and peered out from under the wide brim of his hat.
“What are they?” she asked.
Good Harper rubbed his beard again and sucked his sweet. “Can’t say for certain, but they look to be sledges.”
They were in fact three sledges, pulled by teams of enormous black dogs. They came to a halt in the shadows just outside of Good Harper’s camp. The animals’ claws scraped at the ice and their eyes glowed in the torchlight. They snapped and snarled at one another. Angry and distracted, they were too big to be sledge dogs. Wolves?
Rye fidgeted in anticipation. A hooded figure stepped off the lead sledge and approached. Other cloaked men stayed with their sledge teams and shifted in the shadows. She reached back to get the satchel her mother had packed before climbing down to meet her father.
Good Harper placed a hand on Rye’s shoulder before she could get up. “Lass, why don’t you duck inside the coach?”
“Are they not Luck Uglies?” Rye asked, peering at the animals and sledge drivers. Although, now that she thought about it, this is not how she would expect her father to greet her.
“It would seem so,” Good Harper said quickly. “I’ll call you out as soon as I know for certain.” He stepped down from the driver’s box. “But,” he added, in a coarse whisper, “if you hear anything amiss, get out and run for the trees. Don’t look back.”
Rye clambered into the back of the Mud Sleigh as she was told, ignoring the chittering of dozens of caged mice – “treats” for those on Good Harper’s naughty list had to come from somewhere. She parted the sleigh’s heavy curtain so she could peek through. Good Harper met the cloaked man by the small campfire. Rye could see that he was wearing a mask under his hood.
“Fine evening, neighbour,” Good Harper said in an even tone. “That’s a most unusual sledge team you and your men ride.”
“Indeed,” the man replied, and looked towards the animals, who erupted into a choir of howls. “The wolves can be quarrelsome, but their size allows them to pull much larger loads than dogs.”
The man’s voice was a faraway hiss that resonated like an echo from a bottomless well. It wasn’t Rye’s father’s voice. She didn’t like it one bit.
“I see,” Good Harper said with affected cheer. “And what loads are you carrying that you need such a team?”
“None just yet. But you have quite the heavy cargo in your sleigh. I think I shall need the strength of each and every one of these wolves to haul it.”
Rye gripped the curtains with both hands. What was going on here? Good Harper’s tone shifted quickly, his voice now stern.
“Neighbour, do you know who I am? This charity is for the needy and downtrodden. The Luck Uglies have ensured my safe passage on these roads for many years, and for that reason I pass no judgement on you or your kind. But I suggest you be on your way in search of a more appropriate mark.”
“If it gives you some solace,” the man said, “let’s just say I am the neediest soul I know. Now step aside.”
He placed a firm hand on Good Harper’s arm, showing no intention of asking again.
Good Harper gritted his teeth and, to Rye’s great surprise, lashed out in anger with an old knotted fist. His blow didn’t buckle the marauder, but it knocked his mask to the ice.
The man smiled, revealing the red patchwork seams of his gums. Then he returned the blow. It crumpled Good Harper to his knees.
Without thinking, Rye lurched from inside the coach to help. The assailant towered over the fallen Good Harper and moved as if he might kick him. But Rye’s appearance on top of the Mud Sleigh caused him to pause and glance upwards. His gaze froze her before she jumped down. Most of the man’s ashen white face was shrouded in the shadows of his hood, but she could see that Good Harper’s blow had drawn blood from his black lips. He licked the corner of his mouth with his tongue. Rye recoiled when she saw that it was forked like a snake’s, the two pink ends dancing over his lips like blind, probing serpents.
Rye darted back inside the coach. She clambered over the mountain of coin purses and kicked aside the mouse cages so she could shove open the back door of the Mud Sleigh. The woods were straight ahead. But as she leaped down, her boots skidded out from under her and she landed hard on the ice. By the time she regained her footing, the fork-tongued man had stepped in front of her, blocking her way to the river’s edge. He affixed his mask back over his face.
Rye took a deep breath, her heart pounding. Her mother had told her once: Walk strong, act like you belong, and no one will be the wiser. If these were Luck Uglies, she should have nothing to fear. She took a step to her left. The man moved to block her path. She took a step back to the right. He did the same.
“Who are you?” Rye demanded, doing her best to channel her mother’s voice.
The reply came from deep inside a hollow. “Names are a precious paint to be shared cautiously. Offer yours first, and I’ll tell you mine.”
“Rye O’Chanter,” she said, forcing herself to stand straight and stare hard at the masked face in front of her.
The man reached forward with a long gloved finger. Before she could flinch, he pulled her hood from her head. He leaned in closer, as if studying her. His mask was scaled armour the texture of an adder’s skin, his own eyes just slits behind its red-ringed eyeholes. Unlike all of the other Luck Uglies’ masks she had ever seen, this one had no nose. But a gaping maw loomed open, part of a grotesquely distended chin that extended all the way to his chest.
“I’ve seen you before.” He was close enough that she felt his breath when he said it.
“What’s your name?” she asked sternly, ignoring the knot tightening in her stomach. “Before you do something you’ll regret, you should know that my father is a Luck Ugly too.”
“Slinister,” he said from deep behind his mask. “Now you say it.”
“What?” Rye asked, in a retreating voice that was very much unlike her mother’s.
“You asked me my name and I told you. Now repeat it.”
“Slinister,” Rye said quietly. If words had taste, this one would have rolled sour off her tongue.
“That’s correct,” he said. “And yes, I know very well who your father is. In fact, I know him better than you do.”
The hollow of his masked mouth was so black and wide it seemed it might swallow her. She took a step away. When he didn’t move to follow her, she took another.
“You may go,” Slinister said, waving a dismissive hand. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to meet another day.”
Rye’s steps quickened as she moved along the ice, never taking her eyes off the man named Slinister. She found Good Harper struggling to regain his feet. She grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him up, then hurried him across the frozen river. His plum-coloured scarf dragged behind them.
“Remember my name, Rye O’Chanter,” Slinister called as he watched her go. She glanced back over her shoulder just once, and was relieved that the night now shrouded his fiendish mask.
As Rye and Good Harper took refuge in the safety of the woods, Slinister’s cohorts slipped from the shadows and plundered the Mud Sleigh, loading their own sledges with every last gold grommet and silver shim. They unhitched the horses and led them away. Finally, when the sleigh was stripped to nothing more than an empty shell, the looters lit a raging ring of fire around the camp. Their sledges had disappeared far downriver by the time the sleigh broke through the melting ice and sank beneath the frigid water.
Rye and Good Harper huddled under a tall pine. Rye shivered, more from the shock than the cold. She couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
“A pox on the Luck Uglies and their bargains,” Good Harper muttered. “Mouse droppings for the whole lot of them.”
No sooner had he uttered his curse than a spectre clad in black leather and fur appeared like a flickering shadow. In the moonless night, Rye could have mistaken it for a massive wolf rising up on its hind legs, but in its hands, two blades glinted in the light from the fire. Rye pressed her back against the tree. There was nowhere to run.
“Come to finish the job?” Good Harper called defiantly.
The shadowy figure loomed for a moment then, stepping forward, violently thrust its swords downward. Rye pinched her eyes tight. She heard the steel sink into something moist. Perhaps she was just too numb to feel their bite. But when she cracked open one eye, fearful of what she might find, she saw both blades embedded in the ground.
The figure pulled off its wolf-pelt hood and clutched her by the shoulders.
“Riley,” the man whispered, his familiar grey eyes wide in a face of faded scars, “what in the Shale are you doing out here?”
“Harmless!” Rye exclaimed. She blinked in disbelief. “You tell me – you’re the one who sent for me!”
He gently touched her cheek. His hands, like the rest of his body, were etched with tattoos, and while Rye didn’t think there was anything magical about the circular patterns on his palms, whenever he did this it seemed to warm her whole body, his night-chilled skin notwithstanding.
“Make no mistake, I’m always glad to see you,” he said softly. “But I did nothing of the sort.”
Rye shook her head as if she didn’t hear him correctly.
“Three Luck Uglies came to our cottage with a message. And here, on the river, there was a man – a Luck Ugly, I thought. He called himself Slinister.” She shuddered at the thought of his split tongue. “He said he knows you well.”
Harmless’s jaw hardened. A darkness seemed to creep through the lines of his scarred face. Rye had only seen brief flashes of that look before and each time it had unnerved her. Harmless must have sensed her unease and pulled her close. His embrace and tender tone shielded her from the fire in his eyes as he scanned the burning river.
“Don’t fret,” he whispered. “We’ll sort this out in due course. But right now we must be on our way. I know a safe place to spend the night.”
The hour was late by the time Harmless escorted Good Harper to the closest roadhouse on the path back to Drowning. But to Rye’s surprise he then led her away from the warmth of the inn. They travelled not to the village, but over the edge of a tall bluff and down the jagged coastline. Waves crashed around them as Harmless navigated a rocky shoal that seemed to lead directly into the sea. He only stopped when they reached a mountainous outcropping nestled among the tide pools.
“Here?” Rye asked in disbelief.
Harmless put an arm over her shoulder and waved a hand above him. “Here.”
What looked to be a massive sea stack loomed over them. But now, within spitting distance, it became clear that it was nothing of the sort. The battered rocks had been hollowed out and rising from the waves were two enormous doors. Each the width of a castle’s drawbridge, they were wide enough to sail a ship through with the tide out to sea, but would once again become a submersed secret when the water rolled back in. A towering, weatherworn mansion seemed to grow out of the craggy rocks, its crooked gables, twisting turrets and jumbled archways slinking upwards like coral in search of sun.
Rye shot Harmless a wary glance from under the folds of his fur cloak.
“You’ll like it. It’s a secret – even from the Luck Uglies,” he said, appealing to her insatiable curiosity. “We won’t stay long. I promise to return you to Drowning in short order.”
But as luck would have it, the lingering hand of a stubborn winter delivered one last blow the next morning. And no one, not even Harmless, the High Chieftain of all the Luck Uglies, was going anywhere at all.
(#ulink_fd21afe6-d46d-5e95-bea6-064670b80392)
YE SAT ALONE on a cold, black rock jutting out from the sea. She counted in her head as she stared at the violent, churning waves. Two hundred and eighty-nine. Two hundred and ninety. Rye hated being alone. She liked waiting even less. But she didn’t dare move for fear of slipping on the barnacles and being dragged out by the current.
A dusky brown gull struggled to fly against the wind.
Rye squinted at the bird. It gave her the sudden sense that she’d been in this spot once before, which was odd, since she had never travelled outside of Village Drowning. She shook off the unnerving feeling and resumed her count.
Two hundred and ninety-nine. Three hundred. Five minutes now.
A gale sent the gull hurtling off in the wrong direction and it disappeared into a brightening sky that had been grey with fog and snow since Rye’s arrival.
Rye pulled her new seal-leather coat tight at the collar, its thick hood snug over her head and its long hem covering her to the knees. Even in an ocean storm it kept her remarkably warm and dry. The seal whose hide it was made from met no harm. The reclusive northern salt seal was the only mammal in the world known to shed its skin. Harmless had given her this coat as a belated twelfth birthday present. He’d missed that birthday over this past winter, just as he’d missed all the others before it.
Harmless might seem like a strange name for a girl to call her father, but Rye’s father was – to put it nicely – an unusual man. Rye hadn’t even known that she had a real live father until last autumn. That was when he appeared like a wisp of smoke out of the ancient forest known as Beyond the Shale. He’d been gone for over ten years.
Not everyone had been happy to see him. Harmless was a Luck Ugly. An outlaw so notorious that he and all of his kind had been driven into exile by Earl Morningwig Longchance. But, with Rye’s help, Harmless was able to summon the Luck Uglies and once again save Village Drowning. It had been under attack by a fierce clan of Bog Noblins – vile, swamp-creeping beasts who had threatened the lives of the villagers. One would think that such an achievement would have earned a certain degree of appreciation from the Earl, but Longchance’s hatred of Harmless only grew. It was Harmless’s threat – that the Luck Uglies would be watching – that had kept Longchance at bay ever since.
Rye pulled her knees into her chest to avoid the whitecaps that snapped at her oversize boots like frenzied sharks. Finally, when her count reached three hundred and thirty, Harmless broke through the surface of the water. He pulled himself on to the rock and refilled his lungs with a great gulp of air. His long dark hair was tied into a wet knot on top of his head. The leather-and-tortoiseshell goggles over his eyes made him look like a bug-eyed flounder. Where the skin of his bare chest and arms wasn’t etched in the green ink of faded tattoos, it flamed pink from the cold. He dropped a heavy bag at her feet.
“How long was I down?” he asked with an expectant smile.
“About five and a half minutes?” Rye said.
Harmless frowned at himself. “Poor showing. I made it six the dive before.” He threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders and clasped on a runestone necklace that matched the chokers Rye and the rest of her family wore around their necks.
“Well,” Rye said, picking her numb fingernails, “I did lose track of my count once or twice.”
“Nonetheless, it was quite productive,” he said, brightening.
He reached inside the bag and retrieved a strange black object, holding it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. It was the size of an ordinary stone, flat on the bottom, but with long, sharp spines jutting out in all directions.
“What is that?” Rye said, and reached out to touch it.
“Careful. This is a midnight sea urchin,” he said with delight. “The most toxic creature in the northern oceans – one prick of its spine is enough to fell a draft horse. They make excellent darts.”
Rye pulled her hand back warily.
“It also happens to be our lunch.”
He unsheathed a sharp knife and cut open the bottom of the sea urchin. Rye peeked inside the shell. It looked like something Lottie might have expelled from her nose.
“Would you care for the first one?”
“Um, no thank you.”
“No worries, plenty for later,” he said, and slurped the creature up from its shell. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, carefully placed the prickly remains of the first sea urchin into the bag, and removed another.
Rye stared out at the churning waves around them. She couldn’t see more than ten yards in the swirl of snow, fog and ocean spray.
“Harmless, aren’t you cold?” Rye asked.
“Spring is finally in the air,” he said cheerily, eating the second sea urchin. “And the tide’s on its way out. Our path back to the house will soon be clear.”
Rye saw nothing but an impenetrable blanket of fog that consumed the earlier hints of sunlight.
“There’s always a path, Riley, you just need the courage to take the first step.” Harmless pointed into the fog. “Look, you can see the top of the first rock right there. Follow me.”
Harmless skipped across the slick rocks as if they were a well-worn trail through a meadow. Rye had improved with practice over the past few days, but the slippery brown seaweed still pulled her boots out from under her with the slightest falter.
A staircase rose from the waves, ending at a landing high above their heads. Scowling, barnacle-pocked faces loomed over them as they carefully climbed the hand-carved steps, the mansion’s walls sculpted into the shapes of hungry sea monsters, wailing hags and nautical gargoyles lifelike enough to put a scare into even the hardiest seafarer.
This was where her father had brought Rye after rescuing her from the woods. The place he kept secret – even from the Luck Uglies.
Harmless called it Grabstone.
They ate at the large table by the main fireplace, surrounded on all sides by salt-sprayed windows and sweeping views of the sea. One window was cracked open and a rather frosty-looking rook peered in from the ledge, sleet accumulating on its inky black wings.
“Have the rooks brought any word from Mama?” Rye asked.
“Nothing yet,” Harmless said. He broke off a crust of bread from their loaf and dangled his hand out over the ledge. The bird eagerly took it from his fingers with its long, grey beak. “Don’t be too troubled by it, though. I wouldn’t be eager to fly in these winds either.”
Harmless had sent word of their whereabouts to her mother by way of a rook, much the way Rye and Folly used pigeons to convey messages back home. But even after several days and two more birds, there had been no reply.
“And what about him?” Rye asked.
In addition to carrying handwritten notes, Rye had seen the clever rooks communicate with Harmless in other ways. Occasionally they brought him what looked to be random nesting items; a scrap of leather, or piece of fishing line. But from them Harmless could glean distant comings and goings.
“Slinister masks his movements well,” Harmless said, and Rye tried not to cringe at the mention of his name. “But I suspect that, like everyone else, he and his allies hunkered down somewhere to ride out this storm.”
Harmless had explained to Rye that while Slinister was in fact a Luck Ugly, he was a man who harboured radically different notions from her father. They had once been fast friends, but a rift had grown between them over some matter Harmless didn’t elaborate upon. Slinister became the leader of a small but ruthless faction of Luck Uglies called the Fork-Tongued Charmers. They masked themselves in ghoulish white ash and blackened their eyes and lips with soot. Their name came from their gruesome custom of splitting their own tongues as a display of commitment. The disfigurement symbolised a pledge that could not be easily undone.
Harmless must have noticed the lingering look of concern on Rye’s face as she fidgeted with her spoon.
“I won’t lie to you, Riley. Slinister is a dangerous man, one haunted by wounds of the past. Even his name is an old jeer that he’s embraced and now wears defiantly. I am sorry that you ever had the misfortune of meeting him, and I’m afraid that I’m to blame for that. I’d heard the Fork-Tongued Charmers planned mischief for Silvermas – under cover of a Black Moon. I had been tracking them for weeks, but obviously I underestimated Slinister. And it turns out, I was an hour too late.”
Harmless shook his head, as if still puzzled by his own misstep.
“But why me?” Rye asked. “Why send a false message only to rob Good Harper and leave me freezing in the woods?”
“He lured you on to the Mud Sleigh so that I would find you there,” Harmless said. “Slinister wanted to show that he was one step ahead of me. It was wrong of him to use you that way, and I promise he will be held accountable.” There was a fleeting hint of darkness in Harmless’s tone. “But the message was a forewarning meant for me, and you are in no jeopardy.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked. She remembered Slinister’s parting words. Perhaps they would have a chance to meet again.
“We have rules – unwritten but understood – not unlike the House Rules your mother raised you with,” Harmless explained. “Answer the Call. My Brother’s Promise Is My Own. Say Little, Reveal Less. Lay No Hand on Children of Friend or Foe. Those are just a few. Sadly, ours don’t rhyme as cleverly as your mother’s,” he added with a smirk. “But the consequences of ignoring them are, shall we say, severe. No Luck Ugly would break them.”
“You realise it wasn’t so long ago that I broke every one of Mama’s House Rules?” Rye muttered. And besides, she thought, if Harmless was so confident, why did he feel the need to bring her here to Grabstone?
“You mustn’t worry, Riley,” he said reassuringly. “I knew that calling the Luck Uglies back to Drowning after all these years would bring with it certain … complications. Ten years is a long time for men of independent spirit to be apart. But the Fork-Tongued Charmers are still Luck Uglies. Once a Luck Ugly, Always a Luck Ugly, Until the Day You Take Your Last Breath. That is perhaps the most important rule of all. And as brothers, we will settle our differences in our own way.”
“And what way is that?” she asked.
Harmless pushed himself up from the table and bowed his head.
“More often than not,” he said solemnly, “by way of a dance challenge.”
“Harmless …” Rye said, pursing her lips and crossing her arms.
“It’s true,” he said, and did a few steps of jig so poorly it made Rye blush. “And if that doesn’t resolve it, we have a baking contest. The man who serves the best dumplings wins.”
“Then you’re doomed,” Rye said with a laugh, swirling her spoon in his homemade stew – a medley of sea urchins and other slimy things that crawled out of tide pools.
Harmless smiled and turned to look out the windows.
“There’s another blow coming in,” he commented, and Rye sensed he was happy to change the subject.
Rye reached out and snatched the rest of the bread while Harmless studied the approaching storm. She hid it in the folds of her shirt.
“Can we watch it from the Bellwether?” she asked. The Bellwether was the room nestled in Grabstone’s tallest turret – a chamber sealed shut at all times behind a door so bare it didn’t even have a latch or keyhole. Harmless had told her it was off-limits.
“You’re nothing if not persistent, Riley, but no.” He looked back at her. “When I bartered for Grabstone, the Bellwether wasn’t part of the arrangement. And you know I never break a deal.”
Harmless was always negotiating bargains of one sort or another. He didn’t seem eager to explain who Grabstone belonged to before, or what he had to trade to get a whole house, either. Well, the whole house except the Bellwether. Harmless seemed to do a lot of things other people might describe as dishonest – but breaking deals wasn’t one of them.
Rye shrugged and belched loudly after finishing the pungent stew.
“You’re welcome,” Harmless said. He burped too, and they both laughed.
Harmless had once told Rye that, in some cultures, a loud belch was how you thanked your host for a good meal. She and Lottie had eagerly adopted the custom. Their mother had not been pleased.
Rye climbed the stairs to her room. Grabstone was built tall and narrow. Instead of halls there were stairways – a great number of them. The bedchambers were situated in the tallest tower, beyond the reach of even the highest waves. This high up, she could hear the wooden timbers straining against the wind.
Pausing briefly at her own door, she continued up the last flight of dark steps. They ended at the Bellwether. No one – not even Harmless – was allowed in there, and yet Rye had heard footsteps on the floorboards overhead. On her first night at Grabstone, she saw shadows under the crack of her door. When she jumped from the covers and threw open the latch, the stairway was empty. Rye wasn’t persuaded by Harmless’s suggestion that it must be rats.
Seeing strange things in the dark didn’t frighten her any more. Not seeing them – that was still the scary part.
Rye removed the leftover bread from her shirt, crouched down and carefully placed it at the base of the Bellwether’s formidable door. Only a small glass peephole adorned its stark face. She peeked over her shoulder to make sure Harmless wasn’t coming, then pushed up on her toes, craned her neck, and was just barely able to press her eye against the circlet of glass. The distorted lens revealed nothing but cloudy shapes, as it had when she’d tried this before. Rye struggled to stay on her tiptoes, wishing she was an inch taller.
An ear-splitting noise rattled the entire tower and Rye leaped back.
Thunder.
She could tell the clouds had opened up, and a fierce, freezing sleet pounded the roof. Rye climbed back down the stairs to her room. The sky danced with light outside her window. Lightning bounced from cloud to cloud. Snow lightning was considered bad luck. The worst kind.
Rye sifted through a pile of unusual trinkets until she found her bronze-and-leather spyglass. Grabstone was full of oddities and minor treasures, the likes of which she had never seen before. Harmless had little use for them and Rye had already collected the most interesting ones here in her room. Rye squinted at the thin band of rocks and sand that stretched from below her window to the beaches and cliffs. Grabstone was connected to the shore by a treacherous shoal jagged enough to sink ships and thwart the curious who might attempt to venture there by foot. Normally, pipers, gulls and the occasional seal inhabited the shoal, but that day only waves and sleet battered its rocks.
Then Rye jolted in surprise. There was something out there. A light?
She lifted her spyglass for a closer look. It was indeed a light – a lantern. It bounced and bobbed, pausing as waves hit, moving forward quickly but clumsily through an afternoon that was now as dark as night. Rye held her breath. Who would be out in this storm? Another wave and the little light seemed to topple to the ground. Whoever was carrying it slowly regained their footing. Then, one final wave crested over the entire shoal, making it disappear beneath the sea for a just a moment, and the little light went out entirely.
Rye rushed down the stairs. She found Harmless in a small sitting room, its windows thrown open. He snoozed in a hammock strung to the beams of the house, the howling winds from the sea strong enough to rock him gently back and forth.
She shook him awake, the hammock now bouncing like a ship in a squall. He blinked away the sleep.
“Someone’s trying to reach us,” Rye said. “There is – well, there was – a light. Out on the shoal.”
“Hmm,” Harmless said, “I’m certainly not expecting anyone. Don’t worry, the rocks make quick work of uninvited guests.”
He folded his hands back on his stomach.
“Harmless, someone’s in trouble,” Rye said.
“Indeed. The sea is a more ferocious watchdog than the most ill-tempered hound.”
Rye shook his arm.
“Harmless, isn’t there only one person in whole world who could know where we are?” she asked urgently.
Harmless furrowed a brow. He was beginning to understand.
That person was Rye’s mother. She wouldn’t venture out to Grabstone unless it was of dire importance. And she wouldn’t stand a chance out on the shoal in that storm.
(#ulink_3598cf61-a9ff-51f8-84c8-59f42aa242ee)
ARMLESS TRIED TO make Rye promise not to follow him out on to the shoal. Even if a wave dashed him against the rocks he wanted her to stay put – at least until the storm blew over. Rye had just frowned. Surely Harmless had got to know her well enough to realise she couldn’t promise that.
He’d been gone nearly thirty minutes when she finally threw caution to the wind and gathered the supplies she imagined she might need for an ocean rescue – a lantern, a coil of rope, a flask of hot stew. Fair Warning, her mother’s knife that had once bitten the hand of Morningwig Longchance himself, was sheathed inside her boot, although the fiercest thing Rye had ever done with the blade was shuck an oyster. Icy rain slashed her face as she stepped on to the slick stone steps, but she stopped abruptly as a drenched figure emerged from the fog.
It was Harmless, a shivering body in a sleet-crusted cloak dangling from his arms. Rye was shocked to see that it wasn’t her mother. It was the body of a girl.
Rye and Harmless huddled by the fire in the entry hall, where Harmless had carefully laid the child. “Were you going on a picnic?” Harmless asked with a smirk, nodding at her flask.
Rye’s eyes flared.
“Sorry, a poor time for humour,” he said softly. “Your friend is most resourceful. She found a little cove to hole up in and wait out the storm. It was dry …” He glanced down at his sopping clothes. “Relatively speaking.”
Rye looked at the girl in anticipation.
“Give her a drink of stew,” Harmless said. “I’ll fetch some dry clothes.”
Rye watched for any movement in her friend’s face, her white-blonde hair frosted to the colour of snow, glassy eyes flecked as blue as ice chips.
“Folly,” Rye whispered.
Folly’s eyes focused at the sound of Rye’s voice. Her red cheeks creased into a grin.
“Here, drink,” Rye said, and pressed the flask to Folly’s purple lips.
She accepted a big mouthful and swallowed it down, her grin turning into a frown.
“Ugh, what is this?”
“Snails, whales and sea bug tails.”
“Really?” Folly said, her eyes now brightening with interest. “Can I take some for an experiment?”
“Of course,” Rye said, and smiled at her best friend, the ever-aspiring alchemist. She handed the flask to Folly, who cupped it in her cold hands.
“How did you find us?” Rye asked.
“Your mother was talking to my mum at the inn,” Folly said. “She received your message from the rook but was worried that you hadn’t replied to hers.”
Rye wasn’t surprised that Folly had overheard her mother. She suspected her friend must have the biggest ears in Drowning – there was scarcely a story or secret whispered around the Dead Fish Inn that she didn’t catch wind of sooner or later. But the fact that Rye and Harmless had missed a message from her mother was more troubling.
“What message?” Rye asked eagerly.
But Folly’s cheeks had lost their colour after their brief exchange and she fell silent, her teeth chattering so fiercely she could barely part them long enough to swallow sips of the steaming stew. Only after Folly was good and dry, bundled in blankets and dressed in Rye’s extra shirt and leggings, did Harmless and Rye bring her upstairs to the big table by the fire. Harmless busied himself in the pantry. Folly’s blue eyes were wide, marvelling at the most unusual surroundings.
She took notice of Harmless, who appeared to be wringing the neck of a very recently deceased fish over a tumbler.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered to Rye.
“Mackerel oil,” Harmless replied from the pantry. Rye had long since discovered that there was little Harmless didn’t hear or see.
“Helps keep the mind sharp,” he explained, tapping his temple as he examined the cloudy liquid that now filled the glass. “Care for some? I know better than to ask you, Riley.”
“Uh, all right,” Folly said.
Rye cringed at Folly’s mistake. Harmless looked most pleased to bring an extra mug as he joined them at the table.
“So, Folly,” Harmless said, “as delighted as we are to have you pay us a visit, I must ask what brings you out here in such foul weather. Riley mentioned a message.”
“It looked to be a pleasant day when I left the village this morning. It finally felt like spring,” Folly said. She took a sip from the mug Harmless had offered. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, strained to swallow, and politely slid it away. “The weather turned rather suddenly,” she rasped.
“Indeed,” Harmless said. “A fickle storm this late in the season is not a good omen. But, more importantly, the message?”
Folly seemed to hesitate. “Mrs O’Chanter sent a message by rook. Two days ago now. You never received it?”
“No,” Harmless said. “The fellow on the ledge turned up yesterday but bore no message. He seems to have had a rough go of it.”
Folly swallowed hard. “You heard what happened to the Mud Sleigh? On Silvermas?”
Harmless and Rye exchanged looks, and Harmless nodded to Folly.
“They say it was …” Folly began, and peeked over her shoulder out of habit, “… the Luck Uglies.” She whispered the name, even though she knew very well who and what Harmless was. “After the attack on Good Harper, the Earl’s new Constable made some immediate changes. ‘Valant’ he’s called, and from what I’ve heard, he’s not like the other lawmen.”
Rye saw Harmless lean forward, listening intently.
“My father says Valant has a long reputation – whatever that means. He doesn’t stay in one town for more than a few months. I heard he came from Throcking most recently. He makes the prior constables seem like lambs.”
Folly paused, shifting in her seat before continuing.
“Among other things, Valant has …” Folly hesitated.
“It’s all right, Folly,” Harmless said. “You can speak freely.”
“He …” She looked at Rye with eyes that made Rye’s stomach sink. Folly swallowed hard before forcing out her words. “… Burned the Willow’s Wares.”
“What?” Rye shouted in alarm. The Willow’s Wares was her mother’s shop.
“Your mother and Lottie are fine,” Folly added quickly. “There was no one inside.”
Rye was dumbstruck. “He … how could … what about …” Her eyes jumped from Folly to Harmless and back again. “Why?” She gasped and, for the first time she could remember, found herself speechless.
Harmless sat back without emotion, but Rye could see the grey-flecked stubble of his beard twitch as he tightened his jaw.
“Your mother and Lottie have moved out of your cottage. They’ve been staying with us at the inn,” Folly said. “Just to be safe.”
That was a relief, although Rye’s ears now burned red in anger. The Earl had displaced her family once again. It seemed the safest place for the O’Chanters had become the most notorious tavern in the most dangerous part of town.
Rye tried to settle herself. “Did my mother send you here?”
“No. Nobody knows I came.” Folly shrugged at Rye’s look of disbelief. “I thought you should know.”
Rye shook her head, but not without affection. She couldn’t hope for a more loyal – and at times more foolhardy – friend.
Rye glanced at Harmless. He rubbed his jaw and pinched the stubbly beard on his chin. Finally, he said simply, “We’ll leave with tomorrow’s first light, whether it brings sun, snow or hail. Longchance didn’t heed my warning, and now the weight of that decision shall come heavy and swift.”
The gravity of Folly’s news bore down on her, but Rye put a hand on Folly’s arm as she considered her friend’s own reckless journey. “Your parents will be worried sick about you.”
“It may take them a few days before they even realise I’m gone,” Folly said flatly. “They’ve been a bit distracted lately. Mum’s got another one on the way.”
Rye raised an eyebrow. “Another what?”
“Another Flood,” Folly said.
Rye couldn’t believe her ears. Folly was already the youngest of nine children, the rest of them boys. After twelve years, Rye assumed Folly’s parents were finally done stocking the inn.
“Folly, I didn’t even know she was …” Rye’s voice trailed off.
“Me neither,” Folly said. “She didn’t mention anything, so I just assumed she’d put on a few winter pounds to warm her bones. Mum says that after nine children, delivering babies is like cleaning out the wine cellar – an important job you do once a year or so, but not worth fretting about until you finally run out of room.”
“Well, that’s great news,” Rye said, pasting a broad smile across her face. “You’re going to be a big sister.” Rye knew, as someone who served that same role for a little red-headed firestorm back home, it was no easy task.
“Isn’t that great news, Harmless?” Rye coaxed.
Rye’s question seemed to pull Harmless from his thoughts. He looked up, his eyes returning from somewhere far away.
“Yes, yes, indeed. Fabulous news, Folly. You’ll be an expert in screaming infants and soiled linens in no time I’m sure,” he said with a smile.
Rye frowned. That wasn’t exactly the type of encouragement she’d had in mind.
“I need to tend to a few things before morning,” Harmless said, pushing himself up from the table. “Folly, make yourself at home. Riley, be sure to pack whatever you wish to take from this place. We won’t be returning any time soon.”
Rye’s night proved to be a restless one. She was still staring at the timbers above her bed when Folly nudged her. The creaks and groans of Grabstone took some getting used to and must have woken Folly too.
“Rye,” Folly whispered, and nudged her again, harder. “Are you awake?”
“Ouch, Miss Bony Elbow. Yes, I am.”
“Do you hear that? Someone’s outside.”
Rye heard the familiar shuffling in the hallway. A shadow broke the dim crack of light under the bedchamber’s door.
“It’s just the ghost from the Bellwether,” Rye said.
“What?” Folly asked sitting up. “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts any more.”
“Oh, right,” Rye said. “In that case it’s just a big rat. Try to get some sleep.”
“With ghosts and giant rats outside the door?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Rye said, slipping from under the covers and lighting a candle.
“Where are you going?”
“Shhh,” Rye said. “Just watch.”
She tiptoed towards the door silently. She reached for the latch without making a sound. But as her fingertips touched it, the shadow disappeared from under the door and there was a creak on the stairs, followed by silence.
Rye opened the door quickly. The stairway was empty.
She looked at Folly over her shoulder. “See?”
Rye carefully climbed the stairs to the Bellwether. Her small candle barely penetrated the shadows, but it was enough to illuminate the landing at the top. The door was shut tight, but the bread she’d left earlier had disappeared, just like the other offerings she’d set out each of the past several nights.
Whatever lurked in the Bellwether, real or imagined, it seemed to be restless too.
(#ulink_1afa8530-7dfe-5525-881f-93437f31046b)
ARMLESS HADN’T BEEN exaggerating when he said they would leave at first light, and after their fitful slumber, Rye and Folly found themselves sleepwalking across the shoal and up a rocky beach. Their departure had been hurried, but Rye was careful to stash her spyglass in her pack. She also brought a stout walking stick made of hard black wood that she’d found in Grabstone’s assortment of trinkets. It came with a leather sling so she could stow it over her shoulder when she wasn’t using it. She found the walking stick particularly useful now as they navigated the uneven stones.
Harmless took notice of it and raised an eyebrow. “Where did you come across that?” he asked.
“In one of the bedchambers. Do you like it?”
“Hmm,” Harmless said. Then, after a moment, “Yes, it does seem to suit you.”
The light of dawn grazed the dunes as they arrived at the edge of a tall bluff. Rye squinted against the wind as she watched the whitecaps roll into shore, but even though they had just hiked from Grabstone, she couldn’t see the shrouded mansion through the morning’s mist.
Harmless was busy examining a simple farmer’s cart. It was empty and horseless.
“Folly,” Harmless inquired, “how did you manage to get out here?”
Folly’s shoulders slumped. “There was a horse hitched to that cart yesterday. I guess it got tired of waiting.” She sighed and shook her head. “My father’s not going to let me leave the inn again for a month.”
“I guess we need to find another ride then,” Harmless said. “Come on, girls. This way.”
They followed Harmless along a narrow sand path that traced the edge of the bluff. Before long they came to a wind-beaten fisherman’s shanty that looked to have weathered one too many storms. Behind it was a small, sheltered stable.
“Ah, there we are,” Harmless said, and quickly made for the paddock.
“Will we ask the fisherman if we can borrow a horse?” Rye asked, hurrying to keep up.
“I’d hate to trouble him at this hour,” Harmless said, a glint in his eye. “But stay here and keep a lookout for him, would you, Folly? Just in case he happens to wake up.”
In the stable they found nothing more than a few bales of rotting hay and a sad, grey nag with ribs Rye could count.
Harmless frowned. “Not much of a selection. I guess this old girl will have to do. Riley, set her reins, would you?”
As Rye got to work, Harmless searched the stable and found a farrier’s bag. He took a nail and a small hammer, removed a swatch of fabric from his pocket, and nailed it to a post.
“Just in case someone misses her,” he said with a wink.
The fabric was cut into the shape of a ragged four-leaf clover – its colour black as night.
Rye had seen one like this before. In fact, she had it in her very own pocket at that moment.
It meant a Luck Ugly had promised you a favour. Hers had been given to her by someone other than Harmless and, at her mother’s request, she still hadn’t told him about it.
They rode for most of the morning, staying on the hard-packed sand so that the wagon’s wheels wouldn’t become stuck. Folly snacked on some strips of dried meat as Harmless tended the reins. Rye fidgeted, as she was prone to do when forced into long bouts of inactivity. Harmless seemed to sense it.
“We’re taking the back way, but it won’t be much longer now,” he encouraged. “See, there are the twin culverts.”
Rye and Folly looked ahead. From the bluff, fortified on all sides by enormous boulders that looked like they could only have been assembled by giants, were the mouths of two gaping tunnels. Each was wide enough to fit not only their mare and wagon, but an entire fleet of draft horses. Dark but shallow currents flowed and gurgled from the culverts, etching a lattice of scars into the packed beach as they meandered to the sea.
“The twins are restful today,” Harmless noted. “When the Great Eel Pond rises too high, this stretch of beach can be impassable.”
He must have seen Rye’s quizzical look.
“The culverts drain the surrounding waters under, rather than over, the village. Without them, Drowning’s name would become quite literal.”
As their horse splashed through the run-off, the pungent smell of sewage and salt rot permeated Rye’s nose. She tried to peer into the blackness behind the culverts. Rye saw nothing in the darkness, but there, on a rock by the edge of one tunnel, stooped a small, hunch-shouldered man in a heavy cloak. He dangled a hand in the icy run-off. Next to him was a covered pail.
Harmless took note of him too.
“A sniggler,” he said, with a hint of curiosity. “Let’s bid him good morning.”
Rye knew that snigglers fished for eels by thrusting baited hooks into the dark places where the creatures were known to lurk. Eels fetched a good price at Drowning’s butcher shops.
Harmless directed the cart towards him.
“Morning, good sir,” Harmless called.
The sniggler cast an eye towards them. He pulled his hand from the water and thrust it into the warm folds of his cloak.
“Good day to you, traveller,” he croaked in return.
Harmless stopped the cart a short distance from him and flashed a smile.
“How is the day’s catch?”
“Fair.” The sniggler placed a hand atop the pail. “Quite good actually.”
“Really?” Harmless said, jumping down from the farmer’s cart. “That’s splendid news.”
“Yes,” the sniggler said with a tight smile. “So good in fact, I was about to call it a morning.”
Rye saw the sniggler rise slowly, his shoulders slumped. His bones must have ached from years at the backbreaking work. He picked up his pail.
“I am so glad to have caught you then,” Harmless said taking a step forward. “I do enjoy a fresh eel. Might I buy one or two from you before you are on your way?”
On the cart, Rye exchanged glances with Folly and shrugged her shoulders. Her father seemed to have an insatiable appetite for slimy creatures.
The sniggler stiffened. “I’m afraid these eels are spoken for. The butcher will be expecting me.”
Harmless cocked his head. “You can’t spare but one? I have silver shims and will pay more than a fair price.”
The sniggler eased himself down from the rock on to the sand, his back so stooped that he stood barely taller than Rye. He dragged a foot behind him, the hem of his cloak covered in sand. Rye could tell that he must be lame.
“I’m sorry, but no. I must honour my bargain.” He looked Harmless over carefully.
“I can certainly appreciate a man of scruples,” Harmless said, and came to a stop a short distance from the sniggler. “But perhaps you will at least allow me to see your catch? For surely these are extraordinary eels.”
The sniggler stopped as well. He cast his eyes towards the cart, examining Rye and Folly in a manner that seemed less than friendly.
“I’m but a simple fisher,” the sniggler said. “Mine are ordinary saltwater eels. And small ones at that.”
“Don’t be so modest, sniggler. You must have a magic touch.” Harmless looked him hard in the eye. “For the Great Eel Pond was fished dry long ago. It has not been home to eels in my lifetime.”
The sniggler hesitated. “Odd luck is in the air,” he said, carefully removing the top from the pail. “You may see my catch,” he went on, reaching inside. “But take care. They bite.”
The sniggler snatched his hand from the pail and flicked his wrist so fast that Rye hardly saw it. A flash of steel caught the sun and Harmless dropped to all fours like a cat. A thud echoed below her. She looked down. A sharp throwing knife had just missed Harmless’s chest and embedded itself in the side of the farmer’s cart. A second blade cut through the air. Harmless rolled quickly and it only pierced the tail of his cloak, pinning it to the hard sand.
The sniggler cursed. He shook his own cloak from his shoulders as he stood at full height. He darted towards the culverts at a speed that would put Rye and Folly to shame, his lame leg and bent spine miraculously healed.
Harmless ripped his cloak free and checked on the girls. Finding them unharmed, he eyed the culverts. The sniggler had already disappeared inside.
“He’s a scout,” Harmless said. “For who I don’t know. But my gut tells me we must make it to the village before him.”
Harmless reached back over his shoulders. Two short swords appeared in his hands.
“Ride that way,” he said pointing the tip of a blade down the shoreline. “It will bring you straight to Drowning. But stay clear of the main gate. And, to be safe, don’t take the hole in the wall.”
Rye knew exactly what he meant. Mud Puddle Lane ended at a crumbled hole in the village’s protective wall. Harmless wanted her to stay away from the cottage.
He pointed the other blade towards the culverts. “I’ll follow our friend the sniggler.” He flashed a predatory smile. “Perhaps, with luck, I can slow him down.”
And with that, Harmless disappeared into the dark mouth of a culvert, the splash of his footsteps trailing behind him.
(#ulink_e25a4798-9d3e-5d7f-858e-50143cbb3efc)
YE AND FOLLY abandoned their horse and cart at a farm near the village limits and were able to slip into Drowning along a well-worn cow path. They blended in among some farmers taking their skinny, winter-weary livestock to market.
“We’ll want to move quickly through the streets,” Folly was saying as they splintered off from the pack. “The Constable and the Earl’s men have been stopping villagers for questioning ever since Silvermas. Considering who your father is, I don’t think we’ll have the right answers.”
“And what about the Shambles?” Rye asked. The Shambles was the part of the village where Folly and her family lived. “Will soldiers be there too?”
“The Shambles still keeps its own order – or disorder,” Folly said with a touch of pride. “No constable or soldier dares to go there. Just as it’s always been.”
Drowning rose up around them as they walked briskly through the neighbourhood called Old Salt Cross. The day turned balmy as winter finally surrendered, the spring snow mashed into mud on the cobblestones under the traffic of boots, hooves and wheels of horse-carts. Rye and Folly kept to the middle of the roads like the others, wary of sharp-toothed icicles that dripped from the eaves and rooftops, promising a wicked braining for anyone caught underneath one at the wrong time. The faces of the villagers were dour and they seemed to go about their daily chores with little cheer. As Folly had warned, the Earl’s soldiers were conspicuous and plentiful, stationed at every corner, and ever-watchful with suspicious eyes.
Rye spotted a huntsman loping past with what looked to be bundles of withered black leaves in each hand. Upon closer inspection, she was stunned to see that they were the feathers of a dozen black birds the man carried by their lifeless feet.
Rye grasped Folly’s arm. “What’s he doing with those rooks?”
“Off to the butcher’s, I’d guess,” Folly said without stopping. “The Earl’s put a bounty on them … a bronze bit per pound. Rook pie’s sure to become a village staple.”
Maybe that was what happened to her mother’s message, Rye thought, chewing her lip. A bounty on rats she might understand, but one on rooks – the Luck Uglies’ messengers – that seemed like more than just coincidence.
Rye didn’t have a chance to ask anything else before she was interrupted by the sound of a jingling bell coming their way. She looked to find its source, expecting a donkey or perhaps a farmer’s cow, but instead a woman hurried by them with a small child in her arms.
The woman wore a locked, iron-framed mask over her face. A metal bar stretched between her teeth like a bridle. Between her cheeks, the branks were fashioned into a long pointed nose like that of a mole, and the bell dangled at the end. The woman’s eyes caught Rye’s for an instant, then dropped to the street in shame as she passed.
Rye heard the mocking jeers and laughter of two nearby soldiers. She stopped to gawk in disbelief. Folly clutched her by the sleeve and pulled her forward before the soldiers took notice.
“What is that? What have they done to her?” Rye demanded.
“It’s called a Shrew’s Bridle,” Folly said quietly. “For women accused of speaking ill of Earl Longchance. Men stand to fare much worse.”
Rye’s ears began to burn. “Let me guess, the new Constable’s doing.”
Folly just nodded. “He seems fond of harsh devices.”
Rye was still simmering when Folly headed for the shortcut to Dread Captain’s Way. Rye held her back and insisted that they take Market Street instead.
“It will be crawling with soldiers,” Folly pointed out. “Trust me, Rye, you don’t want to go there.”
“Yes, Folly, I really do.”
Folly sighed. “Fine, we’ll stop and get Quinn. He should be at his father’s shop. Keep an eye out for the feral hogs, they’re extra surly. They’ve been foraging by the canal since yesterday, so it’s best to stay out of the back alley.”
The winding cobblestones of Market Street were as busy as ever, clogged with merchants, villagers and soldiers. They hadn’t made it more than a block when Rye realised that this was not ordinary midday traffic. Rather, the crowd seemed to bottleneck at Market Street’s widest point, the mass of bodies so thick that Rye and Folly could only inch forward.
Rye stood on her toes for a better view. An elaborate pillory had been erected in the middle of Market Street – an iron cage on top of a raised wooden platform. It must have been built in the past few days – she’d never seen it before. Fortunately, the stocks and shackles inside the cage were empty. Above the pillory a black-and-blue banner fluttered in the breeze. She knew the emblem well.
An eel-like hagfish coiled around a clenched fist. The crest of the House of Longchance.
“The new Constable’s doing,” Rye said matter-of-factly.
“They’re calling it the Shame Pole,” Folly explained. “I’m just glad there’s no one in the cage.”
A small procession pushed through the crowd on foot. Three soldiers in black-and-blue tartan and a teenage boy who looked to be a squire took positions at the pillory’s base. A lean, broad-shouldered man garbed not in Longchance tartan but a fine black vest, climbed the steps. He wore a thin leather war helmet fitted snug on his head and on top of that sat a rather handsome crimson hat shaped like a stovepipe. No moustache covered his lip but thick, golden hair burst from his jaw, his beard waxed into five elaborately curled points like hairy fingers beckoning. Coiled on his belt was what looked to be a multi-tailed whip made of knotted red cord, and in his fist was a length of chain. Collared at its end, an enormous, mottled grey dog followed him on long haunches.
The man wore an unexpected, almost pleasant, smile on his face as he addressed the assembled villagers. His hard-edged eyes did not match his smile.
“Constable Valant,” Rye said, under her breath. He looked more like a sellsword than a lawman.
Folly nodded.
“Residents,” the new Constable called out, in a voice that was strong but silky. “As you can see, our Shame Pole is now complete.”
Valant waved a hand at the open cage door and empty shackles. His tone of appreciation quickly darkened. “But today it remains unoccupied. That tells me you have been less than forthcoming with me.” He cast an accusing glare out at the crowd.
The teenage squire puffed out his chest and flared his narrow-set eyes, doing his best to mimic the Constable’s severe gaze.
“I expect each of you to remain ever-vigilant by bringing me information on those who break the Laws of Longchance or otherwise seek to do harm to our most honourable Earl,” he continued. “To help you do your part, hear this list of villagers who have committed crimes against Drowning and the House of Longchance. Provide me with their whereabouts so they may serve their time on the pole, and may their lingering shame help guide their future deeds.”
The squire handed Valant a parchment scroll, which he unfurled nearly to his feet. The Constable cleared his throat and hooked a thumb in his belt as he began to read.
“Emmitt Adams – guilty of touching the Earl’s cloak while it was being mended at the tailor. Three hours on the Shame Pole.” As he called out the names, his words fogged the chilly air like the smouldering breath of a dragon. “Sarah Barley – guilty of sticking out her tongue at Lady Malydia Longchance in the noble schoolyard. Sentenced to a vigorous tongue-scrubbing by way of a horse brush and two hours on the Shame Pole.”
Villagers began to return to their toils while Constable Valant worked through the long list of minor offences and their excessive penalties. Rye’s ears reddened in frustration – it seemed the Earl had emerged from his winter slumber even pettier than before. As the crowd thinned, Rye scanned the familiar Market Street shop fronts: the butcher shop, the fishmonger’s stall, the coffin maker’s and Quartermast’s blacksmith shop, among others. But one shop was now very different. Rye felt a lump in her throat as she stared at the husk of scorched brick and timbers. The Willow’s Wares, or what was left of it, was no longer a colourful standout among Market Street’s weathered grey facades. Rather, it was a charred skeleton – a permanent pillory.
“Jameson Daw,” Constable Valant was calling out from his list. “Guilty of public drunkenness and uttering untruths about the House of Longchance. Repeat offender. Sentenced to five stripes at the thrashing stump and eight hours on the Shame Pole!”
Rye looked over her shoulder at the Constable – the man responsible for doing this. Her ears had turned as crimson as his hat.
Folly seemed to want to say something, but just bit her lip. She put a hand on Rye’s shoulder.
“We should go,” Folly said after a moment. “I’ll find Quinn, then we’ll get out of here.”
She darted across the street to Quartermast’s, but Rye couldn’t take her eyes off the remains of her family shop. Villagers wandered past it without a second glance, as if they’d already become numb to the black eye or simply forgotten about it altogether. All except for one. A bent figure sifted through the rubble, almost invisible in the shadows of the burned-out frame. Rye watched carefully as he reached down to pick something from the ashes.
A looter! There might not be much left to take, but there was no way she was about to let someone pick through their belongings.
She dodged a foraging piglet as she hurried across the street and ran through the empty, blackened doorframe. Muted afternoon light filtered through the hollow windows but she could not see anyone in the shadows. Instead, a yellow sheet of parchment nailed to a timber caught her attention. Thanks to her mother’s refusal to follow the Laws of Longchance and Quinn’s informal lessons, Rye was one of the few village girls who could read.
PROCLAMATION
OF EARL MORNINGWIG LONGCHANCE!
Generous Rewards Offered for the Capture of
Abigail O’Chanter and her Two Offspring!
Wanted for Crimes Against the Shale!
The proclamation included a drawing of her mother, with pouty lips and evil, smouldering eyes; a small, wild-haired girl with a ferocious look on her face; and someone who appeared to be a rather skinny, unkempt boy. Why did they always think she was a boy?
Rye’s blood ran cold. She was officially a fugitive, but why? Had the Earl decided to goad Harmless by targeting his family? She pulled the hood of her coat tight around her head and peeked out nervously at the villagers wandering past. When she was sure no one was looking, she tore the parchment from the post, crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket.
The sound of nearby activity caught Rye’s ear. Skipping over the rubble, she crouched and hid behind the remains of a brick wall at the back of the shop. She heard hooves on cobblestones. Snorts. She peeked over the wall where she could see straight into the back alley behind the Willow’s Wares. It was just several large hogs rooting through the refuse with their long snouts.
Rye breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled the parchment from her pocket, unfolded it, and read the proclamation again.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a stern voice said behind her.
Rye spun around to find the man she’d spotted rummaging through the shop, a scorched tin box tucked under his arm. From under his hood, long inky-black hair framed his sharp-edged face. He studied Rye with pale blue eyes the colour of robins’ eggs, and couldn’t conceal a hint of a smile at the corner of his thin lips.
“In fact,” he added, “this is the very last place you should be.”
(#ulink_028e520a-52d9-5f7c-b36a-b9a18bfe025d)
RAMBLE?” RYE ASKED in disbelief.
The man lowered his hood. “It’s good to see you again, niece,” he answered warmly.
Bramble Cutty was her mother’s brother. That made him Rye’s uncle, of course. Not that she really knew him at all. They’d met ever so briefly the prior autumn, and it was quite some time before her mother got around to telling Rye who Bramble actually was.
Bramble also happened to be the Luck Ugly who had given her the black swatch of fabric that she kept in her pocket. The Ragged Clover.
A furry head with round, dark eyes popped out from the folds of Bramble’s cloak. Rye leaped back. The small black monkey shrieked and bared its teeth. She knew him too. The little ape had never been particularly pleasant to her.
“Quiet, Shortstraw,” Bramble hissed, and stuffed the monkey’s face back under his cloak with a shove of his palm.
“He’s not fond of the cold,” he explained. “Makes him ill-tempered.”
Bramble handed the charred tin box to Rye. “This is for your mother if you see her before I do. It’s all I could find.”
Rye ran her fingertips over it, turning them black with soot. She slipped the box inside her coat.
“Tell me, Riley,” Bramble said, “what are you doing back in Drowning?”
Rye looked up at the burned beams and rafters around them. The lump returned to her throat. “Folly told us about … this.”
Bramble nodded gravely. “Well, now you’ve seen it for yourself. Abby’s been in quite a twist, as you can imagine. It’s a brazen gesture on the part of Longchance and his Constable – especially given the warning he’s under.”
Rye vividly remembered the warning Harmless had given Morningwig Longchance. She’d been there in the courtyard of Longchance Keep along with the small band of masked Luck Uglies. Harmless spared Longchance’s life, but promised that the Luck Uglies would be watching – and he would show no such restraint if Longchance were to ever trouble his family again. The Earl had either forgotten the warning – or no longer feared it. Had the new Constable emboldened him or were the Luck Uglies too preoccupied with their own differences to be bothered?
“And where in the Shale is your father?” Bramble asked. “Surely he hasn’t sent you back here alone?”
Rye told Bramble of the sniggler and Harmless’s pursuit into the culverts. Bramble’s face darkened.
“That man would drop everything for the thrill of the hunt,” Bramble muttered, then seemed to catch himself. “Not a problem, though. I’ll see you to the Dead Fish myself.”
It wasn’t the first time she had heard Bramble express frustration with her father.
“Bramble,” Rye said, lowering her voice out of habit, “what do you know about Slinister and the Fork-Tongued Charmers? Have they been heard from since the attack on the Mud Sleigh?”
Bramble narrowed an eye. “These are complicated times,” he said, in a manner that seemed dismissive of her question. “I won’t miss Silvermas anyway. I’ve gotten one too many potatoes … and mouse turds … in my boots.”
Whether or not Bramble missed Silvermas wasn’t exactly her point.
Bramble cast his attention to something over her shoulder. Rye turned to see Folly and Quinn stepping through the debris, hurrying towards them.
“There you are,” Folly said, and then paused at the sight of Bramble. “And … hello.”
“Greetings, young Flood,” Bramble said. “Floppy, is it?”
“Folly.”
“That’s right. Hard to sort out your lot with all the names.”
Folly frowned.
“You’re back,” Quinn called to Rye, his kind face bright. “When I heard about the Mud Sleigh I was …”
He pursed his lips tight as if grasping for the words, then simply threw his long arms around her. She awkwardly accepted his hug. He had a steel helmet tucked under his elbow. It poked Rye in the ribs.
“Sorry,” he said. “I smithed this one myself,” he added proudly. “Or started it anyway.”
“You’re the blacksmith’s boy, no?” Bramble asked.
Quinn nodded. He lived alone with his father, Angus, the blacksmith, and always did his best to please him. That sometimes made him a bit of a rule follower like his father, but, for the most part, Rye and Folly had broken him of that bad habit.
“It’s not the worst work I’ve seen,” Bramble commented. “But your hands may be better suited to the quill than the forge.”
Quinn looked at his blackened hands and sighed in agreement. All of his fingers were swollen, bandaged, or both.
“Enough chatter then. Let’s be on our way to the inn,” Bramble declared, casting a wary eye around them. “Before the villagers begin to wonder what’s so interesting in here.”
“I’m coming too,” Quinn said eagerly.
“We’ll split up and meet at Mutineer’s Alley. I’ll go first – I’m most likely to draw attention coming out of this place. You three wait a few moments then head out after me. Just try to look like nosy little scamps. Can you manage that?”
Bramble looked them over. They just blinked back at him.
“Perfect,” he said.
Bramble pulled his hood over his head, climbed through an empty window frame, then paused and looked back at them. “Step lively and stay inconspicuous,” he warned, before disappearing.
Rye, Folly and Quinn waited for several minutes, then pulled their hoods tight and ventured out on to Market Street.
The Constable was still reading from his list. “James Whitlow. Guilty of fouling the Earl’s private privy at the Silvermas Eve Feast. Fine of ten silver shims and one hour on the Shame Pole.”
“We missed you at Silvermas,” Quinn whispered as they moved quickly down the cobblestones.
“Yes, we should talk about that,” Rye said with a frown. “Next year, let’s save our coins and buy our own candy—”
Rye stopped abruptly. The Constable’s words had caught her ear from the pillory.
“And now for the most egregious offenders,” he said, running his finger down the length of the scroll. “Abigail O’Chanter,” he read. “Guilty of trafficking in stolen goods, harbouring known criminals, and conspiracy to commit treason. Punishment is seizure and destruction of the guilty’s property and imprisonment in the dungeons of Longchance Keep for not less than …”
Rye’s head instantly flushed with a rage so great she couldn’t hear the rest of his words. Someone whispered to her to ignore it, to keep on moving. She thought it might be Quinn. They were in front of the fishmonger’s stall. Rye thrust her bare hand into the trough of ice and pulled out a stiff, frozen mackerel by its tail. She couldn’t feel the cold.
Rye marched towards the pillory. Someone else grabbed at her arm. It might have been Folly. The Constable had moved on to the next name on the list.
“Harriet Wilson. Guilty of—”
Rye flung the fish. It knocked the parchment scroll from the Constable’s grasp and bounced off his leather vest before landing at his feet. He considered his empty hand with surprise then glowered out at the crowd. The soldiers and the squire looked her way as well. The Constable’s dog growled and strained at its leash.
Suddenly Rye was aware of her surroundings again, and found herself back-pedalling away from the Shame Pole. She bumped hard into two bodies. It was Quinn and Folly, who had caught up with her a moment too late.
“Tell me you didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” Quinn said as he carefully eased his helmet over his head.
Rye looked at the shimmering scales stuck to her palm. “I didn’t just hit the Constable with a fish,” she replied.
The squire spotted Rye and pointed. The three soldiers leaped down from the pillory.
“Scatter!” Rye yelled, and the three friends did just that. Growing up together on Drowning’s winding streets, they’d practised this many times before.
Rye darted down one end of Market Street while Folly and Quinn tore off in different directions. Rye pushed past a merchant and nearly ran headlong into a cow’s rump before glancing back over her shoulder. She saw Folly’s head of white-blonde hair sprinting safely down a narrow lane. But she was shocked to see that all three soldiers had taken off in pursuit of Quinn. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The soldiers should have split up to chase each of them. There wasn’t a man in Drowning the children couldn’t out-manoeuvre individually but, once outnumbered, things could get tricky. She saw Quinn’s wobbly helmet disappear down the alley near the remains of the Willow’s Wares. The soldiers had left him with no other option.
“Pigshanks,” Rye cursed. She knew the alley dead-ended at the canal. With three soldiers behind him, Quinn would be trapped. She changed course and ran back for him.
Rye turned the corner at full speed and skidded to a stop. She found just what she had feared. The three soldiers stood menacingly in the middle of the alleyway. Quinn had pulled up at the far end, where its cobbles met the foul-smelling canal that drained swill from the village to the river. The shallow water was filled with more pigs than Rye could count, their heads rooted up to their ears in the run-off. Each looked heavier than a full-grown man. Quinn glanced from the soldiers to the pigs and back again, weighing an impossible decision.
Rye looked around the alleyway. A young piglet snuffled about, having wandered off from the rest of the animals. It sniffed something interesting on her boots. She reached down and scooped him up in her arms. He oinked and squirmed but didn’t seem overly alarmed.
“Sorry, little fella,” Rye whispered in the piglet’s ear, then gave him the gentlest pinch on the tail.
The piglet squealed as if jabbed by a butcher’s blade and lurched to free itself from her grasp. The sows pulled their snouts from the murky water and grunted in reply. A soldier looked back at Rye and the little pig.
“Quinn! Get out of the way!” she called, and set the piglet down. It ran back towards its mother on the opposite side of Quinn and the soldiers.
Quinn knew exactly what was about to happen – village children were taught early never to get between a sow and her young. He darted to the side of the alley out of the pigs’ path, pressing himself against a building. The soldiers weren’t as quick, and found an army of wet, angry hogs bearing down on them with their tusks.
Rye and Quinn didn’t stop to catch their breath until they’d made it to where Bramble was waiting at Dread Captain’s Way. Shortstraw had climbed out from his hiding spot in Bramble’s cloak and now perched on his shoulder, his furry arms crossed impatiently.
Folly arrived just behind them. “There you are,” she said, gasping for breath.
Quinn struggled to remove his helmet.
“What happened back there?” Bramble demanded. He grabbed Quinn’s helmet and yanked it off with a pop. Quinn rubbed the red welt it had left across his forehead.
“Rye hit the Constable with a fish,” Folly said.
Bramble looked at Rye in disbelief and shook his head. “Perhaps we need to discuss the meaning of inconspicuous.”
They followed him to an obscure flight of carved stone steps tucked under a crumbling archway. It was called Mutineer’s Alley. No guards or gate blocked their path, but everyone in Drowning knew where those steps led. And it was no place for the unwelcome.
Rye glanced over her shoulder as they started down. No soldiers followed, but someone was standing in the shadows of the backstreet she and Quinn had taken to reach Dread Captain’s Way. She thought it looked like the Constable’s squire.
Bramble nudged her with an elbow. “A fish, eh?”
Rye shrugged sheepishly.
“That’s my niece,” he said with a wink.
She looked back again, but the squire, if he had been there at all, was now gone.
At the bottom of a deep embankment, below the village itself, sat the Shambles. Its black-market shops, grog houses and gambling dens had grown up like persistent weeds on the damp edges of the village, until eventually the Earl had stopped trying to pluck them. The Laws of Longchance weren’t enforced here. The Shambles was not a safe place for allies of the Earl.
Shortstraw chittered happily as they worked their way down Little Water Street, the snail trail of a dirt road that traced the banks of River Drowning. Dinghies bobbed at the docks. In the distance, where the mouth of the river met the sea, Rye could see the tall mast of an anchored schooner silhouetted against the sky. Rye was sure the invisible eyes of the Shambles were on them, but their faces were familiar here.
At the end of the street, a four-storey inn squatted in the shadow of the great arched bridge that spanned the river’s narrowest point. Overhead, a black banner with a white fishbone logo snapped in the wind. The thick iron doors of the Dead Fish Inn rose above them like portals to a castle, and they always struck Rye as more suited to withstanding a siege than welcoming guests. But at that moment, there was no place she would rather be.
(#ulink_bad20445-dffe-5279-9da0-783bec2c6a47)
HE AIR WAS stale with stout and sailor sweat, which made perfect sense since a small fleet of grog-swigging boatmen had congregated at the centre of the inn. They’d pushed aside the tables and chairs and huddled in a large circle around two blindfolded, bare-knuckled combatants. The men traded wild, flailing punches over the cheers and groans of the onlookers.
Folly’s two oldest brothers, the twins Fitz and Flint, leaned against a heavy beam and watched with interest from under their manes of white-blond hair. The twins, each massive individually, had been born conjoined at the hip, giving them the formidable aura of a two-headed giant. Their matching glowers and otherworldly appearance ensured even the surliest patrons of the Dead Fish behaved themselves.
So it was that Rye, her uncle and her friends arrived relatively unnoticed. Rye pulled her hood from her head and the inn’s roaring fireplaces immediately warmed her chilled cheeks. A woman bustled past balancing a full serving tray of empty glasses on her round belly with one hand. She paused at the sight of the children, blinked in disbelief, and abruptly dropped her tray on to a table. The woman’s hair was as white-blonde as Folly’s except for a single streak of silver that she pushed behind her ear.
“Riley O’Chanter!” Faye Flood exclaimed. “What in the Shale are you doing here?”
Before Rye could answer, Folly’s mother threw her arms around her and pressed her tight. Faye’s stomach was as hard as a melon and, when she saw the look of concern on Rye’s face, she waved it off.
“Don’t worry about my little shelf,” she said, rattling her fingers on her belly. “Flood babies are a hardy lot. More important, how did you get here?”
Folly jumped in excitedly. “I went to find her. There was a storm—”
“Rat in the jacks! There you are, Folly,” Faye interrupted. “I’ve hardly seen you the past two days, love. Your chores are piling up.”
Folly’s face fell.
“We’ve got freebooters in port,” Faye continued, with a nod to the crowd of sailors circling the brawlers. “There are bar rags and linens in need of washing. You can play with your friends after you’ve finished.”
Folly frowned at Rye with a look that said I told you, and slumped off.
“As for you, Riley dear, Abby is around here somewhere.” Faye glanced about.
But Rye’s gaze had already found her. Her mother’s face seemed even more lined with worry than it had just days before, but to Rye she was still the most beautiful woman in the whole village. Rye felt her eyes well up with tears.
Abby opened her arms wide. Rye stepped forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t let go for a long while.
Rye started to ask questions but Abby just pressed her head back to her shoulder and held her close. Once Rye had settled, Abby eased her towards the Mermaid’s Nook, the secluded corner of the inn that housed Rye’s favourite table. Rye set her walking stick on the carved tabletop and sat down.
“Mama,” Rye said finally, “the Willow’s Wares?”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Abby said quietly. “It was just a building. No more than brick and wood. What’s important is that we are all safe now.”
“Are we?” Rye asked.
“Of course,” Abby said.
“But we were attacked this morning.”
Rye explained their encounter with the sniggler and detailed the Constable’s announcement on Market Street. Abby listened intently.
“And this,” Rye added, unfurling the crumpled parchment in her pocket.
Abby looked over the Earl’s proclamation. Rye watched her mother’s grim face. Abby was silent.
Finally, Abby spoke. “Do I always look that cross?” She arched a playful eyebrow.
“Sometimes,” Rye said, but she was not calmed by her mother’s jest. “The Earl is searching for us,” she said matter-of-factly.
Abby nodded. “It seems so. Not that he’ll find us easily.” She gave Rye just a hint of a knowing grin. “No one here knows our names.”
The correct answer when asked about someone’s identity at the Dead Fish Inn was always, Who? Never heard of him. Abby tossed the parchment into the roaring fireplace.
“But why come after us now?” Rye asked. “Does he believe this new Constable will protect him?”
Abby shook her head gravely. “That I don’t know. But if Longchance seeks trouble hard enough he’s sure to find it sooner or later. I expect your father will be here shortly. When he arrives … he, your uncle, the others … will be certain the matter is addressed.”
Rye looked across the inn to where Bramble had joined two men at the bar. They sat casually over numerous empty mugs, their mud-caked boots tapping on the rungs of their stools. But Rye sensed a wariness in their constantly shifting eyes, like hungry predators watchful for their next mark.
“Bramble told me to give you this,” Rye said, remembering the battered box. She took it from her coat and handed it to Abby.
“Did you look inside?” Abby asked as she pried apart the bent clasp. She opened it a crack.
“No,” Rye said, shaking her head, and was surprised to realise that, for once, her curiosity hadn’t got the better of her. “What’s in there?”
“Memories,” Abby said. A warm thought seemed to cross her mind.
Abby removed a small metal object from the box. It was a hair clip in the shape of a dragonfly, its silver so tarnished it was almost black.
“Someone gave this to me long ago, but it seems you could best use it now,” she said. She pushed Rye’s unruly hair from her eyes and clipped it back. “Much better.”
Quinn arrived and placed two mugs of plum cider on the table along with his handmade helmet. His eyes widened and he stared slack-jawed at the realistic, life-size mermaid carved into the tabletop. Abby strategically slid the helmet across the table to afford the mermaid some degree of modesty.
Bramble joined them with goblets for himself and Abby. “What do you have here?” he asked Rye, examining her hand staff on the table. “May I see it?”
“My walking stick? Sure.”
Bramble felt its heft in his hands. He squinted and examined its polished features.
“A walking stick, you say?” He sounded amused. “This, my dear niece, is a High Isle cudgel. Made from the hardest blackthorn ever felled. I haven’t seen one in years.”
Abby raised an eyebrow.
“Like a club?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, like a club,” Bramble said. “But nastier.”
With two lightning-quick strikes, he brought the cudgel down against Quinn’s helmet on the table. Rye, Abby and Quinn all jumped at the sound. Shortstraw fled under a chair. The rest of the inn hardly noticed.
The steel crown of the helmet was crushed as if pummelled by a boulder. Rye was relieved nobody’s head was in it.
Bramble chuckled and handed the cudgel back to Rye. “This is a rare find. Guard it closely until you learn how to use it.”
Quinn stared at his bashed handiwork.
“Apologies, Quinn,” Bramble said. “I’ll buy you another.”
Rye noticed Quinn’s fallen face and didn’t think that cost was the point.
“Your uncle and I need to discuss a few matters,” Abby said to Rye while shooting Bramble a reproachful look. It always amazed Rye how a glare from her mother could give pause to even the most dangerous of men. “Why don’t you and Quinn go find your sister? She’s made herself quite at home here so I can’t say where she is … in trouble, no doubt.”
There was a heavy thud in Rye’s lap and a warm furry mass stretched across her like a blanket.
“Shady!” Rye hugged him around his thick neck.
“Obviously someone else has missed you too,” Abby said. “He’s taken a liking to the inn himself. The twins guard the door well, so he’s stopped trying to escape.”
Shady’s kind were known as Gloaming Beasts – mysterious cat-like creatures who could go years hiding in plain sight. Rye had always taken him for a simple house pet. That is, until he revealed his true nature by helping Harmless thwart a clan of ruthless Bog Noblins. Gloaming Beasts were the bog monsters’ only natural predator. They were also renowned for their wanderlust, which was why Abby kept him under lock and key.
Rye set him on the floor and she and Quinn headed off to find Lottie. Shady snaked in and out of Rye’s gait as she walked, rubbing his back against her legs.
The freebooters were still hard at the grog and their gambling.
“Round six!” barked a man at the centre of the crowd.
His thick hair was the colour of steel and tied into a ponytail that stretched down his back. One eyelid sagged at half-mast, a hollow, empty socket peeking out from under it. He held six fingers in the air.
“Get your bets in now,” he shouted. Gold grommets and silver shims began to change hands. “All right, spin the lads six times apiece!”
Leathery hands grabbed each blindfolded fighter and began to turn them in circles.
“Wait!” he called out, and Rye started in alarm.
The ringleader pinched his dead eye shut and used the other to examine Rye, Quinn and Shady.
“What’s going on around here? I’ve never seen so many children or animals in one tavern,” he grumbled. “And not one looks to be of the edible sort. Animal or child.”
Rye took a step back.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m looking for a little girl.”
“Is Fletcher Flood running an orphanage now?”
“She has red hair. Carries a pink rag doll wherever she goes. She’s loud—”
“Wait a moment. Pickle?” he asked.
“No, her name’s Lottie,” Rye began, “although I can see why someone might—”
“Yes, yes, Pickle. You know her?” the man asked.
“Er, yes,” Rye said, shocked. “She’s my sister.”
“Why didn’t you say so? In that case, come, come.” He waved a hand. “Out of the way, you deck rats.”
As the sailors moved aside, Rye spotted the three-year-old on the shoulders of a hulking brute at the back of the crowd, her perch giving her a bird’s-eye view of the fighting. Lottie’s face beamed when she spotted Rye and she slapped the sailor on his bald head with Mona Monster until he lowered her to the floor.
Lottie rushed forward and threw her arms around Rye’s waist with such force she nearly knocked her down. Rye kissed Lottie on her tuft of hair that always smelled like straw and syrup drippings, and for a moment it brought her back to the bed they shared on Mud Puddle Lane.
Lottie pulled herself away and demanded, “Come,” tugging Rye by the sleeve to be sure there was no misunderstanding.
She picked up a wire birdcage and hurried to the Mermaid’s Nook, placing it on the table in front of Abby and Bramble.
“My baby blue dragon,” Lottie announced proudly as she opened its little door and reached inside.
Rye and Quinn exchanged curious glances.
“Lottie was very proud to finally learn to use her chamber pot,” Abby explained. “So for Silvermas we got her this … a baby blue dragon. As promised.”
Lottie extended both hands. “Newtie!” she proclaimed.
A rather small speckled lizard cocked its head and looked up at them. It seemed perfectly at ease in her hands.
“It’s so little,” Rye said.
“And brown,” Quinn added.
“Him’s just a baby,” Lottie said with a roll of her eyes, as if she’d explained this a dozen times already.
“Yes, Riley,” Abby said, nudging her gently. “It’s just a baby.”
“He no be blue until he’s older,” Lottie explained.
“Oh, of course,” Rye said.
“Much older,” Abby clarified.
Shady licked his lips at the sight of the little creature.
“No, no, Shady,” Lottie said crossly, shaking a finger. “Mice good. Newtie – no eat him.”
“Where did you find such a handsome dragon?” Rye said, looking at their mother and playing along. She had to admit, she’d never seen a lizard quite like this one in the bogs. He seemed to glisten in the light and had folds of skin, like fins, under each of his front legs.
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Paul Durham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детская проза
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: “How little you know of your own father. He took something I cherished long ago and hid it away. You will help me find it”The legendary Luck Uglies are the most deadly, dangerous band of men Riley O’Chanter has ever met – and her father, Harmless, is their high chief. Having been in exile for ten years the Luck Uglies are back in Village Drowning, but bringing them out of the shadows and back together was never going to be without its perils. There is bad blood between Rye’s father, and a sinister masked man named Slinister Varlet. As Harmless and Slinister vie for control of their men, Rye finds herself caught up in their dangerous game. Throw in a vengeful son, a dark curse, and a collection of thieves and smugglers and the stage is set for another page-turning adventure.