A Darkling Plain (28 page)

"Grandma Gravy," said Hester.

"You trade with Grandma?"

"We're old friends. She told me you had a very important prisoner aboard."

"Shhh!" hissed Varley. He leaned across the table and said in a smelly whisper, "Don't talk about my merchandise that way, lady. I don't know who's listening. The Airhaven authorities don't like the slave trade. If they thought I was trying to shift a live cargo on their patch, there'd be hell to pay."

Theo felt so angry and disgusted that he could happily have hit the man. He still bore the scars and bruises of his time in Cutler's Gulp, and the shame of his captivity on Cloud 9 had never completely faded: He knew all too well what that harmless-sounding phrase "live cargo" meant.

Hester seemed unmoved. "Found a buyer yet?"

"I opened negotiations with the kriegsmarschall of Murnau a few hours ago," said Varley. "Nothing's been finalized."

"I'm interested in buying," said Hester.

Varley snorted, shook his head, and returned to his locusts, eating greedily now, as if talking business had brought back his appetite. "You couldn't afford what I'm asking," he said through a crunchy mouthful.

"Maybe I could."

Varley looked up sharply, and spat out a wing case. "You ain't from Zanzibar," he said. "Your fancy-boy might be pretty, but he's a lousy liar. Who are you?"

Hester said nothing and kicked Theo's ankle under the table, warning him to stay quiet too.

Varley grinned. "Gods almighty!" He lowered his voice to a whisper again. "You're the Storm, ain't you? I been wondering if any of you lot would turn up. Don't worry, I'm broad-minded. Gold is gold to Napster Varley, whether it comes from the coffers of a Traktionstadt or the treasure houses of Shan Guo. So what's she worth to you, your empress? You'll have to hurry, mind. Everyone's saying the fighting'll break out again in a day or so. You'll want to get her safe in Mossie-land before that happens, won't you?"

"What are you asking?" said Hester.

"Ten thousand in gold. Nothing less."

"Ten thousand?" Theo had a hollowed-out feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he had let himself imagine that it might just be possible to buy Lady Naga back, but... ten thousand in gold! Varley might as well ask them for the moon!

"I'll think it over," said Hester calmly, pushing back her chair. "Come on, Theo."

Varley waved a locust at her. "You do that, honeybunch. My ship's the
Humbug,
over on Strut 13. Just bring me the money, and hand it over nice and polite."

"We'll want to see the merchandise first," said Hester.

"Not till I've seen the money. And I've got three big lads on watch, so don't think about trying anything funny."

Out on the High Street, electric lamps were being lit. Large moths zoomed about in the twilight, pursued by enterprising boys with nets who planned to roast them and sell them as tasty snacks. Some lingering maternal instinct made Hester flinch each time one of the urchins darted close to the unfenced edges of the quays. She told herself not to be so soft; these kids were born in the sky, too canny to fall; even if they did, the Airhaven authorities had stretched safety nets between the mooring struts to catch anyone who stumbled overboard.

She leaned against the handrail on the outer curve of the street and pretended to be watching the last smears of sunset fading in the west. She was actually studying Strut 13, where the black-and-white striped bulk of the
Humbug
lay at anchor. There were indeed three men loitering on the quay outside her single hatch. They were, as Varley had promised, quite big.

"He's out of his depth," Hester said.

"Who?" asked Theo. "Varley?"

"Of course Varley! He's got the biggest prize of his career and he doesn't have the faintest idea what to do with it. He's terrified that someone'll get wind of his prisoner and try to

take her; hence all the hired muscle. But he daren't approach the Traktionstadts directly for fear they'll just swipe Lady Naga off him and give him nothing but a medal for his troubles; and when he tried doing it privately, they gave him the brush-off. That's why he came back from Manchester 'in a nasty mood.' That's why he's hunting for new ideas in books. Us turning up is like an answer to his prayers. He's an amateur, Theo."

"But he still wants ten thousand in gold," said Theo.

"He'll settle for less. Half, even."

"That would still be an enormous lot of money, and we don't have anything at all! We're here to rescue Lady Naga, not buy her! We can handle Varley and his three men easily. You rescued me, didn't you? And I heard what you did at Shkin's place last year...."

Hester glanced away, remembering the men she had killed to free Tom from the slaver's tower in Brighton, and the shocked, betrayed way that Tom had looked at her afterward. That had been their last evening together. "It's not just a question of getting Lady Naga out," she said. "We have to get her away, right away, past all these fancy cities and safe across the Green Storm's lines. If we cause a fuss getting her off Varley's ship, we won't get half a mile before those flying machines catch us and--"

She reached out and snatched a passing moth, dropping the crumpled body into the net of one of the urchin boys, who said, "Thanks, missus!"

"Are you saying we should give up?" asked Theo as the boy moved on.

Hester was silent, staring across the High Street.

"Mrs. Natsworthy?"

"No," she said quite softly. She did not look at him. Her attention was fixed on a man who had just emerged from the doorway of a large, shabby building called the Empyrean Hotel. She reached back, found Theo's arm, and squeezed it encouragingly. "No," she said again. "We don't have to give up. We just have to find someone who can give us an enormous lot of money."

***

THE CONFERENCE ABOARD MANCHESTER had dragged on and on, as the leaders of the Traktionstadtsgesellschaft hammered out the details of their new offensive. And "offensive" was the word, thought Kriegsmarschall von Kobold as he clambered out of the gondola of his air yacht and walked stiffly home to the Rathaus. His wife had already set off for Paris aboard the liner
Veronica Lake,
scared away by the rumors of war. He did not miss her. He had seen so little of her these past years that he did not feel he even knew her anymore. Glad that he would not have to spend another evening with her in their overdecorated, overscented official suite, he climbed the stairs to the small room on the top floor which he made his home when she and Wolf were away. The white walls, bare but for a portrait of his son, focused his attention on the windows, the bats flitting black outside against the afterglow, the sky

streaked with the wind-combed contrails of flying machines.

Such a peaceful evening,
thought the kriegsmarschall, pulling papers from the pockets of his tunic and throwing them down on his bed. Yet in the morning he would have to sign the orders that would take his city back to war. Young men would be recalled to their units, snout guns and airships made ready.... Already the women and children were on their way to peaceful cities farther west. And tonight the armor would be closed. It might be months before he would be able to look out again at the evening sky from his own bedroom window.

He hung up his tunic and used the telephone above his dressing table to talk to his housekeeper, telling her that he would dine in his own room that night, and asking her to send up bread, cold meat, a glass of beer. As he returned to the door to check that he had not locked it, he noticed a face staring at him from the pile of papers on the bed.

He picked up the photograph, wondering what on earth it was doing there, among the tedious, typewritten transcripts of Browne's speech. A woman's face. It took him a moment to realize that this was what Varley had stuffed into his pocket in the park. In all the misery of the afternoon's planning sessions, he had almost forgotten that seedy air trader. Now he grew furious. To think that a slaver was operating within a few miles of Murnau, which had never had anything to do with slavery, and had always made it a point of honor to free the slaves of every town it ate! And to think that Varley could imagine that he, von Kobold, would be interested in buying the poor, miserable-looking waif in this picture!

Photo in hand, he strode back to the telephone, winding the handle furiously and shouting at the startled operator to put him through at once to his chief of security. While he waited for the man to answer, he fumbled his spectacles on and looked more closely at the photograph. The girl was an easterner; dirty, bruised, huge eyed with fear. She seemed faintly familiar, though Kobold could not think why. That small, vulnerable mouth, those crooked teeth....

He remembered, suddenly, where he had seen her before. Intelligence had sent him pictures of General Naga's wedding. The bride in her red finery. Thick, black brows and tilted cheekbones. That mouth.

"Herr Kriegsmarschall?" crackled the telephone. "What is it?"

Kobold hesitated, still staring at the photograph. "Nothing, Schiller," he said softly. "It doesn't matter."

He returned the telephone gently to its cradle, then took a pistol from the dressing-table drawer, buckled on his heavy fighting sword, and put on the precious Kevlar body armor that his enemy had sent him all those years ago. He did not usually bother with armor, but it seemed appropriate that Naga's gift should protect him when he went to rescue Naga's wife.

He pulled a greatcoat on over the top and ran down the stairs, past the housemaid who was coming up with his dinner. "Sorry, my dear," he told her. "Change of plan." But he took the beer, drinking it as he hurried down to his private docking pan. The ground crew were moving his yacht
Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers
into her hangar for the night. "It's all right, men," he called, tossing the empty beer stein aside

as he marched toward them across the pan. "I am taking her out again."

"Tonight, sir?"

"Not much fuel in her tanks, sir."

"I don't need much," said the kriegsmarschall. "I'm only going up to Airhaven."

"Nobody of that name here," said the clerk at the Empyrean Hotel. A dusty argon globe buzzed and flickered, light fluttering over threadbare carpets and tobacco-colored walls. Stairs went up into shadow. "Nice place," muttered Theo.

Hester leaned across the receptionist's desk. Behind her veil her blunt profile looked as hard as a fist. Theo was afraid that she was going to do something terrible to the insolent young man in the pillbox hat, but she just said, "You're sure?
Nimrod
Pennyroyal. He's a writer."

"Oh, I know who he is, lady," said the clerk, with the same witless grin. "Everyone's heard of Pennyroyal. But we ain't got no one of that name staying here."

"I just saw him leave," said Hester. "A fat man. Old. Bald."

"That was just Mr. Unterberg," said the clerk. "A commercial gentleman from Murnau, staying in room 128. He said he was popping round to the harbor office to-- Look, here he is now!"

Hester and Theo both turned as the lobby door opened, letting in the noise of rowdy parties from the High Street bars, a few lost moths, and the man they were looking for. He had shaved off his beard, put on blue-tinted spectacles, and swapped his usual fine clothes for the dowdy pinstriped

robes of a commercial traveler, but Hester and Theo recognized him at once.

"Oh, great Poskitt!" he gasped as they went to meet him. "Oh, Clio! Oh, ruddy Nora!"

"We'd like a little chat," Hester explained.

She expected him to scream for help, to call for the police and Airhaven militia. After all, last time they'd met, Hester had tried to murder him, and only her softhearted daughter had stopped her. But Pennyroyal seemed more frightened of the clerk at the front desk than of her. He peeked nervously past her at the youth (who was watching wide-eyed, with his mouth hanging open) and hissed, "We can't talk here!"

"Your room then," said Hester.

Pennyroyal obeyed meekly enough, fetching his passkey from the astonished clerk and motioning for Theo and Hester to follow him up the stairs. Hester couldn't help feeling she had missed something. She had never met anyone as pleased with himself as Nimrod Pennyroyal. Why would he pretend to be someone else?

Room 128 was on the top floor: sloping ceilings, a tap dripping into a grimy metal handbasin, empty wine bottles on every level surface. Pennyroyal sank into a wicker chair beside the window. Hester let Theo in and kicked the door shut behind him.

"If you've come looking for Tom and Wren," the old man whimpered, "they took off days ago. Gone north, on some job for a fellow named Wolf Kobold."

"Tom and Wren were here?" asked Theo.

Hester seemed disconcerted by this sudden news of her

family. She stared at Pennyroyal for a moment, started to say something, stopped, and then recovered herself and snapped, "That's not why we came. We need money, Pennyroyal."

Pennyroyal let out a humorless bark, like a seal with bronchitis. "Money? You've come to me for money? Hal Never been much of a reader, have you, Hester? Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Why do you think I'm hiding in this dump?" He crouched down and pulled a tattered newspaper from beneath the heap of empty bottles and discarded socks under the bed. Shoving it at Hester and Theo, he said bitterly, "See? I'm ruined! Ruined! And it's all thanks to that daughter of yours!"

The paper was called
The Speculum.
A picture of Pennyroyal filled most of the front page. Beneath his smug, smiling face, heavy, black type screamed:

SAMPFORD SPINEY