Doubleborn (15 page)

Tamrin slowed down as they approached the tailor’s shop and she looked carefully at the sides of the street.

“Are there any roffle holes here?” she asked. “Straight down to the Deep World?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you that,” he said, and he slipped to one side of a large door frame and disappeared. Tamrin darted after him but it was no good. He was too fast for her. She felt at the edges of the door frame for gaps to slip through. As far as she could work out it was tight to the wall.

“Come on,” said Solder.

She looked up and he was standing three doors along, grinning and tapping his fingers on his leather barrel.

Tamrin flapped a “shh” hand at him and caught him up.

“Are they everywhere?” she whispered.

“Not everywhere. Some places there are hardly any. It’s useful to have a lot in towns, just in case you need to slip away in a hurry. We try not to go in and out when anyone’s watching, so they don’t know how many there are or where they are.”

“I can’t find them, even when I know where to look,” she complained.

“You’ll learn.”

“Will I?”

“If I teach you.”

“Will you teach me?” Tamrin hesitated. “I was in the Deep World,” she said. “Once.”

Solder shook his head.

“I was.”

“Up Toppers don’t go there any more,” he said.

Tamrin was beginning to feel that everything she had known about herself was slipping away.

“I’m not a liar,” she said. “I’ve been down there.”

Solder looked steadily at her.

“What’s it like?” he asked. “In the Deep World. Tell me three things.”

“That’s just the thing. I was there for a long time, and I can’t remember.”

Solder whistled softly.

“So you have been,” he said.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. People who tell you about the Deep World have never seen it. A few people have, and they can’t remember. Most of them don’t even remember that they’ve even been there.”

“I was ill,” she said. “Before I went there. When I was there.”

“How did you get in?”

Tamrin shrugged. She remembered that part, but she wasn’t ready to tell him yet.

Solder put his hand on her arm and pointed to the shop. They had left Jaimar’s at dusk. Now the street was in full darkness. All the shops were closed, most of them shuttered. Some of the shopkeepers lived over the shop and there were lights on in the upper windows. Others were dark from top to earth.

The upper windows of Shoddle’s were lit. And the lower window, the shop front itself. They could see the rolls of cloth propped up, and his shadow on the wall.

“Why is it only his shop with lights burning?” asked Solder.

“He needs his bench,” said Tamrin. “A tailor can’t work anywhere. You need a long, clean surface to spread the cloth out, to measure it, cut it, keep it smooth.”

“That’s all right, then. I thought it might be a trap. He’s just working late.”

Tamrin bit her lip.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What?”

“Well, a tailor needs lots of light. Small stitches, careful cutting, neat edges. You can’t do those by lamplight.”

“We should go back,” said Solder. “It’s not such a good idea to look in. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

“And dangle by a rope from the roof?” said Tamrin. “I don’t think so. Come on.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” he objected. “You said we could watch him by night, when he works by lamplight. Now you say tailors don’t work at night. So it can’t be right. That’s just what he’s doing.”

“It means he’s not just a tailor, doesn’t it?” she said. “And he’s not just making ordinary clothes.

She looked up, startled at a movement in the corner of her eye. Bats flapped overhead, diving for food, swerving to miss the overhanging upper chambers.

“I knew it. I knew there would be something wrong with him.”

She moved carefully towards the tailor’s, her shoulder against the wall. His lamp threw a yellow square of light on the shutters opposite.

“If he’s doing something wrong,” said Solder, “why isn’t he doing it with his shutters closed? Why would he want people to be able to see in?”

“He might be expecting someone.”

Solder clicked his tongue at her.

“They could knock! He’s waiting for us. Of course he is.”

Tamrin edged closer.

“He doesn’t even know you,” she said.

“He’s waiting for you. And I’m with you. So if it’s a trap for you it’s a trap for me, too.”

Tamrin stopped.

“You’re right,” she said.

“I am?”

“Yes. It’s a trap. It’s obvious. He may not know we’re in town. He may not know how near or far we are.” She corrected herself. “How near I am. But he’s waiting for me. He knows I’ll come looking for him.”

Solder relaxed and smiled.

“Good. We can go back and think it through.”

He started to walk towards the end of the street.

“No.”

He stopped.

“No?”

“No. I’m going into the shop.”

“You can’t.”

“Watch me.”

Before Solder could call out to stop her Tamrin ran across the street, knocked on the door and, without waiting for an answer, threw it open and walked in.

A bell jangled above her head. She didn’t give Solder time to follow. She shut the door and looked at the tailor sitting cross-legged on his bench.

“You’ve taken your time,” he said. ||

close up to his face, stitching with fast strokes of the needle. He took his eyes from his work, stared for a moment at Tamrin as if to make sure it was her, then looked down and continued.

“You knew I was coming?” asked Tamrin.

“Where else could you go?”

Tamrin stepped closer to see what he was sewing. He didn’t look up.

It was a sack.

She looked at the rolls of cloth against the walls.

Except there weren’t any.

They were just piles of sacks.

“What are you doing?”

He stopped sewing and held up his work. It was a jacket, ragged and rough, not fit for a labourer in the field.

“Nice, isn’t it?” he said.

He lowered it to his lap and continued sewing. The needle was thick and long to get through the harsh cloth.

“It’s rubbish. It’s a sack.”

Shoddle’s needle jabbed and stitched. He tugged the coarse thread through the sacking.

“So you can see it? You see all the sacks?”

“Of course.”

“They can’t. The man who chose this thinks it’s the softest worsted, green flecked with red threads. He rubbed it against his face and said it was the finest cloth he’d ever seen.”

Tamrin walked round the shop, touching the sacks. They were clean and new, but rough, hard, loose-woven.

“How did I get here?” she asked, her back to Shoddle.

“Can’t you remember?”

“No.”

“Did you walk? All the way from the college?” he asked.

He was playing games.

“Not just now,” she said. “At first. How did I get here at first?”

“Oh, back then. Why didn’t you say?”

Tamrin spun round and pointed at him. He pushed the needle through the sacking and it carried on straight through the palm of his hand. He held his hand up and looked at it, the thread still connected to the sack, the point sticking through the back. Blood dripped on to the cloth and ran down and along his wrist. Tamrin could see he was in pain. He didn’t show it except for the tightness in his jaw and the set of his shoulders.

“You always were a spiteful little thing,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she said. “I’m not.”

He held his hand out to her.

“No?” he asked.

Tamrin hesitated, caught between the need to show him that she wasn’t spiteful and the desire to hurt him more.

She reached forward, tugged the needle and drew it right through his hand, pulling the thread after it so that his hand was stitched to the sack. He grimaced as the coarse fibre passed through his flesh.

“Perhaps I am,” she said.

She held the needle at arm’s length and watched the thread pull further through his hand.

“How did I get here?” she asked.

“I stole you.”

He watched her reaction.

“You didn’t expect that, did you?”

She let go of the needle.

“Where from?”

“Oh, that’s not so easy to answer.”

Tamrin reached her hand for the needle again. Stopped. Left it alone.

“Are you going to leave me like this?” he asked.

“Where did you steal me from? Who from? Why?”

“All in good time. You’re hurting me.”

Tamrin picked up Shoddle’s scissors and snipped the thread. She pulled it from his hand. Blood gushed from the wound. He looked at her, waiting.

“You’ll need to put something round that,” she said. “Sacking won’t be much good. It’ll go bad.”

She admired the way he ignored the pain. She wouldn’t have been able to. She almost admired the way he kept staring at her, challenging. He was not going to be an easy enemy to defeat. He put his hand on the bench, the blood pooling around it.

“You did it,” he said.

“I know. I’m not going to say sorry.”

“Not my hand. The sacks. You did that.”

Tamrin slid the half-sewn coat towards his hand, letting it soak up the blood.

“You made the magic that makes people think that sacks are fine clothes. Don’t you remember?”

He uncrossed his legs and re-crossed them the other way round.

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“You were little. I told you to do it.”

The jacket was heavy with blood. Shoddle’s face was becoming pale. He spoke more quickly. Tamrin took his hand and lifted it. She wound the thread loosely around his wrist and tied it. The bleeding stopped. He nodded.

“It’s worked well enough these years,” he said. “Until recently. Two months ago a lawyer came in with a gown I’d made for him.” Shoddle flapped his hand. “Pins and needles,” he said. He took the sack off and waggled his fingers.

“There was a patch on the shoulder. Not a patch, really. A ragged piece of sacking, inset, part of the fabric. The rest of it looked like silk.”

He opened and closed his fist. The wound had disappeared.

“That’s a neat job,” he said. “Anyway, the lawyer’s cloak.”

Tamrin concentrated hard and listened to him. His voice reached her through a long pipe, distant and with an echo. His face was blurred.

“This lawyer, he said that the patch of sacking had begun as big as a thumbnail. Every day it grew bigger. Now it was the size of a law book. He wanted his money back and a new gown.”

Tamrin leaned against the bench. It felt unstable, flexible. She could hear Shoddle but it was difficult to follow what he was saying. He was jumping from subject to subject.

“That’s it,” he said. “You lean against the bench. You’re tired. I remember that. Mending magic is always harder work you always said.” He held up his hand. “You mended this all right. No pain. Feels better than ever. You should do the other one. It aches in the cold weather.”

“Can I have a drink?”

“What’s that? Speak up.”

“Can I have a drink? Some water?”

“I’ll get you some in a minute. Don’t you remember? You made the bench turn any material I had into whatever I wanted it to be. Magic, you see. But it’s wearing off. There have been others bring their clothes back. And last week a man came in and he saw one of the sacks. Only one. But it was enough.”

“Magic always wears off, in time,” Tamrin whispered. It hurt her throat to talk.

“Well, you’re back now. You can top up the magic. Make it strong again. Before I lose all my customers.”

He jumped down from the bench. Tamrin stepped back. Turning her head she saw Solder’s face pressed against the glass.

“And more,” said Shoddle. “Much more magic. I’ve got plans for you.”

Tamrin steadied herself with her hand.

“I must have a drink.”

“Later. Plenty of time.”

He took her arm and led her through the shop. She staggered and he steadied her. There was a curtain. There was a stair. There was a door at the top of the stair. There was a room beyond the door. The room was small and low. A thick beam supported the ceiling. Black beams against bare, knapped flint crossed the walls. Sconces on the walls held lighted candles. The room had been prepared. He had known that she was coming. He had made it ready for her.

Tamrin looked for somewhere to sit. Shoddle let go of her arm and she stumbled. There was a window seat and Tamrin managed to get there without falling over. Her throat hurt right into her ears. Shoddle was grinning, running his hands through his hair, hopping, unable to keep still for excitement.

“Please let me have a drink.”

“Later. Later. Look here.”

The room was empty, save for something the size of a door standing near to the wall adjacent to the window. Shoddle stood next to it. His fingers twitched against a length of green dark damask that hung over it.

Tamrin struggled to sit up. Her back pressed against the window. She turned her face to put her cheek against the glass. It cooled her a little. Her sight cleared and came into sharp distinction. All at once she knew what the object was. It had wooden feet and an oak frame. Bigger than a door now that she looked properly. It was a mirror. Much like several she had seen in Smith’s room. The damask hid the reflecting surface, but she knew that was what it was.

Shoddle stood to one side. If he lifted the cloth she would see herself reflected in it.

She knew then, knew beyond doubt, that this was the mirror that Smith was looking for, the one that the handcart went round the lanes and roads searching out. And she knew which mirror it was.

“Don’t uncover it,” she said. It tore her throat to speak.

He grinned and made a theatrical gesture as if to lift the cloth.

“You wanted to know,” he said.

“What?”

“Where you come from. Don’t you want to know, after all?”

He couldn’t keep still. His glee spilled out into little dance steps and twitches.

Tamrin tried to stand and fell back. Something sharp dug into her back. She reached round to remove it. Her hand closed on the scissors that Smith had given her.