The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter (16 page)

“Afraid of the truth?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’ll know when you lie.”

Then she was climbing the steps and knocking on the wagon door. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself pulled into the sudden dark and incense-thick air of the interior. I blinked rapidly, then opened my eyes as wide as they would go, trying to pierce the gloom.

The low sun outside had bathed the field in dazzling light. Here the only illumination came from a curiously shaped oil lamp hanging from the roof, its feeble flame sheathed in dark red glass. To the right, a workbench ran the length of the wagon. A cloth had been thrown over it, a landscape of hummocks and valleys, hinting at the objects that must be concealed beneath. To the left, Silvan and Fabulo sat on tall stools. The dwarf’s feet dangled.

“You’ve been asking questions,” said Silvan.

“Yes, sir.”

“What questions?”

“Anything to help me know my new home.”

“What did you discover?”

“Ordinary things.”

“But these are not ordinary times. Where did you learn to play Wild Eights?”

“I’d never played.”

“Lying won’t help you,” he said.

“She speaks truth,” said the fortune-teller, who was standing next to me, still gripping my wrist.

My eyes were growing accustomed to the dim red light now. Enough for me to read Fabulo’s incredulity.

“Tania tells me you’ve been a traveller in the Kingdom,” said Silvan.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now running away from Sleaford?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s a lie,” said the fortune-teller.

“Lies won’t save you,” Silvan said, pulling a long, slender knife from a sheath strapped to his leg. It came free with a metallic whisper, just audible in the silence.

My mouth was suddenly dry. “I live in North Leicester,” I said.

Silvan looked to the fortune-teller, who nodded.

Then from the shadows at the back a new voice spoke. Though quiet, it possessed a resonant quality that seemed to fill the wagon. “Come closer,” it said.

Tania pulled me forward, past Fabulo and Silvan, until I stood directly under the lamp and could make out a cot at the head of the wagon. On it reclined the great impresario himself.

With a small, precise movement, he beckoned me further forward. For no reason I could explain, my heart pumped harder at this than it had at the sight of Silvan’s knife. When I stood but a pace from him he held up his hand for me to stop. In the famous illustration he wore a moustache of unusual breadth and thickness. The man before me was clean shaven, but there could be no mistaking him. The Roman nose and high forehead made Harry Timpson instantly recognisable. I found myself staring at the strange opalescence of his eyes. Flecks of light caught in them, making the irises appear to glow. Nothing in the daybill illustration had prepared me for that.

He examined my face, then the details of my clothes, down to the hem of my skirt.

“Why does a traveller of the Kingdom live in a Republican city?” he asked.

I opened my mouth then closed it again. A clock ticked somewhere under the cloth on the workbench. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

“Answer him,” hissed Tania.

Two futures lay ahead, depending on what I said.

“Get rid of her,” said Silvan.

Tania pulled my arm back towards the door.

“I’m an exile!” The word blurted through my lips as if unbidden. “I was born in the Circus of Mysteries.”

Timpson inclined his body forward. “Barnabus died in debtor’s prison, I hear.”

I nodded.

“I met him once. He didn’t seem a man who’d take risks with money.”

“The Duke of Northampton bought up our family debts. He bribed an official. We were fined and there was no money left to pay.

“A crooked magistrate,” Timpson mused. “That I can understand.”

“He wasn’t a magistrate, sir. He was an agent of the Patent Office.”

“Liar,” growled Fabulo behind me.

“Truth,” said the fortune-teller.

Timpson shook his head. “To bribe an agent of the Patent Office... Barnabus wasn’t rich. Why would the Duke take such risks to corner a poor man? What did Barnabus possess that he so desired?”

“He wanted our pretty Elizabeth,” said the fortune-teller, close beside me.

“You’re Barnabus’s daughter? By the Devil himself!” Timpson started laughing. “She worked you like a josser, Silvan.”

“I didn’t lie,” I said, “I’d never played Wild Eights before.”

“You didn’t need to. I’d wager old man Barnabus had you palming aces before you were weaned.”

“Why’s she here?” growled Silvan.

I twisted my hand away from the fortune-teller’s grip. “I live on the canal cut, sir. I once thought that would be enough. My father used to say that for the sickness of the exile the only cure is return. But the–”

“But the sickness of the rootless will admit of no remedy,” Timpson said, completing the quote. He held my gaze for a long time after that. The clock of my fate had been fully wound. Its cogs were now in motion.

Chapter 17

Lying is an art form. It becomes sin only if the deception is discovered.

– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

Though I had won my place in the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders, Lara and Ellie were the only ones to have truly accepted me. Sal now avoided my company, having been scolded by Fabulo for telling me too much. Yan, the Dutchman with the forked beard, remained polite, though he never let down his guard. Silvan continued to be aggressive and I saw little of Tania, for she spent most of her time collecting wild food from the hedgerows.

I had been gathering such intelligence as I could amid these suspicions and hostility. The troop numbered thirty-eight souls. Each I had now matched to a sleeping wagon. Nowhere could I find a sign of the Duchess’s brother. But for Sal letting slip that I was not the only newcomer in the last year, I might have begun to doubt.

One of the five men from the card game had caught my attention, though I had yet to hear him speak. Hammocks of skin hung below his eyes, suggesting a lack of sleep, perhaps over many years. I took to watching him as he picked his way around the field – a gaunt figure, even when wrapped in a winter cloak. I sensed he watched me also. Not knowing his name, I began to think of him as the Sleepless Man.

The night after my interrogation, having at last completed my allotted tasks, I crouched in the shadow behind a stack of baled hay, keeping watch on Timpson’s wagon. And there I saw the Sleepless Man again. He strolled, artificially relaxed I thought, then stopped to tie his laces, giving the impression of one who took time easily. But I saw him glance around, just as I might have done if checking for shadows out of place.

I did not make the mistake of ducking into cover when he looked in my direction, but held my breath, bracing to remain as still as the saddle that rested on the bale next to me. Only when he stepped over to the shadow of Timpson’s wagon, did I notice that Silvan had been standing there, as still as myself.

Of their conversation I could have heard nothing, even had I been able to approach. The Sleepless Man bent in close, his ear next to Silvan’s mouth. From time to time he nodded. I saw the purse only because I had expected it. It passed from Silvan as they shook hands and was deposited beneath the Sleepless Man’s cloak before he had taken three strides away.

That the Sleepless Man was an intelligence gatherer seemed clear enough. But the nature of the payment remained a mystery. I backed away, only turning to run when certain I was out of view. Blind in the shadow of the big top, I stumbled twice, but righted myself. Skirting the field the long way around gave me three times the distance to run. But I reached the horses before him, creeping the last fifty yards bent low, so as to make no silhouette above the hedge.

The horses heard me, or smelled me perhaps. Their ears twitched. One pawed the ground. Another snorted. Yet the lad who sat with them kept watch also on a bottle of cider and had no such keen senses. I observed the Sleepless Man as he approached.

“I’ll be taking the grey,” he said, his voice breathy, like wind through dead grass. He advanced on the finest beast, patting its flank.

“Can’t have him,” said the boy.

“I’m on the rum col’s business.”

“Then take this one.” The boy made to untether a smaller mount.

“Going to tell Silvan to wait five days for news, not four? Brave lad.”

The boy’s hand froze on the rope. The grey pawed the ground, picking up the tension. The Sleepless Man untied it and began leading it away. “Wise choice,” he said.

The horse passed within two paces of where I crouched. I watched him saddle the beast, then mount and ride out into the lane.

Five days would see a man to Leicester and back with time between to investigate. But on a fine beast such as the grey, the journey might be done in four. How long would he have to search the cut before he found my wharf? And how many people would he need to question before he learned that Elizabeth Barnabus was sister to a private gatherer of intelligence?

Chapter 18

Practise every gesture, move, expression and word until the significant appears trivial and the trivial appears significant.

– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

Save for the Sleepless Man, I had now spoken with every person in Harry Timpson’s troop. I knew the names of most and was starting to understand their places in the machine of the travelling show. The boy who looked after the horses. The labourers who fetched fresh hay and food supplies and who would doubtless carry the bulk of the strain at pitching time. I now knew that Lara sold kisses in a tent in the sideshow. I knew that the Dutchman with the forked beard could put his hands into the mouth of the older lion, but would not dare put them into the mouth of the younger one. And I knew that Ellie used her smile to distract jossers when she took their money playing Find the Lady, for I had caught her practising in the wagon.

Sal threw and juggled knives and swallowed swords. Fire also featured in his act. I had seen him wet a length of fabric with clear liquid from his flask. Touched to a candle, the fabric burned with an oily yellow flame. Plunging his hand into the fire, he would gather the material into a ball which he squeezed, extinguishing it instantly. This he did again and again until the contents of the flask were used up.

Fabulo’s place in the show was easy enough to explain. Any freakish thing would attract a crowd. There was also a bearded woman, and a lad with seven fingers on his left hand. That Fabulo could perform cartwheels would clearly be a bonus. But there was something more about him, for even though I had seen him as the butt of many jokes from others in the troop, there was also a certain respect. This impression had deepened when I found him in Timpson’s wagon with Silvan on the occasion of my interrogation.

But in all the exotic mix, I had found no one who carried the accent and manners of a Kingdom aristocrat. Reasoning that if the Duchess’s brother were still with the show he must be hiding, I had started to track the food supplies. However well hidden, the man must eat.

The first jossers arrived before dusk. They mingled on the lane, none of them wanting to be the first to step onto the field, as if it had temporarily become part of a different land, foreign and exotic. Dangerous also perhaps, but infinitely enticing. What in all Lincolnshire could compare to the lights and colours promised within?

And the girls, of course. Lara and Ellie were now dressed as I had seen one of them that first night, skirts flared up scandalously short at the front, revealing red and black striped stockings. Their upper garments too were designed to catch the eye. In cut and in the full cross lacing at front and back they more resembled corsets than respectable outerwear. Thus attired, they strolled across the field, passing close to the lane in the pretence of carrying some message to the lad who minded the horses.

I can only imagine the anticipation among that crowd of young men, now numbering more than thirty. With the dark drawing in, my two beautiful wagon mates approached the lane once more. This time they carried lamps and tapers. One by one they lit the lines of torches embedded in the turf, creating an illuminated causeway from the gate to the big top.

At such a distance, I could not hear the words they spoke to the local lads. But whatever was said, it served to break the invisible barrier. The crowd poured onto the field, following Lara and Ellie all the way to the mouth of the big top, where they formed a rowdy queue, each taking his turn to pay and step inside.

The stream of new arrivals now included women, family groups, children and old people. Most came on foot, but some rode or even arrived in carriages.

Slipping in with the line of jossers, I stepped casually to the entrance. Inside, I could see the horseshoe of benches beginning to fill. The low, expectant hum of voices made the skin on the back of my neck prickle. It had been five years since I’d heard that sound. My life had been so changed since then as to have become a new life entirely.

“Go mind the horses,” said Silvan.

He had stepped in front of me, arms folded, and was now barring my way.

“May I not watch the show?”

“The horses,” he said again.

People behind me in the queue were pushing to pass. I could feel Silvan’s eyes on me. There was no compromise in him. I stepped aside, feeling the sudden and unexpected exclusion so keenly that I had to hurry away. I did not want my pain to be seen.

A man with bruised pride may block your path for spite and no logic will have him change. Silvan had good cause to hold a grudge. He knew I had cheated him at cards. But I took him to be a man driven more by cold logic than revenge.

Men like Silvan survive through caution. Since my arrival he had tried to keep me busy in places where I could be watched yet see little. He would be waiting for news from the Sleepless Man to back up or contradict the story I had given. Since I already knew the intelligence he would receive – that I was sister to a spy – I knew also that I must be gone before the Sleepless Man returned.