The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter (21 page)

“I wasn’t permitted, sir.”

“And that would stop you? I recognise a kindred spirit, Elizabeth Barnabus. You’re like your old man. Do you want to know why I’ve kept my troop here for so long? It’s dangerous, as you’ve witnessed. Staying still we’re too easily found. And we’ve already emptied the purses of the locals. No more money’s going to flow in.”

“Then make some gold,” I said.

Bending forward he selected three playing cards from a spilled deck on the floor – the queen of spades and a pair of twos. Having shown me each in turn, he placed them face down on the cot next to him, the queen in the middle. He then slid them around, middle to edge, edge to middle, back and forth, slowly enough to follow. Though old, his fingers were still dextrous.

“Now,” he said. “Where’s the queen?”

Knowing what to look for, I had seen the trick. But not wishing to reveal my knowledge, I placed my finger on the centre card, the one that should have been the queen but for his sleight of hand.

He turned the card over, revealing the queen of spades, which absolutely should not have been there, for he had switched it. I had seen him do it.

“You honour me,” Timpson said.

“How so?”

“In the Bullet Catcher’s Handbook it’s written that the great illusion is the one the audience doesn’t see. But greater than that is one that makes a fool of another illusionist.”

“But I chose correct.”

“Then why the widening of your eyes as you saw the card? Did you think it was only Tania who could read minds from faces?”

“I did see a sleight,” I admitted. “Or thought I did.”

“Good. We shall have the truth from each other. And you’ve seen also the secret of my alchemy?”

“I thought I had. The crucible is the gimmick. Gold is hidden in its walls. The lead runs out through a hole in the base. But then I saw you sell the gold for half its value. Do you take the loss for fame alone?”

Timpson smiled. “You honour me again. But that secret must remain with me.”

He paused to take another sip from the flask. This time he did not cough. “How old am I do you suppose?”

“My father met you. That must have been before I was born.”

“Long before,” Timpson said. “I was a grey hair even then. And him just starting out. He wanted a place in my troop, did you know that?”

“He never said.”

“I turned him down. He would have been ashamed to admit it.”

“He wasn’t good enough?”

“Too good. A man like that needs a troop of his own. He’d never have stayed.”

Timpson fell silent. The act of talking seemed to have tired him. I waited, thinking about my father, trying to imagine him as a precocious young conjuror of my own age perhaps. If I had been born male, everything would have happened differently. The Duke of Northampton would never have moved against my family. My father would still be alive and I would be the apprentice ringmaster in the Circus of Mysteries as it meandered through the lanes of the Kingdom.

Timpson screwed the top on the flask he had been sipping from. “I once believed that the elixir, when found, would lead to the prolongation of human life,” he said. “Perhaps indefinitely. But every year that passes brings the truth home to me more forcefully. Death is not our enemy. It is decrepitude that we must fight.”

“You’re fortunate,” I said.

“How so?”

“My father never achieved your age.”

“But he died in full vigour. To manage the pain I must take laudanum. But that fogs my mind and puts my goals beyond reach. I choose to leave the opiates on the shelf and rely on weaker tonics. I’ll not live much longer. But I’d have immortality for my name at least. And that, the elixir may still offer.”

“Then you do give your gold away for fame.”

“I seek the end of illusion. The elixir is close to me now. I’ll pay any price to possess it. Do you understand that? Any price. The pieces are in place. I wait for the other side to make its move. I’ve kept the troop here in this field so that those who’ve been following may find us. And I believe you, Miss Barnabus, to be one of those people. Thus I’ve suffered you to remain while I discover whether you’re a pawn or a queen. Perhaps you’re an agent of the Patent Office.”

“Never that!”

His opal eyes held me for a moment. “You’ll be confined until such time as your role is proved. Then we’ll decide what to do with you.”

I backed away, treading clothing underfoot. He reached for the smoked glass goggles, placing them over his eyes as I opened the door. I turned, ready to sprint for the lane. But Silvan was waiting for me, one hand resting on the hilt of his knife. Sal stood beside him, a full foot taller, the small bundle of my clothes and possessions clutched to his chest and an expression of infinite sadness on his face.

When bargaining with Silvan to join the troop, I had suggested the beast wagon as a place to sleep. I could not have guessed that within a week I would find myself locked there in the cage opposite the two lions.

I was given a bale of fresh straw, half a loaf of dark bread, a hunk of salty ham and a wine bottle filled with water. Then the gate was closed and the wooden flats to either side were raised, hiding me from casual view. No sooner had they left than I was busy with the work of escape. Reaching my arm through the bars I stretched out towards the vertical rod that would, if raised, unlock the gate. My fingers groped air, inches short of their goal.

Having tried until my shoulder was sore, I gave up and settled down for the night, wrapping all my clothes around me and burying myself in straw. There I lay, listening to the breathing of the lions in their cage and trying to fall asleep. But each time I drifted off, the cold crept into my body, waking me again. I clenched and relaxed my hands and scrunched my toes in my boots until blood and feeling returned. In my few moments of sleep, dreams came rushing in – Fabulo swearing at me, Silvan gripping a knife, Timpson removing his goggles to reveal holes where his eyes should have been.

When grey lines marked out the cracks between boards and side panels, I knew that dawn had started to spread from the east.

The ham they had given me seemed all salt and the bread was already going stale. But the cold had built a hunger in me and I devoured my meal as would any wild beast. Then I sat with my back to the end boards looking down the length of the wagon. From my confinement, I stared beyond the bars to the narrow space between the cages, then through more bars to the cage where the lions lay together.

I was to have swept the beast wagons clean the day before. But the visitation of the Patent Office had upturned our routine. The soiled straw stank of ammonia despite the cold.

A long crack ran between the side panels on the right-hand side of the wagon. Peering through it I could see the field. At first everything seemed painted in shades of grey. But as the light grew I began to make out colours – the reds and blues of the nearest wagon, the green stripes of the big top.

I must have drifted into another light sleep, because I was suddenly aware of my head falling forwards. I jerked it back upright. From within my dream I had heard a sound. I blinked rapidly, trying to sharpen my focus. Both lions were standing. One paced up and down the pitifully small cage.

The noise came again. A gentle scratching against the side of the wagon nearest the hedge. Suddenly a wooden panel began to swing down. There was a deep, rumbling growl from one of the lions and light streamed in. Before I could make out clearly what had happened, a figure had sprung into the space between the cages and the side panel was closing once more.

“Tinker!”

“Keep hush, miss. I’m not to be here.” He reached into his long coat and pulled out a wrinkled apple, which he passed through the bars and placed in my hand. “Yours,” he whispered.

Examining it, I realised it was the same apple I had given to him the night we were supposed to be keeping watch on the horses. “You should have eaten it.”

“No one gave me a present before.”

I tried to pass it back to him but he shook his head. “Eat.” And such was the intensity of his instruction that I took a bite. The flesh was soft, the juice sweet.

“What am I to do, Tinker?”

“You’re to stay locked and hidden. No one’s to talk to you.”

“But here you are.”

“They’d whip me if they found me.”

“Here...” I passed the apple back to him through the bars. “If we’re both in trouble we should both eat.”

This time he accepted it. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a small bite from the other side of the apple. It wasn’t a mingling of blood exactly, but there was something in this small intimacy of sharing that suggested a binding ritual.

In the other cage, the lions lay down once more. From somewhere out in the field came the sound of chopping wood.

“I was born in a travelling show,” I said. “When my mother knew it was time, she told my father and he ordered all the wagons to stop. I came into this world at the side of a lane between a field and a copse of trees. I know it was the middle of the night, but I don’t know where exactly.”

“I was born in the stable,” said Tinker.

Each time this boy had confided in me, it had been through his own volition, not my probing. So I held my tongue and let the moment stretch until it pressed against us. I took the apple back through the bars and bit again.

“They had a big house,” said Tinker. “Big...” He stretched his arms wide to add emphasis. “Hundred rooms. More than that. Servants like an army.”

“The Duke of Bletchley?”

He nodded.

“The Duke sent your mother to the stable? That’s not nice.”

“Nah, the stable was grand. And he fed us good.”

“And the Duchess’s brother?”

Tinkers face lit up into a smile. “Mr Orville. He’s kind, like you. He sees Dada beat me, so he gets me out from the stable and has me run jobs for him in the workshop with all the machines. Fetch tools. Bring food. Gets me to turn the handles and make the wheels spin.”

“Is that why you’re afraid of going back – because your dada beat you?”

Tinker pressed his mouth tight closed, the pain of memories written across his face.

“I know someone who dearly loves Mr Orville,” I said. “She wants to find him again. From the things you say about him, I can understand why he earned that love. He’s kind and clever too. A man who can understand the ways of machines and devices. That’s a marvellous thing. Did he understand them all?”

“No,” said Tinker, cautiously. “Too many for that. And no saying what goes with what. Not even Zoran knows all of ‘em.”

“Zoran?” The name seemed familiar to me, though I could not place it.

Tinker nodded, enthusiasm beginning to animate him once more. It seemed that so long as we stayed on happy memories, he would continue to talk.

“Was Mr Zoran also kind?”

“He said not to call ‘im mister. Just Zoran. He’s old. Skin wrinkled like that apple. Hands didn’t work proper. Like the bones went all the wrong places. And he’s got fingers missing.” Tinker illustrated by holding up his own right hand with the two middle fingers bent down. “Couldn’t hold tools no more. But Mr Orville does that for him. One talks the other does. They opens it up and looks inside. And they talks and pokes at it and talks more. Can’t figure ‘em all though. Never. Coz there’s hundreds. And the papers don’t say all the secrets. Never write your secrets down, that’s what Zoran says.”

I passed the apple back through the bars and placed it in his hand. He raised it reverently and took another bite, keeping clear of the side from which I had been eating.

My being locked behind bars seemed to be making it easier for him to tell his story. Perhaps he perceived it to have levelled my status with his. Or perhaps in my misfortune he saw something of his own history. Even now, I knew he would not elaborate the story of his father’s brutality. And I guessed that would make the circumstances of their departure from Buckinghamshire a forbidden subject also.

“Can you tell me of the machine, Tinker? How did it draw light in the air?”

He resolutely shook his head, but the anxiety did not return to his face.

“Did Mr Orville instruct you to keep it secret?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll ask nothing more about it. Indeed, I don’t wish to know, unless by knowing I can better help Mr Orville find the one who loves him. Did Zoran understand the machine?”

“No.” The boy took another bite of the apple, content it seemed for me to pursue this line of questions.

“Yet, they made it draw light in the air?”

“Yup.”

“Was that not its function – to draw?”

“Mr Orville didn’t know for sure. Nor Zoran.”

“Zoran...?” I sounded the name slowly, letting it roll over my tongue. It felt so familiar. “Zoran. Not Mr Zoran.” The memory came back to me all in a rush. My father telling me stories of other magic shows he had seen in his childhood, other illusionists. There had been a bullet catching act. The Great Zoran.

What better helper could Mr Orville have employed to understand the arcane machines in the Duke’s workshop? Cryptic devices and hidden mechanisms are the very crux of the bullet catcher’s art. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle had started to interlock.

“Did they need help in understanding the machine?”

“Yes.”

“Did Zoran send a message to someone, telling of the machine and asking for that help?”

Tinker nodded.

“Harry Timpson pitched the big top near the Duke’s estate. But it was no surprise to Mr Orville. They’d invited him.”

I did not need to wait for Tinker’s confirmation. With each new thought the truth became more obvious. What could have persuaded Timpson to take the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders south across the border into the Kingdom for the first and final time? Only his life’s goal.

“Tinker? Does the machine make gold?”

Tinker placed his finger across his lips, signalling that I should speak no more. It was the only indication he gave of the truth of my words. But it was enough.

With the Patent Office hard on his heels, Mr Orville had fled, taking the machine with him. First to the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders. What a sanctuary that must have seemed. And how eagerly must Harry Timpson have welcomed him. Then quickly they crossed back across the border, moving on every few days, hard to follow even should the Patent Office realise where he had run to.