Toymaker, The (19 page)

‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘What have we here?’

She took a sharp knife from one of the drawers and, none too carefully, cut the rope that tied the gag, so that Mathias could speak. He barely had the strength to say anything.

‘Help me,’ he said quietly. ‘Please help me?’

Estella stood looking at him like a lizard might look at a fly. Then she leaned her face nearer to his, and in that cat-silk voice of hers said, ‘Now, why should I want to do that?’

Mathias couldn’t turn his head enough to see what Estella was doing next. He could hear her moving around in the cart but could only guess what it was by the sounds she was making as she pulled the last covers from the bed and heaved the mattress onto the floor. That was where she’d found Lutsmann and Anna-Maria’s money, locked in a metal box, stuffed at the bottom of the mattress. At least, it sounded like money when she shook it, and that was good enough for her. She took the chisel she’d used on the door and prised the lid open. Mathias heard the scraping of metal on metal and the loose shower of coins cascading onto the wooden floor as the lid suddenly flew open. She swept them up and then Mathias heard her leave – the sound of her feet going down the steps outside. But something made
her stop, because she came quickly back up into the cart again. He tried to turn his head.

‘Please?’ he said.

She pushed the bottom of the bed out of the way and, stepping into the gap she’d made, bent over him. Gripping her fingers in his hair, she pulled his face round towards her. In her hand was the knife she’d used to cut the gag.

‘You’d tell, wouldn’t you, pretty boy?’ she hissed. ‘You’d say who’d been here, wouldn’t you? Save your own dirty little neck.’

Suddenly he was very frightened, because he knew what she was going to do next. ‘No,’ he said, and his voice was fluttering like a bird. ‘I wouldn’t tell.’

‘But you would if they made you. Then there’d be a rope waiting for my neck if they ever caught up with me.’ She wound her fingers tighter, the edge of the blade brushing against his face.

‘No,’ said Mathias quickly. ‘I wouldn’t tell on you.’

‘But I can’t be sure of that, can I? And we’ve always been such – good – friends.’ She gritted her teeth and pulled hard on his hair as she said each word.

‘Yes,’ he said, but it was no more than a whisper.

She pulled his hair even tighter.

‘Yes!’

‘So I’m going to help you,’ she said in a quick, vicious voice. ‘That’s what friends do, isn’t it? They help each other.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then they’ll think it was you took their money. And it will be your neck they put the rope around if they catch up with you, not mine.’

Momentarily she held the knife in front of his eyes, then she slit through the cords around his wrists and ankles, picked up the box and went through the door. On the top step she turned round and looked back at him.

‘You’d better be quick,’ she said. ‘Or they might – just – come – back.’

He heard the sound of her feet going down the steps, and this time she didn’t stop.

Anna-Maria had shoved him as far into the corner as she could get him, and the cords had been tied very tight. As the blood came slowly back to Mathias’s hands and feet, it felt as though they were on fire. He couldn’t move without hurting. Slowly he unwound himself until he lay on his back, looking up into the roof of the cart. But there was no time to rest. Estella was right. They might come back at any moment. If he went, they’d be sure to think it was he
who’d stolen the money. But if he stayed? This was the only chance he was going to get. He pulled himself to his feet and the cart swam giddily around him. Reaching out with one hand, he leaned on the door frame to steady himself. Then, squinting against the bright morning sun, he went down the steps like an old man.

Stefan had given his word to Koenig that he wouldn’t hurt Katta. But keeping his word wasn’t something that Stefan was very good at doing. If you knew him, it wasn’t something that you’d really want to have to rely on.

Here she was, and here was his chance.

It would be easy to do. There were enough dark alleys. He could say he’d lost her – but he knew Koenig wouldn’t believe that. And he’d still have to find Mathias.

Or maybe, if he found Mathias, he could lose Katta.

As though she could hear what he was thinking, Katta kept her distance from him. She wouldn’t let him walk behind her. She made sure that she knew where he was. Sometimes he’d go down a side alley and motion for her to follow him, but she wouldn’t.
She’d wait, letting him look down there on his own. He always came back too quickly for her liking, and then she wasn’t sure that he’d really been looking at all.

But he was, because that’s what he’d decided to do.

He was going to find Mathias, and then he’d settle his account with this girl who’d pulled a knife across his good-looking face, even if it meant breaking his word to Koenig. He’d just need to be careful how he did it.

Besides, he’d broken his word to Koenig before. He’d had a lot of practice doing it. The reason was the thing that Mathias had seen but hadn’t been able to understand – the way that Stefan got away with so much. The answer was very simple.

He was Koenig’s brother.

That was why he’d come with them. It was his last chance to show Koenig what he could do. It wasn’t easy living in the shadow of someone like Koenig. Koenig who rode the big horse. Koenig who was everything Stefan wasn’t. Koenig who could fight. Koenig who was never scared. Koenig who everyone liked or, if not, respected.

It was like living under a mountain, and the sun never shone on Stefan.

But this was his chance. And what had he done? He’d fallen asleep when he’d been left to stay awake. He’d lost the boy because he’d run away – Koenig knew that. Of course he knew it.

But in Stefan’s mind, none of it was his fault. There was only one person to blame.

Katta.

It wasn’t just the knife, though that would have been enough. It was everything else too.

All morning they walked the streets of the lower town while the church bells rang. At first Katta would stop people and ask them if they’d seen a boy, but most – if they stopped at all – just shrugged. One street boy looked like another. In the end she gave up even asking. She looked in doorways and behind the filth piled beside the road, but it was hopeless. He was nowhere to be seen.

Then Stefan had given a shout and started running. Katta had run too, her heart racing, but the boy he’d seen wasn’t Mathias. They realized it as soon as he turned his head and stared at them, and then it felt even worse.

At last there was nothing to do but go back to the inn and wait for Koenig. See if he’d had any better
luck. So they began to walk back down the hill towards the harbour.

As they did so, Katta stopped to look at the ice and the islands beyond.

She hardly noticed the boy huddled in the dark doorway until he moved.

It was Mathias.

As Katta bent over him, he flinched away. He thought that she was Anna-Maria come to find him. She had to hold onto him and say her name over and over again until at last he heard her and understood who she really was.

All the time she was bent over him, Stefan stood behind her, looking up and down the street, his hand holding something inside his coat. But there were too many people. By the time Katta turned round and looked up at him, he’d taken his hand out of his coat, and she never knew what he’d been about to do.

Between them, Stefan and Katta carried Mathias back to the inn. Koenig wasn’t there. They laid Mathias on the bed. Katta sat beside him, holding his hand, but he didn’t speak. There was so much that he had to tell Koenig, and he was saving his strength for that. But when Koenig came, he wouldn’t listen. He tipped a whole cupful of the dark drink into Mathias’s mouth, and before Mathias could say anything, the soft hooked feathers of sleep began to fill his head. He wanted to tell about Anna-Maria – that she knew everything. He wanted to say who it was she and Lutsmann had gone to see, but the words wouldn’t come. His
tongue was fat and filled his whole head. It wouldn’t move. If he shut his eyes, he thought, maybe he could open them and try again. But his eyelids were so heavy.

So heavy.

Valter stood in Lutsmann’s cart. He had broken all Lutsmann’s fingers, one by one. Bent them back until they’d snapped like dry sticks. Lutsmann had told him where the boy was straight away. But Valter had still broken all his fingers just the same. It had been a good game. It had made up for losing the boy in the wood and walking empty-handed all the way back.

But there was no sign of the boy here.

The cut cords that Anna-Maria had tied Mathias with lay on the floor. Valter picked them up and sniffed at them. They smelled of the boy, but they were cold to the touch. He’d been gone a long time. For a moment he stood looking around at the cart. It was all awry. He could see that someone had searched it, but didn’t know what it meant. Then he noticed something smeared on the door frame. He tipped his head to one side and looked at it. Touching it, he put his fingers to his mouth and
licked them. Whatever it was smelled of the boy, but tasted of ash and treacle. He stood at the top of the steps and looked out. Sharp though his sense of smell was, Valter couldn’t follow Mathias’s scent through the town; there were too many other stinks that overlaid it.

He curled the cut cords around his hand and slipped them into his pocket. His master hadn’t let him ask the woman any questions yet. There hadn’t been time for that. Maybe, if he did, thought Valter, she would know where the boy had gone.

He smiled – a slow, cruel smile.

He knew lots of games they could play to help her remember.

While Mathias slept, Koenig had taken his coat and shirt from him and dressed his shoulder as best he could. Then he had bound Mathias’s ribs tight. But Mathias was ill. That was obvious. There was a grey pallor to his skin that hadn’t been there before. When Koenig put his hand to the boy’s head, it was hot and waxy to the touch. He needed a doctor, not a drug.

Katta could see that too. She’d watched Koenig clean Mathias’s shoulder and make a pad of Tashka’s
paste, then wrap the wounds again and tighten the bandage around his chest. But it wasn’t care, she told herself. It was just keeping Mathias alive – that’s all Koenig wanted. He needed Mathias if he was going to find the other piece of paper. Then what would he do? He didn’t need her at all. He only needed Mathias. She felt the palms of her hands grow damp. She could go downstairs now and slip away – it wouldn’t matter. He probably wouldn’t even come after her. But she’d been there before, and she couldn’t do it. She looked at Mathias, waxen-faced on the bed, and knew that she couldn’t leave him on his own.

‘He needs to see a doctor,’ she said.

‘After we have seen Jacob,’ said Koenig. ‘We will take him then.’

‘No,’ said Katta. ‘He needs a doctor now.’

‘Tonight,’ said Koenig, and he wasn’t going to be moved. ‘After we have seen Jacob.’

There was no choice.

‘He’s got to see a doctor then,’ she said.

‘He will,’ said Koenig.

But she didn’t believe him.

The rest of the day crept past while Mathias slept. Katta kept well away from Stefan. She sat by the
window and looked out. There had been a procession to watch. The bells had stopped ringing, all save one, which tolled solemnly as the procession slowly wound its way around the harbour. She watched it come. At its front was a statue of an angel, all golden robes and feathers. The men who carried it on their shoulders shuffled under its weight. Its wings were stretched towards the sea. Boys in church robes swinging smoking censers had gone before it and priests in their robes had come behind. In the crowd that followed, people carried small statues and paintings of the angel, which they held up to be blessed.

But it wasn’t the angel that had made Katta stare, though that was rich and gold, and they dipped it down to touch the water where the ice had been broken for it; it was the Duke of Felissehaven. Koenig pointed him out to her. He was wearing a robe finer than any other man’s, with the Council of the City walking slowly behind him. People bowed as he passed, and it struck Katta, looking down from her window, that it wasn’t respect or love that made them do it. It was fear. She could feel it pass like a wave through the crowd beneath her, and when she saw his face, she understood why. It was hard and
empty and merciless. As he walked, he looked at the people, turning his head slowly one way, then the other, and they quailed before him.

It hadn’t always been so, Koenig told her. There’d been a time when the Duke had been loved. But that had changed ten or eleven years past. He’d been ill, they said. And now he was cruel like this, and no one dared oppose him. There was a length of rope and a dark drop for any that did.

It was his face that she remembered long after the people had gone. If it hadn’t fixed her attention so much, she might have seen in the procession another face, one that she already knew – that of the Duke’s physician – moon-shaped, and carrying a silver-topped cane.