Fever Crumb Page 3

  The little girl tugged at Solent's sleeve and he leaned down to listen to what she whispered. "That's right, Fern. She's got no hair."

  The girl went back to staring at Fever, her small chin pressed against the head of the toy animal. Kit Solent said, 'This is my daughter, Fern, and my son, Ruan."

  "Good morning, Miss Crumb," said the boy.

  Fever nodded warily. The only child she had ever known was her own younger self. All she remembered about childhood was longing to grow up so that she would understand things as well as Dr. Crumb and be a child no longer. She had no idea what she should say to these two, who were staring at her so expectantly. She felt her ears turning pink. It occurred to her that there was a purpose to hair -- it hid your ears so that nobody could see them flush when you were embarrassed.

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  "Your Order has kept you something of a secret, Fever," said Kit Solent chattily. "A girl Engineer? I had no idea that there were such animals until Dr. Stayling mentioned you. He tells me you're the best of their apprentices. I decided at once that you were the girl to help me with my project. So much nicer for the children to have a young person about the house, instead of some stern old man."

  Fever's ears felt hotter and hotter. One of the Order's best apprentices? Dr. Stayling would hardly have called her that if he had seen the unreasonable panic she had gotten herself into simply trying to find her way to Solent's house. To avoid having to look at Kit Solent she stared out of the window instead, and saw that the chair was turning onto a shabby street that curved along the southeastern flank of Ludgate Hill. The tall houses, which had been the homes of the Scriven and their wealthy human collaborators, still showed signs of damage from the Skinners' Riots. Many were burned-out shells. Even those that were still standing had boarded windows, and the summer weeds waved head-high in their gardens. Fever knew that London's population had dwindled in the years since the Riots, as people moved south to warmer, safer, richer cities, but she had not realized that whole streets of houses lay abandoned so close to the Barbican.

  Or perhaps not quite abandoned. Outside one of those gaunt, derelict villas the chair slowed, then turned in through the

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  rusted-open gates to stop on a stretch of weedy gravel outside the front door.

  "Here we are!" said Solent brightly, and stepped out of the chair as the chairmen set it down, lifting Fern out after him and leaving Fever and Ruan to make their own way out while he rummaged in his purse for coins to pay the panting bearers.

  Fever stood on the gravel and looked up at the place where she was expected to live. It was a tall building, standing alone in what must have been gardens back in Scriven times, but was now a wasteland of brambles and overgrown topiary. Tall clumps of nettles swayed in the breeze, releasing their clouds of pollen like faint breaths of smoke. Most of the lower windows were boarded up, but some on the upper floors still had glass, dusty, dirty glass behind which swags of colored material had been pinned up as curtains. High above she saw a battered roof and some listing chimney pots.

  Solent caught her by the arm and propelled her up the front steps. "Welcome, Miss Crumb," he said, bending to unlock the heavy door. "Welcome to Number 17 Ludgate Hill Gardens, my humble home...."

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  ***

  5 At the Sign of the Mott and H oople

  Of all the pubs in many-taverned London, the Mott and Hoople on Ditch Street was the dimmest, the dingiest, the darkest, and the most dangerous. There had been a tavern on that spot for centuries, and the centuries seemed hardly to have changed it; it still held the same stale smell, still wore the same bulls-eyes of bottle-bottom glass in its stingy little windows, still had the same sick-and-sawdust covered floors, and the same old jar of ancient gherkins standing by the beer pumps on the bar. And behind the bar, the Mott's landlord, Ted Swiney, who grinned, and joked, and acted the jolly host, and stayed sober always, watching with mean, cunning, little piggish eyes while the customers squandered their last few farthings on his booze.

  That morning the talk in the Mott and Hoople was all about the news from the north. London's two newspapers, the Standard and the Alarmist , which could usually agree about nothing at all,

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  both claimed that a nomad outfit called the Movement was pushing south. The Standard said they were refugees, dislodged from their own holdings up north by the deepening ice, while the Alarmist reckoned they were invaders, bent on taking London for themselves. Both papers wanted to know why the Trained Bands, London's part-time militia, had not been sent north to reinforce the guards and lookouts who manned the Orbital Moatway.

  The drinkers in the Mott and Hoople wanted to know, too. Ted listened to their grumbling while he wiped the glasses clean. He was pleased by the edge of worry that he heard in their voices. When people got worried they started looking to the New Council to do something, and the New Council were a bunch of hapless do-gooders who were completely incapable of doing anything. Frustration and anger and violence would result, and it seemed to Ted that a man who understood the needs and workings of the London mob might use that anger to his own advantage.

  Because Ted had ambitions. He'd come from nothing to make himself a big man in that part of town. As well as the Mott and Hoople he had two other pubs, the Blogger's Arms on 'Bankmentside and the Polished Turd in B@ersea. He owned the Brimstone Brewery, too, and a row of tenements in Lemon Heel, which he let out at fearsome rents to low-end archaeologists and bar girls. It seemed to him that it was only Lord Mayor Gilpin Wheen and them other

  do-gooding poofs on the New Council who were stopping him from being bigger still. Secretly,

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  down in the basement of his mind, he stored a sly and precious dream: Tedward Swiney as Mayor of London.

  "Those nomad empires are tough," a digger at the bar was saying. "And they're tooled up with all kinds of old-tech, and terrible ancient weapons what they dig up out of the Ice Wastes."

  "Everyone knows the Movement's spies come in and out of London as they please," said another, a man with the stained hands and leather apron of a plasticsmith. "Dressed up as merchants and riding on them foreign land barges ...

  Ted shook his head, coming round the bar's end to kick fresh sawdust over a mound of last night's vomit and put the latest smell by Prince Nez into the pub's battered scent lantern. The men fell silent, waiting to hear what he thought of it all. "You're right," he said. "The New Council are too weak to stand up to this foreign muck. They never stood up to the Patchskins, did they? While us poor folk was suffering and dying, Gilpin Wheen and his like was sitting quiet and building up their businesses and bowing and scraping; 'Yes, my lord Scriven, no, my lord Scriven...' It was us who risked our necks to throw the Scriven down, but it was them who picked up their power, all them lawyers and antiquaries and do-gooders. And you think they're going to raise a finger to save us from these nomad 'nanas? They're probably in league with the Movement themselves, half of 'em."

  His listeners nodded wisely, pleased to have their worst fears confirmed.

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  "Still," said Ted, brightening a bit, "this is London. Eh? We sorted out the Dapplejacks, didn't we? And we'll sort out these new cloots if they try and get across the Moatway. All we need is a good hard man to lead us." He stumped back behind his bar and started refilling a mug which one of the men held out to him. "Let 'em come. One proper Londoner's worth a hundred foreigners."

  At which point, right on cue, the door banged open and a proper Londoner came in. A gaunt old man, dressed in a quilted coat so long that it brushed his boot heels and so black that it seemed to suck the color from his long, hollow face, leaving it white as a paper mask. His hair was white, too, trailing in greasy rat tails over his coat collar. In his right hand was a thick black staff, and on his head a black bowler hat, gone greenish with age, the binding of the brim come loose and hanging down in tatters.

  He paused, leaning on his staff in the lit oblong of the doorway, and announced his
arrival with a long fit of wet, wheezing coughs.

  "It's Creech," said Ted Swiney. Men whispered, nudging one another, until all heads had turned to stare at the newcomer. "It's Bagman Creech!"

  Space was hastily made for him at the bar. A stool was dusted and pulled out for him. Men whipped their caps off. Bagman Creech was a hero. When the Skinners' Guilds rose up to rid London of the Scriven tyrants, Bagman Creech had been their

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  general. You could see paintings of him even now, done thirty feet tall on the walls of tenements in Limehouse and St Kylie, holding up a Patchskin's head and shouting out the Skinners' war cry in curly-whirly script:

  This Ain't Genocide!

  This is Rock 'n' Roll

  Of course, he'd aged a bit. The New Council, which had been formed after the riots, had taken steps to stamp out the Skinners' Guilds. They were glad to be rid of the Scriven, of course, but order had to be restored. Bagman Creech had objected, so they arrested him and chucked him in the Clink prison. You could see how he'd suffered there by the pained, rheumatic way he walked. You could hear it in the steady wheezing of his breath, and the cough that rumbled endlessly down in the wet cellars of his lungs.

  "Morning, Ted Swiney," he rasped, reaching the bar and propping his black staff against it.

  "Bagman," said Swiney, with a nod. "What do you say to a pint of Brimstone Best?"

  "I'm not stopping," said Bagman Creech. His voice had been sanded away until only a whisper remained. The men at the bar leaned closer to hear. "I'm working. I heard a misshape was seen up the Stragglemarket this morning."

  That was the other thing about Bagman Creech. Unlike the

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  rest of London, he'd never been convinced that the Scriven were gone for good. He'd always believed that some had escaped, and were lurking somewhere, out on Tyburn Waste or deep in the mazes of the Brick Marsh, waiting for a chance to take revenge. Old and ill as he was, he still spent his days a-googling for them wherever they might hide.

  Ted wiped a mug and shook his head. "I heard that, too. Lily Dismas said she saw a Dapplejack. Mad as a spoon, she is."

  Bagman Creech had pale, hooded eyes with a winter light in them, "if Lil's mad it's because the Scriven drove her mad," he said. "Ten years she spent in their lockups, if she says this girl she saw was Scriven, she was Scriven. And it falls to me to track her down and do what's needful. People are scared, Ted Swiney, and if you won't help 'em then I will....."

  Ted set the mug he'd been polishing down on the bar and returned the old Skinner's stare. Not many men could have spoken to him like that and gotten out of the Mott alive. Creech was different, though. A man in Ted's position had to show respect for the old Skinner. He said, "What I heard was, that girl in the Stragglemarket got took away in a chair."

  "I heard that, too," said Creech. "You know whose chair it was?"

  "Search me, Bagman. A taxi prob'ly. I don't know."

  "I'll keep asking then." Bagman turned, suppressing another gust of coughing, and started back toward the doors.

  Ted watched him go. He had the uneasy feeling that he might

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  have made a mistake, if the commons were getting panicky about a Scriven on the loose, he had to show them that Ted Swiney took their fears seriously. "Creech!" He threw out the word like a fish hook. Creech stopped as if it had snagged the back of his coat. Turned. "You need a hand?" asked Ted. "You don't sound well. I bet you could use a boy to do some of the legwork...."

  He was stamping as he spoke on the trapdoor behind the bar, which led down to the cellar where the beer was stored. It yawned open and a shabby boy of eleven or twelve came scrambling up, clutching a mop in one hand and already cringing in readiness for a blow from the back of Ted's hand.

  "Charley Shallow," said Ted Swiney, "you're about bright enough to run an errand, ain't you? Carry a letter, knock at a door, maybe cook up Master Creech's supper of an evening?"

  "Yes, Ted," the boy said meekly, looking at the floor.

  Ted turned in triumph to the old Skinner. "There. You take him, Bagman. Borrow him for as long as you like. Compliments of all at the Mott and Hoople. A man of your advancing years could use a servant, and I've got plenty. You take this one."

  Charley Shallow hung his head, too meek to meet the Skinner's gaze. Creech coughed softly, deep inside himself. He was about to say that he worked alone, always and only alone, and that hunting Scriven was no job for a kid. But something about the boy -- maybe his wan, weazen face, or the way his whole thin body leaned away from Ted Swiney, still waiting for a

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  blow -- something made him change his mind. Anyway, the publican was right. He wasn't as young as he used to be. He could use some help.

  "That's highly 'predated, Ted," he said.

  "There you go, Charley," said Ted Swiney, grabbing Charley by his scuffled hair and shoving him round the end of the bar. "You go with Master Creech. You do as he tells you."

  Charley Shallow stumbled across the sawdust floor and looked up into his new master's face. Lean as a skull it looked, and those deep-set eyes were like windows into somewhere where you wouldn't want to go. But he couldn't be any worse than Ted Swiney, could he?

  Some of the men at the bar, who had never noticed Charley Shallow before, reached out now to tousle his hair and thump him on his bony shoulders. "Brave kid," they mumbled, and, "Good luck!"

  Bagman Creech just turned toward the door again and said, "Fetch your stuff, boy, and follow me." He walked to the doorway and out into the street, waiting there in the sunshine, away from the reek of sickness and scent lanterns.

  Charley, who had no stuff to fetch, was about to follow him when Ted Swiney suddenly reached across the bar and lifted him up by his coat collar. His amiable act had ended. He growled softly into Charley's ear. "Anything the old cloot finds out, I want to hear about it. You understand?"

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  Charley nodded eagerly, and Ted dumped him on the floor, grinning round at his customers to show he'd just been having a bit of harmless fun with the boy. His smiling cheeks were red and round as two wax apples. He leaned over the bar to straighten Charley's coat and pat his hair flat. "Now hop along. Don't keep Master Creech waiting."

  Charley hopped. He scurried out into the daylight, and Bagman Creech nodded once at him and set off up Ditch Street with Charley trailing after him and the tip of his black staff going clack, clack, clack upon the cobbles.

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  ***

  6 the archaeologist's house

  Fever was perplexed by Kit Solent's home. It was so rich and so poor, and there were so many things there that didn't seem to have a purpose. The high ceilings were crusted with swags and swirls of plaster, which hung down at the corners of the rooms, formed into the shapes of birds and leaves and bunches of fruit, and stained with yellowish dribbles where water had seeped through from the floor above. There were heavy, dusty drapes to curtain the boarded windows, and threadbare carpets on the floors. One room was paved with hundreds and hundreds of tiny tiles, and when she looked closer, in the slatted light that tilted through gaps between the window boards, she saw that they were letters from the keyboards of Ancient computers. Fern's and Ruan's toys lay scattered about on the carpets and on the heavy, decorated furniture. There were portraits of Kit Solent and his children on the walls, and in the drawing room hung a painting of a woman with long dark hair and an absurd, frilled

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  collar. A cluster of candles stood on a table beneath it, among plump puddles of dried wax.

  "My wife, Katie," said Kit Solent, when he saw Fever look at it. "She died of the blue flu soon after Fern was born."

  Fever could not think of anything to say.

  "She's our mummy," said Ruan importantly. The children had followed Kit and Fever in from the garden and stood now on either side of Fever to look up at the portrait. Ruan said, "We burn candles for her, so that she'll have some light down in the Sunless Country."

&nbs
p; Fever wondered if she should point out that there was no such place as the Sunless Country. She was shocked that the children's father let them believe such superstitious nonsense. And surely all those candles were a fire hazard? But she was a guest in this strange house, and she did not want to offend.

  Ruan went over to a small side table on which stood a little brass lantern with a pointed roof pierced by patterns of star-shaped holes. Fever wondered if this was another religious ritual, but then recognized the thing as a scent lantern; she had seen others like it in the windows of shops near the Head. Ruan chose a vial of perfume from a drawer beneath the table, opened the lantern's door, and let three drops fall onto a lint pad resting on a turntable inside. While he stoppered the vial and returned it to its drawer, his father took out a box of matches, reached into the lantern, and lit the wick beneath the turntable. The rising heat made it start to revolve, wobbling slowly around on its

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  spindle. Ruan closed the door, and smiled shyly at Fever as the smell of the perfume began wafting from the holes in the lantern's roof.

  "That was Katie's favorite scent," said Kit Solent, looking kindly at his son as he shook out the match and laid it on a little shell-shaped dish beside the lantern. "Nocturne in Blue, by Eldritch Hooter. It's a sentimental old smell from Scriven times. Not like the stuff that gets into the scent parade these days; all those ghastly stinks by Prince Nez and Sniffa Dogg. Are you fond of scents, Fever?"

  Fever shook her head. She knew nothing about scents except that they were foolish and unnecessary and Londoners wasted a great deal of money on them. Even so, as the smell from the lantern grew stronger, she had to admit that it served to mask the odors of mold and mildew that hung about the old house. It was a subtle scent, and achingly familiar. For some reason it made her think of lawns at twilight, and big trees standing silent in that time at the end of a summer's day when the breeze fades and all is still. The lagoons, calm as mirrors, held the last of the light, and shadows stretched across her lawns....