Raiders' Ransom (12 page)

“You pushed me in!” the fisher shouts back.

“You were in my way!”

“You could have just asked me to move aside.”

“It was your stupid mog who did it, not me!”

And the fisherboy looks panicked all of a sudden.

“Cat! Where are you?” he shouts. And his mangy mog is at the edge of the walkway, miaowing at him and putting a paw over the edge, like it wants to get to him.

“Stay where you are!” calls the boy. And now I've found my dagger, and I'm pulling it from its scabbard. It slides out from the mud, blade glinting.

The fisherboy looks back at me and his mouth opens, his eyes get big with fear.

“Come on, fisher!” I shout. “See how you like this!” I start pushing through the mud toward him.

“I don't like it at all!” he cries, and starts wading backward, trying to keep the distance between us.

It ain't easy to catch him, coz every step is slipping and sliding, and it's hard to keep balance and hold my dagger up. But he's having to run backward, and that's much harder, so I gain on him.

“I'm going to slice you open!” I shout.

“Leave me alone!” he shrieks, like a girl.

I'm getting closer. I almost reach him with the tip of my dagger when there's a booming shout from above us.

“STOP!”

It's Ims! Me and the fisher both stand stock-still, looking up at Ims. The fisherboy looks even more scared, coz Ims is fearsome-looking when he wants to be, and his sword is the broadest in Angel Isling. It's heavier even than Father's.

He's got his arms folded, and he's glaring down at us.

“Zeph,” he says, and his voice is low, slow, and relaxed. “It ain't right to attack that fisher with your knife.”

“But he pulled me in!”

Ims smiles at me.

“Yeah. But he claims you pushed him first. So you wronged him, didn't you?”

I want to shake my head, but I don't reckon Ims'd take much to that.

“I suppose,” I say.

“And what's the justice for a wronging?” asks Ims.

“An equaling,” I mumble.

“And he did his fair and square, didn't he?”

“But he's just a fisher!” I say.

“It don't matter. A wronging is righted by an equaling. And there's no comeback, as well you know.”

I look at the fisherboy. And even though I can't say I like it, I know Ims is right. I did send the fisher into the mud, even though his mog did most of the work. And I suppose pulling me in is fair. It's what I would've done.

I nod at Ims, and turn to the boy.

“No comeback,” I say. Fishwit looks at me like I'm speaking gibberish.

Ims squats down on the walkway and puts out a hand to the fisherboy.

“Come on, little fisher, time to get out.”

And he pulls out the fisher, who looks like he's had his brains sucked away by the east wind. Then he reaches down again and, without even a grunt, he hauls me up with a great sucking
plop,
out from the mud.

I'm up on the walkway again, dripping and stinking.

Ims smiles at me.

“Time to make your friendship, Zeph,” he says.

No! He's got to be joking.

“What's your name?” he says to the fisher. Who looks panicky again and says, “Lil … er … Lilo.” Like he don't know himself.

“Well, Lilo,” says Ims, “you've met Zeph here in a wronging and equaling. Which means you have a friendship to make.”

“But he's a fisher!” I say. Ims gives me a look.

“Like I said, Zeph. It don't matter. It's the way of our Family, and you can't go against it.”

So, here we are, me and this raider, both dripping and stinking. Him eyeing me up out of his blue eyes, which are about the only part of him left to see from the mud, cos his red leathers and bright blond hair are covered in muck.

That big old raider warrior has wandered off, and now I'm wondering if the boy's going to pull his knife out again. But he doesn't. Instead, a crack opens up in his muddy face, where his mouth is. He's smiling.

“I ain't never gone wrong doing what Ims told me,” he says, “so I'll probably just have to make friends with you.” He scrapes some mud off his face, showing a white cheek underneath. “You did a good equaling, that's for sure, but you shoulda seen your legs, flipping and flapping in the air!”

“Well, you should've seen your face when I pulled you in!” I say.

The raider boy looks down at his muddy leathers and armor, and then at me.

“We're well filthy,” he says. “My father'll kill me if I turn up looking like this. Know anywhere we can get clean?” And he starts laughing.

“It ain't funny!” I snap. And I try and check my belt for the jewel without being too obvious about it. Maybe being in the mud has drowned the floating head? That'd solve a lot of problems.

“Course it's funny! I only gotta think of you with your legs flapping about to start laughing.”

I can feel my hands twitching to give him another push in the mud, but I don't, cos I hear a pitiful mewing sound. There's Cat looking up at me, his seaweed eyes wide and worried. He stands on his back legs and reaches for me with his front paws, saying, “Mew, mew” again and again.

“It's all right,” I say, bending down. “We're all right now.” I pet him, and he lets off a rattling purr — he doesn't even care I'm getting mud on his back, he's that happy to see me.

“What are you doing with a mog on a string, anyway?” asks the raider boy.

I carry on stroking Cat for a minute, trying to think.

“I'm … er … delivering him,” I say, “to my … uncle.”

The boy raises his eyebrows. At least, a load of mud on his forehead gets raised up, so I reckon that's his eyebrows.

“You're delivering a mog?”

“My uncle likes cats,” I say, blushing at my own useless lie. But he just shrugs, specks of mud falling off his shoulders.

“You fishers are weird. Your uncle must be well into mogs if he likes a scraggy thing like that.”

“Hissk!” says Cat, looking grumpy.

I put my mouth right next to his ear and whisper, “Don't make a fuss, Cat. I only dyed you to keep you safe.”

“Come on!” says the boy. “Stop kissing your mog. Let's go and find your uncle.”

I look at him blankly.

“Which way to your uncle's place, then?”

“Don't be stupid!” I say. “I ain't going anywhere with you. You pushed me in the mud, you pulled a knife on me.”

And you're a murdering raider! But I don't say that last bit.

He shrugs. “That weren't nothing! Ims told us to make a friendship, so it's all right, ain't it?” He holds out his hand. “I'm Zeph … Zephaniah, son of Medwin Untamed. Of the Angel Isling Family.” He looks at me like he's waiting for something. “Ain't you heard of him?”

“No,” I say. “I don't know much about raiders.” 'Cept how they come raging into villages and take away people's lives.

“Not raider!” he says. “Angel Isling.”

“Whatever you are, I'm going.”

“But you can't!” he says, angry and surprised. “Ims said we gotta make a friendship!”

“Like I care about your Ims!”

And I'm marching off, down the walkway, dragging Cat after me. We head straight for the old Parliament, and I have to push my way into the moving crowd on the wooden walkway.

“Mrow,” says Cat, sounding worried, and I don't blame him, cos there's raiders everywhere: strutting about like cockerels in their red and yellow and green leathers, gold glinting from their fingers and necks and wrists; leaning on their shields and staring at everyone; looking angry and ready to skewer a person for any reason at all; guzzling wine; shouting at each other. And it feels like every single one is looking at me, sizing me up to see how many bits he can cut me into.

Ims, the one who pulled me out of the mud, is standing farther along the walkway, next to a line of laborers working a chain gang to pass great brown pots through one of the big holes in the walls of the old Parliament. He looks my way, like he's searching for something. I try and duck out of sight, but he spots me, I know it. He frowns, and his hand drops to his sword hilt.

“If you don't walk by with me, he'll kill you for not heeding his word,” says a voice behind me. “And then he'll beat me black and blue, in front of everyone, for making him look stupid.”

It's Zeph, and he's giving me a muddy, angry glare.

“Come on, you're gonna get us both in trouble.”

I look at that big old raider warrior: beard knotted into dreadlocks, skin rough and dark as seal hide, gold glittering
at every joint that isn't covered in red-colored leather, and a huge sword hanging from his waist. I don't much fancy my chances against him.

“All right,” I say.

“Good!” says the boy, his face relaxing. “You do have some brains after all.” He looks at me sideways. “You know, for a fisher, you really know how to hold a grudge. All I did was accidentally get you in the mud.”

But I don't say anything, cos it ain't the mud I'm holding a grudge about.

“That's got to be it,” says Zeph.

He's pointing at a road with a tall, spiky iron fence and gate blocking the end of it. The fence is high, taller than two men stood on top of each other, and the spikes are all rusty and evil-looking.

“I don't know, maybe it's the wrong street?” I say, cos I don't much fancy going in there.

“That old man told us to turn right down here, and that's what we did.”

“Maybe it's a bit farther down?”

“Don't be thick! You said you wanted Fill Miner Street. And that looks right to me.”

And it looks right to me as well. Cos fill miners dig down into the dumps left from olden times. Big holes in the ground full of plastic and metal and all sorts of stuff the olden-time folks thought was rubbish. They dig it all up, and people make
it into useful things like lamps and pots and chairs. Every house in our village has got something made from it. And behind the nasty fence, this road's piled high with fill minings. Right up against the houses, even to the second floor. Only the topmost windows are left winking. But even so …

“What about that sign?” I point up to a small white sign on the wall, with black writing on it.

“What about it?”

“It doesn't say Fill Miner Street.”

Zeph looks up at the sign, then he squints his eyes and frowns.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he says.

“Can't you see? It doesn't say Fill Miner Street, it says Downing Street.”

Zeph glares at the sign a bit longer, then puts out his hand to stop a fat, woolly-dressed woman who's stepping carefully past us along the slippery wooden walkway.

“Oi! What's this street called?” he says.

She stops dead, looking angry.

“Why, you rude little mud monkey. Don't yer even know what
please
means!”

Zeph grins at her, and he taps the knife dangling at his side.

“Don't need to, do I?”

She looks at his knife, then back at him, and I reckon she works out that under all the mud is a set of red leathers. Her big pink face goes a bit white round the edges.

“Oh … No … I suppose you don't.”

Zeph cocks his head at her, and she blurts out, “Fill Miner Street, that's what it's called.”

Then she spins round like a penny and hurries off back the way she came.

Zeph grins at me.

“See? I don't need any stupid writing to know where I am.”

In front of the iron gates is a small shed, and a couple of raggedy men are sat outside it on a bench. One man has a broken nose, the other has all scars where his ears should be. They've been watching us.

“Ya want something?” says Broken Nose.

“Looks like they wants a dip in the Temz!” says Earless, and they both cackle.

“Um … I'm looking for my … uncle, Mr. Saravanan,” I say, giving the name on Mrs. Denton's letter.

“I never heard Ol' Saru mention having nevvies,” says Earless, taking a tighter grip on his club. Broken Nose looks us up and down, then winks at his friend.

“O' course, if he did have nevvies, these two would be ready plums for it!”

Earless breaks into wheezing laughter.

Next to me, Zeph is bristling.

“Let us through!” he says. “We got business inside.”

“Business? What business?” asks Broken Nose, looking at me, looking at Zeph. Both of us covered in mud.

“I've got a delivery for my uncle,” I say, hoping that's enough.

“I'll give it to 'im, then,” says Broken Nose.

“No! I have to do it myself.”

Broken Nose puts a finger in his ear and twizzles it thoughtfully, staring at Cat.

“You're delivering a mog?” he asks.