Raiders' Ransom (13 page)

I nod, glad Cat's safely in his black disguise.

“What is it?” says Earless. “Yer dinner?” He wheezes at his own joke.

“Maybe Saru needs a new hat!” says Broken Nose, and they both start croaking with laughter.

“Shut up!” shouts Zeph. “And show us through!”

The two men laugh even harder at that.

“What ya going to do about it, fisherboy?” says Broken Nose.

In a single movement, Zeph whips out his knife, leaps forward, and presses the tip of the long, rippling blade into the man's neck. It makes a sharp, painful-looking dimple in his frightened, gulping throat.

“For starters, I'll cut your tongue out for calling me a fisher,” he says.

“Zeph!” I cry, starting forward. But one look from his blue eyes is enough to stop me. If I pull at his arm, will the blade cut a slice in the man's neck? Or will Zeph turn it on me?

Broken Nose is going cross-eyed trying to get a look at the knife pressed to his throat.

“You little …” roars Earless, hefting his club, then he stops, squinting at Zeph. A bit of red peeks through his covering of mud. Earless sags a bit.

“You're rai … I mean, one of the Families, ain't ya? Angel Isling? All right, I'll let you in. We don't want no vengeance on us. Just don't kill John, will yer? He dint mean nothin'.”

Earless opens the great iron gate, rattling and clanging at the bolts in his hurry.

“Sorry, master!” he says to Zeph. “We couldn't see you was from the Families, what with the mud on ya. And John here is sorry for what he said. Ain't ya, John?”

And he flings open the gate. Beckoning us through.

“Ol' Saru's place is number ten — halfway down, behind the lampmakers' stall.”

Zeph pulls the knife away from the gate guard's throat, and walks, head held high, through the gate. I pause, dithering for a moment, but my shins get a soft head butt.

“Miaow,” says Cat, and he's right, of course. Cos what can we do but follow?

I trail Zeph along a narrow path twisting its way through the mountains and hillocks of olden-time goods.

Mrs. Denton said her contact was a fill-dealer. Which means he's trading in them things people used to throw away before the Collapse. But I thought he'd just be in a little shop or something. Not in a whole street full of the stuff.

There are leaning towers of paper; big nets filled with rustling, crinkly-looking plastic in all different colors; hundreds of little white jugs, moving and rattling in the breeze; rusting metal carriages stacked one on top of another; square, white cupboards with little round windows; racks of faded and torn clothes; blocks of hard plastic, sorted by size; coils of rope; brightly colored toys. On and on it goes, and in every corner that ain't piled with stuff, there's people. Raggedy-looking people, with dirty hands, feet, and faces. Raggedy children sorting stuff, and raggedy women cleaning it, and raggedy men making new things from the old.

And, as me and Zeph walk down the twisty path between them, every man, woman, and child who works here stops what they're doing and stares at us.

Clang!
Earless and Broken Nose shut the gate. Now we're locked in, and my neck's prickling from all the eyes on us.

Behind us, the two guards are talking. “What you do that for? He was only little, I could have taken him easily!”

“Don't be a dozer! Last thing we need is trouble with raiders. Remember what the Brixt did to the wool traders that time …”

It's like we're at the bottom of a valley made of paper, plastic, and metal. But when I look up, there's a whole other world to this street. Cos on the top floors of the buildings there's people poking their heads out of windows, sounds of babies wailing, washing fluttering on lines, smoke snuffling out of chimneys. And above that, in the gray sky,
a seagull circling. The sound of its cry makes me think of home.

The buildings on this street are three or four stories high, and they must have been pretty fancy once. Some of them even have carvings and statues sitting on little shelves on the walls. But they ain't fancy now, cos the walls're stained black and green with high tides and mold, and the statues have pigeons nesting on their heads. Just like everywhere else in London.

After another twist in the path, we come to a group of women and children under a canvas awning. They're sat between piles of round glass bulbs, some clear, some cloudy, and they're using them to make oil lamps. There's two women and three little children, and they all stop work and stare at us. Five pairs of eyes.

“This'll be it, then,” says Zeph, turning to me. “Where's your uncle?”

Behind the lampmakers is a house built of dark brick, and the canvas roof of the workshop is tied to rough rusty nails banged in its wall. But if there's a door into the house, you can't see it for piles of old bulbs, and stacks of new lamps, and barrels of oil, and hanging loops of wick string.

“Does Mr. Saravanan live here?” I ask nervously.

One of the women, who looks like a pile of rags with a wrinkly old head on top, heaves herself up and shuffles out of the workshop. She walks round to a rickety-looking ladder leaning against the wall of the house. It leads to a large window on the top floor. She takes herself a great breath.

“Saru!” she shrieks. “Get yaself out here! Ya got some visitors!”

There's no answer for a long time.

“Saru!” she screams again. There's some clattering noises from up above.

“What is it?” calls a man's voice. Smart-sounding, a bit like the way Mrs. Denton sounds. Or the floating head.

“Two mucky lads want to see you,” squawks the old woman.

There's a pause, and my throat starts closing up. But then the man calls out, “Send them up.”

The old woman turns back to us, and jerks her head toward the ladder.

“Off ya go.”

Then she shuffles back under cover and sits down. The other workers turn back to their work like we ain't even there.

Of course, Cat just scampers straight up the ladder like it was a nice set of stairs. I reckon he must be desperate to get out of the mud, cos his paws are thick with it, and he'll be on the hunt for a cozy fire to curl up by.

And I can't let Cat go on his own, so I set my hands and feet to the ladder, and up I climb. But Zeph, it's like he's had all that raider stuffing knocked out of him. Cos when I'm halfway up, he's still hanging about at the bottom of the ladder. Looking around, like he's wondering what to do.

Well, if he's scared to climb a ladder, then I'm glad to get rid of him!

At the top is the window. Cat's already jumped through, so I step off the ladder, over the sill, and into the room. There's nothing in it; just dust, mouse droppings, and the smell of damp. Cat must like the smell, cos he's sniffing about for a free mousy meal. He trots toward an empty fireplace, his tail twitching up little plumes of dust.

And it's cos I'm watching Cat I get taken by surprise. One minute, just me and Cat, next there's a man in the doorway ahead of us.

He's got big gray hair, big gray eyebrows, and a crinkly brown face. And he's pointing a pistol at me.

“Now, Mr. Mud-Covered Delinquent, I give you ten seconds to explain who you are and what you want. And if you can't, then I'll just shoot you where you stand!”

The big gray eyebrows squeeze together over his twinkling black eyes, and Mr. Saravanan says, “Lilo? What a perfectly suitable name.”

He goes to pat me on the shoulder, but stops cos of all the mud. “I am very sorry about the gun, but you cannot trust anyone in this terrible city.” He pats Cat on the head instead. “And Enid, the lampmaker, would show an army of knife-wielding murderers to my ladder without even blinking.”

It was the letter calmed down Mr. Saravanan. I was in a panic giving it to him, cos it was covered in mud and all. He was a bit suspicious about it first off. But when he started reading it, he was all sighs and comments like “Eustace Denton, what a good man he was” and “So sad to die so young.” He even wiped his eyes and sniffed about it. Then
he put the letter inside his purple, velvety coat and cheered right up.

“Well now, you will follow me,” he says, and we head into the creaky back of the house. We go through three rooms, each one just like the street outside, piled high with antiques. The first room's nothing but tottering stacks of books, some right to the ceiling. Cat tries to jump up on one of the smaller stacks, but he jumps straight off again when it starts wobbling about.

“Be careful!” says Mr. Saravanan. “Those are Harry Potters. I have half a dozen historians fighting to get their hands on them.”

The second room's all tables, either side of a narrow path. On one side, the tables are covered with china plates, cups, vases, teapots, statues, and stuff. On the other side, the tables are covered with all the same kinds of thing, but made of bright plastics.

Mr. Saravanan stops and picks up a bright red plastic plate.

“My very favorite,” he says, holding it like a baby, not like a plate.

The last room is just like a big bird's nest made out of tumbled-together chairs. To get in between, it's like scrambling through a bramble patch.

“Don't you go in there. It ain't safe,” I whisper to Cat, but I reckon his wobble on the books has given him a lesson, cos he keeps close to me.

When we're through the musty-smelling storerooms, we get to a small, cozy room. There's a big saggy sofa against one wall, a fire in the grate, and a flowery-patterned rug on the floor. Pushed up against the window is a desk, covered in papers, and there's shelves with books, olden-time knickknacks, jars full of bits and bobs, and, in the middle, a statue of a dancing blue man with four arms. It's a bit like the study at Mrs. Denton's.

“Stop!” commands Mr. Saravanan when I get to the door. “Do not come in any farther!” He kneels on the floor, crawls under his desk, and comes out with a folded cloth. He flaps it out into a big sheet and puts it over his sofa. “Now come in,” he says. “Sit on there, and do not move.” He looks me up and down. “You have certainly made yourself acquainted with the famous mud of London.”

He pulls out the chair from the desk, sits down, and takes Mrs. Denton's letter from his jacket. He reads it again, all the lines on his forehead collecting together.

“I must say, it is strange to hear from poor Denton's widow after all these years. And for such a reason.” He reads the letter again, humming to himself.

Don't find me out! Is all I can think.

“I wonder if I might see this jewel Mrs. Denton was planning to exchange for the hostage?”

I get a dry mouth, wondering if he's going to take it from me, or if the head's going to pop out and ruin everything. But I take the jewel from my belt and unwrap it. It's covered in
wet mud, and I can't tell if it's broken or not. So I just whisper, “Stay in there!” as quietly as I can.

“May I?” says Mr. Saravanan, stretching out his hand. And I get even more sweaty, but I don't reckon I can say no, so I just nod silently. He picks the jewel out from the cloth wrapping and holds it up to the light, inspecting the way it sparkles.

“Beautiful,” he says. “Eustace always said there were treasures in the ruins. Personally I prefer the safety of fill mining. Perhaps there are no jewels to be found, but no skeletons or plagues, either.” He hands the jewel back, and I quickly wrap it up and put it away. As he watches me, he says, “Your plan is certainly brave, perhaps even foolhardy. Still, who would not want to help such a damsel in distress as this little Alexandra.” He gives me a hard stare. “Though I must say, I am surprised Mrs. Denton did not send an experienced captain, as she suggests in her letter.”

“All the captains got hauled into jail, and all the boys got taken into the militia.”

“All the boys?” I get an even harder stare.

“They didn't want … I mean, I got out of it.” I'm sweating now; he's going to tell me to get lost.

But he doesn't, just stares a bit more, then smiles as he folds up the letter and puts it into his jacket pocket. “Just as you say, the only
boy
in your village to be left alone …” and he stares at me so hard I go bright red. But then he smiles and says, “And now you are looking to find the
den of raiders who stole away poor Eustace's niece?”

I nod.

“On your own?”

“Mreowl!” says Cat, from the middle of the rug.

“Cat will help me,” I say without thinking.

My hand jerks up to my mouth, but the words are already out. Mr. Saravanan peers at Cat from his twinkly eyes.

“Now this is a very interesting cat. One who has gray feet, yet is black elsewhere.” He pats his lap, and Cat jumps straight up, like the shameless thing he is. “I can remember Eustace telling me about the village you live in. It was famous, he said, for the seacraft of its fisherpeople.”