The Mourning Emporium (29 page)

The Scilla accepted her new inmates with an audible groaning of her exhausted timbers. As Turtledove put it, “We’s mighty put to it for room ’ere! Bandboxical, wot! Still, the snugger the better in this cold, eh!”

The boys and girls would have to sleep in turns, the Venetians gallantly offering to work the first night shift. At six a.m., it was agreed, the sleepers would arise and turn their hammocks inside out to freshen them for the next occupants. Then they would go up to swab the decks before sitting down to breakfast: cocoa with cream and sugar, and freshly baked bread with jam. After breakfast, the Londoners would disembark for their various doings, and the Venetians would continue with their dock work and repairs to the Scilla.

Money was as tight as space. Hyrum offered to pawn the ship’s brass sextant, the chronometer and even the compass inside its binnacle, along with every other item that could be pried from the deck and turned into ready money for daily expenses.

Accustomed to living on their wits, the Londoners were fast learners when it came to the lingo and customs of the sea. They needed to be shouted at only once to take it to heart that they might not sit on an upturned bucket or mention the word “rabbit.”

On January 29, newsboys ran down Clink Street at dawn, bellowing the headlines: ZOO ANIMALS STOLEN! and RAID ON HARRODS! followed by SICK CITY—LONDON FALLS TO NEW DISEASE!

Pylorus Salt crept ashore to buy the Times. Apart from Uncle Tommaso, who was out zooky-selling, the Scilla’s entire extended crew gathered around the mess table to hear Pylorus read out the stories.

Now it was not only children, but also animals of the fattier species that were disappearing from the zoo. No one had any doubt about who was taking them.

And from Harrods, the great London department store, there had been another strange theft—the food halls ransacked not for expensive caviar, but for Halford’s mutton jelly, colza oil, neat’s-foot oil, lard oil, tins of minced collops, dripping, linseed oil and Batty’s frying oil.

Meanwhile, the Times reported, the Half-Dead disease had already reduced a good proportion of the London population to mumbling, shuffling shadows of themselves. The quack doctors rushed to produce medicines that claimed to cure the shattered constitutions and depressed spirits of the sufferers.

“The same disease arrived in Venice,” Teo explained, “after the ice flood. The Mayor claimed—”

Signor Alicamoussa inserted, “Not that youse’d give a cup of stonkered gnat’s sweat for his opinion.”

“The Mayor claimed that it would quickly pass and not spread to the tourists.”

Renzo spoke slowly. “I think the Ghost-Convicts from the Bombazine brought the Half-Dead disease to Venice. Do you remember what Miss Uish said?”

Teo quoted, “That the lieutenant on the Bombazine, Rosebud, had ‘a laboratory on board this ship that positively manufactures death. Or, what is worse, half-death.’ ”

“In other words, the Half-Dead disease.”

“Ye’s a canny body, Renzo,” Ann pressed, “but how kin them Ghost-Convicts be spreadin’ it to ’oomans?”

Teo consulted her memory for a book that might help. Into her head tumbled James Grant’s estimable, though wordy, work, The Mysteries of All Nations, Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together With Strange Customs, Fables and Tales.

Reading the page that appeared in front of her eyes, she cried out, “In 1536 a band of witches in Italy spread a plague by smearing an ointment on the posts and doors of people’s houses.”

Tig groaned. “Jist zackly what I saw ’em doin’, the devils! Selling mournin’ brooches were jist a cover! Them Ghost-Convicts is infecting the whole of London!”

When Sibella murmured that she knew a cure, actually, no one, except perhaps Renzo, believed a word of it.

“But I do!” Sibella protested sullenly. “Not that you deserve it, seeing how mean you all are to me. Yet I could cure it if you’d come down from your high horses and allow me.”

Pylorus Salt commented, “Hark at that Miss Syllabella! She speaks fluent Renzo! And she’s a pain in the pinny jist loik him!”

Even the ever-gallant Signor Alicamoussa now looked at Sibella with a piquant twitch of irritation briefly creasing his exquisite features. “No more tarradiddling from you, young lady, if you please. Feather me! You are veritably getting up my goat, yes.”

From below came the voice of Uncle Tommaso. He hurtled up on deck, calling, “Lorenzo! Teodora! Sargano! Desperate news!”

He was carrying the pieces of a poster torn off a wall. Fitting them together, he shouted, “Look at this! They’re all over the town. You can’t walk past a public house or a garden wall without seeing one of them hanging there.”

Black-and-white images of Teo and Renzo’s faces, with convict bandannas and eye patches superimposed on them, and parrots on their shoulders, peered out of a thicket of verbiage.

WANTED FOR PIRACY

GRAND LARCENY

And BRINGING the VENETIAN HALF-DEAD DISEASE

to LONDON TOWN, imperiling the Health of the Populace

and Spreading Terror at Large.

Teodora Gasperin, also known as

Teodora “The Undrowned Child” Stampara

and even Teodoro Ongania

and Lorenzo “The Studious Son” Antonello, both Known Delinquents in their Native Venice, Juvenile Mutineers and Murderers at Sea.

SUBSTANTIAL REWARD for Any Citizen

who apprehends these Low-Lifes of the Lowest Order.

“Them photygraphs is a libel against nature!” declared Turtledove. “Yew two is way better-looking than that, me poppets! Doan let no one say otherwise! This is some rum story got up for to addle the noodles of the public.”

“How did they get your photographs?” wondered Tig.

Renzo answered flatly, “Those are the ‘school photographs’ that were done on board the Scilla for Miss Uish. Remember how she shouted at Peaglum to take them away, Teo? He went off in the coracle. No doubt straight to the Bombazine. But someone else must have added those eye patches and parrots.”

“And blacked out our teeth!” noted Teo indignantly.

“They’ve blackened our honor,” Renzo shouted. “They’re painting us as murderers.”

“Was you reely truly pye-rats?” breathed Sally admiringly. “And moiderers and mootineers? You niver breaved a word ’bout that.”

“Only against our will,” insisted Renzo.

“Yew childer know wot ’appens to pye-rats in these septic isles?” asked Turtledove in a quiet voice.

While Renzo and Teo were casting their minds back to the mock trial conducted by Peaglum aboard the Scilla, Turtledove intoned, “Drowned in a barrel of salt water an’ buried in the marshes below low-tide mark. Or hanged by the neck until dead at Newgate gallows.”

A shiver went through everyone on deck. Fossy uttered a somber wail on the violin.

Teo exclaimed, “There is only one way that our enemies could have found out all my names.”

And she stared straight at Sibella.

Renzo took a step so that he stood between them. “Teo,” he snapped, “for charity’s sake! It’s just not possible, is it?”

“What about the leeches? She chanted to those leeches in magical words! She’s probably still doing it.”

The boys and girls gathered in a knot around Sibella. Signor Alicamoussa interposed himself.

“House arrest,” he suggested pleasantly, “a spot of house arrest for the small blondie girl, yes. Sibella, go to your cabin. From the looks on these young varmints’ faces, youse’ll be in the altogether safer off there. But speaking as a circus-master, I reckon those little slimy fellas of yours might go after a spot of exercise in the fresh air. Fair do’s, ragazzi?”

Their eyes gleaming, Fabrizio and Emilio ran off to fetch Sibella’s pillow box. And nothing, not even the slowness of the operation, could stop the boys from making a couple of her leeches walk the plank.

Ice knocked against the Scilla’s prow. The crew was kept busy breaking it up by pouring saucepans of hot water overboard. But the task was hopeless. London’s great river was freezing over, just like the Grand Canal in Venice.

It was obvious to all aboard the Scilla that the Bombazine, snugly moored at St. Katharine Docks, had something to do with it. That was the first part of the Thames to be frozen solid.

And now the Ghost-Convicts poured out of the Bombazine on their mission to anoint every doorknob in London with the Half-Dead disease. Invisible to adults, the Ghost-Convicts went about their murderous business uninterrupted. Children who saw them went crying to their mothers, who generally slapped them for making up such outrageous lies. Or dosed them with something bitter, in the belief that they were suffering from a fever that had brought on strange imaginings.

Tobias Putrid and Bits Piecer bravely volunteered to go to the hated mendicity officers to explain the situation. An hour later, Bits came running back, choking on tears.

The two boys had not been believed.

“But you’ll all die, ’orribly!” Tobias had warned.

“He were that exercised, he dint care what he sayed.” Bits wrung his hands.

“ ’Orribly! ’Orribly!” the mendicity men had mocked Tobias. “It’s the end of the world, all right!”

Bits told how Tobias had lost his temper and screamed at the officers, begging them to protect London and all the children of the metropolis.

“And for his pains poor old Tobias ’as got carted orf to Bedlam.” Bits colored with shame. “I ’scaped. I should of gorn wiv him, to look after him.”

Tig and Sally hastened to hug and reassure Bits. “No, you did right. Otherwise ’ow’d we of known what ’appened?”

“Bedlam?” asked Teo.

“The menthol ’orspital!” whimpered Bits. “Banged up good ’n’ proper wiv all them loonyticks in there.”

Signor Alicamoussa’s urgent voice called from the ladder. “Come, ragazzi! We have no time to lose! I have been news-mongering with the Incogniti. I reckon we’ve bits-and-pieced together ahat’s afoot-and-mouth, yes.”

With everyone gathered around the mess table, Signor Alicamoussa began solemnly, “Youse all know the present posture of affairs. Everyone and his dog, every bandicoot and Bendigo dingo, is acoming to London for the funeral of Her Late Majesty, yes. Tremenjous throngs shall come a-crowding every street like wallabies at a waterhole, all gasping for a glimpse of Queen Victoria’s mortal remains going to their finial rest, bless her.”

Two dozen heads nodded gravely. Fossy played a funereal note.

“Well, as we already guessed, it seems is an occasion too good to be passed up by the Pretending Hoskins, the Miss Uish and that vile creature who is flower and fungus of her withered heart, Bajamonte Tiepolo. When this city is at its fullest, groaning with citizens and visitors, is the moment when the Hooroo Horror, Il Traditore, and his honeyfugling doxy plan to make their attack.”

“How do you know for sure?” asked Renzo.

“Those slit-guzzled Hooroo criminals have a wolf’s appetite for hot spiced pumpkin. While serving them, our Incogniti overheard gobbets of blood-gurgling conversazioni. We have put the pieces together.”

“The Ghost-Convicts have started their attack already,” pointed out Teo. “With the Half-Dead disease, the Londoners will be too sick to put up much of a fight.”

“Yes, the Half-Dead disease has Londoners wan and whey like albino apes. Bajamonte Tiepolo is not a real he. Is cowardly like a hyena and attacks only weakened and duffered-out prey, as we know, yes. It give me the worms to think on it!” Signor Alicamoussa clutched his shapely belly.

“But whath kind of attack will it be?” quavered the District Disgrace.

“Alas, cannot yet furnish all the perpendiculars. Ice is mentioned. And squid.”

“An invasion of squid?” moaned Fabrizio.

“A lot o’ clossle squid loik the one wot nearly et our Teo?” whimpered Sally.

“Your Barjaminty might of tousands of ’em tings at ’is disposal!”

“No amoont of squiddies kin eat all o’ London Town,” insisted Ann Picklefinch. “They lodges under the water, anyhoo.”

The circus-master threw up his hands. “That is not all. Hear how the plot clots! For in-the-meanwhiles, an army of Hooroo Ghost-Convicts and escaped prisoners is amassing on the French coast at all points closest to England. Isn’t a sheep left between Bordeaux and Calais! Yet are no boats for to carry the invaderizers.”

“So they’re planning to get to London by magic means,” guessed Renzo.

“Baddened magic,” Teo whispered.

Signor Alicamoussa agreed. “The Ghost-Convicts gossip exactly thus. And also they chatter of their secret ally, who will provide the means for their soldiers to cross the English Channel.” He lowered his voice, “This bloke, they call him Signor Pipistrelly.”

“The bat!” exclaimed Renzo and Teo with one voice.

Renzo produced a piece of paper from his jacket and began scribbling. Teo, biting her lip, explained, “It is as a bat that Bajamonte Tiepolo shows himself when he does not choose to be—or cannot be—human.”

“So,” Renzo was businesslike, “we must ask the mermaids to print warning bills on the Seldom Seen Press. We’ll urge Londoners to leave the city. So at least if … when … those criminal soldiers arrive here, there will be no victims waiting for them. Here’s something I drafted while we’ve been talking.”

Everyone clustered around Renzo’s piece of paper. For the benefit of those who could not read, Signor Alicamoussa tested the words in his beautiful voice.

“Clever you, Renzo,” breathed Sally Twinish.

“If they’ll believe it.” Pylorus’s voice mixed doubt with hope.

“Excellent!” Teo enthused. “I’ll take it straight to Lussa. No, Renzo, you can’t come.” She pointed to his portrait on the WANTED poster. “It’s not safe. You’re not between-the-Linings.”

Signor Alicamoussa mused, “Reckon it cannot hurt our prospects, nor those of Londoners, if they are forewarned. Give ’em a chance to shoot through, at least. Tommaso, the pumpkin-sellers can distribute the printed papers in their barrows, yes!”

The District Disgrace pleaded, “And Teo, can you askth them pretty ladies if they kin help Tobias? Tell ’em we kint do wivout him.”

“Course I will.”

“Run like the wind in the fur of a cheetah-cat, Teodora,” implored Signor Alicamoussa, “and be careful, dearest girl. Youse’ll know why.”