The Mourning Emporium (35 page)

Flos reached under the water and picked up a handful of the blue-eyed brown squid, who stared at her in terror, their tentacles quivering. She flung them back into the water scornfully. “We wouldn’t even stoop to kill dem, nasty little things! But prithee pardon me while I kick a few in the corybungus. Yoiks!”

A mermaid’s finny kick was evidently a thing to be feared, since the water grew white with the frothing wakes of fleeing infernalis.

Lussa and Flos had plenty to tell. Down in the cavern, the mermaids too had been making preparations for war. Flos had conducted some experiments, after the mermaids managed to net two Ghost-Convicts who had overindulged in English beer and fallen into the water at St. Paul’s Dock.

“We flunged everything at dem. Curry powder, gin, citric acid, rat droppings, ROUGH ON RATS even, but nuffink worked,” explained Flos. “Dey still tried to get up and fight, jabbering ’n’ bamblusterating at us like ye wouldn’t believe. Yoiks! I were at my wits’ end and gnawin’ on my tether. When I accidentally stumbled on da answer.”

Lussa chuckled. “Flos’s Temper was quite naturally Exacerbated. She took a Nipkin of fermented Seaweed Juice to calm her Nerves.”

“Only to discover it were completely gorn orf and stank like a drain. I were so—exacerbated—dat I threwed the whole tankard of it at dem scum-bellied Ghost-Convicts. And two seconds later, dere wernt nuffink but a bad smell and a bit of smoke, an’ two corky hats, saving dere graces.”

“Seaweed juice?” marveled Teo. “That’s all it takes to kill a Ghost-Convict?”

Flos concluded triumphantly, “Ain’t I tellin’ yer? Rotten seaweed juice! Simple as dat. It jest dissolves ’em!”

Lussa added, “So now We are engaged upon the Gathering & Fermenting of Algae & other Marine Weeds, and in the Manufactory of Fishskin Containers with which to fling our Weapon.”

Flos deftly threw up a damp sack, calling, “Empty it out, Studious Son, but careful, mind!”

When Renzo opened the sack, little balls of liquid, like black bubbles, each finishing in a curly ribbon of fishskin, cascaded on to the wood. One snagged on a splinter and burst, releasing a stink that made everyone wheeze and stand back. On closer inspection, the liquid was seen to have excavated a hole in the deck timber.

“ ’Ighly picturesque!” cried Turtledove enthusiastically. “But it ain’t what I’d call a precision instrument, ladies. ’Magine we’s all fightin’ our ’earts out, an’ one of yer fizzy fishskins arrives on the Bombazine’s deck. How’s it goin’ to know to hit a Ghost-Convict? What if it hits one of me childer? By which I mean me London childer an’ me Venice childer, of course. What if the childer falls in the water an’ gits nibbled and stinged by them little squid wot hurt our Teodora? Woan suit at all. I is flint on that point. We’s got to think o’ the ’elf an’ safety of the childer first.”

Lussa said thoughtfully, “In this World even Children must show their Mettle. But the Beast is perspicacious. Let Us refine our Ploy. We Mermaids shall supply the Juice-filled Fishskins. The Young People Themselves shall be Armed with Them to throw.”

Renzo asked, “But how do we fight her? Miss Uish isn’t a Ghost-Convict. She’s not going to be dissolved by the seaweed juice.”

Sofonisba hissed, flexing her long claws. “I personally have a score to settle with her, on my dear professor’s behalf.”

“Done,” barked Turtledove. “Next item on the agenda: do yew think we should bovver at all wiv yer akshual ’oomans, I mean, draw ’em into our plans?”

“Of course! We should go to Downing Street and tell the Prime Minister what is going to happen!” urged Renzo. “The Londoners did not believe our handbills. Yet London must prepare for the worst!”

Pylorus sneered, “And do you think them in charge’ll just usher the loiks of us into the Prime Minister’s office? A Venetian pye-rat loik yesself or Teo? A handful of street urchins loik us? Perhaps a mermaid or two? An escaped criminable loik Signor Alicamoussa here? Turtledove?”

“Adults can’t see mermaids,” Renzo murmured dully, “or hear animals speak. Unless they are Incogniti like the pumpkin-sellers.”

“The pumpkin-sellers can go,” suggested Teo.

Renzo’s voice was quiet. “Is the Prime Minister going to believe a group of street vendors from foreign parts?”

“Ghosts! That’s what we need,” exclaimed Teo. She turned to the Incogniti. “We need to drag those London ghosts out of those stones in the railway arches right now. We need Roman soldiers, medieval minstrels, Roundheads and Cavaliers … there must be thousands of those in-the-Cold because of bad deeds, who want and need to redeem themselves.…”

“And those Egyptian mummies from the British Museum,” added Renzo, “who put curses on the archaeologists and keepers.”

“… and thieving chimney sweeps, robbing boatmen, pickpockets …” continued Teo. “Of course, all the ghosts will be feeling stronger in themselves since Queen Victoria died.”

“Plenty of them about,” confirmed Uncle Tommaso. “We just need to convince them that we believe in them. We’ll need some children to come with us, to act very, very scared.…”

“You mean like this?” asked Thrasher, shaking all over like a baby’s rattle.

“And this?” Tig uttered a bloodcurdling scream.

“Or …?” Hyrum slicked up his hair so it stood on end.

“Perfettissimo.” Uncle Tommaso beckoned, and the Mansion Dolorous gang followed him off the boat.

Turtledove grunted, “Meanwhile, a tiny gem of an idea ’as inserted itself in me ’ead. I’s orf to the parks an’ back gardens to raise me an army.”

“What can the bold Beast mean by That?” asked Lussa.

Teo insisted, “Trust him. He hasn’t had a bad idea yet.”

The mermaids departed for their cavern, shaking their pretty heads.

Even Teo’s confidence was shaken when Turtledove returned a few hours later with the most obese collection of animals that ever waddled across a manicured lawn. There were corpulent sewer rats and almost rectangular foxes. There were even overweight otters, weasels like great furry cushions and heavy-hipped squirrels.

Sofonisba surveyed this army with characteristically eloquent disgust. “Even a dog should be capable of detecting the obvious military uselessness of such great beefs on sticks.”

Turtledove was not the tiniest bit discouraged, growling, “Desprit times is desprit times, Feline.”

All the otters, rats, squirrels, weasels and foxes looked adoringly up at Turtledove, who shouted, “Childer, clear the deck!”

The fat animals assembled ponderously in the empty space.

“Slower than a dinged-up dodo.” Signor Alicamoussa frowned. “War Weasels? Fighter Squirrels? Reckon we’re in strife.”

“Eyes right!” shouted Turtledove. Furry, fleshy necks turned effortfully in the direction of where, a mile away, the dim hull of the Bombazine lurked in the Thames, truly visible only by a stretch of the imagination as it dipped in and out of the fog.

“Yew see that there boat?” Turtledove whispered, almost tenderly. “We’s goin’ to have them scoundrels aboard it for BREAKFAST.”

At the word “breakfast” the stomachs of the creatures audibly rumbled.

“But NOT UNTIL you’s IN SHAPE!” shouted Turtledove. “Niver seen such a collection of WALLOWIN’ BLUBBER-BELLIES! Couldn’t beat a CARPET! LEFT turn! RIGHT turn! WRIGGLE! NIP!”

The animals heaved themselves about willingly enough, but they weren’t any too nimble.

Turtledove glanced up at the gallery of boys and girls watching the operation. “Wot yew staring at? Get on wiv it! We needs an ark. Coracle, cricket bats, hockey sticks—raw materials or wot? Surely there’s a toolbox on this here boat? I unnerstand young Rosato knows what to do wiv a drawin’ board, a saw an’ some nails. What more do yew want?”

Renzo laughed out loud, “Brilliant! A Trojan ark! We’ll take all these fat animals over to the Bombazine. Miss Uish won’t be able to resist taking them aboard … she’ll think she can boil them down to fuel the squid submarine, and then …”

Some of the fat foxes began to look a bit furtive, and moved themselves to the far edge of the assembled force.

“Whereupon,” continued Teo, “they will secretly break out of the ark and …”

“Lie in their blubber till they are boiled for tallow,” said Giovanni glumly.

At this, the squirrels showed the whites of their eyes and the two furtive foxes sneaked behind the water barrel.

“Ye of little faith! Not while I is breathing will that child-hurter an’ animal killer touch a hair on yer chins!” shouted Turtledove. “By this time tomorrow, they’ll be a crack squad. Yew see if they ain’t!”

If Teo had not cast a spell of silence on her, the Scilla would have seemed the noisiest ship on the Thames that night. The wintry air reverberated to Turtledove’s stentorian drill, and his verbal missiles.

“LEFT! RIGHT! DODGE! TRIP!”

Turtledove had meanwhile assumed a military waistcoat with several rows of medals pinned to it. He was in his element. “For a dog of my creed, fightin’ mixes business an’ pleasure most agreeable-like!”

On another corner of the deck, Rosato and a team of helpers were nailing together cricket bats and hockey sticks to form a boat to hold the creatures. Somehow the vessel acquired the appearance of a dear little Swiss chalet with a pointed roof. Each window opening had a revolving balcony, on which the animals were to display themselves like the wooden birds in a cuckoo clock, so that Miss Uish would be able to see how temptingly fat they were.

“Ciao!” Uncle Tommaso’s voice echoed from snow-blanketed Clink Street. “Room for a few more aboard?”

The boys and girls rushed to the taffrail in time to see a cloud of transparent soldiers, minstrels, sweeps, robbers and two Egyptian mummies rise up to the masts, where they settled, swinging their transparent legs over the sails and looking at the proceedings below with interest. A Roundhead soldier called, “We are not many, but we shall have the force of many!”

A Roman centurion remarked, “Unus vir in nave pro duobus in via valet.”

“One man aboard ship is worth two in the street,” translated Teo.

A mummy shouted hoarsely but in a friendly way, “Assa-lum-alaikum.”

And Renzo called, “Peace be with you too, brother. Wa-alaikum-salam.”

“Where’d you learn that, Mister Cyclopeedy?” breathed Pylorus Salt.

“Don’t mind us!” called a ghostly young boatman. “Carry on the good work down there!”

And so they carried on. Work and exercise were stopped only by a thick pelt of snow making the deck impassable except by tunneling on the part of the smaller rodents.

“It’s pittlin’ down!” observed Rosibund. “I hain’t niver seen snow loik that.”

“Reet g-gowsty here,” chattered Ann Picklefinch. “Have we got owt aboord by the way of an extra blanky?”

“That’s a power of snow,” Turtledove observed. “An’ look at the barometer.”

No mercury was visible at all.

When everyone was frozen to the skin and glassy-eyed with exhaustion, Signor Alicamoussa found a way to make the night end well.

First, he smilingly presented a barrel-shaped box labeled HUNTLEY & PALMER: PROVISIONS, TREATS AND SNACKS, GOOD FOR THE MORALE, YES!

The Mansion Dolorous gang positively screamed with enthusiasm and were soon arguing over Alberts, Thick and Thin Captains, Iced Gems and Metropolitan Mixed Biscuits.

The London ghosts floated down from the masts and partook with gusto, murmuring, “Don’t mind if I do!” and “Quam suavis!” and “Odds Bods, but I wish we’d had such sweetmeats in our time!”

The Scilla’s crew had almost forgotten their blue fingers and toes when Signor Alicamoussa began to speak again.

“Some of youse know,” he commenced, “that I learned my English from an Australian drover, and that I have a particulate fondliness for all things Antipodean. Now, I have just remembered myself of a quaint story about the Aboriginal people of that continent, yes. Is times even in the great red heart of Australia that the temperature falls low as a koala bear’s toenail. And, upon my word, at the back of Bourke and beyond the Black Stump, the currency your Aboriginal uses to measure the temperature is: dogs. Or large rodents. Or any mammal, really.”

“Whath this g-g-got to d-d-do wiv anything?” Sally asked, her teeth chattering.

“Everything, child. You see, the Aboriginal calls a medium-cold night a two-dog night, because is how many warm dogs he takes to sleep with him on that occasion. Colder is a three-dog night. Is places where your Aboriginal is required to take up to seven dogs to bed with him, and a few desert rats, to ensure that he is not froze to death by morning.”

With dawning understanding, the shivering boys and girls looked at the plump squirrels, foxes and weasels panting on the deck. A large white rat poked its head up out of the snow at Teo’s numbed feet, and then wrapped itself around her ankle. She instinctively recoiled. But then she looked closer, with more interest.

Teo awoke in a pleasant barnyard fug.

Two weasels snuggled against her ears, and a squirrel nestled on top of her head like a fur hat. Stretched over her stomach was a plump young otter, and on top of her feet lay a pair of corpulent foxes, intertwined head to toe. The white rat nestled in a fox’s tail, sucking quietly on the red brush while it snored. Teo could not remember when she’d last had such a capital night’s sleep.

Climbing up on deck, she could hear Sofonisba and Turtledove exchanging stiff-lipped courtesies.

“Well, I likes yer nerve!” Turtledove strained at the sides not to bark.

“Even though you despise my very intestines?” Sofonisba observed coolly.

“What’s bitin’ yer, Feline? Is it the fleas a-troublin’ yer? Happens to even the uppitiest folk sometimes.” But Turtledove’s tone betrayed him. It was gruffly affectionate. Next, he turned his attention to the Trojan ark. Rosato had stayed up all night to finish it, adding finials and decorative beading to the shutters.

“Fine as fivepence!” Turtledove pronounced. “Famously done, Ros, old chap! Yew ’as been an’ gorn an’ done it, an’ done us proud.”

Rosato blushed.

“All aboard!” Turtledove commanded. Yawning and stretching, the fat animals leapt clumsily into the ark, two by two.

The floating chalet set off, towed by a coracle rowed by four of the Scilla’s sailors, and followed by two other coracles containing the Mansion Dolorous gang, Turtledove, Signor Alicamoussa and Uncle Tommaso. The pumpkin-sellers, armed with their tin trays, rowed a wherry, quietly singing a new Venetian folk song about the great battle in the lagoon of 1899. Somewhat less tuneful were the wherries full of London ghosts, all singing bloody war songs from their different centuries.