“Watch yourself,” laughed Jonas, as a pile of brawling drunks scattered
across the cobbles in front of them. With surprising agility, he dragged Fabian
around the mass of flailing limbs and turned up a quiet back street. It was so
steep and narrow that they had to walk in single file as they clambered up past
the shuttered warehouses and dingy archways. As they reached the summit, Fabian
noticed a light was flickering through the window of one of the buildings. A
small, battered sign was hanging above the door, in the shape of an open book.
“Those dusty old fools in the university district will tell you they’re the
keepers of Altdorf’s entire reserves of knowledge,” said Jonas, pausing outside
the shop. “But there’s much more to be learned in this city, for those willing
to look.” He tapped on the door and stepped back into the street to wait for a
response.
After a few minutes the door squeaked open and an elderly woman peered
myopically out at them through the thick, scratched lenses of her spectacles.
Her skin was as shrivelled as a dried fig and her back was so hunched by age
that she was barely four feet tall.
“Frau Gangolffin,” exclaimed Jonas, giving the old lady a gracious bow. “I
hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Don’t be cruel, Jonas,” she replied with a voice like sandpaper on gravel.
“You know perfectly well how little sleep I get.” She peered up at Fabian and
shook her head. “At my age I’m lucky if I can close my eyes for so much as an
hour.” Without another word, she shuffled back into the shop, leaving the door
swinging open behind her.
Jonas smiled mischievously at Fabian and ushered him inside.
Every inch of the shop was crammed with crooked, heaving bookshelves and
teetering piles of dusty, leather-bound folios. The comforting smell of old
paper was almost enough to mask the stink of the river and Fabian took a deep,
grateful breath. There was an oil lamp sat on a desk at the foot of a narrow
staircase and the glow of the shifting flame danced across the rows of foiled
spines. Fabian sighed as he took in the wealth of obscure bestiaries and ancient
poetry anthologies. He reeled from shelf to shelf, unsure where to look first,
dazzled by the wealth of esoteric learning on display.
He noticed that Jonas was chuckling softly. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
he said. “Choose any book you want and consider it a gift.” He nodded to the old
woman, who seemed to have already forgotten them. She was hunched eagerly over a
parchment on her desk, peering at it through a large magnifying glass. “I have
an account with the old dear,” he said.
“Frau Gangolffin,” said Jonas, waving to the narrow stairs. “Do you have the
books I ordered?”
The old woman still had the magnifying glass in front of her face as she
looked up, giving her the appearance of a confused, whiskery cyclops. “Ah, yes,”
she croaked, with a look of recognition. She placed the lens back on the
cluttered desk and started climbing very slowly up the stairs. “They did arrive,
I think, with the last Estalian shipment. They should be up here somewhere.”
“Take your time, my boy,” said Jonas, waving at the bookshelves. “Who knows
when you’ll be here again.” With that he followed the woman upstairs.
Fabian immersed himself in the books, comforted by the creak of the
floorboards overhead and the muffled sound of his uncle’s voice as he chatted to
the old woman. Finally, after nearly an hour had passed, Jonas climbed back down
the stairs with a pile of books under his arm. “Find anything of interest?” he
asked.
Fabian held up a handsome volume, bound in white leather, with a gold knife
foiled on the front. “Is this too expensive?” he asked hesitantly.
“Almost certainly,” replied Jonas with a smile and called up the stairs. “And
a copy of Lang’s
Dooms and Legends,
please Frau Gangolffin.”
There was a croak of acknowledgment from the old woman as she climbed slowly
down the stairs.
“And about the other matter?” asked Jonas, giving the bookseller a strange
smile.
She nodded to Fabian. “Is he to be trusted?”
“Of course.”
“Very well. Check the street,” she muttered, glaring at Fabian. “And shut the
door.”
Fabian leapt to obey, peering up and down the alleyway. “No one there,” he
said, closing the door behind him with a
clunk.
The old woman turned to her desk and started to shove it across the
floorboards with a horrible scraping sound. Before she had moved it more than a
couple of inches however, she was gripped by a coughing fit that was so violent
Fabian rushed to her side and began patting her back.
She batted him away with a grunt of irritation and, after wiping the spittle
from her chin, gestured to the floor beneath her desk.
Fabian noticed that table’s movement had disturbed a rug and revealed the
edges of a trapdoor. With the old woman waving him on, he shoved the table a
little further until the trapdoor was completely exposed, and then stooped down
to lever it open. Hidden beneath the floorboards was a small shelf holding three
books. Each one was carefully wrapped in oilskin and fastened with a thick,
knotted cord.
Jonas moved Fabian to one side and gazed lovingly at the small,
innocent-looking bundles. “Which one?” he whispered.
Frau Gangolffin backed away from the books; watching them carefully from a
few feet away, as though they might leap for her throat at any minute. “The
middle one,” she muttered, with a note of fear in her voice.
Quick as a flash, Jonas snatched the book, secreted it in a pocket and
slammed the trapdoor shut.
As he signalled for Fabian to move the table back into place, the boy noticed
that his uncle was flushed with excitement.
Jonas took a deep, relieved breath, and smiled at Fabian. “Don’t mention what
you’ve seen, my boy. Frau Gangolffin has some particularly disreputable
competitors, and they’d all dearly love to know about that trapdoor.”
Fabian nodded in reply.
“I believe that’s everything,” said Jonas, giving the old woman a stiff bow.
She was already climbing slowly back up the stairs though, and if she heard him
she gave no sign of it.
“Well, Fabian, we’re almost done,” Jonas said as they stepped out onto the
street. “I just have one last call to make, and then we can head home.”
Fabian suddenly realised how exhausted he was. He nodded sleepily and
stumbled after his uncle, making no pretence of supporting the elderly gentleman
as he tottered back towards the quayside. Before they reached the river, Jonas
veered off down another narrow winding street and after a few lefts and rights,
Fabian gave up trying to work out which direction they were heading in. The
routes criss-crossed and doubled back on themselves in a mind-boggling confusion
of pitch dark side streets and crooked, sombrous alleyways. Tiredness added to
Fabian’s bewilderment and he began to feel as though everything that had
happened to him since his father left him in the coach had been nothing more
than a strange dream.
A predawn glow was just beginning to lift the gloom a little when Jonas led
them onto a street full of narrow tenements, huddled together against the wall
of a large park. Cheerful lights flickered in many of the small, square windows,
and figures flitted hurriedly in and out of the open doorways.
Fabian pointed out an iron bench, just outside the entrance to the park.
“Wait there for a while, lad,” he said. “I have one last bit of business to
attend to.”
Fabian eyed the tall, crooked building with concern. “Will you need my help
climbing the stairs?” he asked.
Jonas grinned and ruffled his hair. “Bless you, son, no. I have friends in
there who will be more than happy to take my hand.”
Fabian blushed, as he realised what kind of house it was. “Oh, of course,” he
muttered.
Jonas began to walk away and then hesitated, pursing his lips as he looked up
and down the street. He came back to Fabian and placed a hand on his shoulder,
stooping so that their eyes were level. “Best keep yourself out of view,” he
said, frowning. “Altdorf at night is, well…” He stumbled over his words, looking
a little anxious. Then he shrugged and his mouth split into a broad grin.
“You’ll be fine,” he said patting Fabian’s shoulder. “Anyway, I won’t be long.”
With that he hobbled off into the darkness.
Fabian rushed over to the bench and did his best to become invisible. As he
sat there, trying desperately to stay awake, Fabian saw a stream of people
rushing by: ne’er-do-wells of every class and creed, from rowdy, drunken
dockhands to sinister, hooded nobles, none of whom seemed to notice him as he
crouched sleepily by the park gate.
After a few minutes had passed, Fabian began to get the unnerving feeling he
was being watched. He studied the faces of the passers-by, but everyone he saw
was intent on either getting in or out of one the houses as quickly as possible.
None of them were paying him any attention at all. So why was his skin crawling
so unpleasantly? A movement caught his eye in an alleyway directly opposite. He
peered into the shadows, but it was still too dark to see very clearly. Was that
a barrel, or a crouched figure, he wondered? Despite his best instincts, he rose
from the bench and started walking across the street towards the alleyway. As he
neared the hunched shape, it suddenly leapt from the ground and dashed silently
back up the alley, quickly disappearing from view. Fabian’s fear grew, as he
realised his suspicions had been correct: someone
had
been watching him.
The idea horrified him and he looked anxiously up at the house Jonas had
entered, praying he would not be left alone for much longer.
Fabian passed another awful fifteen minutes on the bench, crippled by fear
and flinching at every shape that rushed past. Finally, he saw a tired Jonas
step back out onto the street and head towards him, leaning heavily on his cane
and finally looking as old as Fabian knew he must be.
“Is everything alright?” asked Jonas with a yawn, as he saw the fear in
Fabian’s eyes.
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
“Of course you are, my boy. We should get you home. Isolde will be expecting
us.” He nodded to the wide, moonlit lawns of the park. “We can cut back through
here.”
A flagged path dissected the park, lined by tall, noble oaks and low,
serpentine yews. In the grey calm just before the dawn, it was one of the few
places in the city that Fabian hadn’t felt claustrophobic. The path was broad,
straight and silent and it seemed that for the briefest of moments that Altdorf
was asleep.
They had just spied the gates on the far side of the park when Jonas paused
and frowned at Fabian. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
Fabian shook his head, but something in his uncle’s tone reminded of him of
the figure he saw fleeing up the alleyway.
Jonas stayed stock still, listening carefully. After a few minutes he curled
his lip in disdain. “It seems that the evening’s entertainment isn’t over.” He
reached beneath the black velvet of his doublet and withdrew a long knife. He
flipped it in his hand and held it out to Fabian, handle first. “Just in case,”
he said, with a wry smile.
The sound of running feet came from behind them and Jonas and Fabian turned
to see five slender figures sprinting towards them out of the darkness. Fabian
recognised the gypsy bandanas that covered their faces from the men in the
Recalcitrant Club. A cold fury replaced his fear, as he pictured the treacherous
Calderino murdering his frail old uncle. He finally felt as though he had a
relative who understood him and these dogs were going to butcher him.
With a howl of rage, Fabian dropped his book and charged at the masked
figures, brandishing his knife as though it were a lance. Every heroic tale he
had ever read flooded through his mind as he leapt at the first runner, planting
a well-placed boot in the man’s face and sending them both tumbling backwards
onto the grass. Without a pause for breath, he climbed to his feet and threw the
knife with all his strength at the second runner. It spun through the air,
flashing in the moonlight before embedding itself deep in the man’s thigh.
He screamed in pain and tumbled to his knees, clutching at the blade and
spitting out a stream of insults in a language Fabian did not recognise.
Fabian flew at the man and pounded his fist into the side of his head,
sending him sprawling across the flagstones. “The books were forgeries!” he
cried, his voice cracking with emotion. “Keep your hands off my uncle!” Then he
gasped in pain as his face suddenly slammed against a flagstone. He realised
vaguely that someone had just punched him, but as the stars whirled over his
head, he could not quite work out how to operate his legs.
A furious, swarthy face snarled down at him. “Stay out of this, you
ridiculous child,” cried Calderino, ripping the bandana from his face and
spitting on the path. “I’d be quite happy to slit your throat too.”
Fabian tried to climb to his feet, but his legs collapsed beneath him and his
stomach emptied its contents noisily across the path. He could do nothing but
watch in helpless, mute despair as the men drew their knives and stepped towards
his defenceless uncle.
Fabian writhed across the ground, still retching as the men circled Jonas.
All his strength had vanished and a terrible nausea twisted his guts as he
realised his uncle was about to die.
Calderino and his men tossed their slender blades from hand to hand as they
closed in on the old man, hurling mocking insults as they prepared to strike.
Even the man Fabian had injured managed a grin as he limped towards his prey.
Jonas, however, seemed quite calm. He placed his books carefully on the
ground and raised his slender cane, as though intending to use it as a weapon.
Then he shook his head sadly. “You’ve wasted a lot of my time today, Calderino.
Thanks to you I was unable to greet a very important guest, and the lies you
told about those books will set my studies back months. But as a club member, I
was prepared to forgive your lack of professionalism. Despite my better
judgement, I was willing to write the whole thing off to experience.”