A Face Like Glass (17 page)

Tiny bird-shapes with long beaks were just visible, flitting about the corners of the cavern, their wings a whirr and their shadows thrown large and rippled on the wall. They uttered not a
chirrup, trill or keen. The spoon trembled in Neverfell’s hand.

It was at this point that her attention was distracted by the peculiar behaviour of a richly dressed, grey-haired man on another table. In the middle of a conversation, his head wobbled
comically, and he opened his mouth wide as if preparing to bellow something across the table. Instead of doing so, however, he rocked back and then made a determined attempt to plant his face in
his jelly. He was thwarted in this at the last moment by the two guests next to him, who placed hurried hands on his shoulders and caught him just before his beard grazed the plate.

The whole thing was so clownish that Neverfell could not suppress a snort of mirth. Fortunately this was covered by a slightly louder laugh from Maxim Childersin, who was looking the same
way.

‘Oh, that is quite beautiful. Masterful. I did wonder if something like that would happen.’

It seemed that the man was being helped out of his chair, and carried back to his boat, his arms over the shoulders of two of his companions. His head lolled forward, and his dragging toes left
matching grooves in the sand. The laughter inside Neverfell died a death.

‘Is that man all right?’

‘Oh goodness, no. Did you see the bird flitting around near his ear just before he collapsed? Somebody who knew about the jelly course in advance must have bought and trained a bird of the
same sort before the banquet, then released it mid-course. It will have been primed to hunt down a particular person, and jab them with its beak. With so many birds flitting around, nobody would
notice an extra one, or wonder whether it had poison on its beak.’

‘Somebody hired the Zookeeper, you think?’ suggested one of the other Childersin uncles.

‘It certainly looks like his work,’ agreed Maxim Childersin. ‘Trained animals, poison . . . yes, I think so. Very elegant.’

Neverfell could think of lots of other words to describe such a murder, and she had a horrible feeling that all of them were printed across her face. And yet although she understood in her head
that she had just watched a man die she could not really believe it. It had all seemed like something from a pantomime, and everybody around her was so calm and amused.

‘Why didn’t his friends do anything? Why did they just quietly carry him away?’ she whispered.

‘Making a fuss would be far more disastrous. The death will look like a heart attack, and they cannot suggest it is anything else without casting aspersions on the Grand Steward’s
birds.’

As Neverfell digested this, she realized that her reaction had not gone unnoticed. Seated a few tables away were two women well dressed in peach and gold brocade. One of them was desperately
peering across at Neverfell with a sketchbook in her hand. The other seemed to be suffering some kind of apoplexy.

‘Zouelle, who are those women?’

‘Facesmiths,’ whispered Zouelle, and spared Neverfell a confidential smirk. ‘Poor dears. They’ve never seen anyone who can – oh! Neverfell! Hands in your lap, back
straight, here comes the next course!’

And the next was followed by the next and then the next, each heralded by a different captivating scent. A quail-and-cranberry pie led to a cordial of cloud and elderberry and then a huge tureen
of turtle and thyme soup. With trepidation Neverfell realized that the time of the Stackfalter Sturton’s debut was arriving. She knew she should be more worried about her own grand
introduction to Court society, but when she thought of the trouble that had gone into the great cheese she felt a bit like a mother whose child is about to step on to the stage in front of hundreds
of onlookers.

‘They will be bringing out a True Wine to suit it and prepare the palate,’ Zouelle murmured as she reached for another moth biscuit. ‘Not one of ours, I’m afraid.
Something from the Ganderblack family, who have not been seeing eye to eye with us
at all.
And Ganderblack Wines are always so treacherous and aggressive.’

Tiny crystal goblets were placed before each person, and the carvers were swiftly replaced by bottle-bearers. The liquid within each bottle was a deep and stormy mauve. Only when the corks were
eased free did Neverfell start to understand what Zouelle meant. The Wine did not slop around like ordinary liquid, but moved smokily and stealthily, coiling up the inside of the bottle and trying
to snake over the lip. The waiters managed to keep it in the bottle through a set of amazingly agile twists, jerks, tilts and arm waggles. Once tipped into the goblets it seemed to become
calmer.

Neverfell was just marvelling at the skill of the young male servant who had succeeded in pouring the prowling Wine into her goblet, when it happened. A single rebellious drop slipped from the
mouth and down the neck of the bottle. It fell to the pure white cloth, leaving a brilliant, purple splotch.

The young man froze, staring at the spot. His blandly polite expression did not waver, but Neverfell heard him give a tiny, ragged gasp of pure horror and mortal terror. Immediately she
remembered Zouelle saying that making the smallest mistake was worth more than a servant’s life.

It didn’t even feel like a decision. There was a thing to do and Neverfell did it. She flicked the back of her hand at her goblet, knocking it over, so that the Wine flooded out across the
tablecloth, swamping and hiding the spilt drop before anybody else could see it.

The ‘thonk’ of the goblet hitting the table was muted and yet terribly loud. Her knuckles still stinging from the chill of the crystal, Neverfell felt silence flood from that one
sound through the feast, like the purple tide across the cloth. The next moment, awareness of what she had just done hit her like a bucketful of ice water.

Neverfell’s gaze crept up to the faces of Zouelle and the other Childersins. All of them had frozen, and were staring paralysed at the spreading stain. Half of them had apparently
forgotten how to breathe. The servants halted mid-motion, then as one they melted away from the table.

All over the island, conversation had been replaced by an eerie hush. From every table, frozen Faces watched entranced as the priceless Wine dripped off the edge of the table. Forgotten forks
hovered where they had halted halfway to open mouths.

They know. They all know it wasn’t an accident. They can see it in my face.

Fearfully, Neverfell glanced across at Maxim Childersin. He still wore a wryly attentive smile, but it meant nothing. He was not looking in Neverfell’s direction. Instead, he was gazing
out with unblinking watchfulness towards the distant waterfall that Neverfell had been told hid the Grand Steward. Following his gaze, Neverfell thought for a moment that she glimpsed traces of
movement behind the curtain of water, perhaps even the silhouette of a human shape.

‘Neverfell, take the gondola back to the sedan. The servants will see you home.’ Childersin’s order was too quiet and too calm to be questioned for an instant.

Shaky with shock and mortification, Neverfell rose, not daring to look at Zouelle, and fled back towards the boat, her head bowed and her green satin shoes hobbling awkwardly on the false sand.
She could not bring herself to look back as the gondola carried her away, until the stalactites hid the scene of her crime from view.

Thus it was that Neverfell did not see what happened next.

The servants were in instant, voiceless motion. The strange girl’s action had torn a hole in the beautifully woven fabric of the banquet, a hole in a dozen conversations. The hole had to
be filled. The Stackfalter Sturton had to be brought in early. Half a dozen men ran out to the little icehouse where the great cheese was waiting, to collect it and bring it in. The two guards
placed to watch it blinked at them in mute confusion when they arrived, but there was no time for explanation. The door was opened, and the great covered dish heaved on to its trolley and wheeled
out across the little bridge on to the dining island.

As the trolley emerged, light gleaming on the four-foot-wide silver dish cover, dozens of courtiers braced themselves, ready to don what they hoped would be suitable Faces for such a
masterpiece. Rumour had spread of underhand attempts to steal parts of it, and that had just increased its fame.

There was a pause, and then the great dish cover was tweaked away.

Nobody was ever quite sure what to expect from a True Cheese. What they definitely did not expect, however, was the sight of a short and stocky figure, apparently clad from head to foot in
slatted metal scales, which raised a goggled head, leaped from the dish and sprinted across the island. Sheer shock froze the guards for an all-important second, and by the time they were racing to
intercept the strange figure, it had dived cleanly into the water of the lagoon. No bubbles rose to the surface and neither did the stranger.

After a few seconds most watchers realized that even a True Cheese was very unlikely to do that. In the ensuing gondola search, no sign could be found of the bizarre figure. Furthermore, there
was no sign of the Sturton, except for a few crumbs of rind and strands of moss. At last the truth dawned.

The Kleptomancer had struck again, and this time had stolen from the Grand Steward himself.

Nobody said anything to chide Neverfell when she arrived back at the Childersin house, but she noticed the fraction of a second each servant paused in surprise before rushing
to take her coat and gloves. She was not expected back yet. An early return could only mean disgrace.

She fled to her room, but the very sight of it was a reproach to her, a reminder of the Childersins’ kindness. Instead she crept down and found a hiding place in a little storeroom just
off the main hall. There she hunched amid the brooms and grub-sacks, limp with self-disgust. Nobody seemed to be hunting for her, no doubt supposing her still in her room, so she was left in the
unkind company of her thoughts.

Stupid, so stupid! So much for her promises to do nothing. Had she really thought that the Childersins could make something new of her, just by combing her hair and putting her in a nice dress?
No, she was still Neverfell, gangling around like a cranefly and breaking everything. Not only had she failed to learn anything about her own history, but she had brought trouble on the very people
who had tried to help her.

The only form of disgrace Neverfell really knew was Grandible’s anger, which blew over if you hid for long enough or let him rage. But this was not a crisis that would burn itself out or
get distracted by Stilton. Worse still, she was still not sure what exactly she had done, nor what it would mean. How much trouble had she created for herself? For Zouelle? For the Childersin
family?

The open chink of the storeroom door gave her a view on to the hall, and thus she was in a good position to watch when, two hours later, the Childersin group returned. Neverfell glimpsed
Zouelle’s blonde plait and pale face passing by, and did not know how she could face the other girl. Even worse, however, was the thought of having to explain herself to Maxim Childersin.

She braced herself and waited for him to pass her hiding place, in the hope that she could read something – anything – in his manner. Face after face passed, however, until the faces
ran out, and she felt a creeping dawn of horror. She had been ready to see him brisk, or striding, or taciturn, or wearing a dangerous mask of good humour. She had not been prepared to find him
missing. The Childersins had returned, but they had done so without their patriarch.

What have I done? Oh no – what have I done?

As it turned out, Neverfell had found herself a hiding hole well placed for hearing answers to that question.

The front door was barely shut before the Childersins erupted into argument, for all the world as if they were responding to an agreed signal. They still wore their banquet clothes and their
polite-dinner Faces, but their voices were so savagely bitter that Neverfell barely knew them.

‘Quiet!’ One voice gained ascendancy for a moment. Neverfell thought it belonged to Maxim Childersin’s oldest adult nephew. ‘We need to make plans
right now
. Do
you really think Maxim will be coming back from that “private audience with the Grand Steward”? He won’t. He’s gone, and unless we act fast the rest of us will be next for
the blade. Do you remember the last time somebody showed contempt for the Grand Steward’s hospitality, by dropping a fig on the floor? That was the end of the whole Jeroboam clan.’

‘So what do we do?’ snapped one of Zouelle’s aunts. ‘Nobody is going to believe that little cheese-girl spilt the Ganderblack Wine of her own accord. And even if they
did, we’re still responsible for her actions.’ There was a furore of agreement, disagreement, recriminations.

‘Everybody quiet!’ shouted the oldest nephew again. ‘Listen! Unless we do something drastic, the Childersin dynasty comes to an end tonight. So I have just now sent emissaries
to the Grand Steward and the Ganderblacks, suggesting that the Ganderblack family take over the whole Childersin legacy as compensation.’