Merion gingerly clapped Jarlbor on the shoulder. ‘I shall leave you in Mr Ford’s very capable, and very large, hands. Good luck. I hope you find your daughter.’
‘Thank you, young Sir. Master?’
‘Har … lequin,’ stuttered Merion, almost slipping. ‘Harlequin.’
‘Thank you,’ the man replied, shaking the boy’s hand firmly, feverishly tight.
Merion made his exit, and quickly too. He was not sure how to deal with Jarlbor’s stress. Losing a father is one thing. But losing a daughter, or a son, in a place like this? And possibly through your own neglect? Terrifying, that’s what it was. Merion shook his head and ploughed into the shadows behind the glamour.
Once more, he knocked on the canvas of Yara’s tent. This time there was an answer. ‘Come,’ Yara said.
Merion had barely stepped through the flap when she pointed at a chair, a rather uncomfortable-looking one at that. ‘Sit,’ she bade him. He did as he was told.
‘I was here to ask you something, earlier,’ Merion explained.
Yara nodded, gliding back and forth along the rug that formed the floor. ‘I thought as much. And so I will let you ask. I like to be the first to listen, as you know,’ she said quietly. She seemed deep in thought, half-distracted.
Merion smiled. It was time to try his hand. ‘I know very well, Ms Mizar,’ he said. ‘I came here to ask something very simple indeed. I just want to know how long it will take us to reach the coast. The east coast that is. When can I expect to be on a ship?’
Yara grinned and tapped her nose. ‘You and I think the same, Merion. If you had not come to me to ask, I would have come to you to tell. But before I tell you, how was the booth tonight?’
Merion felt a twitch of anger inside of him, as he thought of the paper inside his coat. He shrugged. ‘Fine, I suppose. Fun at times. Busy.’
Yara crouched down in front of him, her skirts rustling. ‘Would you like to know a secret, Master Harlequin? Something that only a handful of our family know?
‘Does it involve me getting home sooner?’
Yara chuckled. ‘It just may! I have good news for you, Merion. The reasons we are here in Daevan Port is that it is time to pick up the pace. We are here to catch a train headed east. The Bloodmoon is drawing closer with each passing night, and we have been offered a chance to celebrate it in the finest of ways. We have been offered a show, Merion, a very important one indeed.’
‘A show?’
She came right out and said it, so matter-of-factly that Merion almost missed it: ‘A chance to perform in front of Red King Lincoln himself, in Washingtown.’
Merion’s mind reeled with chance and possibility. ‘Are you serious?’
‘As a knife’s edge, Merion,’ Yara replied, magicking a knife into her hand and spinning it into a blur of silver. ‘He wants to prove his political indifference to the war in the east, it seems, I am not sure. Politics were never an interest of mine. In any case, being that I am Rosiyan, and Cirque Kadabra’s roots lie in eastern Europe, Lincoln sees it fit to have us entertain him. And we shall, Merion. We shall.’ Yara’s eyes glazed over as she came to a halt and stared at some imaginary horizon. ‘The show falls on the night of the Bloodmoon. Our shades will be stronger than ever. We will throw harder, lift heavier, and swing higher than ever before. We will stun them, Merion, show them what true magick is, and yet keep it just beyond their reach. We will dazzle them, we will,’ Yara expounded, her words becoming faster and louder as she went on. Merion was shocked, and excited, and all manner of other things. He almost forgot why he had come. Almost.
‘When is it?’
Yara smirked knowingly. ‘A week from today, the sixteenth of this month. The earliest it has ever risen in the history of … well. Since they started keeping records,’ she told him.
‘Who?’
Yara shrugged disarmingly. ‘Rushers, lampreys, the first of us.’
The young Hark could not help but lean forwards in the chair. ‘Have you known many?’ Merion asked. ‘Lampreys, I mean.’
Yara’s face turned stony. ‘More than I care to think about, Master Harlequin. A disgusting practice,’ she hissed.
Merion nodded. ‘My aunt says the same thing.’
Yara fixed him with a look. ‘And what would you say?’
He shook his head, suppressing a shiver as the memory of the Serpeds’ scarlet brandy scuttled through his mind. ‘I haven’t had the best experience with them, let’s say that.’
The circus master chuckled, and resumed her pacing. ‘I will need you, on the night,’ she said.
The young Hark sat straighter. ‘You will? To do what?’
‘I am not sure yet. But I think you should be part of it. You are our only leech after all,’ Yara mused. ‘Perhaps I misjudged. We have never had guests throw themselves so heartily into circus life. I know I have already told you this, but it is a pleasure to have you here. And it will be an honour to have you perform if we can arrange it. And when it is all done, and the applause has died, we shall find you your ship. We will talk again soon.’
Merion stood up to thank her, extending a hand, but Yara slapped it aside and wrapped him in a sharp embrace. The woman was nothing but bone and hard muscle. The boy flinched at first, but then found himself relaxing for a change, letting Yara squeeze him tight. Merion felt the worry lift and the anxiousness wither. ‘Soon,’ he said.
Yara let him go and nodded. As Merion turned to leave, his arm caught his jacket and the newspaper fell to the floor. He quickly bent down to snatch it up, thanking the Almighty he had folded it so only the back pages were showing. As he looked up to avoid hitting his head on the arm of the chair as he rose, he glimpsed something on the writing desk next to it. Just a snatch of something between a sheaf of powder-blue paper. A coat of arms, perhaps? A sigil? Something with an eagle …
‘Reading on the job, were we, Master Harlequin?’ Yara inquired, interrupting his staring. Merion abruptly realised he had frozen, staring at the desk. He pasted a smile onto his face. He could not tell if her haughty look was in jest or not.
‘An old man left it behind. I was going to give it back to him.’
Yara hummed, then nodded.
‘It looks like more than one thing has been lost tonight, then,’ she replied sombrely, running a hand through her russet hair. Merion nodded, wondering what had become of Mr Jarlbor and his missing daughter.
It was then that she reached out for the newspaper. Merion had to give it to her, and though his hand wanted to recoil, he could not, and he concentrated so very hard on not letting up his polite smile.
With narrowed eyes she examined the paper, unfolding it so she could take in the Empire’s headlines. Merion ached to snatch it away from her, but it would have spelled guilt, clear and cold, so he held back, and listened to her mouth the words: war, reputation, treachery.
‘Has anybody ever told you your country is mad?’
‘Many times, Ms Mizar,’ he replied cheerily, and then feigned fighting back a yawn. ‘Well I better be turning in. I’m exhausted.’ After a great show of folding and rustling, Merion retrieved his newspaper and moved towards the door.
Yara waved another blade at him, making it flash in the lantern light as she went back to strutting back and forth. ‘That we all are, Master Harlequin. You shall be boarding your ship back to your Empire soon, have no fear,’ she said, smiling.
Merion smiled right back, bowed, and took his leave.
Walking back through the tents and wagons, the young Hark’s mind churned like a troubled machine, trying to make sense of what had just happened. There was one wrench in his gears that he could not shake loose. He had seen the flick of her eyes, just before he turned away—looking at the desk, to see what she had left there. He had also seen the imperceptible twitch in her mouth as she read the name: Tonmerion. He knew where it lay on the newspaper’s page, next to the words ‘traitorous son’. And that was exactly how he knew there was something deeply wrong about all of this. It all boiled down to one, bone-dry fact:
She had not uttered a thing about it.
BLOOD AND BLASPHEMY
10th July, 1867
I
t must have been the only tree for miles. And what a gnarled thing it was, bent double like an old hag, gnawed and sucked dry by the hot wind. It had precious little shade to offer, but in the noon sun, you took what you were given.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Calidae muttered, pointedly, busy drawing idle circles in the dust between the scraggly plants.
‘Anything,’ came the gruff reply.
Calidae shielded her eyes with a hand and stared again at the man-shaped lump lying on a low rise several hundred yards away. It had not moved in half an hour. It must have been freshly dead, or on the doorstep, for the vultures were only now beginning to circle, high up in the crystal blue, mere flecks against the open sky.
‘Well I’m bored,’ she huffed. ‘He’s obviously dead. Whoever’s shown him his end is long gone. Let’s just go around.’
Gavisham adjusted himself, his long grey coat rasping against the dry tree bark. ‘Then we’d have them at our backs.’
‘Who?’
‘Whoever’s put him there. Whoever saw us coming and laid out a trap.’
‘What trap? What could we want with a dead body?’
‘Boots, a belt, coin, bullets … a hundred different things. You’d be surprised what people see as treasure in places like this,’ Gavisham lectured.
The tall man was holding a coiled hand to his eye, as if making a telescope out of skin and bone. Calidae highly suspected he was already rushing something, eagle perhaps. Suffrous had told her all about it.
Irritatingly, Gavisham’s guard had not dropped one iota in the last few days. They had walked and walked, and then walked some more, and not a single time had his tongue slipped to blood or wagged of his employment. No more was mentioned of the boy, either. For that at least, Calidae was glad. She did not trust herself to hide her quietly bubbling rage, ever-constant since their last talk.
Calidae shrugged. ‘I’m sure you could handle them.’
‘The secret to winning fights, Asha, is knowing who’ll be swinging the punches, and how hard.’
There was another huff, and she went back to drawing spirals in the sand.
‘Fine,’ he announced, pushing himself from the tree. ‘But you stay back, behind me. If anything happens,’ he paused to draw his hunting knife, ‘then use this. You know how?’
‘Sharp end goes in first,’ she hissed as she took it.
Gavisham winked. ‘More or less. Quietly now.’
Together they stalked across the sun-burnt prairie. Calidae looked about with wary eyes. Gavisham’s suspicion was contagious. But the wilds were empty, as usual.
The prairie was slowly winning the fight against the dust. Hardy plants, dark green or brown, clutched onto what life they could steal from the sand. They buzzed with crickets and lazy flies. The air shivered around them as the heat bounced from the baked earth.
In the distance a wall of red-brown rock stretched from north to south, where the desert paths led to gulches and old river canyons—and shade, most importantly. Atop their dusty ridges, cacti and more trees poked at the sky, just jagged spines at that distance.
There was the faintest breeze washing over the prairie, and it brought them the stink of recent death: the odour of warm meat, the stench of soiled britches, the tang of copper. Calidae wrinkled her nose and kept her eyes on the body.
It did not take long to reach it. Gavisham approached slowly, looking at anything but the dead man, sprawled like a mangled spider in the dust, glaring sightlessly at the sky, his face frozen in outrageous shock. Calidae let Gavisham do the looking and eyed the corpse. He had been shot in the chest, twice in the heart it seemed, so that the blood had bubbled out and stained the sand a dark red in a gruesome circle around him. Calidae, despite herself, noticed her stomach gurgling quietly. A bit more saliva boldly attempted to encroach on her dry mouth. It had been weeks now since she had put the red in her belly, and she ached for it.
Gavisham had been right. The man had a pair of good boots, and a wide belt notched with copper-clad bullets, shining gold in the sun. There was no gun at his hip, only an empty holster. Calidae began to creep forward.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Gavisham whispered at her, and she begrudgingly did as she was told, hunkering down.
It was he who crept forwards to nudge the corpse. It was simply a formality at this point; the man was clearly as dead as a gravestone. The stiff body creaked as he kicked it with a boot.
Calidae was about to tell him exactly how right she was when there came a whooping and a hollering from somewhere nearby. Four trapdoors burst out of the sand, and four dusty men rose up out of the haze, rifles in hand and grins on their faces. They were a makeshift lot: their outfits cobbled together from whatever they could steal or sew together. Their beards were wild and speckled with sand, their hair long and greasy. Sweat covered their foreheads and darkened the seams of their rumpled shirts. It must have been hot down in their traps.
‘The Sand Rabbits strike again!’ one cackled. He was clearly the ringleader, Calidae thought, by the amount of pilfered jewellery that lined his wrists and neck.
‘Hands to the sky!’ yelled another, a scrawny, jittery fellow with a rifle held at his hip.
Gavisham and Calidae slowly did as they were told.
‘My my, what have we here?’ said their leader with a gap-toothed grin, looking at Calidae. ‘Better drop the knife there, girl. Don’t want no trouble, do you?’
Gavisham slowly doffed his hat. ‘Not in the slightest, my friends. And that’s why we’ll be on our way,’ he said, matching the man’s smile.
‘Not so fast,’ the scrawny fellow piped up again, marching up and out of his shallow hole. He waved his rifle around in worrying arcs. ‘Empty your pockets.’
‘Shake ‘em down, Dallow,’ murmured the others.
Gavisham was a sneaky one, that was for sure. Calidae had been distracted by the body, of course, but even out of the corner of her eye, she had not once seen him lift his hands to his mouth. But somehow, he was already rushing. And rushing something brutal to boot.