The Gracekeepers (25 page)

 

A
nother night. Another show.

Bero coaxed music from the wind-up gramophone, Ainsel turned flips on horseback, North wound ribbons around the glamours' bodies for the maypole. The air smelled of damp fabric and strange spices and a hundred unfamiliar bodies.

Beneath it all, Dough imagined Red Gold and his wife hiding in the
Excalibur
's cabin. The stage was the ship's deck, so they would be able to hear every word—a thought both enticing and nerve-racking. Since Avalon's injury, Red Gold had stayed belowdecks during every performance. In his absence, the clowns had free rein—and every night, they pushed their act further.

Dough lurked with Cash and Dosh in the seawater-rough embrace of the curtains, striding on stage between acts to rile the crowd. Red Gold's usual style was old-fashioned: booming commandments and enticements that echoed between the clams' ears,
the tent lit up bright as stars with dozens of seal-fat lamps. Safe scares glittered with a fat dollop of magic.

The clowns favored a more sinister approach: dressed in floor-length capes, the hoods pulled low, they slinked across the stage to hiss warnings in the faces of the closest clams, the tent dim with shadows cast by a handful of lamps. The capes were creepy, which they liked, but they also served to hide their costumes and makeup. The clowns didn't want to lessen the clams' shock and delight when they were finally revealed. That night, the circus was an altogether darker place. When on stage, the circus performers could see nothing at all of the crowd. The clams might all have up and left, but for the scent of their skin and the sound of their applause.

As well as sharing ringmaster duties, Dough also danced the maypole with the glamours and Bero, all of them sporting masks made of fake flowers; helped with costume changes; and watched Ainsel's horses while he primped his hair. Dosh was glad to keep busy so as to avoid speaking to North. The sadness on her face was so distracting, and nothing would make her feel better.

“Ready?” hissed Dosh.

Dough jolted awake. “Now?”

“You were dreaming. Get ready. We're on.”

There was no announcement for the military act. After the last flare of Bero's fire-breathing act had faded, the stage was left empty and dark. The clams waited.

Then the gramophone squealed into life: a military march, loud and aggressive. This was something new. The clams waited.

Behindcurtains the three clowns stamped to the beat in their metal-soled boots until the striped silk shuddered with the sound. When the clams' excitement and fear was so thick they could taste it, the clowns marched on stage.

In the center of the stage they marched in place, arms straight, chins held high to let the lights hit their painted skulls. The clams were silent in their darkness. The march got louder, the clowns stamped harder. Dough felt the deck judder under their heels—if they kept this up, the whole ship would topple. What would Red Gold make of it, hunched down in his cabin with his unfaithful wife, feeling the walls shake?

Just in time, the military march slowed, the notes drawing out, part sinister and part sensual. The clowns calmed their dance too, keeping time with the slower beat, easing their stamp into a slide. They let their hips sway under their tight-buttoned coats, twisting their painted skulls into smiles. Their arms stretched toward the darkness of the crowd, fingers spread, beckoning. Each move was aggressively sexual, confronting the audience.

Dough felt good—and it was clear the other clowns felt good too. This was how they were supposed to be. This was their purpose. What's the use of a clown who doesn't subvert? What do they bring to the crowd? Everyone has sadness, and rage, and frustration—and so everyone needs a clown.

Cash gave a subtle nod to Bero offstage and the march slowed again. The clowns switched from aggressive sexuality to coy submission, straightening their legs and bending at the waist, undoing their top buttons to flash a glimpse of the bare skin beneath their coats. Legs wide, they tugged at the fastenings of their trousers, inching them down to show the pale skin of their lower bellies—revealing more and more, but not yet enough for the clams to know, to be sure…

This was the crowd's cue. Usually some of them, having seen the clown military before, knew to bring projectiles with them: spoiled food, broken tools, handfuls of seaweed from the blackshore. In their rage and frustration they'd hurl these things at the
clowns—at the military, in their minds. The objects hit, and it hurt, and the clowns bled. And the more they bled, the more the clams screamed and raged and threw. That was good. Scapegoats must always bleed.

Dough knew that clowns made perfect scapegoats, because what's scarier than a clown? They stand for money and hunger, sex and rage, loss and loneliness, displacement and death. They stand for everything, and they stand for nothing.

The clowns owned the stage: three painted, half-nude skeletons, baiting a hundred people to attack them. Dough waited for the shock of impact, the thud of objects on flesh.

But something was wrong. The clams stayed in their seats with their mouths shut. Under the sluggish throb of the military march, Dosh heard nothing. No shouts, no taunts, no scrape and rustle of objects ready to be thrown.

“
ENOUGH
!” came a shout from the crowd. In the shadows, Dough thought a clam stood up—but was that the gleam of buttons on a military coat? Was that the shine of a metal club?

The music stopped. The clowns stood on the stage, frozen in mock-sexy poses, staring into the breathing dark.

“You are under arrest. Landlockers, stay in your seats. Damplings, drop any weapons. If you are armed, you will suffer for it.”

“We don't have any weapons!” called Cash into the darkness. “We're just circus performers! We—”

Dough nudged for silence a moment too late. A dozen more shadows stood in the crowd. As they approached the stage, the military boots weren't loud enough to shake the Excalibur's striped silks, but they were no less scary for that.

The clowns straightened, trying to fasten their costumes without looking as if they were hiding weapons. They didn't fear the military, but they didn't enjoy a beating.

“Present your captain. Who is in charge here?”

Dough stepped forward without hesitation. “I am. I take full responsibility.”

From behindcurtains came a clatter, a muffled curse, and Red Gold burst on to the stage with his face as red as blood. He looked at the cluster of real military men on one side of the stage and the painted, half-dressed military clowns on the other side. He understood. But he said nothing.

A hundred landlockers filed from their seats and back on to their island, mouths closed and eyes on the ground. When the tent was empty, the military men rounded up everyone from the Circus Excalibur who'd performed that night. Together, they marched on to the prison boat.

T
he prison cabin was nowhere near large enough to house the three clowns, the three glamours, Ainsel, and Bero—but there they were, and there they would stay.

“Damn it, Cash, would you
move
?” Teal shifted, hip-wiggling to force a finger-width of space on either side.

“Move where, exactly?” replied Cash, hunching to show that they were all feeling squashed. “The only way is out. If you want to try and squeeze your admirable mass out of that porthole, feel free.”

Dough admired the restraint: Cash spoke of being in the prison boat as a chance for some revolutionary action, though how much revolution could be enacted from inside a locked cabin, Dough didn't know. Cash usually paced the tiny space and ranted at the military men guarding the cabins, though Dough was sure they didn't listen to a word of it. Still, it kept Cash busy, and
that was useful. Now they were penned in, shoulder to shoulder, uncomfortably aware of one another's breathing, getting one another's hair caught in the sweaty remnants of their makeup every time they moved. It was a good thing that Dosh had grown up in a coracle with two others—claustrophobia was an anxiety that no dampling could afford.

“Red Gold will get us out soon,” soothed Cyan.

“Sure as tides he won't,” said Cash with a snort. “He'll be far too busy making peace between Avalon and North. The three of them, stuck there alone—can you imagine? Such chaos! It'll be magnificent!”

Dough couldn't resist sneaking a glance at Ainsel. They all knew that something was up with him and Avalon—she'd always disliked North, but since the agreement that Ainsel would marry North and move into a clam house on an island, she'd progressed to hatred. Dosh wasn't sure if it was about Ainsel, or North, or the house, but her hate burned so strong that the source barely mattered. Ainsel's face, though, remained as impassive as ever. He hadn't said a word since they'd been rounded up for the prison boat: he'd simply handed his horse's reins to his father and traipsed after the clowns. It wasn't Ainsel's first time in a locked cabin, but he was usually in better spirits.

“Are the landlockers celebrating that we got arrested?” Mauve was the only one with a view from the porthole, and was making good use of it. “It's fireworks or something. Bright lights. Maybe that procession that they do, with the candles? The island is so dark, it's hard to tell, but it looks like—”

Cash tried to elbow Mauve out of the way. “Don't be stupid. The landlockers hate the military more than us. They won't be celebrating. If anything, they'll be mourning the loss of our act. I bet they had pockets full of old vegetables and broken things,
ready to pelt us with. They needed to vent just as much as we did.” Cash leaned over Mauve and peered out of the porthole. “But—what is that?”

One by one, the circus crew wriggled and bent and stretched so that they could look out of the porthole. Dough managed a glimpse: a slow gleam of light in the dark. But Dough had been the first into the prison cabin, and had glanced out of the porthole then. The island's location was easy to remember, and the location of the boats around it. The glow came from the circus boats. Dough leaned over for another look, and the light had grown enough to show that it fitted the shape of a coracle.

“What is that?” Dough asked, frowning.

“Fire,” said Bero, his voice low.

“Fire?” shrieked Cyan. “But it can't—Red Gold wouldn't let—how could—”

Finally, for the first time since he'd boarded the prison boat, Ainsel spoke. “She didn't wait. I had a plan. It was good. It would have got us a house. I thought I knew what she wanted, but I—but she—she'll do anything, burn anything, destroy everything. She'll tear it all down if that's what it takes.”

Dough lost patience. “Ainsel, what in oceans are you talking about?”

“Avalon,” he said, and his voice cracked. “It's Avalon.”

 

C
allanish was on the dock the day the striped sails appeared on the horizon. She had been preparing for another night sleeping on the shore, followed by another day hiding among the trees and trying to avoid her mother's window. The islanders had patience with their kin, but that patience would soon snap.

She watched the circus boat dock at the next island. From this distance, she could not make out the identities of the figures—was that the bear-like bulk of the captain? Was that North's dark head peeping from a coracle? It had to be. It had to be. The comings and goings of the island continued around her, steady as breathing, predictable as dawn. She saw none of it.

Night fell, and still she watched. Even from this distance, the circus was magical. The lights beneath the silks lit up the colors, soft as embers. If she strained her ears, she was sure she
could hear whispers of music. She lay back on the dock, using her fur over-vest as a pillow, and let the distant circus lull her.

If they were on the next island tonight, then they would be at this island tomorrow. She felt her future rolling out in front of her, blurry of detail but featuring one vital part: North, the bear-girl, the one who would—

She jolted upright, eyes straining against the dark. Why was a prison boat, lights dimmed almost to nothing, being hauled ashore beside the circus? Why had the music stopped? Why were the landlockers all filing back on to their island?

Callanish waited. Finally, when she had almost given up, a line of people marched across to the prison boat, and she did not need to see their faces to know that it was the circus crew. After a while, the circus boat was hauled off the island and back out into the water, where someone appeared on deck and linked the main boat back up to the coracles. She squinted her eyes: it looked as if two others had come out on to the deck, but it was hard to see shapes in the dark.

Callanish stood on the dock, heart pounding, frantic with helplessness. She could try to convince the military to—but no, they wouldn't be convinced by anything. She could barter for—but no, the military already had everything they wanted. She could show her support for the circus by—but no, there was no point, and she might be arrested too.

The circus crew would have to do their time on the prison boat. Depending on the charge, they might not come to this island until next week, or the week after. She sat back down on the dock. She had spent her life waiting. What was another few days? She tried to unclench her fists, to slow her heart.

She'd never been on a prison boat so she didn't know what the conditions were like. If they'd been mistreated, given meager
food rations, perhaps they would be too weak to perform as soon as they were released. Perhaps they'd think that this archipelago was altogether too dangerous, and skip over the rest of its islands. Perhaps—

Callanish was pulled from her dreaming by a flicker of light from the coracles. It did not look like a seal-fat lamp, nor a clutch of candles. It was bigger than that, wilder. Then she knew.

It was fire. The circus was on fire.

Callanish did not stop to think. She kicked off her shoes, pulled off her gloves, and waded into the sea.

N
orth knew that she shouldn't have crept away to check on her bear during the clown military. Even as she slid silently along the chains to her coracle, she tried to persuade herself to turn back. But then she was climbing up on the canvas and dropping into her coracle, and there was her bear's warm fur, and she knew that she was going nowhere.

At first she had raged at Red Gold's suggestion that she drug her bear. But despite her pleadings, he refused to be chained, refused to lie still on the bunk, refused to let her leave the coracle without opening his jaws wide, ready to roar. Bero provided some secret herb from his kitchen stocks, and finally the bear lay still. And now, while the circus sparkled and thrilled behind her, North lay still too.

She tried to stay awake, but had almost drifted into dreams when the music stopped. She jolted upright. The world shook with the steady tromp of military boots—and she knew that it was not the clowns. She prayed to the gods of the sea for the military to pass her by. Silence fell, broken only by the sway and
whisper of the clams leaving the circus for their island homes. The circus was still.

North knew what had happened, though she didn't know how. Through timing and luck, she escaped the prison boat—though as soon as she emerged from her coracle she realized that it was not good luck, but bad. Red Gold and Avalon had clearly just had an argument. He was slump-shouldered and tight-jawed, hefting ropes and stacking equipment; she was sauntering off to the mess boat, chin high, as snooty as it was possible to be when balancing between coracles while heavily pregnant. North tried to duck back down into her coracle, but it was too late.

“North!” called Red Gold. “Come and help.”

North mumbled some excuse in reply, knowing it was pointless. She checked once more on her dozing bear, then climbed across the coracles to the
Excalibur
.

“What happened?” she asked Red Gold.

“Military,” he replied, his voice low. “In the crowd. Don't know how. Took the crew. How did you…?”

“I was checking on my bear, just quickly. But he's fine. Everything's fine.”

“Is it?”

Red Gold was the strongest man that North had ever known, but now he slumped and strained as if weights were tied to his shoulders.

“Is Avalon…” she asked.

“Avalon will be fine. She doesn't want the circus, but I've worked too hard and too long to let it go. She just wants a house. We all know she wants a house. And we all know that there's only enough money for one house. That house is for you and Ainsel.”

“Jarrow, I don't want there to be a problem with you and Avalon. It's fine about the house, really it is. Maybe you and Avalon
could have it, and Ainsel and I could stay here, with the circus. We'll take good care of it, you know we will, and—”

“Enough, North. I know you mean well, but Ainsel has more important things to do than become a ringmaster. I want Stirlings back on land. Avalon has had everything she wants for too long. I'm not letting her tell me what to do—not about this. It's too important. I'm the captain, and that's that. Now get back to work.”

North bowed her head and busied herself with returning the
Excalibur
from a circus to a ship. Pulling ropes, storing props, returning the gramophone to its cubby. She kept her gaze on the ship's deck, but let her mind drift out across the sea.

It was only when she glanced across to the coracles that she knew something was wrong.

“Fire!” she tried to shout, her voice constricting in panic. “Fire, Jarrow!”

Her eyes widened to take it all in. She was blinded by the bright lick of flames already running across the chain that attached the mess boat to the clowns' coracle. Her eyes followed the line, furthest to nearest: Bero's mess boat, clown coracle, Island of Maidens, her own coracle, Ainsel's—and then she saw Avalon, lying on the rumpled canvas of Ainsel's coracle as if in a faint.

In one swift movement, Red Gold emerged from under the silk, roared his wife's name, and took off across the chains to her. His progress was unsteady. His feet slipped on the chains. It made the row of coracles dip and swoon in the water, sending them drifting off.

North saw that the chain attaching Ainsel's coracle to the main boat was still attached, but Ainsel's was not connected to her own boat. The
Excalibur
and Ainsel's coracle were safe from
the fire—but the rest of the circus was aflame, already drifting away. And so was her bear.

B
y the time Callanish had swum out to the nearest circus boat the flames had already taken hold. She scrabbled at the pitted metal shells, unable to find purchase. Her head dipped under and she breathed sea. She opened her eyes, blinking saltwater, and swooped under the coracle to search for a handhold. There: a loose rope. She grabbed it, hauling herself up and out of the water.

She braced herself against the coracle, straightening her legs so that she could peer inside. The metal shell couldn't burn, but through the flames she saw that the coracle was stuffed with fabric: sequins, furs, silks; all the costumes of the circus. If anyone or anything was inside, it was too late. The smell of burning fabric caught in her throat. She dropped back into the water and stretched her arms toward the next coracle.

As she was hauling herself up she heard a shout. On the boat stood North, dream-hazy through the smoke—but she was real, and she was calling to Callanish. She slid back down and swam for the boat, searching the dark water for a rope. She hadn't even made it on to the deck when North fell to her knees, calling over the boat's side.

“We have to help him! He's in my coracle, there! Please, we have to—”

Without waiting for Callanish to reply, North dived into the sea and swam toward a coracle—one that, to Callanish's relief, was not yet burning. She let go of the rope and swam after North.

N
orth did not know why the gracekeeper had suddenly appeared, clambering up the side of the smoking mess boat, but it did not matter. What mattered was getting to her bear before her coracle caught fire.

She kicked and pushed and choked on the water until she reached it, heart throbbing in her ears. The flames reflected off the dark sea, dazzling her. There was the end of the rope.

She could not reach it.

She scrabbled, trying to tip the coracle toward her. Panic rose in her throat—but there was Callanish, swimming smooth as a fish, and with one strong kick her upper body shot out of the water, high enough to grab the rope.

“Come,” she said, reaching down to grab North. Her skin was slick with seawater, her webbed fingers strong around North's wrist. Together they climbed the rope and dropped to the canvas cover, panting against the smoke billowing from the next coracle. Flames licked at the far end of the chain, the metal links reflecting the light greasily.

“We have to unhook the—” North grabbed the connecting chain, then let go with a howl. She clutched her burned hand to her chest. “It's too hot. And it's coated with seal fat. That's why the fire is spreading. Avalon, she must have—we must get him out.”

They both dropped down into the coracle. It was dark and hot, and smelled of fur and breath. “He can't climb up,” said North. “He's too groggy, I had to drug him, and—he can't. But he's so heavy, and I don't know how…”

“The rope,” said Callanish. “Where's the ladder?”

North took her hands and placed them on the ladder. Callanish climbed out and threw North the rope they'd used to climb from the water. “Tie him,” she said.

T
he bear was too heavy. Callanish knew it, and North must know it too. But still they braced their feet on the canvas. Still they pulled.

“North!” A voice boomed over the crack of flames. The ringmaster balanced on the raised edge of the big boat, a rope in his hands. “Grab it!”

He threw the rope to North. In the dark and haze and flames, she missed. A shriek sounded—but not from North. Callanish rubbed at her eyes and focused on the figure trying to navigate from a coracle attached to the boat. Callanish recognized her: the ringmaster's wife, black-haired and dressed in blue, her belly swollen to twice the size it had been when Callanish last saw her.

“What are you doing?” shrieked the woman at the ringmaster. “Are you mad? Leave it! Let it burn!”

He turned his back to the woman and threw the rope again. This time, North caught it.

T
he rope was rough with saltwater, scraping the skin from North's palms as she pulled her coracle to the
Excalibur
. When they were close enough, Red Gold lashed the rope to the schooner and jumped on to North's coracle. He landed with a thud, and before the coracle had stopped tilting in the water he had the bear's rope looped around his shoulders, and he was heaving, and he was pulling, and North let out a sob of joy when her bear's dark head appeared. With one enormous heave, Red Gold pulled the bear up on to the canvas.

But Avalon had not given up. As Red Gold stepped back on
to the
Excalibur
, ready to heave the bear on to the deck, she laid her hands on his arm.

“You made me do this. You know that, don't you, Jarrow?” Her angry tone had lightened to a whine, and North could barely make out the words. “You wouldn't see the truth. You wouldn't make the choice. So I took away the choice. How can you stay with the circus when there is no circus? Take me home, sweet king.”

Red Gold did not appear to be listening. He lashed the bear's rope and pulled North's coracle closer in, so close the helms thudded. The sound seemed to make something in Avalon snap.

“You can't still want to give her that house. You can't be that stupid.”

Red Gold kept his head down, securing the boats. The flames were flicking at the chain on the other side of North's coracle. The canvas could catch light at any moment.

“It's not Ainsel's baby.” Avalon's voice dropped to a croon. “North told me. She said she'd got drunk and slept with some nasty dampling—and he paid her, Jarrow, did you know that he paid her? She puts it around everywhere, she's gone through all the clowns and the glamours and the fire-breather too. You have no idea what she's really like, she doesn't even love Ainsel, she just wants a house, she told me, she'd do anything to get a house, she said—”

“Hush now, Avalon.” The ringmaster did not shout. “Hush,” he said. “It's finished. It's over.”

A
s the woman disappeared belowdecks, sobbing, the ringmaster heaved the bear on to the big boat's deck. North and Callanish
followed. As soon as their feet touched the deck, the ringmaster loosened North's coracle and pushed it away—just in time, for the flames were reaching for the coracle's canvas top.