The Palace of Laughter (6 page)

“But why can't you use your real name, instead of Little?” asked Miles, who had not understood much of what she had just said.

“If I sang my name here, its power would be spent. I would be bound to Earth, and would never be able to return home.” She laughed. “Besides, my real name would not come to life on the clumsy tongues of people.”

“Is Silverpoint a made-up name as well?”

“Well…yes and no. A Storm Angel's name is a
different thing, and does not have the same power. Silverpoint is something like his real name, but shorter and simpler. It's a name he uses when he visits Earth.”

“And why did Silverpoint come down through the clouds, my dear?” asked Lady Partridge. She was trying to rebuild the unruly pile of gray hair on her head, and she held a tortoiseshell comb and several hairpins between her lips. Her question sounded more like, “Und fwoy did Filverfoint come down shoo du cloudsh, wy dear?”

“I didn't get the chance to ask him that, because the Great Cortado returned with our supper before we had finished our talk. He asked us many questions, but Silverpoint answered them cleverly and told him very little. Cortado's voice was soothing and his eyes were kind, and after a while even Silverpoint seemed more at ease. At the end of our meal we had a hot, sweet drink that glowed like fire inside us, but this was the worst mistake of all. I saw Silverpoint's head start to nod as he swallowed his last mouthful, and before I could even put down my own cup, I fell into a sleep without dreams.

“When I woke up I didn't know if it was night or day. I was in a small trailer, and a huge woman, as tall as a tree and with pictures on her skin, was
wiping my face with a wet towel. She told me her name was Baumella, and that Silverpoint had sold me to the circus and gone away. I didn't believe her, of course, but I said nothing. They gave me a sparkly costume to wear, and began to teach me to walk on a rope and to balance on things. When I wasn't practicing or performing they kept me locked up all the time. Baumella treated me well enough, but she never let me out of her sight.

“I tried to find out where Silverpoint was. He wasn't anywhere in the circus. I asked the animals whenever I got the chance. One of the monkeys told me he heard the parrots say that Silverpoint had been taken to the Palace of Laughter, but none of them knew where that was. That was all I was able to find out.”

Little fell silent for a while. In the firelight Miles could see tears shining in her eyes.

“I haven't seen Silverpoint since that night,” she said quietly. “I don't know what's become of him, but it's all my fault. If I hadn't followed him he never would have had to save me, and we would never have been captured. I have to find him, somehow.”

Miles looked at the small girl sitting among the cats and the bric-a-brac. She had pulled the overcoat
back around her, although it was warm in the tree house, and was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her skin still gave off that faint pearly glow, only visible in dim light. She looked lost and alone.

He thought about his smashed barrel and his disemboweled mattress. There was really only one choice to make. Whatever the dangers of her search for Silverpoint, he would go with her. He could not let her face such a journey alone, even if she did have wings and was four hundred years old. Besides, he thought, it would surely be more exciting to set off into the unknown in search of a Storm Angel, than to look for a new barrel to crawl into.

He knew what Tangerine would think. He put his hand into his inside pocket to check on the bear. Beside the familiar straggly fur his fingers felt something smooth and strangely cold. It was a card of some sort, and only when he had taken it from his pocket did he remember the silvery ticket he had picked up from the muddy grass beneath Little's wagon at the Circus Oscuro.

M
iles Wednesday, soup-filled and fire-warmed, held the ticket up to catch the light from the candle flames that flapped lazily on the shelves. In the center of the ticket was the laughing clown's face from the side of The Great Cortado's wagon, and around it looped the words “The GREAT CORTADO PRESENTS FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT the FUNNIEST SHOW on EARTH. For ONE NIGHT ONLY at the PALACE OF LAUGHTER. As performed before the CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE. Admit two. Train leaves at dawn tomorrow.” The ticket sparkled in the light.

“The Palace of Laughter,” said Miles. “Isn't that where you said Silverpoint was taken?”

“That's what the monkeys told me, and they don't miss much,” said Little. Miles handed her the ticket. She frowned at the writing, and turned it over in her hands. “I can't read,” she said. “Does it tell you where to find it?”

“No. It just says that the train leaves at dawn tomorrow.”

“Then you shall have to try and catch the train if you are to find your friend,” said Lady Partridge. “We'll find a way to disguise you, so you won't be so easy to spot. Perhaps Miles will go with you.”

Miles did not answer. He was trying to remember where he had heard of the Palace of Laughter before. Crouching by wooden steps, breathing the smell of cigar smoke. That was it! The Great Cortado had mentioned it in his conversation with Genghis. Miles pictured a rambling palace, the doors standing open and the sound of laughter flooding out on the warm firelight. The thought of it made him smile. Somewhere out in the distant night, this place really did exist. He began to look forward to the adventure that was unfolding before them.

“You can't come with me,” said Little. “This is trouble that I made for myself, and you've already done enough for me. The Great Cortado is a dangerous man, and he'll be very angry with you for helping me to escape.”

“Then I'd better keep out of his way,” said Miles. “But you can't go on your own, and anyhow the Great Cortado owes me a new home. If I can't ask him for one, I'll find another way to make him repay me.”

“Quite right,” said Lady Partridge, “but you shall both have to be very careful. I don't like the sound of this Circus Oscuro at all. Giantesses. Bone-crunching beasts. It's not my idea of a circus.”

She sighed, stroking the ginger kitten on her lap. “I used to bring the orphans to Barty Fumble's Big Top. Now that was a wonderful show. It used to pass through here every summer, and we never missed it. It was small and friendly, and you could see that everyone really enjoyed themselves, right from the prop hands to the ringmaster himself. Barty Fumble was a real gentleman. You could tell by the way he held himself. It was said that he looked after all his performers, whether on two legs or four, as though they were his own children. I remember his pride and joy was a tiger named Variloop…Voopilar…some foreign name that I never could pronounce. There were many wonderful acts but that magnificent tiger was always the highlight of the show.”

“What happened to Barty Fumble's Big Top?” asked Miles.

“I'm not really sure, my dear. It merged somehow with a larger circus, but that was years ago now.
Rumor had it that Barty Fumble disappeared shortly after that, and his tiger along with him. I've never heard anything more of them since, and no other circus has passed through here for years, not until this Circus Oscuro arrived.

“Anyhow, that was all a long time ago,” said Lady Partridge, “and what you both need now is a good night's sleep, or you won't be going anywhere at the crack of dawn, not if I have anything to do with it.” She slipped into her purple slippers, which waited as usual below her hammock, and began to rummage in a wide drawer for bedclothes, muttering to herself as she did so. “Pillows, pillows, not in this one…nor that one. Now where did they go?…Shoo, you big furball…. Ah, here's Great-aunt Boadicea's embroidered cushion, that will do…. Now let me see…blankets…Don't get many visitors these days, you see…. Where did I put the dratted blankets?”

By the time she had found all that she needed, Little and Miles were asleep. She gently slipped pillows under their heads and covered them with warm blankets, then with a deep sigh she damped down the fire and shuffled through a purring sea of cats to her hammock.

 

Now imagine for a moment that you are an owl,
drifting silently over the garden of that deserted mansion in the middle of an October night. Your sharp hunter's eyes would see the strange jumble of Lady Partridge's tree house, nesting in the tree below you. A thin wisp of smoke is rising from the crooked pipe that serves as a chimney, before being pulled apart by the night breeze that rocks the tree house gently in the arms of the twin beech tree.

If you should perch on one of the higher branches, you would see through the single dusty window in the tree-house roof the outlines of three sleeping figures, and the twitching shapes of a hundred dozing cats. Inside every one of those sleeping heads is a world of dreams.

The dreams of the cats are much as you would expect them to be. Insects buzz through the dry grass of a summer's day, always just out of reach, and sometimes a whole fish will jump out of nowhere and land in a shower of sparkling droplets, right at the surprised dreamer's feet.

Curled up under a tartan blanket, Miles dreams of the basement laundry in Pinchbucket House. He is working with the other children, hauling damp sheets from a giant washing machine. On top of the machine sits the Bengal tiger, calmly cleaning his whiskers as though the laundry were his natural
habitat, and not the jungles of Asia. Miles turns to drag his full basket over to the dryer, and sees to his horror that Fowler Pinchbucket is feeding his orphan brothers and sisters, two at a time, into the mouth of a huge machine in the corner. His mean face wears a grin of satisfaction. Miles turns to the tiger, who is paying not the slightest attention. He points at Fowler Pinchbucket and opens his mouth to shout, but no sound comes out. Two by two the children disappear, while the tiger licks his paws and the machines rumble on.

From your perch in the branches you would see Miles turn over in his sleep, rubbing the arm he has been sleeping on, while Lady Partridge snores gently in her swaying hammock. She is dreaming of a hot summer afternoon, her hammock strung between the twin beech trunks, in the shade below the tree house. Her cats are swarming over her, rubbing their cheeks against her chin and mewing loudly. She feels groggy from the heat, and she brushes them off irritably. When she opens her eyes they have disappeared, every last one of them. She has an uneasy feeling that they were trying to tell her something important, but it is too late to ask. She groans in her sleep, and the dream slips away.

But what of Little? The vast dreams that fill her
sleep are beyond anything you or I have ever imagined. She is soaring high above the Earth, riding the speeding winds among bright billowing clouds that tower above her as thunder rumbles deep in their bellies. All around her the One Song, of which we have never heard more than a lost echo, fills the skies of her dreams like a braided river of light. She sings as she swoops and climbs, feeling the thrill of speed in her stomach, and the wind sings with her. She becomes aware of two angels, riding on either side of her. They still the wind and silence the Song, and the clouds dissolve into a gray fog. “Silverpoint,” says one. “Where is he?”

“Where is Silverpoint?” echoes the other, and he reaches out and lays a cold hand on her forehead. Little whimpers quietly in her sleep.

And now, if owls are as wise as they say, you will know that it's time to leave in search of that crunchy mouse you fancied for supper, for the tree in which you are resting is home to a hundred cats. They have begun to slink out along the branches and drop to the ground, and Little is waking from her sky-blown dream.

M
iles Wednesday, sleep-muddled and blanket-warmed, woke to find Little shaking him by the shoulder. The tree house seemed quieter and draftier than before. The only sound was the creaking of branches and the soft snores of Lady Partridge, and he realized that the cats had all left.

“Where have they gone?” whispered Miles.

“To their Grand High Council, in the gazebo. They hold it every third full moon. We should go and see what they're saying.”

Miles stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He pulled Tangerine from his inside pocket, to check that he was all right. Little watched him as
she pulled on the old overcoat. “What do you call him?” she asked.

“Tangerine,” said Miles. “He used to be bright orange once, but he's not too keen on baths.”

“Have you had him for a long time?” said Little.

Miles nodded. “I've always had him,” he said. “He's the only thing I have that my…that I had when I came to the orphanage.”

“Your parents gave him to you?” said Little softly.

“I suppose so,” said Miles. It was something he did not like to talk about, and he shifted uncomfortably on the creaky floorboards. Mrs. Pinchbucket had told him that his parents had left the orphanage laughing and driven away in a shiny car, leaving him on the doorstep. She told this to all the children, and Miles did not believe it. It was hard to imagine what kind of monsters could leave their children with nasty Mrs. Pinchbucket and her brutish husband, and he preferred to believe that his parents were dead. They had been swallowed by time, and his only link to them was Tangerine.

“Can I see him?” Little reached out her hand. Miles hesitated. He had never parted with Tangerine, not even for a moment. It felt strange to be handing him to someone else. Little took the small bear gently and propped him on her knees.
She looked into his clouded glass eyes for a long time, as the tree house creaked gently in the breeze, then she leaned close and whispered something into Tangerine's ear. She whispered very quietly, and as she did so Miles felt a strange sensation, like the warm breath of some invisible giant, passing through the tree house walls and ruffling his hair before disappearing into the night.

Little smiled to herself, and put Tangerine down on the floor. Instead of flopping straight over, Tangerine kept his feet, and as Miles watched in disbelief he began to totter across the Persian carpet toward him. It was a wobbly path that he traced, and he fell over several times, picking himself up each time until he reached Miles's knee. He began to climb, and Miles reached down instinctively to help him. His threadbare fur and saggy stuffing felt the same as they always had, but he wriggled in Miles's hand, and when Miles tried to help him into his pocket, Tangerine clung to him and squeezed, just as Miles had hugged him ever since he could remember. Suddenly he felt warmer in his thin jacket. He looked at Little, who was watching him with a smile. “How did you do that?” he whispered.

“I found his name in the One Song,” she said,
“and I sang it back to him. Don't ever tell Silverpoint. He'd be very angry.”

“Can you do that with just anything?”

Little shook her head. “Everything has a name in the One Song, but I am only learning, and there are many things whose names I don't know. I found Tangerine's real name there because you brought him to life in your imagination, and you made his name strong and bright, even though you didn't know it.”

Tangerine wriggled into his accustomed place in Miles's pocket. With his head swimming, Miles buttoned his jacket carefully and followed Little down the rope ladder into the swaying weeds below. She set off around the empty mansion, still limping on her bandaged ankle. On the far side of the house the path curved away between the trees and around an old pond, choked now with weeds and long since abandoned by the swans. A small ornamental house with an open front perched on the edge of the pond, where Lady Partridge and her visitors had once sat on summer afternoons, fanning themselves and watching the swans sail among the water lilies. This was the gazebo, and in its dilapidated ruins the last few stragglers were just arriving to attend the Council of Cats. Lady Partridge's hundred
cats had been joined by several stocky mousers from the surrounding farms, a number of strays, and a delegation of town cats from the tall houses of Larde.

Little put her finger to her lips and beckoned to Miles. He followed her to a willow tree beside the pond, whose feathery branches hung to the ground, making a sort of leafy cavern. They ducked under the tree and sat themselves on a carpet of dry leaves. Between the branches that trailed in the water's edge, they could see across the pond and into the gazebo, which was so packed with cats that those on the lip of the pond were in danger of falling into the water. A beam of moonlight shone through a hole in the roof and picked out a large tomcat. He was completely white except for a black tail and ears, as though he had been dipped in ink at both ends. He sat on top of an oblong of sandstone, carved with a tangle of leaves and a horned face, that stood on its end in the middle of the gazebo.

The black-eared cat opened his mouth and let out a low yowl, which silenced the others for a moment. Little sat forward as though to hear better. For some minutes the cats meowed and growled back and forth as cats will, especially when they are
outside your window and you are trying to get to sleep. Miles listened as carefully as he could, but he could make no sense from the sounds the cats were making. “What are they saying?” he asked Little. She put her finger to her lips again, and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “We must be quiet. We would not be welcome if they knew we were here.”

“I can't understand a thing,” said Miles.

“You are listening too hard. You must stop trying to listen before you can hear. The voices are there, and they're not that different from your own.”

Miles tried to grasp what she was saying, but it made little more sense to him than the mewing of the cats. He sat and listened for a while longer, but soon became sleepy and bored. He felt in his pocket for Tangerine, who grabbed his finger and lifted himself out. Miles put him down, and Tangerine crawled about happily, rummaging among the crackling leaves and tossing the furry willow seeds at Miles when he found them. In the distance a voice was saying, “The circus cats have a right to hunt our fields, provided their stay is short.”

Somehow Miles knew, without even looking, that this voice belonged to the black-eared cat perched on his sandstone throne. He forgot Tangerine for a moment and stared in amazement at the moonlit
figure in the center of the gazebo. The cat's voice sounded just the same as it had before, and he couldn't understand why the meaning had not been clear to him all along.

“What right is that?” called a bony black cat who was wedged into a corner at the back. “There's three and more big cats hunting our fields since yesterday. Fat fellows they are too, living well enough on circus leftovers. Why they need to be muscling in on our pickings is beyond me.”

A large cat, stretched out on the gazebo roof, chuckled quietly at this. “No one tells us where we can hunt and where we can lie. We are citizens of the road and guests of every town. Besides, as you say yourself, there are plenty of scraps to be had at the circus, if you have the teeth to ask for them.”

Several of the cats that crowded the roof and the surrounding trees sat up to look at the speaker. One hissed at him and stalked to the other end of the roof, his tail held high. “I wouldn't share food with a circus cat, nor would I turn my back on one for a second. I've heard it said…” He hesitated.

“Go on,” said the circus cat, in a slow voice with a hint of amusement. “What's the chatter among the gutters and alleys?”

“It's no laughing matter,” said the other, whose
name was Tiptoe. “I heard that…that a king of cats was killed in that circus, some years ago.”

The circus cat was on his feet in a flash, and had swiped at Tiptoe before he had a chance to move, almost knocking him from the roof. “You heard wrong. There are no tigers in this circus,” he hissed, “and there never were.”

“I thought,” said a fluffy cat from a low branch in a nearby tree, “that the lion was the king of cats.”

The entire council erupted into yowls of laughter at this. There were cries of “Shame!” and the unfortunate cat began to clean his whiskers busily, pretending that it was someone else who had spoken.

“You've spent too much time among humans,” said Blackears. “Every cat knows that the tiger wears the mark of royalty. Lions are braggarts with big hair, but there is no royal blood in their veins, no more than in mine or yours. However”—he looked up through the broken roof to where the circus cat stood—“this is a serious allegation, and it is the council's decision that you will come down here and present your case before the bench. You will not find yourselves welcomed among the local cats while such suspicions hang over your kind.”

The circus cat dropped through the roof onto
the carved column, right beside Blackears. He was a heavy gray cat with a large head, and he put his face close to the other cat and sniffed at him, before dropping casually to the ground. The other cats made a space for him hurriedly.

“Well?” said the circus cat.

“Is it true,” said Blackears, “that a tiger met an unnatural death in your circus?”

“It's not my circus. And there has been no tiger there in my time.”

“And how long might that be?”

“I'm three and more winters old,” said the gray cat, who in common with all cats could count no further than three.

“Surely you would have heard of such a terrible crime.”

“No doubt,” said the gray cat, yawning. “Which simply bears out that it never happened. There never was a tiger with the Circus Oscuro.”

“There's a tiger on the poster,” said the bony black cat in the corner. “They're all over town.”

“That's right,” said Tiptoe. “How do you explain that?”

The gray cat got to his feet and began to thread his way through the crowd toward the door of the gazebo. “It's obvious you know nothing about the
ways of the circus,” he said over his shoulder. “Every circus, even if it consists of nothing more than a pair of poodles and a clown, has a tiger on its poster. It's tradition, and circus folk would sooner blow themselves from a cannon than depart from tradition.”

The circus cat left the gazebo and made his way around the edge of the pond, his tail high in the air. Blackears called the council to order and began a discussion on the strange rumors of a sheep-eating monster that some of the stray cats had reported. Miles picked up Tangerine, who appeared to have fallen asleep, and put him back in his pocket.

“Come on,” he said to Little. “We had better get back. The sun will be up in a couple of hours.” They made their way back through the overgrown garden and climbed the ladder to the tree house. Little fell asleep almost immediately, but Miles sat quietly by the fire, his head abuzz with strange happenings. Outside the tree house a chorus of birds sang the sun into place, just below the rim of the world.