The Ring of Five (17 page)

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glimpses of mysterious paths leading off into dense forest. Then the bus went under an arched gate with two semi-ruined turrets towering above it. As Valant steered the bus into the road beyond, Danny saw, in sagging and rusted metal lettering above the gate, the single word WILSONS, the "S" at the end looking as if it was about to fall off.

The road was narrow and winding, passing over little bridges and around hairpin bends. The trees grew right up to the road, and there were small slate-roofed houses here and there, some with smoke coming from their chimneys, although Danny didn't see any people. After fifteen minutes the road widened and there were other vehicles--trucks of the same vintage as the charabanc, and a few cars with long hoods that might once have been modern and streamlined but now looked shabby, covered in dents and rust spots. Every so often there was an old-fashioned limousine, the driver sitting in the open and black curtains hiding the occupants.

Duddy had produced a crackly microphone from somewhere. She coughed and cleared her throat and said, "One, two ... One, two ...," several times.

"Now, cadets," she said. "Tarnstone is ... well ... not exactly a dangerous town, not if you're careful, but it is full of ... spies and renegades and quite unsavory types, so do stay together. I'll appoint one person from each group to be the subject--the person to be followed--and another three to rotate to pursuit."

Danny was hoping to get Vandra, Les and Dixie, but to his surprise and annoyance he was put in a group with Smyck, Exspectre and the frizzy-haired girl, Frieda.

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"Caulfield," Duddy said, "you can be the subject--the rest of you follow him."

"We won't let him out of our sight," Smyck said, with a wicked grin. "Stick to him like glue, we will."

The bus approached the outskirts of the town. The road was lined with three- and four-story houses, all a little higgledy-piggledy, seeming to lean up against each other, the chimneys crooked and the windows small and dark like spyholes. There were people walking at the side of the road--men in trench coats with the brims of their hats pulled down over their eyes and women with scarves wrapped round their faces and collars turned up. As the bus slowed to a crawl, a red car with the longest hood Danny had ever seen, with great silver exhausts springing from it, cruised past, driven by a tall woman wrapped in furs. She was wearing a black lace veil, but beneath it Danny caught a glimpse of long dark hair and ruby-red lips, and as she drew level with the bus she glanced up, seeming to see Danny through the dark windows and dismiss him with a haughty flash of her blue eyes.

"Cor," Les said, "who was that?"

"I don't know," Danny said, his eyes following the car into the distance, until with another great shudder, which threw him against the seat in front, the charabanc came to a halt.

Danny picked himself up off the floor. There were groans from some of the other cadets, and Duddy had once more found herself flat on her back. Danny felt a thump on his shoulder.

"Okay, let's go hunting," Smyck said.

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THE PAINTED WALL

When they got off the bus Danny could see they were in a town surrounded by crooked buildings. There were market stalls in the center, and bars and restaurants on the ground floors of the buildings. The market was in full swing. Right, Danny thought, time to lose the pursuit! Without looking back, he plunged into the crowd. Immediately it closed around him and he found himself in a babbling, jostling mass of people. There were fishermen and farmers mingling with the townspeople, but mostly it was the same kind of folk Danny had seen on the road, keeping their hats well pulled down and their scarves up high, although he caught sight of scarred faces and fierce suspicious eyes. Here and there people wore cloaks or large dark glasses. The whole effect made Danny feel that everyone was up to no good of one sort or another.

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And people kept beckoning him over--he realized that his appearance made them assume that he too was up to something. A man selling apples whistled at him and pulled back a sheet to show a box full of revolvers.

"Good quality," the man hissed, "very good price."

A woman offered him a bottle of "top-drawer sleeping draft," and men with darting eyes were selling what looked like false documents and forged passports, opening long coats to show their wares attached to the lining. Danny kept his head down and moved fast, but each time he looked up he could see Smyck's pale cold features, or Exspectre's ghostly face, or the frizzy top of Frieda's head. They hadn't bothered with alternating the pursuit. They were keeping in what Duddy had called the box pursuit, and were doing it well. Danny could see Smyck's triumphant look, and was determined to wipe it off his face. Without really thinking, he seized a crate of apples when a stallholder's back was turned, and dived into one of the restaurants lining the square.

The contrast with the bustling street outside was instant. White-coated waiters with large drooping mustaches moved smoothly among the tables, where women in fur coats and men in expensive suits dined. A small orchestra played mournful Hungarian music in the background. As the door swung to behind Danny, a dark-haired man with a red face wearing an evening suit strode toward him.

"What do you think you're doing?" he whispered furiously.

"Apples for the kitchen," Danny said innocently.

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"There's a back door for that!"

"I'll just nip in ...," Danny said, skipping nimbly between the tables, avoiding the man's outstretched arm. The waiters wore almost comical expressions of horror as an ugly little gnome ran past their tables, and Danny caught a glimpse of an elderly man dining with his wife, his mouth open, gaping like a walrus. Just as Danny reached the kitchen he glanced over his shoulder and saw Smyck's face appear at the door, where the black-suited man descended on him with a look of thunder. Danny couldn't help grinning. There was no way Smyck was going to be able to follow him.

He burst into the hot steamy kitchen, and a white-hatted chef stared at him in puzzlement. Above the cacophony of crashing dishes and bellowing waiters and rattling saucepan lids Danny shouted, "Wilsons apples, sweetest of all." And he dumped the apples on a worktop. Spying the back door, he made a run for it before anyone could react.

The door opened with a protesting creak and Danny stepped out into a dark dank alley. Restaurant rubbish bins and crates of bottles were stacked high against the walls, and there was a smell of rotten vegetables and gone-off meat. He glanced quickly up and down the alley. Which way should he go?

He took a few steps. Then he saw a shadowy figure cross the entrance to the alley, moving stealthily and speedily, yet not so speedily that Danny did not recognize the furtive gait and the luxuriant mustache. Brunholm!

As Brunholm disappeared without a glance into the

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alley, Danny ran to the entrance just in time to see him turn onto a narrow cobbled street. Danny hesitated. He remembered Duddy's warning about Tarnstone and its dangers, but there was something about the way Brunholm had moved. He was sneaky at the best of times, but there had been an added urgency to his sneakiness this time that made Danny suspicious. Taking a deep breath, he followed.

Brunholm managed to stay far enough ahead to make the pursuit difficult. Danny would catch a glimpse of a heel or the end of a flapping cloak rounding a corner just as he entered the opposite end of a street. And the cobbled streets got narrower and quieter, so quiet that Brunholm must have heard the pounding of Danny's heart. The buildings to either side looked like warehouses, their windows barred and dark.

Then Brunholm disappeared. Danny rounded a corner into a small empty square. There was no sign of Brunholm, nor was there any way out of the square, unless Brunholm could walk through the forbidding stone walls or fly up to the small patch of blue sky visible above Danny's head.

Puzzled, Danny looked around. Where had he gone? He examined every inch of the square, but there did not appear to be another entrance. He was about to give up when a cough right beside him made him jump. Then, without warning, a section of wall beside him was swished aside and a stocky man in a striped shirt strode out, wiping his mouth with his hand. Ignoring Danny, he stalked off down the street.

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Danny stared at the wall. As far as he could see it was solid stone, but when he put his hand out to touch it, it felt soft, like cloth! He lifted an edge. There was a dark entrance behind it, and further in, a dim glow and the murmur of voices. With a fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach, Danny stepped inside. As he did so, he saw a neon sign that flickered and fizzed as though it was about to go out at any moment. The sign read: THE PAINTED WALL, and underneath, DRINK SCRAWNINGS FINEST ALE.

Danny moved cautiously toward the light, which was coming from a brick archway directly in front of him. He paused at the archway and peered cautiously in. The Painted Wall was a dark windowless bar. A man in a white shirt stood behind a high wooden counter. Other men were sitting at the counter with drinks in front of them. Along the wall there was a row of snugs, and just visible in one of these, Danny could see Brunholm, bent forward in urgent conversation. With his heart in his mouth, Danny stepped forward. No one as much as glanced in his direction. He looked in the mirror behind the bar, and seeing the disreputable faces of the men and women sitting there, he realized that his new features fit right in.

He strode to the bar and picked a spot where he could keep an eye on Brunholm. He pulled out a stool and clambered awkwardly onto it. When he saw the barman coming toward him, he realized that he hadn't thought his approach through. He could order a drink, but he hadn't any money.

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"Well, what do you want?" The barman eyed Danny suspiciously.

"A ... a pint of Scrawnings," Danny stammered. The barman went off to fetch the beer. Danny thought about making a run for it, but at that very moment, Brunholm turned toward the bar, so that Danny would have to cross his line of sight in order to get out. The barman returned with a tankard, and slammed it down on the counter. Danny fished desperately in his pockets and was just about to blurt out something about leaving his wallet at home when he heard a man speak.

"Here, let me get that," the smooth voice said, and a hand placed several coins on the counter.

The barman grunted and scooped up the coins.

Danny turned to see a young man with blond hair and steady gray eyes. He was wearing a scuffed black jacket with the collars turned up. His gaze was level and appraising, but Danny noted the little lines around the eyes and the wary look of someone who doesn't always trust what they see.

"Th-thanks ...," Danny said.

"That's okay, it's always good to help a stranger. It can be a little ... difficult around here, until you know the ropes." There was a slight tone of mockery in the man's voice that annoyed Danny.

"Can't a man have a drink in peace?" Danny growled.

"Sorry." The man held up his hands. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Then Danny saw that Brunholm had stood up and was walking toward the door, taking a path that would

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bring him close to the bar. Danny swung around. Brunholm had seen him in his disguise back at Wilsons. He was fairly sure that the bar was too dark for Brunholm to recognize him, but he turned his back nonetheless.

"What's your name, anyhow?" he demanded.

"Starling."

"And how come you're so generous with your money?" If it hadn't been for the proximity of Brunholm, Danny would have quite enjoyed getting into character as an ugly little man with a growling voice.

"I'm always interested in strangers," the man said, "particularly those who might have come from Wilsons Island."

"Then I'm no good to you," Danny said, his chin sinking into his collar as Brunholm swept past.

"That's a pity," the man said, "but if you ever have need of my services, here's my card." Danny looked at the card. It read:
Jonas Starling. Importer and Exporter
.

"'Importer and Exporter,'" Danny read, letting a sneer creep into his voice. "And what exactly do you import?"

Those steady gray eyes met his again, and when Starling spoke, his voice was soft.

"Hope," he said. "I suppose you could say I import hope."

There was something very familiar about the eyes, but Danny couldn't quite put his finger on it. He swung around to make sure Brunholm was gone, then turned to the alcove where Brunholm had been speaking to the stranger. The stranger was just getting to his feet, and

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when Danny saw his face it drove all thoughts of gray-eyed men from his mind. For a moment it seemed that he was looking into his own face--but older, with a mouth turned down at a cruel angle, and eyes, one brown and one blue, that were full of corruption and deceit. He shared Danny's pointed ears, high cheekbones and sharp chin, but there was nothing about him that could be described as pixielike. His face was coarse and savage, and Danny recoiled. The man's cruel gaze swept the room, and then he threw a scarf over his face, hiding all but his eyes.

"Well might you stare," Starling said, his voice barely audible. "That is Rufus Ness, chief spymaster and cruelest of the Cherbs. If he dares to show himself here, then things are worse than I thought. I must go."

As Ness entered the tunnel, Starling got off his stool and followed him. Danny barely registered the catlike grace with which Starling moved; his mind was focused on only one thing: what was Brunholm doing having a secret meeting with the chief spymaster of the Cherbs?

It took Danny a long time to find his way back to the bus, and when he did, he found that all the other cadets had already returned. Smyck glowered at him. A team of girls were lying on a patch of grass, exhausted after having tried to shadow Dixie, who had disappeared and reappeared in unlikely places to such an extent that two of the girls had been reduced to tears. Les looked very pleased with himself, having availed himself of the opportunity to fill his pockets with all sorts of sweets and delicacies from the stalls.