Nettleblack, page 43
“I – I don’t understand – ”
They laughed, bitterly. Twitched their hand up, over my cravat, to where my curls clung close-cropped to the nape of my neck.
“I’m afraid I stole your hair, my dear. I’m afraid I’ve been pressganged into stealing everyone’s hair, starting with my own. The Sweetings are the proverbial scissors out on the streets, and then I sort it out and sell it on for them. They give me a share of the profits – a polite way of pretending my part in it is at all voluntary. But it has to stop. I’ve been trying to stop it ever since I saw how they did it – which is something of an impossible task when one’s stuck between a Division Sergeant and a hard place that’s just bought itself a pistol – ”
It snatched me by the throat then, far more vigorously than any belated revelations about my own turbulent history with the hair-thieves. “Septimus – she said you would know about Dallyangle criminals and – and she was right – but how – how did she – ?”
I quite didn’t even need to finish.
Property grimaced. “How do you think?”
I’d been tricked. Not by those two – they ain’t got wit enough to trick.
“I thought I had it in hand. Septimus was such a trusting flower, and so hopelessly infatuated with me. A state I was at perfect liberty to encourage, I must stress – my companion and I are what you might call flexible with our additional dalliances. Well, the Sweetings were demanding I find them a new target – and I was in no position to refuse – so I asked her to dinner, her and her magnificent hair. Of course, she was to brush past the Sweetings and lose said hair en route to Pole Place, after which I meant to compensate her in abundance with all that she came for! But – gracious – how was I to know she was meant to be guarding the town? How was I to know the Sweetings would thrash her like fighting-dogs? It was all I could do to find them, to prise them off her, to persuade them she wasn’t worth the trouble. She could hardly stand – of course I wasn’t leaving her there! – so back to my house it was, to hurl her into the bath, to give her a blanket and a chaise to sleep it off on. And then the Sweetings, perverse goblins that they are, chose that night for their streak of burglaries!”
Roasted, merciful figs. Of course.
“But everything subsequent is her own insanity. She could have told her Director of my involvement a thousand times over – and yet no one at the Division even seems to know where she was that night. Clearly, she prefers to torture me. She won’t just give me up, and she won’t just leave me be, and she resoundingly will try to catch me out on every other possible front, until all her bright Divisionary prospects wither around her! I ask you, Hylas – is that really the thanks I deserve, for saving her feral little life?”
No one’s ever forgiven me for it. And I – I’ve not forgiven me either.
“Sainted conference pears!”
I was at a legitimate snarl. No – more than that – I was up off the bed and square on my feet, my nails clustered into my palms.
“Septimus doesn’t think like that! She – she would have believed in you – and you knew it – and you led her straight into the Sweetings’ clutches! And you may well tune yourself to me – and promise me cravats – but you have quite no guarantee the Sweetings aren’t simply going to explode your plan from the inside – and shatter all of us – if they haven’t shattered her already! You’ve put Septimus in mortal danger – again – and I’m quite not letting you get away with it this time!”
Property seized my arm as I hurled myself past them, twisting desperately enough to wrench me to a halt. Their voice, sharp in my ear, was even more frantic than I had been expecting. “Hylas, wait, you can’t simply leave – ”
“Henry?”
I froze.
The door of the hearth-room had opened, and all the heat had been sucked out, past one narrow set of ankles in the doorway that decidedly didn’t belong to the Sweetings. In a terrible daze, I gasped in the walking-boots, the wild patterned fabric, the crested suitcase, the bramblebush of ink-black hair.
A scandalous travelling companion, with fearsome relations well-known for mounting searches. I really should have guessed it, shouldn’t I?
“Beth sy’n bod, chwaerlet?” Rosamond offered feebly from the doorway.
22.
IN WHICH KETURAH BALLESTAS
TAKES HER BADGE OFF
Septimus, dishevelled
It’s a mort of distance, wherever they’re taking her. I couldn’t’ve kept up with the carriage, even if they stop to pick up Property, stalking down the street in white tie like that’s any less suspicious. I’ve got to make some allowances for the state of my face – I bleed from my broken nose ’til my sleeves are sodden. Never swooned in my life, but this probably would’ve done it, if I’d had to do anything more than cling to the luggage rack and grit my teeth. It’s maddening to think, but I can’t climb over the carriage and fight ’em. Not when another blow to the face’ll knock me out proper.
We pull up at one of the tall new tenements, out on the edge of town. I know the street. I can mark it, scribbled with a pencil, on the map in my notebook. Right next to the river, though just listening tells you that – the water’s fast and churning, but I can’t pick out its smell over the blood. Property and Norman get out first, jumping down from the driver’s seat, unlocking a front door and stalking in. Maggie’s next, tugging Henry with her. Her breathing’s ragged, scraping through one of her attacks.
Damn ’em. Damn the whole bloody lot, anyone who’d dare hurt her!
The question is, what the hell do they want with Henry? There ain’t much more hair on her for stealing – and she’s only met Property once, damn it! –
Unless that ain’t the case. Unless they’ve somehow – I don’t know! – but what if it’s all a plot? Fake a kidnap, so they can run away together?
What? No – that’s mad – she wouldn’t!
But – if Property – the lengths they went to just to trick me – how much further’d they go, if it were for someone they actually cared for? And they’d not be shy about it, too. None of my awkwardness, no terrified handclasps in the gloom. They’d just give Henry everything. At least, they’d try – even if they’ve run out of money as much as they said. And I couldn’t even resent Henry for falling for ’em. Not when I’d only gone and done exactly the same.
I slam a fist into the carriage. I can’t cry – can’t even breathe properly. Not a single window-curtain twitches for the noise, all the way up the building. ’Course not. As far as that lot care, I’ve bled out back at the theatre.
Might as well be true. I can’t go in after ’em. I’ve tried it enough to know: I can’t beat the Sweetings in a fight. Definitely not in this state.
So what, then? Back to the theatre? Back to the Div?
Doubting Henry? Running away again?
No.
It’s a jolt up my ribs, shunting me off the carriage, back to my feet. There’s a sharp crunch in my nose – I hear it more than feel it – as my heels hit the cobbles. I’ve barely taken a step before I’m swerving sideways, stumbling for a balance that ain’t set on its usual compass. Well! I can still work with it. I might be a wreck, but – whatever’s up there – Henry ain’t a part of it. She ain’t Property’s – or anyone’s. ’Course she ain’t. She never was.
I breathe out, the only way I can right now, bite the sodden copper from my lips. One thing at a time. You know where they are – you’re the only one – and now you’ve got the map – you could direct people here. So get back to the Div. Get the Director. Get as many of ’em as you can find. Save Henry.
Maybe even manage another chunk of your impossible to-do: find the missing head, fix everything for Lorrie and Miss Nettleblack, question Lady Miltonwaters and Adelaide Danadlenddu, yank the public onto the Div’s side, actually get rid of the Sweetings –
Damn it! This night ain’t ever going to end, is it?
The cycles’re still at the theatre. Not my best luck. It’s just me and my legs and my skewed balance, and too many cobblestones, and the freezing wind chafing my bruises. The clouds’ve split down the middle, and now the sky’s liquid black, crow-wing black, so black it’s almost bright. Gouged out of the black’s a narrow sickle of white – there’s our moon, all we’ve got of it, cutting weird cracks into the slates on the roofs.
It hurts to walk. Not enough to stop me, though. All the strength the matrons used to hate, yanking at my muscles to keep me moving. The bleeding from my nose has finally dried up, but the break smarts for every chatter of my teeth, and my throat’s turned to stiff bark from the gasps of cold air. Lorrie’ll scold me for it, out the other side of tonight, if we both make it. Stop, Sept – stop pushing and rest, for once in your life! And I will, I promise him. I’ll save Henry, and then I will. Probably. My feet skid between the cobblestones, catching in the cracks. There’s no one to prop me up this time, no skinny arm tugging round my waist, no frantic whispers at my ear: gracious, sweet Septimus, I will not let you collapse! I’m the only one keeping my legs steady – and I – I don’t know if I can –
The cottage wall tips towards me, then strikes like an elbow to the ribs. I grab for the bricks, dig my fingers in ’til my boots stop sliding, the cold stinging in my palms. I can’t slump down in someone’s front garden. I can’t slump at all.
“Please,” I hiss into the bricks. My jaw’s taut against the pain, squashing the word to a strangled rasp. “Can’t stop – Henry – ”
I’m answered. A chime on the air – then another – the full soft church-peal that marks quarter to eight, every piece of the sound hanging in midair like a hovering buzzard. I cling to the wall, counting out the time, steadying myself to it. ’Til it’s done, it’s just me and the chimes. Everything else is eerie and still. My breaths are misty in the sallow lamplight. If it weren’t for the candles behind the windows, in the cluster of cottages that hems me in, I’d seem the only breathing thing in the world.
But the chimes are close. Loud enough for the church to be just a street away. And the cottages – they’re not new-built or hollowed into tenements, they’re the pretty rustic stuff – burrowing in on themselves against the freezing night air. Winter primroses planted in the windowboxes. Smoke in the chimneys. And if I’m in the midst of this chilly little picture-postcard, I must be nearly at the market square.
In the end, I hit the Div from the side. I snatch for its nearest wall, a last bit of steadying before I’ve got to struggle round to the doors – but this time, it ain’t the scrape of bricks under my hands. It’s the edge of a windowsill, the gaslight inside spilling out onto the cobblestones. I don’t have to squint through it to know what I’ve found. This window’s always lit, deep into the night. I can bet she ain’t slept a wink since the head first went missing.
Mad it may well be, but I just knock.
It scares me as much as her, making the Director jump. She’s sat at her desk, wrist-deep in papers, and I’m a wraith tapping bloody-knuckled on her window. She springs up – it’s all I can do not to leap back – and she don’t settle to calm, not even when she’s recovered enough to dash across the room and wrench up the sash for me. She looks ready to collapse. Gold spectacles dangling from one ear, straggles of thick hair veining her black forehead, the top three buttons of her perfect jacket tugged loose –
Her badge. She ain’t got it on. It’s gleaming on the desk, but it’s the pin that’s facing up to us.
I’m straight to my knees once I’ve twisted through the window. Shaking hands – and they’re hers – grab my elbows, drag me up, set me in the spare chair. She drops into focus in front of me, wide-eyed. I’ve no clue at all where to start.
By the look of it, neither does she. We’ve a moment to share a dazed silence – then she hooks her glasses on, lifts her thumb, smudges a tendril of hair off my face. Catches my cheek when I flinch, holds me steady, makes me stare her out.
“You look like my conscience, Septimus,” she mutters eventually. Gasps a breath, furrows her eyes shut, opens ’em again. “You’re my responsibility – you’re all my responsibility – and I can’t even stop these vicious people reducing you to this. I can’t protect you – any of you.”
I want to tell her that I chose the job, and that my wrecked face’s my own stupid fault, and that she can’t take that damned badge off when there’s still far too much we need to sort out together. I’ve opened my mouth to do as much, ’til I realise I’ll never get it out without sobbing. And I can’t. If I cry in front of her now, with her confidence shot through, that’ll be the end of it.
“Who did this to you?” she demands, peering between my eyes. “What happened? Did you see their faces?”
Speak to her, damn it!
“It ain’t what you think,” I blurt. Spitting words stings a web of pain across my face, blurs her shock into tears for a few frantic blinks. My voice sounds like it’s crawled from a rock, grating and stifled and not even slightly familiar. From her quiet gasp, I guess she’s noticed the change too. “Wasn’t – because of the Div. Wasn’t to do with the Head-Hider. It – the Sweetings – ”
I lose the sentence to a snarl. She shoves herself out of her crouch, scrabbles through the madness of the desk. Paper, she’s after, a quill that ain’t snapped. “Don’t try to talk. Write it – ”
No time! I grab my notebook instead, splay it wide to the map, jab a frantic finger down on my own scribbly streets. “Listen – here – Property – ”
It’s like I’ve turned her to stone. The paper skids out of her hand, off the edge of the desk. She ain’t looking at my map. Even through the smart in my eyes, I can see her jaw clenching.
“Septimus. The Division is already stretched to its limits. I appreciate – look at you! How can I do otherwise? – that you have suffered a terrible shock, but if you truly think that now is the time to be reviving your obsession with Pip Property – ”
Months on end of me shoving ’em at her every five minutes, too ashamed to tell her what I knew – or how I knew it. No wonder it’s come to this. No wonder – and I could strangle myself – and all the while, Henry’s still out there –
“Please! Look – this ain’t like that – I know what they’re – ”
She slumps back to her knees on the creaking floorboards, lashes her hands up and buries her face in ’em, knuckles taut to her eyes. The sight kicks the words out of me. Every edge of her’s rigid – with fury, with fear, with disappointment, with all of it.
“I can’t fight you now,” she whispers. “I can’t. I can only fight so much. I have set myself against everything. I have put all of you in danger – my family, my Divisioners – my son, alone with that viper Adelaide – and as for you, who were once the best hope I had – well. Here you are. Here’s what I’ve made of you. Here’s what I’ve made of everything. And I – I thought the endeavour would be so easy – because that’s what you do, when you see where everyone’s gone wrong, when you know just what to do to make it all right. You think you can manage it, even if you have to fight yourself and your family and your detractors and anything and everything that can’t see what you see, for the rest of your life – until you try it.”
The sob cracks at my face, sharp as another blow. “But – you’re – ”
“Tired.”
There ain’t a gasp of hesitation. She lets the word drop through her hands like a plummet. One of her elbows cricks against the desk, propping her up where her shoulders sag.
“And I shouldn’t even say it, shouldn’t look it, not for a moment, with the rest of the Division depending on me. Not when we are almost out of time.”
“What?”
She’s still staring blank through the cracks in the floor. Every sentence slips out like a thing she’s lost her hold on, piling on the boards around her crumpled skirts.
“The matter I intended to discuss with you – that I told Cassandra earlier. It – I hoped never to have to mention it. I hoped we would get rid of it before even having to confront it. But we haven’t. We haven’t stopped the Sweetings, and it is almost the sixth of November – and the council warned me, three weeks ago, that if we failed to master the Sweetings’ situation by that date they would withdraw our funding. I didn’t wish to frighten you all out of your efficiency by telling you too soon. I thought we would manage it. I can only hope we might still manage it, though with all that I know now, I just can’t see – ”
She breaks off, slumping into the hand that clutches her forehead. Around us, the whole building’s suddenly, horribly quiet.
I blink, grind my lashes together as much as the break’ll let me, ’til the tears scrub off and I can see her properly. For a moment, staring at her’s all I can manage. I just – I don’t understand. If she’s known about this ultimatum for weeks – if this was the same news she had to tell Cassandra – it didn’t break her then! When she was summoning Cassandra into the office, encouraging me out of the door, assuring me I’d no need to worry – it was Div business as usual, nothing we couldn’t sort out, certainly not a thing to sob over. But now –
When she was telling Cassandra. And Cassandra had something to tell her too. And the only thing that could’ve made it worse since this afternoon is – whatever happened in their conversation.
