Nettleblack, page 51
But – that ain’t just footsteps. That’s – I know the sound – what the hell is it? Concentrate. Push off the fug in your head, the ache in every limb, that damned warm-bath weakness. The sound – it’s – like a ticking, but too fast and frantic for a clock – and there’s lots of it, all at once –
It’s a cycle. More than one cycle. The free-wheel, when someone gets off and walks it along.
“There! Sarge – Septimus!”
I know that voice too. The relief laps up to my shoulders, ready to drown me.
I shunt my gaze up the road, and there they are at last. Gertie, Millicent and Oliver, off their cycles and sprinting along with ’em, spread out across the street and lanterned to the hilt, a barrage of Div from housefront to housefront. Their shadows fling forward, soak over my handlebars before they reach me. And it ain’t only the apprentices – there’s four figures racing up. The one who breaks from the pack to rush at me ain’t got a cycle or a lantern, only a trail of moth-eaten scarf. Scrabbling fingers snatch at my arms, mittened hands shucked out of overlong sleeves. Weirdest of all, it looks like he’s holding my notebook.
“Nick?” I rasp. “Gertie? And – how – ?”
Nick Fitzdegu tosses me a feeble grin. “Alright, Septimus? Your map said it was down this street, but finding you in person’s about the best we can hope for.”
His grin curdles. “Bloody hell, your face – ”
I glower at him. Pitying sympathy ain’t going to get me out of the bath, is it? “I said I’m fine! – ”
Wait. Did I – to him? Or was that Property?
And then I hear the rest of what he’s said. Full five seconds after he’s said it, with all the younger Divisioners peering worriedly at me as they mark up a semi-circle about my cycle. I flush, snatch my notebook and shove it in my pocket, try to glower ’em all out. Can’t keep the glare properly stiff on my face.
“How’d you get my – I gave it to Henry – what – ?”
“Hyssop said you were in danger,” Gertie interrupts, her cycle clicking as she wheels closer. Even in this cold, there’s stark bumps of sweat on her forehead. “That’s what Nick told us. Lucky we met him when we did – that lying little governess would’ve sent us right out to Gulmere on a wild goose chase!”
“She was outside the Div,” Millicent adds, glaring up the street. “The governess, not Hyssop. Not letting anyone inside. We didn’t know it was that at the time – but still. She told us Cass had some lead on the Head-Hider. Just to get us out of the way, Nick reckons.”
Oliver nods frantically. “’Pparently there’s some scheme in the Div – and Adelstein’s on our side again, just in time – ” – and even my addled head can spot Nick wincing for that – “ – and now we’re – ”
“Henry,” I choke out. “Where’s Henry?”
Nick’s hands squeeze my elbows. He’s warm from his sprint, a right side warmer than the freezing night. The heat’s beaming off all four of ’em. “She’s gone to the Div. Second time lucky getting past the governess. She said she knew what Mrs. Ballestas wanted her to do, and she was going to do it.”
“And you sent her in alone?”
But even as I spit it at him, I know the venom’s seeped away. I’ve seen more than anyone what Henry can do. If she’s tracing out something the Director’s planned, there won’t be a soul in Dallyangle that can stop it.
“No!” Nick blurts. “Matty’s gone after her! He’s watching the market square – he’ll make sure she comes out!”
I give him a nod – and another nod, when I clock that no one looks even slightly reassured. If I’d the energy, I’d roll my eyes. Matthew Adelstein must be the last person in the world Henry wants as a bloody chaperone, and I hope she lets him know it.
“Right. Well – ”
“Septimus!”
Next thing I know, Nick’s been shoved to the side, and Gertie’s got her free arm hooked round my waist. I must’ve slumped again. For a moment, I can’t see – only feel, and blink against the shimmering diamonds that smudge out my vision. Gertie’s strong, strong enough to hold me up without a scrap of help from my legs. Her coarse plaited hair scrapes at my cheek, where my chin’s hooked over her shoulder, and the edge of her lantern jabs into my thigh. She’s got a solid chest on her, and a rock of a corset, squeezing my ribs ’til I can hardly gulp down the breaths I need.
I shouldn’t need any of it. I shouldn’t be passing out in anyone’s arms, not again. But – there’s my own voice in my head, a sharp recollection, sprung straight from yelling at the Director: these ain’t things anyone should be trying to manage alone! And – knifish to admit it, but – I’m almost spent.
“Alright, you lot, we need to get her out of here,” Gertie grunts. “Fitzdegu – I assume Mr. High-and-Mightystein’s alright with lending us his sofa?”
They’re all moving, a shoal with me stumbling at its heart. Someone must’ve got hold of my cycle. I can feel my fingers prised gently from its handlebars. Gertie’s shifted her hold to sling me between her and someone else – from the sharp tobacco smell of ’em, probably Nick – my arms draped over two sets of shoulders. I clear my throat, though it scrapes right round the inside of my neck, shake my head weakly to get my vision back, push the worst of my hair off my face. Even if I’ve got nothing else to give, the rest of ’em still need to know.
“Wait – the Sweetings – they’re in there – have to stop ’em – tonight – there’s a – ”
I’m not so much cut off as drowned out. Clatters – shouts – too many sounds, springing up from nowhere. I’m too dazed to piece it into bits – ’til Gertie shunts me over to Nick and scrambles away, and her move knocks chaos into sense. I twist about to watch her, blinking off the water at my eyes, dragging Nick with me.
The scene further down the street’s big and bombastic as those Pirates tableaus. The carriage was moving – was about to move, at any rate, with Property half-scrambled up into the driver’s seat. Now it’s stuck. Millicent and Oliver, one foot on a pedal and the other swatting furiously at the cobbles, are skidding past it on their cycles, shrieking to a halt to block its path. Gertie’s done the same half-cycling trick, only she’s gone for the horse, grabbing its harness before it can strike up a proper pace. This is the girl who used to wrangle the Shire horses on her farm; its ears may be flat to its head, but this sleek little town-horse ain’t twisting out of her hold. Property nearly tips straight over the reins, snatching for the seat to stay on it, spluttering a panicky curse.
“What the devil do you think you’re – I could have run you down!”
Gertie snorts. She’s sturdy as a stable-door at the horse’s head, glaring up at its would-be driver. “Not likely. Well – look who we’ve got here! You and your carriage, just coincidentally parked right next to your least favourite Division Sergeant, and her broken-nosed and ready to drop. Doesn’t take an Adelstein to spur the suspicions, does it?”
Property stares at her, the reins shaking in their grip. I don’t think they’d manage it, but they definitely look of a mind to try driving the horse straight over her.
“Maledizione! Will you and your insufferable Division just leave me be?”
Their voice is shrill, skidding to a yell. Gertie blinks it off, unfazed.
“Septimus? What d’you think?”
I crash into Property’s gaze. There’s a twitch under their eye, half-pleading and half-defiant. Their jaw’s too tense for another rejoinder – which is enough to shock me, even through the thickening fog of my thoughts. Are they not going to try anything else?
Suppose it makes sense they’d be struck wordless. Here’s half the Div ready to suspect ’em, a mort of proof, a cluster of eye-witnesses. Even the Director couldn’t dispute this. Even if we can’t get the Sweetings – this’d be my reputation sorted, my judgment shored up against any more rolled eyes and weary looks. And I don’t have to do anything, don’t even have to shrug off my exhaustion. Just patch together a few choice words.
I sigh. Thinking it’s enough to boil the nausea in my throat.
“Let ’em go, Gertie.”
Don’t they all stare, now!
I’m inches from collapsing, and every stunned look in the street’s gouging into me, ready to push me the last of the way. I’ve only strength to meet one of the stares. Property’s face is suddenly slack – if I’m too tired to scowl, they’re clearly too astonished.
“You sure, Sarge?”
“They’ll be safer gone.” I swallow, scrabble for the rest of my voice. “They’re no threat to us anymore. But the Sweetings are. And they’re both cornered in there. ’S not much of a chance, but even so.”
Gertie’s at the edge of my eyes, hesitating. I set my teeth, give her a nod, sharp as I can manage.
Everyone moves then. Millicent and Oliver wheel their cycles out of the way, and Gertie drops the horse’s head with a parting glare. The last look I get from Property is swirling and complicated as one of their cravat patterns. A twitch of an arched eyebrow for ghostly bravado – a wary glint in their dark eyes – a curt nod to match mine – and parted lips, just for a moment, as if they’ve still more to say. But it’ll keep. Their mouth tightens to a grim line, and their hands flick at the reins, a brace of practiced tugs to turn the horse about. They’re looking ahead now – I’ve slipped out of their eyeline. The carriage quickens to a clatter, the horse at a brisk trot, rattling to the end of the street and vanishing round the corner.
Drive fast, I will ’em. Fast and far.
They’ve got a whole night to do it. I can hear the clock-chimes on the air, faint and distant, slipping in to fill the sudden quiet: quarter to ten. Plenty of time.
The next thing I know, I ain’t on my feet anymore.
There’s an arm about my shoulders. My legs sprawl out in front of me, rubbed raw at the trouser-knees, limp as cut hay. Cold stiffness presses at my back – the bricks of a housefront, propping me up in a seat. Ahead of my hazy eyes, there’s boots and wheels and jostling shadows. And hair. Too much hair.
“Don’t think we’ll be finding any Sweetings in there tonight.”
Gertie – but when I squint up at her, she ain’t looking at me. Nick’s crouched beside me, nodding along with her words. “Checked the garden – there’s muddy footprints all up that back wall. They could be anywhere on the towpath, probably further off. There was this in the grass, though.”
She’s holding something down to us. A trim leather wallet with a paisley lining, flapping open, shedding grass-blades as it lolls out of her fist.
’Course it’s empty. ’Course the Sweetings took their chance.
And now – the deadline –
No. Made-up dates can shift. It’s people need to be protected now, and we can’t save anyone from the Sweetings if they just shoot us off the towpath.
I groan, dragging all eyes back to me. Nick jumps – clearly he didn’t clock I’d come to.
“No point – going after ’em – in the dark.” The words’re limp, don’t sound like mine. It’s what I’m trying to say, anyway. “Need – to check – the Director’s – don’t know what – Henry’s probably – we should – ”
I don’t remember how the sentence ended. I ain’t fully sure it did.
Soft velvet. Sliding up my neck, the back of my head. I ain’t known soft velvet since that night on Property’s chaise. It’s the sort of stuff I stare at from a distance, too plush and perfect to touch.
I heave my eyelids up, squint through darkness tender as a cushion. Shapes fold down from towering walls, dim and yellowed in the flicker of a single candle. Desks. Adelstein’s desks. And that’s the faint mottle of Adelstein’s fancy paintings, smoothed of their stormy details in the gloom.
Adelstein’s house. How the hell’d we get up the stairs?
I shudder, mostly just to find my edges. I’m sprawled on a chaise, arms draped across my chest, legs sliding off the end. There’s someone hunched over ’em – Nick, tugging my boots off. He folds my feet into the chaise when I’m down to my socks, bending my knees to make ’em fit. Next thing I can tell, there’s a heavy woollen blanket, spread over me and tucked up to my chin, my tangling hair swept neatly under it.
I ain’t a bloody child, I want to snap. But I weren’t treated with anything like this care when I was a child, and the desks around me are blurring at the edges, so I swallow it and close my eyes.
“Are we going back to the Div?”
It’s Gertie’s voice, high up and far away. Nick’s response is closer, hushed in a gentle whisper. “Not yet. Not ’til Henry gets back. Matty’ll come home with her – he’ll tell us when.”
A warm hand smooths straggles of hair off my face. I crack one eye, and Nick’s perched at my shoulder, smiling with what looks like wry irritation. “Now – I’d give you some Nettleblack’s next, if Matty’d not smashed all the bottles. I’ll be having words with him about that. I’d have words with you too, if you didn’t need to sleep so much. Saying you’re fine, all while looking like you’ve been dragged through every prize-fight known to Surrey!”
I dig my teeth into my lip. Short sentences, long breaths between ’em. “Had to climb the building. Had to chase the carriage.”
“Before or after you broke your nose?”
“Maggie,” I hiss. Sort of an explanation, ain’t it? “And Nettleblack was there. Climbing like a goblin.”
He whistles. Must think I’m delirious. Maybe I am. Didn’t seem a mad thing to say, ’til I actually said it.
“And the Div – Henry – is she – ?”
“She’ll be fine,” he assures me hastily. Hands, or what feel like hands – somewhere between hands and very fleshy spiders – pat my shoulders, swathed under the blanket. “This was her idea, her and the Director.”
The question crawls up my throat, quicker than my thoughts. “Why’s Adelstein chasing her, Nick?”
“Don’t worry.” He’s kneading with his hands, pressing me into the velvet. The heat thickens, eating through the last scraps of cold. “It’s alright. He’s not anymore. Now – your job for this eve, m’dear, is rest, rest, and more rest.”
“But – ”
“Rest. You want to help Henry, this is how you’ll do it. I’m just going to grab something to clean your face – won’t be far – and you’re not to go staggering off anywhere else, alright?”
By the time I’ve a breath strong enough to gasp out Henry on, he must be gone. My eyes slide under the lids again. The room’s starting to rock like a crib, and I’ll go mad if I see the ceiling swinging above me. It’s the warm bath at last – soft under my chin, on the backs of my hands, about my smarting feet. There’s sweat matting my hairline, a scald in my cheeks, crusted blood still blocking my nose. Nick’ll deal with that. And he knows about the Div, and Henry knows what she’s doing.
What about Lorrie – and Miss Nettleblack?
But that thought’s too violent, and it knocks me right out again.
There’s a murmur at my head, a chill of breath on my face. The blanket tweaks, lifts. Something soft-edged and solid slips between my arm and my chest. Cold fingertips trace my jawline, patting the blanket back into place.
The words’re half-dreamt, jumbled, sliding out of my head as quick as they slide in. I know the voice, soaking over me, a bucket of fresh-heated water for all the coldness of the touches. I want to reply, to find my arms and curl ’em about her. You’re safe. We’re safe.
My limbs stay limp. I ain’t wakeful enough to push movement through ’em. It don’t worry me, not with all the calm of sleep still wrapped round my head. The cold’s drawn back now – she don’t mean to wake me properly.
All but one last touch. There’s an icy press at my forehead, lips chapped and stiff from the night air.
I sigh, melt out of thoughts and dreams both.
The warmth’s almost simmered away when I wake next. Cold grey light spills through my lashes, catches in the whorls of the plastered ceiling. The candle on the nearest desk is burnt to a puddle of wax, the gaslamps dark and empty. Dull mustard yellow clusters under my chin, veined with faded royal blue – the blanket, given colours at last. Past the curl of my legs and the end of the chaise, the desks are steady now. The bay window’s uncurtained, framing smudgy clouds and damp slimy rooftops, chimneys sticking out of ’em like broken teeth.
Rare thing for a Dallyangle day, but it ain’t raining. The windowpanes are bare of drizzle – even the morning frost has faded. In place of the rain, there’s a faint mist rubbing out the sharp edges of the opposite roof. Low-hanging fog, everything monochrome as a photograph. Two magpies skitter along the roof-slates, tails tweaking with every leap.
Two for joy.
I groan myself off the cushions. I can sit up. I will.
The room shivers – but not enough to crumple – as I swing my feet over the edge of the chaise. My socks sink deep in the rug, and I dig my toes in to anchor me. I’ve never been without shoes on a floor this soft. Everything’s soft – the light, already darkening again, the blanket heaped across my knees –
The little side-table. That weren’t there last night. It’s been set down close to the chaise – so carefully, the rug ain’t even marked its tracks – and piled with an invalid’s bounty: a plate of biscuits, a glass of water, a cooling mug of Nick’s chai, a fresh bottle of Nettleblack’s. The green of the label’s bright and glaring, the glass bottle sharply carved with its spiky leaf-veins. Propped to the side of it’s a folded scrap of paper, my name scribbled in a hand I don’t recognise.
I reach for the water first, spot in the doing that my jacket’s gone. The ends of my shirt-cuffs have a rusty tinge to ’em, but the shirt was never fully white anyway. The jacket’s only migrated as far as one of the desks, where it’s splayed out in state, all the bloodstains scrubbed off. Beads of water sprint down my shirtfront as I gulp from the glass. There’s crumbs to follow ’em when I get hold of the biscuits, hunger smarting back into me with every frantic bite. The lukewarm chai goes the same way, then I’ve half a mind to eat the note too – still fugged with sleep, I nearly do, my hand snatching and lifting of its own accord. But the feel of the paper stops me: it’s like tracing your fingers over a bowl of cream.
