Doubleborn (12 page)

“But didn’t he?”

“He didn’t seem to,” said Tamrin.

“Perhaps you don’t really feel it, then,” he said. “Perhaps you only imagine you do because you’ve been told you’ve got a twin.”

He smiled, expecting them to congratulate him on having solved the problem.

“No. I do feel it. I do know I’m a twin. I’ve read about it. Twins, even when they’ve never met, know they are. One twin falls and the other one feels pain. One twin eats something bad and the other one gets sick. It’s happened to me. I know I’m a twin. And the tailor knows who I am and how we were separated. He’s got the answers. And he’s going to have to tell me.”

She wanted to keep her voice down and was annoyed with the way it kept getting louder.

“You shall,” said Smith. “You must. Go in the morning.”

Tamrin stood up without speaking. She crossed the room and tried the door. It opened.

“But not tonight, eh?” said Smith. “Get some sleep. You’ll be stronger for the journey.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Solder.

“No,” said Tamrin and Smith simultaneously.

“Oh.”

They laughed.

“I’m better on my own,” said Tamrin.

“And you’ve got work to do here,” said Smith.

Tamrin was eager to turn the conversation away from telling Solder she didn’t want him with her. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Not that he seemed capable of having them hurt.

“What do you do here?” she asked.

“I’m learning to be a smith.”

“Don’t they have smiths in the Deep World?”

“Of course, or why would I want to learn how to be one?”

Tamrin worked out the fault in this argument.

“Then why don’t you learn from a Deep World smith? Why come Up Top?”

Solder looked at Smith for help in answering the question.

“Because I’m the best,” said Smith. “And young Solder here only wants to learn from the best.”

“What do you mean, ‘young Solder’?”

“How old do you think he is?” asked Smith.

This unsettled Tamrin. Roffles were all so short that she imagined Solder was grown up.

“I don’t like guessing,” she said.

“Have a try.”

Solder jumped off his barrel, stood away from the table so she could get a clear look at him and turned around for the full effect.

“Thirty,” she said.

Solder laughed. Winny shushed him.

“Don’t make fun,” she warned. “It’s not polite.”

“Tell her,” said Smith.

“I’m sort of twelve,” he said. “Or fourteen.”

“I’m really sorry,” said Tamrin. “It’s hard to tell, because—”

“I wouldn’t say anything else if I were you,” warned Smith. “You’ll only make it worse.”

They sat and talked some more before it was time to go to bed. Tamrin couldn’t stop herself from trying the door before she went upstairs. Just in case.

“It will always be open to you,” Smith assured her. “Now that you know you’re with friends.”

“And you won’t trick me again in the morning?” she asked. “Show me another room or a stable or somewhere where time runs at a different pace?”

“Trick you?”

Smith spread his huge hands and painted a picture of pained innocence on his face.

“You know,” she said.

“Goodnight.”

As she lay in bed, reflecting on the day just past and pondering the day to come, she kept returning in her mind to Solder. It was strange how her feelings about him were different now that she knew he was more or less the same age as she was. When she had thought he was a grown-up, his behaviour had been annoying and a little frightening. Now, she was amused by him, found herself starting to like him.

She fell into a deep sleep, where she dreamed of tailors and scissors and a twin’s face reflected in the kitchen window against the dark outside. ||

to anyone. She woke before it was light, dressed quietly, ate standing up, and was on the road before the sun lifted its eyes above the hedgerow.

“It’s better this way,” she said out loud to no one.

It made her feel better about leaving Canterstock without saying goodbye to Vengeabil. But not much better.

The way was plain going for miles. She took the road she and Winny had been following. It twisted and it rose and fell. It passed under arches of trees and it took her across open fields divided into strips for the plough, but it didn’t fork and it didn’t have lanes off to the right or to the left.

She lingered on a small stone bridge over a river. The water looked cool and inviting so she slid down the side of the bridge and cupped her hands in the stream to drink. Her face was still wet when she travelled on.

She enjoyed the inevitability of the unbroken road. She liked the limits it placed on her direction.

And then she reached the point where the road split into two. It was at its high point. She had been aware of the gentle rise for the last mile or two, the landscape falling away on either side, the opening vista. She saw the fork in the road long before she reached it. She prepared herself for a decision. And when she arrived she had no more idea which way to take than when she had first spotted it.

There was no signpost. Not that it would have made any difference, as she had no idea where she was going anyway.

It was a time for magic. It was a time for caution.

She sat on the grass and thought about it.

A small spell wouldn’t do any harm.

Would it?

No.

Probably not.

She thought again.

If she closed her eyes she could see the tailor. She had enough of a glimpse of him in the porter’s lodge to recall him. She could use that to send a tracking spell. It was dangerous. It would leave a trail back to her. If the tailor had any magic at his disposal he could use it against her. If he was even employing a humble town wizard then he would know she had sent the spell out to find him. Instead of hunting him, she would be hunted.

She opened her eyes and looked along both roads from the fork.

They looked as good as each other.

A small spell.

She lay back on the grass and felt something hard against her back. She sat up. The scissors. She took them from the fold in her cloak and examined them.

Scissors.

Tailors.

She could cast a spell on the scissors and send them to find a tailor. Not her tailor. Any tailor. That would not alert him. Would it? It might.

It was worth a try.

She held the scissors in both hands, closed her eyes and started the spell. As soon as she began, the face of her tailor filled her thoughts. She snapped her eyes open. That wouldn’t do.

She started the spell again, this time with her eyes open.

That was no good.

She couldn’t focus her thoughts.

Magic wouldn’t do it.

She jumped to her feet, grabbed a stone from the road, turned her back to the fork, tossed the stone over her shoulder.

When she turned back it had landed on the left-hand road.

One’s as good as another.

She set off down that way.

“Come back.”

Tamrin stopped and turned.

Solder waved to her.

“It’s the other way,” he said.

“Where did you come from?”

Solder showed her the roffle hole three times. He went into it and out of it, and she saw it clearly each time. As soon as he stepped away and told her to find it she couldn’t. It wasn’t there. All she could see was a stone land marker between two fields.

“And you can see it clearly?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Are they everywhere?”

He laughed.

“Nothing’s everywhere.”

“Some things are.”

“What things?”

She thought about it.

“The breeze. The sunlight.”

“There’s no sunlight in shade. And if I lock you in a cave the breeze will go and you’ll die.”

She changed the subject.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“It’s my day off.”

Tamrin didn’t think he had days off.

“Smith will be angry,” she predicted. “You’d better go back before he misses you.”

“Smith doesn’t miss anything,” said Solder. “Anyway, you’re on the wrong road.”

“How do you know?”

“That doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Everything goes somewhere.”

“That’s true. But that’s not going where you want to go.”

“Where does it go?”

Solder whispered. “Boolat.”

He took her arm and led her down the other road.

“This one goes to a town. It might not be the right town, but it’s a town. And there’ll be a tailor. It might not be the right tailor, but it’s a tailor.”

“What if it’s the wrong town, the wrong tailor?”

Solder was very cheerful now that they were on the road he had chosen and on the move.

“Then we’ll go to the next town, and the next. Till we find the right one.”

“I want to go on my own,” she said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t want you with me.”

“Yes, you do.”

He tripped along next to her, moving his legs more than she did to keep up.

“You didn’t walk this fast when you were on your own,” he said.

“How would you know?”

“Oh, I just guessed.”

Tamrin gave him a withering look and he grinned back.

“It’s a good job you didn’t make a spell back there,” he said.

“Let’s just walk. Keep quiet. I’m thinking.”

Solder didn’t talk again for nearly a whole minute. ||

when it finally appeared. They had been walking through woods and downhill. The path turned, the tree cover broke and the town was in a dip ahead of them, its shops and houses gripping a river that ran through the centre.

“Good,” said Solder. “I’m hungry.”

They followed the road in, turned down a street, into another and saw the sign.

It was a tailor’s shop.

Too simple for Tamrin. Too easy to find. She wanted it not to be his as much as she wanted to have arrived.

“But is it his shop?” asked Tamrin.

“We could go in and ask,” suggested Solder.

Tamrin shuddered.

“I never want to talk to him, never meet him.”

Solder sat on his barrel. Roffles never stand up for long if they can avoid it.

The shop was down a side street, away from the main road through the town. There was a goldsmiths’, a small tavern that was just one room with barrels in it, a junk shop piled high with old furniture and lamps and books and rugs and kettles and glass dishes and all sorts; there was a tiny shop that sold cheese and a big shop that seemed to sell nothing at all and only had a vase on a round table in the window. And there was the tailor’s shop, with a small window of leaded squares and a giant pair of scissors hanging on the wall outside.

“Do you think that tavern sells food?” asked Solder.

“If it does I’m not buying any.”

“All right.”

Tamrin stepped back and leaned against the wall. Someone had come out of the tailor’s shop. A tall man with a wide black hat and pointy shoes.

“Is that him?” asked Solder.

“No.”

“Perhaps it’s not the right shop.”

“Perhaps he was a customer.”

“He wasn’t carrying any shopping.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, with a tailor. He might have been ordering something.”

“I could go in and order something,” said Solder, “and then I could come and tell you if it’s the right shop.”

He hopped off his barrel, ready to go.

“You’ve never seen him,” said Tamrin. “How would you know?”

He climbed back on to his barrel and kicked his heels against it.

“We could walk past,” he said, “and you could look in through the window.”

“It’s a small window. Brighter outside than inside. He’d see us and we wouldn’t see him.”

“We could think about it and make a plan while we’re eating.”

“We’re not eating.”

Solder jumped off the barrel again.

“Good idea,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

“We’ll go round the back of the shops,” said Tamrin, “and see if we can see anything from there.”

“Are you all right?” asked Solder.

“Yes. Why not?”

Tamrin strode ahead of him. She strode out as though she wasn’t frightened of what she might find. Taking care not to pass in front of the shop window, she doubled back, left at the corner, left again and into an alleyway that ran down the back of the shops.

“You don’t seem all right,” said Solder. “You seem angry.”

“I am angry.”

Being angry sounded better than being frightened.

“With me? What have I done?”

Tamrin stopped and let him catch her up.

“Not with you,” she said. “With the tailor.”

“All right.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

“Ready now?” she asked.

“Yes. But can we go and eat next, whether it’s his shop or not?”

“All right.”

“It stinks down here.”

Tamrin looked around.

“Who’d have thought it?” she said.

“What?”

“Those shops. At the front they’re all clean and careful. It looks as though it would cost a lot to buy something.”

“Except the junk shop,” said Solder.

“Except the junk shop. But that was clean even if it wasn’t smart. And look at this. This … this…”

She struggled not to say a word. Solder giggled and pointed to a small shack, leaning to one side, the roof full of holes, the door hanging open to show a board with a hole cut into the top for someone to sit on with their trousers round their ankles.

“That’s right,” said Tamrin. “The whole place stinks like that.”

They passed the tavern yard, tumbled with barrels and jars, the junk shop yard with even more useless-looking stuff than they had seen in the window. The shop that sold nothing had nothing in the yard either except for a tall, iron post that might have had a lamp on it once. They were all open to anyone who passed by, the gates ajar, to allow quick access from the shop and the yard to the privies. All except the tailor’s yard, which was quite secure, the wall high, the gate locked.

“He doesn’t like people looking in,” said Tamrin.

“Cloth’s expensive,” said Solder. “People would steal it.”