The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter (7 page)

In the white space below the text, printed in a cruder typeface and a darker ink, somewhat smudged, I read:

The Goose Field. Off Lincoln Road. Five days only.

I guessed the bill to have been there no longer than three weeks and no less than one. As to the stated duration, if Harry Timpson announced five days, he would surely scarper the tober after four.

“Read your mother’s name in your palm, sir,” called a breathy voice. I turned to see the woman who had addressed me from the other side of the road. She wore a brightly coloured gypsy skirt and her hair was tied back in a scarf. Though confident in my disguise, I knew my hands would not bear scrutiny.

“I see the letter ‘m’ in her name,” she said, stepping closer.

Born and raised in the Circus of Mysteries, I knew the ways of readers and palmists. “The letter ‘m’?” I asked.

“You have a keepsake from her,” the woman said.

“Less than you might believe.”

“There is sadness,” she said. “And still fresh. How many years? Two? Three? It is too short a span.”

I made to walk away but she stepped in front of me and leaned in. “You will not leave the pain behind,” she whispered. “It is a great sack of stones lain across your shoulders. Why do you carry it so far? Oh, but it is tied to you. Lashed in place with terrible ropes and cunning knots. Is it a heavy weight?”

I found myself nodding, though I had intended to remain a blank slate, unreadable by her tricks.

“So heavy” she said. “And you so young.”

“I’m sorry. I need to go.”

This time she grabbed hold of my elbow, halting my move to step away. “Not is all as it seems,” she said. Then, examining my face more closely, added, “Oh, but there are secrets as well as pain. You carry them also.”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“There will be a journey,” she said. “Before you can be released of yours. A long and dangerous road to make you free.”

With my gloved hand, I reached into a pocket and drew out a silver fivep’ny, which she took with quick fingers and the trace of a smile.

“Where will my journey take me?” I asked.

“North, south, east or west.” She watched me as she intoned the compass directions. “Your companion will be the south wind.”

With her use of this phrase, I knew for sure she was trying to read me cold. I had heard it used many times by fortune-tellers in the Circus of Mysteries. First they would search for a reaction on mention of the compass directions. If they detected nothing they would offer an ambiguous answer. To be a companion of the south wind – what did that really mean? That I would travel towards its source or travel with it on my back? By my reaction to the suggestion she would plan her next speech.

“I will travel north then? Or south?” I asked.

She did not answer but her eyes remained on mine.

Fortune tellers were common enough in the Kingdom. But until this encounter I had not thought they would be found among the rationalists of the Republic. Perhaps she had found a home in a travelling show. I wondered if she had seen me examining Harry Timpson’s picture. Other people had walked past without her accosting them.

“What about Laboratory of Arcane Wonders?” I asked. “Which wind does it travel with?”

She took a half-step backwards. “What is your business?”

“No business that could harm Harry Timpson,” I said. “Which way should I travel to meet him? North, south, east or west?”

“He moves with the whirlwind,” she said, though I had clearly seen her slight nod on the word “west”. She stepped back again, out of the meagre light and into the shadow of a walkway that ran between the houses on the other side of the road.

When I followed she had already gone.

Chapter 8

To read the future in palms and tea leaves is not to read the future at all. Rather it is to see the present with dizzying clarity.

– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

The Circus of Mysteries nurtured me from infancy, taught me the ways of the road and the stage. And when I could stay with it no more, the women and men of that troop launched me into the world, though at great risk to themselves.

Among the many lessons of my childhood was to peer into the depths of the jossers’ mistrust. Those folk in whose towns and villages we pitched, who paid good money to attend our shows, could just as easily come with lighted torches to burn us in our caravans as we slept.

Thus it was our habit to send one or more of the company ahead by a day’s ride to gather intelligence and gauge the mood of each town. By a code of marks in chalk on gate posts on the approach, these outriders would warn us of their findings. Such men might pose as fruit pickers or navvies, depending on the season.

Or fortune-tellers, if they had that gift.

There could be no doubt that the gypsy woman was attached to Harry Timpson’s show. Her reaction to my question also told me that he was near. He would surely not return to the town so soon after leaving. Thus she could not be in the van of his company, but rather in the train.

Why he would leave people to watch a town after he had left it, I could not fathom. My question to the gypsy was valuable information however. Harry Timpson would soon be informed that a young gentleman was trying to find him. I did not believe the fortune-teller had pierced my disguise.

In nodding when I had said the word “west” she had indicated the direction she wanted me to travel – though whether this was to lead me to his camp or to send me away from it, there was no way to tell.

Standing stock-still in the deep shadow of the yard behind the hotel, I waited and watched. Twice, servants had come and gone – a porter who’d hefted a crate of empty bottles and a chef who’d stepped outside to stretch in the cold air, the sweat steaming from his bare arms. Though I stood now alone, yet shadows shifted on the dimpled glass as people moved within. It seemed I would not have the chance to slip in through the back door, unobserved as I had left.

Stepping up the front steps of the Modesty Hotel, I felt glad of the dimness of the gas lamps in the lobby. The desk clerk made a small bow.

“May I help, sir?” he enquired.

“I’m here to meet Miss Elizabeth Barnabus, my sister.”

He ran his finger along the line of door keys, finding the gap where mine should have been hanging. “I’ll send a boy to call her,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping. Please don’t knock loud.”

The boy said he would not, then scampered away up the stairs.

It was only now that I caught sight of John Farthing, sitting at the back of the lobby, a newspaper open on his lap. He nodded and raised his hat.

“May I use the conveniences?” I asked the clerk.

Once out of sight around the corner of the corridor, I quickened my pace, taking the back stairs two at a time. Waiting out of sight on the second floor, I heard the boy knocking on my room door, a gentle tap as promised. After a moment he gave up and headed back towards the lobby. In five strides I was out of my hiding place, had slipped through the door and turned the key behind me.

In other circumstances I might have welcomed the attentions of the attractive John Farthing. But not this day. Unlocking the smaller of my cases, and pulling the false hair from my lip and cheeks, I began the transformation in reverse, watching my female face emerge in the small mirror as I wiped away traces of adhesive and dark pigment. Moving swiftly but surely, I folded my male clothes and unwrapped the chest binding, placing each item into the small case.

Outside the door a floorboard creaked. I pulled on a dressing robe and began brushing my hair out loose and long. A gentle tapping on the door sent my heart beating double time. I locked the case and hung the key around my neck so that it lay concealed where no gentleman would search.

The knock came again, louder this time.

“Who is it?” I called.

“I need to speak with you.” The voice was an urgent whisper.

“I am undressed sir.”

“Please make yourself decent. This is the hotel manager.”

Lifting my small case to the wall, I covered it with an embroidered cloth snatched from the coffee table. Speaking to the door, I said, “Why do you call on me?”

“A man’s been seen prowling. I need to check your room for security.”

“I’m un-chaperoned.”

“The maid is with me,” he said.

Taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and began opening a crack so that I could look through into the corridor.

He gave no warning. With a single abrupt movement, the door crashed full open and I was stumbling back, trying not to fall. Then he was inside and the door had closed behind him. I looked first to the face of John Farthing, then to the crossbow pistol he held in his hand, its needle-pointed bolt directed at my chest.

“I’m sorry,” Farthing said, reverting to his American accent. “Cooperate and we’ll have this over quickly.”

I made no reply, but backed away to match his advance.

“Where is he?” Farthing asked. His eyes swept the scene, taking in the cupboard, the gap under the bed, the small dressing room – all places where a man might hide. My hands felt the cold plaster of the wall behind me. My eyes flicked from the crossbow bolt to his trigger finger, resting against the side of the weapon, to his face. My mouth tasted sour from panic.

Farthing circled, bringing himself to the window, which he checked with his free hand. “Where?” he asked again.

“I’ll scream if you touch me,” I said.

“Don’t take me for a scoundrel, Miss Barnabus.”

Though his words were edged with determination, his aim had dropped from my chest to the floor. Stepping now to the small dressing room, he snatched a glance inside.

I managed to swallow. “Sir, you astound me!”

“I’m flattered if you were surprised,” he said. “But you’re not astounded or I’ve misjudged you. You say your brother arranged your lodgings?”

“He’s not here.”

Opening the cupboard, he ran a hand through my hanging clothes with practiced efficiency. “Then where?”

“I take it you’re a bounty hunter?”

“Wrong.”

“You’re most certainly a liar.”

“Very well,” he said. “Talk of lies then. You say you haven’t seen your brother, but he was in the lobby only minutes ago.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“I don’t think so. He has your eyes.” So saying, he knelt in one sudden movement, bringing himself low enough to see under the bed. Then he was up again, wearing a puzzled expression and rubbing his brow with his free hand. “Frankly, Miss Barnabus, your evasion is suspicious.”

“How can I evade with that thing pointed at me? Who’s paying you to do this?”

He perched himself on the corner of the bed and rested the crossbow pistol on his lap. “Being the one with the gun, it’s me who asks the questions.”

I took a sideways step and lowered myself into a chair, gripping the wooden arm rests.

“You’re not what you seem, Miss Barnabus. You travel with an invisible brother. You profess an interest in tombs and graves. Fashionable as that may be, it doesn’t fit with what I have seen of you.”

“Will you at least tell me your true name?” I asked.

“I’m not the accomplished liar you showed yourself to be on the airship flight,” he said. “My name is John Farthing, just as I said.”

“But you’re not what you seem.”

“What do I seem?”

“Then – a pleasant man. A witty travelling companion.”

“And now?”

“Not a hotel manager.”

“I’m sorry,” he said for the second time. “That was untrue. But I’d no other means of gaining entry without raising a cry.”

“Now you seem a bounty hunter,” I said. “A hired thug for a rich aristocrat.”

My words seemed to sting him. “I’m an agent of the law,” he said.

“The law of the Republic or the Kingdom?”

“Of the International Patent Office.” Then, perhaps noticing the way my grip had stiffened on the arms of the chair, he added: “Please don’t be afraid.”

How easily fear and anger may be confused.

It had been five years since the Duke of Northampton moved against my family. His method had been bribery, his chosen vehicle, a corrupt agent of the Patent Office.

The Circus of Mysteries was charged with some fabricated infringement. It took all of my father’s capital to pay the fine. The Duke then bought up our debts from various creditors – small sums individually but substantial when combined. His lawyer explained to the court that the Duke was a generous man and would accept a lifetime of my servitude in lieu of the money owed.

My father appealed, delaying the moment when I would be claimed, giving time for us to prepare and plan my escape. The saddlebags were packed and my costume laid out ready. But when word came that the Duke’s men-at-arms approached along the lane towards the gaff, the troop were out pasting daybills in the villages around and no horses were left for me to ride.

Thus I ran.

The clay soil clung to my boots as I skirted the fields. With my feet as heavy as iron, I jumped ditches and ducked through gaps in thorn hedges. I carried only the set of man’s clothes I wore, a belt stuffed with coins and a bindle in which the food for my journey had been tied. The food had been planned for two days. My father could not have guessed it would need to serve me for ten.

The Duke was not to be easily cheated. Denied his prize and outraged, he ordered his men-at-arms out, not merely to track my path as we had feared, but to ride hard and cut off those roads I might have taken to the border.

When they ripped through our pitch and found me missing, they reported also that my brother was gone. Audience members from the previous night’s show had seen him on stage. They would later swear to it before the magistrate. But my brother hadn’t been seen since. Not by a josser nor any member of the troop.

Thus it became known that he was the one responsible for cheating the Duke of the girl he had desired to own. In my flight I had broken no law. How may a chattel commit a sin? The crime lay with my brother. He had taken from the Duke his rightful property. My brother was a thief, so to speak. Within days a good likeness of his face had been pasted on billboards throughout the border counties.