Gregory Grey and the Fugitive in Helika

CHAPTER 15

  Letting Off Some Steam

  ‘So this is what a Peoplesmeet looks like?’ Gregory said.

  A sense of purpose charged the atmosphere over the Arenas. Carpets flew surely and speedily over the open fields; caravans were strategically placed to channel the flow of traffic along particular paths; stages and taverns and stalls had been set up, and they were slowly gaining color; the upper of the whole hillside had been taken over by the core Peoplesmeet, and the rest of the slope was given over to the gypsy fair; in between these two, opportunistic merchants had set up innumerable stalls; and off to the bottom and the side of the hill, row after row of tents were being set up – a great number of people were descending on Domremy City and they needed somewhere to sleep.

  Domremy’s informal duelling circuits had given way to the Peoplesmeet and to the gypsies. The gypsies had had rolled into town on early Friday morning, and, at the Throne’s invitation, over to the Arena. Uncle Quincy was ensconced in the Chief Merlot’s caravan with the other organisers, deciding the layout and theme of the events in the days to come.

  In what seemed like another lifetime, Gregory and three other boys had climbed into that tent and stolen a grimoire of spells – a grimoire that, incidentally, was still locked in his trunk.

  ‘It doesn’t usually look this fun,’ Mango said. ‘You said you knew these gypsies?’

  ‘They used to come by Pencier twice a year,’ Gregory said.

  ‘Think you’ll meet old friends, then?’

  ‘You don’t make friends with the gypsies.’

  It was three in the afternoon, after classes. Gregory, Mango, Zachary, and Susannah had all flown over to the Arenas too see the Peoplesmeet come together. By all accounts, but especially Uncle Quincy’s, it was going to be a spectacular. Zach had suggested checking out the games and stalls. Johanna had wanted to stay with her father a while, and she’d join Gregory and the gang later.

  ‘Once it’s in full swing, people are going to start queuing up by the mile – we won’t even get close! Best to have our stomach’s fill of fun right away,’ he had said.

  Gregory and Susannah had agreed at once, and Mango had grunted her own readiness. The other three kept looking over at Mango with what they thought was discretion – Mango had pretended not to notice and had successfully hid her own grins at their not-so-covert and clumsy concern.

  One day had passed since the last fronds had fallen, Mango’s uncle’s among them. The Emperor’s directive to halt the executions had come a half hour too late to save him. Mango had sprinted away from the Blood Tree moments after her uncle’s frond had withered in her hands, and before they could catch up with her, had sped away on a hired carpet. That morning, she had not turned up for classes. The Headmistress told the class that the Piper clan were holding last rites.

  She’d come back a little before classes ended though. Gregory thought her face looked a little wooden, and that her responses were just a shade slower than they might have been. Was that how he had been? Had the others missed it because they did not know? But she didn’t look like she had been crying – there were no dark circles under her eyes, nor were her eyes themselves red. If there was any resentment left in her from her quarrel with Gregory and Zachary, she did not show it. At any rate, they were all treading carefully around her and each other.

  Zach’s idea to visit the gypsy fair before anyone else turned out to be splendid! – especially as Mango and Susannah had never seen a gypsy camp in their lives, and were utterly fascinated.

  ‘This all looks so… kooky,’ Susannah said.

  ‘It get kookier as it goes on,’ Gregory said, grinning. Impulsively, he took Susannah’s hand in his own, started pulling her towards the entertainment, and shouted back over his shoulder at the other two: ‘Come on!’

  Zach took Mango’s hand in his own, and the four of them jogged through the flamboyant caravanserai: stalls, games and rides spread out in a many pointed star from the centre, the chief’s car; bright colors were draped on everyone and in every corner; a string quartet was raising a merry musical hell; and there were silly gaudy posters everywhere.

  ‘Are they always this happy?’ Susannah asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Gregory said, a little awed too. ‘They’re usually a lot more mysterious looking instead of all this clowning around.’ Maybe the gypsies knew they were less mysterious to those who lived in the city, as compared to those who lived in the country.

  ‘These guys don’t look like they have care in the world… whoops,’ Zachary said, narrowly dodging a guffawing man in stilts. ‘D’you think they even know we might be at war in a bit?’

  ‘The Romani follow their paths war or peace,’ Gregory said. ‘Let’s get in to this! Coconut shies!’

  Fifteen minutes later, Susannah was growling, ‘This is dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ as she failed to knock her coconut off it’s post five times in a row.

  ‘Sore losers,’ Zach tut-tutted, lobbing his long arms easily and hitting the coconut dead on.

  He had to eat his words at the high striker, when, pleased at his own performance of almost ringing the bell, he handed over the mallet to Susannah, who subsequently hammered the mallet down with enough strength to ring the bell harder louder than something that small should have been able to ring.

  ‘It’s all in the swing, you know,’ Susannah told a flabbergasted Zach sweetly, handing the mallet back to him. The big boy took the high striker to task, bringing down the mallet in great force over and over while Mango jeered at him.

  ‘What. The. Freaking-’ he said, swinging for the twelfth time.

  ‘Give it up, Zach,’ Mango said pityingly.

  ‘Argh!’

  He failed for the thirteenth time.

  Gregory said casually into Susannah’s ear, ‘So am I not supposed to tell him that I saw you slip the game master a whole Caesar?’

  ‘Hush,’ Susannah told him, watching a red faced Zach throw away the mallet in complete disgust. ‘That’ll teach him to call people sore losers.’

  They bounced from stall to stall, getting sillier at each one; Mango dominated the hoopla and Gregory the darts; Zach lost some genuine face to Susannah at the baskets and he hollered gleefully when Gregory beat her at it.

  Then it was time to hit the food! The gypsies were renting their own stalls out to the vendors who would pay – this had resulted in a mish-mash of cuisine that none of them had ever imagined.

  ‘What’s the heck is this?’ Susannah asked a vendor, pointing at some colourful and raw looking pastries of a strange texture.

  ‘Sushi.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s from the Sunlands – one Tael a plate,’ the vendor said impassively.

  ‘Four plates?’ Susannah asked.

  ‘Make it two,’ Zach said, wrinkling his nose at it. ‘We can always get some more later.’

  Two minutes later, he had changed his mind. ‘I am never, ever doing that again,’ he said, retching and spitting.

  ‘What are you talking about? This is nice,’ Mango said, chewing on a mini shrimp-and-rice cake.

  ‘It’s disgusting…rotten!’

  ‘Don’t be a wuss,’ Gregory said, biting into what looked like seaweed. ‘This one’s got chicken in it.’

  ‘Tell Susannah that.’

  Susannah had generously dipped her own strange pastry into an innocuous looking green sauce, bitten into it, turned red faster than anyone Gregory had ever seen, dropped her entire plate, and sprinted off to get some water. Gregory carefully tried the sauce, which was called wasabi, and which tasted like horseradish set on fire.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Gregory said, pretending that the sauce hadn’t made him break out in a sweat. ‘She just needs water.’

  Indeed, once Susannah had returned, looking as dignified as possible with a tomato-red face, they’d continued their adventure in food, which seemed predominantly Asian. They were panting again at an Aryan stall.

  ‘
If my mom has to get up in the middle of the night because my stomach killing me, I’m telling her it was all your fault,’ Mango said to Gregory, before biting into what she was told was a golguppa, a thin ball-shaped wafer with a spicy concoction of potato, tomato syrup, mint and chilly paste inside it.

  ‘You’re an ingrate; what else is new?’ hissed Gregory, trying to soothe his burning tongue.

  Some kofta, hummus, shawarma, pizza, satay and rolls later they were groaning from their bursting stomachs.

  ‘We haven’t even gone through a tenth of the stalls,’ Gregory said woefully, looking at a delectable mountain of sausages. ‘And they’re adding more!’

  ‘We’ve got a week or two,’ Zach said heavily. ‘It will happen, slowly.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Gregory said, ‘listen, I’ve got to take a whizz, alright?’

  ‘Whizz away, friend,’ Zach said, taking both Mango and Susannah by the elbows. ‘These fair damsels are in my capable hands. We’ll be yonder by the amusements.’

  Gregory waited till they were out of sight, and then walked deliberately towards a tent some distance away, where he had just seen a tall and familiar figure enter – the Funny Man, who’d traded Gregory a book, in a time and place from long ago.

  After all, he had a second reason to want to visit the gypsy camp, a reason he could share with no one…

  The tent was steep, and large and red, with a wide arch cutaway inside it. Gregory waited a moment before stepping in, his heart pounding wildly. He clutched that the blood frond still inside his jacket.

  Seriously, there was a chance you’ll be recognised, Gregory’s brain told him. It’s not worth risking just to talk to a girl you’re not even sure will tell you anything. I won’t be recognised, Gregory thought. I won’t. It’s been three years since I last saw this one… no way he’ll remember me.

  And so, taking a deep breath, Gregory poked his head in. The tall figure was bent over a large desk strewn with a storm of papers, but he’d noticed Gregory, and fixed him with a stare.

  ‘Hello?’ Gregory said. ‘I was wondering if you could help me with-’

  ‘Do you still have the book I lent you?’

  Gregory froze. How in the world had he been recognised? No one else had, and he’d walked past practically everybody he’d ever met before. They hadn’t associated the clean looking urban boy with the thief who’d flicked their tomes of magic.

  ‘Yes,’ Gregory choked out.

  ‘Good. Keep it safe. I don’t need it just yet, but I will.’

  Gregory nodded, his ears still roaring from the shock of having being recognised, then thought to say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, boy, what do you want?’

  He should go away now, quickly. The whole point of going to the gypsies had been anonymity, and that was lost now. The frond seemed to double in weight in his pocket.

  Think! He screamed at his mind. There had to be other avenues to Scrying, there had to be. Maybe some other gypsy tribe; no one said it had to be this one. He’d just have to wait longer, that was all.

  And what if Lesley Greene does not survive that wait? Will you take that chance? Hundreds lost their lives within the span of minutes only days ago. That camp is dangerous; her safety has no guarantee. Will you take that chance?

  He was going to be knighted! Risking that would be stupidity beyond measure.

  How would he threaten you anyway? It would be your words against his.

  Not if he kept a trace of Gregory’s magical signature. Gregory would almost certainly need to use his magic in the ritual; he was going to be the one speaking after all.

  He has no reason to do that just yet. You are no Hero at this moment.

  ‘Well?’ the Funny Man asked, and to the boy’s great surprise, the words stumbled out through his lips.

  ‘I need someone Scryer… that is… I need to Scry someone, so I need a Scryer.’

  The dark grey eyes fixed Gregory where he stood.

  Why in the world did he do that? Why? They don’t ask questions, thought Gregory. They never ask questions, or no one would trust them with this.

  Also, way to go on the smooth talk.

  ‘Ten Caesar,’ the gypsy said after a minute.

  Gregory winced; that was ten times as much as they charged in Pencier.

  Nevertheless, he pulled the payment out. ‘Here.’

  They gypsy took the coins.

  ‘You have the blood?’

  Gregory pulled out the frond. ‘Will this do?’

  A little puzzled, the gypsy took the frond; and with his instrument, a ring, he cast a few spells over it; and then he looked curious.

  ‘You’ve been to strange places, boy,’ the gypsy said slowly.

  It wasn’t a question. Gregory managed to not give any sign of assent or dissent.

  ‘Will that work?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘Aye, it’ll work. But it cannot happen now. I shall need time to prepare.’

  ‘When can we do it?’

  ‘Will two nights from now, Sunday, be convenient? The Peoplesmeet will be formally commenced. You will be coming?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then keep this.’ The gypsy handed him a small square token. ‘It will let my message seek you out when the time is right. You will make your excuses, and come where I direct. Is that agreeable?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it’s time you left.’

  And Gregory left intensely confused. Why, oh why, had he placed such trust in that peculiar gypsy? It wasn’t like him to act without thought, without measuring the prices and consequences that he’d be willing or unwilling to pay. It was downright scary!

  He’d been walking forward a absently, and crashed into Susannah, who’d come up on his left. Their heads knocked together.

  ‘Ow! Wh-Greg! Watch where you’re going!’ Susannah cried.

  ‘Sorry,’ Gregory said, rubbing at his skull.

  ‘I was just looking for you – Zach’s trying to win Mango a teddy at the slingshots.’

  But things at the slingshots were somewhat tense.

  ‘You’ve rigged it,’ Mango snarled, waving a wooden slingshot at the boy managing the stall. He was barely older than them, and there were two others a little way behind him.

  ‘You be careful who you’re pointing fingers at,’ the boy said coolly. ‘Not my problem your friend’s such a lousy shot.’

  ‘The ball keeps dipping when it shouldn’t,’ Mango insisted.

  ‘And here I was starting to wonder if I’d lost my hand-eye coordination,’ Zach said.

  ‘Hand over another ball,’ Mango said, and then, catching sight of Gregory and Susannah, ‘I’ll show you guys too!’

  ‘If you want another ball, you’ll have to pay for it,’ the gypsy-boy said.

  ‘Listen, worm-’

  ‘You watch your mouth!’

  Gregory, pulse racing from risk he’d just taken, felt aggressive. He pulled out a Tael. ‘Three stones please – that’s your rate, right?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ The smirking gypsy dropped three smooth, round stones into Gregory’s hands.

  Quickly, before anyone could react, Gregory put a stone after another into the sling and shot three times at the stuffed bear directly in front. Every shot missed, dipping low just before it reached the bear. Gregory turned to the boy-gypsy again, holding out another Tael.

  ‘Three more, please.’

  As soon as the boy-gypsy dropped the shots into his hands, Gregory dropped one of them to the ground and stamped down on it: the shot cracked – there were three small, iron cubes inside.

  ‘So sorry. I broke one of your shots… but what are those?’ Gregory asked pleasantly.

  ‘I think they’re damaged property,’ the boy-gypsy said coolly, ‘and you’re gonna pay for it.’

  ‘I don’t feel like paying for it.’

  ‘One way or the other, you’ll pay for it,’ the boy-gypsy said, sliding an instrument, a wand, out of his pocket.
br />   He never got it all the way out; Mango yelled, and her foot swung into his hand even as he was drawing it; there was a sharp crack; and half the wand fell away into the mud in which they were standing.

  ‘Oops,’ Zach said.

  The boy look enraged then; the two boys lounging behind had noticed, and they came up behind him. They caught sight of his splintered wand; the next second, a hail of stones had burst from the ground and into Gregory, Mango and Zach’s faces. Susannah screamed.

  Nothing had got into his eyes, but the shrapnel stung. Gregory charged, blind: he ran into something heavy and solid that went ‘oof’; behind him he heard Mango and Zach do the same: six people crashed into the ground; Gregory made out a blurry shape through his squint, swung at it, connected: felt something sink into his own stomach, hard: heard Mango growl, someone yell; and then they were thrown apart; a force field had bloomed right in the middle of the fighters.

  ‘Little ones…always starting the fun a little early… now, what’s this kerfuffle about?’ said the most powerful-sounding voice Gregory had ever heard in his life.

  ‘Gregory? Zach? Mango? And Miss Coffey?’ said Uncle Quincy’s voice. ‘Got into a little disagreement?’

  He stood beside a vast and swarthy looking man – Gregory recognised him at once as the chief of the tribe, the man whose grimoire Gregory had stolen. And just in front of him, stood Johanna, looking gleeful.

  ‘They rigged the games,’ Mango spat.

  ‘And you wanted to draw blood, huh? That what happened, Murdy?’ the chief asked.

  ‘They went for their wands first,’ Susannah interrupted.

  ‘Twonk vandalised my property,’ Murdy, the stall-owner said. ‘Broke my shots.’

  ‘A pretty dispute all-around, then. Mr. Commander, any suggestions for how we ought to handle this?’

  ‘Murdy’s your nephew, if I’m not mistaken, Chief?’ Uncle Quincy asked, staring down at all of them. Gregory wondered if he was in trouble (though he wouldn’t have cared if he had been) but Uncle Quincy didn’t look angry. Rather, he looked amused.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Gregory’s mine.’

  ‘What a coincidence.’

  ‘Yeah. So you boys… and lady… want to fight?’

  Gregory, Zach and Mango looked at each other; their faces identically eager. The thought of a no-holds-barred drag down fight sounded more and more attractive by the minute!

  ‘Yeah, we want to fight,’ Gregory said, and Mango spat.

  Zachary, sounding oddly on edge, said, ‘Why not?’

  The Chief, Uncle Quincy, Johanna laughed.

  ‘And you boys?’ the Chief asked. ‘You want to take these pretties to the ring?’

  The gypsies glared at Gregory, Zach and Johanna. ‘Let’s do that. The girl’s coming too?’

  ‘She is,’ Mango said, looking positively hungry.

  ‘Come along then.’

  They were quickly paired up with their opponents – Mango wanted Murdy, Gregory got the swarthy Tupin, and Zach got the stocky Radnich.

  ‘Girl, I’ll do you favour – ask nicely and I’ll go as easy on you as I want,’ Murdy taunted Mango.

  ‘Murdy, I bust you cheating at a fair game, and I’m going to bust you in the ring.’

  ‘You think you’re the first Sparklers to throw a tantrum here?’ said Tupin. ‘You should have walked away – a silver costs a lot less than your pride… and now we’re gonna take that too.’

  ‘You boys think you’ve got the monopoly on scrapping… you don’t get around much do you?’ Gregory said. ‘You’ll thank us for broadening your horizons at the end of the day.’

  Zach and Radnich didn’t bother joining in on the banter – Radnich was happy to flex his muscles languorously, and Zach looked a little green in the face.

  It was surreal. In the back of Gregory’s head, the puzzle of his own weakness in front of the Funny Man played endlessly.

  Why had he crumbled like that? Gregory was crazy for even thinking that way, but there was inside him a deep certainty that the strange comic would not betray him, would not use the Scrying against him. And that was the root of his fear. That strange trust… it felt alien, like it wasn’t his.

  Around him, people eagerly cleared a path to a nearby arena – the crowd was mixed, mostly gypsies who looked cheerful, and some Domremin, who looked curious. The soon-to-fight did not look at each other. Gregory, Mango and Zach exchanged grim glowers; the gypsy-boys flex their muscles and swing their arms.

  At a spell from Uncle Quincy, a glowing, fiery barrier bloomed around the arena in a wide circle.

  ‘Alright, instruments out. Leave them here – we won’t have any magic in the ring.’

  Right before the six brawlers trooped in, Gregory tugged Uncle Quincy’s sleeve.

  ‘Who’s taking the bets?’ he asked.

  ‘That’ll be me,’ the Chief said, and indeed, lines of people were already forming around him.

  ‘Get as many people to bet against me as you can?’

  ‘It won’t make much of a difference, you know?’ Uncle Quincy said in a low voice. ‘People here don’t play with the same level of coins that you do these days. Krups, not Caesars or Taels.’

  ‘It’s not about the coins,’ Mango’s low voice said from behind Gregory. ‘It’s about people learning not to bet against us.’

  Gregory grinned at Mango. It was times like this when he really liked being around her – she just understood. They fist-bumped. ‘Milady, always a pleasure to fight beside you.’

  ‘Likewise, kind sir.’

  Then they were inside the circle. The three gypsy boys were all progressively bigger than Gregory, or Zach or Mango and they looked cocky and eager. Well, all of them, until the one Mango had marked for herself saw her face – she looked murderous.

  ‘Get on with it then,’ the Chief said.

  ‘Yaaaaah!’

  Radnich rushed Zach, who took a moment to look surprised before his attacker’s sheer momentum picked him up and rushed him to the barrier. And then Gregory didn’t have as single moment to look at the others; Tupin was striding over determinedly; he was a half a head taller than Gregory: his face twisted into a snarl, and he swung a big fist: Gregory didn’t bother to dodge – he needed to find out how hard Tupin could hit – how much of a beating could Gregory take… before he could not; the fist caught Gregory’s cheek: it hurt, and Gregory’s vision darkened; but he’d rolled with it, and that was probably as hard as the boy could hit; he could take it for bit… the gypsy snarled in triumph… began to follow up…

  ‘Watch your thoughts. See them form. Every time you have to make a decision, ask your own mind: ‘Why are you thinking whatever it is that you’re thinking?’ And when your mind replies, ask it, ‘Is that really true? Couldn’t it be something else?’ Go on asking that, until your mind can’t reply anymore, and you’ll know that you’ve heard the truth.’ Those had been the opening words of A Labyrinth of Thought, the book that Astrid had gifted to him, and Gregory sometimes thought it was the most important book he had ever read in his life.

  Tupin was quickly becoming frustrated – he was putting everything he had into his swings, but they weren’t connecting; Gregory kept shuffling back, absorbing the blows as they came, reeling, but staying on his feet: the gypsy leaped: Gregory moved in close: the fist took him in the ear – he saw stars; but he’d been twisting clumsily, left elbow driving deep into right ribs: the gypsy gasped, but it couldn’t have hurt much: then, right fist drove into diaphragm: Tupin shuddered, his expression dazed… The Gladiator’s Discipline: they can’t fight if they can’t breathe, so make breathing painful…

  Those words had made it impossible for Gregory to ever lie to himself; he could always see the false thought forming in his head… but it also taught Gregory to recognise his thoughts… and he could not remember ever actively deciding to trust the gypsy enough to risk asking him for a Scrying… his mouth had spoken of its own volition. Had The Funny Man gott
en into his head somehow? But that was impossible – a great spell lay cast over Domremy, and every other nation, which prevented one mind from seizing control of another; there were enough stories of rulers who had torn down their own nations under such influence. Real stories, not made up ones. There were ways of getting around that protection, but those required a serious magic, and The Funny Man had not cast any spells that Gregory had seen or sensed…

  Tupin was warier now; outside the sandy arena, a crowd hooted and whistled; distracted, Gregory took a blow to the temple and almost blacked out; somehow, he managed to back away without falling ever; stumbled into someone behind him: Zach…

  No, Gregory’s involuntary decision to trust The Funny Man had been instinctive. And Gregory knew something of instinct. Once, a travelling showman who called himself a Science Writer had visited Pencier, and at Directory Laurie’s behest and coin, had lectured the boys on two kinds of instincts – ancestral and learned. When a Nile buffalo approached a croc-infested river, sometimes it would know there was danger in the water even though it couldn’t see the crocodile. This was not magic; the buffalo was just picking up the subtlest of cues and clues from the environment, the ripple in the water perhaps, or the scent of stirred mud, or a particular stillness in the air. As far as the buffalo was concerned, this was a big, glaring sign that read: GO NEAR WATER AND DIE! Even if the buffalo had never come across these signs before, something deep within the buffalo, what the gypsy had called ‘ancestral memory’, warned about the danger.

  They were both tired now: Gregory, from all the blows he’d taken; Tupin from all wasted punches he’d thrown and Gregory had dodged, and from the few devastating blows Gregory had driven into his body. They paused and took a moment to look at the others, and both their jaws dropped.

  Zach was faring the worse of his fight; he was caught in a headlock, his jeering opponent stormed blows down on his head and face: but Zach twisted his head: instantly his opponent screamed: drove his elbow into Zach’s face with all his strength: Zach crumpled, his face swollen, and his mouth bloody, like the gypsy’s side, which Zach had bitten into, hard: the gypsy collapsed on his side, howling from the pain.

  Mango, though, was winning! She fought like Gregory did: retreating from the blows, rolling when they connected, darting in when Murdy exposed himself – but she moved infinitely more sharply, her feet sure and light, her blows precise and deadly. Her desperate opponent lashed out with his foot: she caught the foot in her hands at its highest point, and ran back with it: Murdy fell with his legs in a painful split…

  Gregory’s own opponent rushed at him, catching him around the mid-section: the wind blew out of Gregory…

  Not all behaviour was instinct though, the gypsy had said, and told them the story of Pavlov The Dog Lover. Pavlov had funny ideas about how something could be learned. He said that, when food was put in front of a dog, the dog would drool. But the dog wouldn’t drool, for instance, when a bell rang. However, the dog could be trained to drool at the sound of a bell. To prove this extraordinary claim, Pavlov began to ring a loud bell right before the dog would get its food, and he did this many, many times. And one day the bell rang but there was no food… and the dog drooled anyway! It had begun to associate the ringing of the bell with lunchtime. They gypsy had called this ‘conditioned learning’. Once they were all done with the jokes about how exactly Pavlov had gone about measuring the drool (there had been a lot of kissy faces), most of them had forgotten the story. Gregory hadn’t. It was too weird to forget.

  Gregory had to get away, Tupin was too heavy: he pinned Gregory’s arms with his knees, and rained blows down on Gregory’s face…

  Now, hypothetically, let’s say the dog got hit on the head and forgot all about the stupid bell… at least, it’s conscious mind did. If the bell rang again, would the dog drool or not? And if it did, would the dog feel as confused about its inexplicable drooling as Gregory was now feeling confused about this inexplicable trust?

  Gregory bucked: his legs rose, curled back towards him, and wrapped around Tupin’s head – he pulled – Tupin was wrenched away and down, head slamming into the muddy ground, and Gregory brought his heels down on where he thought the solar plexus was… then he did it again… and again… the gypsy-boy tried to crawl away.

  The question was – which part of the dog was it that was conditioned? The conscious or the subconscious? Which part of Gregory trusted the Funny Man? Certainly not his conscious – trading chores for a book did not a friend make (and he wouldn’t have told even Reggie, Mixer and Alf about this). His subconscious then, some part of his mind that he wasn’t prepared for… some part that was familiar with the Funny Man?

  He’d been crawling forward, kicking where ever he could, and the gypsy vomited…

  If so, then it was a learned behaviour, and learned behaviours needed time to set in. Which in would turn meant that Gregory had spent time with the man, a lot of time… but if he hadn’t done so in the last six years, he must have before…

  ‘That’s enough!’ said a voice that seemed to call from far away. An invisible force restrained Gregory where he was: the gypsy-boy finally crawled far away from him.

  He’d gotten up, swaying where he stood; a large shape came and took him by the shoulder, and led him out of the ring. In front of him, two adult gypsies carried an unconscious Zach; beside Gregory, Mango fingers came away bloody from her split lip, and she looked at it critically. Gregory throbbed everywhere, but it was a distant sort of pain. In a strange way, it felt good. Nothing was solved, but it felt good.

  Johanna ran up to him, Uncle Quincy and the Chief not too far behind. ‘You won! Pappa let me bet on you, and I won three Taels!’

  ‘Have you ever bet on a fight before?’

  Johanna shook her head, and the hero-worship clear in her eyes was a little frightening.

  ‘Glad to be of service then, milady.’

  ‘You’re a dangerous fighter, boy,’ the Chief said. ‘You lost me three Taels to this young lady here… and maybe you’ve learned my own boys a lesson in cockiness. And miss,’ he said, turning to Mango, ‘I’ve seen very few fight the way you did, and none that did were mages. A fine performance.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief…?’

  ‘Merlot’s the name.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Merlot.’

  ‘You’ll get patched up at the Medic’s,’ the Chief said. ‘Don’t mind the man if he’s not too gentle… Gregory, was it? It was his boy you took down.’

  ‘Right.’

  The Medic wasn’t too hard on Gregory – he’d been told to treat winning team first, and hadn’t seen his son yet. Still, Gregory winced as the man roughly dabbed healing salve and binding creams over his cuts and bruises. Once, he’d left the tent though, Gregory rounded on Mango.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Seriously, out with it!’

  ‘I told you – at home. Mum taught me.’

  ‘Thought your mum was mage?’

  ‘She is – a warrior mage.’

  ‘That’s a thing?’ Zach’s voice said. He’d finally come around. ‘Ah, my head…’

  ‘You took an elbow to it,’ Mango told him.

  ‘Don’t change the subject. Your mum’s a warrior mage?’ Gregory said, peering at her through his swollen eyes.

  ‘For the gazillionth time, that’s right. She trains Peacekeeper, Watch and Military cadets to fight – to mix magic with might, as it were. It’s a family trade… everyone knows how to fight.’

  Gregory tried to remember the sweet-faced statuesque woman he’d met just before the blooding, and completely failed to imagine her harming even a fly. It was probably a good cover.

  ‘Wait, you both won?’ Zach said.

  ‘They did,’ Susannah said, entering, bright eyed and flushed. ‘I thought he’d killed you.’

  ‘So did I… a lot of that felt like dying anyway,’ Zach said, still tenderly touching his face. ‘By
y’know, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. I don’t know about you guys… but that felt good, really good.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mango said satisfiedly, licking her fat lip. ‘That was your first fight, wasn’t it?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing. Good job.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Really? First fight?’ Gregory asked. ‘You looked very eager to take on the twonks we met outside your mother’s store.’

  Zach shrugged. ‘I was angry.’

  Susannah sat down beside Gregory.

  ‘Your eyes are so fat they look like fruit,’ she said critically.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Gregory said, and then, feeling a little reckless, ‘You’ll always be the real apple of my eye.’

  ‘Greg!’ She struck his shoulder, and Mango and Zach chortled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Zach blurted out.

  ‘What?’ Three voices asked him, but he was looking at Mango.

  ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you.’

  At once, the air the in the tent was heavy. Later, Susannah would say that Murdy and his boys hadn’t really stood a chance – they hadn’t realised that Mango, Zach and Gregory had been angry.

  Mango nodded, and swallowed. She, Gregory suspected, had not yet shed a tear either.

  Nothing more was said on the subject, but nothing more was needed. That one word had healed the strain in their fledgling friendship, and to Gregory’s surprise, a surge of relief was washing over him.

  Did he care about these three that much already? It seemed strange that they would bond so quickly. He had known them for less than four weeks now. Surely it took longer to forge a true friendship?

  But what’s true friendship? Gregory mind asked. It wasn’t just a string of adventures and pranks. It was security, and it was trust. It was knowing that you belonged. Gregory had once heard a saying, and it had struck him as unnervingly true:

  You are the average of the five people closest to you.

  It had made Gregory feel good to think he was the average of Reggie, Alf, Mixer, Astrid and the Director’s library (no matter what anyone said, Gregory always insisted that while books might not have souls themselves, they certainly carried the souls of those who had written them). Was that why he felt so guilty about his relief? He was replacing Reggie, Alf, Mixer and Astrid from their privileged places in his life – was that fair to them… especially Reggie and Alf, who’d have no way to live on, but in Gregory’s memories?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered to himself.

  ‘What?’ Susannah asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m being stupid.’

  ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m… I’m fine.’

  Sometimes, the solution to a puzzle kept in the back of one’s mind came when one wasn’t even thinking about.

  Such a solution came stumbling into Gregory’s own mind now. Curiously, it was the earlier mention of apples that had let the back of his mind down this particular tangent… he could almost remember where he had heard Brightapple mentioned before.

  ‘Come on,’ Gregory whispered to himself.

  ‘What?’ Susannah asked, but Gregory shook her off, and stuck his fingers in his ear, suddenly terrified he’d lose his train of thought… of conjecture, wild and implausible… but so right…

  A vague picture formed drudgingly in his head.

  Gregory had tried to put himself into his parent’s shoes before, when he had been trying to figure out if they had been the ones to deliver him to Pencier. But in his haste to investigate, he hadn’t taken that assumption further.

  Fine, let’s say they did drop their young boy off at Pencier. What would they do then? Why wouldn’t they retrieve him? Because he’d lost his memory? But if you were a father, or a mother, regardless of what reason you had left behind your child, you’d still feel curious, wouldn’t you?

  In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a novel in Astrid’s collection, a young father, in a moment of weakness, had abandoned his newborn disabled daughter to the care of the nurse who had helped birth her. Later, unable to reign in his curiosity, he’d kept a watch on his daughter from afar, compiling her life in a series of portraits.

  Surely Vincent and Veracity Grey, if there were indeed alive and unharmed, would want to keep tabs on Gregory as he grew up, no matter what it was they were up to?

  The picture in his head twisted, slipped and rolled, but he kept his focus on it. He was vaguely aware that someone was shaking him – he ignored it.

  A steady stream of facts tumbled into his sphere of focus: seven years old when he’d been dropped off; his parents had hunted gypsies for most of their adult lives; someone had always known where he was, and that that someone had tipped off Uncle Quincy to Gregory’s whereabouts…

  Another thought, meteor-like, streaked over the memories of the detailed maps and charts he’d drawn, and he knew with a leap that a gypsy tribe (this very one in fact – the Merlot Tribe) had left Pencier village only weeks before his own first arrival at the village. He’d have to go home and check, but he was certain.

  How had he not seen it before?

  And sometimes, wouldn’t they want to give him a gift if they could? Say, a book on magical plants and animals? A book, the first pages of which fluttered open in Gregory’s memory…

  ‘I remember,’ he whispered, finally taking his fingers out of his ears.

  ‘Remember what?’

  He couldn’t even begin to explain. ‘Nothing.’

  An hour later, after dinner and a stern lecture from Uncle Quincy about the image he’d have to maintain in public (who didn’t mind the brawl as much as he’d minded that it had happened in front of everybody), Gregory went into his room to confirm his theory, though he was terrified that it would turn out false.

  So first, he spread out his charts, hunted, and found. The Merlot Tribe had left Pencier three weeks before his own arrival – a long distance by foot, but only a day’s flight by carpet… and they had only been two days of walking away from Brightapple when it had been razed to the ground.

  Next, he extracted an old, leather-bound volume, A Compendium of Magical Bestiary and Botany. On it’s second page, the following words were inscribed:

  For the Green Goblin,

  In the hope that this keeps him from fingering my Dragonwhisker pots.

  From Mairin Fahy, Abbot at Brightapple.

  And finally he extracted, from a desk drawer, an album of photographs he had carefully preserved. He pulled out the first picture he had ever seen of his family.

  There, cradling Gregory in the crook of one elbow, and Veracity Grey in the other, stood the Funny Man of Merlot Tribe.