‘What’s with the planks?’ asked Jacks.
‘Easier to show than tell,’ said Pike. ‘Eh, Master Brief?’
‘But remember to be quick about it, for pausing trains are not patient trains and they’ll cut your legs off if they can.’
The train was pretty much on time, the signal turning red before it appeared from the south and heaved to a halt right where they stood.
‘How do we get aboard?’ asked Jack, as they all got up and walked over the track towards the train whose wheels towered above them.
‘We don’t,’ said Barklice. ‘We travel underneath.’
‘Underneath?’ Jack eyed the narrow gap between the bottom of the train and railway track itself. ‘Are you joking?’
‘No, he’s not,’ said Pike, already crawling under the train. ‘Show him how, Barklice.’
Jack followed the verderer beneath the train, crawling with some difficulty and discomfort over the stones, for in addition to his portersac and stave he was now encumbered by the board. The train itself vibrated ominously above their heads.
‘About here,’ said Barklice, stopping. ‘Now, roll on to your back . . . for the train’s creaking means it’s about to move. Put your plank up . . . so . . .’
He put one end over a metal bar by his head and then, raising the other end of the plank, slid it back so that end was resting on yet another rod. There was a narrow gap between the plank and the wagon floor above.
‘Now for the difficult bit . . .’ said Barklice, grasping a metal fixture above his head, and heaving his portersac onto one end of the plank. ‘Now we place a foot onto the plank and . . . we heave a bit and . . . we twist a bit . . . and with a final . . . pull . . . here we are. Now it’s your turn.’
Barklice had disappeared into the oily, metal-bound shadows above, and was now resting safely on his plank.
The train creaked and shifted.
‘You’d better get a move on, lad. The train’s about to leave!’ called Pike.
Jack got his plank in place with difficulty, then his portersac, which rolled off twice before he got it secured. Then grasping the rod, he tried to heave himself up into the grubby, metallic place above.
It was not easy.
The train creaked and rolled forward a foot or two, dragging the struggling Jack with it. Then it eased back again, pushing his back painfully into the track below.
‘Watch your foot, lad!’
Jack had swung one leg onto the line. A huge wheel began rolling towards it.
‘Hurry!’ came Brief’s urgent voice.
Jack got his foot in place on the plank, heaved himself up, twisted and rolled and was prevented from falling off the other side by the timely intervention of Pike’s foot stretching over from his own plank. Then, secure at last, he found himself perched gasping on the plank, staring back down at the track which now began moving away beneath him.
‘Time for a rest,’ called out Barklice as the train gathered speed and the noise level increased. ‘Keep yourself wedged in so you don’t fall off if there’s sway or jolt, and if you lie on your back put your portersac over your privates to protect them from . . .’
The noise level increased and Barklice’s voice grew indistinct.
‘From what?!’ cried out Jack nervously.
‘. . . the clinkers!’ yelled Barklice. ‘They can play havoc with your dingalongs!’
But more Jack could not discover, because the noise became too great to hear another word. All he could do was shift about to get comfortable, the best position in the end being on his back, place his portersac protectively on the lower half of his body and wonder how on earth anyone could hope to sleep in such a place and position. Yet Jack soon got used to the constant racket of train and track, till the rhythm and the warmth of his situation made him feel as if he was being rocked to sleep in a cot.
He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the next part of his journey.
61
HAIS
When Katherine finally awoke, it felt that a long time had passed, and that she was in serious trouble.
She had been moved into a small cell, its walls composed of rough grey concrete, with dim light filtering through a tiny grille set high up in one corner. She was lying on unvarnished wood set into a simple wooden frame, and her covering was merely a thin blue sheet. The room itself was warm, almost stifling, and the floor was bare concrete painted green, with a drain in the centre. A line of three thick pipes, each covered in a different colour of thermal insulation, snaked across the ceiling.
Her clothes had been replaced with a simple gown. There was a throbbing pain behind her eyes.
But when she put both her palms and all her fingers to her head to try to soothe away the pain, she discovered something that seemed far worse. Her hair had been cut short. She looked around for a mirror but there was none, nor even a window where she might see her reflection. She felt her hair again and it felt horrible, and she knew what she had known from the moment she arrived in Brum – that she had to escape from here and get away.
She lay where she was until her head began to clear. She guessed she had been somehow drugged the night before, which meant her instinct not to accept any drink except water had been basically right. She would not make that mistake again.
Katherine thought through all that had happened and how, when the shadows had finally encircled her in the henge, it was Jack she had first thought of. It was of him she thought now.
‘I never told him what I felt about him, not really – not really.’
Where are you? she asked in the frightening silence of her mind. What are you doing? Are you safe there in Woolstone? Tell me you didn’t come after me to this horrible place, where they cut off your hair and you lose all sense of direction and nothing feels right. Tell me that, Jack.
A tear coursed down her cheek.
I need you she admitted to herself. I need you to . . . to share this with to . . . to make me laugh.
More tears came.
Then Katherine heard the sound of people approaching her door, and she dabbed at her eyes and nose and sat up, listening. The door also had a grille at eye height, but it had a wood panel on the far side to shut it off. The people immediately outside were females, she could hear. They chatted and laughed and then went on by, without anyone trying to enter. A short while later they returned, and went back the way they had come.
She looked around the room and found a pair of leather shoes placed neatly under the bed. They had pointed, curly toes and goldthread decorations, like something from a Middle Eastern bazaar. They fitted her perfectly, however.
She heard approaching voices again, and the clatter of footsteps heading downstairs, and she impulsively got up, went over to the grille and found she could easily tweak open the flap on the other side. She peered through into the corridor just outside in time to see the passers-by.
They were so close that she would not have made sense of them, but for seeing their like during the evening before. They were two women dressed in white gowns, with the same wigs of flowing black hair.
Behind them walked – almost ran – a girl with a blue-black blouse and a skirt of flowing coloured silk, full and multi-layered. Her hair was real, however, beautifully coiffed, and pinned up with shining combs. The taller women preceding her gave the impression of being elegant but ill-tempered, while the one behind looked plump and cheerfully at ease.
Katherine was tempted to call out, but they had passed before that idea fully formed itself.
She idly turned the handle of the door. To her surprise it opened easily, so that she fell forward into the corridor beyond.
As she did so, she heard a cry followed by what sounded like two hard slaps being administered. Then an angry shout and a third slap followed by sobbing. Moments later came the sound of steps returning.
Katherine looked wildly to right and left, then decided it best to scurry quickly back into her cell, close the door and let them pass. She peered
through the peephole in time to see passing the same two taller women as before. The girl with dark hair was not with them but Katherine could still hear sobbing, and guessed it came from her.
Then the steps stopped and began heading back again.
Katherine instinctively took her slippers off, put them neatly where they had been before, and dived back onto the bed, pulling the sheet over herself.
It was as well she did. The door opened suddenly, and someone entered. Katherine kept her eyes firmly closed but guessed that from her strong perfume, musky and soporific, it was one of the same women she’d just seen.
Some Sister of Charity! Katherine told herself, as the girl’s sobbing continued down the corridor.
The second woman now joined the first, and they stood quietly while Katherine, eyes shut, tried to keep her breathing slow and regular.
‘She’s the lanky one who arrived last night,’ remarked one voice.
‘Horrible thick hair . . .’ replied the other.
‘. . . and a rough complexion, all red and raw.’
‘She’s been in the Upperworld I expect, working out in the sun. If that Bilgesnipe doesn’t stop snivelling, I’ll have to punish her again!’
‘Shall we wake this one up?’
‘Uh-uh, no point. She’ll be useless and drowsy and I’m not going to waste time trying to revive her yet. Give her an hour or two, and then douse her with cold water. It works faster than anything else I know.’
‘Look at those feet, so big and horrible.’
‘She’ll scrub up well enough. They all do in the end.’
‘Should this door now stay unlocked?’
‘We lock them up only if they’re difficult. This girl’s easy so far, and leaving their doors open gives them the feeling they’ve nothing to fear.’
‘Well, they haven’t, really. Not exactly.’
‘No, not if they’re sensible. They’d never get past the guards, and even if they got that far they’d be punished, so it’s not worth it. And anyway . . .’
The door began to close.
Anyway what?
Katherine heard no more.
She sat up at once, not sure whether to feel frightened or furious.
Big feet, indeed.
She was only size seven.
Rough complexion?
Her Mum and Mrs Foale always said the opposite.
Lanky?
Well, all right, but she was fast filling out . . .
Katherine grinned suddenly, knowing how Jack would have laughed.
Bilgesnipe?
She wondered if they had been describing the girl she’d seen who had the same dark skin as Tirrikh.
Upperworld?
That took a moment’s thought before she reckoned it must mean outside, in the real human world above them.
It was the last bit of their conversation that worried her most.
‘Only if they’re difficult. This girl’s easy . . . the feeling they’ve nothing to fear . . . Well they haven’t . . . exactly . . .’
Katherine didn’t like the sound of any of it, at all.
The moment their footsteps had died away completely, she got up again to open the door, and immediately turned in the opposite direction to the one the two Sisters seemed to have taken.
The corridor was about thirty feet long, with doors just like hers, which also had peepholes. All but one were dark. She peered inside that one and saw a girl asleep on a bed, as she herself had been until a few minutes ago.
She moved on further and reached a T-junction. The corridor leading off to the right was dark, that to the left was lit up. She turned left towards the light.
The dark-haired girl was in a side-room, folding clothes and straightening boxes on the many shelves. It smelt good, like a laundry but without steam or irons.
The moment Katherine reached the door, she turned around. The moment she saw it was Katherine she looked relieved.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said. Her voice was softly accented.
‘What is this place?’ asked Katherine.
‘It’s a house of the Sisters of Charity.’
‘Who are they?’
‘They do good works. You’ll soon become one of them.’ There was a sense of pity in the way she said that, and there was defiance too.
‘Why were you crying?’
‘Sister Chalice hit me – like she always does. She’s horrible.’
Katherine could believe it. Chalice was obviously the tall one with the sharp voice.
Katherine fired questions ever more rapidly. She was now afraid the Sisters would come back and she wanted to find out as much as she could before they returned.
‘Are you what they call a Bilgesnipe?’
The girl hesitated, her eyes showing a kind of hurt.
‘I am,’ she said, looking down, as if ashamed.
All Katherine could see was that she was beautiful, her dark eyes subtly made up, her mouth full, her skin dark and smooth, her bust full, the cleavage showing above a yellow-silk blouse. The dark jacket she had been wearing was folded neatly over a box nearby.
‘Meaning?’ said Katherine.
The girl looked puzzled, and repeated again, ‘We’re a different race and they despise us.’
There were centuries of exile, rejection and isolation in that word.
Somewhere Katherine heard footsteps but they didn’t come nearer.
‘What does that word mean exactly?’
‘They don’t like us. We’re different. We live by rivers and canals. They think we’re dirty, that our skin is dark because of the filth of things there.’
Katherine look astonished, so much so that the girl grinned.
‘We’re not really,’ she ventured.
‘They claimed my skin was rough and raw,’ said Katherine.
The girl came nearer, instinctively wishing to reassure her.
‘It’s not. It’s lovely but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘They’ll ruin it and make you look old and pale. Then you’ll have to always wear powder, until they’re caking it on.’
‘I’m called Katherine.’
The girl said nothing.
‘What your name?’
Again a hesitation, then: ‘Number eleven.’
Katherine gaped. ‘That’s not a name, it’s a number. What’s your real name?’
‘Hais.’
Footsteps again, somewhere above them.
‘So why did they hit you, Hais?’
‘Because I said I think all this rain means there’s going to be flooding, and so I need to get back to Deritend while I can. I’m to be Bride for the Day, and that only happens once in a lifetime!’
‘What’s “Bride for the Day”?’
‘Most areas and a lot of streets in Brum celebrate the High Ealdor’s birthday tomorrow. The Deritend celebration is the most famous apart from the High Ealdor’s party itself, but it’s only people from the rich families in New Brum who get invited to that! And unusual visitors like you. In Deritend what happens is that the Bride finds her groom and gets trothed . . .’
‘You mean you go round the streets looking for someone to marry?’
Hais laughed.
‘No, we fix it so that the Bride gets the right groom. In my case it’s a boy I’ve known all my life, and so it’s a public way of saying we’re likely to get wed.’
‘Sounds great,’ said Katherine.
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ replied Hais rather soberly.
Katherine picked up what she was thinking at once.
‘You mean you like the idea of being the Bride but the boy concerned isn’t the right one?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you have to marry him?’
‘No, but done this way and with the Deritend families involved it will be a bit harder to get out of! It would be fine if the choice was made by me, but unfortunately it’s decided with the Cunning Knot.’
Katherine looked puzzled.
‘It’s the Bilgesnipe way of deciding certain things where emotions get in the way of reason, to quote my father. I think it’s a lot of nonsense but you know what older people are like. They believe these superstitions!’
But Katherine was thinking of something Hais said earlier which struck too close to home for comfort. Her friend Sam had always said Katherine let her mind rule her emotions. She wished she’d been more honest with Jack about what she really felt for him while she still had the chance.
‘I don’t understand why the Sisters are angry with you,’ said Katherine.
‘It’s not about me going to the celebration in Deritend. Sister Chalice is just being mean about it because she’s jealous I’ve been chosen to be Bride for the Day, which she was never chosen to be! They know I have to go because they know my father, his brothers and our extended family, which means half of Deritend, would come and get me and drag me down there! The revolution some of our people talk about would finally happen and all because of me!’
She laughed again and it was infectious, because Katherine laughed too and felt better than she had in days.
Hais got serious.
‘But you shouldn’t be here. You must go back to your room before they find you’re missing.’
Katherine shook her head. ‘I’m trying to get away, not go back.’
The footsteps sounded louder again, and this time they heard voices too. Katherine could hear the unpleasant laughter of Sister Chalice, and Hais’s eyes widened in fear.
‘They’re still upstairs but she’ll be coming down soon.’
‘Is there any way out of here?’ asked Katherine urgently.
Hais shook her head. ‘Not without going past the guards, and you don’t look at all like a Sister of Charity. You look too much of a mess.’
Katherine giggled, not offended. ‘What will they do to me?’
‘Make you into a Sister, so you can serve him.’
‘Serve who exactly?’
‘The High Ealdor, of course.’