It didn’t even feel like a decision. There was a thing to do and Neverfell did it. She flicked the back of her hand at her goblet, knocking it over, so that the Wine flooded out across the tablecloth, swamping and hiding the spilt drop before anybody else could see it.
The ‘thonk’ of the goblet hitting the table was muted and yet terribly loud. Her knuckles still stinging from the chill of the crystal, Neverfell felt silence flood from that one sound through the feast, like the purple tide across the cloth. The next moment, awareness of what she had just done hit her like a bucketful of ice water.
Neverfell’s gaze crept up to the faces of Zouelle and the other Childersins. All of them had frozen, and were staring paralysed at the spreading stain. Half of them had apparently forgotten how to breathe. The servants halted mid-motion, then as one they melted away from the table.
All over the island, conversation had been replaced by an eerie hush. From every table, frozen Faces watched entranced as the priceless Wine dripped off the edge of the table. Forgotten forks hovered where they had halted halfway to open mouths.
They know. They all know it wasn’t an accident. They can see it in my face.
Fearfully, Neverfell glanced across at Maxim Childersin. He still wore a wryly attentive smile, but it meant nothing. He was not looking in Neverfell’s direction. Instead, he was gazing out with unblinking watchfulness towards the distant waterfall that Neverfell had been told hid the Grand Steward. Following his gaze, Neverfell thought for a moment that she glimpsed traces of movement behind the curtain of water, perhaps even the silhouette of a human shape.
‘Neverfell, take the gondola back to the sedan. The servants will see you home.’ Childersin’s order was too quiet and too calm to be questioned for an instant.
Shaky with shock and mortification, Neverfell rose, not daring to look at Zouelle, and fled back towards the boat, her head bowed and her green satin shoes hobbling awkwardly on the false sand. She could not bring herself to look back as the gondola carried her away, until the stalactites hid the scene of her crime from view.
Thus it was that Neverfell did not see what happened next.
The servants were in instant, voiceless motion. The strange girl’s action had torn a hole in the beautifully woven fabric of the banquet, a hole in a dozen conversations. The hole had to be filled. The Stackfalter Sturton had to be brought in early. Half a dozen men ran out to the little icehouse where the great cheese was waiting, to collect it and bring it in. The two guards placed to watch it blinked at them in mute confusion when they arrived, but there was no time for explanation. The door was opened, and the great covered dish heaved on to its trolley and wheeled out across the little bridge on to the dining island.
As the trolley emerged, light gleaming on the four-foot-wide silver dish cover, dozens of courtiers braced themselves, ready to don what they hoped would be suitable Faces for such a masterpiece. Rumour had spread of underhand attempts to steal parts of it, and that had just increased its fame.
There was a pause, and then the great dish cover was tweaked away.
Nobody was ever quite sure what to expect from a True Cheese. What they definitely did not expect, however, was the sight of a short and stocky figure, apparently clad from head to foot in slatted metal scales, which raised a goggled head, leaped from the dish and sprinted across the island. Sheer shock froze the guards for an all-important second, and by the time they were racing to intercept the strange figure, it had dived cleanly into the water of the lagoon. No bubbles rose to the surface and neither did the stranger.
After a few seconds most watchers realized that even a True Cheese was very unlikely to do that. In the ensuing gondola search, no sign could be found of the bizarre figure. Furthermore, there was no sign of the Sturton, except for a few crumbs of rind and strands of moss. At last the truth dawned.
The Kleptomancer had struck again, and this time had stolen from the Grand Steward himself.
Desperate Deeds
Nobody said anything to chide Neverfell when she arrived back at the Childersin house, but she noticed the fraction of a second each servant paused in surprise before rushing to take her coat and gloves. She was not expected back yet. An early return could only mean disgrace.
She fled to her room, but the very sight of it was a reproach to her, a reminder of the Childersins’ kindness. Instead she crept down and found a hiding place in a little storeroom just off the main hall. There she hunched amid the brooms and grub-sacks, limp with self-disgust. Nobody seemed to be hunting for her, no doubt supposing her still in her room, so she was left in the unkind company of her thoughts.
Stupid, so stupid! So much for her promises to do nothing. Had she really thought that the Childersins could make something new of her, just by combing her hair and putting her in a nice dress? No, she was still Neverfell, gangling around like a cranefly and breaking everything. Not only had she failed to learn anything about her own history, but she had brought trouble on the very people who had tried to help her.
The only form of disgrace Neverfell really knew was Grandible’s anger, which blew over if you hid for long enough or let him rage. But this was not a crisis that would burn itself out or get distracted by Stilton. Worse still, she was still not sure what exactly she had done, nor what it would mean. How much trouble had she created for herself? For Zouelle? For the Childersin family?
The open chink of the storeroom door gave her a view on to the hall, and thus she was in a good position to watch when, two hours later, the Childersin group returned. Neverfell glimpsed Zouelle’s blonde plait and pale face passing by, and did not know how she could face the other girl. Even worse, however, was the thought of having to explain herself to Maxim Childersin.
She braced herself and waited for him to pass her hiding place, in the hope that she could read something – anything – in his manner. Face after face passed, however, until the faces ran out, and she felt a creeping dawn of horror. She had been ready to see him brisk, or striding, or taciturn, or wearing a dangerous mask of good humour. She had not been prepared to find him missing. The Childersins had returned, but they had done so without their patriarch.
What have I done? Oh no – what have I done?
As it turned out, Neverfell had found herself a hiding hole well placed for hearing answers to that question.
The front door was barely shut before the Childersins erupted into argument, for all the world as if they were responding to an agreed signal. They still wore their banquet clothes and their polite-dinner Faces, but their voices were so savagely bitter that Neverfell barely knew them.
‘Quiet!’ One voice gained ascendancy for a moment. Neverfell thought it belonged to Maxim Childersin’s oldest adult nephew. ‘We need to make plans right now. Do you really think Maxim will be coming back from that “private audience with the Grand Steward”? He won’t. He’s gone, and unless we act fast the rest of us will be next for the blade. Do you remember the last time somebody showed contempt for the Grand Steward’s hospitality, by dropping a fig on the floor? That was the end of the whole Jeroboam clan.’
‘So what do we do?’ snapped one of Zouelle’s aunts. ‘Nobody is going to believe that little cheese-girl spilt the Ganderblack Wine of her own accord. And even if they did, we’re still responsible for her actions.’ There was a furore of agreement, disagreement, recriminations.
‘Everybody quiet!’ shouted the oldest nephew again. ‘Listen! Unless we do something drastic, the Childersin dynasty comes to an end tonight. So I have just now sent emissaries to the Grand Steward and the Ganderblacks, suggesting that the Ganderblack family take over the whole Childersin legacy as compensation.’
‘What?’ A chorus of outrage.
‘It’s the only way to keep the whole inheritance together. It will be run as a vassal concern, but we’ll be alive.’ There was a thoughtful silence.
Neverfell did not understand everything she was hearing, but the important parts were all too clear. Maxim Childersin wa
s not coming back. Her one simple, silly action had murdered him. And now one of his nephews was selling the family out to a rival vintner family.
‘The Ganderblacks won’t take that mildly.’ Another of Zouelle’s aunts, sounding uncertain. ‘They hate us – they’ll want their pound of flesh.’
‘If they want a sacrificial lamb, we’ll give them one,’ replied the nephew with a tone of smug malice. ‘What about Maxim’s maddening little pet? It’s all her fault, after all.’
Neverfell gasped silently. Yes, the whole thing was her fault, but it was a different matter to hear somebody else say so, and with such chill poison in their tone. Worse still, there was a murmur of consent from the others.
‘Agreed, then,’ declared the eldest nephew. ‘Clapperfand, lock the silly blonde brat in her room. We don’t want to lose track of our lamb.’
It took a few heartbeats for Neverfell to understand what she had heard. They were not talking about her at all. They were speaking of Zouelle. It had never occurred to Neverfell that charming, clever, beautiful Zouelle might not be loved by everybody. In fact, it had not really occurred to her at all that the denizens of the good-natured, brilliant Childersin household might not all have each other’s best interests at heart.
She could hear small cries of protest. Pushing the storeroom door a little further open and peering round the corner, she could just see Zouelle being manhandled down the passageway by one of her uncles.
‘Wait.’ It was the sharp-voiced aunt once more. ‘When you wrote to the Ganderblacks, who did you say would be running this vassal Childersin concern for them? Not you by any chance?’
The brief truce collapsed. Most of the Childersins surged for the front door, nearly bursting it off its hinges in their haste to get out, so that they could head to the Ganderblacks and make their own claim before the others. A moment later yells, horse whinnies and the clang of blades could be heard from the street. To judge by the words shouted, the Childersins were fighting over the available horses.
It was at this point, with the door still hanging open, that Neverfell took her courage in one hand and a bucket in the other, then sprinted from cover.
The uncle dragging Zouelle down the passage was not expecting to be hit on the back of the head with a bucket. The blow was not heavy or well-aimed, but it startled him enough that he lost his grip on Zouelle’s wrists. Neverfell seized the moment and one of Zouelle’s hands, then sprinted for the open door, dragging the blonde girl with her into the street.
‘Hey!’
Neverfell did not look back to discover which of the Childersin aunts and uncles were now in pursuit. She continued to run, hearing Zouelle’s ragged breaths behind her, and wishing she had her old boots back instead of satin shoes.
It took her a moment or two to realize that there was an errand boy running alongside them, his bare feet keeping pace with her easily.
‘Turn left!’ snapped a familiar voice, and Neverfell obeyed. ‘Now right! Now duck down here through the crack!’ A dozen or so turns later, he finally slowed in a small, craggy alley, halted and listened.
‘Lost ’em,’ he muttered, and turned at last to face Neverfell.
The errand boy was Erstwhile.
And how had Erstwhile happened to be in this particular illustrious street? The truth was he had been there, on and off, for some time. He had known that his loitering would not be remarked upon. His betters had seen only his drudge clothes, his messenger satchel and his fly-pouch, and known he was a tool. They had noticed nothing else about him.
He had known Neverfell was within the house, and when at last she had erupted on to the street there had been no mistaking the red of the hair, the rapid, ungainly run. Now as they recovered their breath beside a wild trap-lantern, however, Erstwhile saw her properly for the first time.
There was no mask. There was no mask at all. Even after hearing the rumours Erstwhile had not been prepared. Eyes too big, too many freckles, that was his first thought. Then Neverfell’s features did things and went places and he nearly fell over from the shock.
Across her features, anxiety, resolution and remorse were being swamped by a surge of recognition, affection and surprise. Seeing her smile was like being hit in the face with a big, gold gong. Then, almost immediately, he could see the smile fade a little, become diluted by hurt. She was looking for some reaction from him, some sign that he was as pleased to see her.
Erstwhile had exactly five expressions. Polite but stony calm with eyes lowered, for slipping discreetly past his betters. Respectful attentiveness for receiving orders. Keen alertness when expecting or inviting orders. Humble remorse and fearfulness for receiving criticism or punishment. And just one smile, for those times when an employer had a right to expect a show of gratitude.
This was not a day for smiles, and none of the others would fit. So he stared at her, with a blank, respectfully attentive Face, and could give her nothing more. It made him feel shabby, stupid and angry.
Neverfell’s blonde companion had dropped down to sit on a boulder, lowering her face into her shaking hands. Erstwhile cast a suspicious glance over her burgundy court dress, then took Neverfell by the arm and dragged her out of the other girl’s earshot.
‘So. It’s true, then.’ It sounded like an accusation. ‘About your face.’ He could hardly bear to look at her. Her expressions changed so fast they made him feel sick. They shimmered and shifted and shone through one another. It was broken, it was all wrong.
Furthermore, the unquestioning faith and respect in Neverfell’s face when she looked at him made him self-conscious. It was like seeing his own shadow stretching away from him sized out of all proportion, like that of a giant. So that’s what I look like in Neverfell’s world. A giant.
‘Yes . . . I . . . Listen, Erstwhile—’
‘You never told me your face could do that,’ he muttered fiercely. ‘I listened to your nattering for hours. For years. And the one interesting thing about you? You never mentioned it. Not once. Didn’t you trust me?’ He found that he was really angry. Neverfell wasn’t supposed to have Faces! Just that one velvet mask-Face, which had always made him feel better about only having five.
‘I didn’t know!’ protested Neverfell. ‘Master Grandible never told me – there weren’t any mirrors – how was I to know I wasn’t just wearing a mask because I was ugly?’
‘Dropped me fast enough, though, didn’t you? All these years, I been making myself late for my other errands, hanging around your parlour answering your dopey bloody questions, cos I felt sorry for you, and knew you were lonely and a bit crazy. But the moment you got yourself some Craftsmen friends you can’t spare two minutes to talk to me, even when I’ve got an urgent message. No, then it’s “Miss Neverfell sends her regrets, but has an engagement and is busy with her toilette”.’
‘What? You . . . you came to the house to see me?’
‘They didn’t tell you?’ Erstwhile sighed. ‘No. I should have guessed.’
In the kaleidoscope that was Neverfell’s face, he could see her thoughts dance with shocking vividness. The Childersins hid things from me. Oh, no, they can’t have done. Perhaps they forgot to tell me about – But they are all different from what I thought . . . perhaps they really . . . oh no, no, I can’t believe it . . .
‘Oh, shut up and believe it!’ he hissed, answering the unspoken thought. ‘They been keeping you in a box, and the last thing they want is you getting messages from old man Grandible! That’s why they kept sending me away!’
‘You’ve brought a message from—’
‘Yeah, Master Grandible’s been worried sick about you. Been writing to the Enquiry to overturn the indenture and get you back as his apprentice.’
‘No!’ Neverfell twisted her hands together. ‘Tell him he can’t! I did something terrible at the banquet, and I’ll just bring trouble on anybody in charge of me! Maxim Childersin was kind to me and now he’s probably being executed, and Zouelle over there was going to be a sacrificial
lamb, and now the rest of the family are turning on each other. Erstwhile, I don’t need rescuing! Everybody needs rescuing from me!’
‘Stop!’ Erstwhile took hold of Neverfell’s shoulders and did his best to meet her eye, while her expressions moved like flames. ‘You listen to me. This is what’s really happening. Everybody in Caverna has heard about you knocking over that Wine, and everybody’s trying to guess who got you to do it. Most of them think it was a distraction to help the Kleptomancer steal the Stackfalter Sturton.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you know? Yeah, he found a way to steal every crumb. But nobody blames you. Because that would be like blaming a hat. Or a stick. Or a chess piece. To them, you’re just a thing. A new thing that’s got everybody talking. And you know what? Right now half the Court is quarrelling about who gets to buy you if the Childersins go under.’
‘But it is my fault.’ Again Neverfell’s face became painful to watch as her thoughts started their crazy carousel again. Faces shouldn’t do that, thought Erstwhile furiously. You’re supposed to see ’em, not feel ’em. ‘Nobody told me to spill the Wine. I brought all this trouble on them. Just me.’
‘You sure? You don’t know what Courtfolk are like.’ Erstwhile gave up and dropped his gaze. Looking at Neverfell was just too jarring. ‘They pull people about like puppets. Particularly the older ones. Don’t trust anybody over a hundred and fifty years old, particularly if they look thirty. Anybody who gets that old in Caverna loses something, and they don’t get it back. They can’t feel properly any more. They’re hollow inside, and all they got left is a hunger – a hunger to feel. They’re like . . . great big trap-lanterns, all blind gaping need, and thousands of teeth, with decades to come up with tricks and schemes.
‘That goes for your precious Master Childersin too. You think he took you in out of kindness? He didn’t. I don’t know what he’s playing at, but he’s playing, mark my words. Nobody here is being kind to you. Nobody.’ He could not help glancing across at the blonde girl just out of earshot. ‘You got to get clear of ’em all, then cut and run. Head back to Grandible. Or hole up somewhere, and send a message to me at Sallow’s Elbow if you find yourself in a spot.’