The Gimlet Eye Read online

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ Tab replied, letting herself out of the pen and latching the gate. ‘And I’ve heard that shickins lay better if you sing to them.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes, everyone knows that,’ she said. Then she dropped the pail by the pump and ran to the gate at the far end of the courtyard.

  ‘Hey, Tab,’ said Philmon. ‘Sorry to come here while you’re working.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Tab replied, leaning around the corner to see if Bendo was still trying to convince the shickin roosters to lay for him. He was. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s Fontagu. I can’t get him to speak.’

  Tab’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fontagu? You can’t get Fontagu to speak? No, you can’t be serious.’

  ‘I am serious. I saw him, in his room. I knocked, and he opened the door, and sat back down, but didn’t say a word.’

  ‘Has he just received bad news?’ Tab asked. ‘You know, really shocking news?’

  ‘That’s just the thing,’ Philmon said. ‘He looked happy. His eyes were … It’s so hard to explain, but he looked like he was very, very happy. But I couldn’t get him to say a word, so I came to get you straight away. I thought you might know what to do.’

  ‘Is he still there?’

  ‘In his room? Yes. I told him I was coming to get you, and he seemed … well, excited, I guess.’

  Tab glanced around the corner again. Bendo was still crooning softly to the shickins, who seemed completely oblivious to his attentions.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and have a look at him.’

  They made good time through the narrow streets, and soon reached the boarding house where Fontagu kept his lodgings. Tab took the steps three at a time, with Philmon close behind. ‘Should I knock?’ she asked.

  ‘I think it’s still open.’

  Tab pushed the door, and it swung open with a small squeak. Over at his small desk in the corner sat Fontagu, with his back to the door. He didn’t turn around, or even flinch as they came in.

  ‘Fontagu, it’s me,’ Tab said gently. ‘And Philmon. We came to see if you’re all right.’ She padded across the floor and rested her hand on Fontagu’s shoulder. Still nothing. Then she looked at his face. Philmon had been right – he looked happy. He looked blissful. He seemed to be frozen in a state of delight.

  ‘Fontagu?’ she said again. ‘What’s going on?’

  Slowly Fontagu turned his head, until his eyes were staring deep into hers. He dropped his hand to the desk, which was cluttered with paper and quills and empty ink jars, and picked up a piece of parchment, which he handed to Tab, without his eyes shifting from hers.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, looking down at the parchment. She saw the Supreme Crest at the very top. And below that, a letter written in the finest calligraphy. ‘The writing’s all curly. It looks like it’s from Florian.’

  ‘Really? What’s it say?’ Philmon asked.

  ‘If you stop reading over my shoulder I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘“From Florian the Great, Supreme Ruler of Quentaris, Duke of Eftangeny, Lord Regent of the Western Skies, salutations. Herewith We order you, Fontagu Wizroth the Third, to present a play for Our pleasure and entertainment on the happy occasion of Our birthday. Any disinclination on your part will be looked upon by Us in a light most unseemly, and met with consequences most dire. You are ordered to present yourself at Our palace on the morrow, whereupon you shall accept Our most gracious invitation, and report upon the play which shall glorify Our Person, and be forever remembered as a true and glorious portrayal of the Greatness that is Florian.”‘

  ‘Odd gods!’ breathed Philmon. ‘So it was bad news after all.’

  ‘I know,’ Tab said. ‘You could never present a play that glorifies that sack of offal. Fontagu, what are you going to do?’

  Fontagu’s eyes were sparkling, and he was beginning to break into a grin. ‘Do?’ he said. ‘Do? I’m going to put on a play, of course!’

  ‘But this is a death sentence,’ said Tab, waving the letter in the air. ‘Every royal command performance in the last year has ended up with at least one of the performers disappearing or dead, sometimes both!’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Philmon. ‘Please tell us you’re not going to do this, Fontagu. The man’s crazy! I mean, look at this letter! Supreme Ruler of this, Duke of that, the Greatness that is Florian …’

  Fontagu snatched the parchment away from her and stabbed at it with a long, bony finger. ‘This is going to put me back on the map!’ he proclaimed. ‘This is going to get me back in the daily bulletins!’

  ‘Yes, in the obituary section,’ Tab said. ‘Fontagu, Philmon’s right. If you agree to do this, you’ll probably end up dead.’

  Fontagu pushed back his chair and strode to the window. He stood there for a dramatic moment, with his chin raised, his fists on his hips, and his feet wide apart. ‘My dear children, this is what actors live for!’

  What they die for, more likely, Tab thought.

  Fontagu went on. ‘Actors dream of this. This! Unless you have ever trodden the boards, heard the hush of the crowd, the crescendo of applause, felt the warmth of the footlights against your face, you can never understand this feeling, this …’ – he turned suddenly to face them – ‘…this rush that comes of being wanted, being adored, being –’

  ‘Doomed,’ Tab said. ‘Fontagu, you have to hide. You have to leave, now. Because I promise you, this can only end badly.’

  ‘Maybe Skulum Gate would be a good place to hide for a while,’ Philmon suggested.

  Fontagu’s face changed suddenly. His aura of aloofness had gone, and in its place was a flash of anger. ‘Frankly, children, I’m insulted,’ he said. ‘I’m very hurt indeed that you don’t think better of your friend Fontagu. Why, I was playing the part of Despero when this … this so-called “ruler” was still a pup. I was taking three, four, five ovations a night at the original Paragon when Florian wasn’t even thought of.’ His eyes took on a far-off expression. ‘I did a command performance for the Archon when he was still young, strong and knew what day it was.’ His eyes returned to Tab and Philmon. ‘So don’t tell me that I can’t pull this off. Don’t tell me to run off and hide like a rat down in Skulum Gate with the witches.’

  ‘They’re not witches – they’re magicians,’ Tab said.

  ‘Whatever. Just don’t tell me that I can’t please Florian the Great with my acting genius. I can, and I will!’

  Tab and Philmon glanced at one another. They both knew that their chances of talking Fontagu down from this foolishness were very slim indeed.

  ‘So, with that settled, there’s no time to waste,’ Fontagu said, striding to his desk and ruffling through his papers. ‘And I know just the thing. Where is it?’

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Tab asked.

  He ignored her. ‘I know it’s here somewhere … Yes, here it is!’ he declared in triumph, producing a collection of loosely bound pages from below a pile of documents and holding it aloft. ‘This is the thing that will please Florian, not to mention bring all those silver moons rolling back in. It doesn’t get any better than this, children – a royal command performance of a great classic. Oh, the fame! The fortune! The glory! The –’

  ‘State funeral,’ Tab muttered.

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ Fontagu snapped, spreading his arms wide and herding Tab and Philmon towards the door. ‘Out! If you can’t be more supportive …’

  ‘Oh, come on, Fontagu,’ Tab protested. ‘We’re just saying …’

  ‘No. No! You’re being terribly, terribly disrespectful, and I won’t stand for it. I’ve always suspected that you were laughing at me behind your hands, but this confirms it for me. Out. Out!’ He held the door open.

  Philmon smiled and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Come on, Tab, let’s go.’

  ‘I do think that’s best,’ Fontagu said, pointing his nose at the ceiling.

  SMALL MINDS

  ‘You’re in t
rouble,’ said Freya, the pale young girl who worked with Tab at Nor’city Farm. ‘Bendo’s furious.’

  ‘I had to check on a friend.’ Tab looked around the complex of courtyards, stables and outbuildings that made up the farm. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘That’s what he was wondering about you.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t hurt me,’ Tab said. ‘He wouldn’t dare. We’ve got an understanding.’

  ‘Vidler!’ Bendo shouted. He was striding across the courtyard towards her, his jaw set tight. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Somewhere else. But I’m back now.’

  ‘I could thrash you,’ Bendo sneered.

  ‘You could, but you won’t.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he grunted.

  Tab smiled. Her only proper magical skill was the ability to inhabit the minds of animals, but Bendo didn’t need to know that. All he knew was that she’d once been an apprentice magician. She liked that he was still a little wary of what she might do to him, or turn him into.

  ‘Just … just go and finish your chores,’ he muttered in the end.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Tab chirped, wandering off to do the last of her jobs before the sun sank behind the high dry-stone wall of the farm.

  After she’d finished, and tidied away her tools, she went to her tiny bedchamber, which was situated in a draughty annex off the end of the stables. Four farmhands lived in that annex, each with their own stall. Tab suspected that these stalls had once held animals, but that at some time long before she had come to live at Nor’city Farm, someone had nailed wall panels to the rails. A hessian sack hung down in front of each open doorway like a rough curtain, so there was a little more privacy now than the original inhabitants would have enjoyed, but it was still pretty harsh accommodation. Certainly a lot more spartan than the last place in which she’d lived, sharing modest but clean and breezy apartments with several other apprentice magicians.

  Now she sat on her straw-sack mattress, closed her eyes and went reaching for one of her usual animal friends. She’d become a lot more practised at mind-melding, and in addition to the animals at the farm, with whom she would sometimes meld just to pass the time, there were a number of other, more important creatures she used for far nobler purposes.

  As she focused her mind, a number of voices and awarenesses flickered through her consciousness. It was a little like walking past a busy schoolyard, and hearing different shouts, cries and conversations drift in and out, at times coming to the foreground, then drifting away to be background hubbub while other voices pushed forward.

  But it wasn’t just voices in her mind’s ear. It was also a series of shadows and flickers of light in her mind’s eye, as if she were trying to see a wild creature behind a shrub, just tiny movements through gaps between leaves, never the whole, but definitely parts.

  She shuddered, and pushed past the dog nosing about in a pile of rancid food scraps. It wasn’t a dog she needed. The cat she sometimes used to spy on Bendo threatened to distract her, but she squeezed her eyes closed a little more tightly and carried on.

  Then it was there. She felt her nose twitch, and pushed down the desire to scratch at imaginary whiskers. In her mind she saw darkness, and a gap of light, in the shape of a rough triangle. She’d found Rat.

  >>>Rat, it’s just me>>Thanks for letting me in again

  Rat replied, in a very clumsy way. >>>Did I even have a choice?

  >>>I need to talk to Stelka>>Please go forward

  Rat did as she’d asked, scurrying towards the gap of light. As it got closer it stopped, and poked its nose out. Through its eyes, Tab looked around.

  Over on the far side of the cell, sitting at a rather ramshackle table, was Stelka. All her jewels and various decorations were now gone, taken by Florian, or someone answering to him. Her hair, once her pride, now hung in long, lank tresses, and her silk gown was soiled, scuffed and stained, and coming apart at some of the seams.

  >>>Speak>>Please

  From partly within her own throat, and partly within the rat’s, Tab heard a shrill screech. Stelka looked up from her writing, stared at the wall before her, then turned to look directly at Rat. ‘Oh, is it her?’ she asked. ‘Just a moment.’

  Tab saw her close her eyes, while a look of enormous concentration tightened her face. Then, a moment or two later, she heard Stelka’s voice, stilted and uncertain, contained within the mind of Rat.

  >>>Good you come

  >>>I need to talk to you>>I need to know what I should do

  There was a pause. Stelka was new to mind-melding. Everything she knew, Tab had taught her within the confines of the tiny mind of this most accommodating rodent. So it was quite normal for the replies to come back rather twisted and dificult to understand, and slowly.

  >>>What you need know?

  >>>Fontagu has been asked to perform a play for Florian

  The answer was almost instant. >>>No, bad idea

  >>>I know – that’s what I told him

  >>>When he do play?

  >>>He’s going to the palace tomorrow. I’m worried that he’s going to say or do something stupid

  >>>Like going to palace?

  >>>What should I do?

  >>>Go with

  >>>Go with him? What good would that do?

  >>>Find out him’s plan. Then can fix

  >>>Keep an eye on him, you mean

  >>>Yes. Stelka must go now

  Like a tiny pull on the hair at the side of her head, Tab felt Stelka’s mind-meld separate from hers. Through the eyes of Rat she saw that one of the troll jailers had entered the corridor that ran beside the cells, and was talking to her friend.

  >>>Thank you, Rat>>That’s all for today

  She stood then, and shook her head, trying to clear the fine cobwebs of mind-meld that always hung around after these ‘conversations’ with Stelka. Then, pulling her cloak around her shoulders, she slipped under her curtain, trotted silently to the end of the annex and, with practised movements, climbed the rough brick wall like a spider, using small jutting ledges for foot- and handholds. She reached the narrow gap in the corner where the two walls and the roof converged, and then, with no more sound than a quick exhale, she had squeezed through the gap and was dropping silently down into a Quentaran back alley.

  She had a message to convey.

  * * *

  Tab slipped through the backstreets, taking care to stick to the shadows. Even someone like her, with better than average magic skills, wasn’t completely safe at night – not since everything had changed. She didn’t wish to be spotted by anyone who wanted to try to rob her, even with nothing to steal, and she didn’t fancy being taken by the ear and dragged back to face Bendo.

  So she slunk around the ends of buildings, ducked into culverts and behind barrels, hid under the cover of shadows while late-night drunks staggered by, or guards laughed and swore on street corners. And she certainly made a point of giving Skulum Gate a wide berth. There might have been old friends in there, but she still had little desire to run into any of them. Not now.

  One of Philmon’s fellow sky-sailors opened the little flap in the middle of the door of their quarters. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me, Tab.’

  ‘It’s very late.’

  ‘I need to see Philmon.’

  ‘It’s very late.’

  ‘So you said. Can I see him? Please? I won’t take very long.’

  ‘Wait there.’

  The little flap slapped shut, and Tab stood just a little closer to the door while she waited.

  Finally the door rattled, and opened slightly. ‘Tab! What are you doing here?’ Philmon asked, holding the door open.

  ‘I had to see you. I had to tell you – I’m going to go up to the palace with Fontagu tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’ Philmon glanced over his shoulder into the warm light of the crew’s quarters. ‘Are you completely crazy?’

  ‘I have to go with him. Stelka said –’

  ‘Stelka? It’s all very well for her, Tab – s
he’s already locked up!’

  ‘I know. But I have to do this. He needs me. After all, he’s a friend.’

  Philmon rolled his eyes. ‘Some friend. Have you forgotten that it was Fontagu who got Quentaris into this whole city-in-the-sky mess to begin with? Are you sure this is wise?’

  ‘Not so loud! And no, I’m not sure at all,’ Tab admitted. ‘But I’m going to do it anyway. Fontagu needs my support. Anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘I don’t want to think too hard about that,’ Philmon sighed.

  ‘We don’t have to say anything. We’ll just hover in the background –’

  Philmon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hold on, Tab, what did you just say? We’ll just hover in the background? We? As in, you and me?’

  Tab swallowed hard, and gave him a quick, nervous smile. ‘I could go on my own. Or I could go with a friend.’

  ‘I thought Fontagu was your friend.’

  ‘Another friend?’ she suggested. ‘Come on, Philmon, if Florian planned to do anything to us, he’d have done it long before now. He doesn’t see us as any kind of threat. If he did, he’d have locked up me and Amelia along with Stelka. Or even worse, we’d be in Skulum Gate.’

  ‘I guess …’ Philmon said.

  ‘So, will we meet near Fontagu’s place just before noon tomorrow?’

  Philmon shook his head slightly and heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this … Sure, why not?’

  Tab grinned, and squeezed his arm. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Well, I’d better get back. If I’m caught out of my chamber, Bendo won’t be happy.’

  ‘Bendo’s going to be the least of your problems after tomorrow,’ Philmon muttered.

  FONTAGU GOES IT ALONE

  The following morning Tab awoke early and quickly got to work. Then, when she’d finished her chores, she did some more, simply so Bendo wouldn’t be able to shout at her for being lazy. At about mid-morning, she found Bendo and told him that she had to go out for a while.