Читать книгу Sun Thief - Jamie Buxton - Страница 16

Next day, Imi’s playing with her toys in the corner of the courtyard. She knows something’s wrong with me because her eyes keep flicking from me to the Quiet Gentleman and back again.

My father sticks his head out of the kitchen and calls me over.

‘How’s it going with our friend over there?’ he half talks, half mouths. He smells of onions and woodsmoke from cooking.

I shrug. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Would you say he’s taken a liking to you? Because your mother and I were wondering . . .’

‘What?’

‘Sometimes a gentleman likes the look of a boy and takes him on.’

‘Takes him on?’

‘As a companion. A servant. Remember, jobs are hard to come by in this day and age.’

‘But I’ve got a job,’ I protest. ‘I work here.’

‘There may be money in it,’ he says.

I have never been more hurt or angry in my life.

‘If you’re so keen to get rid of me, why not just ask him? Better still, why not make a FOR SALE sign and hang it round my neck?’

My father smiles weakly. ‘Come on, you know how things stand.’

‘He doesn’t want to take me on,’ I say bitterly. ‘He stares at me because he hates me.’

‘What have you done?’ he asks. Worried suddenly.

‘I behaved like you.’

It’s not a clever thing to say. My father’s face twists and he lifts his hand to hit me, then remembers the Quiet Gentleman and steps away.

‘We need more wine,’ he barks. ‘Go and get it.’

He says it loud enough for the Quiet Gentleman to hear, who meets my eye and moves his head ever so slightly to the courtyard gate, giving me permission to go.

I can’t quite read his face but there’s something showing on it. Something like pity. Something like disgust at his ending up in a place like this.

The wine merchant lives on the other side of town in a shop that smells of vinegar and mould. There are small jars of the good stuff on shelves and huge jars of the crap stuff out the back, which is what we sell to our customers.

The only way I can carry one of these giant jars is on my head and it feels like it’s trying to drive me straight down into the earth. The wine merchant loads me up and I stagger off like a two-legged camel, top-heavy and twice my normal height, down the dusty streets to the market square. I’m spotted by a gang of boys about my age who chuck pebbles at me, but just as I’m wobbling away from them, I hear another voice over their jeers and taunts.

‘Sure this is the street?’ it’s saying and I’m sure it’s the cold and sneery voice I heard in the City of the Dead.

‘Course. I’ve been here before. The inn’s just fifty paces the other side of the square. We’re almost there. This way. No, that way.’

If I was in any doubt before, I’m certain now. That was the stupid one.

‘That’s no guarantee our friend is still there.’

They’re right behind me. I can’t drop the wine jar and run, so I walk as fast as I can in a sort of smooth waddle. The gang starts to jeer again, but at least I’m getting away. Then the wine inside the jar starts slopping from side to side and I have to swerve all over the place to keep it balanced. People are pointing and laughing, but I’m round the last corner now and can see the entrance to the inn and I’m pretty certain that I’ve managed to pull away from the three men.

I walk through the entrance into the little courtyard, looking for the Quiet Gentleman. He’s there in his normal place, but for once he’s not looking at me. He’s listening to Imi who’s somehow roped him into one of her crazy games.

‘There you are!’ I say, trying to sound normal, but feeling like I have to scream. ‘Our friends have arrived!’

The Quiet Gentleman doesn’t look up.

‘HELLO, IT’S ME AND WE’VE GOT VISITORS!’

He looks up, head rolling on his neck like a boulder. He takes me in and then his eyes slip past me.

‘Three visitors,’ I say, but it’s too late for the warning to be any good. The three men rush past me. I shout: ‘IMI! WATCH OUT!’ and then it all kicks off.

The Quiet Gentleman pushes Imi out of the way; the huge pitcher of wine topples from my head, hits the ground and explodes. There’s a chaotic muddle of bodies and shouts, until suddenly it all stops and one of the three men is lying on the ground with blood pouring from his nose, the Quiet Gentleman is holding a knife to the second man’s throat – but the third has Imi by the hair and has his knife at her neck.

And then my parents come out of the kitchen to see what all the fuss is about. My mother opens her mouth to scream, but the man holding Imi snaps: ‘Quiet or I kill the brat.’

My father claps a hand over my mother’s mouth and holds her tight.

I’m paralysed with fear. I’m surrounded by shocked silence, apart from the moans of the man on the ground and the little bleats that come from my mother every time she breathes.

‘Hello, Nebet,’ the Quiet Gentleman says calmly. ‘I see you’ve messed up again.’ His eyes are just two dark slits and his lips are pulled back in a sort of snarl.

‘I wouldn’t say anything’s exactly messed up,’ Nebet says. I’m seeing the man with the cold and sneery voice for the first time. He’s young and would be good-looking, but his little dark eyes are too close together and there’s a twist to his mouth. ‘Boy,’ he says to me, ‘close the courtyard gates and if you call out I cut off the pretty girl’s nose. All right?’

I look at the Quiet Gentleman who gives a little nod.

When the gates are shut, the Quiet Gentleman gives a sorrowful shake of the head and says, ‘Nebet, are you absolutely sure this is what you want?’

‘Near enough, and just as soon as Bek manages to get off his knees we’ll pick up what we came for and be on our way,’ Nebet says.

‘And what about Brother Jatty?’ the Quiet Gentleman says. ‘Want to see the colour of his blood?’ Jatty must be the name of the man he’s holding, the one with the worried voice. The Quiet Gentleman’s knife is laid across the bump in his throat. Each time he swallows, the knife moves.

‘Not really, but I don’t care much,’ Nebet sneers. ‘Want to see the inside of this pretty little girl’s throat?’

A little bead of blood appears at the point of the knife. My mother screams, properly this time, and tries to writhe out of my father’s grip.

‘Hurt the girl and I hurt Jatty. Then it’ll be just you and me, Nebet,’ the Quiet Gentleman says, ‘and we all know how that will end: me staring down at you, and you staring down at your guts.’

‘Shall we see?’ Nebet says.

My mother’s wailing now, sounding more like an animal than a human. And then I’m running. It’s partly because I can’t stand it and partly because I just know something’s got to happen and I reckon no one can stop me.

I’m in the shrine and behind the statue and hauling up the flagstone before I’ve taken a breath, and then it’s back up into the sunshine and into the middle of the stand-off.

I rip open the bag and hold up Hathor so she gleams in the sunlight. No voice in my head, just a storm of madness.

‘PUT YOUR KNIVES DOWN!’ I scream so high my voice cracks. My breath is heaving like I’ve run round the town twice, but I feel as light as a feather. ‘Put your knives down or this is going over the wall. I mean it!’

I look from Nebet to the Quiet Gentleman and I can see doubt in their eyes.

‘Do that and you’ll regret it,’ the Quiet Gentleman says.

‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘I’m warning both of you.’

A long pause. Horribly long. At last the Quiet Gentleman says, ‘Nebet, the boy’s shown us a way out. Shall we?’

They watch each other like dogs, then Nebet takes the knife from Imi’s neck and the Quiet Gentleman takes his from Jatty’s. They rest the blades in their open palms then lay them on the ground, all done slowly like a dance.

Jatty collapses. Imi runs across to her mother. I put the statue down and swallow.

‘So now we talk,’ the Quiet Gentleman says.