The Great Unravel, page 5
part #3 of Riddle in Ruby Series
“Ah, you choose to go second, to respond, not to initiate.”
Was he making the proper choice? But if he went back on his choice, he might appear weak. Nothing else but to be honest. “Yes. I wish to know the lay of the land before I act.”
She nodded. “Good. Then perhaps you can tell me what you think of that lay of the land out there.”
The red flicker of dawn crept over the valley below as if Petra alla Ferra had summoned it. At the far end lay two hills facing each other, both covered in trees. As the sun rolled up, Henry realized that they weren’t trees. Their lines were too regular. “Soldiers,” he breathed.
War. It was a battle below.
Alla Ferra nodded. “And not just here. You have seen the ruin of the countryside as we have traveled. Our long-range scouts agree. Fire and blood are the order of the day all over this land, in both the English and the French colonies.” Her lip curled. “So many skirmishes and battles to decide which faraway king gets to fly his flag over a burned-out landscape. My people sniffed this one out yesterday. This is a good vantage point, is it not?”
And then bugles rang out, just on the edge of hearing, and the lines began marching toward each other. It struck Henry, though, that each one of those little shapes was a person, a human, with family and friends and dreams. In the early light so far away it was difficult to tell the color of the uniforms or even the shapes on the flags. The tiny figures knelt. Then little puffs of smoke rose up from the lines, and a few moments later the popping sounds trickled in, like wood in a fire. Some of the kneeling figures fell down. This happened a few more times, and then one line charged the other, and Henry turned his eyes away because he couldn’t watch anymore.
Cram cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, Captain Alla Ferra, but which one is our side?”
Petra alla Ferra was staring at Henry. “That is the question, is it not?”
“You ask us whether we choose the French or the English in this war?” Athena snorted in anger and disbelief. “I was born in London. I am English.”
Alla Ferra chuckled, and she began moving the chess pieces, changing them out of their even rows into smaller clumps about the board. “Oh, but Lady Boyle, there are more than two sides in this game.”
“I see two lines out there fighting.”
“Yes, yes, but you all have been out in the woods for months, have you not? Almost a year?”
“So have you.” Henry cut in. His blood was up. How could she be so casual, as if they were at a garden party? “You have been following us.”
“Yes, but all my Jabalís have not been with us. I never travel unfamiliar territory without a few of my people keeping an eye on the neighborhood. A wise commander keeps her ear to the ground. I want to know the lay of the land. I am like you, Henry.”
He looked at her, so at ease above a field of death, and suddenly realized that he hoped with all his heart that he would never be like her. But he could not let her know that. Los Jabalís were the only allies they had. And better them than the British, or the French, or the Reeve. Wasn’t it better? Henry wrestled his attention back to the conversation.
Alla Ferra nodded at her lieutenant. “Vera, tell them what our people told you.”
The tall girl shifted, pulling herself away from the trunk of the tree to stand straight. Her jaw was set. A shadow of alarm flickered behind her eyes.
“The gates to Philadelphi are closed and manned by armed guards. No one is to enter or leave the city, except by order of the crown.”
Athena frowned. “Because of the war?”
Vera fingered her pistol. “Perhaps they anticipate an attack then?”
Alla Ferra’s hands kept moving. There were three groups of pieces now, set out in a triangle on the chessboard. One was white. “The English,” she said. Another was all red. “The French.” A third was mixed red and white. “The Worshipful Order of Grocers.” She looked up at Athena. “Your father’s people. Their hand is on the scales heavily in this land. Rumors in strange places say that they may have started this war for their own ends?”
“What?” Athena looked genuinely puzzled.
“I prefer to know something about my clients before I work for them,” said Alla Ferra. “Your father’s people have been meddling with thrones and countries since before the Crusades.”
Ruby chewed on her lip for a moment before she said, “Wisdom Rool told me something very similar before I . . . left.”
“Ah,” said alla Ferra. “Well, we are in this together. Am I missing anything else?”
Ruby leaned over to pull a white bishop out of the white clump and set it in a spot all its own. “Swedenborg,” she said. “I do not think he cares a whit for king or country or anyone but himself.”
In his mind, Henry set another figure on the board: Fermat, hidden in the center of the city like a powerful chemystral heart. He did not mention his old master, though. The crew needed to share their secrets with one another, no one else. He did not fully trust alla Ferra. Instead, he asked, “But why would anyone start a war? Where did this come from?”
Petra sighed. “Who can say? Some governor wants more land. Some fur trader lord wants a better hunting ground. It’s not them that suffer.” She stared into the distance, where the tides of little figures still moved back and forth. “I don’t imagine any of you have seen what happens to a country in war. In the capitals they talk of borders and troops, but in the fields, in the towns it is burning barns and blood in the mud.” Something haunted twisted in her eyes. She shook herself and was suddenly back in front of them. “Perhaps it is chaos that these war makers want? Perhaps power? I suspect we will find out soon enough.” She looked down at the board and its constellation of influences. “This is our situation. The gates to Philadelphi are closed. My contact is in Philadelphi. The person to whom you are to be delivered, who will grant you safety and give me my money. Can you help me?”
Henry was at an utter loss.
A coin purse thumped down in the center of the board. “That is who I am loyal to,” said alla Ferra. “I imagine you will need to decide who you are loyal to in the very near future. But we cannot answer any of those questions until we get into the city.” She turned back to Henry Collins and set a white pawn down in front of him. “Well, Mr. Collins? Now is the opportunity to initiate. And we must be on our way quickly. Aside from the fact that it is not safe to gad about so near a battlefield, the Reeve may not be far behind.”
Henry looked down at the cluttered chessboard, and his mind whirled. He and his friends, they were pieces on this game board, too. Many were searching for them, and not just the Reeve. If he were on his own, he would go straight to Fermat. If he could even get in the city. But what of the rest of them? Athena’s duty was to her father. Cram’s to Athena. And Ruby? Ruby was a weapon. The knowledge that lay in her blood still had power, even though the Swede had decoded it. And even if the Swede had solved her like some kind of equation, she still had the power to change. But she was also his friend. She had saved his life more than once, by Science, and she needed—they all needed—to get to some place of safety. But he could see no safety in front of them, no matter what path they chose.
Henry looked up at his three friends. They all looked as confused as he felt. Trapped. Frozen.
Then Athena’s face crumpled into a kind of resigned disgust.
“What is it?” Henry asked.
“The Worshipful Order has a safe house in the city. And one of its entrances is outside the walls.”
Ruby looked as if she had just eaten a toad. “You mean—”
Athena nodded. “Perhaps they can help us at the Warren.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Barnacles.”
CHAPTER 6
What does a king from across the sea know of my land? What does a fat merchant care for my brother’s toil? What will a redcoat’s bayonet find in the heart of a patriot?
—Thandie Paine, Simplicity
Ruby looked up just in time. A little breeze came up, and a piece of the roof just fell. She stepped to the side, and it plunked into the dry, dead dust. The Archer farm smokehouse had not aged well.
The rickety patchwork of spare wood, twine, leather, and in one case a surprised-looking ex-possum leaned together in a vaguely rooflike shape atop a shack that groaned in the wind like a grandpapa before a storm. A sad weather vane hung broken from the roof, its iron rooster staring mournfully at the ground. More shards of pottery and wood lay scattered beneath it, planted in the loose midsummer soil like old headstones.
Ruby stood in front of the door, flanked by Cram and Athena, and a shiver ran down her spine. Had it been less than a year since she and these two had stood in this very spot, on the run from the Reeve, the navy, and Science knew what else? Was she even the same person? Were any of them?
With the city’s main gates locked tight, Los Jabalís and the companions needed another path into the city. The Bluestockings—the Pennswood arm of Athena’s secret society—just happened to have a tunnel that went under the wall and into the heart of UpTown. The chemysts and especially their leader, Madame Hearth, were prickly, unpredictable, and downright dangerous, but since the three friends had gotten inside once, and there were no other options, it had fallen to them to try to make nice.
Los Jabalís and the rest of the party, including Henry, had gone to ground in a small patch of trees a few hundred yards away. Not far, but certainly not close enough to help if there was trouble. Both Marise and Wayland (her mother and her, what, father? What about Gwath?) had insisted that with their more recent experience, Athena, Cram, and Ruby were the best choice to say hello. Ruby was not so sure, but the chance to get free of all three of her parents and the secrets roiling around them, even in the face of danger, was almost a relief.
They needed to fulfill Henry’s debt, rid themselves of the Jabalís, and then go. . . where? The Thrift? Cathay? The moon? And what about the Swede? Would he simply shrug his shoulders and let her be gone? She shook herself. One deadly reeve at a time, Teach. She brought her mind back to the task in front of her: begging at the doorstep of the Bluestockings.
Athena coughed. “Well, I must admit a certain uncertainty regarding how the landlords will receive us. Last time you thumbed your nose at them and climbed out the chimney, and we disobeyed direct orders to capture you.”
Cram didn’t add anything, except to softly whistle a little tune and sidle over a step—just to the right of the hole in the wall where a blunderbuss blast had almost blown him into sausage.
Ruby’s stomach rolled, but she smiled grimly. “I may owe them something for my room. And I did break into Madame Hearth’s office.” She rocked back and forth on her heels. “Did I mention the money I stole from her pocketbook on my way out the secret passage?”
Both of the others turned to her, eyes wide.
Ruby straightened. “Well, then. Don’t make too much of it. Perhaps they’ve forgotten.” She knocked clearly, three times.
No sound but the wind.
Then something else. Not a sound, but a feeling. Eyes on them, from somewhere.
Athena glanced over at Ruby, and her sword slid from its scabbard, rasping against the leather. Cram eased his butter churn hammer from its strap across his back. Pulse pounding, hackles raised, Ruby put her weight forward on the balls of her feet as her reeve teachers had taught her.
“Mr. Abel Ward,” Athena called the name of the guard who had previously manned the shack. “We’ve come with a delivery of spices.”
With a clack, the eyelid of the weather vane rooster opened. Inside lay a red jewel of an eye, whirling.
“Down!” Athena yelled, and Ruby threw herself to the side. The beak spit, and a pellet of something slammed into Cram’s shoulder.
The boy had time only to cry out. A puff of red smoke bloomed up from his shoulder, but it grew, too quickly for him to move, until it surrounded him completely. With a crack the smoke hardened into crystal, and then the whole mass fell to the ground, Cram trapped and wriggling behind its crimson facets. Ruby gaped in horror.
The rooster kept spitting, once, again, again, and she and Athena launched into a crazed, rolling dance, barely keeping ahead of the pellets.
At the same moment they both yelled, “Inside!”
Athena kicked the door, and it shattered into bits. They both dived across the threshold, the pellets puffing harmlessly into the ground behind.
However.
The interior of the smoke shack was not as Ruby remembered it. On their last visit rows of game had hung on hooks in two rows to the back of the little house. Between the rows had sat an overstuffed chair and the sentry of the Warren, Abel Ward.
None of that remained.
As soon as Ruby landed on the driftwood floor, it cracked like the thinnest of piecrusts, and Ruby cursed her lack of care. She fell, speeding into the darkness, headed for poison spikes or some underground worm or worse.
Until something slammed into her, knocking the air out of her as if someone had hit her with a big, wide pillow. Cushioned, hanging in place. She struggled, fear and frustration fueling her, but she was stuck fast like a fly in a web. Indeed, she lay in a net of sticky gray fibers faintly lit from the doorway high above, strung across a pit that continued as far as she could see down into the dark. Athena slammed down next to her, her back striking the web with a wet smack.
Ruby bit her lip. “Top marks for strategy. We should be able to save Cram quite easily from here.”
Athena tried to roll onto her shoulder, but she was stuck on her back just as fast as Ruby was on her stomach. Ruby had landed with her face to the side, so she had a perfect view of her friend’s thrashing.
Suddenly Athena stopped struggling, and Ruby’s blood ran cold at the horror blooming on her face. In all their time together Ruby had never seen her so fraught with terror.
“What? What is it? Athena!”
“Oh, no. Oh, Providence,” was all the older girl said, over and over like a prayer.
With all her strength Ruby tore at the strands and freed her face. She craned her neck to look up over her shoulder, and there she saw it.
Framed in the light of the smoke shack doorway, staring down at them with a horrible rictus of a grin, perched a small figure in a butterfly-patterned gown.
“Greta Van Huffridge,” Ruby breathed. Her heart sank.
The piping voice, like a little bird pecking at your eardrums, cut down the well and into Ruby’s soul. “Well, well, it seems we have some visitors to the Warren. What a delicious surprise.” The girl stood. “I’ll come back for you once I’ve finished my homework. Probably.” She turned to go.
“Wait! Greta, please!” said Athena.
The tiny girl turned back, and the light struck a blue mask she wore over her eyes. She tapped it. “I’m sorry? To whom were you referring?”
Athena gargled. It sounded as if a gecko were caught in her throat. “Er, Journeywoman Van Huffridge?”
She turned immediately. “Yes?”
The words crept out of Athena with a kind of iron control Ruby associated with holding an anchor rope in a gale. “My serving man Cram is currently on your lawn, surrounded by some manner of red crystalline—”
“The coalescer? Brilliant, is it not? I designed it myself.”
“Yes, it is brilliant, and full marks for the rooster-eye shooter—”
“Thank you.”
Athena’s voice rose in pitch ever so slightly. “However, this coalescer has completely encased him, and I fear he may be cut off from air.”
Greta Van Huffridge tapped her teeth in thought. “Does he come from a good family?”
“Science, woman, he is my serving man, and he may be dying out there!”
The girl clucked her tongue. “Lord Athen Boyle, you are slipping. You used to not be so easy to bait. What do you take me for, a monster?”
Athena’s gargle transformed into a kind of soft, vicious muttering. Ruby identified the words possibly and worse.
“The boy will be fine. The crystal—my own design, did I mention that?”
“You did,” said Ruby. This was not going well. The clock was ticking, and ratcheting up the fight would get them nowhere. Visions of Henry and her parents and the rest hounded across the wilderness danced in her head.
“You see, the crystal is penetrable to air, and so the capturee is in no danger of suffocation. In fact, the air takes on a scent mildly reminiscent of strawberries.”
“Miss Van Huffridge.” Ruby tried to weave a ship’s hold of sweetness into her words.
“Oh, yes, and Ruby Teach.” She flayed the skin right off Ruby’s last name. “You have returned, as well. My old roommate. My chum. I had thought you would be my companion, my friend. Instead, you ambush me in the middle of the night, tie me up, and run loose to create havoc for Madame Hearth, the Bluestockings, and, most important, me. I am tempted to just leave the both of you there to rot, and no one the wiser.”
Ruby’s hopes fell further into the hole with each sentence. Yet the fates of too many hung on this conversation. “Miss Van Huffridge—”
“Your servant makes a lovely lawn ornament—”
“Miss Van Huffridge!”
“—but I am under strict instructions that if either of you surfaces, you are to be brought directly to Madame Hearth, and this I shall do.”
“Thank you,” Ruby and Athena said together.
“I will summon some sentinels, and they will get you out of those webs and into your shackles.”
“But I am a member of the Worshipful Order,” Athena said. “You cannot haul me into a refuge trussed up like some kind of—”
“Oh, but I can, Lord Athen, I can,” said Greta. “The tenor of the moment is fluid, to say the least. As to your standing with the order, well”—her teeth glittered in the dim light—“we shall see.”
Shame and anger flared in Ruby’s chest. Athena had done what she had done for Ruby. Now she was being punished for her bravery. “You have no idea the lengths Lord Athen has gone to bring me back! All the while you lot sat here in your little hidey-hole and—”
