The Book of Dead Days Read online

  He leant closer to the lock. It was almost completely dark in the street and he peered hard at the hole. He reached forward with his makeshift key, but no sooner had he touched the metal innards of the lock with the metal tendon than he was thrown backward across the street, landing in a heap in the gutter. His whole arm felt as though it had been bitten by a dragon.

  Boy rubbed his arm with his good hand, cursing his luck.

  Some magic device, no doubt, put by Valerian on the door to keep thieves away.

  He had been in deep trouble when Valerian had found him the following morning, huddled on the doorstep, having spent a wretched freezing night outside.

  Inventing was just one of Valerian’s many areas of knowledge. Years ago, when more involved in the life of the Great Theater, he had invented a system of footlights for the stage—another reason why Korp was deeply indebted to him. The lights worked on some system of chemical fire that only Valerian understood and that only he could control. They gave off a faint yet pungent smell, but were another reason why Korp’s theater had a reputation as the best in the City.

  Boy had learnt much from him. For all his faults, Valerian was a remarkable man. But despite their years together, Boy actually knew very little about him, though he had picked up enough scraps of information to put together some of Valerian’s life story.

  Boy knew Valerian had attended the Academy, where Kepler, the man who had recently made the camera obscura, was one of his fellow students. He knew that Valerian had studied Natural Philosophy and had been considered a more than able scholar, with the potential to become a great one. Something had happened, Boy did not know what, but it was enough to make him fall from grace. Boy gathered that he had been conducting peculiar experiments, explorations into secret or forgotten learning, something dark and forbidden.

  Boy also knew that around this time Kepler and Valerian had fallen out, or at least lost touch. They had not seen each other until a few years back. Boy could remember when Valerian started visiting Kepler in his tall and narrow house across the City, and after a while Boy began to go along now and then.

  Valerian had once been very wealthy, which was when he had bought the huge and rambling house, now a decayed shadow of its former self. It had been purchased from the family of a judge. It was still an opulent building then, a worthy residence for one of the City’s highest officials. But Valerian seemed to be rich no more, and over the years the house had gone to seed, as had the neighborhood around it.

  Boy did not know how Valerian had lost his money, but he seemed not to care very much for anything, except the hours he spent shut away in the Tower, doing heaven knows what with his infernal contraptions and reading books from the teetering piles that lay around the room.

  Boy loved the Yellow House despite its empty rooms and shamefully dirty corridors, if only because it was the only place he had ever called home. If he kept out of Valerian’s way, or at least did nothing to upset him, Boy found a little peace inside its walls. And there was the small paved garden outside the kitchen door, where on hot days Boy would cool himself among ferns and vines that sprouted from the high, damp stone walls, making the garden a secret space. There was a small well in the center of the paving. Sometimes Boy imagined that he could hear rushing water, like a river far beneath him, though he knew it was just his fancy. The river was a sluggish, smelly beast, miles away from the house, and the well was a dry, bottomless hole.

  Now, standing outside in the night, Boy put his hand against the flat panels of the door, willing it to open. No luck. It was a cold night and he was naked under his coat except for the sackcloth leggings. Boy hoped Valerian would still be awake when he got back. He kept strange hours—working through the night, sometimes resting fitfully during the day and then getting up in the early evening to perform at the theater. Boy glanced up at the Tower high above the street, but he saw no light within. This was odd. It would be unlike Valerian to sleep at night! Had Valerian gone out again himself? The house was so large that if Boy was in his room he wouldn’t have heard the front door close.

  There was nothing he could do about it now. The lock had dropped firmly behind him and he was out in the City, alone.

  It was about one in the morning and the quarter was reaching its peak of activity. It only truly seemed to come alive late at night, with street traders still about and the taverns heaving with beer and laughter. People worked long hours and for some of them this was their only chance to pretend they had a life that was something other than total drudgery.

  Boy tried, as a rule, to make himself unseen, and most of the time did a good job of avoiding trouble in this way. He was neither short nor tall, but he was very thin, and by emptying his mind and avoiding people’s eyes with his own, he made a very fair stab at invisibility as he passed through the City at night.

  The City was looking its best. Some of its unpleasantness was obscured during the holidays. As was the custom, evergreen branches had been brought in to decorate houses, shops and other buildings. It was also traditional to burn candles at this time, and windows everywhere twinkled with pretty lights that burnt long into the night.

  Night. It was all he seemed to see, especially during these winter days. Valerian kept Boy busy with this and that all through the small hours, until finally, just as dawn was creeping over the City, he would let him stagger off to his cot to slumber the day away; then, shouting through all the floors of the house, Valerian would rouse Boy for another evening’s performance in the theater.

  “I am a vampire,” Boy said grimly as he stole down Dead Duck Lane. “That’s it. He’s a stinking vampire and now I am too!”

  Realizing he was talking aloud, he looked rapidly around him, but he had gone unnoticed.

  Boy thought again about what had happened to Valerian. It was only a recent thing; maybe just a few weeks or months ago, Valerian had become more irritable than usual. His moods had always swung rapidly from one extreme to another, but now they seemed fixed. Surly and preoccupied, he was less violent, less vitriolic. He spent hours on end in the Tower, only emerging to get Boy to run an errand. Boy had delivered a lot of letters for him recently, and collected many in reply.

  Letters, thought Boy. Letters?

  It reminded him—there had been one evening, one evening in particular, when he had delivered a letter to Kepler. Kepler lived a good way across the City, in the University Quarter.

  Boy didn’t like Kepler much. He wasn’t sure why exactly; there was something about him Boy just didn’t warm to. Maybe it was because Valerian listened intently to what Kepler had to say, but showed little or no interest in any opinions Boy might have.

  Kepler was thin like Valerian, but shorter and with none of Valerian’s strength. He was always muttering to himself, and tended to scurry about, like a rat, Boy thought. But if it was true that Boy didn’t like Kepler, it was also true that he was fascinated by him, for he was as much of a hoarder of strange devices and peculiar mechanisms as Valerian.

  As well as being a Doctor of Medicine of the Human Animal, Kepler made specialized studies into the field of the Heavens. He had all sorts of equipment with which he looked at the stars. He recorded his observations in huge leather-bound books, having noted the motions of planets, stars and moons through his metal-and-glass devices. Kepler had told Boy that he could then make all sorts of predictions about people and their behavior, just by knowing when they had been born. Increasingly Boy had gone with Valerian on his visits to Kepler’s house. He would sit quietly in the corner of Kepler’s room and marvel at the astounding discussions they would hold.

  Boy wished someone could tell him about his life, predict what would happen to him, just by setting his date of birth against the position of the stars. He knew, though, that even Kepler could not do that, because Boy did not know when he had been born.

  Once Boy had been worried about this. He had even been bold enough to speak to Valerian about it.

  “Who do you think my parents were?”
he had asked. “How could I find out?”

  But Valerian scoffed. “You will never know, nor does it matter one jot. Nor,” he added, “do you need to know. You are Boy, my Boy, and that is enough.”

  Boy always tried to do what Valerian told him to— things were safer that way. So Boy tried not to think about the matter any more, but it was not always easy.

  On this particular evening, however, when Boy had delivered the letter to Kepler, the Doctor had said, “Wait,” and sat down to write a reply. Boy had watched him as he scratched away with a sophisticated silver-nibbed fountain pen on a sheet of paper, pausing to consider his words. Kepler sprinkled the letter with sand, then folded up the paper and started to melt some sealing wax. As he dripped bloodred wax onto the letter and pressed his ring into it, he said, “Take this to him.” Without looking up from what he was doing, he added, “And may God protect his own.”

  There was something odd in his manner that Boy remembered. And when Valerian had read that letter, his mood had sunk. That letter was when it had really started.

  At about two o’clock Boy stopped at the top of Pigeon Pie Alley. At the far end of the street stood the Trumpet. All hell was breaking loose inside.

  Oh, just perfect! thought Boy.

  9

  Korp stared at the stage, watching the ghost.

  At first he thought it must be the Dark Duke. An old theater legend told how the ghost of the Dark Duke would stalk across the stage as a portent of disaster. History related how, years ago, the theater had relied on the duke for financial backing. If he didn’t like the work the theater was producing, he would storm across the stage during rehearsal, sometimes even during a performance. One day he had tried to stop a rehearsal and was stabbed by the lead actor, a touchy man at the best of times, whose brother had written the play in question. Since then the Dark Duke appeared at times of impending crisis, though he had not been seen in many, many years.

  The theater was in trouble. Korp had seen so many strange things in his life that he was superstitious enough to believe that. There could be no mistake about it. The only question was when the trouble would strike.

  In fact Korp was mistaken. He had only been watching the ghost for a few moments when it disappeared, leaving behind a slight cloud of dust that hung in the air, glowing.

  A second later, Korp heard something behind him.

  The thing slashed at Korp and he fell forward, one arm and his head across the edge of the box, dying.

  10

  Boy hovered at the end of Pigeon Pie Alley, trying to decide what to do. He knew he didn’t really have any choice. If Valerian wanted him to go into the Trumpet and meet a big, ugly man called Green, then he would have to do it. It was just that he didn’t want to.

  There was obviously a fight going on inside. He waited, hoping things would settle down, but after a little while he thought, No—go now. Perhaps everyone in the tavern would be too busy to notice him; he could slip in and take a look around without being seen. Besides, he was freezing. At least inside he’d be warm for a while, and get away from the smell of the river just a street or two away.

  As he approached the Trumpet the sound of tables breaking and bottles being smashed grew louder. The inn was really rough. There was no longer a sign with its name outside—its reputation spoke for it. There was grimy glass in some of the windows, though not all. The way into the Trumpet was down a claustrophobic alley that lay in the gloom between the buildings. Boy glanced in through a window as he headed down the alley. Things were getting lively, to say the least. He took one last gulp of the foul river air, and went inside.

  The noise immediately seemed ten times louder, and if the stink was bad in the street, it was worse still inside. The whole place was a lurid riot of color, sound and smell compared to the darkness of the winter streets. For a minute Boy thought he might be sick. His head swam and he looked for a place to lurk.

  Surprisingly, considering the mayhem, the fight seemed to be between only two men. The bulk of the din came from the people watching, who were cheering, shouting and fighting amongst themselves.

  Boy picked his way to a small table half hidden in the space under the staircase that led upstairs.

  “Beer, love?”

  He looked up to see a barmaid staring at him expectantly. She held a tray of empty beer jugs in one hand and was piling short, stubby glasses up with the other.

  “Well?”

  Damn! thought Boy. Money. I didn’t think of that. Neither did Valerian, but that won’t stop me getting a thrashing if I get this wrong.

  “I don’t have any money,” he said, looking up sadly.

  She scowled briefly; then her face softened and she smiled.

  “Did you know you’ve got nothing on under there?” she asked, smirking.

  Boy looked down and hurriedly pulled his coat shut over his legs.

  “It’s cold outside,” he ventured, trying to sound as miserable as he could. “You know, on the streets . . .”

  “All right,” she said, “but just half an hour, mind, then out you go. Here, take this.”

  She put one of the glasses she had collected back down in front of him, and then emptied the dregs of five beer jugs into it. She nodded at the glass, now containing a couple of fingers of beer slops, and smiled again.

  “Better make it last, Gorgeous,” she said, and went off collecting more glasses while they were still unbroken.

  Boy took one look at the beer and pushed it away.

  The fight was just about over. The victor, a giant of a man, sat on the chest of the vanquished, a fat brute, raining a few last punches down on his face for good measure. But now it was all for show. Finally someone came to pull him off the fat man.

  “That’s enough. Well done.”

  The giant got up and for the first time Boy saw his face. He was as ugly as a dead cat.

  He seemed not to appreciate being pulled off the fat man, because he swung a fist at his would-be helper and sent him sprawling across a table.

  Everyone cheered except Boy, who had a sinking feeling. He pulled the sleeve of a toothless old man with a stick who was sitting nearby.

  “Who’s that?” Boy asked, but he knew the answer.

  “Eh?” said the man. “Don’t you know Jacob Green, the Green Giant?” He laughed, spat on the floor and waved his stick in the air for a drink.

  Meanwhile Green swaggered around, taking drinks from all and sundry and downing them in a single draft.

  The man he’d come to meet.

  Boy looked at his beer.

  Green sat talking loudly to a group in a corner, playing with something tiny in his giant hands, like a child with a toy. It was a small wooden box. He was spinning it between thumb and forefinger. Then he stopped and wound a little handle coming from its side. A small tinkle of musical notes floated through the hubbub of the tavern. A music box.

  Around him, two serving girls picked up bits of shattered bottles and broken chairs. Boy did not have a clue what was going on. This was a feeling he often had working for Valerian, but things were definitely getting more peculiar. The business in Korp’s box, when Valerian had materialized behind him no more than a few seconds after he’d left the stage, had unnerved him. And now Boy wondered what on earth Valerian could need from Green. There was only one way to find out.

  Boy looked at his beer. Picking up the glass, he swigged the cloudy brown liquid straight down, wiped his mouth and took a deep breath. He stood up and made his way across the room.

  11

  Boy was not the only servant abroad at that moment. Back in the Quarter of the Arts, Willow ventured out into the cold night, moaning to herself as she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and over her head. Her mouse-brown hair was thick and long, keeping her warm. She had been working for Madame Beauchance for a year now, ever since Madame had come to the Great Theater. It was a year too long, in her opinion.

  Madame was unattractive; she was vain and arrogant; she was lazy and
spiteful, and miserly too. There was one thing which redeemed her: her voice. It was the voice of an angel. A voice that could murmur soft and low and soothe a bawling child, that could rise shrill and clear and shatter a mirror and that could slide so sweetly over a melody that a killer might sit down and weep. With her voice she had made a good career, and a small fortune that she kept to herself.

  Willow ended up working for her by chance. She had been employed as tail-carrier in her previous job, working for the Fellowship of Master Liverymen. Willow didn’t know what the fellowship actually did, but she knew what she was supposed to do, and that was enough. And besides, anything was better than her life in the orphanage. The liverymen wore fancy clothes on official occasions, including long-tailed coats. It was her job to follow her master, carrying the tails of his coat so they did not trail in the dirt. There were eleven other girls and boys employed likewise, one for each of the Fellowship. That was the full extent of their duties, but since there were at least two official occasions every day, they were kept busy enough carrying coattails and brushing off mud where necessary. After three years, she had been told to take a coat to the Great Theater, where they required the costume of a liveryman.

  Willow had immediately fallen for the excitement of the place. It was thrilling. She had begged Korp for a job and had begun scrubbing floors that afternoon. She never went back to the Liverymen and they did not come looking for her—there were plenty more urchins to be had. After Willow had spent a week doing odd jobs, Madame B had arrived and immediately demanded a personal assistant. Her last one, a man with a weak heart, had collapsed carrying her cases of costumes on the journey to the City.

  Willow was not fond of her mistress, especially this evening, when she’d blamed Willow for not bringing her hairbrush home after the performance. “Go back. Get Korp to open up,” she’d snapped, even though she had hundreds of brushes at her lodgings. So Willow had set off.