Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
Cheesers! Who'd have thought the nomads would be so tooled up? Swiney had been brought up believing that Londoners were automatically superior to every other kind of people on the Earth, and that they'd proved it once and for all by dishing the Patchskins. He'd never dreamed this Movement riff-raff, this bunch of... of... of foreigners would have the nerve or nous to bust the Moatway down.
He went back inside and stomped through the Barbican's big rooms in a haze of rage, issuing orders that no one paid any attention to, sometimes kicking things to ease his temper (which didn't work). At last there was a pummelling of feet up the stair
269
carpets and Mutt appeared with some of his lads, herding Dr. Crumb and the rest of the frightened Order of Engineers ahead of him.
"About time," snarled Swiney. "Who's in charge? Never mind, you can all come. Come on."
He led the way to the Chamber of Devices on the upper floor, where the clerks had told him London's most precious and destructive old-tech weaponry was stored, ready for use in just such times as these. Wormtimber had been in charge of it, of course, and he'd taken the key with him when Godshawk's statue butted him six feet down, but Swiney had found a spare, and had already had a look into the secret arsenal. The stuff in there hadn't made a speck of sense to him, which was why he'd sent Mutt to drag the Engineers out of the basement where they'd been penned.
He kicked the door open again and stood aside so that Dr. Stayling and his colleagues could file past him into the chamber. It was high, and lined with shelves, and some of the shelves had things on them: batteries and spools of wire and crated machinery from other eras.
"Well?" he demanded impatiently, as the Engineers looked about. "What do we use? What have we got that will stop that fortress thing?" He snatched up a promising looking artifact. "What's this? A ray gun?"
"I think that's part of what the Ancients called a 'Hoover,'" said Dr. Stayling, taking it from him and flipping the switch on
270
its handle, which made all the other Engineers dive for cover. "It doesn't work."
Ted grunted. "What about those, those silver balls there?"
Dr. Stayling picked one up. "A ball bearing," he said. "Quite a large one, though. I suppose it could be fired from a slingshot or some type of catapult...."
"Will it explode?"
"Of course not."
"Then it's no bloggin' use to me, is it?" raged Ted. "What else we got?"
The Engineers peeped into boxes and opened the lids of crates. "I don't understand it," said Dr. Collihole, who had once been Master of Devices himself, before Wormtimber ousted him. "There used to be all sorts of things stored here. A kind of hand-held cannon with the most ingenious sights. A big rackety kind of a thing. A very curious energy gun from the Electric Empire Era ...
"The Trained Bands took that north, apparently," said Swiney. "It blew up."
"And there should be some paper boys, of course," said Dr. Whyre, opening the empty plan-chest drawer where they'd been stored.
Ted understood. "Wormtimber!" he muttered. "That greedy little goblin snitched the whole lot for himself! He's left us nothing!"
271
Dr. Crumb raised a hand. "Could we not simply go to Wormtimber's establishment? He may not yet have sold on everything he stole...."
"It's on fire, innit," said Ted, glancing poisonously at the Engineers as if he thought they were deliberately mocking him. "Some of the lads got carried away and half the bottom end of Cripplegate's gone up in flames." He turned his wide back on them and stalked out of the chamber, pausing just outside the doorway to look back and shout, "Well? Get thinking! When these cloots get here I want something I can throw at 'em! I'm not going to be kicked out of my own town by a mob of foreigners!"
"Ted!" shouted Brickie Chapstick, appearing at a run from the far end of the long corridor. "Ted, the nomads have stopped!"
"What? Where?"
"Just short of Finnsbry."
Ted hurried toward the nearest window. The Engineers went after him, joining other men -- liveried servants of the fallen council and Ted's scruffy hangers-on -- in a general rush.
North of the city the lights of the Movement's fortress rose above the roofs of Finnsbry like an unsightly new block of flats.
"Brickie's right," someone said. "It's stopped."
Ted grinned. "They've seen sense, ain't they? They must have heard that things have changed, and there's a real man running London now. They know we'll wipe the floor with them if they
272
try it on." He slung the window wide and shouted, "Go on, hop it! Leave it! It ain't worth it!"
Everyone else watched the motionless fortress, waiting for its banks of guns to fire and send some colossal broadside slamming into the Barbican. This could be the last thing I ever see, thought Dr. Crumb . I may die here, without ever seeing Fever again, without ever even knowing if she is alive or dead....
But the fortress did not open fire, and in a few moments more there was something else to look at. A terrible, thin, rising screech drew everyone's eyes toward Bishopsgate, that long road which led down the slope of Ludgate Hill toward the north boroughs. Sparks of reflected moonlight were being flung across the house fronts there; across the sails of a wind tram abandoned on Finnsbry viaduct. Swift shapes flicked across gaps between buildings. "Vehicles!" said one of the Engineers.
Seconds more, a dozen monos came bowling like bashed-off hubcaps into the littered square before the Barbican.
***
Charley Shallow was not there to see the northerners arrive. He had slunk off as night fell, making his lonely way by quiet streets back to Ketch Causeway and the Skinner's house. He hadn't a key for Bagman's place, but the Skinner had never needed to lock his door. Not only had the house not been burgled, there were little offerings of flowers and teddy bears all up the steps, and candles burning down in bottles, and little scrawly notes, which Charley couldn't read, tied to the railings. Food, too: pies and loaves and
273
joints of meat, left as offerings to the Skinner's memory, or gifts for his boy.
Charley stepped over it all, too tired to eat, too tired to care. He went into the house and fell down in his nest on the floor of the front room and he was asleep before he even had time to think.
It was late when he woke. Cold bluish moonlight was creeping round the edges of the blinds. No coughing from Bagman's room, not this night nor ever more again. He wondered why that made him so sad. He'd only known the old man for about a day and a half. But it had been the only day and a half in Charley's life when he'd felt as if somebody cared for him, and thought he might amount to something.
He lit a candle and went and found the eggs and stuff he'd brought for breakfast that morning. While they were cooking he looked for clean clothes. His own were so stiff with mud and sweat that he doubted they could ever get clean. He went into the old man's room and found a cupboard, and clothes inside it. There were good black britches and a black long-tunic that Bagman must have kept for wearing to the funerals of his fellow Skinners. The britches fitted Charley all right round the waist as long as he belted them tight, and if he left them unbuckled they hung so far down his skinny legs that it didn't matter when he couldn't find any stockings. He found a shirt, a bit yellowish round the neck but clean enough. In a wooden box on the floor of the cupboard he found a spare spring gun and a half dozen
274
bolts wrapped up in an oily rag. He cleaned the gun carefully, stuck it through his belt, and filled his pockets with the bolts. But when he went to put the tunic on he saw that there was a little enamel badge on the lapel; the crossed knives of the Skinners' Guilds.
Who am I kidding ? thought Charley. He took off the tunic and sat on the edge of Bagman's bed. He wasn't a Skinner. He wasn't fit to inherit the old man's gear, let alone his title. He'd let Bagman down. " Finish it ," Bagman had told him. But he'd bottled it when he had the chance to shoot the Crumb girl. And now she'd escaped
He shut his eyes and Bagman Creech appeared as a cheap blue ghost, whispering, " She's Scriven, boy. It ain't like killing a human being. You do what's needful. It's all up to you now ."
He sat there for a long time feeling guilty and sorry for himself, until he heard a rising babble of voices outside. For a moment he was afraid that it was the people of the neighborhood coming to ask him why he'd failed in his duty. But when he went and looked out the window he saw the crowd in the street wasn't interested in the Skinner's house at all. They were hurrying past without even looking at it.
He opened the window a crack, his own worries forgotten in his eagerness to hear what they were shouting.
'The nomads are here!" he heard a man yell. 'They're at the Barbican!"
275
***
34 mayor vs. mayor
London had always loved a show. A bit of spectacle; something a little different; preferably the chance of violence...The arrival of the Movement was almost better than a riot. Once they realized the city was not to be pulverized, people came out to line the pavements and peer down from balconies at the screeching monos as they went racketing toward the Barbican. Gangs of children ran behind, but not too close, because along beside the wheels came detachments of the Lazarus Brigade: big, battle-battered Stalkers, moving at a clanking jog-trot with their finger blades bared.
Fever rode with her mother in the third mono from the front, the vehicle behind the Land Admiral's. Looking out through the glass of the cabin windows as it bowled up Bishopsgate she saw the watching faces of the Londoners lit up by its lights and shivered, wondering if some of them were the same people who had encircled Godshawk's Head the day before, chanting for her
276
blood. But they looked cowed now, even the roughest of them punch-drunk by the speed of the Movement's arrival. And there was little chance that they would recognize her, in her red silk coat with its collar turned up and a fur hat pulled down to her eyebrows.
In Barbican Square the monos halted. They lowered their parking props, which also served as ladders, and let out more Stalkers, along with mortal warriors carrying big multi-barreled muskets or holding up the banner of the wheeled tower on skull-topped poles. The mono pilots left all their lights burning, and the warriors lit flaming torches and held them high, so that the square and the broad frontage of the Barbican were lit up brightly. They stared about them, curious and ill at ease among these immobile buildings. Usually when the Movement took a static settlement, it was looted and then destroyed and its population sent to man the slave-mills, but Quercus had different plans for this place; they'd been told to tread lightly. Two-man arquebus teams rested their guns on stands and swept them across the balconies and upper windows of the houses on the square, across the viaducts and rooftops. The Stalkers stood poised, blades a-twitch, ready to rush in and slaughter any lurking Londoners who offered resistance. But no shots were fired.
After a few moments Quercus himself emerged from his mono, fastening his cloak, and Wavey Godshawk took Fever's hand and said, "Come, dear, let's step down."
The night air felt cool and fresh after the stuffiness of the
277
mono cabin. Fever went down the ladder behind her mother, watching her gaze about at the city, wondering what she was feeling. Would any of those Londoners, looking on from their windows and the doorways of shops and houses, recognize Godshawk's daughter from all those years ago?
"What do you want?" bawled a big, rough voice, echoing off the house fronts. Fever looked up at the balcony above the Barbican's prow, and saw that it was not Gilpin Wheen who stood there but Ted Swiney. She stepped behind her mother, not wanting him to see her. But Swiney was not looking at her; his mean little eyes were fixed on Quercus.
Quercus looked up at him. "Do you have the authority to speak for London?" he called.
"Speak for London?" Swiney swelled like a cockney toad, flushed with pride and hatred. "Speak for London? I am London!"
Quercus turned around slowly, taking in the watchers in the square. "This city," he said loudly, "is now a possession of the Movement. We have plans for it. Great plans, which you may share in. Offer no resistance, and you have nothing to fear."
"That's a load of blog!" shouted Ted Swiney, as the echoes faded. "I bet that's what the Dapplejacks said when they took over. We're Londoners, we are! We won't be ruled by some jumped-up gypsy like you!"
He looked triumphantly at his people. He'd expected his words to raise a cheer, but apart from a half-hearted "Yeah!" from Mutt
278
Gnarly, no one reacted at all. The truth was, most Londoners didn't much care who ruled them. The ones who had had their property burned or looted the day before were inclined to think that Quercus might be an improvement, and there were many important men who had, like Dr. Stayling, already been swayed by Movement agents. Meanwhile, the thugs and wastrels who had shoehorned Ted into the Barbican were too wary of the nomads' weaponry to show him much support.
Quercus came up the steps in front of the Barbican, past the giant beer keg that still waited there, lofted up on its trestles. He stood directly below Ted, and called loudly up at him. "Your army is scattered, and your city lies under my guns," he said. "I am not even asking you to surrender. It is over. I am Mayor of London now."
"Are you, now?" said Ted, through his small, square, tight-clamped teeth. He lacked most virtues, but he did have a fierce, stupid, cornered-rat kind of courage. Hadn't he battled gladiators and Godshawk's death-machines in Pickled Eel Circus? He was a fighter, and he wasn't going to give up the city he'd won to this pale little twig of a man. And wasn't that how they settled things, up in the nomad hunting grounds? You had to give them that, they didn't muck about with elections and speeches, if there was two nomads who both wanted power, they settled it like men.
"I'll fight you for it," he said. "You and me. Right here. With all London as our witness. Winner takes the city."
279
Quercus scratched his nose. "Hand to hand? Unarmed? No weapons?"
"A fair fight," said Ted proudly, grinning down at him, this little northerner he could snap with his bare hands.
The arquebus men fingered their firing levers. Several Movement chieftains came hurrying forward to warn Quercus that he need not accept Ted's challenge, but he waved them away. He seemed amused.
"You're on," he said.
***
Down in the square, Londoners and nomads alike were drawn toward the Barbican, magnetized by the prospect of the duel. But Wavey Godshawk took her daughter by the hand and started to pull her in the opposite direction. She was carrying a bulky canvas satchel over one shoulder, and a 'lectric lantern.
"Come now," she said. "We don't have time to watch this foolishness. The important thing is to make sure that Godshawk's vault is secured...."
"But what about Quercus?" asked Fever. She looked back at the Barbican steps where the Land Admiral was stripping off his cloak and armor and handing his sword belt to a second. "Aren't you worried about this fight?"
"Of course not. It will make no difference. The city is ours. It is just Quercus's silly pride that makes him want to indulge in this gesture. He's a fighting man and this was all too easy for him. He wants it to feel like a real victory."
280
"But that's irrational! He might be killed!" protested Fever.
Wavey shrugged. "It will make no difference. Another man can take his place and the Movement will still have London. You are not worried for him, are you?"
Fever felt her ears turn pink, and was glad that she was still wearing the hat. "I would not wish him to be killed," she said.
Wavey squeezed her hand. "He is only a common human, Fever. Their kind are two-a-penny, you know. We are the ones who matter, you and me and Godshawk's legacy. Come, let's go and see if it's still intact."
The edges of the square were filling fast with people as word of Swiney's challenge spread
"Do we have to have him with us?" asked Fever, still uneasy in the presence of the new Stalker. Despite his armor and his towering height, she could not stop thinking of him as Kit Solent.
"It would hardly be wise to go wandering about this town without a bodyguard," said Wavey. "Quercus agreed that I could take Corvus and Lammergeier, but he cannot spare many of his experienced warriors, so Grike will come, too. Besides, who could be more appropriate?"
She shone the beam of her lantern ahead of them and the crowd parted nervously to let them through. The Londoners' eyes were all upon the Stalkers and not upon the woman and the girl
281
who followed them. Fever watched Grike, trying to forget who he'd been the day before, trying to ignore her feelings of pity and disgust.
She did not see Charley Shallow standing in the crowd. She did not see his gaze slip from the Stalker's face to hers.