The Watchmen of Port Fayt Read online

  Anyway, it felt good to forget about it for a while. The kitchen seemed like the warmest, coziest place in the world. There was a cauldron bubbling over the fire, and the scent of pastry, onions, and meat wafting through the air, and the steady thunk of Mrs. Bootle’s knife as she chopped up carrots. It felt good to be out of his old wet clothes too. Mrs. Bootle had given him a clean shirt and breeches, and an old, faded blue watchman’s coat that she said had belonged to the troll called Frank when he was younger. The clothes were much too big, but Grubb didn’t mind. He almost felt like he was a watchman himself.

  “There we go,” said Mrs. Bootle, and she tipped the carrots into the big cauldron. “Now, can I get you two anything else? Another pie? A mug of velvetbean?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am,” said Grubb.

  “Ma’am, is it? What a polite young man. Your parents must be very proud.”

  Grubb felt himself blushing again.

  “Oh, I don’t … I mean … Well, my parents are, er …”

  “How about a slice of shokel cake then? Freshly baked this morning, iced, and—”

  “We’re fine, Mrs. Bootle,” interrupted Tabitha. “And Joseph doesn’t have time for a four-course meal, anyway.”

  “Very well, as long as you’re sure. Give us a shout if you need anything—I’m off to help Mr. Bootle mend the bed in the spare room. There’s this big crack in it, you see, from when an ogre stayed last—”

  “Yes, thanks,” said Tabitha impatiently. “We’ll see you later.”

  Grubb watched the girl as the elderly troll left the room. It seemed like a funny way to talk to a nice old lady like that. Maybe that was just how you behaved when you were in the Demon’s Watch. Somehow he doubted it though. He took another bite.

  “Wassh it ike, beena wasshman?” he said.

  Tabitha raised an eyebrow. He swallowed and tried again.

  “What’s it like, being a watchman?”

  She rolled her eyes, as if it was the most boring question she’d ever been asked.

  “Well, I didn’t really do anything before, so it sort of seems … normal.”

  “Oh.”

  “I mean, it’s exciting now, of course. Because of this witch. But most of the time, it’s—”

  “What witch?” interrupted Grubb. He had barely any idea what was going on, and he was starting to get tired of it.

  “The one who’s after the wooden spoon, obviously,” snapped Tabitha.

  “But, I mean, a witch? Who is she?”

  “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Tabitha slowly, as if she was explaining something for the hundredth time. “All we know is that she got that smuggler friend of yours to bring her a wooden spoon all the way from the Old World, and she probably won’t be using it to make a big cake for the Pageant of the Sea.”

  She folded her legs up on the chair and warmed her hands on the kitchen fire.

  “So … The troll brothers—the watchmen—they’re twins?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And Mrs. Bootle’s their mother?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I … Do I? I’m sorry, it’s just … I’ve only heard stories before. About the Demon’s Watch.”

  Tabitha pulled a face.

  “All right. Here’s the deal. The twins are Frank and Paddy. They’ve been in the Watch since they were children. Newt spotted them in Thalin Square one day, chasing after a pickpocket, and he was so impressed that he recruited them on the spot. Then there’s Hal—he’s the one with the pasty face and the glasses. His parents always wanted him to be a watchman. They’re merchants, so they sent him to the Azurmouth Academy for five years, and now he’s our magician. The elf, the one with the long white hair who doesn’t say anything—that’s Old Jon. Newt says he’s been a watchman since practically the Dark Age. Then there’s me.”

  Grubb was trying to keep up.

  “So Newton’s your leader?”

  She frowned.

  “That’s right.”

  “He seems kind.”

  “Yes, obviously he’s kind, but he’s also … I mean …”

  “What?”

  She turned her big gray eyes to look at him, trying to decide whether to go on. Grubb suddenly found himself worrying that he might have bits of pie stuck to his face.

  “Well,” she said at last. “It’s just that sometimes, it’s like he thinks I’m still a baby. He only let me join the Watch properly a few months ago, even though I’m as good as any of the others. And now I have to babysit you when I just found that spoon that we’ve all been looking for. It’s just not fair.”

  “So why don’t you say something?”

  “I do—I mean, I have, but it’s not that simple. I sort of owe him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because he looks after me. He’s always looked after me. Ever since I was little.”

  “But he’s not your father?”

  “No, of course not. Don’t be stupid.”

  She looked back into the fire. There was a long pause, and Grubb began to wonder if he’d asked one question too many. Then she spoke in a small voice, all trace of anger gone.

  “Have you ever heard of the Mandeville Plot?”

  He nodded.

  “My full name is Tabitha Mandeville.”

  Grubb’s eyes grew wide. The Mandeville Plot. He’d been only a baby at the time, of course, but everyone knew the story. It had been a beautiful sunny day, and the governor and his young wife, Jessica, had gone out walking by the docks. Most governors never bothered to leave their big manor houses in the Flagstaff Quarter, but Mr. Alfred Mandeville of the Morning Star Company was known for visiting every part of town and meeting every Fayter he could—merchant or mongrel.

  Only this time, somebody had been waiting for him.

  Whoever it was had thrown two small bottles from an upper window, one for the governor and one for his pretty wife. Bottles of griffin blood. The Mandevilles had died within minutes, and no one had ever found out who the murderer was.

  “You’re their daughter,” said Grubb in wonder.

  She looked at him with such ferocity that he flinched.

  “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, understand? I was just a baby when it happened. It’s not like I really remember anything.”

  “Fine,” said Grubb, desperately trying to work out what would be safe to say. “So … your hair is …”

  “Dyed. It’s blond, really.” She sighed. “The watchmen found out about the plot, and they tried to warn my father, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he didn’t want to live in fear. Then on the day of the murder, the Watch tried to protect him, but they were too late. I think afterward, Newt felt so bad about what happened that he decided to, sort of, be my father himself.”

  “You were lucky.”

  She looked at him in total bewilderment.

  “Lucky?”

  “That’s right. Don’t you think? You were lucky that there was someone who really wanted to look after you.”

  “I … No one’s ever …” She broke off, lost in thought.

  Grubb hurriedly changed the subject, unsure if he had upset her.

  “So did you ever find out who killed—I mean, who was responsible?”

  Tabitha spat into the fire.

  “The League of the Light,” she said slowly, as if each word physically hurt her. “It was one of their agents, sure as the sea. They hated my father. Before he became governor, he visited the Old World and saw what they were doing. He saw their troops rounding up trolls and goblins and putting them to death. ‘Bringing light into the darkness,’ they call it.”

  At the thought of it, Grubb felt a prickling at the back of his neck.

  “So when my father had a chance to change things in Port Fayt, he banned all League merchants from the Middle Islands. It was the least he could do. But from then on, the League wanted his head. They persuaded someone to kill him. And not just any someone. Someone important.”<
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  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know it, but … Well, afterward, the Demon’s Watch and the Dockside Militia tried to investigate, and they were told to forget all about it. All three trading companies—Cockatrice, Redoubtable, and Morning Star—they all joined ranks and swept it under the carpet. They wouldn’t have done that if it were just some bullyboy or something. So the murderer was probably one of them. One of the fancy folk who live in the Flagstaff Quarter. They just didn’t want whoever it was to get caught.”

  “So you never found out?”

  “No. Well, not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?”

  She paused and looked at him again, as if trying to work out whether to trust him. He smiled stupidly, which seemed to make the difference.

  “I did find out one thing. Eugene Wyrmwood knows something, for sure.”

  “The governor? Why do you think that?”

  Tabitha bit her lip for a few moments, then leaned toward him.

  “One day—it must have been two, three years ago—I saw him giving a speech in Thalin Square. He wasn’t the governor then, of course; just a senior trading officer in the Cockatrice Company. I was near the front, and he spotted me. As soon as our eyes met, he went white as a sail and stopped talking, right in the middle of a sentence. It was as if he’d seen a demon. We stood staring at each other for a few seconds, while everyone else was wondering what was going on. Then he told the crowd he was sorry but he felt ill, and one of his juniors took over the speech. You see?”

  She sat back, waiting for a reaction.

  Grubb wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  “Umm … But that doesn’t really mean—”

  “I know it doesn’t really mean anything,” she snapped. She hunched her shoulders and swiveled round to face the fireplace, obviously disappointed in him. “Not for sure, anyway. I just have a feeling, all right? I just know that if I could get ahold of that bilge bag …”

  She trailed off, staring into the dying embers of the fire.

  “I’m sorry,” said Grubb. “I didn’t mean to—”

  She interrupted him crossly. “Do you have parents?”

  Grubb shook his head.

  “Orphan?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you remember them? I wish I could remember more about my parents.”

  “I can remember a bit. My father was a goblin. He worked on the docks, unloading cargo for a few ducats here and there. And my mother was a human. He met her in the velvethouse she worked at.”

  He put down the pie.

  “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear this.”

  “No, I do.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I want to hear. Go on. Tell me about your home.”

  “All right. If you’re sure. It was a little old house in the Marlinspike Quarter.”

  “Describe it.”

  “White plaster and black beams. A green front door. Two tiny windows that were never clean, that looked out onto the street. The three of us, we lived on the ground floor, in one big room. You had to go outside to use the privy. We shared it with half of the street.”

  “What were their names? Your parents, I mean.”

  “My father was Elijah. He came to Port Fayt on a wavecutter from the Old World, when he was a baby. My mother was Eleanor. Her family lived here much longer, practically since the days of Thalin.”

  The memories began to surge through his mind, each one fighting to be the first out of his mouth.

  “I remember my mother singing old sea shanties to get me to sleep, and I remember playing games with my father. I used to dress up in a sack and imagine I was the Navigator, and we’d pretend to go exploring together. And when it was bedtime, he’d pretend to be the Maw coming to get me, and he’d chase me round the room until I promised to go to sleep. I think I thought I’d live there forever, in that house. I think I thought …”

  Suddenly, he was finding it hard to breathe. He hadn’t spoken about this for years. Not since Mr. Lightly had taken him on at the Legless Mermaid.

  “Hey,” said Tabitha. “Forget about it. I’m sorry I asked.” She pulled out a handkerchief and passed it to him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” said Grubb. He couldn’t stop himself now. “There was always this … problem. Because my father was a goblin, my mother was a human, and I was a … a mongrel. My mother used to get so upset about it, and my father used to tell her not to worry. But she was right to worry because … because one day, they came for him. It was a gang of men he worked with. They couldn’t stand to see him with my mother, and they … and they …”

  He stopped and rubbed his eyes with the handkerchief.

  Tabitha reached across and patted his arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stiffly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Books lay everywhere: scattered on the floor, piled haphazardly on the windowsill, and leaning against the chair leg. Dust hung heavy in the air, mingling with the purple fumes from Eugene Wyrmwood’s favorite pipe.

  He was hunched at his desk, peering through his reading glasses and flipping the pages of a large volume entitled Dr. Leopold Collingsworth’s Encyclopedia of Sea Demons, while the thunder rumbled outside. K, L, M …

  There it was.

  The Maw. The demon that killed Thalin the Navigator—or so the story went.

  He tried to concentrate on the book, but he had a headache again. The Festival of the Sea was a trial in itself, of course, what with the Grand Party and the pageant to arrange, but the visit from the League’s ambassador had made everything far worse. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop thinking about that awful dinner and the Duke of Garran, with his soft, pink face, and his cold, colorless eyes. Mother would have known what to do. She would have dealt with it all far, far better than he had. He shook his head and tried again to push it all from his mind.

  Few have set eyes on the Maw and lived, he read. Fewer still have left accounts of the beast’s appearance, and all of these accounts conflict dramatically. This leads one to suppose that either i) the beast is possessed of the transformative properties of a shape-shifter, or ii) most, if not all, of the accounts are at best fanciful, and at worse entirely fabricated. On balance, I incline to the latter interpretation.

  The Maw is perhaps best known as the beast that slew Thalin the Navigator, the founder of Port Fayt in the Middle Islands. Thalin is said to have founded the city in the year 1214, and to have governed it successfully for ten years. Restless, and eager for new adventures, he then set sail with his three vessels, the Cockatrice, the Redoubtable, and the Morning Star. (It is a point of interest that these names were subsequently adopted by the three trading companies that have shared power in Port Fayt since the late 1500s.) Thalin’s bearing is known to have taken him two leagues south of the Lonely Isle, where the Farian Sea Trench, home of the Maw, is believed to be located. Not one of the vessels was ever seen again. There is a popular rhyme for children concerning the Maw:

  “In the Farian trench, the great Maw sleeps,

  Where sailors fear the dreadful deep …”

  The governor took off his glasses and slammed the book shut. There was nothing there that any Fayter didn’t already know backward. He pushed it away. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he opened his desk drawer and picked up the doll that lay inside.

  It was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth, crudely sewn together, stuffed with beans and falling apart. A black-coated militiaman, with a stitched smile and a pair of buttons for eyes. A strange mixture of emotions swelled up in him as he looked at it.

  There was a rap on the door, and a secretary poked his head into the room. At once, Eugene Wyrmwood dropped the toy and shoved the drawer shut, feeling his cheeks go red.

  “I …” He cleared his throat. “I sincerely hope this is important.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wyrmwood, sir. It’s Colonel Derringer to see you. He says it can’t wait.”

  “Very well, send him in.”

  H
e refilled his pipe and rubbed his aching brow. He didn’t like Colonel Derringer. The man was difficult and demanding, and he had a strong suspicion that beneath all the bowing and scraping, Derringer thought he was an idiot. Then there was that horrible, smug smile …

  The colonel marched in, wearing exactly the smile Wyrmwood had just been imagining. There was a fat man with him, dressed in a militiaman’s uniform with the stripes of a sergeant. He looked distinctly sheepish, and Wyrmwood noted with distaste that he had a black eye.

  The pair of them came to attention and saluted.

  “Governor Wyrmwood, sir,” said the colonel, and coughed. Wyrmwood noticed for the first time that the room was really very smoky indeed.

  “What do you want?” he snapped, sounding a lot more cross than he’d intended.

  “I’m afraid we have a problem with the Demon’s Watch, Governor,” replied Derringer, still smiling. “Sergeant Culpepper here has something to tell you.”

  “Culpepper, is it?”

  The militiaman nodded, embarrassed. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Well?”

  “Sir, me and some mates, er, that is to say, colleagues, we were drinking in the Pickled Dragon earlier, down in the Marlinspike Quarter. Well, I say drinking. We weren’t, er, drunk or nothing. Well, Sprunt had had a few, but—”

  “Get on with it, Culpepper,” prompted Derringer.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Just keeping an eye out, we were, mixing with the townsfolk, as you might say.”

  Governor Wyrmwood drew out his golden pocket watch and examined it meaningfully. Sergeant Culpepper wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead.

  “Well, to cut a long story short, we were chatting to this one lad, see, a goblin mongrel, and this girl came up to us, with blue hair, and she rolls up her sleeve and shows us one of them Demon’s Watch tattoos and says we have to do what she says. Then she just went completely mad and attacked us. I, er, I just thought you ought to know, sir, seeing as how you banned them watchmen.”

  “Why, exactly, did she attack you?”

  “Oh yes. Sorry, sir. This mongrel had a wooden spoon, all wrapped up in a scrap o’ velvet. And this crazy girl wanted it for some reason.”

  “A wooden spoon?”