CHAPTER 36

RAZORS AND RABBITS

The showmen’s camp was waking up all round them, and the easeful quiet of the early morning, which Georgiana had shattered with her temper tantrum, had not returned. Lucy watched Charlie scoop up the breakfast plates and put another log on the fire. He picked up a bucket.

“I’m going to shave and fill this,” said Charlie, hand scratching his chin as he nodded towards the canal. “You can have a wash-up too if you like. Canal’s good clean water.”

Lucy stretched her legs and then stood up and followed him, still thinking. He seemed happy enough not to talk or ask questions as they threaded through the other tents and wagons. At the water’s edge she watched him pull a straight razor from his pocket and swiftly work a nub of soap into a thin lather which he applied to his face before shaving it off with a minimal number of deft strokes. He grinned at her as he did so, and she had the strong impression that–given his age–he was newly enough come to the necessity of shaving for it still to be something of a badge of pride for him. But she also noticed how deftly he worked the blade.

“So,” she said after he had finished and she had washed her face in the water he pulled up from the canal in the bucket, “Georgiana is your sweetheart, yes?”

Charlie snorted a laugh at her and rolled his eyes, flicking the last of the soap from the edge of his razor into the canal.

“Sweetheart? Some chance!” he said. “We’ve known each other since we was little nippers is all.”

Lucy snorted right back at him. “So why’d she throw the bowl at you? You don’t just do that kind of thing at anyone. That’s an angry sweetheart kind of a thing to do.”

“No, that’s just Georgie,” he said, “always wanting her pudding and her pie. Her mum spoiled her, and since she gone, her dad spoils her twice as much; least he does when he’s sober.”

“He drinks?” said Lucy.

“Like the Pope,” said Charlie.

Lucy was about to ask what the Pope drank like, but he ploughed on.

“See, the Eagles is under pressure. Na-Barno may call himself the Great Wizard of the South but he’s got a rival, Hector Anderson, the Great Wizard of the North. He’s got his nose out of joint about Na-Barno copying him, because he was the Great Wizard long before Na-Barno decided to be the Wizard of the South.”

“I see,” said Lucy.

“Now normally the fact they hate each other’s not a problem, because it’s a big country and there’s fairs and shows enough for all. In fact there’s a Northern Circuit, which is what Anderson travels, and why he’s the Wizard of the North, and there’s the circuit we’re on, the Southern, and almost ne’er the twain do meet!”

“Almost?” said Lucy, who had an eye and an ear for the clues as to where trouble lay.

“This far into the season, we come far enough up the country to run into the northern lot who are on their southernmost loop. It’s always been a bit of a tinderbox–no one agrees as to who owns the territory as it were–so both circuits meet up. Luckily the fair’s a big enough thing for everyone to make money, so no real harm, not normally…”

“But this isn’t normal,” prompted Lucy.

“Anderson has an automaton. Like a real person but run on clockwork and levers and such. People love it. So Na-Barno, last winter, while we was overwintering in Clerkenwell, he got a watchmaker chappie there to make him an automaton of his own.” He grinned at her and whispered, “Like I said, it’s not a complete lie about Na-Barno being a bit sticky-fingered when it comes to ideas that make money. Trouble is Na-Barno’s automaton looks lovely but it’s broke, and he don’t know how to fix it. And cos–Na-Barno being Na-Barno–he only went an gypped the watchmaker of the final payment so he can’t send it back to be repaired. Now Anderson has challenged him to appear at the fair, same as him, and put this to an end, head to head, like. He wants a contest.”

“A contest?”

“He says let the people decide who’s the best, and the loser has to stop calling himself the Great Wizard of anything. He’s papered the county with posters saying as much. Drums up interest for the fair which is good for us all, but it’s bad for Na-Barno because the truth is Anderson’s the better conjurer, and with the automaton broken, He’s going to look very shoddy by comparison.”

The voice that came from behind startled her.

“Charlie!” it shouted. “Charlie Pyefinch.”

“Uh-oh,” said Charlie.

“What?” said Lucy, turning to follow his eye.

“My ma, and she don’t look happy,” he said.

Mrs Pyefinch strode through the tall cow-parsley like an avenging angel, if avenging angels brandished cast-iron frying pans instead of flaming swords. She was a tall woman with high cheekbones which were at this moment flushed with irritation. She was lean and muscular and wore a man’s shirt tucked into her skirt. Her hair was tied off her face with a spotted kerchief whose green matched her eyes.

“You’re a selfish young pig!” she roared at him. “Your dad’s got nothing for his breakfast except tea!”

“What?” said Charlie. “I done nothing!”

Lucy noticed he was keeping her and the bucket between him and his mother. She didn’t blame him. Mrs Pyefinch held the iron pan cocked and ready to fling, and her overall air of competence made it look like she’d be a good shot.

“You ate all the bacon and eggs,” she retorted. “Unthinking hoggishness is what that is, come here!”

“No fear,” said Charlie with a smile. “I’m staying here. Besides, we didn’t eat it all. There was plenty left in the basket.”

“The basket’s empty!” she said, her eyes seeming to see Lucy for the first time. “Good morning,” she said, more like a threat than a greeting.

“Hello,” said Lucy.

“We’ve already met,” said Mrs Pyefinch. “You trod on my arm on the way out of the tent this morning.”

“Sorry,” said Lucy.

“Yes, well,” said Mrs Pyefinch. “You have to be careful in tents. I thought you were French.”

“Well, she isn’t,” said Charlie. “No more than I’m hoggish. There was bacon and there was eggs left enough for a breakfast for you and Dad, and that’s a fact.”

“It is a fact,” said Lucy.

Mrs Pyefinch looked from Lucy to Charlie and shook her head sadly.

“Fact or no fact, there’s no bacon and your dad’s striking camp on an empty stomach. Now hop to and give your dad a hand. You know the drill,” she said, turning away. Lucy looked at Charlie.

“You can come with us, I expect,” he said cheerily.

“No useless mouths, Charlie,” said his mother without looking back.

“She’ll be useful at something,” he shot back, winking at Lucy. “Won’t you?”

Mrs Pyefinch turned and looked at them.

“You a show-person?” she asked. “Gymnast? Horse rider? Patterer? Sing-a-bit-dance-a-bit girl?”

“No,” said Lucy.

“Any skills at all?”

Lucy shrugged. Mrs Pyefinch shrugged back at her.

“Then sorry, my dear, it’s harsh, but it’s been a year of short rations and less money jingling in everyone’s pockets. But look on the bright side–a night’s shelter and egg and bacon for breakfast isn’t a bad bargain for nothing, is it?”

“No,” said Lucy. “And thank you for it.”

Mrs Pyefinch looked like she wanted to say more, but she just nodded and turned away with a wave.

“Come on, Charlie, daylight’s a-burning and we need to be gone.”

“Don’t worry,” said Charlie. “She’s just always worried about money and things have been a bit tight. She’ll change her mind.”

“No,” said Lucy, looking at the woods beyond the encampment. “It’s all right.”

Lucy watched Charlie shrug and walk away with a smile and a wave of his own, and then turned away into the cool shadows of the wood.

She was gone for maybe twenty minutes but by the time she emerged the camp was reduced by at least half. All the tents were down and the wagons were bumping over the hummocked grass out onto the smoother going of the high road. There was already a good line of them dwindling into the distance away from the campsite. It was, in its own way, a kind of race. She saw some wagons bouncing along the grass beside the road, trying to get ahead of slower carts which had struck tents earlier, and the sounds of whips cracking and good-natured railing between carters, who clearly knew this game and enjoyed it, filled the air.

When Lucy got to where the Pyefinches’ tent had been, there was nothing but crushed grass and a lump in the turf where the square, which had been lifted to build the fire in, had been replaced and stamped down. Wagon tracks led towards the road, and Lucy followed them, weaving a path through the remnants of the camp. An old man who was tying his tent onto the back of a dilapidated cart turned and watched her as she went.

“How much?” he said, pointing at what she carried in her hands.

“They’re not for sale,” she said, and walked on. “They’re payment.”

Once on the road she saw that all the wagons were different, but she had no idea what the Pyefinches’ looked like, so she jogged past each one, turning to look at the drivers and families sitting on the driving bench as she went.

Tired faces looked back at her with no recognition and not much interest, except for a couple who again offered to buy what she had in her hands. Then she came round to the front of a particularly weather-worn wagon and saw a tall man hunched in a blanket that hooded his head sitting next to a girl who was flicking the whip at the rear of the horse with a frustrated snap. The girl looked at her and nudged the man.

“There, Father. That’s the girl. That’s the one the Pyefinches found.”

It was Georgiana, and her beautiful eyes looked coolly at Lucy in a way that made her feel clumsy and awkward. She was conscious of her muddy boots and the blood on her hands. This made her angry, because she was not used to worrying about her appearance. She didn’t like the way Georgiana, who was sitting on a wagon that looked as if it still carried the dirt of every thoroughfare it had ever travelled on its sides, still managed to appear somehow regally above and beyond the grubbiness of the road she was sharing.

The man’s eyes looked out from beneath the cowl of the blanket: they were blue, like Georgiana’s, but watery and sad. His face was partly hidden, but didn’t look like a wizard of any kind, thought Lucy, certainly not a “Great” one. He looked beaten, and his hand, which emerged to point at her, shook. Lucy saw the other hand held a green bottle which she took to contain the liquid that was the cause of the rheumy eye and the trembling hand.

“She has rabbits,” he said in a voice that was doubly surprising. It was a deep and gentle voice, and it was also a cultured one.

“Yes, Father,” said Georgiana. “Fat ones.”

Her eyes had dismissed Lucy and returned to the road.

“Perhaps she would give us one. I am very fond of rabbit stew,” he said.

“No, Father. We want nothing of her. You have already had good bacon and eggs for your breakfast,” said Georgiana, cracking the whip.

Lucy looked at her, but got no more than the side of her face. So she jogged on. Nine wagons onwards, she saw Charlie sitting on the back of a cart, his legs dangling over the bumpy road. His face split in a grin and he called over his shoulder.

“Ma. Look what we got for dinner!”

The gap in the canvas behind him opened and Mrs Pyefinch looked out. Lucy trotted behind the wagon, holding both hands up, showing the four fat rabbits she had taken in the wood.

“For the breakfast,” she said.

Mrs Pyefinch looked at her for a long beat, then her face cracked in a smile which was the mirror of her son’s.

“Where’d you get ’em?” she said.

“Took them in the wood,” said Lucy.

“And there was you saying you had no skills!” said Mrs Pyefinch. “Well, pull her aboard, Charlie; don’t just leave our new friend in the road!”

And with that she disappeared back into the wagon.

Lucy tossed the rabbits onto the tailgate, and then took Charlie’s hand and jumped aboard.

“Well,” said Charlie. “Now you done it, girl.”

“Done what?” she said, getting comfortable next to him.

“Run clean off and joined the circus,” he grinned. “No telling what’ll happen to you now!”