going green
Even though the Glassworks is closed for Skivårnat, I go early to see to Clomper and Caney, since they’ve no pasture. I walk them like I do on Endweeks, to find a patch of grass, before we head back to the Works for brushing and mucking out.
Afterwards, I make my way to the glassy sea, leaving my hair unwrapped, letting the salt wind blow it wild.
It’s early afternoon before I’m back at Opal Alley. I hear low voices when I reach the kitchen.
Kit should be working, so what’s he doing here, talking to Ruzi?
“Mister Scarlet’s agreed to Ruzi’s proposal,” he tells me. I blink at him.
“Custom’s always slow after Skivårnat. It could really help,” Kit adds.
Ruzi looks sheepish. “Ah. I didn’t mention it to Mora yet. I’d need a guitar.”
“I’ll find one,” Kit assures him, smiling at me like nothing’s changed. Maybe nothing has, for him.
“What proposal?” I ask. “What are you both talking about?”
“Ruzi thought he’d try playing music at the Lugger. Bring in some extra coin – and a good excuse to see Zako.”
I look at Ruzi. “I thought you didn’t want to get in trouble singing Crozoni?”
“I can keep it instrumental. Or translate the songs to Skøl.”
“No…” Kit encourages him. “Sing what you like. It’s not banned. I think it’s a great idea.”
Ruzi’s expression is dreamy. “I haven’t played the guitar since … well…”
“It’ll come back to you,” I offer primly, making my excuses and drifting to my room, pretending a social call from Kit on one of the tavern’s busiest days is unremarkable. I pull the door to and perch on the bed. More talking outside. I can’t hear what they’re saying. Then the door bangs.
Someone has left. The coward in me hopes it was Kit, but no, he’s opening my door, bold as brass. I glare at him.
“I didn’t know you kept such illustrious company,” I snipe, trying to raise a poised, mature expression – though it’s the last thing I feel. “A Skøl heiress, no less.”
“Mor.” Kit releases the door, and in two strides he’s leaning on the table, peering down at me. “It’s not what you think.”
“So you’re not friendly with some rich Skøl bitch who makes elektric guns and prods, then?” I try to smile, but my mouth’s too dry. My lips stick to my teeth.
“That’s her uncle’s business. She makes locks. And we’re not friends. We have a working relationship.”
“A what relationship?”
“There’s nothing between us. You don’t have to believe everything Gracie and Renny say.”
He pushes off the table and comes to sit beside me, finally meeting my eye. “I met Goldie years back – and her brother, Glister. They’ve a place in the Skates making locks, elektric ones. The guns and prods – that isn’t them.”
“Sting Elektric’s their family though, isn’t it? They sound like a lovely bunch. Don’t suppose they bankrolled their niece and nephew’s business with that dirty gun money?”
He pushes his hair away angrily. “They can’t help who their family is. Besides… I didn’t realize at first.”
The penny drops. “This is your extra factory work – in the Skates?”
Kit averts his gaze. “Yes. In a manner of speaking.”
“What do you mean? What are you doing for them?” I ask.
“Off the record, petty things to make quick coin. We need it, remember?”
I stare at him. “What petty things?”
“Picking locks, mostly.”
Picking locks for locksmiths? “You mean stealing?”
My eyes drift to his long fingers. Something Felicity said clatters into my mind. They say she and her brother are very friendly with the lower classes in their employ. Servants, repayers…
“I don’t get it. I thought the Stings were richer than kings of old. What have they got you stealing?”
“It’s complicated. And the less you know, the better.”
I think of him and Goldie standing in his room last night, looking stressed and upset. Not like young lovers enjoying themselves.
“Just tell me. Are you in trouble?”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle.” He examines his hands. He’s lying.
I look at his hands too, remembering them at my waist, in my hair, hoisting me on to a kine.
“Let me help.”
“No.” His voice is like flint. “The less you’re mixed up with them the better.”
“I want to help. You’re making money. Ruzi’s going to be singing for the Scarlets. I’ve sold three drawings because Mister S feels sorry for me.”
He stands to look out of the window at the grey afternoon.
“He bought them because they’re good. And they love that portrait you did for them.”
“I’m glad.”
“They’re going to put it up on the wall behind the bar. Missus S likes it more than the luggers you did.”
“She’s been trying to get Mister S to sit for a silverprint for ages – he wouldn’t do it. Now she has it.”
“It’s not a silverprint.” It was just a drawing of Mister and Missus S together.
“It’s better. You really captured them… They look happy.” Kit examines the knife I’ve left on my desk – the one I use for sharpening pencils. Then he turns to me again.
“You know those old drawings you left behind in my room – the farm scenes and that?”
He means the ones Mister Heane brought the evening he told me Zako was in trouble. The ones the branders didn’t bother stealing.
“I sold them to a trader. Found out last night he fetched good money for them.”
“You did what?”
He spreads his hands. “I’m sorry. I should have asked, but you’re always so down on your work. It was Mister S’s idea. Soon as he saw them he was sure they’d sell. It’s an amazing thing that you do. Knew you could make real money from it.”
It’s hard to imagine Skøl buying my drawings. Scenes from an ordinary farm. A few studies of flowers and insects. Settler life in their conquered lands. Little free-living things.
“You could’ve told me.”
“I wanted it to be a nice surprise.”
More like he wasn’t confident they were worth anything and didn’t want to disappoint me. I watch his hands disappear into his pockets. He’s using this to turn the topic away from whatever it is he’s doing with that Reedstone woman – of course he is – but I can’t help being distracted.
“Look, Renny’s going to skin me alive if I don’t get back, let alone Mister S. Come with me. Let me give you your earnings. And you can see Zako.”
“Is she there?”
“Goldie? Course not. Mor, I told you, it’s business, not pleasure.” It’s trouble, is what it is, I think. But he’s already got his boots back on, and I have to rush to keep up.
We’re halfway back before the sun makes a break from the lead-grey cloud, pale gold crackling through sticky spring leaves, pocking Portcaye’s stonework, spilling everywhere until even the gutters stream with light. It’s busier than usual, people out and about for the holiday.
Mister Scarlet isn’t in the kitchen. Gracie sees Kit and me arriving together and gives us an awkward smile, but Renny pounces. “Nice of you to show up, Mister Disappearing Act!”
“Two minutes,” he assures her, catching my hand to pull me after him. Renny’s exasperation is lost in the general din.
In his room, Kit fishes a pouch from his desk drawer for me. “Two hundred krunan.”
“Thea’s wounds!” I can’t believe he sold my drawings for this much.
“A dozen more sales like that, plus what I’m earning – we’ll have the fee for Zako’s passage in no time.”
I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face. “Who said Zako’s getting this? I’m buying jammy biscuits tonight.”
Kit doesn’t laugh. “Get your biscuits.” He’s back by the door. Like an afterthought, he adds, “You should rent a kine with some of that. Go riding, if you want.”
I told him ages ago that riding the racing kine was the only thing I missed about working on the Heanes’ farm. He’s remembered.
“And get some more paper. Keep drawing. Try painting. It’s a seller’s market.” He gestures at me with a grin. “The exotic art of the Crozoni savage. Island stock. Very rare, for discerning collectors… They love all that.”
I join him in the doorway. He ruffles my windswept hair with one hand.
I realize I’ve left my hair wrap off. I feel for it in my pocket, but it’s gone.
Kit waits while I collect myself.
“I like your hair like this,” he says.
“Zako says it’s terrible.”
“What does Zako know?”
The ground floor smells of special Skivårnat spices. I pick my way through the heave and over to the far flight of stairs, up to the proprietors’ wing.
Mister Scarlet’s downstairs, and Missus Scarlet’s dozing in her room. I find Zako playing cards.
I tell him about Ruzi perhaps playing music here one Endweek, and then show him my windfall from the picture sales. None of it is news to him.
“Kit tells me everything.”
“Then he’ll have explained the plan to you.”
He grows thoughtful, pulling his glasses off to polish them on his shirt.
“I don’t want to go all the way to the Crozon Isles,” he confesses. “I won’t see you again, or Kit. Or – or Ruzi. I’m scared.”
I try to reassure him, but I’m far from reassured myself. “You’ll be safe there.”
We sit on the floor in front of the fireplace. He teaches me how to weave the long fur around Caruq’s ruff into a kind of plaited collar. I never thought to find myself styling a dog.
“I learned it from Devotion,” he says.
That’s about all that family taught him. They never bothered with his reading and writing.
“Missus Scarlet’s reading me Blenny and Tornelius,” he says, like he’s read my mind. His eyes are shining. “Blenny got chased by sea wolves.”
“Did he? He doesn’t have much luck.”
“And he thought they’d eat him.”
“Oh my.”
“Then Tornelius pounced on the biggest one, and Blenny scared them off with fire, and the wolves showed them where to find oysters.”
“Really?”
Zako nods. He’s alight, drunk on the story. “Is it true pearls come from oysters?”
“It is. Maybe you’ll find one in Renny’s oyster stew.”
He gives me a look.
“You know, Kit used to dive for oysters,” I say.
“He got a huge old one once, with a pearl. Won a prize.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I confirm. “Maybe don’t bring it up though. He’s – he’s funny about oysters now.”
“Why?”
I think of his battered face that day. “Oh, I don’t know. I think he ate a bad one.”
Kit finds a free moment to join us, the Portcaye Post’s Skivårnat evening special edition in one hand and a small glass jar in the other.
“Prayer grass,” he says, shaking it. “It holds all the answers.” His peddler has come through.
“It looks like powder,” said Zako.
“It’s been ground up. Should still work,” Kit reasons.
Zako sniffs it cautiously, then passes it to me.
It smells like almond butter.
“You can burn it tonight, Zako,” I say. “Come morning, we’ll know whatever it is that’s hiding in this big brain –” I tug on a tuft of his hair and pretend to peer into one of his ears – “that Venor doesn’t want anyone to know!”
“All right,” says Zako, but he looks uneasy. I don’t suppose there can be much about that day he truly wants a vivid reminder of.
“Zako, this ear wax needs cleaning out,” I scold, to distract him.
I see the paper wedged under Kit’s arm then and drag it out.
HEADS OFF TO THE GOVERNORS!
Portcaye Plans the Artist’s Last Performance
—
Hexagon to Host Beheading
The criminal Blithe Even Ronbor, better known by his chosen moniker, the Artist, has been found guilty of Treason in a special Skivårnat-morning hearing.
He has been sentenced to Beheading and Display.
Speaking at his sentencing today, County Portcaye Life Registry Magistrate Valour Venor declared that Ronbor’s sentence will be suspended until the Sixmonth, whereupon it will be carried out as part of the programme of festivities to take place at the new Hexagon Hall, marking Venor’s transition to Governor of the New Western Counties.
“The Artist built his career in the public eye – and so it will conclude. He will paint his last before High Governor Lovemore at Hexagon Hall,” Venor promised. “With his own blood.”
Signing off on Ronbor’s sentence is expected to be Venor’s first official act as Governor of the New West.
The Artist remains in incarceration at Portcaye Firebrand Station…
I shiver. So this was what Felicity meant. Venor is making a statement – under his governorship, treachery will not be tolerated.
“A public beheading. Painting the nice new hall with blood. Can’t wait for the rest of the programme of festivities,” Kit snipes.
Zako flips quietly through Blenny and Tornelius, examining its few illustrations and purposefully ignoring the Portcaye Post.
I think of the coloured-glass roof panels we’ve been hauling across town bit by bit and feel myself going green.