Dishonesty seldom fails to be detected.
J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
Eleri’s plan, such as it was, began well. After a most uncomfortable twenty minutes jolting among the potatoes, they heard the sounds of doors or gates opening and of the pony clattering across a cobbled yard full of movement and noise. Then the wagon turned a corner, and the noise faded away.
All too soon, someone fumbled at the ties closing the canvas cover. A Chinese face peered in.
‘Stand and deliver!’
The Grand Duchess shot up from amidst the groceries, her pistol aimed squarely at the man’s forehead.
Her target seemed more perplexed than alarmed. He looked about him, baffled and blinking, as Eleri scrambled out from the wagon, managing to keep her aim steady all the time.
‘Put up your hands! Up – like this! Up!’
Slowly, the Chinese gentleman did as he was asked, still with an air of polite puzzlement.
They were in a kind of alley between the outer wall of the manufactory and a storage facility. Its doors were open for the delivery, a wheeled trolley standing by. Nobody else was in view.
‘Pattern, secure the prisoner. You’d best gag him too.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ Pattern murmured, fixing a length of torn canvas round the man’s mouth and checking that his hands were securely fastened behind his back with layers of string from the food sacks. She finished off both knots with a neatly looped bow. ‘I trust you will not be inconvenienced for long.’
It would be rude to stare, but Pattern had never seen someone from China before, except on a London theatre bill promoting the magical feats of a Mr Foo Ping-Ting, ‘Imperial Enchanter of the Orient’. This man looked disappointingly ordinary. He did not have a pigtail, or flowing silk robes and a pointy hat, and was dressed the same as any manufactory worker.
His eyes darted towards the alleyway, where the pony waited by the wagon. Perhaps he was expecting someone. In any case, it could not be long before they were interrupted. Pattern felt all the precariousness of their position, and all the frustration of having been dragged into this madcap scheme against her will.
For Eleri, however, there were no misgivings. Everything was proceeding exactly as she had hoped. ‘Let us survey the enemy terrain!’
The larder was one of a series of storage rooms. Prodding their captive with her pistol, Eleri herded him past sacks of salt and sand and other materials necessary for the manufacture of clay, through to the sturdy metal door at the end of the building. Unlike the others, it was locked. ‘And what have we here? A punishment cell, perhaps.’ She jangled the set of keys she had taken from the prisoner’s waist. ‘Which one?’ she demanded.
Her expression was so exceedingly fierce the man did not hesitate long before waggling his eyebrows to indicate the correct key. In truth, Pattern expected to find nothing more remarkable than another supply cupboard. Yet the door opened on a small workroom stacked with wooden kegs and cases marked with Chinese characters. The shelves held slabs of slate and shallow earthenware dishes, and there was a bench set up with a mortar and pestle. Leather buckets filled with sand hung from hooks in the wall. There was a distinct whiff of rotten eggs – the sulphurous smell Pattern remembered from the crater at Caer Grunwald.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ she said, swallowing hard, ‘but it is very possible those kegs contain explosives. It is really not safe for us to be here. You must come back with a search warrant and armed men, and all the proper authorities.’
‘Yes, but what of the children?’ said Eleri impatiently. ‘We cannot leave before we have some sight of them.’ She closed the door on the kegs and marched their captive back the way they had come, to the small window in the larder. Outside, more Chinese men hurried back and forth loading and unloading clay into the kiln. The flaming oven mouth put Pattern uncomfortably in mind of the dragon; the men closest to them had scorched red faces from the heat.
Eleri put the spy-glass to her eye, examining the cluster of red-brick warehouses and workshops beyond the kiln yard. ‘The children will be in the dipping house, I expect,’ she said. ‘Since the fumes from the lead-glaze are very noxious, skilled workers avoid it. Or else they will be employed as pattern-cutters. Their fingers are small, and so especially nimble with the scissors.’
Pattern felt a rising twitch of exasperation. ‘Wherever they are kept, they will be locked up and under guard.’
‘No matter. We have a hostage. If he will not tell us where the children are himself, we will parade him at the point of my gun and demand to be taken to them.’
‘What d’you think you’re doing? This isn’t a holiday camp! Get back to work!’
It was a very large and angry Elffishman, wearing a foreman’s coat. Then he looked at them more closely. ‘Wait a minute – you don’t belong here. Who the hell are you, and how the blazes did you get in?’
Eleri immediately pulled the prisoner in front of her and Pattern. ‘Stay back or I shoot!’
But the foreman merely guffawed. ‘Go ahead. He’s only the quartermaster; we can easily find another one.’
Eleri dug the pistol into the unfortunate quartermaster’s side, causing him to yelp, but her discomfiture was clear. The foreman advanced upon them, swinging a truncheon in his hands. His meaty red face was shiny with satisfaction.
‘Trespass is a criminal offence, my lad, and industrial espionage is more serious still. Or maybe you and your friend only meant to go as far as armed robbery. Either way, you’re in a world of trouble . . .’
Pattern seized the handle of a loading-trolley and charged, running it into the foreman’s knees as hard and fast as she was able. Taken by surprise, the man stumbled, and almost fell.
‘Run!’ she shouted.
Both girls pelted out into the alley. It led straight into the hot and smoky kiln yard. They skidded across the cobbles, tripping over wheelbarrows and workers alike, as the foreman charged after them.
‘Stop! There’s no way out; the gates are locked.’
‘You’re the one who’s trapped,’ Eleri retorted. ‘You won’t escape justice. I’m your Grand Duchess; no one can touch me!’
It was perhaps just as well her boast was lost in the general uproar.
She and Pattern bolted through the nearest doorway into a room full of churning vats of sloppy liquid clay and another clanking with mechanical presses, then through a workshop crammed with men hunched over potter’s wheels. It was there they nearly ran right into a couple of ragged little boys staggering under the weight of heavy plaster moulds. Their faces were wan and thin; their eyes red.
‘You were right!’ Pattern gasped. ‘And look – up there!’
Another small blond head peeped from behind a barred window in the courtyard outside. But there was no time to stop; no time to question. All their energies had to be focused on their own escape, as they fled through a mazy complex of high brick buildings, their view obscured and breath choked by the clouds of clay dust that hung thickly in the air. An alarm bell began to clang. The foreman was joined by two Chinese guards.
Turning another corner brought them face to face with an office marked ‘Management’, from which another Elffishman suddenly appeared. He was small and dapper, with a pointed black beard. ‘What is the meaning of this ballyhoo?’
‘Out of my way!’ screamed Eleri, brandishing her pistol as she pushed him aside. Pulling Pattern along behind her, she charged through another set of doors into a warehouse filled with towering racks of ceramics ready for market. Packing crates spilling over with straw lined the aisles. This time, however, there was no exit. They were trapped.
The meaty foreman advanced, grinning, flanked by the two guards.
‘Come quietly, now, and we’ll try not to break too many bones.’
‘Any damage must be paid for!’ spluttered the bearded gentleman, who was bringing up the rear.
But Eleri was not done. She had the light of battle in her eyes. Flushed and panting, she grabbed the nearest item to hand – an ornate black stoneware urn in the Roman style – and hurled it to the ground. The crash echoed through the warehouse.
The bearded gentleman shook his fist. ‘These are precious artworks, you barbarian!’
Eleri laughed giddily. ‘Not any more!’ Next, she reached for a floral serving dish as wide as a carriage wheel and flung it at their pursuers, who were forced to duck for cover as it shattered into razor-sharp splinters. With Pattern scrambling to keep up, she ran off down the aisles, smashing and crashing and crushing as she went. Pitchers and platters, tureens and teapots – all reduced to smithereens. It made for an unholy din.
‘STOP THAT MANIAC,’ howled the bearded gentleman. ‘Whatever it takes!’
That was when the foreman got out his own gun.
Pattern plucked at the tails of Eleri’s jacket. ‘You have to stop; please stop. He’s going to shoot!’
But Eleri did not seem to hear. She rampaged on, a girl possessed. She turned down another aisle and started back towards their pursuers, turning whole dinner services into a storm of missiles.
‘Wait, you don’t understand,’ Pattern pleaded with them. ‘She’s the Gr—’
It was no good. Before Pattern’s horrified eyes, the foreman raised his pistol and took aim.
‘No!’
A man emerged as if from nowhere, sprinting forward and slamming into Eleri so that she was knocked sideways into the wall. The bullet whistled past, grazing him on the shoulder.
‘God’s pocket, that was close,’ he observed, with only a slight shake in his voice.
It was Madoc.