“Do exactly what Trunke tells you,” said Jugge. “He knows what’s what. I’m off now. So long.”
And that was his goodbye. Lanthorne stared at the door for some moments after Jugge closed it behind him. Edwin could tell how let down he felt.
Trunke left them without a light, saying he had to “make preparations.” When he returned an hour later, he had to shake both boys awake.
“Do you want to go or not?” he asked irritably, as they shuffled behind him into the stable attached to his house.
It had none of the reassuring smell of straw and solid, friendly horses and their business that Edwin would have expected in a stable at home. The smell here was an acrid stink that made his eyes water as soon as he stepped inside. It woke him up.
“Don’t ever look a nagge directly in the eye,” Trunke told the boys. “It gives them ideas. I’m taking one of the private hansommes, which means you won’t be seen. Now get in, the pair of you.”
He was in his travelling clothes: thick, shapeless trousers and a hooded leather jacket that resembled a small tent. His crude boots had hobnails which made scratching sounds on the stable floor.
Narrow steps were set just in front of the right-hand wheel of the hansomme. Trunke pushed the boys up and into the two-person passenger seat. For a moment, before he was forcibly made to sit down, Edwin was able to look along the shafts and at the strange animal between them. A nagge wasn’t a horse exactly—or a cow, or a lizard. It had elements of all three, as if an ugly horse had swallowed a lizard and then put on a cow suit. Hip bones and ribs were visible beneath skin that had the colour and texture of a lichen-covered tombstone.
“How long will it take us to get to Morting?” Edwin asked.
“As long as it takes and perhaps a bit longer,” Trunke barked.
With a flick of his wrist, he pulled a series of hinged flaps down and across the front of the hansomme, then locked them in place. The boys sat in shocked silence, listening to a key turn twice. This was followed by a prolonged, wheezy, rasping sound and then a particularly loud snap that echoed in the small space in which they were confined. Then they fell backwards in their seat as the hansomme began to move. Edwin hated being shut up in a box. He banged on the flaps, which fitted so tightly together they didn’t even rattle.
“I’m making sure you’re safe. Keep quiet!”
Edwin nursed his hand. He had skinned several knuckles.
“Trunke’s right, Edwin. No one can hurt us in here, and no one can see you shining.”
Lanthorne snuggled down and sighed. It was a comfortable sigh, a Believe it or not, I’m quite looking forward to this adventure kind of sigh. Edwin snorted and pressed his face into his hood and prepared to be very miserable. He was trying hard not to think that the passenger box of a hansomme resembled a coffin.
Eventually he did fall into a half-doze, which was spoilt by Lanthorne poking him and saying, “Edwin, I’m thirsty. Have you got any of those fizzy cans in your pack?”
“I’ve brought two. If we drink them now, we’ll end up having to wee in here or burst. Let’s wait until we stop.”
“I’m really, really thirsty.”
They settled back into their respective dozes. There was a half-smile on Lanthorne’s lips, but Edwin twitched uneasily from time to time.
Finally, the hansomme came to a stop. Trunke folded back the flaps and said, “Short rest.”
The cleaner air and daylight were very welcome even though, to Edwin, the air had a mouldy edge to it and the daylight was very subdued.
The boys climbed down from the hansomme and took in their surroundings. Well, they were certainly on a country road and a long way from Landarn. The road had a scruffy verge on either side and then the hedges started—tall, dark, thorny and overhanging the road as if they intended to meet and make a tunnel. It wasn’t the location you would choose for a pleasant country drive. Lanthorne was far more taken with it than Edwin.
“So many trees and bushes,” he said. “It’s like a giant garden.”
Edwin rolled his eyes. He remembered autumn and winter walks in the countryside with his parents; clean, sharp air to breathe and multicoloured leaves to scuff underfoot. Here, there was a strong sense of permanent dampness, of vegetation rotting as soon as it put out leaves, and of mildew clinging to it. The relief of being outside began to wear off. He looked up at the heavy sky, dirty as a puddle. The sun, barely visible, reminded him of a watery blister you didn’t dare burst.
Edwin looked at his watch. Noon. How many hours, or even days, of travelling were left? He would have felt more comfortable if Trunke had told them how long the journey was likely to last. One fewer unknown to worry about. His staring at the watch drew Trunke’s attention.
“Better I take care of that horlogge.”
Edwin didn’t understand.
“He means the horlogge on your arm,” said Lanthorne. “It’s only the third one I’ve ever seen.”
Trunke wanted his watch. Didn’t Lanthorne realize “take care of it” meant steal? Who cared how many he had seen before?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Edwin.
“Give me the horlogge. It’ll be safer with me.”
“Better let Trunke take care of it,” said Lanthorne quietly. “You might lose it.”
Edwin felt his eyes prickle. At that moment, the nagge turned its head to see what was going on. Edwin looked straight into malevolent, bloodshot yellow eyes and saw its leathery lips retract in what could be taken as a sneer or threat. The beast stamped one of its hoofed feet so heavily all three felt the ground vibrate.
“The nagge’s hungry,” said Trunke. “She’s even more bad-tempered when her belly’s empty.”
Edwin was reminded that if Trunke took against him and left him by the roadside, he wouldn’t survive. The nagge was a domesticated animal yet she looked ready to devour him, so what would one of their wild animals do? Anything wild in this country was bound to enjoy ripping a twelve-year-old Shiner to shreds.
“I expect you’re right about the horlogge,” Edwin said as unresentfully as he could manage. “You have it for safekeeping. I thought I might be able to use it like a compass, but I don’t remember how to do it exactly.”
He slid the watch from his wrist and dropped it onto Trunke’s outstretched palm.
At least when the battery died Trunke wouldn’t be able to replace it.
“You can take the hood right down if you like,” said Trunke, as if this made up for robbing Edwin. “We’re not expecting visitors. If you brought any food, eat it now.”
Trunke appeared to think that Edwin’s backpack only contained unripe food he himself would find unpalatable. This suited Edwin, who was careful not to let the backpack jingle or clunk whenever he moved it or put it on. Their present safety and his and Mandoline’s escape from this world might depend on what he had managed to throw into the backpack during those few moments in his parents’ kitchen. He couldn’t have Trunke poking about in it and helping himself to anything that took his fancy.
Edwin squatted down and noiselessly unzipped his bag. He handed Lanthorne a can of lemonade and opened the other for himself.
“Goody. I like this,” said Lanthorne.
“He just stole my watch, and all you can say is ‘Goody’?”
“He left us the money. He knows we’ve each got a purse.”
“I suppose so.”
Trunke led the nagge to the thorn hedge where she tucked into the spiky twigs, crunching them noisily. He returned just when Edwin was taking a box of cheese triangles and some biscuits from his pack.
“What have you got there?”
As the top of the backpack was gaping open, Edwin unobtrusively rezipped it and waved the box of cheese triangles in the air as a distraction. He peeled away the foil wrapping from one of the triangles and held it out for Trunke to inspect.
“It’s unripe. Don’t be disgusting.”
Edwin popped the whole triangle into his mouth and moved it around like the contents of a washing machine.
Trunke pulled a face and looked away.
Edwin was pleased with his small triumph but Lanthorne suddenly put everything at risk.
“It’s not just horrible unripe Shiner food that Edwin’s got in his pack,” he said, with the brightness of a five-year-old who doesn’t know he’s revealing an important secret. “He’s got lots of other really interesting things too. He told me.”
“He means I’ve got these,” Edwin said, almost shouting as he waved a packet of biscuits under Trunke’s nose.
“No, I mean—”
“You’ll like these, Trunke!” Edwin really was shouting now.
“Squashed-fly biscuits,” said Lanthorne, who was still not aware of what had happened.
Trunke looked at the biscuits with interest.
“They’re actually called Garibaldis,” said Edwin.
“That’s a long name for flies, dead or alive,” said Trunke. “I’ll take one.”
Edwin handed him half the packet. Trunke nibbled one of the biscuits, decided he liked it and polished off the rest very quickly. “Good quality flies,” he said. “At least you lot got something right.”
“They’re currants,” said Edwin firmly.
“Don’t you believe it. I know a decent fly when I taste one.”
He went back to attend to the nagge.
Edwin was now free to turn on Lanthorne and stun him with the full force of his anger.
“Don’t you ever do something as stupid as that again,” he hissed.
“I thought you didn’t mind sharing your biscuits.”
“I’m not talking about the biscuits. I mean telling him there are all those other things in my pack. I’ll probably need every single one of them to get home.”
Lanthorne realized his mistake and hung his head. “I just wanted him to know how you think of everything.” To placate his friend, he put half a cheese triangle in his mouth and pretended to enjoy it. This proved impossible and he spat it out.
“You’re too picky,” Edwin told him coldly. “You gobble up the biscuits and the lemonade and then waste the cheese by spitting it out. There’s no difference.”
“Yes, there is a difference,” Lanthorne said firmly. “I like sweet things. And in any case, cheese should be green.”
It had been a very small breakfast, too fizzy and cheesy, and would probably all come back up again when they started bouncing about once more in the hansomme. Edwin longed for a boiled egg and toast. “How far do you think Morting is?”
“My mum always says, ‘Thank goodness Out There is too far away to measure,’ which doesn’t tell us anything.”
“We could ask Trunke to keep the hansomme open for some of the time. I was finding it difficult to breathe.”
Lanthorne welcomed the suggestion. “Let’s enjoy ourselves looking at the countryside,” he said, hoping Edwin’s bad temper was passing.
Edwin shrugged. “It’ll be fresher,” he replied meaningfully. “Stop trying to squash your empty can, and give it to me. At some point we might need to fill these cans with dirt and knock people out with them. I saw it done in a film.”
This information meant nothing to Lanthorne, who got up to deal with the effects of drinking so much lemonade. Edwin copied him further down the hedge, and then they climbed back into the hansomme. Trunke agreed to let them ride with the flaps half-open. Edwin was told to keep his face mostly hidden, which he didn’t mind because soon both boys began to feel cold. The increasing chill of the afternoon didn’t seem to bother Trunke. From time to time he was willing to join in conversation of a straightforward, never really friendly, kind.
“It’s thorn trees all the way,” he said. “You’ll soon get fed up with looking at it.”
Edwin’s interest was much shorter-lived than Lanthorne’s. He began to slump more and more in his seat. As he looked down, he noticed that stowed behind Trunke was a piece of wood the length of a broom handle and tipped with a piece of sharp metal.
“What’s this pole for, Trunke?” he asked.
“It’s in case.”
“In case of what?”
“You know what these woods are like. The nagge can take a big piece out of anything, but I like to have a weapon myself.”
“Have you been on this road lots of times before?”
“I might have. I think it’s time I closed you down. When it begins to get dark you’ll shine like a candle, and we can’t have that.”
They weren’t sorry to be in the shelter of a closed passenger compartment once again, and, against his better judgement, Trunke promised not to lock it.
“I’d love to know what time it is,” Edwin said after a while. He hoped Lanthorne felt guilty about going along so readily with the theft of his watch.
“It’s late afternoon,” said Lanthorne. “And soon it’ll be night. I wouldn’t want to be out in these woods on my own at night.”
It might come to that, when I’ve recaptured Mandoline, Edwin thought with a shiver, and the prospect was so frightening he needed a change of topic to put it out of his mind.
“Tell me about the olden days,” he said. “Why were they so different?”
“Because they weren’t the same at all,” Lanthorne said vaguely. “People didn’t believe what we believe now.”
“Like what?”
“You know.”
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“I need another nap.”
“No you don’t.”
“We could look in our purses.”
Edwin allowed himself to be distracted. “All right. Mine first.”
He hoped they weren’t going to find that Jugge had tricked them with a collection of jingly rubbish. The purse certainly felt as if it contained coins, so he hoped for the best.
Unknotting the strings of the purse proved difficult in the dark. When Edwin had accomplished this and poured a few of the contents into the palm of his hand, he had no idea what they looked like.
“Even I can’t see them properly in this dark,” Lanthorne said disappointedly. “And if we open a flap, Trunke will know what we’re doing. He might take them off us.”
Edwin put his hand in his backpack and rummaged about. “Voilà! I was saving this for a real emergency.”
“What’s a voilà?”
“This voilà is the slimline screwdriver and torch my dad uses when he has to change plugs in the kichen. Voilà!”
He switched on the torch and Lanthorne’s eyes widened with delight as its narrow beam picked out the coins which lay in the palm of Edwin’s hand. They were two shades of brown, yellowish brown and greyish brown, and large and heavy like old-fashioned pennies.
“Ooh,” said Lanthorne. “Doubla and florines. We could buy a lot with these.”
“Thank you, Jugge,” said Edwin. He was very relieved. “What are the pictures on them? Do you have a king or queen’s head?”
“These are buildings in Landarn and that’s someone important in the Governa. I don’t know his name. It’s a long time since we had a king or queen. The Governa tell us what to do now. I’ve never had florines of my own.”
Lanthorne’s hoard of coins was identical. They had eight coins each.
“What are you up to in there?”
Perhaps Trunke had heard the chink of coins above the clopping of the nagge’s hooves. They would have to be very careful what they said, if his hearing were so acute.
“We’re playing a guessing game,” Edwin called out. “Sorry if we upset the nagge.”
“Just watch yourselves.”
They silently repocketed the coins. Suddenly the torch went out, although Edwin hadn’t switched it off. He shook it and was rewarded with a brief goodbye flicker.
“My dad never checks the batteries in things,” he said. Just as they started dozing off again, Edwin whispered, “I haven’t forgotten about the olden days.” Something told him this would be important knowledge to have in Morting.
“I promise I’ll tell you soon, Edwin,” Lanthorne replied.
And, for the moment, they left it at that.