Chapter Fifteen

With a quick flick of his tail, Sibelius sent the skeleton key spinning into the air. Harriet snatched it to her breast. She slipped the note from around it.

“What does it say?” Barney whispered.

Harriet looked back at the door. A belch followed by muffled snoring rumbled in the passageway.

“Go on,” Sam said. “You’d best read it. I never learned me letters.” Then, nodding towards the guard, “’E’s out for the count, I reckon.”

Harriet unrolled the note, taking the key in one hand. She scanned the elegant handwriting, reading aloud.

 

My dear friends,

 

I realize now you have done no wrong. I send you this key, which will open every door, in the sincere hope you can make good your escape. I can do no more. My life is in danger. I must leave. Forgive me. Good luck!

Sincerely,

 

HRH Princess Annabel

 

Harriet’s hand trembled as she pictured the strange princess’s anxious face. My life is in danger. Her heart skipped. She shook herself.

“Blimey,” she said. “That’s a twist, ain’t it?”

Sibelius coughed. When Harriet looked up, he was smiling at her with mock pleading in his eyes as he lifted his manacled wrists. “Mademoiselle?”

“Yeah right,” Harriet said. “Sorry.” She inserted the skeleton key, turned it and the manacles sprang open.

Having freed herself and her crew, Harriet led them to the door. She pressed her face against the grille. The guard perched on his stool, back slumped against the wall. He was snoring. His head lolled on his shoulder. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. His right hand folded round an empty bottle.

“I reckon we should open this door as quietly as we can and sneak past this fella without waking him. Then we’ll have to figure out which way to go.”

“Mais, c’est facile, mademoiselle,” whispered Sibelius. “I memorized the route.”

Harriet couldn’t conceal her surprise. She smiled. “That’s a clever monkey skill, I s’pose?”

Sibelius shrugged. “To remember ways, places, information, is quite within my line of work,” he said.

Harriet eased the key into the lock and turned it. She half expected it not to work; but the bolts, each connected to the vertical bar, rattled back easily. The guard grunted, muttering something in his sleep. Harriet held her breath. One. Two. She opened the door.

With the others behind her, she snuck past the slumbering soldier, slipping the key into her jerkin pocket. A few yards into the tunnel, she turned back to the others. They were through, with Sibelius bringing up the rear. Looks as if we made it, she thought. No – wait a minute – we forgot something.

As Sibelius caught up she whispered, “We’d best get that bird. Dunno if it’s any use, but we don’t want to leave evidence. You lot wait here. I’ll go get it.”

She crept back to the cell and picked up the fallen mechanical. The guard woke up, leaning forward, kneading the heels of his palms into his eyes. Harriet froze. The soldier blinked at her, confused.

“Evenin’, guv,” said Harriet, speeding past him.

“Evening,” he replied.

Then he shot to his feet. “Oi!”

Harriet pitched herself forward. The guard lurched after her. “Run!” she shouted. “Peg it!”

Too drunk to give chase, the guard pulled a cord at his station. The tunnels filled with the sound of alarm bells.

Barney, Davy and Sam pelted ahead toward a junction. But Harriet skidded to a halt next to Sibelius. Her heart slammed in her chest. “No!” she shouted.

A dozen armed soldiers had appeared in the tunnel and her crew had run straight into them. They hadn’t a chance. The soldiers butted them to the ground, guns pressed against their heads.

“Mademoiselle! Vite!”

Harriet froze. Me lads, she thought. I can’t leave ‘em.

Davy twisted his head around beneath a soldier’s boot. “Run, Cap’n! Go!” he said. “We’ll be grand. Go!”

Sibelius’s leathery fingers closed around her wrist. He dragged her toward a different tunnel. “We’ll be back, lads,” she called as he pulled her away. More soldiers were jogging into the tunnel, slinging guns from their shoulders.

“Go, Cap’n, go!”

Me brave and hearty lads! What’ve I done?

“Courage, mes amis!” said Sibelius. Then, to Harriet, “This way!”

A bullet pinged past her ear, exploding in the tunnel wall, spitting chips of stonework.

Sibelius yanked her after him. Harriet ran. Another junction; another passage; soldiers thundering after them, catching up, shadows looming and vanishing against the walls; the stomping of military boots rumbling at their backs.

“Mademoiselle, vite!” Sibelius called over his shoulder. “It’s too late,” Harriet panted. Her legs ached and her lungs burned. “They’re on us!”

“A little further… is another passage… concealed and narrow…”

Cripes, she thought. That’s a sky monkey’s memory for you.

Sibelius loped ahead until… he vanished. Harriet skidded to a standstill. Blazes! she thought. Where’d he go?

“Mademoiselle, ici! In here!”

He’d sidestepped into a narrow tunnel, the entrance concealed by shadows. Harriet dashed in after him. But her hesitation had cost them. As she ran into the darkened passageway, she caught sight of soldiers from the corner of her eye. Someone shouted. Stone chips exploded around her as bullets ricocheted by her head.

“Run!” she shouted, as if they had planned to do anything else. “Run!”

They ran.

Right on Sibelius’s heels, the soldiers pounding behind, Harriet dodged left, then right, then left and left again. Sometimes she was sure they were heading upwards. Other times she was sure they were descending again. Can’t tell no more which direction we’re heading.

Gunshots cracked the air. Bullets ricocheted around them. Sibelius ducked into another tunnel and Harriet followed, plunging into darkness.

Harriet felt Sibelius’s rough fur ahead of her. He had slowed, his hands fingering along the walls, feeling the way forward. The guards were closing in.

“Light the flash lantern!” barked a gruff voice behind them. “We’ve got them cornered now.”

Sibelius’s muscular arm wrapped around Harriet’s waist. He hauled her off her feet. What the blooming…? She touched the floor again as her friend’s hand closed over her mouth.

“Shhh!” he hissed in her ear.

She stood, still locked in Sibelius’s arms, blood throbbing at her temples, aching in every limb; smelling damp stone and monkey fur; seeing only darkness.

Light flashed. They were hiding in a deep alcove. A torch beam arced through the main tunnel, sweeping the walls and floor with light.

“Can’t see them,” said the same voice she’d heard before. “Must have pegged it faster than I’d thought. Come on! One-two! One-two!”

Sibelius’s arms tensed and his hand tightened over her mouth as the soldiers trotted past, their profiles two feet away from her own face.

When silence had again consumed the trudging of military boots, Sibelius relaxed, releasing Harriet. She felt dizzy and leaned on him for support.

“Nice work,” she whispered into the darkness. “Now what?”

“I do not think we can return to the others,” Sibelius said. “If they have taken them back to the dungeon, there will be more than one guard at the door now.”

“Even if we could find the way back,” Harriet said, still clutching the clockwork sparrow. “Even you must be lost now. This ain’t the way we came.”

She felt him shrug. “C’est facile. With experience comes understanding. The manner in which places are built follows typical rules. I cannot say I know the way. But I am sure I can find it. The human imagination is very predictable, mademoiselle.”

“Hey, I’m human, you know!”

“Je sais, mademoiselle. It is your only fault.”

Harriet frowned. “Sometimes I can’t tell when you’re serious and when you’re jokin’,” she said. “But human or not, we ain’t going to rot away in here. We need to come back for the others later. But first we’ll have to take our chances and get ourselves out o’ here.”

Harriet followed Sibelius in silence. Her mind was on the welfare of her crew. And she was worrying about the princess, too.

“Mademoiselle,” Sibelius said, stopping and pointing up a narrow, winding staircase. “At the top we should find ourselves back in the palace. And there we will find what we need.”

“C’mon, then,” Harriet said, eager to be free of the dungeons. “Let’s do it.”

As Harriet spiraled upwards, weariness in every step despite her bravado, light filtered toward her. Bells clanged; the noise reverberating around her. I don’t like the sound o’ that, she thought.

They emerged into a gloomy vestibule. The bells were deafening. But not deafening enough to mask a soldier’s shouted orders. “Search every room! Kill them on sight!”

She shuddered. That’ll be us they’re to kill on sight, no doubt. Her heart ached. Maybe they already done me mates in. Sibelius’s leathery hand squeezed her shoulder.

They were on ground level. A narrow window looked over an inner courtyard. The palace’s high windows, soaring towers and golden cupolas glittered above it. The courtyard was busy. There were stables and workshops; open fronted warehouses with double gates swung wide. There were dozens of people busy repairing mechanical roosters; others unloading supplies. I s’pose the slaves can’t do everything, she thought.

Then her heart skipped a beat. “Sibelius!” she hissed, tugging at his arm. “Look!”

In the middle of the yard was Harriet’s starship, or what was left of it, a team in overalls busy dismantling it. “Now that’s enough to make a girl cry, Sibelius,” she whispered.

“Je regrette, mademoiselle. There is nothing we can do to save the ship. But we may still save our friends.”

“Yeah, well you make sure you remember how to get back here in that clever hairy head of yours, just in case we get the chance.”

Sibelius’s hand tightened its grip on her shoulder. She looked into his deep, simian eyes. “We must have hope, mademoiselle,” he said. “And we must escape.”

Harriet laid her hand over his and squeezed. “You’re right, Sibelius. Let’s get out o’ here, shall we?”

Soldiers stomped along the corridor beyond the vestibule. They were very close. Harriet and Sibelius threw their backs against adjacent walls, pressing flat against the stone. The soldiers ran past them. Edging forward, Harriet peeked into the corridor.

There were soldiers in both directions. They worked systematically, opening doors on either side of the hallway. One guard remained outside while the others searched, to reappear a moment later, slamming the door shut and moving on to the next.

“We’re trapped right in the middle,” Harriet said. “How do we get out there without being seen?”

“We don’t, mademoiselle,” Sibelius said. “We go in there.” Her friend pointed to an iron grille embedded in the floor.

“But that’s a drain,” Harriet said.

“Oui, mademoiselle,” Sibelius said, unhooking a lantern from the wall and passing it to her. “It is.”