‘The sea,’ he said.
They made their way back to the centre of the swamp, through humps of mud that gave them cover. At midday they opened their packs and drank from their bottles. Food could wait. They swam and slid towards the sea, drawn by its booming when the frogs fell silent.
Ben stopped suddenly, holding Hana still with his good arm.
‘Island,’ he whispered.
She slid alongside him.
‘Someone living on it. I’ll go and see.’
He left his pack and wriggled away. The island rose from a belt of reeds. A wooden shack, thatched with rushes, stood like a hooded eye. Ben circled to the far side, where the plain opened out, with horsemen drilling close by. A soldier guarded the entrance of a gravel causeway, lounging beside a pole with the Limping Man’s pennant flapping in a breeze. Ben hated the symbol. The crooked line made him think of his lost hand.
A horseman cantered up. He handed the guard a canvas bag, waited while he looked in it, grinned at some joke and rode away. Flies swarmed round the bag. Food, Ben thought. He watched the guard saunter on the causeway, picking his way where water overlapped it. When he reached the island he tossed the bag towards the shack, yelling, ‘Grub’s up, Queenie. Come and get it.’
Sliding closer in the rushes, Ben saw the door move, heard it scrape. A grey-haired woman dressed in a belted shift scuttled out. She was bent like the handle of a shepherd’s crook. Her hair, hanging loose, brushed the ground. She made clutching movements as she ran to the bag. She squatted by it, ferreted in it, then screamed like a disappointed gull: ‘He’s stolen it. He’s eaten my cheese.’
The guard, halfway along the causeway, called over his shoulder: ‘No cheese, Queenie. Cheese on odd days.’
‘Stolen. My lovely cheese.’ She rummaged again. ‘Where’s my eel?’
‘Eels are in your head, Queenie. A bone is what you get. Dog bone and bread.’
‘Thief. Liar. Oh my cheese! My eel! I’ll tell your captain. I’ll have you whipped.’
The guard made a two-fingered gesture over his shoulder and went on.
Ben watched as the woman gathered the bag in her arms and ran, crooked and crab-like, to her house. The door scraped shut and the swamp came back to life – yelping frogs, hooting toads. Ben slid back to Hana in the reeds.
‘She’s a prisoner.’
‘Why aren’t they burning her?’ Hana said.
‘I’m going to find out.’
They swam back to the forest and found a place to eat.
Ben hunted for leaves to cool their leech bites. Then they slept in the shade for an hour.
‘Now,’ said Ben, waking.
‘She’ll call the guards.’
‘Not when she sees what I’ve got.’
He followed a thin creek deeper into the forest, lay on the spongy ground, thrust his arm under a ledge and hauled out an eel. He pinned it under his foot and sliced off its head.
‘She’ll talk to us now.’ He gutted the eel.
They crawled and swam back to the island. The scrub round the shack hid them from the soldiers on the plain. They went through scrawny trees, keeping low to the ground. Smoke drooped from a chimney, wrapping them. A canvas flap, waist high, covered an opening in the back wall. Ben gave Hana the eel. He scratched on the canvas.
‘Queenie,’ he whispered.
A screech, a scuttle, sounded inside. Then a voice like a cracked plate: ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’
‘I’ve brought you something for your dinner.’
A hand pulled the canvas aside and the woman’s head poked out. Hana had never seen an uglier face. It was broken- toothed and folded like bread-dough, with eyelids turned inside out. The eyes were alive though, quick and hungry.
‘Where is it? What have you got?’
‘An eel, Queenie. A fat one, see?’ Ben took it from Hana and swung it in front of the woman. Her free hand snatched at it.
‘Give it to me,’ she screeched. ‘I’ll call my boy. My boy will make you.’
‘Quiet, Queenie. The soldiers will hear. They won’t let you have it. Where’s your boy?’
‘Everywhere. My boy’s everywhere. You give it here.’
‘Can we come in, Queenie? There’s mosquitoes biting us.
We’ll help you cook it.’
‘It’s mine. You’ll take it all.’
‘No, it’s for you. All yours.’ He dangled the eel in front of her.
‘Who’s that with you? I don’t like girls. They sneak things, girls.’
‘She’s my servant, Queenie. If she opens her mouth I’ll give her a kick.’
‘She can cook my eel. She can serve it to me. Have you got cheese?’
‘No cheese, Queenie. The soldiers ate it. But here’s your eel.
Look how fat it is. You can have it all, we don’t want any.’
She pulled the canvas aside. Ben handed the eel to Hana. He went into the shack, knife in hand. If she had a boy he would be waiting. Light from the window showed a table, a chair, an iron stove shaped like a pot, with a tin chimney rising through a hole in the roof. The bed was a wooden shelf piled with ragged blankets. Hana, coming through the flap, was reminded of the shelter she had shared with Mam.
The woman snatched the eel from her and hugged it to her breast.
‘Eels is best. Eels is best,’ she crooned.
Ben sheathed his knife. ‘Why have they got you locked up, Queenie? What have you done?’
‘I’m not locked up,’ she said. ‘This is my island. Ask my boy. But the soldiers steal my dinner. Have you come from him?’
‘Who is your boy?’ Hana said; and the woman shrieked at her, ‘Girls don’t talk. Girls keep their mouths shut. Make my bed, girl. Sweep my hearth.’
‘Yes, girl, do it. Quick,’ Ben said. He winked at her.
‘I’ll cook your eel if you like,’ Hana said. ‘But tell me first. Tell him.’
‘Who needs telling?’ said the woman. ‘Everyone knows Vosper. Vosper is my boy. He grew up here, with me and his father, on this island. Vosper knows you’re here. Vosper knows everything.’
‘Where is Vosper?’ Hana said. A cold idea was creeping in her.
‘She’s still talking, this girl. Hit her, boy. Make her kneel.’
‘How did he hurt his leg?’ Hana said.
‘A kick, that’s what he got. His father gave him a kick. It’s what boys need. And plenty of good whippings. He saw to that. He had a lovely whip, made of horse-hide, Jug did. He whipped Vosper, it did him good. But he kicked him too hard. Bent his ankle like a tin spoon. Drowned soon after that, my poor Jug. Drowned in the swamp. Frogs and toads all over him.’
‘And Vosper,’ Hana said, ‘he walks with a limp?’
‘Limps, my boy. But he’s good to me. He sends me meat.
No one else gets meat. But they love him. Everybody does, even when there’s nothing to eat. They look at my Vosper and they fall down on their knees.’
‘The Limping Man,’ Hana said to Ben.
He nodded. He looked pale.
‘He’s king of the world,’ Queenie said. ‘I’m the queen. Goat cheese, he sends me. But those soldiers bite it, I see their teeth. Cook my eel, girl, or I’ll have you whipped.’
‘No whipping, Queenie,’ Ben said. ‘Tell me how he makes people love him.’
‘Ah,’ she said, shaking her head, grinning sideways with her crumbled teeth, ‘you’ve come for secrets. You want my secrets.’
‘I’ll bring you another eel,’ Ben said.
‘Eels is not enough. Not for secrets. There’s people say he got too close to that poison salt. He sold frogs, my Vosper. They ate frogs, those Company. In silver dishes. Ottmar, King Ottmar, he ate frogs. Vosper went to the back door of them houses, frogs in his sack, hee hee, so they could eat the legs and lick their chops. The fat fools. The greasy chops. We wouldn’t eat frogs, Jug and me, only toads eat frogs. But Vosper came home with silver pennies in his poke. We had more money than when Jug was alive.’
‘Did he?’ Hana whispered. ‘Did he get too close to the poison salt?’
‘Stories. All sorts of stories about him. Like he crawled out of the swamp or the forest or the sea. It’s lies. I’m the one that knows. My Vosper is clever, he’s so clever. He worked for that Clerk when he was king. He sniffed out things for that Clerk. But that was before.’
‘Before what, Queenie?’
‘She’s talking. This girl is talking. Why haven’t I got Jug’s whip?’
‘I’ll cook your eel if you tell us,’ Hana said. She reached for it and Queenie jerked away.
‘I’ve got it. I got it from you. Ha!’
‘Please tell us, Queenie,’ Hana said.
The woman hugged the eel, sniffed it, licked the flesh where the head was severed.
Ben pulled Hana away. He hooked the stump of his arm over Queenie’s shoulder and held his knife at her throat. ‘Tell us,’ he said.
She curled her mouth at him. Her eyes gleamed with cunning. ‘Can’t tell you if I’m dead, can I?’
He pricked her throat. A stain of red seeped into the folds of her skin. But she bared her brown teeth at him. ‘Kill me, boy, and the toads will find out. There’s no place you can hide from the toads.’
‘Stop it, Ben,’ Hana said.
‘I can make her talk.’
‘Stop it, I said.’ She pulled his knife-arm away.
‘Shouldn’t let girls boss you. Bossy girls get burned,’ Queenie said.
‘Does he talk to them?’ Hana said. ‘Does Vosper talk to the toads?’
‘Hear that, boy? Hear what she’s doing? They sniff around.
They find things out, girls do. But I don’t tell. I never tell. I’m his ma but it wouldn’t save me.’
‘What do the toads say to him?’ Hana whispered.
‘No toads, girl. I never said toads.’
Hana stepped away. She was sorry for the old woman, frightened for her. She could see her chained to a stake in People’s Square. But she had to know.
‘How do you like your eels, Queenie? Boiled or baked?’
‘Boiled is best, then there’s soup. Don’t touch it. And kneel down when you talk to me. If Vosper was here you’d kneel quick enough.’
‘Right, I’m kneeling,’ Hana said. ‘Now, Queenie. Queen. Tell me the secret and I’ll dig a hole for it, under the ground. Whisper to me.’
‘Lower, girl. Kneel proper.’
Hana obeyed. ‘I’ll hide it where the toads will never know.’
Queenie, still hugging the eel, grinned at Ben. ‘See how she thinks she can get what I know for nothing. Fair exchange is what you give for secrets. What have you got for Queenie? See their money first is what Jug said.’
‘What happened to Vosper? How did he change?’
Queenie forgot her avarice. She smiled with pride. ‘Ah, like tadpoles into frogs. He went out one day and he came home at night and put his hand right here.’ She touched her forehead. ‘“Get down on your knees, Ma. Tell me how you love me.” And I did. I got down. I cried out my eyes I loved my Vosper so hard. Light shone out of him.’
‘How?’ Hana whispered.
‘And then he took his money and went down to the sea, past the burrows, where those traders come from the south, and he came home with cloth, finest cloth, it slides in your fingers, and he told me how to sew it, and I sewed. I made robes for him, red robes burning with yellow, and a red headdress burning at the top, and he put them on and walked across the plain into the city and everyone fell down on their knees and worshipped him.’
‘Why, Queenie. Why did they worship him?’
‘I followed him but he turned and shouted, “Go back to your island, woman. Live on your island.” And I did. I wait for him here. One day my Vosper will come.’
Tears streamed down her face. Hana stood up and took the old woman by the shoulders. She rocked her gently. ‘He’ll come, Queenie. But tell us how he changed. What did he do?’
Queenie drew back. She shook off Hana’s hands. Her sad fallen cheeks bunched up, her eyes flashed with anger.
‘Secrets. She wants my secrets. She’ll try to hurt my Vosper, I can tell. Whip her, boy. Use your belt.’
Ben pushed Hana aside.
‘What can I bring you, Queenie? Two eels? Two more fat ones? You can have them if you tell me instead of her. She’ll never know. I’ll climb up in the mountains and hide it in the snow. Then no one can ever hurt Vosper.’
Queenie’s eyes darted. ‘More than eels. I want more.’
‘What then?’
‘Cheese.’
‘No cheese, Queenie. The soldiers have eaten it all.’
‘Pigeons then. Bring me pigeons.’
‘And then you’ll tell?
‘If they’re fat ones. I haven’t had a pigeon since Jug was drowned.’
‘Two fat pigeons,’ Ben said.
‘Plucked and gutted.’
‘All right. Tomorrow. In the morning. But no pigeons if you don’t tell me. You’ll have to live off dog bones till you die. Now cook your eel.’
He lifted the canvas flap. ‘Come on, girl. Hurry up or you’ll get a kick.’
Hana stooped through the flap. He pushed her with his foot.
‘Tomorrow, Queenie. Fair exchange.’
‘Plucked and gutted,’ the woman said. ‘And mind they’re fat. So I can push my finger in. This eel’s not fat.’
‘It’s good enough. Tomorrow, eh? I’ve got to go and give this girl a whipping.’
‘Hit her hard. Make her cry.’
They stooped through the bushes at the back of the island, waded into the water and swam to the forest. Before leaving the swamp Ben cut several flax leaves and wrapped them round his waist.
‘If you kick me tomorrow I’ll kick you,’ Hana said. ‘Where it hurts.’
‘Just doing it for Queenie,’ Ben said.
They found a place to rest in the trees. Ben scraped the flax leaves and tied three snares.
‘Why three?’
‘One for us. I’m getting hungry.’
He vanished into the trees. Hana found a stream and washed the mud smell off her body and out of her clothes. It would be back tomorrow but her mind felt muddy too, after the woman. She found a place where the sun broke through the canopy and put her clothes on bushes to dry. What could Queenie tell them? Some spell the Limping Man spoke? Some magic sign he made? Hana did not believe it. Mam had said there was no magic, everything was natural and could be understood. Some food he ate, then, or mixture he drank? Wasn’t that magic too in its way? There was something though, and magic or not it came from the toads. Did he slide down into the swamp with them the way she climbed her silver rope to Hawk in the sky? Did he find his strength there? If she knew then maybe she and Ben could find a way to strip it away. Queenie had said he could be hurt.
She lay down in the sun by the stream. How did a thin weak boy, whipped and crippled by his father, turn into the Limping Man? She felt sick with the thought of him – how he had suffered, what he had become. She had no doubt that somehow he had drowned his father.