24
SILTSIDE
Men roared and screamed at each other. The boat shook
as though in a storm as the soldiers hurled themselves out and met
the first mudlark defenders. One of the men holding the grappling
ropes passed them to Berren. ‘Make yourself useful boy! Tie this
off!’ Then he was gone. By the time Berren had tied the first rope
around one of the rowing benches, the commotion of fighting had
died down. By the time he’d tied off the second and clambered
ashore, the soldiers had already moved on. He could hear where they
were from the shouting, and always over the top of it all, Master
Sy’s voice. ‘On, lads! Fast now!’
There were bodies.
Fallen off the walkway, lying in the mud under three feet of water,
waiting to be rolled away up the river with the rising tide. Berren
had to squint and peer at them to see who they were through the
lapping waves. Two soldiers, almost lost in a haze of swirling
silt. One of them had the harpoon that Berren had seen in him. The
spear was buried so deeply that the point poked out the other side.
The second one had an arrow in his neck. As Berren watched, a slow
string of bubbles popped out of his mouth and climbed their way to
the surface. Then a crab scuttled up from out of the murk and
started crawling across his face. Berren shuddered. Fifty, maybe
sixty yards away, the second boat full of Justicar Kol’s soldiers
thumped in against another hut. These ones had an easy ride. The
mudlarks who’d been waiting to meet it had already
run.
Berren glanced into
the hut. There was another body there, a mudlark, cut down from
behind. Not much else. Nets and fishing lines hung out to dry, that
was all.
Something thunked
into the wood not more that two feet away from his head, the noise
so sharp and sudden that he almost fell into the water in surprise.
When he turned to look, he saw an arrow, quivering there. He looked
back the way the arrow had come, but all he saw was water and huts
and more water and more huts, all jumbled together. Whoever the
archer was, they’d ducked into hiding. With a gulp, he ran off,
around the walkways, racing for Master Sy and the
soldiers.
He caught up with
them rampaging through a collection of larger huts. Most of the
mudlarks who’d lived there had obviously run away before the
soldiers had come, but that wasn’t stopping the Justicar’s men from
smashing everything that would break. Master Sy was in the middle
of a shouting match with one of them. In another corner of the hut,
one of the soldiers had carefully made a pile of rags and quietly
dropped his torch onto it. Master Sy didn’t seem to have
noticed.
‘Master! Master!’
Berren waved frantically. The thief-taker dropped whatever argument
he had with the solider and ran to try and put the fire out. Except
he didn’t make it, because one of the soldiers stepped in front of
him.
‘You get paid for
getting your man,’ said the soldier. ‘We get paid for every hut
that burns.’
The thief-taker
snapped something back in a language Berren didn’t know and strode
away again. He grabbed Berren’s arm, livid.
‘This . . .’ He
snarled and seethed, too furious to speak for a moment. ‘You stay
here, boy. Stay with these idiots.’ He ran outside. Berren took one
look and followed. Armoured men setting fire to wooden huts built
over the sea didn’t seem like such a good idea. When the huts came
down and dumped them all into the water and then the mudlarks with
the bows showed their heads again, Berren wanted to be somewhere
else. He ran after the thief-taker and found him standing outside,
hands on hips, teeth gritted.
‘See,’ he hissed.
‘See?’
Berren didn’t dare
say a word. He had no idea what he was supposed to be looking
at.
‘There!’ Master Sy
pointed into the water. A dozen yards away was another hut. The
bridge that would have taken them there had been cut at the other
end. There was no way across. ‘See that hut there, lad? That’s
where the Bloody Dag hangs his hat. See how close we
came?’
As if in answer, a
small group of mudlarks emerged from the hut across the water.
Several of them had bows, and one of them was carrying a flaming
brand.
‘Hey, Deepies,’ waved
one of the bowmen. ‘Got a goose and pheasant for you.’ With that he
touched an arrow to the brand. The arrow caught fire at once. Then
he quickly took aim. Master Sy kicked Berren’s legs out from under
him and they both dropped to the floor as the arrow shot across the
water and hit the wooden wall behind them. In a flash, the
thief-taker was back on his feet.
‘You needn’t bother
with that, Dag,’ he shouted back. ‘They’re already doing it for
you.’
‘Aye aye. Well we
always knew you Deepies were soft in the head. Hope you can sing a
hymn, matey. Going to get mighty wet or mighty hot.’ He lit another
arrow. Master Sy hastily pulled Berren back inside. The soldiers
had moved away. Master Sy stamped the fire out. At least the hut
was only burning on the outside now.
‘Go back to the
boats, lad. Wait there.’
‘Master . .
.’
The thief-taker’s
face grew dark. Berren winced. ‘Boy . . .’ He stopped. ‘Can you
swim, lad?’
Berren shook his
head.
‘Come here.’ He
jumped to the middle of the hut and kicked away the wreckage that
lay there. Underneath was a little door. Master Sy opened it. ‘They
all have these in Siltside,’ he said grimly. ‘I hope you learn
quickly. Stay here.’ Then he ran out of the hut back towards the
boat, calling for the Justicar’s soldiers. Berren peered cautiously
out of the hut back towards the Bloody Dag. He was still there with
his gang, arrows at the ready, watching. When they saw Berren they
jeered and one of them popped another arrow at him. Berren ducked
back inside. He could smell smoke now. The outside wall of the hut
was definitely on fire. He opened up the door in the floor. About
two feet below, the swell of the estuary water rolled gently up and
down.
By the time the
thief-taker came back, Berren’s hut was burning merrily. Flames
were licking through cracks in the walls and the smoke was starting
to be choking. Master Sy had three soldiers with him. Without
hesitation, he jumped down into the sea, holding on to the edge of
the trapdoor with one hand.
‘The rest of you, you
know what to do. Keep their eyes on you and away from the water.’
He looked at Berren. ‘Come on, lad, jump in. This won’t work
without you.’
‘What won’t . . . ?’
He didn’t get to hear an answer. Master Sy snatched out a hand,
grabbed his ankle and pulled and the next thing Berren knew, he was
toppling through the trapdoor and into the water. His arms flailed
wildly. ‘I can’t . . . !’ he started to shriek, and then his head
went under.
‘Get up!’ His head
burst into the air again. He took a huge breath, waiting for the
next plunge, and clawed at the hut roof, just out of
reach.
‘Get up!’ snapped the
thief-taker again. ‘Get on my shoulders, boy. Now.’
Once Berren had his
arms wrapped around the thief-taker’s neck and his legs locked like
a vice around his waist, he realised that Master Sy was actually
standing on the bottom, with the water rising and falling around
his chest. With his chin tipped up, the thief-taker’s face stayed
mostly out of the water, even when the waves came. Every time he
moved, Master Sy swore at him, but other than that and the constant
certainty that the thief-taker was about to lose his balance and
tip them both into the sea, he felt perfectly safe. Until Master Sy
started to walk out from under the hut, wobbling precariously with
every step, straight towards the Bloody Dag and his
men.
‘Right lads,’ he
roared, ‘let them have it!’
He waited, just under
the edge of the hut they’d left. Berren could see the men of the
Bloody Dag; or rather he could see them from the waist down. The
rest of their bodies were still obscured. Then he heard a shout and
a scream and one of them fell and toppled into the sea. The others
ran for cover.
‘Now.’ The
thief-taker sounded grim. ‘Hold on tight, lad.’ He waded out,
meandering towards the Bloody Dag’s cluster of huts. Berren clung
on, eyes screwed almost shut, waiting for the moment when one of
the mudlark archers would come back and spot them, exposed and
helpless in the water right in front of him. Knowing that the
thief-taker would die first was little comfort. Yet somehow none of
those things happened, and before he even knew it, they were easing
under the walkway around the Dag’s hut, and into the shadows
beyond.
‘Keep your voice down
now,’ whispered the thief-taker. He spat out a mouthful of sea
water. ‘I can’t see too well. There should be another trapdoor.
When you see it . . .’
‘I see it,’ hissed
Berren. ‘It’s right here!’
The thief-taker
stopped. ‘Climb up. Stand on my shoulders if you have to. Then open
it.’
Berren did as he was
asked. The trapdoor had a big wooden peg running through one edge
of it with a catch and a handle. He reached out, touched it, and
then paused.
‘What if someone’s up
there?’ he whispered.
‘Then you’d better
hope they don’t notice you.’
‘But . .
.’
The thief-taker
tensed. ‘It’s that or be dumped in the water while I try to climb
one of the piles, boy. Take your pick!’
As gently as he
could, Berren pushed the trapdoor up so that he was taking its
weight. He turned the handle. It moved easily, without complaint.
He pushed a little more, then stretched up, pushing the door open
with his head while steadying himself with his hands. Below him, he
heard Master Sy grunt.
The hut, or at least
the half of it he could see, was empty. He pushed the door open
some more, trying to convince himself that it would make a decent
enough shield in case someone was standing right behind
him.
They weren’t. The
rest of the hut was empty too. Berren hauled himself up. He sat on
the edge of the hole, dripping and panting, scared witless and
tingling with exhilaration. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d
felt so sure he was going to die. Not even when One-Thumb had had
him cornered. But this was what he was here for, wasn’t it? This
was what thief-taking was all about. This was what he’d come to
learn . . .
A soggy length of
rope landed in his lap. ‘Come on, boy, tie that to something and
make it snappy. That is, unless you were thinking of taking on the
Dag and his men on your own.’