He dug into a bag on his lap and dropped something spiky onto the floor by the padlocked metal box. There was an excited chittering sound, a twitching nose appeared from behind the box, and the scrap was snatched away. There was the sound of ravenous crunching.
‘He is talking to his clink!’ Rye whispered, and heard Sonia and Dirk, who by now were both looking over his shoulder, breathe out in relief.
‘I agree with you, Snaffle dear!’ Four-Eyes cried merrily. ‘Your master is a genius! We’ll be able to trade that skull for a fortune at the Diggings! Not to mention that we still have those ducks in the back. Should we offer them to the Diggings guards as well?’
The nose reappeared at the box’s corner, and the clink gave a squeak.
‘You’re quite right, of course!’ Four-Eyes nodded. ‘They’d only eat them—feathers and all, most likely—which would be a pity, in some ways. Still, Snaffle my dear, we must be practical. Who else would have the means to pay us so much?’
Rye felt Sonia stiffen and heard Dirk swear under his breath. He gritted his teeth, trying not to think of Bones, and Bones’ great hopes for the three ‘magic ones’ who had brought him nothing but grief.
The trader wriggled in his seat, arching his back as if to ease aching muscles. The clink chattered, and again Four-Eyes nodded as if he understood exactly what it was saying.
‘Just a slight cramp—nothing to worry about, my dear. But I’m tired, I admit. I sometimes wonder if I’m getting too old for this business. Still, the skull was worth it.’
He took his left hand from the wheel and tapped the metal box with satisfaction. ‘Not to mention that the Den scourings brought the jell in our crock right up to the brim! That will please them at the Diggings. Especially now, when I hear …’
He leaned slightly towards the clink and lowered his voice as if speaking to it in confidence. Rye had to strain to hear him. ‘Especially now, Snaffle, when I hear whisperings that something big is about to happen at the Harbour. Something rather important to the Master, I gather, and therefore not on any account to fail. But hush! Not a word!’
He began to raise a finger to his lips, but stopped midway, put his head on one side, and stroked his chin instead.
The clink snuffled.
‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ Four-Eyes murmured. ‘Mysterious strangers in the Scour … and so-called wizards appearing in the Saltings … It could be chance, but it could also be connected with the rumours about the Harbour. The Master has his enemies, we all know that. Which means, Snaffle …”
He hunched forward, tapping the wheel with his fingertips. The eyes in the back of his head rolled upwards till only the whites showed. The sight was so horrible that Rye had to bite his lips to stop himself from exclaiming in disgust.
‘Which means,’ Four-Eyes went on slowly, ‘that the Master’s people would pay very well to hear what I’ve sworn to keep secret.’
Absent-mindedly he tossed a second smoked whine to the clink, and popped one into his own mouth as well.
‘Really most unfortunate,’ he mumbled, chewing rapidly. ‘I should have thought of it before. Oh, now I’ve given myself a headache!’
He groaned and rubbed his forehead. ‘Most unfortunate,’ he repeated. ‘But bargains are bargains. There’s no going back on them, Snaffle. Sharp trading is one thing, but my word is my bond.’
He bent over the wheel, staring pensively at the smoke puffing from his vehicle’s funnel. Slowly the eyes in the back of his head returned to normal.
‘And on second thoughts, my pet,’ he murmured, plucking a fragment of whine wing from his bottom lip, ‘it might be just as well if we know nothing about events that concern the Master. In fact, to be on the safe side, we might take a little holiday after this run—get ourselves out of the way for a few weeks, till the Harbour affair is settled one way or another. What do you say?’
Tiny claws scrabbled on the wagon floor and the clink chirruped.
‘I’m glad you agree, my dear,’ Four-Eyes said tenderly. ‘No, don’t ask me for any more treats. Smoked whines are very salty. Next you’ll be wanting a drink, and we need every drop of our water for the engine. Why don’t you get some sleep while you can? I’ll relax, too. Diggings in two hours.’
He settled himself more comfortably in his seat and began to hum tunelessly. Slowly the eyes in the back of his head closed.
Rye returned the crystal to the little brown bag and turned to his companions.
Sonia’s face was so pale that it glimmered in the dimness like an oval of floating white smoke. Without a word she slumped back on the heap of empty sacks, looking completely exhausted.
But Rye and Dirk, once they had settled down beside her, were too full of what they had heard to keep silent. They began at once to whisper to one another, confident that the humming trader would not hear them over the chugging and rattling of the wagon.
‘If Olt’s brother is the one sending the skimmers to Weld, this big event the trader spoke of could be some new plan of attack,’ said Rye.
Dirk grimaced. ‘It could be. We will find out soon enough. The thing I would like to know is why jell is so precious here. By the Wall, the trader keeps it in that locked box, as if it was gold! But jell is nothing! Its only use is as a dye, and a very little goes a long way.’
‘A dye for cloth, you mean?’ Sonia murmured.
‘Yes, and a very cheap, common dye at that,’ said Dirk, turning to look at her. ‘Why do you think the Keep soldiers’ leggings are red? Or the Keep orphans’ uniforms, come to that?’
‘Olt’s flags and banners were red too,’ Rye put in.
‘Of course.’ Dirk shrugged. ‘There is jell in plenty in the west. While I was staying in Fleet I often saw workers come across it when they were digging deep.’
Sonia blinked at him sleepily. ‘So in Weld, and in the west of Dorne, jell is not highly valued because it is plentiful and used only to dye cloth. But here it is very highly valued, so it is either not so plentiful—which does not seem to be the case—or it is used for something else.’
‘I cannot think what,’ Dirk said, shaking his head. ‘You cannot eat jell, or build with it, or use it as fuel—all those things, and dozens of others, have been tried.’
‘Yet the Master wants every scrap he can get,’ Rye said. ‘He must have discovered another use for it!’
‘Then he has succeeded where thousands before him have failed,’ Dirk muttered. ‘By the Wall, it is a mystery! I would love to know the truth of it.’
‘No doubt we will, when we reach the Harbour,’ Rye said uneasily.
Sonia yawned. Her eyelids were drooping. Framed by her close-fitting cap, her face looked small and pinched. ‘I am sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I am … so tired. I don’t recall ever having been so tired in my whole life before.’
‘It is all that thinking, Sonia!’ Dirk teased gently, and Rye noted with surprise that there was real affection in his brother’s voice. It seemed that Sonia’s eager support of the plan to steal the ducks had made Dirk think of her as a friend at last, instead of as a nuisance.
‘In fact, we should all get some rest,’ Dirk went on. ‘The sound of the wagon slowing and stopping will wake us when we reach the Diggings.’
Rye leaned back against the pile of smelly sacks. It was exquisite relief to close his eyes. He was just drifting deliciously into sleep when he felt a tickling sensation on the tip of his little finger. He woke with a start, realising that the armour shell was slowly sliding off.
He caught the shell just in time to stop it falling to the ground, and held it tightly, appalled at his own carelessness. He had become so used to the shell that he had almost forgotten he was wearing it. But as he had begun falling asleep it had sensed that he felt safe—safe for the first time since the attack of the giant bird—and it had loosened accordingly.