“Those guys at the bar heard us talking,” I said.
“Perhaps.”
I gave Renthrette the pendant, as a peace offering for getting her brother wasted. I still didn’t think it was my fault that he couldn’t handle his beer, but it seemed the diplomatic solution. I never saw her wear it.
I couldn’t sleep that night and volunteered to watch the Joseph house. Renthrette walked me down to show me the best spot. I suggested she let me put my arm round her so that we would look like a normal couple, but she was having none of it. It was a warm evening and she wore her sleeveless bottle-green dress with the narrow waist and lowish front. I told her that she looked good in it, and while she shrugged it off with a knowing smile, she didn’t actually threaten me.
As soon as we got to the little hawthorn hedge that was to be my lookout spot for the evening, she left me. I lay on my stomach and wondered what it would have been like if she’d stayed. Pretty much the same, probably.
The rear door into the yard, wide enough to get a wagon through, was ajar. The sun hadn’t quite disappeared, so there was enough light to see by. I would just look. No more.
I ran softly over to the perimeter wall and squashed myself flat against it. There was no sign of life, so I inched along to the doors and peered in.
There was a courtyard and a row of sheds joined to the back of the house. Four big men, stripped to the waist, were pulling something out: a large high-sided wagon. A moment later, grunting and sweating, they brought out two more. The bearded man who had served me at the stall, probably Caspian himself, was supervising the loading of the wagons with crates and boxes from the house.
I ran into the street and across town as if there was an army after me, which, in the circumstances, wasn’t out of the question.
I didn’t stop till I reached the Bricklayer’s Arms and blundered in shouting to the others.
“They’re moving out!”
“Positive?” said Mithos, leaping to his feet. They were all sitting downstairs, having a last drink before bed.
“Yes, they’re packing up to leave.”
“When?”
“You people never stop asking questions till you find one I can’t answer. I don’t know,” I said. “It will take some time to get those wagons loaded. They probably won’t go until morning, but I could be wrong. It has, as I don’t need to tell you, been known to happen.”
Obviously we had to follow them, but that wasn’t going to be easy. Big wagons like that needed major roads, and that meant long open stretches where anyone following would be ridiculously obvious. We couldn’t guess where they were heading and they could leave the road at any point and vanish, leaving few or no tracks in the hard summer ground.
Garnet took a horse and rode down to the house, ready to report back if they moved off.
“We need a trail,” said Lisha.
“I’ll give them some bread crumbs,” I muttered.
“Mithos,” Lisha continued, ignoring me. “Do you still have the triggers we used to set the crossbow traps in the Hide?”
“In the green trunk.”
He went upstairs, and returned with a device the size of his fist, a collection of gears and springs fitted to a brass plate. Lisha took it in her hand and pushed a cog round carefully. On the fourth complete rotation a tiny hook snapped back and then closed up again.
“If we could add some gear wheels to the axle of one of the wagons, we could adjust this so it would click over every half-mile or so.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“It could release a stopper or plug or something. Paint, perhaps. Then it would leave a spot on the road each time it clicked over.”
“Paint is too obvious,” said Orgos. “What about chalk dust?”
“Can you do it?” said Lisha.
“I need the parts,” said Orgos, turning the wheel. “There’s a clockmaker’s in the next street. They should be glad of the chance to sidestep the trade tax.”
“Hang on,” I said suddenly. “How are we going to get at the wagon?”
“Not sure,” said Lisha. “We’ll meet in the street outside the house. Make your way there as indirectly as you can. Will, you get the chalk.”
“What? Where from? It’s the middle of the night. Where am I going to get chalk dust at this time?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Great. It was midnight and I was out looking for chalk dust. Who works with chalk? Artists? Circus weight lifters? I didn’t know many of those. I had some vague idea it might be used in metal casting, but I wasn’t sure. Then it hit me.
Not far from the Bricklayer’s Arms was a block of buildings hung with the aroma of fresh bread and pastry. At the far end, where the run-down houses leaned erratically and the roads were potholed and overgrown, was the house I had entered with Orgos, the first of the three Joseph houses to have been crossed off our list. I could hear running water not too far away: a stream. With the bakeries all clustered in this area it seemed safe to assume there’d be a mill.
There was. I ran across a rickety wooden bridge, and rapped on the door.
“What is it?” said a floury middle-aged man in overalls. His arms were thick and powerful and a cloud of white hung about him, stirring as he moved.
“I want to buy some chalk dust.”
“Are you trying to be funny, pal? I ought to punch your face in. And if you’re from the union or the food marketing committee, I want to see some papers. I’m saying nothing until I do.”
“I’m not,” I assured him calmly. “I just want some chalk dust and I want it now.”
“You’ve got a cheek coming round here-”
I held out six silver pieces and he shut up as if thumped with half a brick. He gave me a doubtful look, returned his gaze to the coins, and said, “How much do you want?”
I gestured with my hands, showing an area a couple of feet square.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Wait here.”
In a moment the exchange was complete.
“That ought to be plenty,” he said. “Half of one part chalk to one and a half parts flour. More than that and the bread’ll taste like powdered rocks.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Strolling back into the inn’s stable yard ten minutes later, I looked up and saw a face peering through the curtains of one of the guest rooms’ leaded windows. I had seen him in the bar the night before and had had the idea that he was too obviously doing nothing. He was in his late thirties, a lean, sinewy man with a pink complexion and hazel eyes. He was smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe and looking fixedly into space. I remembered the pipe, and was sure I had seen him before coming to Hopetown. Across a barroom back in Shale? His tobacco, I remembered, was strong with a curious flowery scent. He stood at the window looking down at me, the slim white pipe balanced between his fingers. Just a traveler preparing for bed? Perhaps.
“All right,” said Lisha, “here’s the plan.”
We had taken our food up to her room and I had been busily eating as she and Mithos whispered with Orgos. Garnet was standing by the door, ax in hand. Renthrette inexplicably offered me a bite of her apple.
