The Bone Magician (10 page)

‘Madame,’ he began breathlessly, but before he could continue Mr Pantagus frowned. ‘Madame de Bona does not wish to be
touched,’ he said sternly.

The man flushed and stepped back immediately, apologizing.

‘Tell me, Madame, why won’t my chickens lay?’

Madame de Bona fixed her empty sockets on the man
and replied scornfully, ‘I do not answer questions
about chickens.’

The man looked beseechingly at Mr Pantagus, but he only shrugged sympathetically.

After that, there followed a plethora of questions about a multitude of topics, generally the everyday concerns of citizens in a place such
as Urbs Umida. There was laughter at her replies, gasps, nods and shakes of the head. By the end the atmosphere was as jolly as the tavern downstairs
. Eventually Mr Pantagus held up his hand and the noise quieted and we
stood hanging on his every word.

‘Just one more question,’ said Mr Pantagus finally. ‘Time is running out
. Madame de Bona
will soon be exhausted.’

I thought it was Mr Pantagus who sounded exhausted. His voice, deep and throaty earlier, was strained. Before I could help it I heard
myself say, ‘I have a question.’

All eyes were on me and they lingered as usual, knowing that there was something different about my face, but not quite sure what
.

‘Madame
de Bona,’ I said carefully, ‘where is my father and why did he disappear?’

‘That’s two questions,’ muttered the man with the reluctant chickens.

Madame de Bona took her time answering. The crowd was beginning to shuffle its feet
. ‘Carpue
boy,’ I heard someone say from behind and I felt my cheeks flush bright red, but I maintained a steady gaze at Madame de Bona.

‘Child,’ came the soft reply, ‘your father is alive and not as far away as you think. Keep searching and you will find
the truth.’

I was shaking. I wanted them to stop looking at me and whispering
. At last, Mr Pantagus spoke.

‘My dear ladies and gentlemen,’ he said quickly, ‘there will be no more questions this evening
. I should like to thank you all for coming to see us and we hope you will tell all your friends about us.’

As if on cue, the skeleton sank slowly back down into the coffin, her bones giving one final rattle when her skull touched the wood. The
crowd cheered and clapped loudly.
The door behind them was opened and they shuffled out of the fragrant room into the not-so-fragrant tavern
.

I watched Mr Pantagus and Juno swiftly put the coffin together again. Then my view was blocked by people stepping on to the platform and
examining the coffin. Out of curiosity I too went to look, but it was empty and there was no sign of the Bone Magician or the girl. I looked around the screen and saw a door in the wall. I tried the handle, the door opened on to a staircase and I
descended to another door at the bottom. I stepped out into the alley that ran down the side of the Nimble Finger. The Foedus was to my left, to my right the thoroughfare over the Bridge.

The alley was empty. In the fresh cold air I pondered what I had just seen and the answer I had been given. I could feel a resurgence of
hope in my heart. Perhaps my father was still in the City after all. But with the hope came anxiety. If I did see him again, then I would find out the truth. But was that what I really wanted?

Out on the street Pin took his hat from his pocket and pulled it down over his ears, then raised the collar of his coat
to meet it. Unfortunately there was a deficit of material in the middle, leaving the back of his head exposed. The cold gripped his skull like a vice. The warmth of the ale and the inn were long gone.

‘I cannot stay out in this tonight,’ he thought. ‘I shall be dead before morning.’

Pin could not recall a winter this cold. Even the Foedus looked more sluggish than usual. He knew he had to keep moving. He set off, not
knowing where he was going, but stumbled almost immediately on something hard underfoot. A potato. He hoped that it might be hot. This was not
as unrealistic as it might sound. Many people carried hot potatoes in their
pockets for warmth and, of course, ultimately to eat. But this was not cooked. It still had the earth clinging to it. And it was a most peculiar shape, greatly swollen at one end, tapering almost to a point at the other. Except for its dark red skin Pin
might have thought it was a carrot.

‘I’ll be having that if you don’t mind.’

Pin looked around at the sound of the voice, but he could see no one.

‘Pardon?’ he said. Then he felt a tap on his lower back and looked down to see a short, in fact a very short,
solid-bodied man looking up at him.

‘Oh,’ said Pin, for want of anything better to say, and handed over the potato.

The man took it and slipped it in his pocket. ‘Many thanks,’ he said, and he held out his right hand – in his left he
had a pipe – and introduced himself, taking Pin’s hand with a firm grip. His palm felt rough and muddy.

‘Beag Hickory,’ he said pleasantly, looking Pin right in the eye albeit with his head cocked back at an acute angle.
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘B-yug,’ repeated Pin. ‘How would you spell that?’

‘B-E-A-G. It means
‘‘small’’.’

Pin started to laugh, but when he saw Beag’s archbrowed expression he stopped.

‘It makes sense,’ said Pin, listening carefully. Beag had a rather pronounced accent, with rolling r’s; most
definitely he was not a native of the City. ‘After all, you are—’

‘A dwarf,’ cut in Beag. ‘I am that, but for sure haven’t we all our crosses to bear in this life. Some easier of
course than others.’ He looked at Pin, waiting patiently.

‘Oh,’ said Pin, suddenly realizing what he wanted. ‘My name is Pin.’

‘Just Pin?’

‘Pin Carpue,’ said Pin before thinking and then frowned, but Beag said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t know about the
disgraced Carpue family.

‘It’s short for Crispin.’

‘Crispin, eh?’ Beag mulled over the name and looked Pin up and down. ‘Interesting,’ was all he said. Then,
nodding in the direction of the Nimble Finger, ‘Have you been in then?’

‘I have,’ replied Pin. ‘To see the Bone Magician.’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Pantagus,’ said Beag. ‘A strange trade in
my book, though some would
say mine is no stranger. And what of the Gluttonous Beast?’

Pin shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Beag rubbed his hands together and the sound was like sandpaper. He looked at Pin quizzically. ‘I should think you’ll be off
home and out of this cold? Never known a winter like it. ’Tis uncommon without a doubt.’

‘I would be off home,’ said Pin, rather more pathetically than he intended, ‘but I lost my room tonight. I suppose I
shall be on the street.’

‘In this city you won’t be the only one,’ remarked Beag dryly. ‘I’m waiting on a friend myself, or
I’d be well gone. Should be here any minute—’

‘Hold up, my good man,’ called a voice from behind, and then there was the sound of running footsteps.

Pin wondered whom Beag might know who spoke in such a way, distinctly northern, and he waited with interest to see who this fellow was.
The man who came up to them was tall, significantly so, and his slim frame was accentuated by the long dark coat he wore, which was fastened up to the neck. Pin thought he looked most elegant and strikingly handsome.

‘Glad I caught up with you,’ he said, clapping Beag
heartily on the back. ‘I
don’t fancy being out on my own these nights. Might get thrown into the Foedus by that madman, what is it they call him? The Silver Apple Killer.’

‘That’s what Deodonatus Snoad calls him,’ said Beag.

‘And who is this young fellow?’ asked the man, as if suddenly realizing that the scruffy boy beside Beag might actually be
with him. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

‘Pin,’ said Beag, ‘allow me to present my great friend, Mr Aluph Buncombe.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Pin politely and touched his hat.

‘What exquisite manners,’ said Mr Buncombe with a quick smile, looking him up and down. ‘Surely not learned this side
of the river?’

‘’Twas my mother,’ said Pin. ‘She was from over the river too. She taught me that manners cost little but are
worth a lot.’

‘A sensible woman,’ replied Aluph, rather pleased that Pin should take him for a northerner. He had spent many hours
perfecting his vowels.

‘She was,’ said Pin quietly.

‘Pin has lost his lodgings,’ said Beag. ‘I wondered if Mrs Hoadswood might be able to help out.’

‘Well,’
said Aluph confidently. ‘If there was ever a woman who would try her best to fix you up,
it’s Mrs Hoadswood. Certainly at the very least she’ll give you a dinner.’

Pin’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

‘I can’t promise anything else,’ warned Beag.

Aluph was blowing on his gloved hands, impatient to go, so the three of them set off.

‘Tell me, young man,’ asked Aluph conversationally, ‘how did the two of you come upon each other?’

‘I tripped over Mr Hickory’s potato.’

Aluph laughed. ‘You’re lucky it didn’t hit you in the head.’

Pin looked confused and Aluph glanced at Beag. ‘Have you not told him?’

‘Told me what?’ asked Pin.

Aluph didn’t give Beag time to speak. ‘Why, of his great talents. Beag here may be small in stature, but he is an
intellectual giant.’

Beag smiled and took a bow. ‘Mr Buncombe, sir, you are too kind.’

‘What are your talents?’ asked Pin, still wondering where the potato came into it.

Beag
puffed up with pride and spoke as if to a rather larger audience than he actually had.

‘I, Beag Hickory, am a son of faraway lands, a poet and bard, a scholar—’

‘Oh, we know all that,’ interrupted Aluph. ‘Tell him what you really do.’

Beag looked a little crestfallen, cut off as he was in full flow, but he obliged. ‘I am a poet, that is true, but Urbs Umidians do
not appreciate talents such as that, so I have taken a different course in life. Though it is hardly the future I was promised when I sat on the
Cathaoir Feasa
.’

‘The
cathaoir
what?’ asked Pin.

‘Forget that,’ said Aluph impatiently. ‘Tell him what it is you do.’

‘I,’ said Beag, ‘am a potato thrower.’

For the second time that evening Pin held back his laughter. Beag looked up and down the road and pointed in the distance.

‘See that post down there?’

Pin looked. There was indeed a lamp post further down the street.

Beag drew a line in the snow and took three paces back. He took the potato from his pocket and brushed away the
loose earth. He grasped it by the convenient handle, ran to the line and threw it with a loud expulsion of breath. Pin watched as it flew through the air in a long low arc and hit the post with quite a crack.

‘Not bad for a poet,’ said Beag with more than a little pride, and dusted off his hands.

‘I suppose, really, you’re a
poetato
thrower,’ ventured Pin with a grin.

Beag shook his head and laughed quietly.

‘He only uses the best, you know,’ said Aluph helpfully, with the merest hint of a smile. ‘Hickory Reds.’

Whether or not Hickory Reds were the preferred choice of a potato thrower, it was certainly true that when it came to
projecting medium-sized weighty objects through the air, there was no one to match Beag. It wasn’t just the distance, you understand; it was also the accuracy with which he threw them.

Beag was a man with many talents and he had left his home village at a young age to see the world, to learn and to seek his fortune. He
was not going to let his lack of stature be an obstacle and by the ripe old age of twenty-four he had achieved two out of three of his fine objectives. He had certainly travelled extensively, and had written songs and poems to prove it. Aluph was not
wrong
in saying he was an intellectual giant. Beag had acquired knowledge that few Urbs Umidians would believe, let alone remember, and he had forgotten more than most could even know. But on the third, the matter of
his fortune, Beag had been well and truly thwarted. Of all the facts he had learned, the hardest had to be that there was no money to be made from poetry and singing. But perhaps there was a living to be earned from potato throwing. Certainly it was a
talent that appealed to the stunted imaginations of the Urbs Umidians.