The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, стр. 15
“No criminals ever tell exactly the same story,” said Merlin. “Not over and over again, across years, word perfect. They get things wrong, or forget. This was burned into their minds, and a lot of other stuff burned out. So I had to dig around, look deeper into their records, their associates and so on. To find some common connection, something that put them together for this job.”
“And you found sod all,” said Audrey, swinging the wheel for the sharp right into Hanover Street. “And got told to leave it alone. Again.”
“Yes, I didn’t find anything conclusive,” admitted Merlin.
“What about your cousin?” asked Susan. She’d been thinking about him ever since Merlin had mentioned what he could do. “The ‘reverse oracle.’”
“The wot?” asked Audrey.
“A term I used to try to explain to Susan what Norman does,” said Merlin loftily. “As a matter of fact, Norman did have a look for me. But by then it was five years, and he’s really only good for a month or two back. But there are . . . entities . . . who can help unravel the past or look towards the future, give clues to help work out what went on. So I went to one of them.”
“Against regulations,” said Audrey.
“It’s a gray area,” said Merlin.
“Is that right?” commented Audrey dryly. She swore as she had to swerve to miss a man who stepped out into the road. One of a stream of pedestrians trying to get past a huddle of workmen who were eyeing a partly dug hole in the pavement as if it was something unfamiliar and might move if they didn’t watch it.
“Anyway, what . . . it . . . told me was as follows.”
Merlin took a breath, pushed himself back against the partition, and intoned in a strange, flat voice:
Seek the Sipper, blood-lapper
Purse-cutter, goods-taker
Chieftain of outcasts
in the north
in the north
of the city of the moon
He knows, he knows, he knows
But is silenced, held fast
By vows and oaths
And will not speak
“Bit of a clue, there,” said Audrey. “The ‘will not speak’ part, I mean.”
“Oracles being notoriously unreliable and deceptive,” said Merlin, “I chose to consider there was an unspoken ‘unless’ at the end of that little ditty, or—as may in fact be proven to be the case, finding the chap referred to would give me some other lead. ‘City of the moon’ means ‘Luan-Dun’ or London, by the way. So I looked around for North London Sippers who were also criminals, and talked to two—who were not exactly chieftains, I mean one is a bookie and the other a pickpocket, but they led me to Thringley, who definitely was a chieftain of outcasts. I talked to the first two Sippers perfectly peaceably, and I would have continued that way if Susan’s ‘uncle Frank’ hadn’t gone for the razor—”
He abruptly stopped talking and leaned forward to stare over Susan’s shoulder through the back window, and then twisted about to look out the front. The taxi was making very slow progress along Curzon Street, had passed Bolton Street, and there was not only a lot of traffic but many pedestrians, a high proportion of them obviously tourists.
“Audrey!” snapped Merlin. “Urchins!”
“I see ’em,” said Audrey in a disbelieving tone. “What’s got them out under the sun?”
Susan peered through the rain-dappled side window, trying to see what Merlin and Audrey were disturbed about. Everything looked normal to her, a sea of cars and vans and motorbikes on the road, and spilling onto the road from the footpaths, a confusing, multidirectional tide of pedestrians under umbrellas of all shapes, colors, and sizes; those without umbrellas ducking and weaving between those with, trying to move faster to keep out of the rain, or to avoid an umbrella spoke in the face.
“There is no sun,” she said. “And what are you—”
“Figure of speech,” said Merlin. “Urchins don’t usually come out in daylight at all. . . . I’ve counted three, Audrey. . . .”
“Four,” replied their driver. “Five . . . curse this traffic! Six! Seven! Go, no, you idiot!”
They jerked to a complete standstill, thanks to a delivery van reversing ahead, where there was no room for it to do so. The traffic behind closed up immediately, and they were stuck.
“Stay or go?” asked Merlin urgently.
Audrey peered through the windscreen, and then left, right, and behind.
“They’re ringing the cab for a May Dance,” she said grimly. “Cold iron might anchor us. I dunno, this is a new one to me. I’ve never seen so many, and as for ’em trying anything like this in daylight, forget it! We’d better go!”
“Right,” said Merlin. “You break east? We’ll go west?”
“Yeah,” said Audrey.
“You got something suitably ancient to hit them with?”
In answer Audrey pulled a blackthorn stick down from above her head, where it had been clipped above the sun visor. A yard-long length of gnarled, knobby, iron-hard wood, without ferrule or adornment. Two of the natural thorns had not been cut or ground off the stick, forming a kind of hilt. She pushed it through the hatch.
“You take it,” she said quickly. “It must be Susan they’re after.”
“Thanks,” said Merlin.
“If you make it, turn out the guard,” said Audrey.
“You do the same,” said Merlin.
“Ready?” asked Audrey. “Go!”
“What?” asked Susan. She was still looking out the window. Everything appeared to her to be entirely normal. At that moment, a child popped up, close to the glass. An odd, pinch-faced child of five or six, bright-eyed and red-cheeked, wearing an oversized, bright scarlet, badly ripped shirt, like a clown who’d gone through a wind tunnel.
He started to caper up and down, adding to the clown impression, then suddenly grinned widely, showing a blackened, destroyed mouth, save for two very sharp and long incisors of yellow-streaked white.
Susan jumped back. Merlin grabbed her hand and swung open his door, leaping out, as Audrey did the same in front.
A dozen flamboyantly dressed, misshapen children were dancing around the taxi,