The Glass of Lead and Gold Read online

  Usually, the glass fragments she found in the mud were thick, and often pale greenish or brown, but this one was like a thin slice of frozen air. The delicately engraved lines portraying Fairies and Elves felt like fine threads of silver, when you ran your finger over them. Tabetha barely dared to take the shard out of the box, knowing how precious it might be. It felt very cold between her fingers, but when she dipped it into the snow, as Ofelia had suggested, the glass melted it as efficiently as a piece of hot coal.

  How her heart began to race! One often heard stories about objects with magical powers: the Witches’ Combs, the sticks that beat up your enemies, or the tables that served you food at any time. The Queen was supposed to have a vast collection. But Tabetha had never met anyone who actually possessed such a magical thing. She put the shard back into the box and closed the wooden lid. The box was slightly warped from its time in the water, and the river had left its marks on the dark wood.

  She leant against the barrel and stared up at the pale coin of the moon. Don’t trust anyone, Tabetha. Could she trust Ofelia Fuentes? Surprisingly, her heart’s answer was a firm yes. Well, that heart of yours also trusted the boy who sold you to the chimney sweep, she told herself. So what does that tell you about your heart?

  “Look at that!”

  The voice Tabetha heard behind her sounded familiar.

  “The young mud rat inspects his treasures. May I have a look? I am quite sure I may be very interested in one of them.”

  Tabetha turned around.

  Bartholomew Jakes gave her a nasty smile. “You’re quite a good liar, until you get excited about something someone shows you.” He pointed at the Thumbling who was peeking out of his coat pocket. “I had him follow you. He is a treacherous little thief, but an excellent spy when fed well, and so good at being invisible. He was barely a step away from you when you talked to that one-handed girl. Give it to me. The glass. Come on, it’s cold.”

  A snowflake landed on the black leather of his glove, as he stretched out his hand.

  Tabetha closed her frozen fingers even more firmly around the box in her lap. No. The river had given the glass to her.

  “Don’t tell me I have to slit your throat on Christmas, boy!” The treasure hunter pushed his coat back to reveal a belt and a knife handle. “You know what? I’ll give you two pence if you give it to me without making this complicated. After all, it’s Christmas Eve.”

  “The river gave it to me. It won’t work for you anyway.”

  “The river?” Bartholomew Jakes uttered a joyless laugh. “Did you hear that, Thumbs? Believe me, I have a lot of experience with treasure that didn’t come to me willingly. It always works. Magic doesn’t care who you are or whether you deserve it.”

  The Thumbling giggled, and scrutinized Tabetha with his pale yellow eyes. A Thumbling had stolen the first penny she had earned as a mudlark.

  “Come on.” Bartholomew Jakes took a step forward. “It’s as cold as a vampire’s tomb tonight. Hand me that miserable box of yours! I am sure nothing in it is worth dying for.”

  Merry Christmas, Tabetha. The world was a terrible place.

  Two men were coming down the road, Tabetha saw them pass the remains of the wall that had once surrounded the baker’s backyard. But who would they believe if she called for help? The man with the expensive boots, of course. There would be many people in the houses to her left and right, but people in these quarters of the city were too busy struggling to stay alive themselves to help anyone else.

  A woman had stopped right by the gap in the burnt-down wall that still held the rusty hinge of a gate long gone. She was huge. Even from this distance, she looked almost as tall as the Giantlings guarding the Queen’s palace. What are you looking at? Tabetha wanted to call over to her. Are you waiting for them to kill me? That would be quite a festive entertainment on Christmas Eve, wouldn’t it?

  The woman stepped through the gap and came walking towards them, with slow and heavy steps which made Tabetha think of her as a tree that had grown legs. The deep snow made even those heavy steps as silent as a cat’s, but Thumblings are known for their sharp ears and the one in Bartholomew Jakes’s pocket alerted his master with a shrill squeal. The treasure hunter turned around, reaching for his pistol.

  The woman stopped, just a few steps away from him.

  Her skin gave her away. She was a Troll. One didn’t meet them often in the streets, as they liked to keep to themselves, but Tabetha had once seen one at the harbour, carrying huge wooden crates onto a ship as if he carried sacks of feathers. His skin had resembled the wood of the ship’s hull. The Troll woman’s skin was darker and rough like oak bark, while her shoulder-length hair was as pale green as the leaves of a beech in spring.

  Everyone knew a Troll could break a man’s neck with one finger, even rip off his head without much effort. Tabetha wasn’t sure whether that was also true for their women, but Bartholomew Jakes clearly believed it. The treasure hunter tried to hide his fear—as it was caused by a woman, it was even more embarrassing—but he took a couple of steps back, while pointing his pistol at the Troll. The Thumbling disappeared into the depths of his master’s pocket.

  “Leaf the boy ulone,” the Troll woman said. She said it very calmly, her voice sounding to Tabetha as if it were echoing up out of a well, but she had closed the fingers of her right hand into a fist; a fist as big as Bartholomew Jakes’s head.

  “I am just doing business with him,” he said, still pointing his pistol at the Troll. “He stole that box from me. He can go, once I have it back.”

  “Don’t lie to me, littel man,” the Troll woman said. “And put zat pistol away. It makes me vant to punch you, just a littel bit, and it’s Christmas.”

  Tabetha hesitated when the huge woman waved her to her side, but for now even a Troll seemed the safer option. Bartholomew Jakes followed her with his eyes, but he didn’t grab her when she walked past him, her box firmly under her arm. From close by, the Troll woman looked even more imposing, but it felt strangely comforting to stand by her side. Like standing under a big tree.

  “Do not follow us,” she said to the treasure hunter, “or try to find him. I don’t vant to see yur ugly face anyvere near the boy. If I do, I will peel it off yur scull, like potato skin. Understant?”

  The treasure hunter spat into the snow. “I hope you cook and eat him,” he snapped. “Isn’t that what your kind likes to do? Though there may not be enough meat on him for a woman your size.”

  The Troll woman smiled. Her teeth were almost as green as her hair. “I’m sure you know ull ubout man-eaters. I heer treasur huntars like to plonder zeir caves for the objects ze victims left behind. My aont used to say zat your kind tricks rich travallars into going past un Ogre cave, so he dos ze killing and you only have to wash the blood off zeir belongings.”

  Bartholomew Jakes pushed his pistol back into his belt.

  “There will be another time,” he said. “And another place. Life is full of opportunities.”

  “If yu say so.” The Troll woman’s hand came down on Tabetha’s shoulder, like a huge warm blanket. “Tell zat creature in yur pocket if he sneaks vun more time in ze Fuentes’ establishment, I grind his bones and use zem for my chicken soop.”

  Then she waved for Tabetha to follow her back to the road.

  The Troll woman introduced herself as Borga. That was all she said while they made their way to Crystal Lane. Tabetha was grateful for the silence, as she was still quite shaken by the fact she hadn’t been able to deal with the treasure hunter alone. She was proud that she had managed to survive without her mother for almost six years, and she hated to be reminded how young and vulnerable she was.

  It was a long way to Crystal Lane. They had to leave the poor quarters by the river behind and enter the city of the rich, with its parks and horse carriages, wide roads framed by huge mansions, and policemen on every corner, who usually registered mudlarks with a disgusted sniff. Tabetha rarely entered this part of Londra. Most of
the collectors she sold coins or fragments of pottery to lived and worked closer to the river, and she usually felt dirty and poor amongst all the velvet dresses, fur coats and polished boots of the wealthy—but she had never walked through the streets of the rich behind a Troll. It was like following a four-mast ship down the Themse. Most faces became hostile at the sight of the huge woman, but instead of being pushed aside or yelled at, as Tabetha usually experienced in these districts, the fur coats and carriages stopped or hastily made room for them to pass.

  When the pair finally reached Crystal Lane, where the glass-blowers had run their workshops for more than seven centuries, Ofelia was already waiting in front of the biggest shop. The number twenty-three was etched in gold into the panels of its ornate front door.

  Borga gave Ofelia a nod, and murmured: “I need to get back to my soops.” Then she disappeared into the next side street, ploughing her way past a Dwarf woman who sold hot chestnuts at the corner and a man who nearly dropped a water barrel when he saw her.

  “I hope Borga didn’t rip off any limbs or break any skulls?” Ofelia asked. “She’s a good cook, but she has a bit of a temper.”

  “I didn’t need her help,” Tabetha said. Her pride was hurt and she still cursed herself for not having looked over her shoulder more often or spotting that treacherous Thumbling at the Soup Kitchen. Her only comfort was that Ofelia hadn’t either.

  “Of course. None of us need help, right?” Ofelia replied, reaching into the basket she was carrying. She brought forth a pair of boots. “A guest threw them at me, so I kept them. They’re far from pretty, but as you don’t care about that anyway… I stuffed the toes with paper, as I’m sure they’re too big for you.”

  No thanks, Tabetha wanted to say. If I need better shoes, I’ll buy myself some. Who are you, to give me boots and send your Troll woman after me? I was fine all these years without you. But her feet were so cold by now inside her wet, worn-out shoes that she was worried she might lose a toe, like Limpey, and the boots looked rather new and not bad at all.

  “I’ll find some coins to pay for them,” she said, as she took her leaking boots off and slipped into the boots Ofelia had brought. “Has that Troll woman always lived with your family?” It felt good to have dry feet.

  “No. My father helped her with something. They don’t talk about it, but since then Borga’s cooked for us. Did you bring the shard?”

  Tabetha closed her arms firmly around the wooden box. “Yes.”

  “Here.” Ofelia handed her a napkin. “Wrap it in there and put it in my basket. As I said, I think it’s better we pretend it’s mine.”

  “Why?” Don’t trust anybody, Tabetha.

  Ofelia looked up to the dark sky. It had begun to snow again. “I have only one hand,” she said, without looking at Tabetha. “Try tying shoelaces with one hand. Or putting up your hair. I have to ask for help from time to time. Maybe that makes it easier for me to trust people.”

  Maybe. And maybe trusting people was easier when your father worked for the Queen, Tabetha thought, but she opened the wooden box and wrapped the small piece of glass into the napkin.

  “Let me do the talking,” Ofelia said, while Tabetha placed the shard in her basket. “Arthur Soames is not a nice man, and around Christmas he’s in an especially foul mood. He claims it is because so many of the tree ornaments he makes get broken, but I think he doesn’t need a reason. He’s just as bitter as juniper juice.”

  A dozen colourful glass bells chimed above the shop door, when Ofelia opened it. The man inside reminded Tabetha of an angry gingerbread man, with his balding head, round-cheeked face, raisin eyes and lips pressed so tightly against each other that they could have been a line of sugar icing. He was arranging a few tall vases on a shelf.

  “Ofelia Fuentes! Not you again!” he snapped. “Tell your mother to teach you that you shouldn’t allow your guests to break your glasses on each other’s foolish heads!”

  He gave Tabetha’s worn clothes such a disapproving look that she was tempted to break one of the vases he had arranged on his gingerbread head, but she had to admit his shop was filled with miraculous objects more beautiful than any glass she had ever seen. The Christmas tree, which claimed almost a third of the shop, was covered in glass baubles in every colour of the rainbow. Glass angels, with delicate wings, hung from its evergreen branches, alongside miniature glass parcels with glass ribbons and bows, glass Unicorns, glass Mermaids and even glass Dragons. When Tabetha couldn’t resist touching one of the Fairies, Arthur Soames grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her back.

  “I don’t allow street ruffians into my shop, Ofelia,” he said. “Who is this? Another charity project of your mother’s?”

  Oh yes, Tabetha wanted to break more than one vase on his head.

  “He’s as hard-working as you, Arthur,” Ofelia replied, emptying her basket onto Arthur Soames’s counter.

  “Is that why he smells of dead fish and ship oil?” The glass-blower straightened one of the Dragons on the Christmas tree, and stepped behind his counter. “How many glasses is it, this time?”

  “Ten. And six bowls. And… this.” The shard caught the gas light that lit the store like a piece of ice, when Ofelia unwrapped it.

  Arthur Soames bent over it and didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “Good heavens,” he finally murmured. “That’s a piece of—”

  “No, sadly it’s not,” Ofelia interrupted him. “It’s only a piece of a copy. They were quite in fashion when my mother was young, as you may recall. But the glass holds great sentimental value for her, as it was a present from her father, and now one of the Hobs has broken it. Please, Mr Soames. I need it fixed before she comes back from Metagirta.”

  Oh what a brilliant liar she was. Even Tabetha almost believed her.

  Arthur Soames took a magnifying glass out of a drawer. Its gold-framed lens was bigger than Tabetha’s fist. “I never understood how a woman as reasonable as your mother can bear to work with Hobs,” he murmured, while inspecting the shard through the thick lens. “They are pea-brained and utterly childish. A copy, you say… Well, it is astonishingly well done. The engravings are undoubtedly a master’s work.”

  “Yes, my mother was always very proud of it.” Ofelia’s voice was calm, as if she was not at all troubled by Arthur Soames’s inquisitiveness. Tabetha couldn’t help but admire this.

  “Your mother is a flower, who withers in our endless rains. But I guess your father is used to keeping tropical plants alive in our climate. I heard the Queen likes them very much.” When the glass-blower turned the shard to inspect it from another angle, Tabetha saw that his fingers were covered with blisters, which she supposed shouldn’t be surprising, considering his fiery work.

  “I once made your mother a sun decoration for her Christmas tree,” Arthur Soames murmured. “It had ninety-nine beams blown from pale-yellow glass. I wonder what became of it. I am sure those foolish Hobs broke it as well.” He lifted his head. “Where are the other pieces of this copy?”

  “That sun still hangs on our tree,” Ofelia replied. “But the Hobs threw all the other pieces away, to cover up their accident. I was lucky I found this one under my mother’s bed.”

  The lies left her lips so easily, as if she plucked them out of thin air!

  “It is one advantage of our winters that the Hob population is always decimated,” Arthur Soames stated. “I am sure the last typhoid epidemic was caused by Hobs. They don’t wash, and they multiply like mice. It makes me shudder to even imagine one of them in my workshop.”

  “Then who helps you with the fire and the oven?” Tabetha’s curiosity had overruled her dislike of this man. “Is your glass made only by humans?”

  Arthur Soames looked as surprised as if a fish had begun to talk. “Every decent glass-blower works exclusively with Fire Elves. They make the glass melt much faster and are able to handle it without burning their hands.”

  He placed the shard into a small box and placed that next
to Ofelia’s broken bowls and glasses.

  “Making a new glass with an existing shard is a very difficult process, and I will have to match the pattern, so…” He frowned and scribbled some numbers on a sheet of paper. “One shilling for the glass, three pence to fix the rest. And in case you intend to ask: no, I don’t grant discounts at Christmas.”

  Tabetha saw Ofelia draw in a deep breath. One shilling. You would have to sell many bowls of soup to earn that. But, once again, Ofelia’s voice sounded unimpressed when she replied: “That’s fine. Can I pay half now and half next week?”

  Arthur Soames frowned, and cast a glance at the shard. “As long as you don’t tell anybody I’ve been lenient,” he snapped. “Everything will be done by tomorrow. One of my shop boys will drop the delivery off, although I am sure they’ll moan I have them work on Christmas Day.”

  He pointed at Ofelia’s handless arm, when she slipped the handle of her empty basket over it. “I told your mother I can make you a beautiful hand from glass. I made her a good price.”

  Ofelia gave him a smile as cold as the snowflakes whirling past his shop windows. “Thank you, Mr Soames. But I would break off a finger within a week,” she said. “And after all, there are far fewer one-handed girls in this town than two-handed ones. Merry Christmas.”

  A GROUP OF CAROL-SINGERS WERE singing in front of the shop next door, when Ofelia closed Arthur Soames’s door behind them. The singers’ clothes were covered with flickering swarms of Will-o’-the-Wisps. A bit of honey did the trick. Tabetha knew that from No-teeth Harry, who spent the evenings as a carol-singer and claimed it earned him twice of what he made with mudlarking. But he was blessed with an angel’s voice, though there was otherwise nothing angelic about him.

  How did you lose your hand? The question had lingered on Tabetha’s tongue since she first laid eyes on Ofelia. She had managed to swallow it down several times, but it just wanted to get out, like something that burnt her mouth. Ofelia seemed to sense this. She gave her a look that said “not you as well” and made her wish she had tried harder to hide her interest.