‘Ah, no, miss, that is a cameleopard, our newest acquisition, a quite remarkable creature from the sun-baked plains . . .’ The curator began his explanation, but Neverfell seemed to be paying little attention to his words. She was stooping to peer at the turnip-bulges of the cameleopard’s ankles, and sniff at its broad, dark, cloven hoofs. The Grand Steward suddenly realized that she was trying to find the smell of grass on its feet.
‘So why is it that tall, then?’ Neverfell’s voice floated relentlessly across the dark, attic-like room. ‘Does the sun make animals grow, the way it makes plants grow? Are there other creatures as tall as that up there? What about people? Does it make them grow too? Is that why I’m tall for my age?’
‘Ahem . . .’ The curator sounded somewhat out of his depth. ‘No, no, I scarcely think so . . . by all accounts sunlight is a withering and dangerous business. I . . . I believe the cameleopard’s neck is stretched by, ah, reaching for high leaves . . .’
‘So is it born with a short neck, and does it just get longer from stretching? If I kept stretching up to bite leaves would my neck get longer? I always reach for things with my right hand – why isn’t my right arm longer than my left one? That doesn’t make sense!’
Contrary to the curator’s hopes, she was showing no obvious sign of running out of questions. Instead she was scampering over to peer at several towering suits of armour from distant lands, sometimes holding out an arm to compare its length to an enamelled gauntlet.
‘And look! These do look like they were made for giants. So perhaps the sun really does make all overground people extra large!’
The Grand Steward managed to drag his eye from the caperings of his new taster. He was, after all, there for a reason.
‘Take a note.’ One of his scribes rushed to his side with pen and paper. ‘Let it be known that the Stewardship of Caverna has challenged the so-called Kleptomancer to demonstrate his skill and courage by stealing one of the Grand Steward’s Curiosities before three days pass. Let it also be known that a space will be put aside for the stuffed and mounted remains of said Kleptomancer, so that the gentles of Court may gawp at him after his inevitable arrest and execution.’
But which Curiosity should he challenge the Kleptomancer to steal? How should he bait the trap? His eye wandered back to the cameleopard that had so fascinated Neverfell. Tall, unwieldy, difficult for a thief to manoeuvre down chutes at speed . . .
‘Change that a little,’ he muttered to his scribe. ‘Instead of “one of the Curiosities”, write “the Latest and Greatest Curiosity to come into the Grand Steward’s possession”.’
The Kleptomancer would need to ask questions in order to find out which was the last item in the Cabinet to be presented to the Grand Steward, and perhaps he could be caught doing so. And, even if that trap failed, the mysterious thief would still be faced with the task of stealing a rigid, eighteen-foot-tall monstrosity.
In his icy soul, the Grand Steward felt a tiny quiver of mirth.
Everything We Need
By the time Neverfell returned to the tasters’ halls, she was starving. The Grand Steward had eaten nothing in five hours except a small plate of olives, a candied pomegranate and some quail’s eggs. Neverfell, of course, had only been given a very tiny portion of each. Already she was starting to see one of the downsides of being a food taster. Originally she had worried about dying of poison. Now she was more worried about starvation. Worse still, the pomegranate had contained some spice that widened her field of vision, which was very distracting and made her feel a bit like an owl.
Once Neverfell had gobbled enough refreshingly ordinary porridge that she lost the queasy emptiness and the dizzy ache behind her eyes, Leodora swept her off on a slightly calmer tour of the tasters’ quarters, whilst filling her in on the rules.
‘This whole area is set aside for us,’ explained Leodora. ‘One entrance, carefully guarded, so that nobody can get in except tasters and the palace servants.’ There were indeed the usual supply of soft-paced, flitting servants, all wearing white palace liveries and Faces like very polite sleepwalkers.
‘This is where you will be spending most of your time when you are not on duty.’ Leodora opened a door on to a pleasant antechamber where six or so people relaxed on cushions reading, gossiping and playing board games. The second swung back to reveal a narrow room, dark with crimson hangings, where several figures laid out on mattresses smoked great, glittering hookahs as high as Neverfell herself. The room was filled with the same scented smoke that seemed to follow Leodora around. Something caught in the back of Neverfell’s throat, and she recoiled, gripping her nose.
‘That’s Perfume! There’s Perfume in the air!’
‘It is all right,’ Leodora reassured her. ‘They add a trace of it to the hookah smoke. We find it calming, that is all. Some people have difficulty sleeping at first, and the pipes help.’
Neverfell stubbornly held her nose until the door was shut, and only then gingerly released her grip. Being calm was all very nice, but she didn’t want to be forced to be calm. Then again, she reflected, perhaps she hadn’t been living in fear as long as the other tasters.
Even with the door shut, the air still held the cloying smell of the smoke. Neverfell looked at Leodora’s pale fingernails and glossy gaze and suddenly wanted to breathe something cleaner. The recreation rooms were pretty and comfortable, but there was something stale about them, like hutches for pets that are never allowed out to run.
‘Can I go out?’
‘Out?’ Leodora sounded rather taken aback. ‘Well, yes, in theory. These rooms are within the palace. Technically you are allowed to roam around most of the palace’s public courts and pleasure halls – it should be fairly clear which parts are off limits – but why would you wish to do that? Here we have everything we need, and it is much, much safer.’
‘But I can go out if I want to?’ persisted Neverfell. ‘If I’m back in time for my shifts?’
Leodora hesitated before nodding. ‘You can. But, Neverfell? I would advise against it. Particularly in your case. It is not just a matter of ordinary dangers. You do not want to see too much.’ Neverfell gawped in incomprehension, so Leodora sighed and continued. ‘Neverfell, your face is your fortune. It is the reason you’re still alive. You know that?’
Neverfell nodded, her mood sobering.
‘Well, what do you think would happen to your face if you found out something you couldn’t forget? Something terrible that changed the way you thought, and would show through your expressions forever?’ Leodora leaned forward and spoke in a low, gentle tone. ‘Your face would be spoilt. And then there would be no point to you any more. I am sorry, but your neck is on the line, and you have to understand this.’
Neverfell was overwhelmed by this notion, and only recovered her wits as Leodora was walking away.
‘Wait – Mistress Leodora – can I at least have paper and ink? I want to write to Cheesemaster Grandible and Vintner Childersin.’
‘That is not really encouraged,’ Leodora told her blandly. ‘We hear so much in our profession that they do not really like us writing letters.’
‘But I have to know whether Master Grandible is all right!’ Neverfell tried and failed to swallow down her frustration. ‘And there’s my friend Zouelle Childersin . . . I want to make sure nothing bad has happened to her—’
‘Neverfell,’ Leodora interrupted with a sigh, ‘let me ask you this. Do you want the Enquiry reading your letters, and the responses that come back? Because they will.’ Neverfell drooped despite herself. The mention of the Enquiry still sent a cold shiver through her marrow. ‘Do not worry, everybody who tried to stake a claim of ownership over you has been sent a message to let them know your new position. Master Grandible, the Childersins and Madame Appeline have all been told that you are alive, well and serving as part of His Excellency’s household.’
Neverfell’s heart gave a little broken-winged soar. It touched her immensely to think of Cheesemaster Grand
ible still trying to recover her, just the way Erstwhile had claimed. Then she realized what Leodora has just said.
‘Did you say Madame Appeline? Madame Appeline wanted me as well?’
‘Did you not know? Yes – it would seem that after your first arrest she tried to insist that you should be indentured to her, but by then it was too late, and you were already serving Maxim Childersin. She tried to register another claim after the banquet, but was overruled.’
‘But—’
‘Politics. All politics. Have as little to do with it as you can. Take my advice. Rest, relax and forget about it all.’
Neverfell tottered back to the recreation room, and lost at chess repeatedly while she tried to organize her thoughts. In the end she gave up and returned to her private room to be alone.
Madame Appeline had attempted to have Neverfell delivered into her care. But was it her care or her custody? Had she wanted to capture Neverfell or protect her?
‘Somebody tried to drown me,’ Neverfell reminded herself, pressing her palms against the side of her head to stop her thoughts bouncing around. Who had known that she was in the Enquiry cell? The Enquirers, of course, and the Childersins . . . and Madame Appeline.
Into Neverfell’s mind flashed the feline face of Madame Appeline, the slanting green eyes flashing like coloured glass, the mouth a perfect, cold jewel. The next instant this picture was dashed aside by the memory of Madame Appeline wearing the saddened, loving Face Neverfell had glimpsed on their first meeting. Neverfell’s thoughts about the Facesmith were a jumble of broken splinters, and they did not seem to fit together.
There was a connection between herself and the Facesmith – she knew it. She had sensed it ever since seeing that weary, kindly Face that had spoken to her soul in a way that nothing else ever had. It had filled her with trust, sympathy, yearning and an ache of the familiar, as if somebody had reached straight into her heart. Strange coincidences buzzed through Neverfell’s mind.
Madame Appeline’s Tragedy Range came out seven years ago. That’s when I appeared from nowhere in the cheese tunnels. Did something really terrible and sad happen to Madame Appeline back then, so that all her new Faces were filled with suffering? And did it have anything to do with me?
Could Madame Appeline be a figure from Neverfell’s lost past? The first time they had met, the Facesmith had shown no sign of recognition, but then again Neverfell’s face had been covered. And when Neverfell had been shamefully unmasked, she was sure she had heard Madame Appeline exclaiming in tones of deepest shock. Impossible, was all she had said, impossible.
Was she just saying that because my face was so weird and frightening? Or . . . did she recognize me? Is that what shocked her so badly?
Again Neverfell considered the Face she had glimpsed at the cheese-tunnel door, the look of tired tenderness in the emerald-green eyes . . .
Madame Appeline’s eyes are green. So are mine. Does that mean something?
There was one possible explanation that might answer all these questions. However, whenever she tried to think about it, her stomach lurched up and then down, like a giddy little boat with a monstrous wave passing beneath it. A lurch, dark water and a fear of looking down.
Maxim Childersin had promised to help Neverfell investigate her past, but now she had been taken beyond his reach. She had seen the confident and powerful vintner patriarch come within an ant’s step of disgrace and execution, all because of her own actions. She could not expect him to take more risks on her behalf, even supposing he still wished to do so.
If she wanted to discover the secrets of her past, she would have to do so without Maxim Childersin. She was alone. Or was she? Suddenly she remembered the mysterious note from the day before.
On an impulse of optimism she ran to her bed, and pulled back the counterpane. There was no sign of the little box she had discovered previously. Instead a bottle of ink had been concealed there, along with five pieces of clean paper. There was also a note, which read as follows:
Hide ink, spare paper and completed letters under mattress. Letters will be delivered safely and unopened. Any letters sent in reply will be left for you in the same place.
If you must go out, avoid Court of Snipes, Melamourse Colonnade and the Hall of the Harps since all three are prowling grounds for assassins.
We will keep our eyes open, but can only do so much.
Neverfell hardly knew what to feel first. Such a prompt appearance of paper and ink could not be coincidence. Either Leodora had had a change of heart, or their conversation had been overheard, and her anonymous benefactor had somehow learned of her wishes. It made her feel spied upon, and was both eerie and reassuring, like being caught mid-stumble by an invisible hand.
The first mysterious letter had been signed ‘a friend’. This second note spoke of ‘we’. Whoever her mysterious contact was, it seemed there was more than one of them.
Neverfell knew that it could be a trap, but could not bear to waste the opportunity. Snatching up the loose paper, Neverfell wrote long, scruffy letters to both Master Grandible and Master Childersin, telling them everything that had happened to her. The only parts she missed out were those relating to the Kleptomancer trap, since she was fairly sure that was deadly secret. After folding up the letters, she hesitated, and then wrote one last note.
DEAR FRIEND,
THANK YOU.
WHO ARE YOU?
She tucked the letters and the notes under the mattress as instructed, then sat on the bed, rocking back and forth and staring the crowds of questions in the eye.
‘Oh, I’m not going to find out anything in here, and I can’t just sit here waiting to be murdered!’ Neverfell exclaimed aloud. ‘Somebody wants me dead. And if I don’t find out why, one day I’ll wake up and I will be.’
The sentries who stood at the archway that led to the tasters’ district had very detailed orders, nearly all of which involved preventing non-tasters entering the area. None of them reacted at all when the youngest and newest of the food tasters slipped past them and out into the public courtyards of the Grand Steward’s palace, where the favoured elite of the Court met, mingled and conspired.
She was not unobserved, however. As she ventured out, one gaze settled upon her with a carefully feigned disinterest. The owner of this gaze let her pass out of sight without giving her a second glance, then coolly turned to follow her.
Beauty and the Beasts
Leaving the tasters’ chambers was a good deal like entering a dream, and after a few paces into the courtyard beyond Neverfell was gazing around her with a dream-like lack of fear. A corridor lined in midnight-blue velvet, studded with pearls for stars, led on to a broad tunnel coloured in dull, pre-dawn violet. This opened out on to a set of rooms where dawnlike streaks of pink and gold streaked the ceiling, followed by courtyards that glittered with gilt, quartz and tiny crystal mirrors, illuminated by hundreds of gold-painted lanterns decorated with stylized suns. The Grand Steward is the sun, it seemed to be saying. When you walk towards the heart of the palace, you walk into the day.
She was just stepping out into a courtyard when something jumped on to her shoulder, tickling her face with fur and curling a rough but delicate tail round her throat. She gave a squeal of shock, and turned her head to find her nose almost touching a tiny, pinkish, flattened face, framed by wild white hair.
‘Monkey!’ she squeaked in glee as much as surprise. ‘A real monkey!’ It was no bigger than a small cat, and wore a blue sequinned jacket and a tiny black velvet cap with a trailing blue feather. Neverfell instantly loved its clever black fingers and the mournful puckering of its pale brows. When it doffed its cap and turned its lips inside out in a broad, fearless grin, she burst out laughing.
‘You startled me! Oh no, no, thank you!’ Neverfell had to put up a hand to dissuade it from pushing half a meringue into her mouth with its spare hand. ‘No, I can’t, sorry! I’m not allowed to eat strange cake. Where did you come from, anyway?’ Looking around her, sh
e could see no sign of the monkey’s owner. Her small passenger decided that her moment of distraction was a good time to clamber over her face. ‘Stop that!’ hissed Neverfell, through laughter and fur. ‘I’m on a secret mission, and there are enough people staring at me without monkeys pushing meringue in my ear . . . OW!’
The monkey leaped down from Neverfell’s shoulder and bounded away into the darkness, one of its fists still gripping the few red hairs that it had yanked without warning from her head.
‘Fine!’ she called after it. ‘That’s the last time you get to ride on my shoulder!’
Unsurprisingly there was no answer, and Neverfell decided to hurry on before anything else jumped on her and pulled her hair out.
This was a world full of strange, lofty and gorgeous denizens. Ladies drifted by in ermine, with damask trains six feet long. A pair of Cartographers capered unsteadily past wearing earmuffs and padlocked gags, occasionally miming to each other or waving weird structures made of wire. Now and then Neverfell pinched her nose hard as some statuesque lady or lord drifted past trailing a subtle reek of Perfume. One glittering lady emitted a faint buzz as she passed, which confused Neverfell until she realized that her black and gold hair ornaments were made of live wasps, their stings removed.
Many of the courtiers, she noticed now, had their own monkeys with them, usually dressed in their household’s livery. Watching a white-backed monkey teeter by with a silver tray of tiny cakes, Neverfell remembered Zouelle telling her that since courtiers were allowed no servants inside the palace, for fear of them bringing in their own assassins and soldiers, many instead brought monkeys that had been trained to act as small, hairy attendants.
Neverfell was not blind to the way she was gathering gazes like spider threads. Time and again richly dressed figures glided coolly past her, only for the clop of their tread and swish of their clothes to cease a few paces later, a tingle on the back of Neverfell’s neck telling her that they had halted to watch her go. Ruff rustled against ruff as heads drew close to whisper. Neverfell was surprised to find herself thinking wistfully of her mask. Nonetheless, she took care to peer at every beautifully presented Face that passed.