The Custodian of Marvels Read Free

in the form of a woman’s torso, it leaned forwards, as if she might with another step emerge fully into the cabin, resplendent in her nakedness. Tinker studiously ignored her whenever I was near.
    “Good hunting?” I asked him.
    “Yes.”
    “Did you see anyone?”
    He shook his head.
    “Two rabbits?”
    “Yes.”
    “Were there any deer tracks?”
    “No.”
    “Then a dog perhaps? It would have been very large – like a wolfhound?”
    He shook his head, then, tired of my questioning, grabbed the rabbits and his knife. “Light the fire,” he said, before disappearing out of the hatch.
     
    Without hunger, I slept more deeply that night than was usual. Otherwise I might have been disturbed by the tilt of the boat or the sound of movement in the cabin. As it was, my first awareness came with the feeling of a finger poking me in the cheek. It took several groggy seconds before I realised that it was not a finger but the muzzle of a gun. The squat figure of a dwarf loomed next to me in the near dark.
    My cry woke Tinker, who sprang to his feet.
    “Back off!”
    I don’t know if Tinker could see the gun or if it was something in the gruff command, but he did as he was told.
    “No one do nothing!”
    My head had cleared enough now to recognise the intruder’s voice and form.
    “Fabulo?” I asked.
    “The same,” growled the dwarf. “Now, tell the boy to light a lamp. And nothing stupid.”
    I heard the sound of a log being dropped. Tinker must have been holding it as a weapon. Then he opened the stove door. A dull glow bathed his face as he blew on the embers, coaxing a flame from a spill of twisted paper. In the yellow light I saw that Fabulo held a second pistol in his other hand. One was pointing at each of us. With the candle lantern lit he backed away and lowered himself onto the bench in the opposite corner.
    “Come,” I said, beckoning Tinker.
    The boy clambered onto the cot next to me, his knees drawn up to his chest, more like a spider than a child.
    “This is cosy,” said Fabulo. Short limbed and stubby fingered, he was the opposite of Tinker. He rested the pistols on his knees. “Let me see – when was the last time we met?”
    “You know the answer,” I said.
    “I’m just being polite. It’s what old friends do, isn’t it, when they get together – reminiscing? Do you remember your infernal machine? You fired a bolt of light from it and blinded Harry Timpson in one eye.”
    “It wasn’t my machine.”
    “And that wasn’t what I asked.”
    “Yes, I remember it! Too well. It was a hellish thing. I’m glad it’s gone.”
    “But it’s still there in your memory,” he said.
    “Is that why you’ve come? If you’re here to avenge your master, it’s your memory you should be worried about. He double crossed me. You both did. He would have killed me. Did you forget that bit?”
    “No,” said the dwarf with a sigh. “I’m sorry about that. Harry had a way of making things seem right. Even when they weren’t.”
    “I never set out to hurt him.”
    “True enough,” he said.
    “Then we should be square.”
    “So we should.”
    “Then why stick a gun in my face?”
    “Wanted to be sure, that’s all. Didn’t know if you might still hold a grudge.”
    “I’d find your visit a deal more pleasant if you’d put those pistols away.”
    He tapped his finger on the stock of one, as if weighing the risk, then placed them on the floor by his feet. “Better?”
    They were still within his reach, I noted. And still cocked.
    “Would you like some tea?” I asked
    “I’ve brought my own.” From inside his coat the dwarf slipped a metal flask.
    I felt Tinker begin to relax. His strange life had left him more suspicious of a bar of soap than a flintlock. This might have seemed like old times to him. We’d all been part of the same circus troupe – me cleaning out the beast wagon, Tinker minding the horses and Fabulo performing under the Big Top.
    Being a dwarf, Fabulo would always