The Custodian of Marvels Read Free Page A

be a spectacle. But more than that, he’d been one of Harry Timpson’s close advisors. And now something had driven him to seek me out again. I wanted to know what.
    Tinker unfolded himself from the cot. I watched as he fed sticks into the stove. With a crackle and the smell of wood smoke he coaxed the fire back to life. Then he took the empty kettle and slipped out into the night.
    Fabulo and I regarded each other. His eyes did not leave me as he swigged from the flask. “This is a pleasant reunion,” he said, then looked around the cabin until his eyes lighted upon the casting of the naked woman. “I’ll bet that shocks the Republicans!”
    “She’s called the Spirit of Freedom,” I said.
    “She’s just like you then, eh? And just like me. I knew you wouldn’t stay put in one place. We’re travellers. We don’t belong in the world of the country people.”
    “I have to travel,” I said. “There’s a reward posted for my capture. I’m sure you knew that.”
    “But there’re many ways to hide. You took to the canals. I can drink to that.” This he did. “We’ll always be outsiders, you and me. That’s the truth. We’ve got to look out for each other. You didn’t need to run from us. The circus would’ve taken you back.”
    It was a kind of truth. One that ignored the fact they’d tried to kill me.
    “I thought the circus had folded,” I said.
    “Just because you don’t see us, don’t mean we’re gone.”
    “What happened to the big top? The wagons?”
    “Sold – most of it. Harry was in prison. The Great Harry Timpson! Who do they think they are to lock up a man like that? It was a sad thing. We needed the money for lawyers and bribes. In the end we got him a cell to himself. And food. And doctors. You know how old he was? One hundred and five. And knowledge you could never find in books. He died in that cell.”
    “Better than being hanged,” I said.
    Fabulo stared into the dark corner of the cabin, as if picturing the scene. “They’d have come to see that show! Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Can you imagine what tricks we might have pulled for a crowd like that?”
    “You think he’d have escaped the gallows?”
    “Escape? No. But we’d have given them a show, my friend. A fireball? A storm? Harry would have dreamed up something. The Greatest Show on Earth! They’d have been talking about it in a hundred years. He’d have been happy to go that way.”
    “Do you blame me for his death?” I asked.
    He fixed his dark eyes on mine and said, “If I wanted to see you harmed, I could have pulled the trigger just now. Or I could have turned you in. Do you know how much the Duke of Northampton’s offering for your capture? The man’s obsessed with you. The price goes higher each month you’re free. No, Elizabeth, I don’t blame you for Harry Timpson’s death.”
    I suppressed a shudder at the mention of the duke. The way Fabulo had delivered his speech made it sound rehearsed. I searched his face, but could detect neither sincerity nor lie. We had drawn closer to the purpose of his visit, I felt sure of that. But I still could not see where we were heading. There was something unsettlingly fey about his manner.
    The moment was broken by a dull clanking and the padding of feet on the deck. Tinker hefted the full kettle back down the steps into the cabin. He knelt next to the stove, oblivious to the tension.
    “What’s your cargo?” Fabulo asked, as if making small talk.
    “Furniture and small packages.”
    “They pay you well?”
    “Enough.”
    “No pirates trying to steal your cargo?”
    “None.”
    “So life’s good.”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “And a new horizon every day.” He raised the flask as a salute then took another swig. “What of winter?” he asked.
    “We’ll manage.”
    “There’s always thieving. If it gets too bad.”
    “I’ll not be doing that.”
    “Not even a thin chicken from a fat farmer?”
    For a time neither of us spoke. I