From the look on Smew’s face Tom could tell that this invitation was a huge honour. Formal robes had been found for him, new-laundered and neatly pressed. “They belonged to the old chamberlain,” Smew told him, helping him into them. “They’re about your size, I reckon.”
Tom had never worn robes before, and when he glanced in the mirror he saw someone who looked handsome and sophisticated and nothing at all like him. He felt very nervous, following Smew towards the margravine’s private dining room. The wind seemed to be shoving at the shutters with less urgency than before, so perhaps the storm was lifting. He would eat as quickly as he could, and then go and find Hester.
But it wasn’t really possible to eat quickly; not a formal dinner like this, with Smew in footman’s gear bringing in dish after dish and then hurrying back to the kitchens to put on his chef’s hat and cook up more, or running to the wine cellars for another bottle of vintage red from the vineyard city of Bordeaux-Mobile. And after a few courses Tom found that he didn’t want to make his excuses and go out into the dying blizzard, for Freya was such good company, and it felt so nice to be alone with her. There was something shiny about her tonight, as if she thought she had done a very daring thing by asking him to eat with her, and she spoke more easily than before about her family and Anchorage’s history, right back to her long-ago ancestress Dolly Rasmussen, a high school girl who had had visions of the Sixty Minute War before it started and had led her little band of followers out of the first Anchorage just before it was vaporized.
Tom watched her talk, and noticed that she had tried to do something really impressive with her hair, and that she was wearing the most glittery and least moth-eaten of her gowns. Had she gone to all that trouble for him? The idea made him feel thrilled and guilty; he looked away from her, and met Smew’s disapproving gaze as he cleared the dessert things and poured coffee.
“Will there be anything else, Your Radiance?”
Freya drank, watching Tom over the rim of her cup. “No thank you, Smew. You can turn in. I thought Tom and I might go down to the Wunderkammer.”
“Certainly, Your Radiance. I shall accompany you.”
Freya looked up sharply at him. “There’s no need, Smew. You can go.”
Tom sensed the servant’s unease. He felt a little uneasy himself, but maybe that was just the margravine’s wine going to his head. He said, “Well, perhaps another day…”
“No, Tom,” said Freya, reaching out to touch his hand with her fingertips. “Now. Tonight. Listen, the storm is over. The Wunderkammer will be beautiful by moonlight…”
The Wunderkammer was beautiful by moonlight, but not as beautiful as Freya. As she led him into the little museum, Tom understood why the people of Anchorage loved and followed her. If only Hester could be more like her! He kept finding himself making excuses for Hester these days, explaining that she was only the way she was because of the awful things that had happened to her, but Freya had been through awful things too, and she wasn’t all bitter and angry.
The moon gazed down through snow-veiled glass, transforming the familiar artefacts with its light. The sheet of foil shone inside its case like a window into another world, and when Freya turned in its dim reflected light to face him, Tom knew that she wanted him to kiss her. It was as if some strange gravity was drawing their faces together, and as their lips touched Freya made a soft little contented noise. She pushed closer to him and his arms went round her without his meaning them to. She had a slightly sweaty, unwashed odour, which seemed strange at first, and then very sweet. Her gown crinkled under his hands, and her mouth tasted of cinnamon.
Then something — a faint noise from the doorway, a breath of cold air from the corridor beyond — made her glance up, and Tom forced himself to push her gently away.
“What was that?” asked Freya, whispering. “I thought I heard someone…”
Glad of an excuse to move away from her warmth and her luring smell, Tom backed to the door. “Nobody. Just the heat-ducts, I expect. They’re always rattling and scratching.”
“Yes, I know; it’s an awful bore. I’m sure they never used to before we came to the High Ice…” She came close again, holding out her hands. “Tom…”
“I must go,” he said. “It’s late. I’m sorry. Thank you.”
Hurrying up the stairs to his room, he tried to ignore the warm cinnamon taste of Freya in his mouth and think of Hester. Poor Het! She had sounded so lonely when he spoke to her on the telephone. He should go to her. He would just lie down for a bit and gather his thoughts, and then he would pull on cold-weather gear and head down to the harbour. How soft this bed was! He closed his eyes, and felt the room revolving. Too much wine. It was only the wine that had made him kiss Freya; it was Hester he was in love with. So why could he not stop thinking about Freya? “You idiot!” he said aloud.
Above his head the heat-duct rattled, as if something inside it was agreeing, but Tom didn’t notice, for he had already drifted off to sleep.
Hester was not the only one who had overseen Tom and Freya’s kiss. Caul, sitting alone in the forward cabin of the limpet while Skewer and Gargle went off housebreaking, had been flipping idly through the spy-channels when he was brought up short by the sight of them embracing. “Tom, you fool,” he whispered.
What Caul liked most about Tom was his kindness. Kindness was not valued back in Grimsby, where the older boys were encouraged to torment the younger ones, who would grow up to torment another batch of youngsters in their turn. “Good practice for life,” Uncle said. “Hard knocks, that’s all the world’s about!” But maybe Uncle had never met anyone like Tom, who was kind to other people and seemed to expect nothing more than kindness in return. And what could be kinder than going out with Hester Shaw, making that ugly, useless girl feel loved and wanted? To Caul it seemed almost saintly. It was horrible to see Tom kissing Freya like that, betraying Hester, betraying himself, ready to throw everything away.
And maybe, too, he was a little jealous.
He glimpsed a blurred face in the open doorway behind the couple; zoomed in just in time to recognize Hester as she turned and ran. When he pulled back the other two had broken away from each other; they looked uncertainly towards the door, talking in low, embarrassed voices. “ It’s late. I must go. ”
“Oh, Hester!” He flipped away from the Wunderkammer, checking other channels, searching for her. He didn’t know why it should upset him so, the thought of her in pain, but it did. Perhaps it was partly envy, and the knowledge that if she did something stupid Tom would end up with Freya. Whatever it was, it made his hands shake as he fumbled with the controls.
There was no sign of her on the other palace cameras. He moved a spare into a position on the roof and swung it around, checking the grounds and the surrounding streets. Her blundering feet had jotted a long, illegible sentence on the white page of Rasmussen Prospekt. Caul leaned closer to his screens, perspiring slightly as he started scuttling cameras into positions at the air-harbour. Where was she?
16
The Aakiuqs were still asleep. Hester crept back to her room and took the money Pennyroyal had given her at Airhaven from its hiding place under her mattress, then went straight to the Jenny ’s hangar. Scrabbling away the snow that had drifted against the door, she dragged it open. She lit the working-lamps. The Jenny Haniver ’s red bulk loomed over her, ladders propped against half-painted engine pods, raw new panels covering the holes in the gondola like fresh skin over a recent wound. She went aboard and turned the heaters on. Then, leaving everything to warm up, she trudged back out into the snow, heading for the fuel-tanks.