The book again! Boy knelt over Valerian, trying to catch every word, but as he did so a knocking at the front door made him jump. No one ever came to the house- no one unexpected. No one called to see Valerian without having been summoned by Boy. Even then Boy could only remember Kepler visiting.
For a moment he thought he might have imagined the sound, but it came again, louder this time. Someone was definitely there.
“Open up!” came a shout from the street.
Boy left the bedroom and ran lightly down the corridor to a small leaded window that looked over the front of the house and down onto the street.
He could just see a red feather.
His heart began to race.
The knocking on the door resumed, louder than ever.
He ran on tiptoe back to the bedroom and found Willow awake and blinking in the strong light of late morning. “What’s that noise?”
“Watchmen outside!” hissed Boy, his eyes wide.
She nodded.
“Go and hide in my room,” said Boy. “I’ll get rid of them.”
“How? Don’t be stupid! We must run!”
“We can’t!” Boy said, pointing at Valerian.
“We’ll just have to wait until they’ve gone away.”
“If they go away,” said Boy.
They cowered on the bed and listened to the knocking on the door getting louder and louder, just as their hearts were thumping harder and harder in their chests.
“Open up! We demand you open up!”
“They know we’re here,” whispered Willow.
“Maybe,” Boy whispered back, “maybe not. Just don’t move.”
“Open up! Persons in this house are wanted on suspicion of murder!”
Boy put out his hand to stop Willow from speaking.
“I don’t think they know that we’re here. Just wait.”
The banging on the door went on for another few minutes, and then stopped.
Willow made to get up from the bed, but Boy mouthed, “Wait.”
Sure enough, a moment later there was another banging on the door. They waited for it to stop, and then Boy made Willow sit still for nearly five more minutes before he got up and crept to the window.
“They’ve gone, I think,” he said. “We’ve got to leave before they come back.”
“But supposing they’ve left someone watching the house?” Willow cried.
“What is all this noise!”
Boy and Willow turned to find Valerian standing by the bed.
He looked like death. His clothes were covered in grave-soil, his hair stuck up at crazy angles and his right arm hung limply by his side, having loosed itself from the makeshift sling.
“Valerian!” cried Boy.
“Boy, be quiet! I can’t stand you shouting and wailing all the time! I want quiet!”
Valerian swung his good arm in front of him wildly. He fumbled in his inside pocket and pulled something out, which he raised to his lips. He tipped his head back and drank, then threw the object to the floor.
It was a small glass bottle. Valerian wiped the back of his left hand across his lips. “For the pain. One of Kepler’s more useful concoctions.”
“But your arm!” Boy said.
“Is broken. Yes,” said Valerian. “But there are more important things to deal with.”
“Who was that,” Boy asked, “in the cemetery? Who did that to you?”
Valerian ignored him. “We have much to do, and time is running short.”
“I don’t believe you!” shouted Willow. “You have us crawling around that death-field all night, hunting for some stupid book. You’re practically buried alive and we dig you out with our bare hands and drag you home! And you won’t even tell us what it’s about! I hate you!”
Boy turned in horror and shook her by the arm.
“She doesn’t mean it, Valerian,” he said. “She’s just tired and we don’t need to-”
But Valerian held up his good hand.
“No,” he said, “the girl is right. It is time to tell you, but we must act fast. I was a fool last night. I thought once I had the name it would be a simple thing to find the grave where the book… and then… And then I was a fool to risk the cemetery. Those were old aquaintances of mine. I owe them money-quite a lot of money for some things they obtained for me once upon a time. Never mind that now. They seemed to think that putting me in the earth was an appropriate way of settling our differences.”
“But-”
“Listen. I am alive. I want to stay that way. And on the eve of New Year’s I will face something much worse than a few grubby resurrection men, unless I can find a way out. I need your help,” said Valerian, and then, looking at his broken arm, “more than ever now.”
8
“What’s her name?” Valerian asked Boy.
“Her name is Willow,” she said crossly.
“Willow,” said Valerian. “Willow, would you go to the Tower and get as many of those as you can find?”
He pointed with his foot at the empty bottle on the wooden floor.
“They’re in a cupboard by the narrow window. Boy, where are my keys? Quickly!”
Boy found the keys on the floor.
“Here,” said Valerian, giving Willow the key to the Tower.
Boy stared. Valerian was actually giving one of his keys to someone else. To a girl he barely knew!
Willow ran off to the Tower.
“Now, Boy, I need you to do something for me. I wasted time by hunting round the cemetery at random. Why?”
“Because it was too big,” ventured Boy, “and too dark?”
“Partly,” said Valerian, “but something else too. Do you suppose that’s the only cemetery in the City?”
“You don’t even know which cemetery he’s buried in? Beebe?”
“Exactly. We were in the largest one, but there are others. And what else?”
Boy thought hard. “Church graveyards!”
“Good!” cried Valerian. “And have you any idea how many churches and how many churchyards there are in the City?”
“A dozen?”
“A hundred and seven. And how long is it going to take us to look through them all?”
“A very long time?”
“No,” said Valerian, “it’s not going to take us any time at all, because we’re not going to look. We’re going to find out exactly where Gad Beebe is buried first. I need you to visit someone-the Master of City Burials. I should have done this before, only… he’s an awkward man.”
“Is he a friend of yours?” asked Boy.
Valerian frowned.
“I know him. At least I used to, in my days at the Academy. He is the only source of cadavers for dissection in the City. Well, the only official source.”
Valerian saw the question on Boy’s lips.
“Work it out, Boy! Would it be clearer if I said ‘bodies to cut up’? To study the nature of the human organism. So I had a few dealings with him until I… left… academia. There’s a building in the Reach that’s his official residence. Go there and tell him Valerian sent you. Tell him I need to know the whereabouts of a grave.”
Boy knew the Reach. It was a rich part of town. Before Valerian had found him, he had often spent summer days there, begging and, when no one was being generous, picking pockets.
“You must go there and get the location of Beebe’s grave. All burials that occur in the City are recorded there. All official ones, that is.”
Valerian brushed at the dirt on his coat.
“What will you do?” Boy asked.
A look of irritation crossed Valerian’s face, but it passed.
“The girl-Willow and I will go to Kepler. I need him to mend my arm, and I need someone to help me. I also need someone to go to the Master of Burials, and that will be you. You know the way there and Willow does not. Meet us back here this evening. Only enter the house after dark, light no lights and answer the door to no one. The place is safe enough.”
“How will I get in if I get back first?”
Boy thought about the shock he’d had the time he’d tried to pick the lock.