Drowned Wednesday (The Keys to the Kingdom 3)

'A week!' Arthur protested. He coughed as he spoke, sudden anxiety making his chest tight. A week out in this Secondary Realm might mean a week lost in his own world. He still didn't understand how time worked between the House and the Secondary Realms, but it couldn't be good to be out here for so long. What if he lost a week at home? His parents would freak out. So would Leaf's. Plus, he didn't have any asthma medication, so he might not even survive a week. What if his broken leg got worse?

'I can't spend a week on some deserted island!'

'You'll have to, 'less you're a better swimmer than you look,' replied Sunscorch. 'There's precious little on this world. Lots of islands, some things you might call fish and fowl, and a bit of useful timber, that's all. A safe haven from both Feverfew's pirates and any nosy parkers from the House.'

'Nosy parkers?'

'Officials. Inspectors. Quaestors. Auditors. You know.'

'Officials? Why would we be hiding from them?' asked Arthur. Not that he wanted to meet any himself. Too many of them served the Trustees who were his enemies.

'We're in the Secondary Realms without a licence,' explained Ichabod. 'It's the Original Law, and there's fierce penalties to be here without permission. Not that there's much chance of trouble, not since Lady Wednesday's mind went adrift and she ate up half her officials and drowned -' 'Avast that!' interrupted Sunscorch. 'We are still in Her Ladyship's service!'

'True! True! Mister Sunscorch, I beg your pardon.'

'In any case, we have good reason to be here, which might prove sufficient excuse,' said Sunscorch, after a moment. Though he spoke to Arthur, his gaze continued to roam over the masts and rigging, the ship and the crew. 'As soon as we're able, we'll be back to the Border Sea and our business of salvage. Now we must shorten sail. We're riding deep and the sand is soft, but we've still too much way on.'

Immediately Sunscorch raised his volume enormously, bellowing out some incomprehensible orders involving clewgarnets, buntlines, leechlines, and slablines. These were all met with sudden activity by the crew.

'Now, all we need to do is get her safely lodged before teatime,' said Sunscorch cheerfully, without looking away from the rapidly closing beach. 'Try as I might, I can never get them to give up their afternoon tea. Once made clerks, always clerks, no matter how much salt they taste.'

The ship slowed as sails were furled, and even Arthur could tell she was lower in the water and more sluggish to answer the helm. But they were only a few hundred yards from the beach, a wide crescent of sparkling sand that looked much like an earthly beach, save that the sand was a very light blue.

'We'll make it,' said Sunscorch. But as he spoke, a bell rang from somewhere deep inside the ship. The peal quickly repeated several times. In answer to it, the crew left their posts, abandoned lines, and slid down from the rigging. The Denizens who'd fallen overboard stopped treading water and started to swim for the ship, showing near-Olympic speeds without Olympic-standard grace or style. Even the helmsmen made as if to join the throng milling about a grating on the main deck of the ship, till they were physically restrained by Sunscorch.

'Oh, no you don't,' he cried. 'How many times do I have to tell you? If you're at the wheel you can't both go to afternoon tea. You have to take it in turns.'

Arthur stared down at the main deck. The Denizens were accepting cups of tea in fine bone china cups that appeared out of the grating, even though there was no one below handing them up. Small biscuits also materialised in the air and were delicately taken and eaten in modest bites. The sight of both made Arthur aware that he was extraordinarily thirsty and hungry, despite the drink of water Sunscorch had given him in the boat. He knew he didn't need food or water, but he felt as if he did.

'How . . . where are the cups coming from?'

'It's one of the things that didn't change when we remade the counting house,' said Ichabod. 'Some department in the Lower House is still supplying us with afternoon tea, wherever we are in the House or the Secondary Realms. I would venture to suppose that an order was given long ago, and it has never been rescinded. It's quite convenient, of course, and we are the envy of many other ships.'

'It's a cursed nuisance,' said Sunscorch. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, 'All hands come aft! Hold yer cups and saucers!'

The crew was slow to respond, and Sunscorch shouted again. The beach was only fifty or sixty yards distant.

'They're best aft. We might lose a mast when we strike,' Sunscorch explained to Arthur. 'But it'll go for'ard, like as not.'

Arthur looked up at the two very tall masts and their mass of spars and rigging. They had to weigh tons, and if one or both of them came down backwards instead of forward, they'd crush everyone.

'Take a hold!' roared Sunscorch.

Eight

ARTHUR HARDLY FELT the Moth's initial impact with the beach. The deck shuddered a little under him, but he was sitting down with his bad leg straight out and he had a very firm grip on an iron cleat next to the rail.

More serious shudders followed, as the ship ground its way up and through the deep sand. Arthur watched the masts carefully, and though they shivered and the rigging rattled and a few ropes and blocks fell down, nothing worse occurred.

After a few more yards' progress, the Moth gave a final creaking groan and slid forward no more. It sat upright for a few moments, then slowly heeled over till the deck was at an angle of twenty degrees. Arthur wondered if it was going to go over completely on its side, but the deep sand around the hull held it in place.

Amazingly, not one of the crew appeared to have dropped his or her teacup. While Arthur gingerly crawled to the side and looked over at the blue sand, Ichabod went and got a cup of tea to offer to Arthur.

Arthur drank it gratefully, though it was very strong, very sweet, and very milky. When the cup was empty, he handed it back to Ichabod, who asked, 'More?'

'Yes, please,' said Arthur. He was quite surprised when Ichabod simply handed the cup straight back, but the cup was full again. Strangely, this time the tea was black and, while still sweet, had been made so by something like treacle. Arthur drank it anyway.

'Just say 'more' if you want more,' Ichabod explained. He handed Arthur a biscuit and added, 'Similarly, as long as you have a crumb left of biscuit, just say 'more' and you'll get another one. Till afternoon tea is over, which is in about five minutes by my reckoning.'

Arthur nodded and concentrated on the business of drinking and eating, with occasional, mouth-full mumblings of 'more'.

Precisely five minutes later by Arthur's backwards watch, his cup and half-eaten biscuit disappeared . This disappearance was followed by a stream of bellowed orders from Sunscorch, who had clearly bottled them up till afternoon tea was over. As far as Arthur could gather, the orders related to propping the ship up so it didn't fall over, getting out some anchors, and carrying lots of different things ashore.

Without imminent danger threatening, and with a full, warm stomach, Arthur found himself yawning. His watch said it was ten past ten, but he knew he must have spent more than seven hours (counting backwards) just sitting in that buoy, let alone the time on the bed in the storm.

Remembering the buoy made Arthur look at his hands. The red colour still hadn't come off. It hadn't got any lighter either. It looked deeply ingrained, almost as if it was in the skin, rather than just on it.

'The Red Hand,' said Ichabod. 'Doctor Scamandros might be able to clear it. Feverfew marks all his treasure caches such. The stain is supposed to last forever. Well, until Feverfew tracks the thief down and exacts his terrible punishment. What were you doing on the buoy anyway?'

'I . . . I was shipwrecked,' said Arthur.

'From the Steelibed,' interrupted Sunscorch as he slid down the deck. 'Or so you say. The Captain, Mister Concort, and I will want to hear Arth's tale, Ichabod, so hold your questions till dinner. Which will be served ashore, so you can begin by getting the Captain's table on the beach. Arth, you go ashore too, and stay out of the way.'

'Aye, aye,' said Ichabod, without great enthusiasm.

'And look lively, you loblolly boy.'

Being called a loblolly boy made Ichabod both cross and active. Bent over almost double to keep his balance on the tilted deck, he crawled over to the companionway and hustled below. Arthur was left alone.

He wanted to ask Sunscorch some questions, about almost everything, but particularly about the green-sailed ship that had taken up Leaf. But the Second Mate was too busy, shouting orders and stamping about the quarterdeck.

After a few minutes watching the crew, the boy climbed down from the quarterdeck and made his way through the working crowd of Denizens, equipment, and cargo that was being rigged or moved above or through the hatches in the waist of the ship. Eventually he found his way to the forecastle at the front of the vessel. There were several broad rope ladders over each side. Arthur waited for a space in the line of Denizens climbing down with their loads, then carefully lowered himself over the side and climbed down.

It was quite difficult with his leg immobilised by the cast, but he made it. There was still water around the ship, so he splashed into it, and was relieved to find it was very shallow. The blue sand seemed much the same as sand back home. Difficult to walk in, even without a leg in a cast. Arthur found himself imitating one of the Denizens with a wooden leg, not so much walking as stumping his way up the beach.

One of the things the Denizens had brought ashore already was the chest from Feverfew's trove. Arthur walked over to it. It looked ordinary enough, just a big wooden box with bronze reinforcement at each corner and bands of bronze across the lid. He wondered what was inside. What would Feverfew the Pirate value so much?

Arthur sat down and leaned back against the chest. He felt very tired, but he didn't want to go to sleep. He had to work out what to do next. Not that there seemed to be many choices. He felt that he should do something to make sure Leaf was okay, but he couldn't think of anything. And he should try to contact Dame Primus or Suzy. And he should try and get home as soon as possible, but Leaf was right, he ought to sort out Lady Wednesday first and that meant finding the Third Part of the Will, claiming the Third Key . . .

Arthur's thoughts trailed off into a confused mishmash of different problems and unlikely solutions. His body was too tired, and it had finally got its message through to his brain.

The boy slid farther into the sand and his head slumped down. As the Denizens toiled to lighten the ship by removing cargo and prop her up with spare yards and topmasts, Arthur slept.

He awoke at sundown. At first, he was totally disoriented. Not only was he lying on a blue beach, but there was an enormous vermilion sun sinking into the sea on the horizon. Its weird light mixed with the violet hues of the sea and the blue of the sand sent alarming messages to his brain.

The reason he'd woken was instantly obvious. Doctor Scamandros was sitting next to him, peering at his leg through what looked like a very short telescope. He also had a small bellows with him, a leather-lunged apparatus that looked to Arthur like the original ancestor of an airbed pump.

'What are you doing?' Arthur asked suspiciously. He sat up and glared at Scamandros. The doctor looked quite different, though it took Arthur a second to work out why. His animated tattoos were gone, and he was wearing a woolly cap with a long tassel that hung down next to his neck.

'Your leg has been recently broken,' said Doctor Scamandros. 'And set.'

'I know,' Arthur replied. His leg was hurting again. He wondered if Scamandros had been prodding it. 'That's why it's in a cast. Or was . . .'

He added the last bit because the ultra-high-tech cast had almost completely fallen apart. There were only thin strips of it remaining, and Arthur could see his pale and puffy skin in the gaps between.

'Usually, I could fix that leg for you,' said Doctor Scamandros. 'But my examination reveals a very high and unusual level of magical contamination that would resist any direct action to repair the bone. I could, however, equip you with a better brace and exert some small magic that would lessen the pain.'

'That would be good,' said Arthur hesitantly. 'But what do you want in return?'

'Merely your goodwill,' said Scamandros with a halfhearted chuckle. He tapped the bellows at his side and added, 'Though I understand from Ichabod that you might have a cold? If so, I should like to harvest any sneeze, nose-tickle, or phlegmatic effusion that you feel coming on.'

Arthur wrinkled his nose experimentally.

'No, I haven't got a cold. I just thought I might.'

Scamandros was looking through his short telescope again, this time at Arthur's chest.

'There is also a disturbance in the interior arrangement of your lungs,' he said. 'Most interesting. Again, there is magical contamination of a high order, but I think I could probably lessen the underlying condition. Would you like me to proceed?'

'Uh, I'm not sure,' said Arthur. He took a breath. He couldn't completely fill his lungs, but it wasn't too bad. 'I think I'll wait. It'll be all right when I get back in the House.'

'Just the leg brace, then,' said Doctor Scamandros. 'And amelioration of the pain.'