CHAPTER XXXVI
Mal picked up his cloak but did not put it on. They would need something to conceal the babe from curious eyes, but it was a warm day and he did not want to attract any more attention than necessary.
"Ready?" he asked Sandy.
"Of course." His brother's eyes gleamed with barely suppressed delight.
"And you're certain this boy-child is the one?"
"As certain as I have ever been. Kiiren's soul is reborn in him, it shines like a beacon in the night."
Mal turned to leave the attic, only to find his wife standing in the doorway, arms folded. In her severe linen coif and apron, she still looked like a stranger to him, and he realised he missed the boy he had known so long.
"You're not just going to steal the babe from its parents, are you?" she said, looking from one to the other.
"Well…"
"How could you think of such a thing? Those poor people…" She shook her head. "And what if you get caught? What help will you be to Kiiren then?"
"What do you suggest?"
"I don't know. Perhaps you could wait a little longer…"
"We cannot," Sandy said. "What if something happened to him? Gabriel has told me how infants that are sickly or seem… uncanny are suspected of being fairy changelings, and may be treated cruelly, even killed."
"I understand that. But–" She bit her lip. "Isn't there something Sandy can do? Like… like when he made Zancani and the others think they had performed for the skraylings. Make them forget the child's existence?"
Mal looked at his brother. Sandy shrugged.
"The father, perhaps; the mother, too, if I have time to work on her. But then there are the other family members, the neighbours… I cannot alter the memories of a whole community in one night."
"We'll think of something," Mal said firmly. "I won't just steal the child from under their noses and run away."
"Very well. But be careful, do you hear me?"
Mal crossed the room and bent to kiss her brow. "I promise. We will be back before dark, and in the morning we will hire a nursemaid to come back to England with us."
They took Berowne's gondola, though of course they did not inform the ambassador of their purpose. The gondolier set them ashore in Dorsoduro a couple of streets away from their destination, and was told to wait for their return. Mal led the way through the quiet streets. It was an hour after dinner, and the city drowsed in the summer heat, the heavy perfume of roses and lilac vying with the stink of the canals.
"Who are these people?" he asked Sandy. "You mentioned only that they were of the poorer sort, and live close to where Kiiren died."
"The father is a dockhand on the Zattere, the great quay where the city's timber is unloaded. The mother is a waterseller, when she is not laden down with an infant. It is only by the greatest luck and fortitude that she carried my amayi to term."
"Do they have other children?"
"Three. Two boys and a girl. They will not miss this one."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Mal said. "At any rate, it's not a risk we can take."
They paused on the corner of the street, where a shrine of the Madonna was set into the wall. A shrivelled bunch of anemones was thrust into the iron framework surrounding the carving. Mal made the sign of the cross and prayed silently for forgiveness. Sandy stood at his side, head bowed. After a few moments he raised his head.
"They are sleeping," he said. "In the house to the north of us. High up."
"That one?" Mal asked, cocking his head towards a shabby tenement.
Sandy nodded.
"I've been thinking," Mal said. "Olivia told me she had died in childhood more than once. If you could convince the parents something had happened to their infant, they would grieve over it and no one would be suspicious."
"It would have to be some method that did not leave a body," Sandy said.
"Falling into a canal?" Mal mused aloud. "No, the child is too young to crawl. Perhaps dropped in a canal by its careless mother?"
"She would have to take it outside first. It is easier to take the babe whilst they sleep." Sandy drummed his fingers on the wall. "It is but a matter of weeks since the devourers struck. What if there should be another such incident?"
Mal frowned. "I hope you're not suggesting slaughtering an entire family, just to cover up our deed?"
"Are you?" Sandy grinned.
"That's not funny." He glanced up and down the street. "You may be right, though. If we make it look like something ran off with it, they may conclude the poor child is dead. Wait there; I will be back in a few minutes."
He doubled back towards the quayside, hoping to find a market or a butcher's shop, but everywhere was closed for the midday break. Nor were there any middens to raid, as there would have been in London; the Venetians were frustratingly neat and tidy. Cursing under his breath, Mal jogged along the waterfront. If he didn't find something soon, they would have to go home and try again tomorrow. And that could be a day too late.
Just as he was about to give up, he saw a woman trudging along the quay with a basket of chickens. A few moments' haggling later, Mal was walking back towards the tenement with one of the birds tucked under his elbow. Thankfully Sandy was still waiting where he had left him.
"That is your plan?" his brother said. "It has claws, granted, but I fear no one will mistake it for a devourer."
The chicken cocked its head on one side and eyed them both malevolently.
"I need to kill it before we go in there," Mal said, "but they tend to make a lot of noise."
"Allow me."
Sandy took the bird under his own arm, placed his free hand on top of its head and closed his fingers around its skull. The bird went totally still.
"Now, do what you must," Sandy said.
Mal looked around, but there was no one to be seen. He took the chicken's neck firmly in both hands and yanked, severing the spine instantly. It shuddered briefly and went limp.
The front door of the tenement was not locked or bolted. Mal eased it open and peered inside. A stairwell smelling of piss and rotting vegetables led up into darkness. Mal crept up, all senses alert. He paused at the first floor. Hardly a piano nobile.
"This one?" he whispered.
"Higher."
They went up again, more slowly now. The stairs here were wooden and creaked betrayal at every step. By the time they reached the next floor Mal's heart was pounding. He pressed his ear to the nearest door. A little girl's voice was singing what sounded like a lullaby, though he could not make out the words. He turned back to Sandy.
"The children are awake," he whispered.
Sandy leant against the wall and closed his eyes. After a while Mal realised that the singing had stopped. Sandy straightened up with a grin.
"Children are so much easier," he said. "Come, we can go in now."
Mal eased the latch down, wincing as it slipped under his fingers and rattled slightly. The door opened into a oneroom hovel with a large bed in one corner. The window was shuttered against the midday sun, throwing bars of light across the bed where both adults lay snoring loudly, with a couple of boys of about three or four snuggled between them like puppies. An older girl, perhaps seven years old, slumped against the wall next to a cradle. Hardly daring to breathe, Mal advanced into the room.
As he neared the cradle, the mother rolled over and muttered something in her sleep. She was not much older than Coby but already careworn, with a touch of silver in her raven hair. His wife was right, these people didn't deserve to have their child stolen, no matter who that child was. He turned back to Sandy.
"I can't do this."
"You perhaps cannot, but I can." Sandy marched over to the cradle. "You humans need to learn respect."
"Sandy!"
"I am not Sandy, I am Erishen." He reached into the cradle and lifted up the child. "And this is Kiiren of Shajiilrekhurrnasheth, my amayi."
He held out the babe.
"You want me to take him?" Mal asked.
"Just hold him a moment."
Mal put down the dead chicken and took the child in its place. The babe blinked up at him. He tried to see Kiiren in those dark blue eyes, to no avail. Perhaps it was too soon.
Sandy twisted the thin cradle-blanket into a sling with practised ease, then took the child back.
"Brother–" Mal reached out a hand.
Sandy's eyes narrowed in contempt. "If you wish to save us all, and spare this family further grief, you will finish what we came here to do."
Mal nodded numbly and picked up the dead chicken. He slit it open with his knife, pulled out the still-warm entrails and smeared some of the blood on the cradle. For further verisimilitude he took out his dagger and scraped parallel marks on the edge of the cradle, as of huge claws. He considered opening the shutters and repeating the process on the windowsill, but someone might see him and in any case it would add to the mystery if there was no sign of how the "devourer" got in or out. Instead he found a large rag and wiped his hands on it, then used it to bundle up the remains of the chicken, including all the stray feathers.
"Enough," Sandy said. "Let us away from here."
Mal threw the cloak about his brother's shoulders so that it all but concealed the sling, then followed him out of the house and into the deserted street. They walked back to the gondola in silence, Mal starting at every sound. What if someone saw them and sent for the sbirri? This time there would be no Olivia to save them.
They reached the gondola unchallenged, however, and Sandy ducked into the concealment of the cabin. The gondolier's thick eyebrows drew together. Mal took out his purse and gave the man several lira.
"For your silence."
"Of course, signore." He saluted Mal with a sly smile.
Mal scrambled aboard and crouched in the bow, watching nervously for any sign of the alarm being raised. The gondolier hauled on his oar, and they slid away towards the Grand Canal. Not a moment too soon. Shutters were opening here and there, neighbours calling out to one another as the city roused from its midday slumber. Very soon their ill deed would be discovered.