Read Online The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sally Gardner
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of telling the count that this time he truly did not know the whereabouts of the boy and the dwarf.
Monsieur Aulard arrived at the theater just before seven to be told that he had had no visitors and that no one had asked after him. He went up the stairs to his office and opened the door. The room was dark. Why had no one bothered to light the lamp? he thought irritably, fumbling for the tinderbox. He stumbled, steadying himself on his desk. In the dark he could see an unfamiliar shape.
“Who’s there?” he called.
He lit the wick.
Slowly and terribly, the dead body of Topolain was revealed, sitting in his chair. Around his neck was a thin line of dried beads of blood. In his lap was the sawn-off head of the Pierrot, its glass eyes glinting in the lamplight.
Monsieur Aulard’s scream could be heard all the way through the theater and out on the rue du Temple.
chapter nine
Têtu and Yann had left the apartment earlier that morning, not long after Monsieur Aulard, for they knew that was the first place Milkeye would look for them.
The apartment block was never quiet. The lives of its inhabitants seemed to spill out onto the landing rather like the stuffing of Monsieur Aulard’s chair. A terrible fight was taking place between a husband and wife on the floor below, witnessed and commented on by the other tenants. There was a cacophony of sounds: shouting, screaming, babies crying, dogs barking, the background noise of lives lived on the edge of existence. In such chaos Yann and Têtu went down the stairs almost unnoticed.
At the bottom sat a child of about seven, who looked older than his years, thin and half frozen.
“Best you go inside, mon petit .”
The boy stared at the dwarf, terrified. He didn’t know what to make of the strange fellow who conjured up a loaf of bread from out of his coat. He looked at it in disbelief before grabbing it and running up the stairs. Only when safely out of reach did he lean down over the wrought-iron banister and shout, “Thank you, monsieur.”
It had been one of those twilight days when the gloom of night still lingers on. The sky was so heavy with snow that it appeared to have collapsed under its own weight onto the buildings below. It was not a day for having your sleeve come adrift from your coat. Even the church bells had a muffled half-heard sound. No one was out by choice in these icy streets, with the snow piled high against the sides of the buildings, so that the walkways were narrow and treacherous.
The months of December and January had produced a bitter harvest, a crop of starved and frozen corpses, the money it brought in lining the pockets of the coffin-makers.
The lights and smoky warmth of Moet’s Tavern seemed like a slice of heaven in this frozen city. As usual, it was full of hot-headed youths and men arguing over the state of the kingdom. Têtu found a table tucked away in the corner out of sight. Here he ordered the dish of the day for himself and Yann. Only when his fingers finally felt that they belonged to him again did he begin to sew the sleeve back onto the boy’s coat.
Yann felt not only that his coat had come apart but that his world had been torn to pieces. Everything had changed the minute the pistol had gone off, killing Topolain.
What he knew about the past amounted to no more than a few facts, bright beads from an unthreaded necklace, reluctantly given to him by Têtu, who refused to join them together. He had no father that he knew of; his mother had been a dancer in a circus, and had died soon after he was born; Margoza, his surname, was the name of a village of which Têtu had fond memories. His survival had been due to Têtu, and Têtu alone.
What he knew about the dwarf was not much more. He had once been a jester to a king; which king, he wouldn’t say. He had traveled the world with a dancing bear. All that had happened a long time before he had found himself with a baby to care for. Never once had he mentioned Count
Monsieur Aulard arrived at the theater just before seven to be told that he had had no visitors and that no one had asked after him. He went up the stairs to his office and opened the door. The room was dark. Why had no one bothered to light the lamp? he thought irritably, fumbling for the tinderbox. He stumbled, steadying himself on his desk. In the dark he could see an unfamiliar shape.
“Who’s there?” he called.
He lit the wick.
Slowly and terribly, the dead body of Topolain was revealed, sitting in his chair. Around his neck was a thin line of dried beads of blood. In his lap was the sawn-off head of the Pierrot, its glass eyes glinting in the lamplight.
Monsieur Aulard’s scream could be heard all the way through the theater and out on the rue du Temple.
chapter nine
Têtu and Yann had left the apartment earlier that morning, not long after Monsieur Aulard, for they knew that was the first place Milkeye would look for them.
The apartment block was never quiet. The lives of its inhabitants seemed to spill out onto the landing rather like the stuffing of Monsieur Aulard’s chair. A terrible fight was taking place between a husband and wife on the floor below, witnessed and commented on by the other tenants. There was a cacophony of sounds: shouting, screaming, babies crying, dogs barking, the background noise of lives lived on the edge of existence. In such chaos Yann and Têtu went down the stairs almost unnoticed.
At the bottom sat a child of about seven, who looked older than his years, thin and half frozen.
“Best you go inside, mon petit .”
The boy stared at the dwarf, terrified. He didn’t know what to make of the strange fellow who conjured up a loaf of bread from out of his coat. He looked at it in disbelief before grabbing it and running up the stairs. Only when safely out of reach did he lean down over the wrought-iron banister and shout, “Thank you, monsieur.”
It had been one of those twilight days when the gloom of night still lingers on. The sky was so heavy with snow that it appeared to have collapsed under its own weight onto the buildings below. It was not a day for having your sleeve come adrift from your coat. Even the church bells had a muffled half-heard sound. No one was out by choice in these icy streets, with the snow piled high against the sides of the buildings, so that the walkways were narrow and treacherous.
The months of December and January had produced a bitter harvest, a crop of starved and frozen corpses, the money it brought in lining the pockets of the coffin-makers.
The lights and smoky warmth of Moet’s Tavern seemed like a slice of heaven in this frozen city. As usual, it was full of hot-headed youths and men arguing over the state of the kingdom. Têtu found a table tucked away in the corner out of sight. Here he ordered the dish of the day for himself and Yann. Only when his fingers finally felt that they belonged to him again did he begin to sew the sleeve back onto the boy’s coat.
Yann felt not only that his coat had come apart but that his world had been torn to pieces. Everything had changed the minute the pistol had gone off, killing Topolain.
What he knew about the past amounted to no more than a few facts, bright beads from an unthreaded necklace, reluctantly given to him by Têtu, who refused to join them together. He had no father that he knew of; his mother had been a dancer in a circus, and had died soon after he was born; Margoza, his surname, was the name of a village of which Têtu had fond memories. His survival had been due to Têtu, and Têtu alone.
What he knew about the dwarf was not much more. He had once been a jester to a king; which king, he wouldn’t say. He had traveled the world with a dancing bear. All that had happened a long time before he had found himself with a baby to care for. Never once had he mentioned Count
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