Leif Frond and Quickfingers Read online

  “My hair hasn’t turned anything,” I said. “It’s snowing outside. The first snow of the year. Just a sprinkle for now, but Granny says there’ll be a proper fall tonight.”

  “Oh?” said Queue. “Well, don’t drip on the table. Is that breakfast you’ve got there?”

  Quickfingers didn’t say anything. He didn’t look well, all of a sudden. He didn’t seem very hungry for once, so I ate his breakfast for him. (I’ve always felt that two is a good number of breakfasts to have. One never seems quite enough, and three is just greedy.) Then Queue shooed me away since there was nothing to test.

  It was barely dawn the next day when the Artificer burst into the Hall where we were still asleep. (Queue always slept in the workshop, no matter what the time of year.) We were all so blurry and groggy that it took us ages to understand what it was he was trying to tell us. But once the news got through, it was as effective as a bucket of cold water. Suddenly, we were all wide awake.

  “The Pedlar’s gone!” Queue wailed for what must have been the umpteenth time. “And The Book’s gone with him!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Tracks of the Pilfering Pedlar

  All those odd, uncomfortable feelings I’d had about the Pedlar came rushing back. I’d been right to be suspicious. Being right is usually pretty satisfying but I just felt sick. I wanted it not to have happened. I wanted the betrayed look on Queue’s face not to be there.

  “Right,” said my father, putting a hand on Queue’s shoulder. “We’ll go after him. We’ll get it back.”

  My father can sometimes say just the right thing.

  Everyone scrambled into their clothes and out of the Hall – and almost immediately, there was good news.

  Yesterday had been the first snow flurry of the year. And overnight there had been another fall, enough to properly cover the ground. Enough for anyone walking about to leave tracks.

  My father took charge.

  “Everybody stay back!” he ordered, since the last thing he wanted was a lot of us thundering about and blotting any trail the thief might have left. He began to scout back and forth, eyes fixed on the ground.

  Meanwhile, Thorhalla came up to Queue and said to him, “It’s cold. Go and get some warmer clothes on. And your boots.”

  I looked then and saw that the Artificer was standing in the snow in just his tunic and his indoor shoes.

  “Yes,” he said dully. “Of course.”

  When he came out of his workshop again he was wearing warmer clothes, but he was still in his thin shoes.

  “Queue,” scolded Thorhalla. “Go and put your boots on.”

  But he shook his head. “I can’t,” he said sadly. “He stole them, too.”

  Other people were going to fetch warmer clothes – and discovering that they were missing things too. More than just Queue’s Book and boots had been taken. Food, furs, fine cloth… the Pedlar would be well stocked with goods to sell at the next settlement he visited.

  Just then my father strode back.

  “I’ve found his trail,” he said. “He’s heading south. And I’ve discovered something else – he wasn’t alone.”

  “What?”

  “Not alone?”

  “See for yourself.”

  We all rushed off after my father. And sure enough, just beyond the cattle enclosure, two sets of boot prints, one large, one small, headed off in single file towards the sea.

  “The small prints are definitely his,” I said. “I noticed he had really little feet. Isn’t that right, Queue?”

  Queue nodded.

  “So,” said my father. “Two of them… and they’ve headed for the sea and then south. Let’s go.”

  My father set a steady pace, keeping a careful eye on the trail, and the men and I followed behind.

  There was something odd about the tracks, though. The big set seemed to be driving the small set before it, urgently, often half-obscuring the little prints in its haste. And yet the line they were taking was anything but straight. It meandered all over the place.

  “They kept stopping and starting,” the men muttered. “As if they were looking for something on the ground. It makes no sense!”

  The short winter morning was almost over when we got the answer to the riddle.

  “Look!” someone called. “Up ahead – isn’t that Wandering Nell?”

  “Trust her to do a runner, today of all days.”

  “Wait a minute… what’s wrong with her feet?”

  “Oh no, she’s going to trample all over the tracks. We’ll lose the trail!”

  As it turned out, we needn’t have worried. Nell was in no danger of obscuring the tracks of the Pedlar, because she was the one making them.

  On her hind feet, Quickfingers had tied Queue’s big boots. And on her front feet, his own small boots.

  “Nnnmmmghghgh,” said Nell cheerfully.

  Someone threw a rope round her neck and we all just stood there, looking at her. Feeling duped.

  “He wasn’t heading south at all.”

  “Cunning like a weasel.”

  “What do you wager he was headed for the North Pass all along?”

  “He must have gone down to the shore and walked along the tide-line, where his tracks wouldn’t show. Once he was away from the settlement, he could scoot back up onto the path and make good time.”

  “It’s the north shore he’s heading for, all right. He knows we won’t follow him over the Pass, for fear of getting cut off till spring if the weather closes in.”

  “He’s timed the whole thing perfectly.”

  I went to free Nell’s feet from the two sets of boots. Even if it meant another foiled escape, she seemed pleased to see me. At least I think that was what it meant when she stuck her big wet nose in my ear. I gave her a pat, then picked up the Artificer’s boots and took them over to him.

  “I’m afraid she hasn’t done them any good,” I said, but he didn’t answer. He just turned around and limped away.

  Wandering Nell in tow, we headed back to Frondfell in silence. The men were right. It was very probably too late. By the time they’d trekked to the head of the fjord and down the other side, the thief would most likely be over the Pass. And they wouldn’t dare follow him over. The winter could close in any time now, making the Pass, well, impassable. And we needed my father and the other men on our side of the mountains for all the hard, cold months ahead. But my father wasn’t ready to give up. As we trailed back into the settlement, he came over to Queue.

  “We’ll try again,” he said. “We’ll get some food and we’ll try again. You should wait here, though, all right?”

  Queue nodded wearily. I could see he was exhausted.

  Nobody questioned my father’s decision. All my brothers and the men of the settlement headed for the Hall to get provisions. I started to follow them, but then my father took me aside.

  “I want you to stay here, with Queue,” he said quietly. “He seems as if he could do with a friend right now.”

  “But…” I began and then I stopped.

  I desperately wanted to go with the hunt, but he was right. The Artificer was looking crushed and lonely and, well, old. And you could understand why. The furs and food and bits and pieces Quickfingers had stolen from the rest of us could all be replaced, but not Queue’s Book. It was the only one of its kind in the world.

  I went over and stood beside him. My father gave me a nod, and strode away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Flight of the Skite

  My father and the men left as the afternoon sun began to slant down the mountainside. The days were getting shorter, and there was a tang of more snow in the air.

  Winter. I’d been so desperate to have a new face at Frondfell for the winter, someone to distract my many relatives from picking on me. I’d wanted to be off the hook – I’d wished so hard… and look at what had come of it. The stories are always saying, “Be careful what you wish for” –but how could I have known this would happen?
<
br />   I couldn’t have known. But it still felt like my fault.

  Queue and I wandered down to the shore together. Gloomily, I stared out across the half-frozen fjord to where the North Pass lay, almost directly opposite us. So close, but still so far.

  “If only we could just go straight across the fjord,” I said regretfully.

  “If only the flying machine had worked,” said Queue with a sigh. “Or that ski boat I tried to invent last winter.”

  “Or some weird combination of them both,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

  A flying machine – how wonderful if we had such a thing. I could just see myself… floating effortlessly across the miles of ice and open water all the way to the other shore. There he was, the thieving old man, hobbling desperately up the mountainside, throwing fearful glances behind him, but never thinking to look into the sky above.

  “I have you now!” I smiled heroically as I angled my flight path down, down… the quarry was almost in my grasp… I reached out my hands, and…

  “What did you say?” said Queue in a funny voice.

  Oh no, I thought. Was I daydreaming out loud again? I do that sometimes.

  But Queue said, “A combination, you said… a combination…” A long, slow, glorious smile spread across his face. “Exactly!”

  “What? What exactly?” But Queue was already walking away, heading for his workshop. By the time I’d caught up, he was inside and the door was firmly shut.

  For a long while there was a great clamour of banging, scraping and swearing from inside the workshop. Then, suddenly, silence. But what kind of silence? Was it ominous silence? Despairing silence? Quiet-before-the-storm silence?

  The workshop door burst open and Queue stuck out his head.

  “Get in here!” he barked. “Help me bring it out.”

  Ah, I thought. That kind of silence.

  We wheeled the whatever-it-was out of the workshop and into the daylight.

  It wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined in my daydream.

  “I think I’ll call it a skite,” said Queue. “With this, catching up with the thief will be a doddle.”

  “Er… what?” I said.

  “You heard me,” said Queue firmly. “The skite’s going to take us straight across the fjord.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  The skite was like nothing on earth. It was a wheeled cart – big enough for two people to stand in – with levers at one end and ropes at the other end, attached to a truly enormous rectangular bowed kite. Queue was in charge of the kite, and I was to work the ‘Mode Change’ levers. He showed me how. One lowered wheels for when we were on land. One was for skis when we were on the ice, and one dropped down a central keel for keeping us from tipping over when we were on the water.

  Queue licked a finger and held it up.

  “Wind’s coming from the sea. Let’s go.”

  There was no one about to notice us as we trundled the skite out of the settlement and up the hill. There was no one to tell us to go home again and stop being silly.

  My stomach felt strange.

  “Well?” grunted Queue. “Hurry up, Leif – in you get.”

  I got in. I could hear him muttering to himself as he made the last minute checks, “Ropes clear. Wheels down. Runway clear – no sign of that wretched cow. Hold fast, then tug and tilt. Tug and tilt.”

  I stared out across the fjord. Any second now and there we would be, right out in the middle of it all, off on a daring, dangerous dash across the unstable ice and open water. Daring. Dangerous. As in, it might not work, and we might both drown, and it might be smarter all round to wait until my father came back and –

  Queue gave a great shove, jumped on board, and the whole unlikely contraption, us included, was all at once speeding down the hill before I could even draw breath to scream.

  I could feel my ears being pinned back again as we thundered at a ridiculous angle towards the edge of the fjord – there was a great jerk – “Tug…” Queue’s voice came as if from far away, “and tilt!” –and as the kite swerved past our heads and up into the air we slowed for a moment almost to a halt… and then lunged forward again, faster than I would have thought possible, racing towards the shoreline ice.

  “Lift the wheels!” Queue screamed in my ear. I slammed the wheel lever back and the ski lever forward just as the skite lurched onto the slippery surface of the frozen fjord and tried to go sideways. Luckily the width of the skis brought us back in a straight line. The strong wind from the sea took the kite above us and threw it across the sky, towing Queue and me and the weight of the skite effortlessly. Queue held on to the ropes for dear life and I held on to the levers just as hard.

  “Open water ahead!” Queue yelled over the shushing of the skis. “Get ready to drop the keel!”

  The wind that was carrying us along had whipped the open water of the fjord into choppy waves that would cause havoc to our flat skis. My eyes were streaming but I didn’t dare free a hand to wipe them. I had to time this just right…

  “Now!” screamed Queue at the exact same moment that I heaved on the lever. We cut into the water with a great splosh of icy spray that left us gasping, but the keel was down.

  “Must… hold… on,” groaned Queue as the greater resistance of the water slowed us and the wind tried its best to rip the kite from his hands.

  Suddenly my granny’s voice popped into my head. “Our fjord’s so deep it goes right down to the toes of the mountains – down… down…”

  Not now, Granny! I yelled silently, trying to fight down the cold, black panic I was feeling. I need to concentrate!

  There was one more hurdle – getting the skite back up onto the ice on the other side. Get it wrong and I would wham us into the ice, Queue would certainly lose hold of the kite, and we would very likely not survive long enough to decide whose fault it was.

  But our luck held and a sudden extra gust of wind at the crucial moment gave us just enough lift. I pulled up the keel, slammed the ski lever hard and we leapt onto the ice with a teeth-jangling smash and away.

  Did I say there was only one more hurdle? When I said that I wasn’t thinking clearly. The real hurdle was coming up now, and it was coming up fast.

  “How do we stop this thing?” I yelled back at my companion, but there was no answer.

  “Queue?”

  The shore was getting closer by the second, the rocks were getting more vicious-looking and the trees were getting bigger. There was dread growing inside me that threatened to crawl up my throat and throttle me.

  “Queue!”

  I risked a look back over my shoulder and realised that the dread was well-founded.

  It was clear from the expression on Queue’s face that he had no idea whatsoever how to stop.

  Closer. And closer. And then…

  WHAM! SMASH! WALLOP!

  Stopping seemed to have taken care of itself.

  “Queue? Are you all right?” I croaked through a mouthful of snow.

  Queue was flat on his back with his legs in the air but, miraculously, he wasn’t dead. His neck wasn’t broken either, nor any other obvious bits or bones.

  “Hmmm. That’ll need some work,” was all he said.

  Our luck had held. True, we were both battered, bruised, dishevelled and scraped pretty much all over. But what a ride!

  We picked ourselves up out of the shattered remains of the skite, and looked about. There, behind us, was Frondfell, tiny on the far shore of the fjord. Above, the mountains loomed and the sky was darkening. Ahead lay the battle we had come to fight.

  “Let’s go,” said Queue.

  The light was fading fast as we stumbled through the trees, angling up from the shore to where the Pass over the mountains began. Up until now I hadn’t doubted for a moment that we would find him still here, but suddenly the plan seemed too crazy to succeed. Against all the odds, we’d come this far, but the Pedlar could be long gone already, and The Book with him. We were just an old man and a
boy. It was hopeless.

  Then Queue grabbed my arm. There, flickering through the trees ahead, we could see someone’s fire.

  We crept forward, making no noise, using the trees for cover, closer, and closer until there it was – the thief’s campsite, only a few strides away. The thief himself was sitting on a log by the fire. The pack of stolen goods was at his feet. He was cradling Queue’s Book in his arms, wrapped in a scarf, almost as if it were an ailing child.

  I could feel Queue tensing beside me, ready to rush forward and overpower him. I got set to do the same – when suddenly a log in the fire shifted and the light flared up and we could see our quarry clearly for the first time.

  And then I realised what it was that had been bothering me all along. Quickfingers the old Pedlar wasn’t an old pedlar at all.

  Quickfingers the old Pedlar was a boy.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Pedlar’s Story

  When it came down to it, there was no overpowering to be done. When we walked into the circle of firelight he just stared, owl-eyed, for a moment, then handed the bundled Book back to Queue, and shuffled over on his log to make room.

  We sat down. Now that we were here, neither Queue nor I knew what to say. I began to wonder if we would just sit there all night – maybe all winter – maybe they wouldn’t find us till the spring, three silent ice statues – but then Quickfingers suddenly started to talk.

  “My master taught me everything I know about disguises,” he said in a dull, sad voice. “He also taught me everything I know about stealing. My real name is Sigli, but he called me Quickfingers, because I was so good at nicking things. I’ve travelled with him for as long as I can remember.”

  “You had a master?” I asked – and then I remembered Quickfingers – Sigli – asking Queue the same question. “What about your family?”

  Sigli shrugged. “I don’t know. When I was little I used to ask him, but he never told me anything about them. So after a while, I stopped asking.”