Lex Trent versus the Gods

CHAPTER TWO

Lex examined his face carefully in the mirror when he got home. To his relief, the cuts were not deep. He could not have scarring on his face. That would not do at all. It would quite ruin his honest, respectable appearance. He turned when he saw her behind him in the mirror. She was dressed in her usual white toga-like dress with her blond hair piled up high on her head.

‘Well?’ he snapped. ‘What do you have to say to me?’

He gestured to his impressive collection of cuts and bruises.

‘Well, you’re not dead, are you, Lex? You’ve just been careless,’ the Goddess of Fortune said with a disapproving click of her tongue as she eyed him up and down. ‘You should check your equipment each time. Luck can only take you so far, you know. Really, I turn my back for one minute and you go crashing through ceilings and getting yourself arrested.’

‘You are supposed to be watching out for me! You’re supposed to be making sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen! You’re so unreliable!’

‘Well of course, darling. I’m the Goddess of Luck, what do you expect? Anyway, Lex, I just came to give you the heads up. That odious little man, Schmidt, is on his way over.’

‘What the heck for-?’

‘With the guards.’

‘But why? I’ve been released on bail.’

‘A witness has come forward, I’m afraid. Most bothersome thing, but someone saw you go down through the roof of the museum. Anyway, they can testify that there was only one person there.’

She had not finished speaking before Lex had grabbed a bag and was stuffing things into it. He had been betting on Mr Lucas’s support and the sympathy of the jury to get him a not guilty verdict, but a witness would surely be enough to tip the scales against him. He wasn’t prepared to risk it. He would have to leave the Wither City. He had known it would come to this sooner or later, and it had certainly never been his intention to remain in the city for ever. It had offered him an escape route when he’d needed one before but he had never seriously intended to become a lawyer. He’d known that one day he would be found out. And then he would have to run because they would try to catch him. But they wouldn’t succeed because Lex knew how to run and he knew how to hide. And he was quite capable of doing both without any hint of guilt.

‘What are you doing?’ the Goddess asked, gazing at Lex in surprise.

‘I’m running away, you stupid woman!’ Lex replied as he dragged the carefully concealed money belt out from under his bed and fastened it round his waist beneath his shirt.

‘Whatever for? Can’t you just talk your way out of it?’

‘Believe it or not, my Lady, I cannot talk my way out of everything. Some things cannot be talked out of. This is one of those things. They can prove I’m the Shadowman if they’ve got a witness. They’ll lock me up for a very long time if they catch me. Do you understand that?’

No one could deny that the Goddess of Fortune was a useful ally to have but Lex sometimes couldn’t help wishing that his benefactress were a little less dim-witted.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, fluttering her hands in dismay. ‘You’d better be off then, hadn’t you, Lex?’

‘Yes,’ Lex replied, giving the deity a mocking bow. ‘Your servant, my Lady, until next time. Perhaps you could see your way clear to giving me a little help getting out of the city?’

It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Goddess had her church — and therefore her pride — and Lex had that greatest of gifts to a thief, fraudster and all-round good-for-nothing — luck. Mr Montgomery Schmidt could have torn his hair out at the way fate seemed to conspire against him that evening.

The Wither City was the centre of all trade and commerce in the Lands Above and as such, the city never slept. There were midnight markets set up all round the docks — the hub of all activity in the city. Stalls were randomly set up all over the place, selling crafts, spices, talismans, amulets and black enchantments from across the Azure Sea. Enterprising local Withians had set up their own stalls to supply the foreigners with Withian delicacies such as mini-sea-squids-on-sticks and candied insects although really the main export of the Wither City was its books. Great leather-bound tomes tied up with string and musty with the smell of ancient, valuable old pages. Books like those made in the Wither City could not be found anywhere else on the Globe. Smoke hung over the place from various cooking fires and the air was filled with the aroma of roasting squid and the sound of hundreds of voices jabbering away in as many different languages.

Lex dodged through crowds that seemed to magically part for him whilst Mr Schmidt and the guards at his heels had to fight their way through the throngs of seamen and merchants. Carts that did not in any way hinder Lex seemed to get right in the way of Schmidt and his henchmen. At one point, an entire market stall went over and, glancing over his shoulder, Lex distinctly saw his employer slipping about on the ground covered in slimy squid tentacles. He did not look very happy about it.

Lex grinned, kept his head down and pushed on through the midnight markets to the docks. Her Ladyship was living up to her side of the bargain tonight. Luck was on his side. The trouble was that luck could only take a person so far and Lex was sometimes in danger of forgetting that in the heady thrill of having everything going his way. ‘Good luck’ did not equal ‘invincibility’. Nor did it equal ‘unbeatable’ or ‘unconquerable’ or any other of those impressively God-like sounding words. Luck was what it was — a helping hand and nothing more. For the most part, it was all still up to Lex and his own native wits to escape from any situation that he had willingly launched himself headlong into.

He would buy his passage aboard one of the ships setting sail tonight. Once he was out of Withian territory, the law of the Wither City would have no jurisdiction over him anyway and Mr Schmidt would never be able to find him once he’d escaped to the Eastern Provinces. He would start again somewhere else. He had done it before. With his almost photographic memory and ability to adapt and pick up new skills, Lex was sure he would excel at pretty much anything he put his hand to. It wasn’t arrogance. It would only be arrogance if you didn’t know you were a multi-talented genius. But there was no one else like Lex — he was the best at everything. Everything. And he knew it too.

But it would be the rash actions of an inexperienced amateur to hop onto the nearest ship and set sail for who-knew-where without first providing for the journey and planning for the destination. Money was not a problem for Lex. Quite apart from the money belt and the stash of stolen goods he was carrying in his bag, he was an accomplished enough thief to be sure of surviving wherever he ended up. But there was more to travelling on the Globe than mere money and Lex had learnt long ago that it did not pay to be ill prepared, especially when travelling across provinces. There were things he would have to purchase before leaving the Wither City, the place that had been his home for just under a year.

Although it certainly hadn’t been Lex’s plan to leave the city that night, in some ways he was almost glad that fate had forced his hand. There was nothing like the excitement of running. And there was most definitely nothing like the excitement of being chased! And he had stayed here too long anyway — law and the Wither City had only ever been a means to an end. But before he left, he needed to make his purchases and whilst the midnight markets were the place to buy everything and anything, it would be a tedious bother to have to conduct his shopping in a hasty rush with Mr Schmidt yapping at his heels. Much as Lex was enjoying the chase, he was therefore forced to cut it off short.

He stripped off the distinctive bright red jacket he had donned just for that purpose and paid a cabin boy to put it on and scamper aboard his ship just as it was setting sail. Then he lurked about at the docks, coiling up the ropes with the other dockworkers, as Mr Schmidt burst out onto the wooden planks and gave a visual demonstration of just what exactly the word ‘apoplectic’ means. Although he was keeping his head down, Lex could easily understand the cause of his employer’s rage for Lex had paid the boy with instructions to take off the red coat once he boarded the ship and wave it energetically from the prow until the harbour was out of sight. Mr Schmidt could not fail to see it and, from that distance, he would be unable to tell that the boy was not in fact the iniquitous Lex Trent but a mere cabin boy instead.

The lawyer could have been no more than a dozen paces away but as Lex was wearing the cabin boy’s grubby old cap and jacket, Mr Schmidt would have had no reason to pay him any heed. Lex could have just sidled away into the shadows without any risk of discovery. But then a piece of paper fell from the lawyer’s hand and, because Lex was Lex, he picked it up as Mr Schmidt turned away and hurried after him to tug at his sleeve, raising the tone of his voice and being careful to keep his face hidden beneath the cap.

‘Lost sumfing, guv?’

Mr Schmidt glanced down at the abandoned, useless warrant and snatched it from Lex’s hand with a bad-natured word of thanks. Although, to his credit, he rummaged in his pocket for the customary coin and tossed it to Lex, even if it was with the same lack of grace.

‘Thanks, guv’nor!’ Lex called after him as the lawyer strode off into the throng.

It really was too easy. It was on the tip of his tongue to call out some other parting comment that would give away his identity — just for the pure deliciousness of seeing the look on Schmidt’s already anger-flushed face. But it would be reckless to start the chase off again and Lex forced himself to accept that this one at least would have to remain a private victory.

Lex had always loved the midnight markets. They were a way of life on the Globe and could be found in most western towns and cities in the Lands Above. But, as the centre of all trade, the markets in the Wither City were the largest and the most impressive, with the widest array of goods and services on offer.

Lex had often wandered down late at night to talk to the merchants, partly to keep abreast of all the goings on across the Azure Sea and partly because it never hurt to be on friendly terms with the local salesmen — they were much less likely to rip you off if they knew you to be a local and not simply one of the many travellers that passed through the Wither City each year.

‘Hello Cara,’ Lex said, stepping up to one of the sea-gypsy stalls.

‘Hi, Lex,’ the girl behind the wooden stall said.

She was about Lex’s age and had the typical black hair, dark eyes and olive skin of the sea-gypsies she sailed with. And she was sweet on Lex. Which helped him enormously whenever he wanted to get any information out of her. Not that he was a ladies’ man in general — in an era where teenage girls all seemed to be for the ‘treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen’ school of male wooing, Lex’s honest face (even if it was as false as he was) did not earn him many points where the fairer sex were concerned.

‘What happened to you?’ Cara asked, eyeing the bruises and cuts on Lex’s face and arms in the flickering light from the torches and fires. ‘And why are you wearing those old sailor clothes?’

‘Because I’m going sailing,’ Lex replied, glancing at the black outline of the ships in the harbour. ‘I’m leaving the Wither City.’

‘Why?’ Cara asked. ‘How long for?’

‘Did you hear about the Shadowman? He struck again today.’

Cara nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard people talking about it in the market. They said they arrested some kid… ’ She trailed off, staring at Lex, who nodded sadly. ‘But… surely… surely they can’t really think that you are the Shadowman?’

The way she said it was like she couldn’t think of a more absurd suggestion, and Lex had to bite his tongue to keep himself from asking defensively: why not?

‘I was framed,’ he said, making his eyes go all big and scared. ‘I never stole whatever it was. I tried to tell them, but they won’t listen.’

‘You must come with us,’ Cara said at once.

Sea-gypsies had been badly stigmatised over the years for thieving, double-crossing and casting spells over people — a reputation the facts suggested they did not deserve. But Lex had known that mention of an unwarranted accusation would strike a chord with Cara and might get him passage on board her family’s ship.

‘When do you leave?’ Lex asked. ‘They’re looking for me. I must get out of the Wither City as soon as I can.’

‘In the morning,’ Cara said. ‘But you can stay in one of the wagons until then if you want. They’ll be empty now because everyone else is out on the stalls.’

She took a key from one of the pockets on her dress and handed it to him.

‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ Lex asked. ‘Your family won’t mind me coming along? I can pay my way.’

‘You’re more than welcome, Lex.’ She shook her head and added, ‘You, the Shadowman! Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything more ridiculous in my life! Everyone knows what a hard-working, upstanding citizen you are. I mean you don’t even drink or smoke or anything.’

Lex nodded and looked pathetic. ‘I’ll go back to the wagon later. I have some things I need to get in the market first.’