The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [59]
He found himself worrying about the Inspector. And he worried about his journey, about where he should go, and wondered how he would accomplish the seemingly impossible goal the Bookman had set him. But most of all he missed Lucy, and he worried, worried until he could barely think or eat: for, just before his interview with the Bookman was at an end, he saw her again.
"I can give you back Lucy," the Bookman had said, and then–
She came to him out of the water of that dark lake. Her hair fell down to her shoulders. Her body was as he remembered it. She ran to him, appearing at the edge of the light and rushing forward, and she embraced him, and her lips on his were the taste of happiness. He kissed her, holding her close to him, the cold water of the lake soaking his shirt. "Oh, Orphan," she whispered, and she looked into his eyes and he could have remained that way forever.
"Touching," the Bookman said. And then, as quickly and mysteriously as she had come, Lucy was gone again, and Orphan, helpless, could do nothing. He, too, had to obey the Bookman's commands.
And the Bookman had given him papers, and money, and instructions. He was to go to France, to the city of Nantes which lies close to the Atlantic Ocean, and there he would be met. He wondered who it would be to welcome him.
In the event, the Bookman's agent waited for him at the station, and Orphan got a bit of a shock.
As the train came to rest against the platform Orphan glimpsed, through the window, two figures standing outside. One was a large, fat man holding a cane: the other was short and balding and even from a distance Orphan could see he had a scar down his left cheek that ended just below the eye. When he got off the train the two men approached him, and the short one made directly for Orphan's luggage. The fat man beamed at Orphan and threw his cane to his servant, took Orphan's outstretched hand in both of his, and shook it energetically. "Welcome to my home town," he said. "Welcome to Nantes."
"Thank you," Orphan said, "Mr–?"
The fat man looked taken aback. "Why, I thought my name is well known even in that lizards'-spawn hell of yours across the Channel," he said.
"I'm sorry, I don't–"
The fat man drew himself up. He snapped his fingers and his servant threw him his cane. The man caught it single-handedly and twirled it. "The name," he said stiffly, "is Verne. Jules Verne."
"Jules Verne? The author of L'Île mystérieuse?"
"Amongst many others," the writer said modestly. "Is this all the luggage you have?" He barked an order in French at his manservant, then turned to Orphan with a shrug. "This is my man, Robur," he said. Then he smirked. "I call him 'the conqueror'."
"How so?"
"Because of, shall we say, his prowess, with the ladies?"
Robur grinned at Orphan from behind the luggage.
They went in a coach and Robur did the driving. He drove the horses very fast. As they went through the narrow streets Orphan saw strange figures gathered and thought, for a moment, that he had seen royal lizards. In France?
"What," he said, and then wasn't sure what to say and merely pointed through the window. Verne turned to look.
"Punks de Lézard," he said.
They were an odd, mixed crowd, Orphan saw, watching them in horrified fascination: their hair was cut off entirely for both the males and the females, save for several who had a curious ridge or spine made of a narrow strip of hair in the middle of their scalp, that stood in tall spikes from their otherwise-bare heads. Their naked skulls