The Thief Lord Part 1

THE THIEF LORD.

by Cornelia Funke.

1 Victor's New Clients

It was autumn in Venice when Victor first heard of Prosper and Bo. The ca.n.a.ls, gleaming in the sun, dappled the ancient brickwork with gold. But the wind was blowing ice-cold air from the sea, reminding the Venetians that winter was approaching. Even the air in the alleyways tasted of snow, and only the wings of the carved angels and dragons high up on the rooftops felt any real warmth from the pale sun.

The house in which Victor lived and worked stood close to a ca.n.a.l; so close, in fact, that the water lapped against its walls. At night, he sometimes dreamed that the house was sinking into the waves, and that the sea would wash away the causeway that Venice clings to, breaking the thin thread that binds the city to Italy's mainland. In his dream the sea would sweep the lagoon away too, swallowing everything -- the houses, the bridges, the churches, the palaces, and the people who had built so boldly on its surface.

For the time being, however, the city still stood firmly on its wooden legs. Victor leaned against his window and looked out through the dusty gla.s.s. Surely no other place on earth was more proud of its beauty than Venice, and as he watched its spires and domes, each caught the sun as if trying to outs.h.i.+ne one another. Whistling a tune, Victor turned away from the window and walked over to his large mirror. Just the weather for trying out his new disguise, he thought, as the sun warmed the back of his st.u.r.dy neck. He had bought this new treasure only the previous day: an enormous mustache, so dark and bushy that it would have made any self-respecting walrus extremely jealous. He stuck it carefully under his nose and stood on his toes to make himself taller. He turned to the left, to the right, and became so engrossed in his reflection that he only heard the footsteps on the stairs when they stopped outside his door.

Clients. Blast! Why were they bothering him now of all times?

With a deep sigh he sat behind his desk. He heard voices whispering outside his door. They were probably admiring his nameplate, Victor thought, a handsome black s.h.i.+ny sign with his name engraved in gold letters.

VICTOR GETZ.

PRIVATE DETECTIVE.

INVESTIGATIONS OF ANY KIND.

It was written in three languages -- after all, he often had clients from abroad. Next to the sign was a knocker -- a lion's head with a bra.s.s ring in its mouth, which Victor had polished just that morning.

What are they waiting for? he thought, tapping his fingers on the armrest of his chair. "Avanti!" "Avanti!" He called out, He called out, "Come in!" "Come in!"

The door opened. A man and a woman stepped into Victor's office, which also doubled as his living room. They looked around warily, taking in the cacti, the beard and mustache collection, the coat stand bursting with Victor's caps, hats and wigs, the huge street map of Venice on the wall, and the winged lion that served as a paperweight on Victor's desk.

"Do you speak English?" asked the woman, although her Italian sounded quite fluent.

"Of course!" Victor answered, gesturing toward the chairs in front of his desk. "English is my mother tongue. What can I do for you?"

They both sat down hesitantly. The man folded his arms and looked rather sullen, the woman stared at Victor's walrus mustache.

"Oh, that's just for camouflage," he explained, pulling the mustache from his lip. "Quite a necessity in my line of work. Well, what can I do for you? Anything lost or stolen, any pet run away?"

Without saying a word, the woman reached into her bag. She had ash-blonde hair and a pointed nose. Her mouth didn't look as if smiling was its favorite activity. The man was a giant, at least two full heads taller than Victor. His nose was peeling from sunburn and his eyes were small and dull. Doesn't look like he can take a joke either, Victor thought, as he committed the two faces to memory. He could never remember a phone number, but he never forgot a face.

"This is what we've lost," said the woman as she pushed the photograph across the desk. Her English was even better than her Italian. is what we've lost," said the woman as she pushed the photograph across the desk. Her English was even better than her Italian.

Two boys looked out at Victor from the photograph. One was small and blonde, with a broad smile on his face; the other was older, dark-haired and more serious looking. He had his arm around the younger boy's shoulder, as if he wanted to protect him from all that was evil in the world.

"Children?" Victor looked up in surprise. "I've tracked down a lot of things in my time -- suitcases, dogs, a couple of escaped lizards, and some husbands -- but you are the first clients to come to me because they've lost their children, Mr. and Mrs...?" He looked at them inquisitively.

"Hartlieb," the woman answered. "Esther and Max Hartlieb."

"And they are not not our children," her husband stated firmly, which immediately earned him an angry look from his pointy-nosed wife. our children," her husband stated firmly, which immediately earned him an angry look from his pointy-nosed wife.

"Prosper and Boniface are my late sister's sons," she explained. "She raised the boys on her own. Prosper has just turned twelve, and Bo is five."

"Prosper and Boniface," murmured Victor. "Unusual names. Doesn't Prosper mean 'the lucky one'?"

Esther Hartlieb arched her eyebrows. "Does it? Well, one thing's for sure, they're very strange names, and that's putting it mildly. My late sister had a fondness for anything peculiar. When she died three months ago, my husband and I applied for custody of Bo since we sadly don't have any children of our own. But we couldn't possibly have taken on his older brother as well. Any reasonable person could see that. But Prosper got very upset, acting like a lunatic, accusing us of stealing his brother -- although we would have allowed him to visit Bo once a month." Her pale face grew even paler.

"They ran away more than eight weeks ago," Max Hartlieb continued, "from their grandfather's house in Hamburg, where they were staying at the time. Prosper's quite capable of talking his brother into any foolish scheme, and everything we have found out so far indicates that he has brought him here, to Venice."

"From Hamburg to Venice?" Victor raised his eyebrows. "That's a long way for two children to travel on their own. Have you contacted the police here?"

"Of course we have," hissed Esther Hartlieb. "They were no help at all. Surely it can't be that hard to find two children, who are all alone --"

But her husband cut her off. "Sadly, I have to return home on urgent business. We would therefore like to put you in charge of the search for the boys, Mr. Getz. The concierge at our hotel recommended you."

"How nice of him," Victor mumbled. He fiddled with the false mustache. The thing looked like a dead mouse lying next to the phone. "But what makes you so sure they've come to Venice? Surely they didn't come just to ride on the gondolas ..."

"It's their mother's fault!" Mrs. Harltieb pursed her lips and glanced out through Victor's dirty window. Outside on the balcony, the wind was ruffling the feathers of a pigeon. "My sister kept telling the boys about this city. She told them stories about winged lions, a golden cathedral, and about angels and dragons perched on top of the buildings. She told them that water nymphs came ash.o.r.e for walks at night up the little steps on the edges of the ca.n.a.ls." She shook her head angrily. "My sister could talk about these things in a way that she almost made me believe her. It was Venice this, Venice that, nothing but Venice! Bo drew winged lions all the time and Prosper simply drank in every word his mother said. He probably thought that if they could make it to Venice, he and Bo would land right in the middle of fairyland. What an idea!" She wrinkled her nose and cast a contemptuous look through the window at the crumbling plaster of the neighboring houses.

Mr. Hartlieb adjusted his tie. "It has cost us a lot of money to trace the boys this far, Mr. Getz," he said, "and I can a.s.sure you that they are here. Somewhere ..."

"...in this filth!" Mrs. Hartlieb finished her husband's sentence for him.

"Well, at least there aren't any cars here to run them over," Victor said under his breath. He looked up at the street map on his wall and stared at the maze of lanes and ca.n.a.ls that made Venice so unique. Then turning back to look at his desk, deep in thought, he started scratching doodles onto its surface with his letter opener.

Mr. Hartlieb cleared his throat. "Mr. Getz...will you take the case on?"

Victor looked once more at the photograph of the two very different faces -- the tall, serious boy and the carefree smile of the younger one. And then he nodded. "Yes, I'll take it," he said. "I will find them. They look a little too young to be coping on their own. Tell me, did you ever run away as children?"

"For heaven's sake, of course I didn't!" Esther Hartlieb looked flabbergasted. Her husband just shook his head as if it was the strangest thing he'd ever heard.

"Well, I did." Victor wedged the photograph under the winged lion. "But I was by myself. I didn't have a brother, big or small, to look after me...Well, leave me your address and telephone number, and let's talk about my fee."

As the Hartliebs struggled back down the narrow staircase, Victor stepped on to the balcony. A cold wind whipped at his face, bearing the salty tang of the nearby sea. s.h.i.+vering, he leaned against the bal.u.s.trade and watched the Hartliebs step onto a bridge a few houses further down the ca.n.a.l. It was a pretty bridge, but the couple seemed not to take any notice of it. They rushed across it sullenly, without even a glance at the scrawny dog barking at them from a pa.s.sing barge. And -- of course -- they didn't spit into the ca.n.a.l, like Victor always did.

"Well, who says you have to like your clients," the detective muttered to himself. He leaned over a cardboard box on the floor of the balcony, out of which the heads of two tortoises were peeking. "Parents like that are still better than no parents at all, right? What do you think? Don't tortoises have parents?"

Victor looked through the bal.u.s.trade at the ca.n.a.l below, and at the houses, whose stony feet were washed by the water day in, day out. He had lived in Venice for more than fifteen years and he still didn't know all the city's nooks and crannies -- but then again no one did. The job wouldn't be easy, particularly if the boys didn't want to be found. There were so many hiding places, and so many narrow alleys with names no one could remember -- some of them with no names at all. Boarded-up churches, deserted houses...the whole city was one huge invitation to play hide-and-seek.

Well, I've always liked playing hide-and-seek, thought Victor, and so far I've found everyone I've ever looked for. The two boys had already been coping alone for eight weeks. Eight weeks! When he he had run away from home he had only managed to cope with his freedom for one afternoon. At dusk, he had slunk back home, feeling sad and sorry for himself. had run away from home he had only managed to cope with his freedom for one afternoon. At dusk, he had slunk back home, feeling sad and sorry for himself.

The tortoises nibbled at the lettuce leaf Victor was holding out to them. "I think I'd better take you inside tonight," he said. "This wind tastes of winter."

Lando and Paula looked at him through their lashless eyes. He sometimes got them mixed up but they didn't seem to mind. He had found them one day at the fish market, where he had gone in search of a client's Persian cat. Once Victor had managed to fish the pedigreed cat out of a barrel full of stinking sardines and stowed her in a scratch-safe box, he had discovered the two tortoises. They had been meandering between all the human feet, completely oblivious to the world. When Victor picked them up they quickly retreated into their sh.e.l.ls.

"Where shall I start?" Victor wondered. "In the orphanages? The hospitals? They're such sad places. But maybe I don't need to begin there -- the Hartliebs have probably done that already." He leaned over the balcony and spat into the dark ca.n.a.l.

Bo and Prosper. Nice names, he thought, even if they are a little unusual.

2 Three Children

The Hartliebs had been right: Prosper and Bo had indeed managed to get to Venice. They had traveled a long way, squatting in rattling trains, hiding from conductors and nosy old ladies. They had locked themselves into stinking toilets, slept in dark corners, squeezed tightly together, hungry, tired and frozen. But they had done it, and they were still together.

At exactly the same time their aunt Esther was sitting down on a chair in front of Victor Getz's desk, the two boys were standing in a doorway just a few steps from the Rialto Bridge. The cold wind blew in their faces -- there was no doubt about it, the warm days were gone.

Esther had been wrong about one thing: Prosper and Bo were not alone. There was a girl with them. She was slender and had brown hair, which she wore in a long, thin braid that went right down to her hips and looked like a long stinger. It had given her her nickname: Hornet. She never answered to anything else.

The girl was frowning as she stared at a crumpled piece of paper. People pushed past her, ramming their full shopping bags into her back. "I think we've got everything," she said in a quiet, slightly hoa.r.s.e voice. Prosper had liked that voice as soon as he'd heard Hornet speak, even before he'd been able to understand much of what she was saying. At first he remembered just the few words of Italian that his mother had taught him along with her stories of Venice, but he'd had to learn fast. "Now there's just the batteries for Mosca. Where can we get those?"

Prosper pushed his bangs out of his face. "There's a hardware store back in that side alley," he said. He saw that Bo was hunching up his shoulders against the cold, so he turned up his brother's collar. The children pushed back into the crowd. It was market day at the Rialto and the narrow alleys were even more crowded than usual. Men and women, young and old, were squashed between the stalls, most of them laden with bags and parcels, everyone trying to squeeze past one another. There were old ladies, who had probably never left the city, weaving their way around the tourists. The air smelled of fish, autumn flowers, and dried mushrooms.

"Hornet?" Bo reached for her hand and gave her his sweetest smile. "Will you buy me one of those little cakes over there?"

Hornet pinched his cheek affectionately and shook her head. "No!" she said firmly, pulling him along.

The hardware store Prosper had discovered was tiny. In its window, between coffee machines and toasters, stood a few toys. Bo gazed at them, his mouth open. "But I'm hungry," he moaned, pressing his hands against the gla.s.s.

"You're always hungry," Prosper smiled. He opened the door and stayed with Bo near the entrance while Hornet walked up to the counter.

The girl addressed an elderly lady who had her back turned to the counter and was dusting some radios. "Scusi, "Scusi, I need batteries. Two. For a small radio." I need batteries. Two. For a small radio."

The lady packed the batteries in a paper bag and pushed a handful of candy across the counter. "What a sweet boy," she said, winking at Bo. "Fair as an angel. Is he your brother?"

Hornet shook her head, "No, they're my cousins. They're just visiting."

Prosper pushed Bo behind his back, but the boy slipped through his brother's arms and s.n.a.t.c.hed the candy from the counter. "Grazie!" "Grazie!" he said. He smiled at the old lady and hopped back to Prosper. he said. He smiled at the old lady and hopped back to Prosper.

The lady smiled. "Un vero angelo!" "Un vero angelo!" She put Hornet's money in the register. "But his mother should darn his pants and dress him in warmer clothes. The winter is coming. Didn't you hear the wind in the chimneys today?" She put Hornet's money in the register. "But his mother should darn his pants and dress him in warmer clothes. The winter is coming. Didn't you hear the wind in the chimneys today?"

"We'll tell her," Hornet stuffed the batteries into her full shopping bag. "Have a nice day, Signora."

"Angelo, huh!" Prosper shook his head as they pushed their way back into the crowd. "How come they all fall for you, Bo?" huh!" Prosper shook his head as they pushed their way back into the crowd. "How come they all fall for you, Bo?"

His little brother just stuck his tongue out at him and skipped ahead. The two older children had to struggle to keep up with him as he nimbly wove his way through all the legs and bodies.

"Not so fast, Bo!" Prosper shouted after him.

Hornet just laughed. "Leave him!" she said. "We won't lose him. See? He's right there."

Bo made a face. He tried to hop around an orange he'd seen on the ground, but he stumbled and crashed into a group of j.a.panese tourists. Startled, he scrambled up again, only to start smiling as soon as he saw that two of the women were pointing their cameras at him. But before they could take their pictures, Prosper was already dragging his brother away by the collar.

"How often do I have to tell you not to let yourself get photographed?" he hissed at him.

Bo pulled away from Prosper's hand and skipped over an empty cigarette pack. "But they were j.a.panese! Aunt Esther won't look at j.a.panese photographs, will she? And you you said she was going to adopt another boy anyway." said she was going to adopt another boy anyway."

Prosper nodded and mumbled, "Yes." But he couldn't help looking around as if he expected his aunt to be lurking in the crowd, just waiting for her chance to grab Bo.

Hornet noticed the look on Prosper's face. "You're thinking about your aunt again, aren't you?" she whispered, although Bo had wandered out of earshot again. "Forget her! She's not looking for you anymore. And even if she is, then she wouldn't be looking here, would she?"

Prosper shrugged. He cast an uncomfortable glance at a couple of women pa.s.sing by. "Probably not," he murmured.

But Hornet insisted, "Definitely not! So stop worrying!"

Prosper nodded, although he knew he wouldn't be able to stop. Every night, while Bo slept as soundly as a kitten, Prosper dreamed of Esther. Upright, nervous, hairspray-sticky Esther.

"Hey, Prop!" Bo suddenly stopped in front of them again. He held up a full wallet toward Prosper. "Look what I found!"

Prosper s.n.a.t.c.hed the wallet from his brother's hand and pulled him into a dark arcade away from the crowd.

"Where did you get that, Bo?"

Hornet had followed them behind a pile of old crates. A couple of pigeons were pecking at bits of squashed fruit on the ground.

Bo pushed out his lower lip defiantly, sulkily holding onto Hornet's arm. "I found it! I told you! A big bald man dropped it out of his pocket. He didn't even notice it. And then I found it!"

Prosper sighed.

Since they had begun to fend for themselves, Prosper had learned how to steal. Only food at first, but then money too. He hated it. He always got scared and his fingers started to tremble every time. Bo, however, thought it was an exciting game. Prosper had forbidden his brother to steal anything and he told him off very harshly every time he caught him. He certainly didn't want to give Esther a chance to say that he had turned his little brother into a thief.

"Calm down, Prop," Hornet said, giving Bo a cuddle. "He told you he didn't steal it, and the man is long gone. At least have a look and see how much is in it."

Reluctantly, Prosper opened the wallet.

The visitors who came to Venice to see the palaces and churches were always losing things. Mostly just bottles of water or the cheap carnival masks that you could buy on any street corner. But every now and then the strap of a camera would snap, or a handful of change would fall out of someone's pocket -- and sometimes even a wallet like this! Prosper leafed through the compartments but there were only a few one thousand lire notes tucked in between crumpled receipts, restaurant bills, and used vaporetto vaporetto tickets. tickets.

"Well, it would have been nice." Hornet couldn't hide her disappointment as Prosper threw the wallet into an empty crate. "Our cashbox is nearly empty. Let's hope the Thief Lord can fill it up again tonight."

"Of course he will!" Bo looked at Hornet as if she had doubted that the earth was round. "And one day I'm going to help him! I'm going to be a big thief. Scipio will teach me!"

"Over my dead body," Prosper grumbled, pus.h.i.+ng Bo back into the alley.

"It's OK," Hornet whispered to Prosper. Bo was trotting ahead of them, looking deeply insulted. "You don't really think Scipio is going take him along on a raid, do you?"

Prosper shook his head but he was still worried. Keeping an eye on Bo was difficult. Ever since they had run away from their grandfather's house, Prosper had asked himself at least three times a day whether he had been right to take his little brother with him. On that night, eight weeks ago, Bo had trailed alongside him with sleepy eyes. He had held on to his big brother's hand all the way to the station.

Getting to Venice had been easier than Prosper had expected. But it was already autumn when they arrived in the city, and the air had not been as warm and gentle as Prosper had imagined it to be. A damp wind had greeted them as they climbed down the steps from the station, blowing right through their thin clothes. All they had with them was a small bag and a backpack. Prosper's allowance hadn't lasted long, and after the second night Bo had already started coughing so badly that Prosper had taken him by the hand to go and find a policeman. He had been determined to use the few bits of Italian he had learned from his mother, and to say, "Scusi, "Scusi, we have run away from home, but my brother is sick. Could you call my aunt so she can come and pick him up?" we have run away from home, but my brother is sick. Could you call my aunt so she can come and pick him up?"

He had been desperate.

And then Hornet had appeared.