Sixty-One Nails Part 41

"Something like that."

"That's what she said," I protested.

"She said it was the sight of something to secure your place in the courts. She didn't say you'd live to enjoy it."

"It's a better option than the certain knowledge of what the Seventh Court will do if the barrier falls. "

"Perhaps."

"Who knows, maybe the Council will be grateful and reward us?"

"I can tell that you've never had any dealings with the courts."

That was true, but I knew from corporate experience that the grat.i.tude of those further up the hierarchy was unreliable at best.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"I guess not," she sighed.

"Then we have to figure out where we can hire a car. "

"A car? What do you want a car for?"

"To get to Shrops.h.i.+re. It's two hundred miles, near enough. How did you think we were going to get there? I don't think the Underground goes as far as Shrewsbury."

My sarcasm bounced off her. "I thought we would walk," she said.

"Walk? If we walk, the ceremony will have been and gone by the time we get back. "

"That depends on which way we walk."

She led the way down the Strand onto Fleet Street. I caught up and walked alongside her.

"You're remarkably sanguine about this for someone who has just decided to take on the Untainted and the High Court."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

She carried on walking while she thought about it.

"I'm far older than you," she said.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"I've seen a lot of Fey; when they get older they become withdrawn. They hide themselves away from harm. They hold their lives closed so they won't die, horde them like treasure. "

"And?"

"And they atrophy. They're still living but they might as well be dead for the all the difference it makes. I don't want to end up like that. I want to live before I die. "

"So you'll spit in the eye of fate and see what happens."

"Maybe not spit, but I won't hide when fate intervenes. We were meant to discover this. They've been hiding it for centuries and now it's breaking down. If we hadn't discovered it then the barrier would fail and it would all go sour. Now we have a chance to fix it. "

"And the consequences?"

"Let fate decide the consequences." She lifted her chin, determined.

"Fate isn't always kind, even to those she favours."

"That's true where I come from too. You see? We do have something in common."

As we walked down Fleet Street she appeared to be looking for something.

"So we walk to Shrops.h.i.+re?"

She gave me one of those cryptic smiles that meant she knew something I didn't, and she wasn't going to tell me what it was.

"A car is basically a metal box on wheels. You're not going to be comfortable sitting for hours in a steel box, are you?" She strolled along the pavement and then surprised me by stepping into a bookshop.

I followed her in. It was full of legal and history books, serving the local concentration of lawyers. The only fiction volumes were hardback best sellers, displayed on a stand by the door. Blackbird ignored these and went to the back of the shop where there was a display of maps. "Ordnance Survey maps," she announced. "Perfect." She began selecting maps and consulting the backs until she found the one she wanted. She fanned it out in front of her, resting it precariously on the shelf, and then took out the slip of paper Claire had given her and consulted the map with it.

"It should be here somewhere." Her finger circled the map around the area to the south of Bridgnorth. The land on the map had been shaped by the same industry that had marked my own home county of Kent. I could see the places where the streams had been diverted, dammed and sluiced to power water wheels and where woods had been coppiced to provide charcoal for the furnaces. Iron making was engraved into the landscape like a signature. In the past, this wouldn't have bothered me, but now I wondered how I would react to the presence of all that iron. I rubbed the sore patch on my hand, conscious of the after-effects of my encounter with the iron gates at Australia House. "There's the village." I pointed out the location on the map. "It can't be far from there."

"It looks like the right sort of place to find a family of smiths," she grinned.

She refolded the map and went to the counter to pay for it. I waited at the door and then we walked back along the way we had come, towards the Strand. "Are you serious about walking to Shrops.h.i.+re?"

"Yes," she said. "And no." That teasing smile was back again.

We walked back past the Royal Courts of Justice and she led the way to the other side of the road and over to the church across the square from Australia House. We approached the door and she held up her hand. "Wait a second. There's somebody in the hallway. We don't particularly want to be observed entering. "

"Blackbird, we have a long way to travel, by whatever means. Now is not the time to be visiting churches. "

"We need to visit this one."