Chapter 2
Oxford
"So, Charles," Lord Shaw said confidentially as they were all seated, "I have to confess that I'm not used to all the grandeur here at Oxford. Will you nudge me if I pick up the wrong fork?"
Charles stifled a laugh and looked at Lord Shaw with interest. "Are you a visiting Scholar, my Lord?"
Lord Shaw rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly. "I've never had the discipline to stay inside long enough to earn such an honor, to be honest," he said. "I enjoy working in the field too much."
"Really?" Charles was riveted.
"Oh, indeed," he replied, taking a bite of roasted swan. "In fact, I spent three months in Greenland last year taking measurements of the Aurora. But tell me more about yourself, Charles. Is it true you're close to finishing your degree?"
Charles found himself talking freely with Lord Shaw, telling him of everything in his life from studies to escapades to Raven. "...and we have all kinds of fun. Her daemon Luzaiel still changes, so he can blend with the background and then tell her when we can get outside the College, or when someone's not watching something."
Shaw chuckled. "So, you and Raven get up to a bit of trouble, do you?"
Maaike went completely still in his lap, and Charles stopped, realizing to whom he was talking. "Not...really, my Lord. I mean, we'd never do anything bad, we just..."
Shaw's chuckle turned into a laugh, and Charles quailed as a few of the Scholars turned their heads towards him. "No, no, my boy, you misunderstand me. I've never had too much use for following rules. Why, it would be tragic if you never had any fun in such a magnificent place as this." Charles smiled gratefully, and Shaw went on. "But, tell me, Charles, now that you're going to graduate early, what will Oxford do with you then? Do you want to be a Scholar someday?"
This was dangerous ground with a guest; he shouldn't appear ungrateful. "To be honest, my Lord, I owe a great deal to Oxford. If they should accept me to be a candidate Scholar, I should be very honored."
"Honored you will be, I've no doubt," Shaw said jovially, wiping his hands after a dip in the fingerbowl. "But is that what you want?"
Even more dangerous ground. "I...yes," Charles said firmly. "I do want to be a Scholar."
"Then I'm sure that is exactly what you'll achieve," Shaw said kindly, and turned to his left to converse with the Sub-Rector.
Maaike stretched up to whisper in his ear. "You didn't do anything wrong," she soothed. "He couldn't go through the dinner without talking to the Sub-Rector. He already talked to you far longer than was polite."
"You think I bored him?" Charles whispered back. "I should have asked him to talk about his work, instead of telling him stupid stuff about me and Raven."
"No, he liked it," Maaike reassured him. "He talks about his work all the time, he looked like he enjoyed hearing about you."
Charles smiled as he glimpsed the appearance of a raspberry tart, and gave Maaike a gentle scratch on her cheek.
xxx
For weeks after the dinner party, nothing changed and there were no more children reported missing. The Head Cook did make Raven and the other young servants stay in for a while, but eventually the rule was forgotten about. Then a few children disappeared in Birmingham, then Sheffield, then Manchester. Everyone had heard of someone who knew of a child that had disappeared. There were all kinds of stories about who was taking the children and why. One was that the children were being fattened up and sold to wealthy Tartars as slaves. Another said that only children with mutations were being taken, and they were being trained for a circus. Still another said that the children were being used to climb into tiny mine shafts and dig for aureate.
The legend of a shadowy group of beings that were responsible for taking the children grew along with the number of children missing. Some said that the leader was a beautiful lady; others said it was an ugly youth that piped a flute so beautifully that the children danced as they disappeared into the night. However, one thing that everyone agreed on was the name of these mysterious kidnappers. It was too difficult to continually refer to a mysterious group without a name, and the name that stuck, without anyone knowing why, was the Gobblers.
"Don't be out after dark, or the Gobblers'll get'cha!"
"My auntie in Norfolk, she knows a woman whose little boy was took by the Gobblers..."
"Gobblers took two kids offa train to London. They're comin' south fer sure!"
But, there were always stories such as these, and Charles took little interest in them, until he heard of a boy gone missing from a gyptian family he knew. It was close to the time of the Market Fair, and the streets were clogged with vendors and traders dealing in everything from apricots to horses. Charles was sauntering along the edge of the Port Meadow boatyard one morning, waiting for Raven and thinking of nothing but what kind of food he might charm from a vendor. A shout from a voice he recognized broke his reverie.
"Where'd you let him get off to, you beetle-headed clotpole?"
Charles stopped and looked around immediately, because this was Magda Lehnsherr, known as Ma Lehnsherr, and she was a force to be reckoned with. The entire Lehnsherr family was known for the speed and grandeur of their boats; it was whispered that some of the family could smooth metal using only their voice. Charles caught sight of Ma Lehnsherr, rage in a calico dress, shouting at a horse trader who was making supplicating gestures with his hands.
"I dunno where he went," the trader was saying, holding his raccoon daemon tightly to his side. "He was here and then gone."
"He was helping you! He was holding your moldy horses for you!" This was Erik Lehnsherr, one of the older boys of the family. He was standing next to his mother, looking like he'd gladly rip the trader's head off.
"Well he shoulda stayed there and not run off in tha' middle of a job, then! Useless br-"
He was interrupted then by Erik sending a punch to the side of his head, followed by Ma Lehnsherr with a barrage of slaps. The trader turned to run, with onlookers jeering and daemons hooting in derision.
Charles turned to a gyptian child that had been watching, open-mouthed. "What's she angry about?"
"It's her kid," said the boy. "Pietro. She figures the Gobblers got him, I reckon."
"What's them Gobblers?" a gyptian girl asked.
"They're nothing," Charles replied, giving his best Scholar look to both children. "Don't be telling lies."
"They's pirates that steal kids to clean the bilges," the boy replied.
"No, not pirates," another child loftily corrected. "Cannaboles. They eat kids, that's why they called the Gobblers."
"En't no Gobblers in Oxford," Charles said dismissively.
"They do be," said another child. "Least, they might be. I en't seen Pietro meself since we landed yesterday-"
Suddenly, Erik was there, clouting the child on the back of the head while his daemon, a peregrine falcon, dove at the child's polecat daemon. The polecat hissed and became a skink, scuttling up the boy's sleeve and out of the way of her sharp beak.
"Shut it, Billy," Erik said menacingly. The boy dodged a further blow and ran off towards another boat. Erik and his daemon both turned to Charles. "You seen Pietro?"
Charles shook his head. "No, I just got here. I en't seen Pietro since I last saw you, and that's been months." He glanced back at Ma Lehnsherr. "Your ma's really lit up."
Erik nodded once, then took a breath. "He wouldn't've just walked off."
The falcon let out a screech, and Maaike hissed softly in solidarity.
"He's about," Charles tried to reassure him. "It's crowded, that's all. I'll help you look."
Erik started to reply, but another wail from his mother turned his head, and he started back to her in long strides. "I'll maybe see you," he tossed back at Charles.
Maaike had been twining herself around Charles' ankles, and jumped up to his shoulder as soon as he reached down to her. "Pietro's not really gone, is he?"
"No," Charles said, his fingers absently stroking her fur. "That trader's just dullheaded. He wasn't even watching his own horses, if he didn't see Pietro go."
Maaike wrapped a paw around the back of his neck. "Let's look," she suggested. "You can grab a few of the others and go through the market. You're the oldest here, tell off these kids to look for him too."
"Right." Charles turned and stared down the group of children, town and gyptian, that were gathered to watch the commotion. "All you lot, go and look for Pietro. Everywhere you think he might be, understand? And if any of you say the word 'Gobblers' around Ma Lehnsherr, I'll make you sorry for it."
That started a rush. All of the children ran off in twos and threes, their daemons changing into birds and other animals that could climb to higher vantage points. Other children joined, some having no idea what they were looking for, and thinking it was just a game. Charles sat by the wharf, smoking a cigarette and waiting for some of his young subjects to return with information, or Pietro himself.
As the sun crested over noon, he became more worried. The gyptian world was tight knit, and a child being gone for an hour or so was never a reason for concern like this. Every gyptian mother knew that if her child wasn't right in her sight, then it wasn't far from someone else who would love and protect it instinctively. But now, Charles could see that Ma Lehnsherr was still frightened, and the daemons with the growing group of adults were all angry as well, feathers ruffling and fangs showing.
Some of the children returned to Charles, and from what he could gather, the last time Pietro had definitely been seen was around seven that morning, when he had agreed to hold horses for the trader. No one had seen him go, and no one had seen him since. Charles would have sent the children out to look again, but parents were appearing, calling children back to boats and shops and wagons. Ma Lehnsherr had finally been convinced to go inside the boat cabin, while some of the gyptian men and older boys stayed on the deck, talking in low tones. Trading seemed to have been forgotten.
With a chill, Charles realized someone else had been forgotten: Raven. She was going to meet him that morning after breakfast; the sun was now dropping behind the Cathedral spire. Charles turned and began to run through the narrow streets back towards the College, with Maaike galloping alongside him.
