gone home? Perhaps they’d fallen down some hole in the boards and were hurt – or even dead? Maybe it had not been a good idea to go on ahead by himself after all? Why was he always trying to be the big brother to them, instead of letting them share the responsibility?
At that moment Jordy sat bolt upright and listened hard.
What was that?
Music?
Definitely music. He could hear the distant strains of a fiddle being played somewhere just outside the forest of clocks. The sound was mournful and melancholy at first, but then the pace picked up and the tune became what sounded like an Irish jig. Jordy jumped to his feet and went in search of the musician, who was no great violinist.
Jordy reminded himself that he ought to be careful. If the musician was an Attican he could expect a cold reception at the very least. It was best to remain concealed until the situation became clearer.
Creeping up to the pale of the forest of dead clocks, Jordy peered into the dense blackness. Anything could be out there: a different people; a herd of strange beasts; even monsters.
But there were no monsters. What there were, were rats.
From a high skylight a shaft of moonlight, very bright, very intense, full of flecks of dust, fell upon the attic floor.
In this spotlight two rats were up on their back legs, dancing. They were gently twirling and spinning, hopping and jumping, both moving to the music from a hidden minstrel. Their tails swished in time to the cadence, their ears twitched and their forelimbs waved. They were lost in the melody, caught up in their own rhythmic steps, as they pranced and leapt, swayed in an elegant manner, and even quivered with the longer humming notes. Two willowy rafter rats with intent expressions, dancing to the magic of a fiddler’s tune.
‘How can they do that?’ murmured Jordy to himself.
But they did. And they did it magnificently.
Then the speed of the music picked up pace and the dance became faster and faster, until Jordy felt giddy for the two rodents. They spun, they somersaulted, they flew through the air. It was a dance of demented red-eyed rats with whirling-dervish suppleness in their bones. What demons possessed their souls to dance with such frantic energy, such frenetic movements? Surely at any moment their limbs would fly off, their heads would shoot from their bodies? Jordy had never witnessed such a scene.
He became aware of an audience out there, beyond the dancing rats, who were just as entranced as he. When his eyes grew used to the darkness he could see they were villagers: Atticans, probably the same ones who had chased him earlier, now lured by a fiddler’s tune. The villagers stood and watched the pair, absolutely absorbed by them. None appeared to look for the music maker. They simply enjoyed the dancing rodent duo and ignored the presence of the one-man orchestra.
It was sheer poetry in the moonlight. Jordy was not normally one to appreciate such delights, but this time he knew he had witnessed something quite extraordinary.
Once the music stopped the rats slipped away up into the darkness beneath the rafters.
The villagers had brought gifts with them, of food and drink, which they left standing in the shaft of moonlight. When the Atticans had gone, Jordy waited to see who would take the gifts. No one did. Eventually he decided to take some of them himself. His stores could always do with a boost. So he crept out and reached for one of the bottles of drink. Unscrewing the top he took a long swig. It tasted a little like weak ginger beer and after a diet of plain water it was delicious. Jordy then reached out for a parcel of food: squares of something which looked like confectionery.
A hand of strong thick fingers clamped around his wrist.
‘Aahg!’ Jordy almost died of fright.
‘Leave them where they be,’ snarled a rough, coarse voice, ‘or I’ll snap your arm like a matchstick.’
Still all Jordy could see was this thick wrist in the spotlight provided by the moon, with a bunch of hairy fingers attached.
‘Leave me alone,’ he cried. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘Nothin’ but steal the food out of my mouth.’
‘I haven’t touched the food yet.’
‘Nothin’ but snatch the drink from my lips.’
Jordy’s fear ebbed a little as no threat was carried out.
‘It’s not your food – the villagers left it.’
‘Didn’t I earn it?’ growled the hoarse-voiced speaker. ‘Didn’t I busk the life out