Silvertongue by Charlie Fletcher Page A

shipmates,” said the Bosun, nodding at George and Edie.
    “Boy’s a maker, the girl’s a glint,” explained the Gunner, making the introductions. “George, Edie, these sailors is mates of mine from the east end of town. Jack Tar and the Bosun. Their normal billet is Trinity Square. They’re—”
    George interrupted with a grin. “Merchant seamen. From the memorial. My dad took me to see them once, when we went to the Tower next door. He was a sculptor. . . .” he explained. “He liked you. I mean, he liked what you were. Are. As statues.”
    Memory flashed and he saw his dad on a bright spring afternoon. He had his sketchbook out and was doing a quick pencil drawing of the two statues. They had a similar square-jawed heroic quality in their making, as the Gunner did, but like him they were somehow more than just idealized caricatures of heroes. They looked windswept and used to the weather in all its guises, and instead of uniforms, they wore the kind of working sea gear that real sailors assemble through years of experience. He remembered his dad commenting on the Bosun’s choice of belt, for example. George pointed.
    “He liked the string around your middle.”
    “So do I,” grunted the Bosun. “Keeps my trousers up.”
    The Queen pushed in close behind George and Edie and peered into the hubbub surrounding the Needle.
    “What’s happening?”
    “Jaw bloody jaw,” said Jack Tar. “Too many kings and dukes and generals, and not enough sense, if you ask me. They’re all used to getting their own way, see, and nobody’s got a firm hand on the tiller.”
    “We’ll see about that,” said the Queen, nodding at the Gunner. “What have the Sphinxes said?”
    The Gunner dived into the inner throng, pushing great men to left and right as he made his way to the Needle itself. The Queen looked at Jack Tar, waiting for an answer.
    “There’s a problem with the Sphinxes,” he said. “First off, she says we’re asking the wrong questions, and she’ll answer the right people when they ask it. And secondly . . .”
    “There’s only one Sphinx,” said Edie, looking around for the second one. George saw that she was right. They were one Sphinx short.
    “Yeah,” he said, suddenly wanting to be close to the Gunner as more and more eyes nearby began to notice them and stop talking. “Come on.”
    The Officer pushed a way through the crowd for them. The noise of chatter was still very loud and sustained, and every now and then voices rose in anger and turned into bad-tempered shouting.
    A king wearing chain mail blocked their way as he stood in the stirrups of his charger and started jabbing his sword in emphasis at a lavishly wigged nobleman on a smaller horse.
    “Oi!” said Edie, stepping back sharply to avoid being trampled by the charger. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly to get the rider’s attention. “Coming through, mind your back. . . .”
    “That’s Richard the Lionheart,” said George, recognizing the statue from the edge of Parliament Square.
    The king spun on his horse and glared down at them with such an intensity that the first thing you noticed was angry and only then king .
    “I know very well who I am, boy, but who, pardieu , are you, girl, to be whistling at a king as if he were some hound to be called to kennel at your whim?” he bellowed, raising his sword.
    Two loud gunshots cracked through the clamor and reduced it to instant silence as all the statues tensed and looked around for where they had come from.
    They saw the Gunner standing at the shoulder of the Sphinx, who snarled and shook her head as if disturbed by the explosions from the smoking pistol the Gunner was pointing into the sky.
    She slowly got to her feet and towered over the crowd, stretching like the giant cat that she partly was. And then she looked straight at George and Edie.
    “They are the right people,” she purred in a slow dreamy voice.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Riddle of the