The butlers’ initial shock erupted into bedlam. Some men responded in character, bowing as the two of them passed, the gesture inconvenient in the crowded hall. Some berated them for ruining the illusion. Others recoiled in distress, sure that the bloody man and woman were murderers on a spree. Senlin wedged through the black shoulders and split coattails with Edith at his hip. He thought again: She’ll never know if I die.
A shout cut through the din. The voice came, not from the roof of a throat, but from the pit of a stomach. It was the unmistakable trumpeting of rage.
Senlin turned and found the center of the hall cleared. Butlers scrambled at either wall like beetles in a jar. At the end of the parted mob stood Mayfair with one eye closed behind the bead of the musket.
She’ll think I abandoned her.
A shot thundered. The banks of butlers thrashed and fainted.
Chapter Twelve
“Bribery wins more arguments than reason.”
- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, I. IX
Mayfair fell like the house curtain of a theater. The singed hole in the back of his shirt welled with dark blood. His lungs rattled empty.
A phalanx of white-coated men stood behind him. The attendant at the fore of the troop still held up a flint wheel pistol. Smoke curled from the muzzle. Senlin recognized the man behind the gun: it was the attendant who’d escorted him through the backstage. The attendant’s face was stony; if he had any compunction about shooting a man, he showed no sign of it now.
Mayfair had been transformed from a vital, ruddy man into a heap of common refuse. His gray head could’ve passed for a wrung-out mop; his hands lay flaccid as hot water bottles; his back suggested an overstuffed pillow… Senlin tried not to look at him, at it. If the attendants had arrived a moment later, Senlin would’ve been the pile of rubbish lying on the floor. Even though it was the second violent death he’d witnessed in as many hours, instead of horror, he felt relief: great, swelling relief. He was not dead.
Arm still hooked around his neck, Edith let out a shuddering sigh that blossomed into laughter. She squeezed him in an awkward, sidelong hug. Senlin’s posture straightened; his expression tightened. No one would guess that a moment before, this same man had been running wildly on instinct alone. Even amidst her giddiness, Edith felt the change in his manner and recoiled a little from him. Senlin gave her a thin, appreciative smile.
But their relief was short-lived. Soon, it became apparent that he and Edith were going to be detained by the armed attendant and his company. They were grabbed just above their elbows and marched forward, their surprise making them as graceless as marionettes. It was a humiliating parade. After a few dozen paces down the seemingly infinite corridor, they arrived at a door that was only remarkable because it was unlettered. They were bullied through into a hall that was kinked with blind corners. The closing of the unmarked door abruptly killed the cacophony of the hallway.
The quiet did not last long. Edith saw to that. She complained about having been locked in with a lunatic and described how narrowly they had escaped. Someone had to be responsible for such a disastrous blunder! She demanded that she be released and jerked her elbows experimentally; it only made her escorts tighten their grip.
Despite Edith’s increasingly irate protests, the reason for their speedy removal from the halls of the Parlor wasn’t explained. Indeed, nothing was explained because nothing was said. Their escorts weren’t hostile exactly, but the severity of their silence was unnerving. Senlin recalled Goll’s warnings about the sort of punishments that were meted out in the Parlor—the branding and eye-gouging. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that such brutality really existed here amidst the starched cotton uniforms, brushed carpets, and well-lit corridors. Surely, only the criminally deranged were ever tortured. And, he kept reminding himself, they had done nothing wrong.
Still, he wished he had his purse. Perhaps the man expected a gratuity for saving their lives. But, then, how could he reasonably expect a tip? He’d confiscated Senlin’s possessions at the outset.
The halls they passed through were only remarkable for the many alcoves and inlets that jutted off from the main passage. Glancing to the ends of these dimmer cubbies, Senlin saw young men and women dressed in the dark navy uniforms of bank clerks. These clerks generally sat on stools, stenography pads open on their laps, pencils ready or scribbling away. All of them pressed their eye to something in the wall. Senlin had to pass several alcoves before he glimpsed the object of their attention. It was a brass eyepiece of the sort one might find on a telescope.
The implication was almost immediately clear. The brass nubs in the walls of the staged mansion weren’t valves. They were peepholes.
It took him a moment more to realize that this was good news. One man’s spy is another man’s witness! There had to be a witness to the ordeal. Someone witnessed Pining’s murder. Someone saw Mayfair fire at them and then drag Edith away with what must’ve been, Senlin shuddered to think, the vilest of intentions. Their play hadn’t been without an audience after all. He and Edith would be vindicated!
Realizing this, Senlin caught her eye, even as she continued to deride their escorts, and flared his eyebrows in a way that said: There’s no reason to fight. Don’t worry. She squinted at him hotly, but left off with her attacks. The muscular ball of her jaw continued to work restlessly. She hadn’t liked his intervention, but he hoped she would be sufficiently consoled when she heard the reason for it.
Their procession was longer than either of them was prepared for, exhausted and injured as they were. The blood on Edith’s brow and cheek had turned brittle and dark, the wound finally having clotted. Her face reminded him of the waning moon. Senlin’s own head throbbed from the concussion of the gunshot. And still they marched through the doglegging hallways, past hundreds of alcoves, for an hour without any signs of progress of change.
Finally, the white plaster corridor opened into a space that could easily have been confused for the foyer of a state capitol. Chair rails and ornate black walnut doors, oil paintings and name plaques filled the walls. The air smelled of table wax and leather. Dozens of clerks in navy blazers filed into the vaulted foyer. They hurried between doors like mice between holes. As if in deference to the civility of their new surroundings, their escorts let go of their arms.
There were no dummy candles or painted-on birds here, no false doors or empty books. The shams had given way to substance. They seemed to have passed backstage again, but this time they were not in the dressing rooms. These seemed to be the offices of the Parlor, or so Senlin supposed. Where else could they be?
He would’ve liked to share this modest revelation with Edith, but she didn’t seem ready to want to speak to him. She seemed to have been offended by his earlier signal for quiet and decorum. Perhaps she had thought he was being patronizing. Perhaps he had been. It didn’t matter. He was already preparing to forget the whole misadventure. He decided that when he described the events to Marya, he would characterize Edith as “headstrong” and “forward.” Though, to be fair, she had been better suited to the crisis than him.
Cringing, he recalled Edith’s request to undo her dress. Perhaps he would avoid recalling the subject to Marya at all.
They were finally halted before an elevated desk. An embedded plaque read “General Receptionist,” though the lectern reminded Senlin more of a judge’s bench than something a secretary might occupy. He imagined the title of “receptionist” meant something grander in the vernacular of the Parlor.
The General Receptionist seemed a little harried, overworked even, though he still managed a professional cordiality, which Senlin admired. His desktop was forested with stacks of files, carbon papers, steno pads, and leather bound ledgers. If there was a system, it was likely his alone. His dark hair suggested that his youth was not so far behind him, but his ears and nose seemed more suited to a man twice his age. Three monocles dangled on jewelry chains from his vest pockets, and he chang
ed them frequently depending on how far away his subject was.
The Receptionist dismissed their escorts quickly, located a fresh sheet of foolscap, and said, “Judging by your appearance, I could spend the afternoon apologizing and not finish the job. But instead of delivering the groveling performance I’m sure you both deserve, let me instead hurry this whole formality along, and get you both back on your way.”
Senlin glanced at Edith and saw, to his relief, that her expression had been softened by the Receptionist’s introduction.
The Receptionist changed monocles, located a pen and said, “You’re married?”
Senlin said, “Yes” at the same moment Edith said, “No.” This amused the Receptionist, though he covered it by coughing into his hand.
“I am married, but not to the good lady here,” Senlin explained.
“Of course,” the Receptionist pulled at the pronounced bulb of his nose. “Obviously, I know nothing of you or your ordeal. So, if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to run through a few questions, which are quite tedious, I’m afraid, but which all will ensure that after today, you are appropriately compensated for your troubles.” Regarding them both through a single glazed eyepiece, he smiled. “Please, bear with me.”
Edith, for her part, was frank in her answers, though the questions struck Senlin as being far afield from the matter at hand. She was thirty-four, was from the farmlands of southern Ur, near the town of Niece. She had spent two years at a women’s finishing school, which she quit to return to work on her father’s farmland, where she oversaw two hundred of the family’s three hundred acres. She could ride a horse, repair a fence, and follow the rolling of the land to find water even in an arid valley. She was also recently divorced after nine months of marriage.
“And have you been to the Parlor before?” the Receptionist asked, still scribbling her answers down on his pad.
For the first time, she seemed a little self-conscious. “I’ve spent the past two months here, going from one performance to the next. Six shows in all, I think.”
“I hope those prior outings were happier than the present one,” the Receptionist said kindly, and she gave a demure shrug.
And then it was Senlin’s turn. He wished he didn’t have to recite his personal details while standing in a public hall. He tried to be stoic, but it wasn’t long before he was mumbling and stuttering his answers. He felt the blood come to his face. He was an only child; his parents were deceased; he was well educated and gainfully employed; he was married; he had no children. Confessing himself so succinctly embarrassed him in a manner he could hardly express. In short form, he seemed so unremarkable, so unaccomplished. Perhaps he was unremarkable. But he didn’t feel that way.
With the general interview complete, the Receptionist thanked them for their patience. “Now, as to today’s events… your case has been assigned to an Assistant to the Chief Registrar, a Mr. Anen Ceph. Mr. Ceph is one of most accomplished and thorough investigators. In a word, he is bright. You’ll be temporarily, briefly, almost momentarily placed in a private room while Mr. Ceph has a chance to gather up all the evidence of the case.” The Receptionist blinked the monocle from his eye, and it swung down to his chest front. He signaled over a tall, bald clerk who seemed to have been sewn into his navy jacket. One could almost count the knobs of his spine. “The clerk here will show you through to your room. And I thank you both for your patience. You’ve been absolutely wonderful. I hope you recall me as fondly when you review your time here in the Parlor.”
The gangly clerk led them from the grand hall, and after passing through another tangle of corridors, they entered a bustling hospital ward. It was familiar in every way except, of course, for the lack of windows, which Senlin always associated with contemporary hospitals. Sun and fresh air were, after all, essential to recovery. They passed two carts, the first of which was filled with steaming bowls of porridge, and the second of which held six copper cylinders that were about the size of a milking pail. These might’ve passed for helmets, except that where one expected to find the faceplate, there was only a valve wheel that was nearly as wide as the rest of the apparatus. Senlin couldn’t guess what medical service the device performed.
Nurses padded around in soft white leather shoes while patients with bandaged limbs and heads lay on cots in narrow, curtained spaces. The prospect of a clean bed and a nurse to wash their wounds filled Senlin with hope. He was shaken and exhausted and bruised; if he were at home, he would’ve gone to bed for a week and done nothing but read books and drink tea and listen to the waves recite their endless rhyme.
But he was soon disappointed when the clerk ushered them on and out the other end of the ward, into a narrow, warm, lime-washed chamber. Opposite them stood an iron hatch, four feet high. Rust flaked from the hinges.
“Assistant Ceph will be by soon,” the clerk said, unlocking the hatch with a heavy skeleton key.
Senlin and Edith looked at one another. She seemed apprehensive. He gave her a reassuring smile. It was a genuine and generous expression, and one that was quite rare on Senlin’s face. The Receptionist had charmed away his nervousness. Already, the whole terrorizing episode was beginning to soften and fade. The murders, the running, the hiding and breath-holding, all seemed to have happened to someone else.
And yet, something was just the tiniest bit unsettling about the warmth of the room and the sudden vigilant expression of the clerk behind them. Senlin shoved these thoughts aside as the usual residuals of panic and fear.
The hatch opened before them. They had to stoop to go through and were confronted by a light so dazzling neither could see into it. The air felt hot as a breath on their faces. The clerk prodded Senlin forward with the heel of his hand. Senlin was about to turn and complain when the floor creaked and bowed like a rusted bedspring beneath him, throwing him off balance, confusing him. The hatch slammed shut. They listened as the bolt bit back into the strike plate.
Still blind, Senlin struck his head when he tried to stand. He groped at the wire mesh above him, quickly discovered the corner, and there found the same wire links forming a wall. Squinting, it seemed they were in something like a chicken coop or a rabbit hutch suspended in a blue room.
Then he realized he was looking at the sky. Not a painted sky, but the real blue heavens.
They sat in a cage that was bolted to the face of the Tower.
Chapter Thirteen
“Ask anyone you meet, Don’t you miss the sun? Don’t you miss the moon? They’ll reply, Do you miss the heatstroke? Do you miss the howling wolves?”
- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, III. XII
A hundred feet below, the Market sprawled, colorful and intricate as a patchwork quilt.
Senlin beat fiercely on the black iron door. His commotion rattled the cage violently. Every joint creaked and rust snowed down upon them. A wire link beneath them snapped. Edith urged him to stop, finally wrapping her arms around his neck. He could hardly hear her over his drumming. He chose not to hear her.
The Receptionist had promised them a speedy result and a private room. After everything he’d suffered through, he had to believe this was an oversight. A mistake had been made! Why would anyone ever come to the Parlor? Was everyone a sadist? It was a madhouse!
He banged on the door once more, panting his mouth dry. He let Edith pull him from the door. He collapsed almost on top of her, and clung weakly to the wire wall to calm his vertigo.
“Has this ever happened to you before?” he asked.
“Do you really think I would come back if it had?” She seemed slightly more composed than him, though her voice still quavered. She looked down through the lattice of the floor. “How old is this cage? It looks like it could go at any moment.”
Senlin recalled in vivid detail the sickening sound the airship crew had made when they struck the earth. “Let’s talk about something else,” Senlin replied through his teeth. He didn’t want to think about who would pick through his pockets if he cra
shed to the ground.
Their coop was wire mesh on all sides and was about the size of a child’s bed. There was sufficient headroom for them to sit with their backs to the linked wall, but not enough to stand. They had no choice but to crowd each other, which only added to Senlin’s distress. He swallowed dryly and said, “I don’t understand. They know full well we did nothing wrong.”
“All the witnesses are dead. How could they know?” Edith asked. Senlin explained his theory about the brass peepholes in the mansion walls and the spying clerks he’d seen in the backstage corridor. She tugged up the neckline of her dress, which had an awkward habit of slipping, and said, “It never occurred to me that anyone was watching... Oh.” She seemed to review a number of instances in her memory. “Those peepholes were in every room.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think anyone is spying on us now,” Senlin said, wiping at the sweat that streamed down his face.
The sun bullied them mercilessly. He fashioned a little awning from his butler’s coat by looping the sleeves through the ceiling mesh and pinning them on the exposed ends of wires. Edith spread out her thick skirts for him to sit on, which took some of the bite from the wire floor. He thanked her as he might thank someone for making room on a park bench. They listened to the cacophony of the Market, the camel brays and barker cries. The songs of distant train whistles were lifted up and then taken away by the arid wind.
The sun’s glare moved behind the Tower, bringing on the artificial night. Senlin was better able to see the facade about them, and he found that studying it gave his mind a much-needed distraction. The walls were unpolished limestone. Here and there, old birds’ nests tufted from the cracks between blocks. The nests appeared uninhabited. Other cages, similar to theirs and also uninhabited, were affixed some distance to their left and right. Looking up the Tower through a gap in his coat-awning produced such a strong feeling of vertigo in him that he could do little more than peek and look away. It didn’t matter. There was little to see. Distant platforms protruded from the tower like thorns from a stem. He postulated that these might be airports, but it was only a guess. Otherwise, the facade appeared as vast and uninhabited as a desert.
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1) Page 9