Sholto cursed, looked around wildly. He really didn't have to look far for little me. I was right above him, balanced on the top of a free—standing set of shelves. The whole stack was filled with meticulously indexed files and beautifully arranged displays of shields, statuary, and antique boxes that had all no doubt been filched from their proper owners across the world. It must have been worth a fortune. I leaned my back against the wall, set my feet firmly on the shelf top and pushed hard.
The set of shelves groaned and teetered.
Sholto heard the sound. He looked up. I saw his eyes widen in horror.
I gave an extra—hard push, putting a bit of venom into it. I was thinking of the helpless djinn trapped inside the ruined mannequins.
The shelves hung suspended for an instant. A small Egyptian canopic jar was the first to fall, closely followed by a teak incense chest. Then the center of gravity shifted, the shelves shuddered, and the whole edifice toppled down with wondrous swiftness upon the sprawling magician.
Sholto had time for maybe half a cry before his accoutrements hit him.
At the sound of the impact cars on Piccadilly swerved, collided. A cloud of incense and funeral dust boiled up from the strewn remnants of Sholto's fine display.
I was satisfied with my performance so far, but it is always best to quit while you're ahead. I eyed the shelving cautiously, but nothing stirred beneath it. Whether his defensive Shield had been enough to save him I couldn't tell. No matter. Surely now I was free to leave.
Once more, I made for the hole in the window. Once more, a figure rose to block my way.
Simpkin.
I paused in midair. "Please," I said, "don't waste my time. I've already rearranged your face once for you." Rather like the finger of an inside—out glove, his previously protruding nose was still squished back deep into his head. He looked testy.
He gave a nasal whisper. "You've hurt the master."
"Yes, and you should be dancing with joy!" I sneered. "If I was in your place I'd be going in to finish him off, not whining on the sidelines like you, you miserable turncoat."
"It took me weeks to set up that display."
I lost patience. "You've got one second to split, traitor."
"It's too late, Bodmin! I've sounded the alarm. The authorities have sent an af—"
"Yeah, yeah." Summoning the last of my remaining energy, I changed into the falcon. Simpkin didn't expect such a transformation from a humble messenger imp. He stumbled back; I shot over his head, depositing a farewell dropping on his scalp as I did so, and burst out at last into the freedom of the air!
Upon which, a net of silver threads descended, dragging me down against the Piccadilly pavement.
The threads were a Snare of the most resilient kind: they bound me on every plane, adhering to my struggling feathers, my kicking legs and snapping beak. I fought back with all my strength, but the threads clung to me, heavy with earth, the element that is most alien to me, and with the agonizing touch of silver. I could not change, I could not work any magic, great or small. My essence was wounded by the barest contact with the threads—the more I flailed about, the worse it felt.
After a few seconds, I gave up. I lay there huddled under the net, a small, still, feathered mound. One of my eyes peeped out under the crook of my wing. I looked beyond the deadly lattice of threads to the gray pavement, still wet after the last rain and thinly covered with a sprinkling of glass shards. And somewhere or other, I could hear Simpkin laughing, long and shrill.
Then the paving slabs grew dark under a descending shadow.
Two great, cloven hooves landed with a soft clink upon the slabs. The concrete bubbled and popped where each hoof touched.
A vapor rose around the net, heavy with the noxious fumes of garlic and rosemary. My mind was poisoned; my head swam, my muscles sagged…
Then darkness swathed the falcon and, as if it were a guttering candle, snuffed its intelligence out.
18
Nathaniel
The two days following his Naming were uncomfortable ones for Nathaniel. Physically, he was at a low ebb: the summoning of Bartimaeus and their magical duel had seen to that. By the time he arrived back from his trip to the Thames, he was already sniffing slightly; at nightfall he was snuffling like a hog, and by the following morning he had a full—blown, taps—running head cold. When he appeared, wraithlike, in her kitchen, Mrs. Underwood took one look at him, spun him on his heels, and sent him back to bed. She followed him up shortly afterward with a hot—water bottle, a pile of chocolate—spread sandwiches, and a steaming mug of honey and lemon. From the depths of his blankets, Nathaniel coughed his thanks.
"Don't mention it, John," she said. "I don't want to hear another peep out of you this morning. We have to get you better for the state address, don't we?" She glanced around the room, frowning. "There's a very strong smell of candles up here," she said. "And incense. You haven't been practicing here, have you?"
"No, Mrs. Underwood." Inwardly Nathaniel cursed his carelessness. He had been meaning to open the window to let the stench out, but he had felt so weary the evening before, it had slipped his mind. "That happens sometimes. Smells rise to the top of the house from Mr. Underwood's workroom."
"Odd. I've never noticed it before."
She sniffed again. Nathaniel's eyes were drawn as if by a magnet to one edge of his rug, where to his horror he saw the perimeter of an incriminating pentacle peeping out. With a great effort of will he tore his gaze away and broke into a vigorous fit of coughing. Mrs. Underwood was distracted. She passed him the honey and lemon.
"Drink that, dear. Then sleep," she said. "I'll come up again at lunch time."
Long before she did so the window had been opened and the room well and truly aired. The floorboards beneath the rug had been scrubbed clean.
Nathaniel lay in bed. His new name, which Mrs. Underwood had seemed determined to break in for him, rang strangely in his ears. It sounded fake, even a little foolish. John Mandrake. Appropriate perhaps for a magician from the history books; less so for a dribbly, cold—ridden boy. He would find it hard to get used to this new identity, harder still to forget his old name… Not that he'd be allowed to forget it, with Bartimaeus around. Even with his safeguard—the tobacco tin washing about at the bottom of the river—Nathaniel did not feel quite secure. Try as he might to eject it from his mind, the anxiety came back: it was like a guilty conscience, prodding him, reminding him, never letting him rest easy. Maybe he had forgotten something vital that the demon would spot… maybe even now it was hatching its plan, instead of spying on Lovelace as he had directed.
A multitude of unpleasant possibilities spun endlessly through his mind as he sprawled amid the debris of orange peels and crumpled tissues. He was sorely tempted to bring out the scrying glass from its hiding place under the roof tiles, and with its help check up on Bartimaeus. But he knew this was unwise—his head was fogged, his voice a feeble croak, and his body didn't have strength enough to sit upright, let alone control a small, belligerent imp. For the moment, the djinni would have to be left to its own dubious devices. All would no doubt be well.
Mrs. Underwood's attentions saw Nathaniel back on his feet by the third morning.
"And not a moment too soon," she said. "It's our big outing this evening."
"Who will be there?" Nathaniel asked. He was sitting cross—legged in the corner of the kitchen, polishing his shoes.
"The three hundred ministers of the Government, their husbands and wives, some very lucky named apprentices… and a few hangers—on—the lesser magicians from the civil service or military, who are close to being promoted, but don't yet know the right people. It's a good opportunity to see who's in and who's out, John, not to mention what everyone's wearing. At the summer gathering in June, several of the female ministers experimented with caftans in the Samarkand style. It caused quite a stir, but it didn't catch on, of course. Oh, please concentrate, John." He had dropped his brush.
"
Sorry, it slipped, that's all. Why Samarkand, Mrs. Underwood? What's so trendy about it?"
"I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea. If you've finished your shoes, you'd better get on with brushing your jacket."
It was a Saturday and there were no lessons to distract Nathaniel from the thrill of what was to come, so as the day wore on he became possessed by a wildly mounting excitement. By three o'clock, several hours before it was necessary, he was already dressed in his best clothes and prowling back and forth about the house—a state of affairs that continued until his master put his head out of his bedroom and abruptly ordered him to stop.
"Cease your tramping, boy! You're making my head throb! Or would you prefer to remain behind this evening?"
Nathaniel shook his head numbly and descended on tiptoe to the library, where he kept himself out of trouble researching new Constraining spells for middle—ranking djinn. Time passed agreeably, and he was still busy learning the difficult incantation for the Jagged Pendulum, when Mr. Underwood strode into the room, his best overcoat flowing behind him.
"There you are, you idiot! I've been calling for you, up and down the house! Another minute and you'd have found us gone."
"Sorry, sir—I was reading—"
"Not that book you weren't, you dozy fool. It's fourth—level, written in Coptic—you'd never have a hope. You were asleep and don't deny it. Right, snap to sharpish, or I really will leave you behind."
Nathaniel's eyes had been closed at the moment his master walked in: he found it easier to memorize things that way. All things considered, this was perhaps fortunate, since he didn't have to come up with any further explanations. In an instant the book was lying discarded on the chair and he was out of the library at his master's heels and following him in a heart—pounding flurry down the hall, through the front door and out into the night, where Mrs. Underwood, in a shiny green dress and with something like a furry anaconda wound loosely round her neck, waited smiling beside the big black car.
Nathaniel had only been in his master's car once before, and he did not remember it. He climbed into the back, marveling at the feel of the shiny leather seat and the odd, fake smell of the pine—tree odoriser dangling from the rearview mirror.
"Sit back and don't touch the windows." Mr. Underwood's eyebrows glowered at him in the mirror. Nathaniel sat back, his hands contentedly in his lap, and the journey to Parliament began.
Nathaniel stared out of the window as the car cruised south. The countless glowing lights of London—headlamps, street lamps, shop fronts, windows, vigilance spheres—flashed in quick succession across his face. He gazed wide—eyed, blinking hardly at all, drinking everything in. Traveling across the city was a special occasion in itself—it rarely happened to Nathaniel, whose experience of the world was confined mainly to books. Now and then, Mrs. Underwood took him on necessary bus trips to clothes and shoe stores, and once, when Mr. Underwood was away on business, he had been taken to the zoo. But he had seldom gone beyond the outskirts of Highgate, and certainly never at night.
As usual, it was the sheer scale that took his breath away; the profusion of streets and side—roads, the ribbons of lights curving off on all sides. Most of the houses seemed very different from the ones in his master's street: much smaller, meaner, more tightly packed. Often they seemed to congregate around large, windowless buildings with flat roofs and tall chimneys, presumably factories where commoners assembled for some dull purpose. As such they didn't really interest him.
The commoners themselves were in evidence too. Nathaniel was always amazed by how many of them there were. Despite the dark and the evening drizzle, they were out in surprising numbers, heads down, hurrying along like ants in his garden, ducking in and out of shops, or sometimes disappearing into ramshackle inns on street corners, where warm orange light shone through frosted windows. Every house like this had its own vigilance sphere floating prominently in the air above the door; whenever someone walked below, it bobbed and pulsed with a deeper red.
The car had just passed one of these inns—a particularly large example opposite a subway station—when Mr. Underwood banged his fist down on the dashboard hard enough to make Nathaniel jump.
"That's one, Martha!" he exclaimed. "That's one of the worst of them! If it was up to me, the Night Police would move in tomorrow and carry off everyone they found inside."
"Oh, not the Night Police, Arthur," his wife said, in a pained voice. "Surely there are better ways of re—educating them."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Martha. Show me a London inn, and I'll show you a commoners' meeting house hidden inside. In the attic, in the cellar, in a secret room behind the bar… I've seen it all—Internal Affairs has raided them often enough. But there's never any evidence and none of the goods we're after—just empty rooms, a few chairs and tables… Take it from me—it's filthy dives and pits like that where all this trouble's starting. The P.M.'ll have to act soon, but by then who knows what kind of outrage they'll have committed. Vigilance spheres aren't enough! We need to burn the places to the ground—that's what I told Duvall this afternoon. But of course no one listens to me."
Nathaniel had long ago learned never to ask questions, no matter how interested he was in something. He craned his head and watched the orange lights of the inn dwindle and vanish behind them.
Now they were entering central London, where the buildings became ever bigger and more grand, as befitted the capital of the Empire. The number of private cars on the roads increased, while the shop fronts grew wide and gaudy, and magicians as well as commoners became visible strolling on the pavements.
"How are you doing in the back, dear?" Mrs. Underwood asked.
"Very well, Mrs. Underwood. Are we nearly there yet?"
"Another couple of minutes, John."
His master took a glance in the rearview mirror. "Time enough then to give you a warning," he said. "Tonight you're representing me. We're going to be in the same room as all the major magicians in the country and that means men and women whose power you can't even begin to guess at. Put a foot out of line and it'll ruin my reputation. Do you know what happened to Disraeli's apprentice?"
"No, sir."
"It was a state address much like this one. The apprentice tripped on Westminster steps while Disraeli was being introduced to the assembly. He knocked against his master and sent him tumbling head over heels down the stairs. Disraeli's fall was broken by the Duchess of Argyle—fortunately a well—padded lady."
"Yes, sir."
"Disraeli stood up and apologized to the Duchess with great courtesy. Then he turned to where his apprentice was trembling and weeping at the top of the steps and clapped his hands. The apprentice fell to his knees, his hands outstretched, but to no avail. A darkness fell across the hall for approximately fifteen seconds. When it cleared the apprentice had gone and in his place was a solid iron statue, in exactly the wretched boy's shape. In its supplicating hands was a boot scraper, on which everyone entering the hall for the last one hundred fifty years has been able to clean their shoes."
"Really, sir? Will I see it?"
"The point being, boy, that if you embarrass me in any way I shall ensure that there's a matching hat stand there too. Do you understand?"
"I do indeed, sir." Nathaniel made a mental note to check the formulae for Petrifaction. He had a feeling it involved summoning an afrit of considerable power. From what he knew of his master's ability, he doubted he would have the slightest chance of accomplishing this. He smiled slightly in the darkness.
"Stay beside me at all times," Mr. Underwood went on. "Do not speak unless I give you leave and do not stare at any of the magicians, no matter what deformities they may possess. And now, be quiet—we're there, and I need to concentrate."
The car slowed; it joined a procession of similar black vehicles that moved along the broad gray span of Whitehall. They passed a succession of granite monuments to the conquering magicians of the late Victorian age and the fallen heroes o
f the Great War, then a few monolithic sculptures representing Ideal Virtues (Patriotism, Respect for Authority, the Dutiful Wife). Behind soared the flat—fronted, many—windowed office towers that housed the Imperial Government.
The pace slowed to a crawl. Nathaniel began to notice groups of silent onlookers standing on the sidewalks, watching the cars go by. As best he could judge, their mood seemed sullen, even hostile. Most of the faces were thin and drawn. Large men in gray uniforms stood casually further off, keeping an eye upon the crowds. Everyone—policemen and commoners alike—looked very cold.
Sitting by himself in the insulated comfort of the car, a glow of self—satisfaction began to steal over Nathaniel. He was part of things now; he was an insider on his way to Parliament at last. He was important, set apart from the rest—and it felt good. For the first time in his life he knew the lazy exhilaration of easy power.
Presently the car entered Parliament Square and they turned left through some wrought—iron gates. Mr. Underwood flashed a pass, someone signaled them to go on, then the car was crossing a cobbled yard and descending a ramp into an underground car—park lit by neon striplights. Mr. Underwood pulled into a free bay and switched off the ignition.
In the back, Nathaniel's fingers dug into the leather seat. He was shaking with suppressed excitement.
They had arrived.
19
They walked beside an endless row of glittering black cars toward a pair of metal doors. By this time, Nathaniel's anticipation was such that he could hardly focus on anything at all. He was so distracted that he scarcely took in the two slim guards who stopped them beside the doors, or noticed his master produce three plastic passes, which were inspected and returned. He barely registered the oak—paneled lift that they entered, or the tiny red sphere observing them from the ceiling. And it was only when the lift doors opened and they stepped out into the splendor of Westminster Hall that, with a rush, his senses returned to him.
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