by Lavie Tidhar
And he said… (and here the chanting students raised their voices even higher, and shouted again the refrain) – and he said!
If I had a donkey wot wouldn't go,
I never would wollop him, no, no, no!
I'd give him some hay, and cry Gee! Whoa!
And come up, Neddy! And come up, Neddy!
And they disappeared in a burst of laughter around the corner. Jack marched on. Orphan followed.
It wasn't long before they arrived in Drury Lane. Jack stopped outside a deserted-looking building. A fading sign that looked like a remnant from another century entirely declared the place as the King's Arms Tavern. The windows were boarded up and the gaslamp outside was broken, casting the area into gloom. Orphan found himself wondering if the sun would ever rise again. He blew on his hands to try to warm them. He could taste the faint tang of leaking gas in the air.
Jack went to a small door set into the side of the building. It was plain, made of rough, unvarnished wood. Jack knocked, a complicated beat.
They waited.
Presently they could hear steps, and the door opened.
"Wha' do you want?"
The woman filled the doorway. Fat rolled down her neck as she surveyed them with small hard eyes. The fat spread down to her arms and disappeared underneath the long fur coat that must have been made from the skins of an entire skulk of foxes. She raised a languid hand on which heavy rings cut into fleshy fingers. "Jackie, issat you?"
Jack surprised Orphan by reaching out and taking the woman's hand in his. "Mother Jolley," he said, and almost, it seemed to Orphan, bent down to kiss the woman's – who did not look at all jolly, to him – hand. "You get prettier every time I see you."
"Spare me yer flattery, cur," but she looked momentarily pleased.
Then the small, suspicious eyes shifted to Orphan. "Who's your friend?" She reached out her hand, extending it before her like a crane, and grasped Orphan's face between her fingers, pulling hard at his cheeks. "He has doleful eyes like a dog what's been kicked by 'is mistress." And she cackled at her own words, until a bout of coughing took her over and she let go of Orphan's face, though he knew she had left her mark on his skin before doing so.
"A friend," Jack said, and a look was exchanged between him and Mother Jolley whose meaning became clear to Orphan only when Jack added, "a comrade."
The fat woman surveyed Orphan for a moment longer, as if dubious of his entitlement to such distinction. Finally, with a reluctant nod, she moved back and pulled the door open. "Follow me, gents."
Orphan, shooting Jack a glance that said, what the hell is going on?, followed him nevertheless, and the three of them, like an ill-matched family of nestling dolls, walked in single file into a narrow hallway, where the accumulated decades of tobacco smoke lay sedately in the still air.
They walked down a flight of stairs that opened onto a stone-walled antechamber, empty save for a large, stout oak door. Mother Jolley moved aside, allowing Orphan and Jack to crowd beside her. The door had no handle; Mother Jolley pressed a hidden lever on the wall and the door swung open, making no sound.
But noise erupted through the open door, as startling as a gale. The hoarse shouts of excited men and women mingled with the scream of animals, and a heavy, musky scent ebbed into the air of the antechamber, the mixture of human sweat and excitement – and of fear and animal faeces.
Jack walked through, and Orphan followed. Mother Jolley herded them in and the door closed behind her, shutting out the above-stairs world.
"Welcome to the cock pit," she said.
Orphan looked around. They were in a wide basement. Burning torches hung on the walls, giving the place the aura of a Middle Ages torture chamber. The ground was uneven and sloped down until it became a circular arena. It was surrounded by people – mostly men, but some women too – all shouting, waving fists, flashing money.
Inside the ring two large roosters fought in a cloud of blood and feathers. Orphan, sickened, followed Jack to the edge of the crowd. The roosters had small, thin blades attached where their spurs should have been. The blades flashed in the torchlight. The screaming of the fighting birds filled the air with menace.
Jack was circling the ring. Orphan followed him, and they finally came to a stop in a dark corner of the basement, where Jack leaned against the wooden supports that rose from ground to ceiling. He motioned to Orphan to do the same.
"Why," Orphan said, having to almost shout to be heard over the noise of the fight, "are we here?"
Jack nodded. "Now, that is the question," he agreed. "Why are any of us here? What is our purpose on this earth?"
He flashed Orphan a grin, which wasn't returned.
In the ring, a red-and-black rooster was crowned the winner. The lifeless corpse of its opponent was scooped off the ground. Orphan followed the man who lifted it – a short, stocky man wearing a bloodied butcher's apron – as he carried the dead bird to the opposite side of the basement from them. Coals glowed in a brazier, and on a wire mesh chicken pieces sizzled and smoked. The man in the apron laid the latest carcass on the surface of a table by the coals and began plucking feathers.
"I wasn't joking," Jack said. He turned to Orphan and looked hard into his face. "Why we are here – why we are here – that's a question I think you need to have answered for you."
The umpire, a tall moustachioed man with pale, blotchy skin that made his head look like a mushroom that had never seen the sun, announced the next bout, and two fresh roosters were kicked into the ring, where they immediately set on each other.
"Did you think to ask yourself," Jack said, speaking softly despite the noise of the crowd, forcing Orphan to bend closer to listen to him, "just why the Bookman wished to destroy the Martian probe in the park? Or did you think, as you seem to, that his one and only purpose was to hurt you? That he launched that public, spectacular attack just to hurt the girl you loved?"
The girl he still loved, Orphan thought. He resented Jack that moment. He straightened, avoiding Jack's eyes. The truth, he realised, was that he did think that, did not – could not – comprehend another reason, no sense in the act that took Lucy away. He turned his head from his friend, focusing on the crowd. Movement caught his attention. That head. It looked familiar. As if in response a man in the crowd turned and their eyes met, and though the man did not give any sign that he knew him, Orphan recognised him immediately: it was Karl Marx.
When Marx turned back to the fight Orphan noticed that the figure next to him, though it was dressed in a long coat and its head was cowled, was that of a woman; and he was not surprised when, a moment later, the cowled head turned towards him, revealing the face of Isabella Beeton.
So the Parliament of Payne was complete and present.
Mrs Beeton, too, did not acknowledge him; and a moment later she had turned back and was swallowed in the crowd as though she had never been.
"What are they doing here?"
"The same thing we are doing," Jack said beside him. "Watching."
"The cockfight?"
Jack drew further into the shadows. He lifted his hand, his finger pointing upwards. "Them."
Orphan looked up.
Though the ceiling was low, a small balcony was erected halfway above the floor, made of wooden boards and surrounded by a thin balustrade. Three figures stood there: and though one was a man, the other two were of aristocratic stock.
They were lizards.
TEN
The Woman in White
The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned it farther away from me.
"Don't speak of to-morrow," she said. "Let the music speak to us of to-night, in a happier language than ours."
– Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
In the ring, a wounded rooster and a dead one were taken away. Something that was not quite a hush settled over the crowd then: a kind of tense, anticipatory stillness.
The umpire reappeared. He looked tense himself, and kept casting quick, darti
ng glances at the balcony.
"Ladies and gentlemen, doxies and rakes!" the umpire cried. "Get ready to be shocked, prepare to be amazed! The fight of the night is about to commence!" Again he looked up, saw the silent watchers on the balcony, hesitated. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down.
Leaning against the wall, in the shadows, Orphan, too, was watching the lizards. They were two tall, distinguished beings, dressed in simple (yet obviously expensive), sober suits, with gentlemen's hats perched on their scaly heads. They moved forward now, their claws resting on the balustrade. They watched the ring intensely. Their tongues hissed out every so often and tasted the air.
The man beside them was uncommonly fat. He stood apart from the lizards, his attention not on the ring but on its audience. His head moved, slowly and methodically, as he scanned the room. Suddenly, as if aware he was being watched, he turned his head sharply and met Orphan's eyes.
It was the man from the mortuary at Guy's.
The man nodded, once, then winked at Orphan. Orphan hurriedly turned his eyes back to the ring. He was discomfited by the fat man, and not just by the memory of their previous encounter. He could not tell what it was that had so unnerved him. He knows me, he thought. He was waiting for me. He reminded him of a spider that had lain in wait in the centre of a cobweb, the trap so light it could not be seen until it sprung. He looked to Jack for help, but his friend's eyes were on the ring, and there was a strange, hungry expression in them that made Orphan uneasy.
"All the way from the ancient empire of Egypt," the umpire was saying, "now under the protection of our own Everlasting Empire – from the deadly deserts of the Nile, the most hostile region known to man – and lizard –" and here he glanced again at the balcony, like an unruly child afraid of being punished for his misbehaviour – "it's… Goliath!"
Orphan watched, incredulous, as into the ring came, on all fours, stepping slowly and majestically across the pit – a most immense lizard.
It was not a royal lizard, a Les Lézard, but rather an animal, that walked on four legs and was dark brown, with yellow bands crossing its naked body like warpaint. It raised its head and hissed loudly at the audience, a long, forked tongue darting out like a weapon.
The umpire took a step back, swallowed, glanced again at the balcony and said, apparently determined to play his role through to the end, regardless of possible consequences – "And in the other corner, all the way from the savannahs of the Dark Continent, the reigning champion – it's the Red King!"
The lizard that entered the ring second was not red – it was more olive-brown, Orphan thought, and mostly without bands – but it looked fierce, and as soon as it saw Goliath it raised its head and hissed, and the two lizards began circling each other, while the umpire exited the ring with a look of relief on his pale face.
The Red King inflated its neck. The other lizard backed away, then hissed. Its tail lashed against the floor, and metal flashed. A long, silver knife was attached to Goliath's tail. Orphan felt sick, and suddenly terrified by the obscenity of the scene. He looked up and saw the two lizards on the balcony standing immobile, and beside them the fat man, who was looking not at the ring but at him, Orphan.
Sweat dampened his palms. He looked around him, seeking a way out, but the one door was shut and Mother Jolley was leaning against it with a body as heavy and shapeless as a sack of grain. She is a barricade, he thought. She would not let me through.
The Red King rose on its hind legs. It stood tall, and the silent crowd fell back as if cowed – or as if faced with a superior, a royal lizard. The Red King's tongue darted out, tasting the air.
Goliath struck.
The giant lizard darted forward and its tail lashed at its standing opponent. The knife cut into flesh and the Red King fell down. Its jaws closed around Goliath's neck and its claws dug into Goliath's body. The two lizards rolled on the floor, biting and clawing at each other. The Red King's tail lashed at Goliath and inflicted a wound.
"Watch." It was barely a whisper. Beside Orphan, Jack's eyes were moving wildly, looking on the audience, on the fight, on the balcony with its royal watchers. Jack's pupils swam in his eyes like foulweather moons.
Orphan looked at the crowd. They stood away from the ring, immobile and silent until they seemed like statues. He searched for Marx and found him standing to one end. They were all cowled, he realised. Something about the audience… and then he realised.
It was not merely human.
Slowly, he found them. Following Jack's gaze, his own instinct. The lizards standing in the crowd. The hint of a tail, the impression of an elongated snout. Les Lézards.
Caliban's get was at the King's Arms.
In the ring, the two fighting lizards disengaged and withdrew from each other, hissing. Deep cuts could be seen in both their bodies, and they left bloodied footprints on the floor.
Goliath inflated its throat. The Red King hissed and stood on its hind legs again. Goliath followed it, and the two lizards stood and faced each other. They were a grotesque parody, Orphan thought. Like two princes stripped of their finery of clothes and of their title, undressed of civilisation. They were two savages, fighting for the entertainment of their brothers and their former servants.
Is this what Jack wanted me to see? he wondered. How his hatred of the lizards could be justified, that they would allow such a thing to be, that they would glory in it? And yet, there were humans there too, allowed to watch this degradation, and to enjoy it. It was a dangerous game Jack was playing, he realised. Orphan had thought him a mere public-house revolutionary, safe amidst his intellectual friends, his harmless Tesla set and his illicit printing press, but it wasn't so. He was a different thing altogether, much more dangerous and unexpected than he had ever seemed to Orphan: he glanced now at his friend and realised he had never really known him.
Jack looked back at him, and smiled; and his smile seemed to say that he knew what Orphan was thinking, and that he was glad, for now Orphan could no longer hide behind mere words, or childish pranks such as the Persons from Porlock had perpetrated, that he would now have to choose a side. Why we are here – that's a question I think you need to have answered for you, he had said. Orphan turned his head away; he could not meet his friend's eyes.
In the ring the Red King lashed out and its tail hit Goliath's leg, the blade flashing, cutting deep, and the lizard collapsed with a sound of pain, and then the Red King was on top of it, biting at its opponent's throat, its claws falling like knives on the wounded Goliath. It ripped Goliath's body open, cutting and biting until, gradually, the other lizard's movements slowed down. Goliath's body gradually wound down, the way an old clock comes to a halt and stops beating the hours until, by degrees, time and sound die. It shuddered at last under the Red King, and was still.
Pandemonium broke around the ring. New torches were lit around the room and in their light Orphan could see Marx, his face contorted in rage or ecstasy – it was hard to tell which – exchanging money with a man beside him, saw Isabella Beeton turning to talk to a tall, dignified lizard with a navy uniform visible under his black robe, saw the lizards up on the balcony turn away (the fat man had disappeared), saw Jack's taut smile floating in the air beside him: more than anything, he saw the dead and broken lizard lying on the floor of the ring like a discarded toy. For one crazy moment he wondered if it, too, had once had a lover who might now mourn it.
He turned away from Jack. The air felt heavy with smoke and blood and he could stand it no longer. Looking towards the door he saw that Mother Jolley had moved away and was circling amidst her clientele, who now spread throughout the room in small groups. He saw the umpire entering the ring, ready to announce the winner. He saw the man in the bloodied apron also approaching, and wondered if he would serve up Goliath's remains. It would be cannibalism, he thought. He turned away and ran for the door, knocking people out of his path. He crashed into the door, and it moved open for him, and he escaped through it and up the stairs, and outside.
Revolution, he thought. That was Jack's ambition, his dream, his purpose. To fight their overlords, to overthrow the Queen and her line. To replace it with… what? He thought of the wounded birds in the ring, their silver blades flashing in the torchlight. And it seemed to Orphan that it didn't matter: that whoever ruled the empire, lizard or human, would be a being who would stand and watch a fight like that, and coldly make odds on the winner. He thought of Lord Shakespeare, the first of the great Poet-Prime Ministers, the greatest of them all. "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods," he whispered into the mist. "They kill us for their sport…"