by Mary Gentle
He settled himself opposite her, with his back to the driver, the carriage sinking on its springs. The oxen lowed and pulled away. The red-haired woman tilted her hat further down towards her nose, and rested one heel up on his seat.
"The Decans," she said, "won’t swallow any story about your being a traveling horologer or garden-architect, or whatever nonsense you gave Captain-General Desaguliers. Who have you said you are?"
"A Scholar-Soldier of the Invisible College."
He beamed, seeing Valentine reduced to complete speechlessness. "They’ll know, in any case," he added.
"And you think they’re going to let us out of there after that!"
He smiled.
"Casaubon!"
Casaubon dug in one pocket, thumbed ponderously through a very small notebook, extracted a pencil from the spine, and began to write, with many hesitations and crossings-out. The carriage jolted into wider streets.
The White Crow stood it for all of three minutes. "What are you writing?"
His blue eyes all but vanished into his padded cheeks as he squinted in concentration.
"Poetry," said the Lord-Architect, "but I can’t think of a rhyme for ‘Valentine.’ "
His formally buttoned black doublet left Lucas dizzy with the heat. He fingered the short ruff, moving a step closer to Andaluz. Loud talk resounded from almost two hundred and fifty Rats and humans crowding the main audience chamber.
The clover-leaf-domed hall soared, and Lucas lifted his head, gaping up at the four bright domes. Andaluz’s pepper-and-salt brows dipped in the family frown.
"Two of the–no, three of the Lords Magi are here," he said, looking through the crowd at black Rats in sleeveless gold robes. "And most of the noble Houses . . . And all seven Cardinals-General of the Church . . ."
Rows of paired guards in Cadet uniform lined the interlocking circular walls, black fur gleaming. At regular intervals ceiling-length curtains were drawn across windows that, none the less, admitted chinks of sunlight.
"Whatever this is, it’s blown up fast as a summer storm."
"What . . . ?" Lucas moved away from the main entrance’s staircase. He began walking towards the point where two of the four semi-circular floor areas intersected.
A treadmill stood a little out from the blue-draped wall, on the spindle of some paneled and bolted metal machine. Blue-white sparks shot out of the metal casing.
The treadmill itself stood eight feet tall. In its cage, two men and a woman, stripped to breech-clouts, trod the steps down in never-ending repetition. Lucas, shoved by the press of assembled bodies, turned away. He saw two more treadmills over the heads of the crowd.
Thick cables wound up from the machines to the ceilings. In the four hollow domes, a stalactite-forest of chandeliers hung down. Lucas saw clusters of glass, wires burning blue-white and blue-purple, and lowered his gaze, blinking away water.
"Impressive," Andaluz said. "If they didn’t have to close the curtains to show it off, and stifle all of us."
The actinic light wavered down on Rats in the sleeveless robes of Lords Magi, on the jeweled collars and swords of nobles and soldiers, the red and purple of priests.
"Uncle . . ." Lucas turned. Startled, he met the gaze of a youth much his own age. The young man smiled. Fair-haired, stripped to breeches and barefoot, he wore a studded collar round his throat. From it hung a metal leash. A middle-aged black Rat robed in yards of orange taffeta held the end of the leash casually in her hand.
"Bred from the finest stock," Lucas heard her say to another female black Rat, "and trained fully in all skills."
She trailed the chain-leash over one furry shoulder, and tugged the metal links. The fair-haired young man squatted down on his haunches at her side.
"A pretty little thing, yes." The second black Rat, slender in linen shirt and breeches enclosing furry haunches, her rapier slung at her side, turned to eye the treadmills. Two men and a woman in the wheel plodded, heads down, gripping the central bar with sweat-stained hands.
"Don’t stare," Andaluz murmured. "You’re being provincial."
The Rat in linen and leather swaggered a little, by the treadmill, hand on her sword, ears twitching. The other Rat tugged the leash, walking away with the young man trotting at her heels.
"I must confess," Lucas heard his uncle saying to a robed man as he rejoined them, "that I feared an incident of some magnitude. For one of your King’s daughters to be killed here . . ."
The South Katayan Ambassador shrugged.
"I knew Zari briefly." Lucas met the man’s pale amber eyes. His white robe had been slit at the back, and a sleek black tail caressed the tiled floor.
"King’s daughter is hardly a unique position. South Katay’s full of them." The Ambassador, off-hand, reached to pick up a wine glass from a passing brown Rat servant’s tray. "The King will naturally be grieved to hear that Zar-bettu-zekigal could not complete her training as a Memory."
"She—"
The Katayan Ambassador caught a tall Rat’s glance across the crowd and murmured: "Excuse me. I must speak to Captain-General Desaguliers."
Lucas slid a court shoe across the gold-and-blue tiles. Black and brown Rats surrounded him, in formal silks and jeweled collars and cloaks; he stood lost in the noise of their voices. A few inches shorter than most, he could not, from this corner by the full-length windows, see over heads and feather-plumes to the throne.
"She made me laugh," he said. "She didn’t give a damn for anyone. Maybe I would have liked her, if I’d had time."
Andaluz nodded gravely.
"Keep your eye on Desaguliers," the older man directed. "If there are any arrests, Desaguliers’ police will be making them. He’ll be notified. If we can see when that happens, I can try to bring it to his Majesty’s attention."
"Right."
Casually keeping the South Katayan Ambassador and Desaguliers in sight, Lucas threaded his way through the crowd. A word here and there to other ambassadors, as his training inculcated in him; pitching his voice above the chatter, side-stepping the jutting scabbards of rapiers, the trailing silk-lined edges of cloaks.
"Mind out!" A brown Rat pushed him aside, jerking his tail out of the way. "Why they let these peasants in, I’ll never know . . ."
Lucas bowed formally, one hand clenching in a fist.
Brass horns shattered conversation. A uniformed brown Rat at the head of the stairs announced lords whose names Lucas didn’t catch. Satin and lace flurried as the Rats walked forward to make their brief bows to the Rat-King. Conversation resumed.
Desaguliers, shedding the South Katayan Ambassador, pushed his way towards the center of the hall. High above, the clover-leaf of domes intersected in a fantasia of vaulting. Lucas fell in a few paces behind, taking a glass from a passing tray; all training in unobtrusive crowd-movement coming to him without thought.
"—let the Kings’ Memory speak—"
He cannoned into the back of a tall Rat in gray silk. The Rat’s hand cuffed his ear, jeweled rings stinging, and a drop of blood fell onto his ruff. Lucas only continued to stare. Using elbows, he shoved two brown Rat servants aside and forced his way to the front edge of the central crowd.
Drapes soared tent-like from a central golden boss to hang down the intersecting walls. Where the lights struck, they glowed sea-deep in shadow purple as evening. Framed by this canopy, the white silk of a great circular bed gleamed.
Sweet incense reached Lucas’s nostrils.
Dais steps went up to the bed-throne, where the Rat- King lay among cushions and pillows of silk. Eight scaly tails showed dark in the middle of the Rats’ groomed fur and silk jackets: gnarled and knotted, grown together.
Lucas ignored the dozen Rats of various rank and dress who knelt on the dais steps, talking to the Rat- King. Tense, he willed the long-coated figure to turn around . . .
Black hair fell lank to either side of a sharp face. The skinny young woman stood barefoot, scuffing her toes down on the tiled floor below the d
ais, head about on a level with one of the silver-furred Rats-King. One hand stayed thrust in the pocket of a stained and torn brown greatcoat. The other gestured fluidly.
"Zari?"
He stood some four yards from her, but names draw attention: the Katayan’s head turned, and she nodded once in his direction.
". . . the Lady Hyena’s people to carry arms, to walk the streets above ground, to be free of the outstanding penalties against them, as rebels and traitors," she concluded, the concentration of Memory leaving her voice.
The silver-furred and the bony black Rats-King spoke in tandem to a kneeling Rat priest. Lucas made covert frantic signals which Zar-bettu-zekigal ignored.
He looked again at the priest. A black Rat, down on one knee on the dais steps, his scarlet jacket blazing against the white silk of the bed. He held his plumed headband clasped in one slender-fingered ringed hand. His mobile furry snout quivered, speaking to the silver Rats-King in a rapid monologue.
"It is her. She’s alive! And the priest is Plessiez," he muttered to Andaluz as the older man reached him. "The one we met in the crypt. I’m certain of it."
He read hunger and exhaustion in her face–high on tension, high on hardship–and glanced again at Plessiez. The same, better-concealed, showed in the black Rat.
"We can’t speak to her now . . ."
Lucas caught the approach of Desaguliers out of the corner of his eye. He nudged the Candovard Ambassador’s arm, and faded back a rank or two into the crowd. Practiced, he lost the Captain-General’s attention, thinking furiously. He ducked past a fat female Rat in mauve satin and came out by the wall and the edge of the drapes. A brawny Rat edged backwards into him, muttered an apology without turning to see she had apologized to a man. Lucas became aware that most of the front rank of the crowd tensed, eavesdropping; and he slid his black-clad form behind the brawny Rat, and strained to listen.
"Your Majesty will appreciate the necessity," the black Rat, Plessiez, said.
The silver-furred Rat rolled on to his left side, scratching idly at one furry haunch. "Indeed we do, messire. Messire Plessiez, in view of what you say, we have decided to grant your request. For a preliminary trial period."
Lucas saw Zar-bettu-zekigal straighten, enthusiasm in the line of her narrow shoulders. Plessiez rose to his feet, bowing, and backing unerring down the dais steps.
"Then, with your Majesty’s permission, I’ll send the delegation and the Memory to inform the Lady Hyena of your decision."
Lucas scowled, bemused.
"Go. We do so order."
In the gap between Plessiez’s snout and Zari’s head, Lucas glimpsed the South Katayan Ambassador clutching Desaguliers’ arm, muttering rapidly at the Captain- General. A short plump Rat blocked his view. She and a raffish black Rat flanked Zar-bettu-zekigal as Plessiez directed the Katayan to leave.
Zar-bettu-zekigal passed close enough for her greatcoat to brush Lucas’s leg. The briefest glance of helplessness and humor darted in Lucas’s direction. She left a scent on the air of water, stagnant and stale. Lucas pondered the nature of the stains on her coat, scowling to himself.
"Her ambassador didn’t seem pleased," he said as Andaluz reappeared through the crush.
"Ger-zarru-huk’s a bastard at the best of times. Strictly off the record."
"I have to talk with Zari." Lucas put a hand against his side, still expecting to find a sword there. He scowled.
"You resemble your mother greatly when you do that," Andaluz remarked, "and gods know she’s a stubborn enough woman. This student romance of yours—"
"No. By no means that." Lucas stopped the older man. "Uncle, what have you got on file for the Invisible College?"
Andaluz blinked, matching his nephew step for ratiocinative step. "Mendicant scholars and mercenaries spread rumours that there is such a thing. All mythical, of course. It’s been quite fully investigated."
The buzz of conversation rose by several levels. Lucas, pressed between two black Rats, side-stepped a dagger- hilt at one’s belt and slid back to the Candovard Ambassador. Doubt jolted him, as sudden and shocking as stepping off a stair in the dark.
"But—"
Brazen horns blared. This time the sound echoed from the high vaulted ceilings, bright sound in artificial brilliance; muffled itself in drapes and hangings; and blew again, redoubled, in a shriek that cut through every Rat and human voice. It sounded a final time and fell silent.
A black Rat in major-domo’s robes rapped her garnet- studded ivory staff on the tiles.
"Hear his Majesty the King! The hall is to be cleared of all below the rank of noble. All servants, ambassadors and other humans will leave immediately. Hear the word of the King!"
* * *
‘Mendicant scholars and mercenaries spread rumors that there is such a thing. All mythical, of course.’ From the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz
The mounts spooked as the carriage jolted under the fifth arch on Austroad. The driver swore. The White Crow gazed up at the shaking roof of the carriage and the unseen coachman, and lifted her black-and-white hat in salute.
Through open shadowed windows, the chitinous hum of insects echoed in the canyon between wall and high wall.
She saw Casaubon lean back in his seat, rummaging through an inside pocket. He brought his hand out, ink- stained fingers all but concealing a silver hip-flask.
"Give me that," the White Crow said, reaching across. She tilted her head back, drank, coughed, and wiped her nose. "You’re still drinking this stuff?"
The Lord-Architect took the hip-flask back. He made to replace it in his capacious pocket, shook it close to one freckled ear, listened–and up-ended it down his throat.
"Casaubon . . ."
He raised it to drink again, spilling the sticky metheglin down his embroidered blue-and-gold waistcoat and blue silk breeches. He cracked a phenomenally loud belch.
"You can’t leave me to do this on my own," the White Crow protested.
The Lord-Architect stowed his empty flask away, and looked down owlishly at the small notebook lying open on his spreading thigh.
" ‘Valentine,’ " he mused. " ‘Eglantine’ . . . ? ‘Porcupine’ . . . ?"
The White Crow ran her tongue over the back of her teeth, wincing at the aftertaste.
" ‘Turpentine?’ " she suggested.
The strokes of ten clashed across Nineteenth District’s tiny south quarter. Reverend Master Candia took his hand away from his face. The unfamiliar open sky shocked him. He looked at the blood on his palms.
"Did They brand me?" His voice croaked. "I should be marked."
Pigeons scuttered up into the air, their shadows and guano falling into the alley at the back of the deserted Cathedral of the Trees. Slumped into the comer of wall and door, masonry bruised Candia’s shoulders and buttocks.
"Bastard!"
"Down him again!"
"Here, Sordio, let me—"
"He’s mine. No one else’s!"
A hand grabbed his collar. His loose lacy shirt ripped. Candia pitched forward on to hands and knees, groaning; and yelled with pain as a boot slammed into his ribs. He scrabbled and caught the iron drainpipe stapled to the wall, pulling himself up on to his knees.
A familiar voice rasped: "I might have known we’d find you slumming around this place. Thirty-Six! Why did you do it?"
Candia rubbed the back of his wrist across his mouth. Stale food crusted his straggling beard. His own breath came back to him, stinking; and he coughed, tears running from the corners of his eyes. A spurt of fear pushed him to his feet, eyes wide.
He staggered forward, other hands grabbing him before he fell.
"Why?"
A taste of copper in his mouth faded to the taste of old vomit. Candia smiled shakily. He reached out and stroked the face of the man who held him by the shoulders: a crop-haired man with his own sandy coloring; a man with dust-sore eyes; large, furious, utterly familiar.
"Sordio." He patted the older man’s cheek. "A
nd Ercole here, too. Is all the family—?"
Out of nowhere, a fist slammed into his face. Agony blinded him. Vision cleared, and through pain’s water he saw a dozen men in silk overalls, some with sticks, all much of an age with Sordio; and he brushed uselessly at his own filthy clothes. Bruises purpled his fingers.
"Brother—"
"You’re no brother of mine." Sordio’s hands flexed. "We should have drowned you at birth."
"Damn you, do you know what I had to do?"
He stared down silenced faces. Sun beat into the alley. He shifted scuffed boots, tucking his ripped shirt back into his breeches, fastening his thick leather belt on the third attempt. All the university’s training gone, driven from his head; even the instinct that had brought him back to Theodoret’s cathedral eradicated now. He held Sordio’s gaze.
"We saw you," Sordio said flatly. "Over at the hall, in the rubble."
The remembered texture of broken planking and bricks woke in his hands. Candia raised them and stared at ripped nails, bloody fingers.
Sordio’s gaze went past him to the barred cathedral door. "Do you think our mother never knew that he put you up to that place?"
"Bishop Theodoret is my friend." The words left him unprompted. Candia opened his mouth in a gasp, tears filling his eyes, and giggled. "Yes, he helped me to get into the university. Yes. The old bitch’d be proud of the return favor I’ve given him for that—"
He laughed helplessly. One dark man swung a splintered piece of two-by-four; he caught it on one up-raised arm, twisted it free of the man’s grip, and whacked it back against the cathedral wall. The dull crack! echoed. The man stepped back. He stared at Sordio.
"Leave me alone!"
"You bastard, you brought them down on the Hall, you did that!"
Heat from the morning sun soaked into his bruised shoulders. He swallowed. His mouth tasted foul, but with the foulness of humanity: no copper-coin bitterness now.
"I’ll say this." He watched Sordio. A little older now, this last year gone by, a little stouter, with the muscles of a builder; wearing now the gold ribbon of the House of Salomon openly on his overalls. "I went to the Lord Decan. I told him what was happening at the East-quarter hall. You told me."