by Mary Gentle
Up on the hill-slope, past garden fountain-jets ten meters tall and impromptu open-air feasting, the rotunda of the New Temple curves across the sky. Warm brick, pennants and flags, tiny dots of faces where people walk in wonder along its outer balconies . . .
Time enough to go back to crowds and questions in a few minutes. The woman lies in the grass, hearing birds sing; now gazing down past where the Arch of Days lies invisible under the foot of the hill, past the new canal, to distant hills hollowed with blue shadow.
A large figure approaches, down in the valley, walking along the canal path. Frock-coated: copper hair glinting a clear quarter-mile.
The White Crow rolled over on her back, staring up through the dust of meadowsweet, reaching up with scarred hands to play with the swarming black-dot haze of bees. And abruptly shifted, sprang to her feet, and began to run back up the hill towards the Temple.
A distant clock chimes.
Blazing white light reflected from pale gravel and a pale sky. Zar-bettu-zekigal sprawled on the fountain’s marble rim, knees and black dress spread apart, nostrils flaring to smell the day’s heat.
"I know the answers to every question now."
"Every question?" Lucas pulled at the neck of his shirt. He lifted a wine-bottle to his mouth and drank. The young Katayan woman sat sideways on the fountain’s rim, one foot up on the marble, her black dress falling down between her knees and over her tail.
"I’m a Kings’ Memory: I know." She snorted. "Which is more than they do."
Sheaves of paper lay scattered on the gravel about her feet. Blackletter, with illustrative gray-and-black photographic images, and narrow columns of print. The fountain’s odorous spray speckled them with water.
"Vanringham got this out fast enough! Listen." She hauled a sheet of paper out from under her other heel. The Moderate Intelligencer’s still-damp ink marked her fingers.
" ‘Visiting student Prince Lucas of our far-flung colony of Candover played a curious part in events. It is creditably reported that he authorized the students of the University of Crime to go on a spree of looting, they only being discouraged at the last by the disclosure of his background in the mechanic trade—’ "
"What!" Lucas, choking on a swallow of wine, sat up and grabbed the paper. "I’ll sue!"
She shuffled paper-clippings, dropping a small pair of silver scissors on the gravel. "Here’s another one. ‘Rumor speaks of the late Master of the Hall in Nineteenth Eastquarter, Falke, being instrumental in preventing the late outbreak of plague from worsening.’ Ei! Won’t I talk to Vanringham! I told him everything true, and he’s just distorted it all!"
Lucas turned the page of Thirtieth District’s Starry Messenger over, reading aloud.
" ‘Accusations against Reverend tutor Candia of the University of Crime have been dropped. It was reported that Master Candia had dealt with persons unbecoming to the reputation of the University of Crime, and was to be dismissed from his place on the Faculty, but after representations from the Church of the Trees—’ " Astonishment edged Lucas’s tone. " ‘–from the Church of the Trees all charges have been dropped.’ "
"Oh, say you, that’s because of this."
Zar-bettu-zekigal proffered Eighth District’s Mercurius Politicus.
" ‘Bishop Theodoret instrumental in dismissing Black Sun; makes overtures to the Thirty-Six; intervention of this gaia-church successful; The Spagyrus ratifies new status for the Church of the Trees; see pictures page six.’ "
"Pictures?" Lucas took the clipping, peering at silver- and-gray images of the Cathedral of the Trees and that square’s gallows, a tiny figure in the foreground recognizable as Theodoret. The cameraman had, quite sensibly, made no attempt to include the Decan, but a vast shadow lay across the foreground of the square.
At Theodoret’s side, small and bright, stood the White Crow.
Breath stopped in Lucas’s throat, left a lump past which he could not swallow. Zari’s voice faded from his consciousness for a minute. Lucas gazed across the gardens to the canal. Small boats bobbed on the water, where music and laughter sounded. He smiled, almost hugging himself.
His fingers remember the touch of skin.
"If we’d known how it would end . . ." He scanned her narrow face, searching for differences from the young Katayan in the university’s courtyard, and in Austquarter’s crypt and the palace throne-room. Memory nagged. With sudden discovery, he said: "Plessiez? I heard that . . . I haven’t seen him. Is he . . . ?"
Zar-bettu-zekigal looked up, her lively features still.
"Elish–my sister Elish-hakku-zekigal, she’s a shaman–she did a vision. She told me. She sees true. She saw Messire Plessiez at the end, underground, somewhere where there were bones . . ."
Her fingers slid to the sash about her waist, a length of green silk casually knotted around her black dress.
"You can say what you like about the university. And about your old White Crow. It was Messire who went in to break the magia. Elish saw–and then her vision couldn’t see through the dust: the whole cavern-roof caved in and came down on him. Him and Charnay, too."
Her eyes, sepia with Memory, shifted.
"I wish I could have seen him on the Boat."
Lucas took the Tractatus Democritus broadsheet between finger and thumb, staring at the print without reading it. He grunted cynically.
"Cardinal Plessiez? He had no more conscience than a fish has feathers! If you ask me, it’s a good thing he didn’t make it."
The paper tore, snatched out of his hands.
"Mistress Zari? I didn’t mean . . ."
The Katayan hunched her shoulders, bent over the heap of broadsheets, and began with frightening care to scissor out clippings from the remaining papers.
Passing humans and Rats brushed by him; Lucas stood and stepped back with automatic courteous apology. He backed further away from the fountain. Bright silks shone on the far side of falling screens of water.
Up on the terrace, in front of the open pillared rotunda where many danced, a crowd blocked the path. Men and Rats pressed in on the White Crow, shouting questions. She laughed; her hand resting on the green-and-gold sleeve of the Bishop of the Trees.
"Damn. Why does he have to be there? Or any of them? Well . . . Well."
He shrugged and began to walk up towards the terrace.
Abandoning press cuttings, Zar-bettu-zekigal dipped the tuft of her black-and-white furred tail into the fountain, lifted it above her head, and shook a fine spray over herself. Cool water spotted the shoulders of her black dress. She crossed her ankles and leaned back, supported precariously by her arms on the marble fountain’s wide rim. Her face up-turned, eyes ecstatically shut, she dipped her tail again–stopped, sniffed, opened her eyes, and turned a disgusted glance on the green fountain-basin.
"Ei! What a stink."
"Low-quality lead piping," a voice rumbled, its owner invisible through the falling fountain-spray. "My dear child, ought you really to do that?"
The Lord-Architect Casaubon strode magisterially around the fountain-basin, mud-stained satin coat over one bolster-arm, his shirt unlaced and his sleeves rolled up. Black oil and grease smeared his blue silk breeches and braces. The rag with which he wiped his face looked as if it might have been an embroidered silk waistcoat.
"Very inferior work, all of this."
"You just can’t trust miracles any more, messire architect!"
Zar-bettu-zekigal flicked her tail in greeting. Water- drops cartwheeled in the sun.
He beamed. "Trust miracles? From now on you can!"
The distant clock sounded again. On its last stroke, the sound of trumpets clashed out. Jets shot up fifteen or twenty feet from twelve surrounding fountains. Zar-bettu-zekigal put both hands up to push suddenly wet hair out of her eyes, nose wrinkling at the stronger low- tide-mud stink. A burst of complicated music blasted from sound horns in the statuary.
"Ei!" Zari cocked one black eyebrow.
The Lord-Architect looked d
own his nose, chins and the considerable expanse of his belly at the fountain. A pained expression crossed his features at the sight of carved nereids spurting water from their breasts, and ragged sea-monsters jetting water from nostrils and every other orifice.
"Florid."
He slung the blue satin frock-coat on the marble rim, careless of one sleeve trailing in the water, searched the pockets, and brought out a metal hip-flask.
She rolled over on to her stomach on the marble. "I want to talk to the Bishop of the Trees and Master Candia. About inside the Fane. And Lady Luka, how she got here. Have the whole story."
Startled, the Lord-Architect met Zari’s eye.
"I’m . . . ah . . . not certain where Mother is."
"I told her you were up in the rotunda." The Katayan stretched, water-spotted dress already drying in the heat, and grinned at his evident relief.
The music ceased abruptly, with a mechanical squeak. The jets died. Shadows, precise-edged, blackened the steps and the flagstones and lawn around the fountains. Her own elbow-and-knee-joint shadow, tail up, coiled into a florid curve worthy of the fountain’s statues.
"Hei! Master Casaubon!"
A blonde girl in pink satin overalls swaggered up, silver chains jingling about her neck and wrists. She threw herself down on the marble rim between Zari and Casaubon, sparing no glance for anyone but the Lord-Architect.
"Mistress Sharlevian." He kissed her bitten-nailed fingers and waved a casual hand. "You two aren’t acquainted, I believe. Entered Apprentice; Kings’ Memory . . . Mistress Zari, I was about to ask–have you seen young Lucas of late?"
Zar-bettu-zekigal shifted from her elbows to lie on her side, opening her mouth to answer. A sharp voice cut in: "Oh, Lucas. I’ve seen him. He went off looking for that red-headed cow who’s one of my mother’s lodgers." The girl pushed tangled yellow hair back out of her eyes. Her silver-chain ear-rings glinted. "Always mooning after her, dozy old bag. Well, she’s welcome to what she gets, that’s all I can say!"
The Lord-Architect raised both copper eyebrows.
"Kids!" The girl sniffed, wiping the back of her wrist across her nose. She leaned her arms back on the marble, weight on hip and heel. Under the remnants of paint, her complexion had a child’s clearness. "I don’t know why I go around with kids. I mean, that boy–poke-poke- bang and it’s all over, y’know? I wanna go with men who are worth the time."
Zar-bettu-zekigal smothered an exhalation of breath, for once without useful comment. The Lord-Architect opened his mouth to speak, rubbed his chins bewilderedly and shook his head. Sharlevian leaned to one side, her breast pressed against his shoulder, her breath warm and moist against his ear.
"What I say is, why go out with a kid when you can go out with someone . . . mature?"
Zar-bettu-zekigal coiled her dapple-furred tail sensuously across the girl’s thigh and, when she had her attention, grinned. "Maybe Lucas feels the same way."
"Of all the—!"
Sharlevian stared from Zar-bettu-zekigal to the Lord-Architect and, as it became apparent that he would make no response, reddened, stood, and stalked off.
"It’s true, he’s looking for White Crow." Zar-bettu- zekigal stared up at the rotunda’s terrace, seeing the Prince of Candover and a dozen House of Salomon officers, and no Bishop Theodoret. No White Crow.
"Anyone would think," the Lord-Architect rumbled, "that that woman is avoiding me."
Zar-bettu-zekigal crossed her ankles, rested her chin on the backs of her hands, and directed her gaze to Casaubon. "No! Go on!"
Horn and harpsichord ring out, lazing down the late afternoon. Humans and Rats take refuge under trees’ shade. Water-automata play. Hot scents of wine, dust and roses fill the air, spreading out across the miles of the New Temple’s gardens.
Lazy under that same heat, the air and the cells of flesh vibrate with the voices of Decans: more speech between the Thirty-Six in this one day than in the past century.
The black Rat St. Cyr stood with the Bishop of the Trees, watching a play.
A few planks rocked on top of barrels, with the canal and the nearest wall of the Temple for a backdrop. On the impromptu stage, a ragged gray-furred Rat brandished a banner:
"Not sun of pitch, nor brightest burning shadow
Daunted our noble King–they lay
A-quiver, pissing in their satin bed,
Whether the threat came from a friend or foe.
Twice-turned, a traitor saved them. (Saved myself A life of luxury in the world to come!)
Witness, you renegades, what is gained by such
Devotion as I showed my lord the king!"
Both humans and Rats in the crowd cheered.
"I perceive," the Bishop of the Trees observed, "that that is intended for Messire Desaguliers."
"You’re right." St. Cyr chuckled. He paced elegantly forward through the mixed crowd. "Well acted, messires!"
A woman appeared at the old man’s elbow. The paleness of the Fane marked her. Sun brightened her dark-red silver-streaked hair, caught up at the sides and shining with roses that tumbled down on to her shoulders. Minuscule down-feathers grew at her temples. St. Cyr, a little awed, bowed.
She grinned at Theodoret. "Let’s get out of here before they get on to the Fane again. Mind you, I think they do you very well . . ."
Theodoret’s beak-nose jutted. He swept the green robe up from his bare feet, snorting back laughter. "Say you so?"
Behind them, from the stage, the harsh caw! of a crow rang out.
"Much better than they do me. I don’t know what that Vanringham’s been telling people, but I regret his source of news caught me when I was in shock enough to be honest!"
"Zar-bettu-zekigal is an engaging child."
"She’s a plain nuisance. I remember thinking that when she arrived at Carver Street."
St. Cyr followed the direction of her gaze, seeing the woman spot the young Prince of Candover and frown. About to comment, he found his arm seized; she walked between himself and the Bishop of the Trees, away down towards the gardens.
"Hey!" The White Crow gave a loud hail as they came under the shadow of beeches. "Reverend Mistress! Heurodis!"
Sun and shadow dappled the old lady and her companions. St. Cyr made his bow to the representatives of the University of Crime.
"Feasting and rejoicing is all very well." Reverend Mistress Heurodis’s face wrinkled into a smile that showed her long white teeth. "However, we ought not to miss our opportunities."
‘Well acted, messires!’ From Rituale Aegypticae Nova, Vitruvius, ed. Johann Valentin Andreae, Antwerp. 1610 (now lost–supposed burned at Alexandria)
She leaned on her cane, regarding with satisfaction the procession of students, largely first-year Kings’ Thieves and Kings’ Assassins, passing with jewel-boxes, candle-sticks, portraits, gemmed books, rings and ankhs from the earthquake-tumbled ruins of the Abbey of Guiry.
St. Cyr raised furry brows; thought better of it.
"Zu-Harruk!" The old woman snapped a yellow flower sprouting from the head of her cane and tucked the blossom behind her ear. Her smoky-blue gaze rested unimpressed on miracle. "Come here!"
A tall yellow-haired Katayan student staggering under a box of altar regalia stopped, grunting, while she clucked and, with a jeweler’s eye, abstracted a number of the smaller and more perfect diamonds.
"Don’t dawdle!" she advised. "When you’ve transferred this to the university, I trust I’ve trained you well enough to go on to the other Abbeys and the royal palace?"
"Yes, ma’am!"
The old lady ignored St. Cyr, and rapped her cane against the White Crow’s elbow. "We have a reputation to keep up."
"Er. Mmm. Doubtless. Yes."
"Now that’s his trouble."
She pointed between sun-soaked trees to where Reverend Master Candia sprawled, asleep.
"No sense of duty. With all due respect to you and Theodoret and the Rat here, the man hangs out with Tree-priests and Scholar-Soldiers;
he just isn’t respectable enough for the University of Crime."
St. Cyr sees the White Crow laugh; glance anxiously back over her shoulder.
Heat beats back from the courtyard’s brick paving.
In shadowed colonnades, they shelter; eating and drinking, weeping, searching for known faces. Rat-Lords in their lace and velvet elbow women in factory overalls. Quarrels break out in corners.
A silence.
Shrouded in dark wings, stooped, casting a shadow purple as plum-bloom, a gargoyle-daemon paces across the New Temple’s courtyard and stoops to pet a child.
Inside the rotunda of the New Temple, the Mayor of the eastern quarter of Nineteenth District, a little dizzy from the afternoon heat, accepts another drink from a man in Master Builder’s overalls.
The man fingered the chained talismans about Tannakin Spatchet’s neck.
"Our consortium is naturally interested in the–shall we say?–the mass production of these talismans that warn of daemons’ presences."
Tannakin Spatchet glanced past the man. Under the great arch, between two of the great sandstone pillars that opened to the courtyards, old blankets and cushions had been thrown in a heap. Eight or nine draggled Rats clustered there, talking, preening, snarling for pages to groom them. No courtiers flocked to them.
Their co-joined tails were lost in the cushions. He saw the eyes of a silver-furred Rats-King fix on him.
Beyond, in the courtyard, a gargoyle-daemon leaves a human child, and fixes its amber gaze on the Rats.
"Sir." He bowed stiffly to the man, noting the House of Salomon’s ribbons on his overalls. "You may find such talismans don’t function now. All things change."
The man protested. "But you know her! The Master- Physician, White Crow. You know her."
"I flatter myself that I have some influence in that quarter, it’s true. Yes. Excuse me." The Mayor put the Master Builder aside gently, weaving through the crowds towards the Rat-King. "In case things don’t all change, I have to discuss the repeal of a few local by-laws."