Rats and Gargoyles

by Mary Gentle

  Lucas walked by the food-booths in the Temple grounds, letting his feet carry him without direction except that necessary to walk through the crowds. He knocked the elbow of a brown Rat, who turned with a curse and then shrugged her shoulders.

  The White Crow walked with strangers and friends. He dogged her, at a distance. On one terrace he stopped, between great lead figures of sea-monsters spouting a fine spray of jets.

  "Young Lucas." A voice rumbled at his elbow.

  "Piss off." He looked sourly up at Casaubon.

  "Is that any way for my page to speak to me?"

  The fat man seated himself with his legs apart on a stone bench, mopping at his brow with a lace handkerchief. Sun glinted on his copper hair. One garter had come unraveled, and his silk stocking sagged down his immense calf.

  "If I were your page . . ." The Prince of Candover sighed, crossing to the bench and kneeling down. He tugged the fat man’s stocking up and tied the garter in a flamboyant bow below the knee. "I’d quit. You’re impossible!"

  Casaubon rested his elbows on his knees, and his chins on his hands; face peering out from among the froth of white lace cuffs. "Is that any way to speak to your prospective cousin-in-law?"

  "What?"

  Without lifting his head, the fat man nodded. Lucas stared down past the nereid fountains to the lawns.

  A small man in Candovard formal doublet, his hair grizzled black and white, stood holding both a woman’s hands in his. The woman, plump and swathed in orange robes, was recognizable from Vanringham’s broadsheet photographs: the bird magus, Lady Luka. She said something, her face shining; and the Candovard Ambassador flung his arms around her, burying his face in her neck.

  Lucas breathed: "Andaluz . . . ?"

  "He may not have any magia; but, then, my lady mother has all the political sense of a sparrow. They suit extremely. So. Your uncle, my mother; I’m her son, that makes us cousins de facto—"

  "Oh no!" Lucas groaned.

  In tones of great hurt, the Lord-Architect remarked: "I think they make a very nice couple."

  "I . . . you . . ." He turned back to the terrace. The White Crow moved among velvet-clad Rat-Lords, and masons in silk overalls. "It’s just . . . it’s just too much!"

  The Lord-Architect patted Lucas carefully on the shoulder. For once he said nothing at all.

  White sea-mist cools the flanks of the Thirty-Sixth Decan, wading in the heat-haze between city and garden.

  Sun blasts Her ochre bricks pale, dazzles from roses that trail in Her wake; is dimmed only by the brilliance of Her eyes. Her cowled head lifts.

  In the heat-soaked summer sky, Erou, Ninth Decan, Lord of Time and Gathering, shadows Her with white marble wings. His muscled body slides the air, angel-wings feathering horizon to horizon, and He smiles, meeting Her gaze.

  Particles, electrons, strings, weak forces: Their pulse beats with the Dance.

  In the middle air, a small and sharp crack! sounds.

  Pale in the sun, a premature celebratory firework scatters green sparks across the sky.

  Lucas craned his neck, watching through the garden’s trees the thin trail of smoke over the rotunda. No further explosions sounded.

  A tall man in dockside gear called: "You the Prince?"

  He left Rafi of Adocentyn and the other students to impressing young Entered Apprentices, and loped across the grass.

  "I’m Lucas."

  "Met a woman. She lookin’ for you."

  A hard pulse hit him under the ribs. Lucas nodded.

  "She say her ship just got into Fourteenth District harbor," the man observed. "Calls herself Princess Gerima of the White Mountains, Gerima of Candover?"

  Outside the rotunda, the White Crow paces a colonnade between tiny mirror screens, set in vast ornate metal frameworks. Like the congeries of bubbles in the demolished Fane-in-the-Twelfth-District, the screens glowed pale blue.

  She pauses to stare into them, seeing scenes of revelry in other Districts. Down by the factories, and in the docks. Across the estuary, up in the high hills, and far across the continent to all points of the compass . . .

  The White Crow looks into an oval screen. Swirling iron petals cup it. The image shows humans and Rats together at a banquet on Seventeenth District’s beach, so far to the east that the sun’s light has faded, and they revel by torches and pastel light-spheres and the rising glow of the moon.

  She fists her hands, stretching her arms up in the afternoon heat; bones and muscles creaking. The sun dazzles in her red-brown eyes.

  Her mouth moves in a quiet smile, feeling a gaze resting on her back.

  The black-browed woman caught up her formal gown, lifting the hem as she raced up the terrace steps to Lucas and hugged him.

  "I didn’t know what was happening when we arrived; three days out from land the portents started, and such sudden miracles seen at sea! But you’re safe. You’re safe." Gerima drew breath, pale face flushed under dark curls. "Tell me. Which is she?"

  "Over there. In white."

  "Her? I thought she’d be . . . younger."

  Lucas moved out of his sister’s embrace, rubbing the back of his sweating neck. He looked from Gerima to the Scholar-Soldier further down the terrace. "I don’t care if you don’t like her!"

  Gerima smiled at the red-haired woman.

  "Like her? But I met her while I was looking for you; she’s the magus who was in the Fane! But that’s wonderful! When you (gods forbid) inherit the throne from father, what better to have as a queen than a woman with magia?"

  She put her short curls back from her face, features sharpening with concentration.

  "If you’re serious, we can have the wedding later this year. Father will take you out of the university. You ought to give him at least one grandchild before you leave White Mountains again. Don’t you think? And she could teach at the University of the White Mountain while we train her in statecraft . . . What’s the matter, Lu?"

  The Prince of Candover pulled down his knotted handkerchief and wiped his forehead, his head turning uneasily between his sister and the White Crow. He opened and shut his mouth several times.

  "Maybe," he said at last, "we should think about this."

  The Princess Gerima of Candover, passing by the Master-Physician White Crow, concluded their earlier and longer conversation with a short wink.

  * * *

  Mid-afternoon drowses; long, lingering, with somewhere the scent of fresh-cut grass.

  "It’s a climate of miracles now . . ." Theodoret touched a blunt finger to the White Crow’s temple, and the chick-soft down growing there. "All these people are thinking that tonight is for rejoicing and tomorrow for putting the world back together. But it’ll be a different world when they do."

  "They know it."

  The White Crow reached down and scratched in the ruff of a silver timber wolf. The wolf scrabbled in the soft earth at the edge of the flower-bed, nosing a bone to the surface, and trotted off with it in its jaws.

  "Scholar-Soldier, are you waiting for the moon?" Bishop Theodoret asked. "To see what might be written on it?"

  She opened her mouth to reply and stayed silent.

  The Decan of Noon and Midnight, afternoon sunlight soft on sandstone and gold flanks, paced between flowerbeds and fountains. The tusked and fanged muzzle lowered, moving in the ancient smile. Where He passed, people stopped their talk and knelt on the cool grass. The White Crow smelt stone-dust, and the distant burning of candles.

  Theodoret’s face creased into a smile. "The man will catch up with you sooner or later. Heart of the Woods! Talk to him, lady, and then I can stop avoiding him in your company. I have somewhat of a desire to speak with your architect-magus."

  A gargoyle-daemon whirled leathery wings, roosting on a balustrade; cawing something softly to a man who stood beside her and did not kneel to the Decan of Noon and Midnight. One Rat in red satin folded his arms insouciantly and stared at the sky. A little distance away, young Entered Apprentices continued their
dancing.

  The Spagyrus touched His lips to the fountain, raised His head, passing on. The White Crow scooped her hand in and tasted, lips numbed with heavy red wine.

  "Who knows what may happen?" She grinned. "My lord Bishop, I think we should have another drink, before they dispose of the lot."

  "Not much chance of that, I would have thought."

  The White Crow gazed down into the gardens, at men and women and Rats. "Don’t bet on it. Some of this lot could out-drink a miracle, no problem."

  In a further garden, Captain-General Desaguliers swept his plush cloak back with ringed fingers. Medal-ribbons fluttered. The white ostrich plumes in his silver headband curved up in a fan, one dipping to brush his lean jaw, almost blinding him. The jeweled harness of his sword clanked as he walked.

  "Well, now . . ."

  He gestured expansively. Four Cadets walked with him, each similarly overdressed; the tallest–a sleek black Rat–stumbling over the hem of her cloak from time to time. Desaguliers belched. He leaned heavily on the shoulder of the gargoyle-daemon.

  "I think we should serioushly talk . . ."

  "I agree." The harsh caw, muted now, didn’t carry further than this corner of the garden. The elderly acolyte-daemon waddled on clawed feet across the grass, her shabby wings pulled cloak-like around her shoulders. Her claw-tipped fingers clasped each other across her flaking breast as if she prayed. "Messire Captain-General, I offer no apologies for what we were before—"

  "No, no. ’Course not. Victims of circumstances. Superior orders," he said owlishly, bead-black eyes widening. "Had we been otherwise then . . ."

  Desaguliers pushed himself upright, halting the gargoyle-daemon with a pressure of his furred arm. He laid his snout across her shoulder, crumpling his ear against her beaked head, and pointed with his free hand.

  "See them? Tha’s his Majesty the King. Just needs a little looking after, is all. Going to call a meeting, me and the Lords Magi ’n’ others, form a Senate." He stopped, puzzled. "That isn’t what I was going to tell you. What was I going to tell you?"

  The gargoyle-daemon’s body shifted under his arm as he felt her draw in a long breath.

  "What was it, messire?"

  In a rather less slurred tone than he had been affecting for the past few minutes, the Captain-General put his mouth so close to her that his incisors rubbed her small round ear, and said: "Lot to worry us now. These rabble peasants will want things their own way. ’N’ your people, too. Got to make sure we can come to arrangements. Sensible arrangements."

  "Exempli gratia?"

  The black Rat’s whiskers quivered. He blinked. "Oh. Yes. For example, we–the new Senate–we keep his Majesty in order. And you, you tell us about your masters."

  "Who are no longer our masters." The gargoyle head turned to follow the passing of a Decan’s shadow in the sunlit air. Desaguliers prodded the air with one dark finger.

  " ’Zactly! We got the King sewn up. You keep us posted on the Divine Ones. Well, then! Elbow-room for everybody. Then we’ll set about the peasants."

  He snatched a goblet of wine from the tall black Rat. The gargoyle-daemon’s clawed wing unfurled, and her fingers reached out and gripped the metal, indenting it. Desaguliers stood, arms hanging at his sides, amazement on his lean scarred face. The daemon, wine spilling, none the less got most of the goblet’s contents into her beaked mouth.

  "Urp!" She scratched at her flaking brown-furred dugs. "Outwit the Divine Ones? While they dwell amongst us, out in the world? Well . . . urp . . . who knows? We might do it at that . . ."

  The cover of the sewer stood open.

  Zar-bettu-zekigal picked the petals from an ox-eye daisy and let them fall, one at a time, into the darkness.

  She listens: hears no yawping laughter, that hyena- hysteria quieted now. Hears no rush of waves upon hot and mist-drenched shores. No immensurate wings.

  Now she is still, only the dappled-furred tail twitching; straining to hear in the foundations of the world the Serpent-headed Night Council. Below her bare feet is silence and a hot pregnant blackness.

  For lack of a grave to put it on, she throws the ravaged flower down into the dark.

  * * *

  Lights hovered in the air, globes of pale fire, unsupported. They dotted the gardens, transparent against the long evening light. Now that the sun sat on the aust-westerly horizon, their pastel colors began to glow.

  The lights clung to the pillars and dome of the open rotunda, shining down on a checkerboard floor of ash and ebony. Couples moved in wild measures, coats and robes rustling; music chimed.

  Surrounded by questioners, the White Crow stood at the edge of the open-air dance-floor. With one hand she gestured, answering a tall brown Rat’s question; the other held a spray of cherries that she bit into, nodding and listening.

  Zar-bettu-zekigal elbowed through the crowd until she got to the Lord-Architect.

  "Ei, you!"

  The Lord-Architect turned on one two-inch heel, the satin skirts of his frock-coat swirling. Dirty silk breeches strained over his thighs and belly, failing to button; and leaving some inches’ gap between themselves and a shirt black with machine-oil.

  "There you are!" A delighted smile spread over his face. He took her hand in gloved fingers and bowed over it. His copper-red hair had been scraped together at the back, and a tiny tuft tied with a black velvet string. "Honor to you, Kings’ Memory."

  "Care to dance?" she said.

  "My honor, lady."

  Zar-bettu-zekigal touched the fingers of her left hand to the Lord-Architect’s arm, resting them on the twelve-inch turned-back cuffs silver braid; rested her other hand in his; hooked her tufted tail over her elbow, and stepped out into a waltz. Someone called her name, and she grinned, hearing a scatter of applause.

  "I heard about the Chemicall Labyrinth. So that’s what those machines were for! Damn, I wish I’d seen it!"

  The Lord-Architect lumbered gracefully into a turn, narrowly missing a Rat in mauve silk. "I adapted the little priest’s design."

  "If not for him and his Majesty, there wouldn’t have been a plague. But then, if not for him, it wouldn’t have stopped. I wish he could have been here."

  They swung close to a pillar. Looming by it, some eight feet high and with night wings furled about his shoulders, an acolyte-daemon gazed with yellow eyes at the dancing. She smelt his cold breath.

  "H’m. A little uncouth, perhaps," the Lord-Architect admitted. "But, then, they’ll have had little experience of this sort of thing . . ."

  Zar-bettu-zekigal nodded to Elish-hakku-zekigal in the crowd as she danced by; and lifted her head again to the Lord-Architect.

  "I’ve been talking to your lady. She’s not bad, y’know? I should have got to know her while she was in Carver Street. Don’t suppose I’ll get the chance now."

  China-blue eyes looked down at her.

  "You suspect her on her way to Candover?"

  "Oh, what! Don’t you?"

  The gentle pressure of his fingers steered her towards the edge of the dance-floor. Sunset put the long shadows of the pillars across the dancers.

  "I’m going to take steps," he announced.

  Somewhere between affection and cynicism, Zar-bettu-zekigal demanded: "What steps?"

  The fat man looked puzzled for a few seconds. "Perhaps . . . Yes! Perhaps I should finish my poem?"

  "What p—?"

  Zar-bettu-zekigal stared after him as he walked away.

  "Poem?"

  A hand tapped her shoulder. She glanced back. Resplendent in sky-blue and iris-yellow satin, Mistress Evelian of Carver Street smiled down at her.

  "You left owing me rent—Oof!"

  "I’m so glad to see you!" Zar-bettu-zekigal hugged the woman harder.

  Evelian settled her puffed ribbon-decorated sleeves, tugging her bodice down over her full breasts.

  "And I you. Zaribeth, don’t be heartsore for too long." She flicked the Katayan girl’s cheek with her finger. "I want
to see you happy."

  Away from the dancing-floor, the Lord-Architect Casaubon felt absently through the outside left-hand pocket of his stained blue satin frock-coat, then the right-hand pocket; and finally abandoned them both and investigated an inside breast-pocket. From this, he brought out a large speckled goose-egg.

  "For a member of the Invisible College," he remarked, "you seem to be remarkably visible."

  The White Crow, sitting at the end of the abandoned banqueting tablet, shrugged. "I wasn’t planning on staying here anyway."

  He tapped the goose-egg against the marble buttock of a putti on the nearest balustrade, a delicate and economical movement that knocked off the top of the shell. Egg-white ran down his plump fingers.

  "I’ll cheer you up . . ."

  He lifted the shell to his mouth, tipping it as he threw his head back. She watched in awed fascination as his throat moved, swallowing.

  "I have a present for you!"

  He belched, wiping his mouth with the back of his fat hand, and dropped the now-empty egg-shell. He looked down over his swelling chest and belly at the rose-haired woman.

  The White Crow folded her arms and glared up at him in exasperation.

  "A present. OK, I’ll buy it. What present?"

  The Lord-Architect, satisfied, leaned back against the marble balustrade. She heard a quiet but distinct pop. The Lord-Architect heaved himself off the stone, and put his hand into the satin coat’s tail-pocket.

  He brought out a handful of crushed shell, his fingers dripping egg-white and egg-yolk.

  "Knew I had another one somewhere," he observed, picking off the shell and licking his fingers. "Now . . ."

  The White Crow put her head in her hands and groaned.

  With his moderately clean hand, the Lord-Architect Casaubon reached into his buttoned-back cuff and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

  "It’s a poem. For you. I wrote it."