Bartimaeus: The Golem’s Eye (46 page)

Gladstone’s Staff was comfortable in his hand; he leaned heavily upon it, for his side still hurt him. As he went, he looked at it almost lovingly. This was one in the eye for Duvall and the others. Makepeace would be very pleased with the way things had turned out.

He frowned suddenly. So where would the Staff go now? Presumably, it would be placed into one of the government vaults, until someone needed to use it. But who among them had the ability to do so—other than he? Using nothing but improvised conjurations, he’d almost succeeded in using it the first time of asking! He could master it easily, given the opportunity. And then …

He sighed. It was a great pity he could not keep it for himself. Still, once he was back in Devereaux’s favor, all things were possible. Patience was the key. He had to bide his time.

They turned at last up a short rise between two glass and concrete watchtowers, onto Westminster Bridge itself. Beyond lay the Houses of Parliament. The Thames sparkled in the morning; little boats meandered with the tide. Several tourists vaulted the balustrade at the sight of the decaying golem and plopped into the water.

The golem strode on, its shoulders slumped, its arms and legs truncated stumps that shed clay in rapid gobbets. Its stride was visibly more disjointed; the legs wobbled unsteadily with each step. As if recognizing its time was short, it had increased its speed, and Nathaniel and the djinni were forced into a half-trot behind it.

Since they reached the bridge, there had been little traffic on the road, and now Nathaniel saw the reason why. Halfway across, a small, nervous unit of Night Police had erected a cordon. It consisted of concrete posts, barbed wire, and a number of savage second-plane imps, all spines and shark teeth, circling in midair. When they perceived the approaching golem, the imps retracted both spines and teeth and retreated with shrill wails. A police lieutenant stepped slowly forward, leaving the rest of his men loitering uncertainly in the shadows of the posts.

“Halt now!” he growled. “You are entering a government-controlled area. Rogue magical effusions are strictly forbidden on pain of swift and awful puni—” With a yelp like a puppy, he sprang sideways out of the golem’s path. The creature raised an arm, swatted a post into the Thames and tore through the cordon, leaving small pieces of clay hanging on the ravaged wire. Nathaniel and Bartimaeus sauntered along behind, winking cheerily at the cowering guards.

Over the bridge, past the towers of Westminster, onto the green itself. A crowd of minor magicians—pale-faced bureaucrats from the Ministries along Whitehall—had been alerted to the kerfuffle and had emerged blinking into the light of day. They fringed the pavements in awe, as the shambling giant, now considerably reduced, paused for a moment at the corner of Whitehall, before turning away, left, toward Westminster Hall. Several people called out to Nathaniel as he passed them. He waved a regal hand. “This is what’s been terrorizing the city,” he called. “I am returning it to its master.”

His answer awoke great interest; in ones and twos, and then in a rushing mass, the crowd fell in behind him, keeping always at a safe distance.

The great entrance door of Westminster Hall was ajar, the gatekeepers having fled at the sight of the oncoming creature and the crowd behind. The golem shouldered its way inside, ducking a little under the arch. By now, its head had lost most of its shape; it had melted like a candle by morning. The mouth had merged with the torso; the carved oval eye was skewed, hanging drunkenly midway down the face.

Nathaniel and the djinni entered the lobby. Two afrits, yellow-skinned, with lilac crests, materialized menacingly from pentacles in the floor. They considered the golem and swallowed audibly.

“Yep, I wouldn’t bother,” the djinni advised them as it passed. “You’ll only hurt yourselves. Watch your backs, though—half the city’s on our heels.”

The moment was coming. Nathaniel’s heart was beating fast. He could see where they were going now: the golem was passing along the corridor toward the Reception Chamber, where only elite magicians were allowed. His head spun at the implications.

From a side corridor a figure stepped out—slight, gray-uniformed, with bright green, anxious eyes. “Mandrake! You fool! What are you doing?”

He smiled politely. “Good morning, Ms. Farrar. You seem unduly agitated.”

She bit her lip. “The Council have scarcely been to their beds all night; now they have gathered once more and are watching through their spheres. What do they see? Chaos across London! There’s pandemonium in Southwark—riots, demonstrations, mass destruction of property!”

“It’s nothing that your estimable officers can’t control, I’m sure. Besides, I am merely doing what I was … requested to do last night. I have the Staff”—he flourished it—“and in addition, I am returning some property to its rightful owner, whoever that may be. Whoops, that was valuable, wasn’t it?” Up ahead, the golem, entering a more constricted section of corridor, had sent a vase of Chinese porcelain smashing to the floor.

“You’ll be arrested … Mr. Devereaux—”

“Will be delighted to learn the identity of the traitor. As would these people behind me” He did not need to glance over his shoulder. The hubbub of the pursuing crowd was deafening. “Now, if you would care to accompany us.…”

A set of double doors ahead. The golem, now little more than a shapeless mass, stumbling and careering from side to side, broke its way through. Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Jane Farrar, with the first of the onlookers close behind, stepped after it.

As one, the ministers of the British government rose from their places. A sumptuous breakfast lay before them on the table, but it had been brushed aside to accommodate the swirling nexuses of several vigilance spheres. In one, Nathaniel recognized an aerial view of Southwark High Street, with crowds milling restlessly amid the debris of the market; in another, he saw the people thronging Westminster Green; in a third, a view of the very chamber they were in.

The golem halted in the center of the room. Breaking through the doors had taken its toll and it appeared to have very little energy remaining. The ruined figure swayed where it stood. Its arms had vanished now, its legs conjoined into a single fluid mass. For a few moments, it teetered as if it would fall.

Nathaniel was scanning the faces of the ministers around the table: Devereaux, whey-faced with weariness and shock; Duvall, scarlet with fury; Whitwell, her features hard and set; Mortensen, lank hair disordered and unoiled; Fry, still peaceably crunching the remnants of a wren; Malbindi, her eyes like saucers. To his surprise, he saw, among a knot of lesser ministers hovering to the side, both Quentin Makepeace and Sholto Pinn. Evidently the events of the early morning had drawn everyone of influence to the room.

He looked from face to face, saw nothing but anger and distress. For a moment, he feared he had been wrong, that the golem would collapse now, with nothing proven.

The Prime Minister cleared his throat. “Mandrake!” he began. “I demand an explanation of this—”

He halted. The golem had given a lurch. Like a drunken man, it wobbled to the left, toward Helen Malbindi, the Information Minister. All eyes followed it.

“It may still be dangerous!” Police Chief Duvall appeared less frozen than the rest. He tapped Devereaux on the arm. “Sir, we must vacate the room immediately.”

“Rubbish!” Jessica Whitwell spoke harshly. “We are all aware what is happening. The golem is returning to its master! We must stand still and wait.”

In dead silence they watched the column of clay shuffle toward Helen Malbindi, who retreated with shaking steps; all at once, its balance shifted, it tipped sideways and to the right, toward the places of Jessica Whitwell and Marmaduke Fry. Whitwell did not move an inch, but Fry gave a mewl of fright, lurched back and choked on a wren bone. He collapsed gasping into his chair, pop-eyed and scarlet-cheeked.

The golem veered toward Ms. Whitwell; it hovered above her, great slabs of clay sloughing off onto the parquet floor.

Mr. Duvall cried out. “We have our answer and must delay no longer! Jessica Whitwell is the creature’s master. Ms. Farrar—summon your men and escort her to the Tower!”

The clay mound gave a strange shudder. It tipped suddenly—away from Ms. Whitwell, and toward the center of the table, where Devereaux, Duvall, and Mortensen were standing. All three started back a pace. The golem was scarcely taller than a man now, a crumbling pillar of decay. It lurched up against the table edge and here it paused again, separated from the magicians by a meter of varnished wood.

The clay fell forward onto the tabletop. Then, with a horrible intentness, it moved, shuffling side to side in weak and painful spasms, like a limbless torso wriggling. It moved among the debris of the breakfast, knocking plates and bones aside; it nudged against the nearest vigilance sphere nexus, which instantly flickered and went out; it clawed its way directly toward the motionless form of the Police Chief, Henry Duvall.

The room was very silent now, save for the quiet choking of Marmaduke Fry.

Mr. Duvall, his face ashen, retreated from the table. He pressed back against his chair, which knocked against the wall.

The clay had left almost half its remaining substance amid the scattered plates and cutlery. It reached the opposite side of the table, reared up, swayed like an earthworm, flowed down upon the floor. With sudden speed it darted forward.

Mr. Duvall jerked back, lost his balance, subsided into his chair. His mouth opened and shut, but made no sound.

The sinuous mass of clay reached his jackboots. Summoning the last of its energy, it rose up in a blunt and swaying tower, to teeter for an instant over the Police Chief’s head. Then it crashed down upon him, shedding the last vestiges of Kavka’s magic as it did so. The clay split, fragmenting into a shower of tiny particles that spattered down upon Duvall and the wall behind him and sent a small oval piece of material tumbling gently down his chest.

Silence in the room. Henry Duvall gazed down, blinking through a clinging veil of clay From its lodging place on his lap, the golem’s eye stared blankly back.

47

T
he uproar that attended my master’s unmasking of Henry Duvall was as tumultuous as it is tedious to relate. For a long while bedlam reigned; word spread in ripples out from the magicians’ chamber, across the heart of Whitehall and into the extremities of the city, where even the lowliest commoners wondered at it. The downfall of one of the great is always attended by much excitement, and this was no exception. One or two impromptu street parties were held that very evening and, on the rare occasions when they dared show their faces in the ensuing weeks, members of the Night Police were treated with overt derision.

In the immediate term, confusion was the order of the day. It took an age to place Duvall under arrest—this was through no fault on his part, since he seemed stunned by the direction events had taken, and made no effort to resist or escape. But the wretched magicians lost no time in clamoring to take his place, and for some while squabbled like vultures over who had the right to take charge of the police. My master did not take part in the fray; his actions had done the talking.

In the end, the Prime Minister’s lackeys summoned a fat afrit, who had been lurking sheepishly in the lobby out of the way of the golem, and with its help achieved order. The ministers were dismissed, Duvall and Jane Farrar taken into custody, and the excited onlookers shepherded out of the building.
¹
Jessica Whitwell loitered till the last, shrilly proclaiming her part in Nathaniel’s success, but finally she, too, reluctantly departed.

The Prime Minister and my master were left alone.

Exactly what passed between them, I don’t know, as I was sent along with the afrit to restore order in the streets outside. When I returned, some hours later, my master was sitting in a side room alone, eating breakfast. He no longer had the Staff.

I took the semblance of the minotaur again, sat myself in the chair opposite, and tapped my hooves idly on the floor. My master eyed me, but said nothing.

“So,” I began. “All well?” A grunt. “Are we restored to favor?” A brief nod. “What’s your status now?”

“Head of Internal Affairs. Youngest minister ever.”

The minotaur whistled.
“Aren’t
we clever.”

“It’s a start, I suppose. I’m independent from Whitwell now, thank goodness.”

“And the Staff? Did you get to keep it?”

A sour expression. He speared his black pudding. “No. It’s gone into the vaults. For ‘safe-keeping,’ allegedly. No one’s allowed to use it.” His face brightened. “It might be brought out in time of war, though. I was thinking, maybe later in the American campaigns …” He took a sip of coffee. “They’ve not started too well, apparently. We’ll see. Anyway, I need time to refine my approach.”

“Yeah, like see if you can make it work.”

He scowled. “Of course I can. I just left out a couple of restrictive clauses and a directional incantation, that’s all.”

“In plain language, you fluffed it, mate. What’s happened to Duvall?”

My master chewed meditatively. “He’s been taken to the Tower. Ms. Whitwell is head of Security again. She will be supervising his interrogation. Pass the salt.”

The minotaur passed it.

If my master was pleased, I had reason to be satisfied, too. Nathaniel had vowed to release me once the matter of the mystery attacker was solved, and solved it undoubtedly had been, although I felt there were still one or two issues that defied ready explanation. However, this was no business of mine. I awaited my dismissal with easy confidence.

And waited.

Several days passed during which the boy was too busy to listen to my demands. He took control of his department; he attended high-level meetings to discuss the Duvall affair; he moved out of his old master’s apartment and, using his new salary and a gift from the grateful Prime Minister, purchased a swanky townhouse in a leafy square not far from Westminster. This last required me to carry out a number of dubious chores, which I haven’t time to go into here.
²
He attended parties at the Prime Minister’s residence at Richmond, held functions for his new employees, and spent his evenings at the theater, watching abysmal plays for which he had acquired an inexplicable taste. It was a hectic lifestyle.

Whenever possible, I reminded him of his obligations.

“Yes, yes,” he would say, on his way out in the mornings. “I’ll deal with you presently. Now, for my reception-room curtains, I require an ell of oyster-gray silk; make the purchase from Fieldings, and get a couple of extra cushions while you’re at it. I could do with some Tashkent enameling in the bathroom, too.”
³

“Your six weeks,” I said pointedly, “are almost up.”

“Yes, yes. Now, I really must go.”

One evening he returned home early. I was belowstairs, supervising the tiling of his kitchen,
⁴
but somehow tore myself away to press my case once more. I found him in his dining room, an ostentatious space currently without furniture. He was staring at the empty fireplace and the cold blank walls.

“You need a
proper
pattern in here,” I said. “Wallpaper to suit your age. What about a car motif, or steam trains?”

He wandered to the window, his feet tapping on the hollow boards. “Duvall confessed today,” he said at last.

“That’s good,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

He was looking out at the trees of the square. “I suppose …”

“Because with my magical powers I detect that you don’t seem wildly satisfied.”

“Oh …Yes.” He turned to me, forced a smile. “It clears up a lot of things, but most of them we knew already. We’d found the workshop in the cellar of Duvall’s house—the pit where the golem was made, the crystal through which he controlled the eye. He worked the creature, no question.”

“Well, then.”

“Today he acknowledged all that. He said he’d long wanted to expand his role, diminish Ms. Whitwell and the others. The golem was his method: it created chaos, undermined the other ministers. After a few attacks, with no solution found and everyone in disarray, Devereaux was only too happy to give him more authority. The police were given more powers; Duvall got the Security post. From there, he’d have been better placed to overthrow Devereaux in time.”

“Sounds fairly clear,” I agreed.

“I don’t know …” The boy screwed down the corners of his mouth. “Everyone’s satisfied: Whitwell’s back in her old job; Devereaux and the other ministers are heading back to their silly feasts; Pinn’s reconstructing his shop already. Even Jane Farrar’s been set free, as there’s no evidence she knew about her master’s treachery. They’re all happy to put it out of their minds. But I’m not sure. Several things don’t add up.”

“Such as?”

“Duvall claimed that he wasn’t alone in this. He says someone put him up to it, a scholar named Hopkins. He says this Hopkins brought him the golem’s eye, taught him how to use it. He says this Hopkins put him in touch with the bearded mercenary, and encouraged Duvall to send him out to Prague to track down the magician Kavka. When I started investigating, Duvall contacted the mercenary in Prague and told him to stop me. But Hopkins was the brains of the whole thing. This rings true to me—Duvall wasn’t bright enough to have worked it all out alone. He was the leader of a bunch of werewolves, not a great magician. But can we find this Hopkins? No. No one knows who he is, or where he lives. He’s nowhere to be seen. It’s as if he doesn’t exist.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t.”

“That’s what the others think. They reckon Duvall was trying to shift the blame. And everyone assumes he was involved in the Lovelace conspiracy, too. The mercenary proves it, they say. But I don’t know.…”

“Hardly likely,” I said. “Duvall was trapped with the others in the great pentacle at Heddleham Hall, wasn’t he? He wasn’t part of that conspiracy. Sounds like Hopkins might have been, though. He’s the connection, if you can find him.”

He sighed. “That’s a big if.”

“Perhaps Duvall knows more than he’s telling. He might spill more beans.”

“Not now.” The boy’s face sagged insensibly; he suddenly looked tired and old. “On being returned to his cell after this afternoon’s interrogation, he transformed into a wolf, overcame his guard, and broke through a barred window.”

“And escaped?”

“Not exactly. It was five floors up.”

“Ah.”

“Quite.” The boy was by the great bare mantelpiece now, fingering the marble. “The other question is the Westminster Abbey break-in and the matter of the Staff. Duvall agreed he’d sent the golem to steal it from me the other day—it was too good an opportunity to miss, he said. But he swore he had nothing to do with the Resistance, and nothing to do with breaking into Gladstone’s tomb.” He tapped his hands on the stone. “I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied, like the others. If
only
the girl hadn’t died. She could have told us more.…”

I made an affirmative sort of noise, but said nothing. The fact that Kitty was alive was a mere detail—it wasn’t worth mentioning. Nor was the fact that she’d told me a good deal about the abbey break-in, and that a gentleman named Hopkins was somehow involved with it. It wasn’t my business to tell Nathaniel this. I was nothing but a humble servant. I just did what I was told. Besides, he didn’t deserve it.

“You spent time with her,” he said abruptly. “Did she talk much to you?” He eyed me quickly, turned away.

“No.”

“Too frightened, I suppose.”

“Au contraire.
Too disdainful.”

He grunted. “Shame she was so willful. She had some … admirable qualities.”

“Oh, you noticed those, did you? I thought you were too busy reneging on your promise to give much thought to her.”

His cheeks flushed red. “I had little choice, Bartimaeus—”

“Don’t give me anything about choice,” I snapped.
“She
could have chosen to let you die.”

He stamped his foot. “I’m
not
going to have you criticizing my actions—”

“Actions nothing. It’s your morals I object to.”

“Still less my morals!
You’re
the demon, remember? Why should it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t matter!” I was standing, arms folded now. “It doesn’t matter at all. The fact that a humble commoner was more honorable than you’ll ever be is hardly my affair. You do what you like.”

“I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

For a few moments there, we’d both been winding ourselves up into full-blown fury, ready to go at it hammer and tongs, but somehow our hearts weren’t in it.

After an interlude of his staring at a corner of the fireplace and my gazing at a crack in the ceiling, the boy broke the silence. “If it’s of any interest to you,” he growled, “I’ve spoken to Devereaux and have gotten Kavka’s children released from prison. They’re back in Prague now. Cost me a few favors to get that done, but I did it.”

“How noble of you.” I was in no mood to pat his back.

He scowled. “They were low-level spies anyway. Not worth keeping.”

“Of course.” Another silence. “Well,” I said finally. “All’s well that ends well. You’ve got everything you wanted.” I gestured across the empty room. “Look at the size of this place! You can fill it with all the silk and silver you desire. Not only that, you’re more powerful than ever; the Prime Minister is once more in your debt; and you’re out from under Whitwell’s thumb.”

He looked a little happier at this. “That’s true.”

“Of course, you’re also completely friendless and alone,” I went on, “and all your colleagues fear you and will want to do you harm. And if you get too powerful, the Prime Minister will get paranoid and find an excuse to bump you off. But hey, we’ve all got troubles.”

He eyed me balefully. “What a charming insight.”

“I’m full of them. And if you don’t want any more, I advise you to dismiss me on the instant. Your six weeks are up, and that marks the end of my current bond. My essence aches and I’m tired of white emulsion.”

He gave a sudden curt nod. “Very well,” he said. “I will honor our agreement.”

“Eh? Oh. Right.” I was a little taken aback. In all honesty, I’d expected the usual bartering before he agreed to let me go. It’s like making a purchase in an Eastern bazaar: haggling is inevitably the order of the day. But perhaps his betrayal of the girl had lodged in my master’s mind.

Whatever the reason, he silently led me up to his workroom on the second floor of the house. It was decked out with the basic pentacles and paraphernalia.

We completed the initial procedure in stony silence.

“For your information,” he said cattily, as I stood within the pentacle, “you do not leave me entirely alone. I am off to the theater this evening. My good friend Quentin Makepeace has invited me to a gala premiere of his latest play.”

“How desperately thrilling.”

“It is.” He did a dismal job of trying to look pleased. “Well, are you ready?”

“Yep.” I performed a formal salute. “I bid the magician John Mandrake farewell. May he live long and never summon me again.… By the way, notice something there?”

The magician paused with his arms raised and his incantation at the ready. “What?”