Rats and Gargoyles (14 page)

The man dropped the axe and clapped both hands to
his face. Blood blossomed from his eye.

Her heel caught the shallow step leading up from
the quay. She sat down abruptly. Plessiez shouted. The black Rat’s rapier
darted, his left arm wrapped in the scarlet cloak, feinting; he backed up
against the edge of the quay, driven by three or four men.

"Stop!"

Yellow torches wavered.

Zar-bettu-zekigal put both hands over her mouth,
muffling her suddenly audible breathing.

Slowly, eyes on the tattered men and women, she got
to her feet. The sump (one canal and six tunnels opening into this great
chamber) breathed a fetid quiet.

Heaps of black ash along the quays marked where
flares had burned out. Men and women stood around the canal-end, tar-burning
torches raised, the light falling on to black brick vaults, on to oily water and
the metal net swaying from its winches. Most of the crowds carried swords,
staves, banners. She let her eyes travel across them, tense, searching for
whoever had shouted.

"Stop fighting and we won’t kill you," a man in red
called from a tunnel-entrance. Five or six voices immediately added,
"Yet,"
and there was a rumble of amusement.

Zar-bettu-zekigal, slowly, hands held out from her
sides, walked down to rejoin Falke and the Rats at the canal’s edge. The
white-haired man rested on his staff, free hand shading his eyes that ran with
tears in the torch-glare. Plessiez muttered to Charnay. She reluctantly lowered
her rapier-point to the ground. The crowd grew minute by minute, pressing closer
around them.

Abruptly banners at the back of the crowd jerked
and moved aside. The tattered men and women fell back as a litter came through
the crowd, carried by six men in ragged black clothing and remnants of
unpolished armor.

"They’re all human," Zari muttered, not taking her
eyes off the approaching litter.

"They are all pale," the black Rat said, his tone
thoughtful, although his chest heaved under the sword- harness. "I think it some
time since any one of them saw sunlight. Honor to you!"

The partly-armored men set down the litter on its
stilts, jolting on the brick quay. It was large, swathed in water-stained red
curtains; and from an elongated corner-pole a banner painted with a sun hung in
rags.

Plessiez bowed elegantly to the invisible occupant.

Zari stepped back as
two men pushed forward with a carved oak chair. They set it down on the cobbles.
A woman in armor shoved herself out of the litter, inch by strenuous inch,
thumping the scabbard of a long sword down on the quayside, and using it as a
support.

"Next person who doesn’t
stop
I’ll gut. That
goes for you, Clovis. What have you found me?"

She stumbled in three great strides to the chair,
sitting with a clash of armor, and waved away all offer of assistance. As she
slumped back into the cushioned chair, two men came to kneel at either side of
it.

The thin blond man at her left said: "They came so
close that we had to decoy them in."

Her torn shirt and breeches were dark red,
blood-red in torchlight; and vambraces gleamed on her forearms, greaves on her
calves. Plate armor covered her torso; and she reached up and pulled off a homed
laminated helmet, and shook her head, short greasy hair flying.

"Find out how
they got here and then kill them."

Zar-bettu-zekigal, hands in pockets, swirled
the skirts of her greatcoat about her, and stepped forward. Eyes glowing, she
stood and gazed–at the woman’s dirty sardonic face: the high cheek-bones,
nondescript hair, the beginnings of crow’s-feet.

Speaking over Plessiez’s protest, and the armored
woman’s next words, the Katayan said: "Who
are
you?"

Silence. Two women
with raised swords hesitated, looking to the armored woman, whose slanting red-
brown eyes narrowed. A frown indented lines on her forehead. She hitched herself
forward in the chair, and Zar-bettu-zekigal smiled, dazed, dizzy with the fear
that never touched her in the preceding quarter-hour.

"Who-are-you yourself," the woman said laconically.
"I’m called The Hyena. I rule the human Imperial dynasty–what there is left of
it."

Dust rose up, yellowing the sills and steps all
down Carver Street. Two carts rumbled past men and women (some in satin, some in
rough cloth) who swore at the coating of flour-thin dust. Casaubon leaned back
mountainously in the first carriage-seat and beamed at Lucas.

"Comfortable lodgings, I hope . . . ?"

Three harsh clangs drowned out his voice.
Clock-mill struck the hour, its gold-and-blue dials revolving a notch; sun, moon
and stars shifting to new configurations.

A great-maned lion rolled jerkily round on one set
of rails, gilt flashing in the afternoon sun; passing a sleek silver hound on
the other rail. From somewhere deep in the tower’s mechanism, a mechanical
vox animalis
roared.

Casaubon sat up. "An early Salomon de Caus—"

Lucas, muscles aching from getting from the palace
to Carver Street and back again (by way of the Embassy Compound) to pick up the
Lord-Architect, wiped his forehead and loosened the lacing of his thin shirt.

"Mistress Evelian should have the rooms cleared
out," he announced.

Casaubon winced as the carriage jolted to a halt.
One of the drivers dismounted to see to the oxen, the second stepped down to put
blocks under the wheels. Lucas beckoned to one of the men.

"This load goes up to the first floor–through the
street-door, there." He slid down to the street, and glanced back up at the fat
man. "The person I mentioned, the White Crow . . . may not necessarily want to
see you."

Casaubon scratched at his crotch with plump
fingers, still gazing up at the great dial of Clock-mill.

"Who knows?"

"Well . . . I’ll make inquiries first."

He left the big man gazing up at the clock, while
the crates and chests and boxes were dumped on the cobbles beside him. The
passage into the courtyard felt cool after the sun’s heat, and he came out of
the shadow blinking at the light beyond.

White sun warmed the wood-friezes: skulls, shovels
and bones. He began to walk across to the far steps, towards the White Crow’s
rooms. Out of the tail of his eye, he caught a glint of red under the trees.

"Have . . . ?"

Lucas’s voice dried up. A small square of brown
grass under the cherry trees was the courtyard’s only garden. Cinnamon-red hair
tangled the sun in spidersilk fineness. The woman rested her head on her bare
arms, gold lashes closed; and her white almost-freckled back and hips and thighs
shone in the dappled shade. Her feet were a little apart, the cleft of her
buttocks shadowed.

"Mmhhrm?"

The White Crow rolled lazily on to her back, one
hand reaching for the spectacles that lay beside her, on the open pages of a
hand-written grimoire. As she turned on to her back, Lucas saw her flattened
breasts stippled with the imprint of grass, her dark aureoles, and the curled
red-gold of her pubic hair. She pushed the spectacles on to her nose and raised
her head without lifting her shoulders, momentarily double-chinned.

"You’re not Mistress Evelian."

"No." Lucas shut his mouth on a croak.

Without any haste, the White Crow began to feel
about for her cotton shirt, after some moments tugging it down from a
cherry-branch and sliding the sun-warm fabric over her shoulders.

"Who were you looking for?" She eased her hips up
to pull on thin cotton knee-breeches.

Her tawny eyes met his, and Lucas blushed sweaty
red. He glanced up at the black-and-white half-timbered frontages and the blue
sky beyond; and then couldn’t help but drop his gaze back to her. The White Crow
knelt up, tucking her shirt into her knee-breeches.

"I hear we have a new tenant. Know anything about
that?"

"Very little." He forced self-possession. "And it
isn’t for want of looking in my uncle’s confidential files, either. Have you
ever heard of something called the Invisible College?"

The cinnamon-haired woman froze, one hand at her
breeches waistband: her lips parted. Simultaneously Lucas heard Casaubon’s heavy
tread in the passage.

"I haven’t said anything about you," Lucas added
hurriedly.

Casaubon stepped out into the sunlight. It glinted
off his greasy copper hair, showed every stain and sweat-mark on his linen and
satin coat.

Lucas turned back to the White Crow, one reassuring
hand held out. "He—"

"Valentine!"

Lucas spun round, deafened by the stentorian
bellow.

The big man crossed the courtyard in half a dozen
rapid strides, the cobbles shaking to his tread. The skirts of his pink coat
flew wide. His shirt had fallen open, copper hairs glinting across the fleshy
bulk of his chest; one silk stocking hung out of its garter. A great beam spread
across his face.

"Valentine!" he cried happily.

The woman stood frozen, white-faced. His massive
arms went forward, his hands seized her under the ribs; he grunted with joy and
swung her up, lifting her, tossing her up as if she were a small child. In a
flurry of hair and shirt-tail and flailing arms, she soared skyward, six or
seven feet above the cobbles–fell back and was swept into a massive hug, bare
feet never brushing the ground.

"Valentine!"

"Put me down!"

Lucas snapped out of his astonishment and strode
forward. "Put her down–you heard her!"

Casaubon’s grip loosened. The woman slid down,
tiptoe on the cobbles; and he flung his arms round her again, pressing her nose
into his sternum, grinning generously, laughing with unbelief. Looking down over
the mountainous chins and the swell of his belly, he gripped her chin in his
hand and bent down and kissed her, smackingly enthusiastic.

"Will
you"–she elbowed room, and punched him
smartly in the stomach–"put me
down
?"

"It’s you." Amazement blazoned itself across his
face. "It’s wonderful!"

"Casaubon!"

He loosened his embrace, still smiling happily.
Lucas halted. Poised on the edge of violence or violent embarrassment, he looked
to the White Crow for help.

She put tumbled red hair back from her face with
hands that shook. Frowning disbelief, she shook her head, eyes for no one but
the big man; and suddenly clenched her fists and rested them against her lips,
still staring at him.

Lucas, bewildered, said: "But this is the White
Crow . . ."

Casaubon’s china-blue eyes filled with water. Tears
overflowed, runneling the dirt down his fat cheeks. He laughed, shook his head,
laughed again.

"This is Master-Captain Valentine. This is a
Scholar- Soldier, Valentine of the Invisible College."

"Not any more!"

As if suddenly aware that she still stood within
his embrace, the woman stepped back. A bare heel skidded on the dry grass; she
caught her balance, one protesting hand stretched out against the fat man’s
movement to help.

"Don’t!"

Casaubon clapped vast hands together, and then
spread his arms expansively. "Wonderful!"

Lucas reached out and closed, first, his right and
(since it could not enclose the girth) then his left hand around Casaubon’s
wrist. Tensing muscles that had heaved the Lord-Architect’s crates from an
ox-cart, digging in his heels, he pulled the big man around in his tracks.

"Leave her alone."

Casaubon blinked, blue eyes bright in his big,
faintly freckled face. He scratched at his copper hair with his free hand, and
looked down at Lucas; and suddenly swung his other hand around and clapped him
on the shoulder, knocking Lucas six inches sideways.

"I’ve
found
her," he beamed. "It’s
wonderful."

"She doesn’t think so."

Lucas felt muscles tense under his hands, in the
hard fat that sleeved the man’s wrist. He gripped more tightly, but the girth
forced his fingers open. Lucas stepped back, seeing the red mark of his grip on
the man’s fair skin.

Casaubon, with no apparent resentment, remarked:
"Wonderful!"

"Will you stop saying that?"

Blind exasperation edged the White Crow’s tone. Her
arms fell to her sides, hands still clenched into fists. The sun through the
leaves stippled her face with gold and shadow, and as she stepped out into the
exposed courtyard her hair and linen blazed copper and white.

"I don’t want you here!"

A stale scent of cooking wafted across the
courtyard. Lucas heard Evelian’s voice, singing, from one of the open casements;
and panic stabbed through him, thinking that she or anyone might come outside.

" ‘Valentine’ isn’t a name on your file," he
protested.

The woman squinted at him briefly, lines webbing
the corners of her eyes; her gaze hard now with a professional calculation.
Lucas’s heart thudded into his throat, and without any pride he said:
"Don’t."

She took another step forward, glaring up at the
fat man.

"Get out!"

Casaubon still smiled. He shrugged, massive weights
of flesh shifting with his shoulders.

"I’ll go."

The gold-braid-edged skirts of his satin coat
swirled as he turned. Lucas, bile and jealousy burning his gut, stared after the
man as he strode ponderously towards the passage’s archway.

The White Crow stared irresolutely at his
retreating back. One hand went up to smooth her tumbled hair, straighten her
spectacles–as Lucas was about to open his mouth, protest support and loyalty,
she snatched off her gold-wire spectacles, gripping them in a fist.

"Where have you come from?" She raised her voice.
"Where have you been?"

Casaubon continued to walk away. The courtyard’s
quiet, born of sun and distant voices and the scent of dry grass, sifted down
like dust.

"What the hell do you mean by just turning up!"