Rats and Gargoyles (22 page)

"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 dais, 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. "And
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?"