Rats and Gargoyles (28 page)

"Be Kings’ Memory now," Plessiez cut her off as he
rejoined her. She pushed the doors open for him to pass through. Leisurely, she
repeated the standard pronouncement: "Messire, you have an auditor . . ."

Plessiez walked through the next hall to where,
white in sunlight through leaded casements, the double-spiral stone staircase
rose up through this wing of the palace. He paused under its entrance-arch for
the young woman to catch up.

"You hold all our secrets."

She glanced up from her footing on the warm stone
steps, descending in front of him. "No secrets, messire. What I’m asked, I tell to whoever asks me. When
I’ve heard it as Memory."

"And not otherwise?"

"Oh, see you, messire! I wouldn’t take a question
like that from anyone except you."

Here in the stone shaft, air blew morning-cool. The
Katayan rubbed her bare arms. Plessiez watched her with what, eventually, he had
identified as a certain awe; as if she were some hawk come tamely willing to his
hand without capture.

"That may be why we all use you as a confessional."
He caught the flash of her eyes, knowing and innocent; and his snout twitched
with an unwilling smile. "Or does the Lady Hyena, as yet, share more than the
ear of the Kings’ Memory?"

The Katayan woman fisted hands to thrust in
greatcoat pockets no longer there. Instead she put them behind her back, tail
coiling up to loop her wrists.

"I’m working on that . . . She wants to know when
anything’s going to happen at the Fane. And, see you, Master Falke is lying his
head off."

"Falke tells no lies that I don’t know about."

The jerk of her head, chopped-off hair flying, took
in all the thirty-six Districts of the city invisible beyond palace walls. "Her
‘Imperial dynasty’ and the Salomon-men–they’ve started something they can’t stop
down there in the city."

"I know," Plessiez said. "It will be soon. It has
already begun."

Leaving the stairwell two floors below, walking
through a cluttered salon, he nodded a greeting to passing black Rats, to one of
St. Cyr’s uniformed Cadets, and to an aide of one of the Lords Magi. The Katayan
beside him skipped to keep up with his strides. Plessiez eased the green sash
where it crossed the fur of his shoulder, onyx and silver rings clinking against
the
ankh.

In the next salon all the full-length windows had
been flung open, and heat slid in on tentative breezes, bringing the noise of
hammers and forges and Rats shouting. Outside the windows, a ruined marble
terrace gave way to the artillery garden. Blue haze coiled up from stretches of
mud not yet dried by the sun.

A brown Rat passed across the terrace, and the
Katayan woman checked. "I thought . . . it might have been Charnay."

"No. Not yet." Plessiez’s finger tapped irritably
against his flank. "I believe the Lady Hyena’s admission that she released her.
That means Charnay is off on some fool plan of her own. And that’s when one
knows there’ll be trouble."

The ormolu clock at the far end of the salon struck
seven times. As the tinny notes died, a Cadet pushed the doors open. He bowed
deeply to Plessiez.

"Lord Cardinal, the military architect is here to
see you."

"Finally! Show him in."

"He . . . ah . . ."

Plessiez glimpsed a shadow out on the terrace. The
previous night’s rain stood in pools, flashing back white sun through the rising
haze of steam. The mud, rubble, broken joists, and the machines of the artillery
garden were blotted out by the bulk of a man. The big man glanced in at the
window, nodding to Plessiez. His copper hair shone. He hooked his thumbs under
the lapels of his blue satin frock-coat.

"Messire priest, I am Baltazar Casaubon,
Lord-Architect, Scholar-Soldier of the Invisible College, Surveyor of
Extraordinary Gardens, Knight oftheRoseCastle
and
," the immensely fat man
got in before Plessiez could interrupt him, "Horologer, Solar and Lunar
Dial-maker, Duke of the Golden Compasses, and Brother of the Forgotten Hunt.
Where is Messire Desaguliers?"

Rubble and hard earth jarred the base of his spine.
Candia’s eyes jolted open. Sunlight spiked into his head. He moaned, lying back
and leaning his face against rough- pointed brickwork.

". . . it
is
a priest!"

"Not a real one."

"We ain’t got one, but we got her. Ei, priest, over
here!"

Voices resounded in the warm air above his head.
Yellow grass beside him grew up through shattered paving- stones. Silk- and
satin-clad legs milled in front of his face: scarlet and azure and
cloth-of-silver dazzled.

"–need any sort of a priest; we—"

"–see how things are here—"

"–necessary exorcism—"

"–a priest,
now
!"

Candia uncovered his face. A factory’s sheer brick
soared up into a blue sky. Above and beyond, he saw smokeless chimney-stacks.
His head fell forward. Six inches from his nose, in the folds of a faded,
tree-embroidered, green cotton dress, a black hand clenched into a fist.

A voice just above him said: "I’ll send you someone
else from the Cathedral of the Trees."

"No. We can’t wait!"

"Not while they come all the way from Nineteenth
District!"

Candia raised his head with an effort. He focused
on a burly woman, arms folded, the gold Rule embroidered on her overalls
catching the sun painfully bright.

"No," she repeated. "We want you, Archdeacon,
before it’s too late."

Candia pushed his shaking fingers through his lank
hair. As he moved, the cloth of his doublet and breeches cracked with dried
liquid, and he smelt the stench of old urine and vomit. He pressed his shaking
hands into his eye-sockets.

"Who? Where?" His weak voice cracked.

A familiar tart voice at his other side said:
"You’re a fool, Candia. The university officially suspended you ten days ago.
What did you do that was worth getting yourself into this state?"

He felt a slow heat spreading across his face. For
a second his shame would not let him look up at Heurodis. Veins pulsed behind
his shut eyelids, the color of light through new leaves. The invading presence
of that healing could no longer be denied.

"Heurodis . . ." He took his hands from his face,
braced his shoulders against the wall, and pushed himself upright against the
rough brick, ripping his buff doublet again. Morning sun dazzled. The young
black woman beside him argued furiously with the burly carpenter. Workers crowded around in the alley, the movement
confusing him.

"Stay here." The black woman moved a step towards
the factory, glancing at the locked gates at the end of the alley, and then at
the elderly Heurodis and at Candia. "I’ll come back for you."

"No . . ." Gesture and voice died; he leaned weakly
against the wall, brushing fair hair from his eyes, ignoring filth.

"Yes." Heurodis put her wrinkled hand protectively
on Candia’s arm, and kept it there until the black woman turned away. She raised
one faded eyebrow at the Reverend Master then.

"Help me," Candia said shakily. "Now, while they’re
arguing. I’ve seen, and I’ve heard . . . Heurodis, I have to get back inside the
Fane."

"Of course," Plessiez heard the Lord-Architect
observe, "I left numerous and very
detailed
plans . . ."

The Lord-Architect rested one ham-hand on a joist
of the machine, some four feet above ground-level, and bent to peer under the
platform. His left foot came free of the artillery garden’s white mud with a
concussive suck. He looked absently down at his dripping silk stocking and shoe.

"–which the factory could have accurately
followed."

"What caused your absence?" the Cardinal-General
demanded.

"I assure you, messire, the last . . ." Casaubon
paused invitingly.

"Thirty days."

"The last thirty days have, for me, gone past in
the blink of an eye. You may say, indeed, they passed in the space of a
heartbeat."

"I am well aware that you must be busy." Plessiez,
waspish, whipped his tail out of the mud, taking a firmer stance on the
artillery garden’s rubble. The immense shadow of the machine fell cool across
his sun-warmed fur. His left hand slid down to grasp the scabbard of his rapier.
He gestured for Zar-bettu-zekigal to approach. "Are you suggesting that these
particular engines have been built incorrectly? Is that where the difficulty of
operation arises?"

"Oh, not
incorrectly,
not as such . . ."

The Lord-Architect rapped his fist against the
lower joist near the massive rear wheel. The iron plates of the wheel casing
quivered. His blue-coated bulk tipped lower as he moved a step forward, under
the platform of the machine.

". . . merely minor adjustments . . ."

As Plessiez watched, the fat man gripped a strut in
one hand and pivoted, slowly graceful, easing his body down. One massive leg
slid forward. He swung down to sit in three inches of semi-liquid mud and, on
his back, pull himself further under the axle-casing with massive white-gloved
hands.

". . . a few days’ work . . ."

Plessiez frowned. Picking his way across the rutted
site, he stooped to look under the machine. The Lord- Architect Casaubon lay on
his back in the mud, his blue satin frock-coat spreading out flat, soaking up
rain-pools. As Plessiez started to speak, the fat man fumbled in the pocket of
his embroidered waistcoat and brought out a miniature hammer. He reached up and
tapped the iron axle. A sharp metallic click echoed back across the artillery
garden from the royal palace wall.

"I don’t have ‘a few days,’ Lord-Architect. These
engines must be ready to move later today."

Plessiez, irritated, straightened up and looked for
the Kings’ Memory. The young Katayan woman had her heels on the wheel-rim where
it rested on the earth, eight inches above ground, her back to the axle,
stretching her arms as far up the spokes to the metal casing as possible. The
top of the wheel curved a yard and a half above her head.

Her chin tilted up, pale, as her eyes traversed the
bulk of the engine above her on the wheeled platform.

"Zari!"

"I’m listening, messire." The Katayan’s chin
lowered. She grinned.

Plessiez urbanely repressed the fur rising down his
spine. The tip of his tail lashed an inch to either side in a tightly controlled
movement. "I repeat: I do not have days."

The fat man grunted amiably. His large delicate
fingers probed the gear-wheels above the axle. He took his hand away, staring at
a glove now caked with black grease. He began to ease himself forward on hands
and heels and buttocks, until he cleared the mud with a succession of squelches.
The Lord-Architect stood up, cracked his head against the underside of the
platform, and spread oil and mud in his copper-gold hair as he rubbed the crown
of his head.

"Days," Casaubon repeated firmly. He ducked out
from under the platform. His silk knee-breeches dripped. Taking one hem of his
frock-coat in a gloved hand, he cracked the cloth and spattered mud in a
five-yard radius.

The Katayan wiped the tuft of her tail across her
cheek.

Plessiez looked down at the glutinous white mud
spattered across his fur and cardinal’s sash. "You may find this behavior
acceptable. I do not. It is possible, Messire Casaubon, that these tactics are
designed to obfuscate your inefficiency. I assure you that they fail."

The Lord-Architect laughed. He swung a gloved
grease-stained hand to clap Plessiez on the back. The Cardinal-General stepped
away smartly, his heel coming down on a broken paving-stone filmed with mud.

"Wh—?" .

Plessiez skidded, flailed limbs and tail to stay
upright; a rock-solid hand closed around his arm and steadied his balance. Chins
creased as the big man smiled, innocent.

"Careful, messire."

"I am always careful. Thank you." Plessiez met Zar-
bettu-zekigal’s gaze. The Kings’ Memory leaned her fist hard against her mouth,
eyes bright. Plessiez took a step back, gazing up at the metal-plated casings
and turrets and ports and beaks of the siege engine.

Morning sun dazzled off the row of nineteen others
ranked beyond it.

"Not my preferred line of work, really. Trained in
it, of course. Could do you ornamental garden automata," the Lord-Architect
offered hopefully, "or hydraulic water-organs . . ."

Plessiez narrowed his eyes to furred slits and
studied the large man. Coming in moments to a conclusion that (had he known) it
had taken the White Crow years to arrive at, he smiled, nodded an acknowledgment
and observed: "Very well, we understand each other. I am somewhat in your hands,
being at the mercy of your expertise, and you have a price which is not entirely
orthodox. It may be granted, if it is not too impossible, messire."

Casaubon beamed, blue eyes guileless. "I could work
faster if I knew what these engines are
specifically
needed to do."

Morning light shone back from white earth, from
distant windows and multi-tiered roofs, with a promise of later heat. Small
figures dotted the perimeter of the site: engineers being kept back by St. Cyr’s
Cadets. Their impatient voices came to Plessiez across the intervening distance.

"We
do
understand each other. Very well,"
Plessiez conceded. His muzzle turned towards Zar-bettu-zekigal as she stepped
down from her perch on the wheel. "But, I regret, not in your presence, Zari.
For the present this must be between his Majesty and myself–and now you, Messire
Casaubon."

"Must she go?" The big man’s face creased in
disappointment. "Such a beautiful young woman. And a Memory, too? Lady, you
should have told me."

The Katayan leaned her elbow against the wheel-rim
and her cheek on her hand. "I did tell you. I yelled it in your ear. You had
your head in the rotor-casing at the time, but I did tell you you had an
auditor. Didn’t I, messire?"