Rats and Gargoyles (23 page)

"Bishop Theodoret is my friend." The words left him
unprompted. Candia opened his mouth in a gasp, tears filling his eyes, and
giggled. "Yes, he helped me to get into the university. Yes. The old bitch’d be
proud of the return favor I’ve given him for that—"

He laughed helplessly. One dark man swung a
splintered piece of two-by-four; he caught it on one up-raised arm, twisted it
free of the man’s grip, and whacked it back against the cathedral wall. The dull
crack!
echoed. The man stepped back. He stared at Sordio.

"Leave me alone!"

"You bastard, you brought them down on the Hall,
you did that!"

Heat from the morning sun soaked into his bruised
shoulders. He swallowed. His mouth tasted foul, but with the foulness of
humanity: no copper-coin bitterness now.

"I’ll say this." He watched Sordio. A little older
now, this last year gone by, a little stouter, with the muscles of a builder;
wearing now the gold ribbon of the House of Salomon openly on his overalls. "I
went to the Lord Decan. I told him what was happening at the East-quarter hall.
You
told me."

"Thirty-Six, you’re my
brother.
I thought I
could trust you!"

"You could. You can."

A black beetle crawled in the dust on the
cathedral’s back step, abandoning the rubbish piled in the corner of the door.
Masonry chilled his back where he leaned against the door-arch. Candia tensed.
His body shuddered, shuddered uncontrollably; the thin beam of wood falling from
his hands to the paving.

"I know exactly how many people died at that hall.
I can tell you their names." He shut his eyes, dizzy; opened them again to a
blue-stained sunlight, and Sordio’s sweating red face. "It was better that some
people should die now than most of the District die later. We had to take that
decision. That was what we said. It’s better—"

He swallowed with difficulty.

"Damn you, do it, then! Here I am. I’m telling you,
the Lord Decan could wipe you out like
that.
" His boot crunched the black
beetle into a chitinous smear. "And what are we to them? They wouldn’t waste
time sorting out who’s in the House of Salomon conspiracy and who’s innocent.
Remember Fifth District? A massacre!"

Somewhere, far away, a clock struck the
quarter-hour.

A spar cracked across Candia’s hip and stomach. He screamed. Two
men moved in with fists. He staggered, tried a spin and kick; fell forward into Sordio’s grip, gasping.

His brother’s fist sank deep and hard into his
stomach. Candia bent double, vomiting. Water blurred his vision, and he clamped
his eyes shut.

Far above, a rustle of dry wings electrified the
noon sky; and a line of blood incised itself across the inside of his eyelids. A
distant mockery hissed in the sun.

—
Twice traitor!
—

"Clear the chamber," Captain-General Desaguliers
ordered.
"Move."

Sleek black Rat Cadets split up, crossing the great
clover-leaf audience chamber. Desaguliers took up a stance under the vaulting of
one intersection, watching ambassadors complain: Ger-zarru-huk protesting
volubly, leaving at last with two cadets gripping him firmly under the arms, his
tail lashing; the Candovard Ambassador forcing his own contentious prince from
the hall.

His scarred face creased, the smile sardonic.

"Messire, the generators? The human servants?"

Desaguliers picked his incisors with a neatly
trimmed claw. Unlike the Magi, Lords and priests, he wore severe black
sword-harness and studded leather collar.

"Leave ’em," he directed the young cadet. "His
Majesty’ll spit blood if the precious lights don’t stay on. When this is over,
sling ’em in gaol for a week or two, until they forget they ever heard anything
here today."

The Cadet smartly touched her silver headband.

Desaguliers shoved through the press of bodies,
checking for humans. The hot curtained morning brought a shiver to his spine.
Premonitory, his scarred face creased into a frown. His black eyes, anxious for
once, sought through the crowded ranks for a red jacketed priest: one among
many.

"Plessiez," he muttered.

Hands resting on his plain sword-belt, he strode
towards the dais and the King: narrow powerful shoulders thrusting a way between
black and brown Rats. The four sets of double doors clanged shut. Cadets slid
lock-bars into place, then moved to position themselves against the walls. Heat
slicked Desaguliers’ fur up into tufts. The noise and confusion of two hundred
nobles, Magi and priests washed over him, and he wiped the fur above his eyes.

"Secure." He made a low bow at the foot of the
dais.

The Rat-King looked up from ordering pages to clear
the silks and cushions, several pairs of eyes turning towards Desaguliers. The
Captain-General’s spine stiffened. Standing on the lowest step of the dais by
one silver-furred Rats-King, Plessiez folded sleek hands and smiled.

"Messire Desaguliers."

"Your reverence."

The actinic lights brightened. Desaguliers heard a
thong crack at the back of the hall, and a treadmill creak faster. Points of
hard light shot back from diamond collars, from rings, from sword-hilts and from
the black eyes of Rats. The smell of heat and fur made his snout tense
rhythmically.

Lords Magi took their places in the first rank of
the circle surrounding the bed-throne, and he moved a step aside as the seven
Cardinals-General joined them. Across the room, he met Cardinal Ignatia’s gaze,
vainly searching for some hint of the future.

The Rat-King stood, one brown Rat offering a hand
to the bony black Rat, the rest rising with some dignity.

The knot of their tails stood out stark, scaled,
deformed. With one movement the assembly bowed. Desaguliers, straightening, saw
the Chancellor crack her ivory staff against the tiles.

"Hear his Majesty!"

All voices silenced, the only sound came from the
hum and spark of the generators, the creak of the turning treadmills. The
Rat-King stood in a circle, each Rat facing out across the assembly. Pages
hurriedly finished draping the shoulders of each with cloth-of-gold cloaks.

The bony black Rats-King spoke.

"Captain-General. "

Desaguliers bowed, hands resting on his plain
sword- belt. "Your Majesty desires?"

"It seems Messire Plessiez survived the attack from
the Fane."

Tension and the fear of ridicule walked hot shivers
up Desaguliers’ spine. He glanced around, tail twitching. A few faces showed
incomprehension. His eyes swept the Lords Magi and the Cardinals-General, seeing
knowing smiles.

"Yes, your Majesty."

Desaguliers made a low bow, going on one knee on
the dais steps. His sword-harness clashed. That and his studded black collar
were his only ornaments: a lean ragged black Rat in middle years. He lifted his
head to meet the Rat-King’s gaze.

"We should have been most interested to discover—"

"–what was said at that hall," a brown Rats-King
concluded. "But you could not tell us, messire."

"You could not tell us," the bony black Rats-King
smiled, "that we knew of Messire Plessiez’s mission. That he had our authority."

Desaguliers studiously kept his face turned away
from the little priest.

"I’ve done my best to investigate," he judged it
safe to say.

The black Rat glared down at Desaguliers, who began
to sweat.

"Messire Plessiez made it clear just how long you
were present at that meeting, before the Fane’s acolytes attacked. You heard all
of what was said there, and thought fit not to inform us of that fact."

Desaguliers’ whiskers quivered. His dark-fingered
hand clenched by his side.

"We don’t care to be deceived. We think that such
an offense deserves summary dismissal—"

"–but that the little priest’s evidence is not
unbiased," one of the silver-furred Rats concluded sardonically, leaning over
from the far side of the circular bed. He fixed Desaguliers with eyes dark as
garnets. "We might advise you to prove your innocence, messire, and in fairly
short order."

The jabber and laughter of the Lords Magi and
nobles washed over him. He rose to his feet, and nodded once sharply: "As your
Majesty wishes."

The bony black Rats-King turned his head, searching
the ranks of nobles, Lords Magi and priests. Desaguliers breathed hard, sensing
a respite but no escape.

"Cardinal-General Ignatia."

The elderly female Rat stepped forward from the six
other Cardinals-General of the Church, straightening her emerald-green robe.

"Your Majesty, I must protest at this sudden action
of Messire Plessiez. He has been acting entirely without the authority of the
Order of Guiry–"

"He has acted at all times with
our
authority and full knowledge."

"I don’t understand, your Majesty."

Desaguliers smoothed his whiskers down, studying
Ignatia’s genuine bewilderment. A hot temper flared in his gut, and a fear.
Whispered comments in the crowd located the fear: that something so obviously
long-planned could occur without Desaguliers’ police knowing of it.

The bony black Rats-King waved one hand, rings
flashing in the artificial light.

"It seems to us," he said mildly, "that the
pressures of the generalship of the Order of Guiry stand between you and your
excellent scholarship, Cardinal Ignatia. We therefore promote a new
Cardinal-General into your place, to enable you to spend even more of your
valuable time in the Archives."

Ignatia opened her mouth, closed it again, and fell
to grooming the fur of one arm for a few seconds. Desaguliers caught her eye as
she looked up, her gaze now lusterless.

"As your Majesty wishes. Who is my successor?"

Under
his breath Desaguliers could not help muttering: "You must be the only one in
this room who doesn’t guess!"

"Messire Plessiez," the black Rats-King said
sardonically, "we invest you Cardinal-General of the Order of Guiry. Remembering
always that poor service merits loss of such a position."

Plessiez’s head turned. He stared directly at
Desaguliers.

The Captain-General’s temper flared. "I think his
Majesty has no reason to complain of my service!"

In the crowd, several people sniggered. Desaguliers
bit his lip, straightened and, having walked into the priest’s trap, chose
bluster to see him through it. He swept a curt bow to the black Rats-King.

"I
do
think you have no reason to complain
of any service. If your Majesty doubts me, my resignation is tendered now, this
morning–this moment. Let St. Cyr have the Cadets."

The silver-furred and the bony black Rats-King
exchanged glances. Desaguliers stood with his spine taut. One hand caressed the
hilt of his sword. His black eyes flicked to each one of the Rats-King, bright
with calculation.

"Yes . . ." The silver Rat smiled. The black Rat
continued: "Yes, we agree. For a while, Messire Desaguliers, we accept your
resignation. Order Messire St. Cyr to us after we have spoken to this assembly.
It will be politic to have him conduct this investigation. You will resume your
post when proved innocent of any deception of your King."

Desaguliers opened his mouth. His jaw hung slack
for a second; then snapped shut.

"Furthermore," a black Rats-King said, "St. Cyr is
to have the overseeing of the artillery garden. Send your imported architect to
him as soon as is convenient."

Desaguliers gave the briefest bow and turned
away, not waiting for a dismissal. Fury scoured him. He shouldered past five or
six Rat-Lords. Their laughter cauterized him.

At the far end of one clover-leaf, by the barred
doors, he abandoned caution and summoned one of the Cadets with a fierce look.

"We must move earlier than I expected."

"Messire?"

"St. Cyr is to have the cadets." Desaguliers’
scarred face twisted into a smile. "You might say I was fool enough to give his
command to him . . . Next time I’ll make
sure
Plessiez is a corpse. Call
the others together. We’ll meet at noon. All plans will have to be advanced.
Pass word on."

The tall black Rat bowed, and slid away into the
massed assembly.

Desaguliers caught his breath with some difficulty,
stared down the dozen or so Rats nearest to him; and then cocked his ears as the
brass horns rang out again, silencing the assembly.

"We have called you here, also, to witness the
promulgation of a new law."

The taller of the silver-furred Rats-King spoke,
voice dropping into the expectant silence. His incisors showed in a smile.

"It is not our intention to explain our policy, but
to be obeyed in what we say.

"For the immediate future, and for however long it
may chance to pass–"

"–and because we are a generous sovereign, wishing nothing more than to be loved by our people—"

"–we hereby revoke the penalties of treason and
conspiracy outstanding against the human rebels now fugitive here in the heart
of the world."

A rumble of protest rose up into the vaulted roofs.

Desaguliers stared across the heads of the crowd, between translucent ears and
nodding feather-plumes. The bright gold-cloaked figures of the Rat-King spangled
light back, dazzling the assembled nobles.

"Therefore," continued the other silver-furred
Rats- King, his voice proceeding with the slightest possible stutter, "and as a
gesture of goodwill, we promulgate the following law: that all men and women
under the gold- cross banner of the Sun may be permitted to carry weapons in the
streets and dwellings of the city."

"Never!"

Against the crescendo of shouting, the Rats-King
said something to the Chancellor, and that Rat slammed her ivory-and-garnet
staff against the tiles and cried out:
"This audience is over!"