Rats and Gargoyles (66 page)

"What
was
it, messire?"

In a rather less slurred tone than he had been
affecting for the past few minutes, the Captain-General put his mouth so close to her that his incisors rubbed her
small round ear, and said: "Lot to worry us now. These rabble peasants will want
things their own way. ’N’ your people, too. Got to make sure we can come to
arrangements. Sensible arrangements."

"Exempli gratia?"

The black Rat’s whiskers quivered. He blinked. "Oh.
Yes. For example, we–the new Senate–we keep his Majesty in order. And you, you
tell us about
your
masters."

"Who are no longer our masters." The gargoyle head
turned to follow the passing of a Decan’s shadow in the sunlit air. Desaguliers
prodded the air with one dark finger.

" ’Zactly! We got the King sewn up.
You
keep
us posted on the Divine Ones. Well, then! Elbow-room for everybody. Then we’ll
set about the peasants."

He snatched a goblet of wine from the tall black
Rat. The gargoyle-daemon’s clawed wing unfurled, and her fingers reached out and
gripped the metal, indenting it. Desaguliers stood, arms hanging at his sides,
amazement on his lean scarred face. The daemon, wine spilling, none the less got
most of the goblet’s contents into her beaked mouth.

"Urp!" She scratched at her flaking brown-furred
dugs. "Outwit the Divine Ones? While they dwell amongst us, out in the world?
Well . . .
urp . . .
who knows? We might do it at that . . ."

The cover of the sewer stood open.

Zar-bettu-zekigal picked the petals from an ox-eye
daisy and let them fall, one at a time, into the darkness.

She listens: hears no yawping laughter, that hyena-
hysteria quieted now. Hears no rush of waves upon hot and mist-drenched shores.
No immensurate wings.

Now she is still, only the dappled-furred tail
twitching; straining to hear in the foundations of the world the Serpent-headed
Night Council. Below her bare feet is silence and a hot pregnant blackness.

For lack of a grave to put it on, she throws the
ravaged flower down into the dark.

* * *

Lights hovered in the air, globes of pale fire,
unsupported. They dotted the gardens, transparent against the long evening
light. Now that the sun sat on the aust-westerly horizon, their pastel colors
began to glow.

The lights clung to the pillars and dome of the
open rotunda, shining down on a checkerboard floor of ash and ebony. Couples
moved in wild measures, coats and robes rustling; music chimed.

Surrounded by questioners, the White Crow stood at
the edge of the open-air dance-floor. With one hand she gestured, answering a
tall brown Rat’s question; the other held a spray of cherries that she bit into,
nodding and listening.

Zar-bettu-zekigal elbowed through the crowd until
she got to the Lord-Architect.

"Ei, you!"

The Lord-Architect turned on one two-inch heel, the
satin skirts of his frock-coat swirling. Dirty silk breeches strained over his
thighs and belly, failing to button; and leaving some inches’ gap between
themselves and a shirt black with machine-oil.

"There you are!" A delighted smile spread over his
face. He took her hand in gloved fingers and bowed over it. His copper-red hair
had been scraped together at the back, and a tiny tuft tied with a black velvet
string. "Honor to you, Kings’ Memory."

"Care to dance?" she said.

"My honor, lady."

Zar-bettu-zekigal touched the fingers of her left
hand to the Lord-Architect’s arm, resting them on the twelve-inch turned-back
cuffs silver braid; rested her other hand in his; hooked her tufted tail over
her elbow, and stepped out into a waltz. Someone called her name, and she
grinned, hearing a scatter of applause.

"I heard about the Chemicall Labyrinth. So that’s
what those machines were for! Damn, I wish I’d seen it!"

The Lord-Architect lumbered gracefully into a turn,
narrowly missing a Rat in mauve silk. "I adapted the little priest’s design."

"If not for him and his Majesty, there wouldn’t
have been a plague. But then, if not for him, it wouldn’t have stopped. I
wish
he could have been here."

They swung close to a pillar. Looming by it, some
eight feet high and with night wings furled about his shoulders, an
acolyte-daemon gazed with yellow eyes at the dancing. She smelt his cold breath.

"H’m. A little uncouth, perhaps," the
Lord-Architect admitted. "But, then, they’ll have had little experience of this
sort of thing . . ."

Zar-bettu-zekigal nodded to Elish-hakku-zekigal in
the crowd as she danced by; and lifted her head again to the Lord-Architect.

"I’ve been talking to your lady. She’s not bad,
y’know? I should have got to know her while she was in Carver Street. Don’t
suppose I’ll get the chance now."

China-blue eyes looked down at her.

"You suspect her on her way to Candover?"

"Oh, what! Don’t you?"

The gentle pressure of his fingers steered her
towards the edge of the dance-floor. Sunset put the long shadows of the pillars
across the dancers.

"I’m going to take steps," he announced.

Somewhere between affection and cynicism,
Zar-bettu-zekigal demanded:
"What
steps?"

The fat man looked puzzled for a few seconds.
"Perhaps . . . Yes! Perhaps I should finish my poem?"

"What p—?"

Zar-bettu-zekigal stared after him as he walked
away.

"Poem?"

A hand tapped her shoulder. She glanced back.
Resplendent in sky-blue and iris-yellow satin, Mistress Evelian of Carver Street
smiled down at her.

"You left owing me rent—
Oof!
"

"I’m so glad to see you!" Zar-bettu-zekigal hugged
the woman harder.

Evelian settled her puffed ribbon-decorated
sleeves, tugging her bodice down over her full breasts.

"And I you. Zaribeth, don’t be heartsore for too
long." She flicked the Katayan girl’s cheek with her finger. "I want to see you
happy."

Away from the dancing-floor, the Lord-Architect
Casaubon felt absently through the outside left-hand pocket of his stained blue
satin frock-coat, then the right-hand pocket; and finally abandoned them both
and investigated an inside breast-pocket. From this, he brought out a large
speckled goose-egg.

"For a member of the Invisible College," he
remarked, "you seem to be remarkably visible."

The White Crow, sitting at the end of the abandoned
banqueting tablet, shrugged. "I wasn’t planning on staying here anyway."

He tapped the goose-egg against the marble buttock
of a
putti
on the nearest balustrade, a delicate and economical movement
that knocked off the top of the shell. Egg-white ran down his plump fingers.

"
I’ll
cheer you up . . ."

He lifted the shell to his mouth, tipping it as he
threw his head back. She watched in awed fascination as his throat moved,
swallowing.

"I have a present for you!"

He belched, wiping his mouth with the back of his
fat hand, and dropped the now-empty egg-shell. He looked down over his swelling
chest and belly at the rose-haired woman.

The White Crow folded her arms and glared up at him
in exasperation.

"A present. OK, I’ll buy it. What present?"

The Lord-Architect, satisfied, leaned back against
the marble balustrade. She heard a quiet but distinct pop. The Lord-Architect
heaved himself off the stone, and put his hand into the satin coat’s
tail-pocket.

He brought out a handful of crushed shell, his
fingers dripping egg-white and egg-yolk.

"
Knew
I had another one somewhere," he
observed, picking off the shell and licking his fingers. "Now . . ."

The White Crow put her head in her hands and
groaned.

With his moderately clean hand, the Lord-Architect
Casaubon reached into his buttoned-back cuff and pulled out a folded sheet of
paper.

"It’s a poem. For you. I wrote it."

He swept the skirts of his coat back in a
magnificent formal bow, beamed vaguely, and wandered away down the terrace. The
White Crow rested the folded sweat-stained paper against her lips. Dark red
brows dipped.

"You don’t fool
me .
. ."

She stared at his departing back.

". . . not for a minute."

The carved limestone balustrade pressed hard
against her hipbones. Zar-bettu-zekigal leaned over, shading her eyes against
the level sun. Day’s heat beat up from the stone. She shrugged the black
greatcoat more firmly about her thin shoulders, wrapping it across her chest.

She watched the red-headed woman walk away down the
lower terraces towards the fountains and flower-beds, a paper clutched in her
left hand.

A voice spoke acidly behind Zar-bettu-zekigal:
"Yes: the eminent Master-Physician. I perceive, as our poet says, that there is
an upstart crow amongst us–‘a player’s heart, wrapped in a tiger’s hide’ . . ."

"Tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!" Zari
corrected automatically.

And spun on her heel fast enough to stumble.

A very large brown Rat wheeled a chair to a halt on
the graveled terrace. In the wheelchair sat a stooped and frail black Rat, his
fur grizzled to gray, and white about his muzzle. A healed scar marked his upper
lip above the incisor.

His body reclined half-drowned in the emerald silk
and white lace of the Cardinal-General of Guiry’s robes. He lifted
yellow-cataracted alert eyes to her face.

"Messire . . . ?" Her voice cracked. "Charnay!
Messire Plessiez, you . . . Oh, messire, it
is
you!"

She flung herself down beside the chair, throwing
her arms around him, burying her face in the warm silk and fur. Gravel scarred
her knees. His shaking hand stroked the back of her head. Long fingers unsteady,
chill. She sat back on her heels, feeling his fragility; her eyes wide.

"Messire, how . . . ?
Is
it you?"

"Charnay, you may go and gladden your heart by
getting drunk."

"Yes, messire!"

"While I talk with Mistress Zari. Apparently I have
things to tell her."

Charnay grinned and slapped Zar-bettu-zekigal’s
shoulder as she passed. Long-shadowed, she loped down the steps to the lower
terrace, scarlet cloak flying; swaggering towards a group of Cadets, lithe young
male Rats. Within a few seconds she sprawled at one of their benches, bottle in
one hand, and with the other pulling the most drunken of the male Rats onto her
knee, her tail waving cheerfully in the air.

"Zari."

The black Rat gripped the chair’s arms and, with
effort, stood. His gown rustled against her cheek. She stared up. Age left him
sharp, fragile, acute. Abruptly she scrambled to her feet and offered her arm.

He rested weight on it as he walked along the
terrace, favoring his right leg. She breathed, dizzy, the warmth of his body,
the odor of his fur; all the fragile lilac scents of age. She glanced back.
Beside hers, his shadow ran stoop-shouldered and long on the gravel path.

"You will be told all, Kings’ Memory, never fear.
Somehow one never seems to keep anything from you."

Awed, she looked up into his
gaunt face. Of the sleek duelist, the sharp priest, only echoes remain in that
flesh. She wound her dapple-furred tail anxiously about her ankle as she walked.

"You
died,
messire. Elish saw you."

"Such an accusatory tone!" His sardonic marveling
broke in a shallow cough. The Cardinal-General lowered his lean muzzle. She
followed his gaze. To the green sash that, under the open greatcoat, she wore as
a scarf.

"But how!"

"You ask me that, in this world of Divinity run
riot?"

As if some wing brushes between him and the sunset,
Plessiez is dazed with a momentary awe.

"The past later. Other matters first, I think;
concerning the future, whatever shape that may or now may not hold—"

He broke off.

"I am asking you this very badly."

"So far, messire, you’re not asking me anything at
all."

A wheezy chuckle escaped him. He looked back to the
interior of the New Temple, where a table composed of Lords Magi, the District’s
master builders, and two former acolyte-daemons settled down to banquet.
Zar-bettu-zekigal paused as he did.

He spoke without looking at her.

"I ask you to leave your university training. Oh,
continue it if it pleases you, but you scarcely need it; Memories like you come
once in a generation. Leave. Leave and be my Memory now, for what years of work
are left to me."

Her thin lips quivered. A little hoarsely, she
said: "I like the plea for sympathy, messire."

Plessiez’s delicate fingers closed over her arm.
She opened her mouth hurriedly, falling over syllables, and he halted her with a
smile.

"Walk with me. Don’t answer yet. I’ll answer your
questions, and tell you what use I put my lost years to– and whether I had
sooner died than lost them."

Zar-bettu-zekigal frowned.

Plessiez continued his slow pacing; a thin and
fragile black Rat in silk robes and lace, an emerald-studded
ankh
nestling at his collar. His clouded dark eyes blinked.

"I could lie to you. No other lives who knows the
truth except myself. And the Decans, one supposes, who know all. I would sooner
tell you now than have you discover it later. I must tell you how the Lady Hyena
came to die–came to be murdered. And then make your answer to my request, if you
will."

The young Katayan woman loosed his arm and moved a
pace ahead.

Hot and level sun blazed in her eyes. In the arch of the sky, the first
stars showed. Scents of roses and cooking-oil drifted up
from the gardens and courtyard.

His voice finished:

". . . and that is what happened. I can tell you no
more."