Rats and Gargoyles Read online

  Lucas opened his hand. On his palm, heavy and intricate, glittering with sharp sun-sparks, lay a golden bee.

  Falke shuddered as he walked through humid heat, arms tight about his body. One hand clenched, frustrated, lacking the sword that a Rat-Lord would kill him for owning. He flinched as wet petals brushed his face. Great single-petaled roses shone ebony in the gloom, each bramble and leaf and bud outlined in mirror-silver.

  Their touch glided through his skin: substanceless.

  "Here!" the brown Rat called from ahead.

  Falke pushed sopping hair out of his eyes, staring into the sewer-tunnel. Every noise–brushwood shoved aside, a stone kicked, the sharp sound of water dripping from the brick roof–thrilled through him. The reflexes of his illegal weapons-training made him twitch and start.

  Stinking sweetness filled his nostrils, throat and lungs.

  "Messire." The young Katayan woman appeared at his side. Her pale skin glimmered in the tunnel’s gloom. His dilated vision saw her face clearly.

  She shrugged the heavy greatcoat back off her shoulders and swung it up to shroud him. "You’re shivering. Take it. Down here’s the first time I’ve been warm since I came to your damn city!"

  Hot humid air brushed his skin, leaving him clay-cold. He reached up, tugging the coat about his shoulders. The taste of copper lingered in his mouth.

  The young woman, walking with a kick-heeled stride, plunged her hands into the pockets of her plain black dress. "I thought it would get colder, the further down we went."

  The black Rat, outlined briefly at the mouth of the tunnel, stepped down to the left and vanished. Falke heard his voice, with Charnay’s; and then Zar-bettu-zekigal slipped her arm under his, and steered him down two steps and out on to a sewer-quay.

  The first oil-lamp, searing blue-white, hung in a niche in the tunnel wall. Above it, the ceiling soared thirty feet. Below, the brick went down in steps to the quay. Glass splinters of light pierced his eyes from the ripples. Other lamps shone, further off; gleaming on the filth- choked black quay and the massive tunnel that curved off to either side into the distance.

  Oily water glistened and shifted. The Katayan woman coughed. "The stink–it’s like dead fish. Like the sea." Falke’s heel skidded on the wet paving. He gripped her arm.

  "Too much light. I can’t see." His clothes clung wetly to him, and he huddled down on the top step, the greatcoat wrapped round him, hands over his dilated eyes.

  "Interesting." Plessiez’s voice came clearly. "The oil has some way to burn yet. I wonder if these lamps are replaced at regular intervals?"

  Zar-bettu-zekigal’s voice said: "If it’s tidal, we’re near the sea. Nearly outside."

  Falke raised his head, shading his eyes.

  "No. Sea-water comes in a long way. There are hundreds of miles of sewer-system back of docklands."

  The black Rat paced back, lightly alert, drawn rapier shining in the lamp-light. His scarlet jacket, unbuttoned, gave him the raffish air of a duelist; little trace of the priest now. Only Falke saw how he shied away from black and silver phantoms.

  "Charnay, you go two hundred paces up the tunnel, I’ll go two hundred paces the other way; then come back and report."

  "Yes, messire."

  The brown Rat leaped down on to the lower quay and walked off. Falke heard her humming under her breath. He looked up to meet Plessiez’s puzzled expression.

  "Stay here, messire, with the little one. No, Zari, you’re not coming. Stay where you are."

  The young woman brushed dirt from her dress with the tuft of her tail. "Of course, messire."

  The black Rat padded soundlessly away. Falke watched the lithe figure merge into the wall’s shadows; loping easily towards the bend in the tunnel. From the opposite direction, a loud curse was followed by the splash of some obstacle kicked into the water.

  "Stay quiet!" He pushed his fist against his mouth, muffling his outburst.

  Zar-bettu-zekigal flopped down on the step beside him. "If someone hears her, that’s a good thing. We want to get out of here."

  His laugh caught in his throat. He put both hands over his face, drew in a shaky breath; then took his hands away and clenched them, staring at his trembling fists.

  Her voice came quietly. "The acolytes frightened me, too."

  "It’s . . . more than that. More than cowardice." He chuckled, painfully, back in his throat. "I am a coward, of course, but . . ."

  The young woman’s sepia eyes darkened now, with the concentration of a Memory. She put black hair behind her ears with both hands, and shifted her hip so that she sat close to him. Falke drew unadmitted comfort from the proximity.

  "Only, having once seen that, you never truly cease to see it. Inside the Fane. But why here?" she asked.

  Now the black Rat was out of sight, around the curve in the tunnel. Falke leaned forward to peer after Charnay, but she also was gone.

  "When I made escape-routes from my hall, I only ever meant to get into the upper levels. Down here, do you know how old this is? These sewers–if you go deep enough, they’re part of the catacombs under the Fane."

  Moisture trickled down from somewhere into the sluggish channel and, with the ripples, new stenches arose from the disturbed sewer-water. Saliva filled his mouth, prelude to nausea. He clenched his hand as if that could put one of the House of Salomon’s illegal blades into it, and turned his dilated eyes on the Katayan.

  "Once, six or seven years back, I was an architect on the Fane. Only a small addition to one wing, but I was proud of it–the tallest perpendicular arches yet, a hundred and eighty feet high, and flying buttresses as thin as lace . . ."

  The Katayan bent forward and skimmed a stone across the quay. It struck a scorpion, which plopped into the water, threshing, and sank.

  "I couldn’t bear never to see it again after it was finished." He pushed his fine white hair out of his face. "How stupid . . . I was too old to be that stupid. I thought that I would conceal myself in it, as they came to take occupation, and see, and then I would know."

  Words tumbled out of him now, falling into the sepia gaze of her Memory.

  "All the grimoires along Magus’ Row couldn’t hide a human soul from them. They dragged me out into the open. And took me in, into the heart of the Fane. Where nothing human had been since it was built, millennia past."

  He drew in a rough breath.

  "Decans like The Spagyrus, that deal with humankind from time to time, become corrupt, become a little like us."

  Hot moist air pressed close. Muffled echoes came from some unidentifiable direction. Bones rattled and scuffled in the storm-flood piles of brushwood. Zar-bettu-zeki-gal’s head rose with a jerk as the bright oil-lamp flickered.

  "What else?"

  "The noise. The noise. Agony. Torn flesh. Tom souls. Yes, the soul can be hurt." He laughed: painful, embarrassed. "Don’t listen to me. I was afraid of nothing before that, and now I’m afraid of almost everything. The powers that are in there aren’t corrupt with humanity. They’re the Thirty-Six Decans, the Celestial Powers of hell, and they live on this earth, and we build for them!"

  Zari turned towards him, cocked her head to one side, and stared into his eyes.

  Falke said: "Eyes that have seen the heart of the Fane are afterwards changed."

  Something in her body’s stiffness cautioned him. He braced himself for her next words.

  "See you, if it was me, I wouldn’t make up stories about having been in the Fane to account for it."

  His heart beat once, with a white pain. Very still, he said: "Stories?"

  "Aw, Messire Falke! Go into the heart of the Fane? No one ever has. You’d be squished like a bug." Her dark eyes momentarily reflected storm-light. "Or else you’d be lunch."

  Zar-bettu-zekigal stood up. The hem of her dress brushed his face, and Falke caught a scent of dry grass and sweat; and he reached up and knotted a comer of the cloth in his fist.

  "I don’t like to be called a liar, girl!"

&
nbsp; "Or a coward?" One freckle-backed hand ruffled his hair. He raised his head. Her white face and black hair stood out against black and silver roses. The brambles that trailed down across the air passed harmlessly through her arm and shoulder; and she stretched up, as if she would grasp them, arcing her back and tail.

  "If I’ve worked it out, then messire will have, too. He probably even knows why you tell stories. If it isn’t just vanity."

  She dropped down to squat on her haunches before him.

  "Ei! I bet it impresses people, though. If they’re gullible enough. Hello, messire, find anything?"

  Plessiez stepped silently out of the gloom.

  "More of the same. The lamps in that direction have less oil. Where’s Charnay?"

  "Fallen into the canal?" the Katayan suggested.

  "Oh, I hardly think so. Strategy and tactics may be beyond her, but at feats of strength she’s . . ." Plessiez’s voice trailed away.

  Falke stood. A pounding fear filled his head, discovery and shock mingling; and his fingers fumbled as he began to fit his arms into the sleeves of the young woman’s greatcoat, cold despite the moist heat. Grunts and snarls came from the far darkness of the quay.

  Zar-bettu-zekigal hopped from one bare foot to the other.

  "Oh, see you, look at that!"

  Falke’s dilated eyes searched the darkness beyond the lamps, first to find the approaching figure of Charnay.

  For the first time, he smiled.

  The brown Rat leaned forward as she walked, gripping a rope that ran taut over her shoulder, muscles straining under her brown fur. Ripples spread out from the water at the edge of the quay, following her, slopping thickly onto the brickwork. The Rat granted. She planted both her feet squarely on the slippery quay, and heaved at the rope and the heavy object to which it was attached.

  "Hell damn it!" Falke said. "It’s a boat."

  ‘Time was when everyone recognized the golden bee.’ From Summum Bonum, Part IV, Robert Fludd, 1629. The inscription translates: ‘The rose gives honey to the bees.’

  * * *

  Lucas swung around as the carriage rattled under the arch, into the palace courtyard. He slid back on to his seat. The Rats in guard uniform took as little notice of him as they had when he had walked past them the day before, filthy with disguise.

  He looked up at the white walls, the windows and the blue-tiled turrets and spires, an odd smile appearing on his face.

  "So this is their idea of a palace . . . You’re a stubborn man, Lucas." Casaubon rested his bolster-arms across the back of the facing seat, turning his face up to the white sunlight.

  His pink frock-coat fell open across his immense chest. Yellow sweat-rings marked his unlaced linen shirt, under the arms; and he scratched at the fine copper hairs on his chest with pudgy fingers. He leaned forward as the carriages halted in the courtyard, resting a forearm on his spreading thigh.

  "Have you ever heard of the Invisible College?"

  Lucas shook his head. "Nothing to do with the University of Crime?"

  "Oh, hardly, hardly."

  At the far side of the yard, another archway opened through to two successive courtyards, each surrounded by four- or five-story blocks. The afternoon sun blazed back from white walls. Lithe black Rats in blue uniform jackets and plumes stood by every door opening into the yard, some carrying pikes and some rapiers. Heads turned as Casaubon’s carriage drew up in a spray of gravel, followed by three loaded-down baggage-carts.

  "I must go. I’m wasting your time and mine," Lucas observed. "I’ll go back to the airfield. I might be missing the person I am meant to meet."

  The copper-haired man’s head came down, chin resting in rolls of fat. His bright blue eyes met Lucas’s. Lucas judged him somewhere in his late thirties or early forties.

  "Time was when everyone recognized the golden bee," Casaubon said, "which, I suppose, is why they stopped using it."

  He reached out an imperious palm. Lucas reluctantly dropped the metal bee onto it. Gold sparked in the sun, almost lost in the folds of Casaubon’s hand.

  The big man closed his palm. His eyes squeezed shut in immense concentration, vanishing into palely freckled cheeks. Lucas leaned forward anxiously, pointing at the approaching guards.

  "They—"

  "There!"

  Casaubon opened his hand. A live bee, wings translucent and body black-and-brown-furred, flicked into the air and flew drunkenly off across the crowded yard.

  "How did you . . . ? Then, you are—?"

  "Can I help you, messire?" a uniformed black Rat inquired, strolling to stand beside the open carriage. Her hand was not far from her rapier-hilt.

  "Yes. Find me whoever’s in charge."

  The big man reached across with one ham-hand to push open the carriage door. He eased one thigh forward, then the other, and dropped to the ground with a grunt. The carriage rocked on its springs. Casaubon picked thoughtfully at his nose, gazing up at the windows.

  "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" Lucas slid down to stand on the gravel beside him. "I was in a dungeon here yesterday!"

  "You do lead an eventful life, young Lucas."

  Casaubon hitched up his white silk breeches, fumbling to do up the top two buttons and abandoning the unequal struggle.

  "But—"

  A black Rat emerged from an arched stone doorway close by, slitting his eyes against the sunlight. His clawed hind feet scraped the stone steps as he strode down into the courtyard.

  "Are you the architect?" he called.

  He stood a head taller than Lucas: lean, heavy-shouldered and scarred. A blue sleeveless doublet came down to his haunches, so that it looked as though he wore black breeches; and a blue plume jutted from his headband. A basket-hilted rapier swung at his side.

  "Are all these carriages yours?"

  The copper-haired man felt inside his satin coat, dipping into voluminous pockets. A waft of garlic and dirty linen hit Lucas. Casaubon frowned, and turned down one of his great embroidered cuffs. He beamed, taking out a heavy black wax seal on a ribbon; and grunted with effort as he put it around his neck.

  "Casaubon," he announced, as the black Rat’s tail began to twitch. "Baltazar Casaubon, Lord-Architect, Knight of the Rose Castle, Archemaster, Garden-Surveyor—"

  "You are the architect," the black Rat interrupted. "Good. My name is Desaguliers. Come with me. I’ll show you what you have to do. How soon can you start work?"

  Casaubon frowned, and looked as though he might be about to recite further titles in spite of the interruption. Instead he broke into a smile, clapped Lucas firmly on the back, and added: "Master Desaguliers, this is Lucas–my page."

  The courtyard was crowded despite the heat, Rats and some humans passing through on business; and two or three of the guards stopped to exchange a word with Desaguliers. The black Rat turned back to Casaubon, and said briefly: "Follow me."

  Lucas, rubbing his bruised shoulder, fell in behind the immense expanse of pink satin that was Casaubon’s back. He glared at it as they walked into a cool white entrance- hall, neatly stacked on either side with firewood, and continued to fume as they followed the Rat into the spiral stone staircase jutting up through the center of the building.

  The big man slowed on the stairs, stomping up step by step, pausing to peer through the slot-windows cut in either wall. One side looked out into rooms; the other on to the other side of the stone double-spiral. Lucas dropped back a pace.

  "I’m not your page!"

  Casaubon said tranquilly: "I know that."

  "Tell me how you did that, with the bee."

  "Tell me who gave it to you."

  The lean black Rat waited for them on the third floor. He strode across the tiles, between gilded-plaster walls, to where leaded casements blurred the afternoon sunlight. Reaching to swing one window fully open, he said: "His Majesty wishes you to design him a garden. Here."

  Casaubon paused at the exit from the stairs. His cheeks and neck glowed pink, and he pulled o
ut a filthy brown square of cloth and wiped sweat from his face and neck.

  "I trust there is some challenge involved."

  Lucas followed him across to the window. It overlooked the eastern side of the palace. Black shadows of roofs, gables, oriel windows and tiled turrets fell on acres of rubble. Broken masonry, splintered glass and white dust ran out as far as the curtain-wall, two hundred yards distant.

  "A wing of the palace has been demolished for the purpose," Desaguliers observed.

  The Lord-Architect said weakly: "What sort of a garden does his Majesty want, exactly?"

  The black Rat leaned up against the window-frame, arms folded. Sardonic, he said: "Does it matter? You’ll be paid."

  "It does matter! For one thing, I must know the intended function. Is it a Memory Garden, or merely illustrative of certain mythological and philosophical devices? Should it invigorate or relax? Does his Majesty wish to be entertained or spiritually instructed?"

  Casaubon rested plump hands on the window-sill. Lucas, behind him, noted how one scuff-shoed foot scratched at his opposite calf, leaving marks on the silk stocking.

  "I must know," the Lord-Architect persisted.

  Smoothly diplomatic, Lucas ventured to say: "That can be discussed at the proper time, surely . . . my lord?"

  Desaguliers spoke over him. "You’re familiar with garden machinery, Lord-Architect? Automata, water-organs, mechanical dials? His Majesty especially requires facility with machines."

  "Of course." The big man sounded hurt. "I think I should speak to the King, Master Desaguliers."

  He turned away from the window, resting his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. "My boy here will find me lodgings in the city. I prefer not to live where I work. Lucas, see to the unloading of the carts. Any box or chest marked with red chalk stays here; anything marked with blue chalk goes to my lodgings; anything unmarked you may return to the airfield, on the grounds that it isn’t mine. Pay the men off."

  The black Rat seemed to notice Lucas for the first time. As he strode off, beckoning Casaubon to follow, he remarked: "Boy, you do know where to find his Majesty’s guest lodgings?"