timwburke

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

Fazgood remained in sight of his new patroness, while keeping Calzjha from flirting too much with the guests. He sneaked amused glances at her fuming, befuddled lover. After the guests bid farewell, the oldest maid showed him to his new room in the fortress.

His new abode was in a guest bedroom that had been not occupied in almost five years, one that had been adapted from a guard quarters. The room was on the second floor, the same floor as the receiving room where the contemplations were held. The third and highest floor was the master quarters. The first floor had the servants’ rooms, the kitchen and storage rooms.

Members of the Greatsergeant ancestry glowered from resin-and-ink paintings along his room’s white spackled walls.

The Greatsergeant household staff were three people, cousins gnarled with age whose family had been in the Greatsergeant household since the raising of the Secure. There were the older maid, a wary handyman of a more recent epoch, and a pinch-faced cook; all three gave terse protestations at the interlopers, but went about the task of following their mistress’s orders to the minimum degree. Thin drapes were cast across the windows in order to keep the green of busynight from disturbing slumber. An old, plain washbasin was brought in, along with a table mirror of sufficient size.

Fazgood whispered to his patroness. “My household staff at Weiquant were professional layabouts. These three make my bunch look ambitious.”

Respiration gave a grim nod.

The Sixteenth Hour Rain pounded and drifted away, and Warren and Calzjha had not returned from the Customary. Just when Fazgood feared his cohorts had been arrested, from outside the window came a cry:

“Greetings to all! I speak to you in the Greatsergeant Keep! Your most grateful guest and newest and fondest friend has arrived!”

The oldest maid pulled away the drape and let it fall again.

She snipped. “It is the other guest.”

The Earl took the curtain from her hand and said, suppressing sarcasm, “Thank you, good housedame, for that most illustrative detail. Allow me.”

Respiration chuckled to her lover, who became glummer still.

In the courtyard below, Calzjha was surrounded by surprised and amused on-lookers. He and two laborers wrestled packages, parcels and luggage from a second rickshaw.

Calzjha exclaimed, “I took a moment to stop by the street of clothesmakers, oh…”

He turned and asked a young mother. “What is that street called?”

“Brightpiece Street?” she blushed. Her little girl gaped at the stranger.

“You are so helpful! Brightpiece Street! I bought a few items to have tailored. What a wonderful city this is! Such craftsmanship!”

The Earl gritted his teeth at the spending of money. “Very good, Foofaloof!”

Downstairs at the entrance, Calzjha supervised the train of porters bringing the luggage to his room. He insisted they take a gratuity as well. The staff of the keep stood in shock, occasionally yipping admonishments against dirt and clumsiness.

Warren leapt from his basket and scurried to the wall beside the Earl, [I tried to stop him, my liege, but he was like a great wind! A wind with bank permissions from the Atmospheric Union!]

[Do not fret, squire,] Fazgood glanced at his companion. [He is being our distractor.]

The weasel blinked, [Garish poverty is to our advantage, my liege?]

[His enthusiasm is our best disguise. Who would suspect a criminal near someone this goofy?]

[Ah! At last he shows value.]

A cask filled with rattling bottles was carried by between two poles. The fragrances from the cask was so fresh they stung the nose.

Warren sneezed. [Incenses and perfumes! One would hope our fortune holds out until your ruse is done, my liege.]

[All this baggage gives the impression of a long stay. You and I left this much and more behind when we quit Weiquand. In the meantime, all will be too happy to take our appearance as truth, for they will find his presence too exhausting to ask questions. And even if they do look at us, Calzjha’s servants will be all they see.]

Looking about the bustling, fortified surroundings gave the Earl cause to reflect: Two weeks ago, we were sweating on a ship pressed by the odd and shabby. A week ago, we were running connivances in a crowded quarantine compound, surrounded by the King’s army. Yesterday, intimate strangers in a customary with paper walls and the brigades on my neck. My heart is fluttering. I had forgotten what it was like to be running rampant.

Obdurate pressed upon Calzjha. “The wait was interminable. I had thought, perhaps you had been arr –”

Calzjha interrupted the indiscretion with a beaming smile. “Had you worried about me? The relocation from the customary caused an uproar! I had to promise all that Pehzpersist and I would be back tomorrow.”

He cried across the receiving hall to Respiration, “And Goodwife, at the mention of your name, all spoke of you in the highest regard! I told the aspirants and customaries that I would praise their natures to you; consider it so, as they are all so pleasant! So I say now ‘The Three Moaltrees’ contains pleasant people!’”

[My liege, he would not know if he were followed! He would not know what to look for beyond plughats.]

The Earl bobbed on his feet, barely suppressing The Fourteenth Dance of Glee: The Egret In Love.

[Squire, it does not matter! We are the guests of a Paragon family. Our hosts are beloved and honored above all others. Scouts would not dare meddle with us. Even the police can approach us only with Royal mandate.]

Watching workers stumble in with bolts of cloth, the weasel considered. [Ha! Delightful! Yes, that is true! Still, it worries.]

Calzjha saw Respiration fingering a bolt of scarlet flannel, and he went to her side. She greeted Calzjha, and looked to the Earl, her expression seeming alternately overwhelmed and suspicious.

Ah. She still needs to be convinced. Yes, well, how much would it take to convince a sheltered housewife? What will I have to do, open a pickle jar?

A laborer looked out the door. “What’s this?”

In the courtyard, all were in a commotion of conversation, more so than at the Foofaloof’s arrival.

The maid stepped outside and prevailed upon an errand boy. “What has happened?”

The boy pointed. All eyes followed to a Booloob, its bubble swimming with the saffron of the Public Works department, those who enforce the Royal will. The yellow sphere drifting above the crowd in the breathless air.

“– has passed. Of the Paragons, of the most beloved, let us pause, for the Magnate of the Scout Brigades has passed. Of the Paragons, of the…”

As the crowd before them brought hands to their sides and bowed, Fazgood felt a whoop of joy surge and clenched his throat.

The scouts will be distracted for ten days of mourning! Has my luck been dumped all upon this afternoon! All praise every god!

 

*         *         *

 

In the Plaza of the Supurb, a great mob of plughat roughs had converged and were growing in number by the moment. Maroon ascots stood next to yellows and blues. Pale number-coaxers with scarred hijackers. Wobbly, perfume-powdered Booloob sensuaries with sly Exult obligationists.

Wails came from scarred lips, from liquor-hoarsened throats, from membranes of expression coarse from indulgence. Within the eight neighborhoods, there lived and labored over five thousand Scouts, and at the end of a magnate’s life, all had to pass within the entrance of the headquarters, and pray before the mural to show respect.

Within the crying mob, Mehzadapt jostled inside a wedge of his deputies, each awaiting the time within for prayer. Beside him, Varalam pushed crowds away.

The Inspector bellowed, his voice lost mere feet away. “Where is he?”

Varalam creaked in dismay. “Where is he? He is in the most awkward position possible.”

“What? Why is this?”

“Our last suspect is sponsored by the Greatsergeants.”

One of the Paragons? He is here for a few days, and he is friend of one of the Paragons?

Bewildered Varalam shook his head. “It has passed beyond the likes of us!”

What could this man do? A great theft? A subversion of government? Extortion! Some grand obligationism!

Mehzadapt felt his throat roughen. “We must visit this Foofaloof and offer our apologies!”

“There is a week to mourn the magnate.”

“We will visit!”

Varalam startled at this insult to the Magnate’s memory.

Mehazadapt leaned close. “Before his illness, the Magnate himself ordered me to see the case of this stranger through to the end, no matter the cost!”

The Adactoid stilled at the weight of the words.

He seized Varalam’s lapel. “What have they in retinue?”

“What have they?”

“Yes! Surely servants, or errands boys have been hired!”

“None have been hired, sir! They travel simply!”

And quickly. With no retinue who can subvert or betray them. And they strike well and infiltrate towards great sensitivity.

“They do travel with an animal, sir. A named creature that knows laws. A sleek brown-striped animal, like a rat but longer.”

The Inspector looked behind at his story-loving deputy, hearing the words he spoke but yesterday: He is named Fazgood like in the book…the slayer of the Abomination…it’s a ratty-looking thing called a weasel.

Mehzadapt felt his face grow slack. Is Fazgood back for vengeance? To have revenge on me? But why involve the Greatsergeants?

He wrung his brain for all that the foreign reports had told of the Earl of Weiquand.

But he would come straight for a theft beyond measure? The foreign reports were full of this Earl when he was in The Three Cities! Didn’t he steal a fortress? An entire fortress, foundations, stones and all?

Obviously this is The Comet!

But he is also Fazgood, the exile from the Eleven Circles!

His breath came hard.

This could make me Magnate! This Fazgood is an exile from Harmonium, a rampaging menace who is infiltrating the highest of the Kingdom! For his capture, I will get a statue! A monument!

When other scouts saw the Inspector in the plaza, they considered how overwhelmed of emotion he was, and how deeply he breathed to calm himself. It would be hours, well into the green of busynight when Mehzadapt’s turn to the mural came.

After the passage and the keening, the incense and emptying of pockets of all coin and currency, the Inspector next summoned a copy of “The Nimblest Man.” It was that way Mehzadapt learned of Fazgood, Earl of Weiquand: divine-touched rogue.

 

*         *         *

 

“You should see this crab,” the Earl whispered. “Huge! Gorgeous!”

Across the dinner table, Calzjha smiled. “Yes. You have said it is a grand crab.”

Respiration sipped the last of her barley broth. “I have not had moosecrab in a few years time.”

Calzjha refused more rice. “From what my associate said –“ (He maintained discretion for the sake of the servants, they lurked so) “– I thought that the streets swam with them.”

“They are expensive, and my husband keeps the household on a strict budget.”

“Ah,” said the Earl.

Calzjha shook his head. “Your husband is…with my people. In Ijkalla. Would that not make you keeper of your household affairs?”

The Earl looked pointedly to his associate. “Ah.”

In the underlit room, head bowed, the maids waited for the dishes.

“I have just learned,” said Calzjha, taking the hint, “of the Paragons of Saline.”

Respiration assumed a familiar role. “Yes. The Paragon families uphold the traditions of how the Saline Compact is to be followed.”

“These are the rules which all of society follows.”

“Not just the society. The gods and spirits negotiated the agreement as well. It brings the Sixteenth Hour Rain at the sixteenth hour, which deposits the precise amount of moisture every day, until the autumnal equinox, when that season’s weather occurs as scheduled. It allows that insects will be readily fed and housed in neighborhoods and not bore into the dwellings of those who know law. It allowed that during the Siege of Harmonium, our attackers were resisted not only by soldiers, but by quagmires on solid ground, by hail from clear skies, by fogs so thick tremblars could not push through.”

Fazgood beamed. “Their fires could not ignite, their food spoiled upon sight, all chaos something-something from the Se-e-ecure.’ I remember that song now. It was playing…on our first day.”

Respiration motioned for the maid to clear the dishes. She stiffened as the servant brushed past.

They spoke of generalities while they were under watch, of Adanikar already confirmed by witnessing friends, of moosecrab, of Warren-as-Brumpf (upstairs, engrossed in study), of moosecrab, of the contemplations and other spiritual traditions.

It was all the Earl could do to keep his head from thumping the stones, so bored was he. When twentieth-hour came, Fazgood almost shreiked with relief.

“Goodwife, the Foofaloof and I must prepare for our studies tomorrow.”

As they walked upstairs to rest, Fazgood pointed to the waterclock and shrugged an inquiry. She held up a finger and mouthed “First hour.”

To their room they retired. Upon opening the door, Fazgood discovered the room lined with boxes, bolts of cloth, and the day’s baggage. On the bed “The Nimblest Man” lay open for study, and upon that lay the Earl’s scholar deep in study.

“Hail Brumpf! Was our room undisturbed?”

Warren yawned, [The manservant peeked in. He saw me looking at him and eased out quick enough!]

“Your reading a book gave him doubts,” smirked the Earl. “It is best we stay crafty with this lot.”

Calzjha hissed. “That poor woman! This is the sourest home!”

“No wonder she has taken up a hobby.”

“I am sure that soldier is more than some distraction to her.”

“Find me my relish. Squire, how goes your studies?”

The weasel carefully nosed the front cover of the book over.

“Mind how the pages cut,” said Calzjha.

[Gracious of you, but I manage. My liege, this book is a ripe lump of cheese.]

“Take care, squire, that relates to my life.”

[You wrought your own life from artfulness. Someone called ‘Forthright Pewter’ wrought this, I suspect, from his bowels.]

“A harsh assessment.”

[The language is stuffed. Descriptions do not flow as much as they gasp from constipation.]

“Then I will have to belabor Goodman Pewter with a brick.”

[The name suggests a Rahsic man, but it also obviously a pen-name. The writer could be of any race.]

Calzjha took a bottle from the chest of fragrances. “Why is this here?”

He showed the Earl the gold-topped bottle.

“Hiding the precious in plain sight. Please replace it with your bottles.”

“If I rub this vile stuff on myself, I will punch you.”

Calzjha then plucked a tiny bottle of emollient for himself and daubed some upon his hands.

[The details of your life are accurate, my liege. The dates, names, and places are all correct. The author thumps one with drama, but I suspect that is the fashion of these ‘dusk thicket’ books.]

“It is their fashion that I should die, and that sort of presuming annoys.”

[You don’t die in this book, which is a change in the style. You just disappear after the Assassin War in The Three Cities, as you had intended back then, and the book leads one to believe you are dead, or living in guarded retirement.]

The Earl snorted. “That is ridiculous.”

Calzjha sighed. “Yes. Isn’t it, though?”

Warren and Calzjha exchanged a quick, rare commiseration.

Fazgood took off his shoes, sat on the bed and helped Warren set the book upon the floor. “Dim the lights. It is the twenty-second hour. Wake me at the last.”

“Do we skulk?”

“We do skulk.”

The Earl laid his blazer upon a trunk and stretched back, enjoying the beautiful view of sturdy stone walls. “I wonder how she sneaks that clod in. These houses have spirit enough to creak the doors and floorboards if they are not respected.”

Calzjha made a sullen face at the insult of the soldier. He drew the shade of the lantern and cast the room into shadow, the green of busynight shadowing the bars against the window.

The two hours passed. Fazgood rose without needing prompting, noted his shirt was wrinkled and so found a fresh one to wear. Warren took a quick stroll down the hall as the Earl combed and made his case to Zhazh, to all alumni, to the spirit of the house. Perhaps to spite him, the door squealed digestively as they slipped out.

Thought the Earl, [You heard nothing in the last two hours?]

[I heard nothing, my liege.]

The Earl improvised a door jam by prying a piece of metal from the unguent filigree, and bending it in half. He ran a thick black thread into the bend, and slipped both ends of the thread under the door out into the hall. When the three slipped into the hall, the Earl pulled the thread until the bend in the metal held, firm but unseen, under the door. A snooping maid pushing the door would think it secured. A pull of the thread sideways, a knock on the metal jam with a sliver of ablewood, and the jam would come free, allowing them to enter their room.

They crept through the dark hall and up the stairs to the third floor, Calzjha carrying Warren, Fazgood leading, to Respiration’s door.

He tried the latch and pulled. He pulled again. It would not open. He turned to his companions and rolled his eyes.

It was no betrayal. It was no bout of forgetfulness. When the Earl was a member of the College of Incorrigibles, Fazgood had been rated by a panel of peers as The Third Most Effective Living, Tangible, Mortal Thief. When pressed into service by The Three Cities, The Earl had mastered their Bedchamber Guard into greatness as an espionage organization.

But it all makes no difference, because the suspicious trollop wants me to prove myself with a damned lock.

Suppressing a grumble, he slipped past the puzzled Calzjha and dozing Warren back downstairs and into his room. He stripped more ablewood from his cane, another sturdier one from inside a trunk lid, and a piece of wire filigree from the fine carrier of Calzjha’s fragrances. He tucked all within his socks and slipped back into the hall.

Back upstairs he went, his reflexes managing all impatience and anger. Betwixt the door and jam slipped the ablewood and the latch eased up. The door eased open without a sound. All slipped inside.

In the darkness, on cushions before the great bed, sat Respiration and Obdurate. All drew close to whisper.

“We were worried,” said Respiration, lacking any trace of concern. The dark did not conceal Obdurate’s amusement at the Earl’s anger.

Calzjha smoldered. “’An inside job’ means that the person inside does their job. But how did the captain get in?”

“I needed confidence,” she said.

Said the Earl. “Here is some confidence.”

He pointed to the far corner. “The hidden entrance is there behind the parquetry, the one with the corner adjacent the Secure.”

Respiration and Obdurate looked to each other. Obdurate’s smugness evaporated.

The Goodwife nodded. “That does inspire.”

She walked across the room to the aforementioned corner. He slid open a panel of parquet paneling. Behind twinkled an amazing light.