Spoils
Silence spread across the chamber like a dark pool. Every head turned to stare at the unmoving figure. It was as if they had lived all their lives at the mercy of a perilous but tireless ocean, and it had hushed and vanished in an instant, leaving stony chasms, and dripping abysses full of flailing, dying sea-beasts. Even the empty throne and the power it represented could not yet draw away their eyes.
Neverfell crouched shivering by the side of the Grand Steward, knowing only that her fingers could find no trace of a pulse in his chest. It seemed to her that at the last he had smiled at her very slightly, and that smile still hovered on his face.
It was during this silence that the twin doors to the audience chamber swung open to admit a stream of purple. Half a dozen Enquirers strode in, the two rearmost perfumiers with silk blindfolds. The crowd parted for them, revealing the body of the Grand Steward and the small figure crouched over him. Neverfell was suddenly very aware of the glassy blood gleaming on her hands and thimbles like varnish. The Enquirers faltered and halted, staring, then looked to Enquirer Treble.
‘He’s not breathing,’ Neverfell whispered. Her voice seemed to have shrivelled to nothing. ‘There’s no pulse – I tried to stop the bleeding . . .’
Treble strode forward to join the new arrivals, and nobody tried to stop her. Suddenly she was not a solitary, out-of-breath woman with a sword. She was an authority figure with reinforcements.
‘Somebody turn off those pendulums!’ she snapped, her voice hoarse from her attempts to shout over the chaos. Several white-clad servants sprinted to hidden catches, and the razor-sharp pendulums ceased to slice the air. ‘Physicians! His Excellency needs attention!’ The two physicians hesitated, glancing apprehensively at each other’s bodyguard. ‘Oh, spite’s bite! Go and attend to His Excellency – both of you! If either of you sees the other doing anything odd or untoward, report it to me immediately. You, guards! Train your weapons on the doctors. Be ready for my word to shoot. And let nobody enter or leave this chamber! Everybody else, stay exactly where you are. You will all be questioned in time.’
Shocked out of their statue-like paralysis, both guards and physicians showed nervous signs of obeying. Neverfell shuffled backwards on her knees as the doctors approached, unable to take her eyes from the fallen man, his glassy hair splayed out across the mosaic in a shimmering fan. She rubbed her fingers with her handkerchief, but they still had a sticky, pearly gloss to them. No one said anything to her, but from time to time carefully expressionless glances were thrown her way.
Is it my fault? Did I make it worse?
The doctors seemed reluctant to start their investigation, and Neverfell was just close enough to see their hands shaking.
‘Your Excellency – forgive this liberty . . .’ muttered one of them, apparently afraid even to touch their honoured patient without permission.
‘You might wish to make haste,’ Treble remarked icily. ‘After all, the Grand Steward gave orders that in the event of his death all his physicians and tasters were to be executed. Something to give you a little incentive to keep him alive.’ She was still recovering her breath, and took a moment to wipe her brow with her sleeve.
This reminder seemed to have the desired effect. With new eagerness leather bags were opened, pearly ointments smeared on the Grand Steward’s nostrils and lips, burning censers wafted above his face, sigils drawn on his palms in a lurid yellow paste.
Neverfell was also shaken by the Enquirer’s words, despite her fog of weariness and shock. The Grand Steward’s tasters were to be executed after his death. Whatever Treble had said about saving him, Neverfell was sure she had watched the Grand Steward die. Now it seemed he was to drag her after him.
‘Close the doors!’ commanded Treble as she paced, sword still in her hand. ‘Nobody leaves. When the Grand Steward recovers, he will pass judgment on all who act rashly at this moment. Physicians, report! Any progress?’
The physicians gave a guilty jump. Their bags were now all but empty, and they seemed to be pouring something into the Grand Steward’s ear through the point of a tapering seashell, with a shakiness that looked a good deal like panic.
‘Ah . . . no, that is yes,’ spluttered one. ‘Ah, some promising avenues . . . more time, please, more time!’
Time was given, and each second passed with the heavy tread of one who drags a body. But still there was no motion from the patient, and at last the physicians withdrew their trembling hands from the Grand Steward’s glassy form.
‘Enquirer . . .’ One doctor spoke up, his tones muted, terrified. ‘We have tried everything . . . every restorative including phoenix blood . . . our instruments detect not the slightest lingering trace of animatic essence . . . not even an ant-stamp of a pulse . . .’
There was a deathly hush, followed by a murmur of incredulity and fear.
Enquirer Treble’s step faltered. For a long moment she stood irresolute, breathing quickly, gripping her sword as if she wished to cut the physician’s words out of the air. Then the tip of her blade slowly drooped.
‘Peace be with him, and may his works linger long,’ she muttered, before rallying herself. ‘Everybody stay where you are! The Grand Steward has been assassinated, and every single one of you is now under Enquiry!’
‘Assassinated?’ The head guard’s exclamation was echoed by others around the room. ‘But His Excellency stabbed himself to death!’
‘Yes, after going completely insane without warning,’ retorted Treble. ‘There is malice at work here – poison or Perfume – and I intend to uncover it. Enquirers, to me!’
The air still bristling with tension, the Enquiry’s enquiry began. Statements were taken. The Enquiry’s perfumiers moved slowly around the room, drawing in deep breaths through their large, sensitive noses, and sniffed at each cringing witness in turn. Pockets and pouches were turned out, clothing searched for hidden cavities, and the remaining food and drink tested on willing and unwilling volunteers.
The perfumiers were certain that the only Perfume that had been used in the chamber was the powder that had been thrown down to wake Right-Eye, and which contained nothing that would have caused anybody to go mad. Nobody who had tried the desserts showed any sign of trying to stab themselves.
‘No Perfume, so it must be poison,’ Enquirer Treble kept reciting under her breath. ‘It must be. Not in the desserts, then . . . but perhaps something else, something that has been consumed in its entirety, so that no trace remains to be tested – ah! I have it! The moth biscuits for damping the taste! Most of the biscuit would have been eaten in one mouthful by the Grand Steward, except for a tiny piece which would have been fed to . . . you.’
The last word was spoken with soft menace. Neverfell, who was leaning against the wall and letting her mind fog, opened her eyes and saw that a pair of boots had stopped in front of her. Her eyes travelled up a set of purple robes, and found Enquirer Treble looking down at her with an expression of cool loathing.
‘Always you. Again and again, everything seems to lead back to you. Why is that?’ The Enquirer slowly lowered herself to her haunches, so that she was on an eye level with Neverfell. In another person this might have been a friendly gesture, an attempt to seem less intimidating. In this case, however, it made Neverfell think of a cat lowering its head to peer into a mousehole. ‘You consumed some kind of antidote before this tasting. Didn’t you?’
‘Me? No! No, I didn’t! I . . .’ Neverfell frowned as she wracked her brain to see whether there was any way she could have done so by mistake. ‘No, I didn’t! I haven’t eaten anything I shouldn’t – only things from the tasters’ halls, or some of what the Grand Steward was eating! Oh – except for the things that made me throw up, the ones I was given after I came back from the Undercity—’
‘Ah yes, the purgatives. So the antidote must have been consumed after that. Girl – tell me everything that happened from that moment onwards. Leave out nothing!’
Slowly, hazily, Neverfell set about reciting everything that had happened since her return from the Undercity, leaving out only the subjects of her conversations with Zouelle and Madame Appeline. When Neverfell mentioned that she had slept outside the tasters’ quarters, the Enquirer pounced on this fact with eagerness, and quizzed her to find out if she could have been dosed in her sleep. The Enquirer was clearly disappointed to learn that Neverfell’s nap had taken place in a room bolted from the inside.
When Neverfell reached the end of her account, Treble gave a small noise of dissatisfaction, and forced her to go through the whole thing again and again, occasionally snapping questions at her. Neverfell lost her place in her story over and over, stumbled with her sentences, and felt her mind turn panicky blank every time she made the mistake of meeting the Enquirer’s eye.
Please, all I want to do is sleep. The thick carpet of rest had now receded almost out of sight, and everything was gravel as far as she could see. She almost wondered whether the Enquirer would let her sleep if she pretended that she had taken an antidote.
‘Enough!’ Treble snapped at last. ‘This girl is to be placed under arrest.’ She ignored Neverfell’s horrified gasp. ‘We can delay no longer,’ she muttered to the Enquirers beside her. ‘We must act. Rumour will already be running wild at seeing this chamber sealed off. The Grand Steward’s death must be announced, and by us, and before anybody else can prepare a bid for power. Send out a call to the Court to attend in the Hall of Gentles!’
The doors were unbarred, and messengers sprinted. Neverfell could barely keep her feet as she was led from the hall and through a waiting throng, all craning to peer at her, or into the bloodied audience chamber. Their faces were all a-flutter, in desperate search for a Face they did not have. For one fleeting second, before she was borne away down the corridor, Neverfell thought she saw the pale, drawn face of Zouelle Childersin amid the crowds.
Ringed about by Enquirers, her head reeling and her wrists bound, Neverfell knew little as she was dragged into the Hall of the Gentles. She was standing in a murk starred with lanterns that seemed tiny as glow worms. She realized that they were distant, that she was at the heart of the largest cavern she had ever known. There was a reverberating hubbub of confused voices, and new lanterns could be seen scurrying in. The Hall was not full, but it was filling as the Court surged in to answer the Enquiry’s hasty summons.
Neverfell could dimly make out the front ranks of the gathering audience, nearly all of whom had binoculars raised to their eyes. She wondered if everybody in the hall was also minutely observing her, and suddenly felt heavy, as if their gaze had a weight.
‘Gentles, Craftsmen, Elite of Caverna!’ Treble’s voice echoed across the vast hall, and the crowd’s turbulence lulled. ‘I bring you only sorrow this day. His Excellency the Grand Steward, Master of Caverna, Father of our City, has been murdered!’
The audible consternation and disbelief of the crowd rose like a wave which broke in exclamation, then ebbed as Treble spoke again, describing the manner of the Grand Steward’s sticky and sudden demise.
‘The Enquiry has already determined that he was driven to suicide by poison,’ she finished at last, ‘and was betrayed by his food taster, Neverfell the outsider, whom we have placed under arrest, and intend to put to the question. His Excellency gave strict orders that, in the case of his murder, the Enquiry should temporarily take control of Caverna, in order to investigate fully, and punish the perpetrators. We are thus assuming governorship of the city as of this moment.’
‘I am sorry, but I shall have to take issue with that.’
Neverfell realized that there was a parade of tall figures marching with determination towards the dais where she stood beside Treble. They carried lanterns on sticks, so that their burgundy attire was visible to the whole Court. At their head strode a lean and familiar figure. The mouth that had spoken was one with hidden smiles in it, but for the moment they were all very, very well hidden.
‘Return to your seat, Childersin.’ Treble drew herself up.
‘Honoured Enquirer, it is obvious why you wish to believe that His Excellency was murdered, since it provides you with such a fine excuse to take over the city. But I think many of us would feel happier about bowing to your “temporary” leadership if there was the slightest evidence of foul play.’
‘And who else should govern Caverna in this emergency, if not the Enquiry?’ Treble retorted sharply. ‘You, perhaps?’
‘A Council,’ answered Childersin smoothly. ‘A Council representing each of the Crafts, and the interests of all the divisions of the city.’
‘Are you questioning the power invested in me by His Excellency?’ demanded Treble. ‘Are you challenging the authority of the Grand Steward himself?’
Maxim Childersin let out a long breath, and suddenly it was hard to imagine that smiles had ever found a place on his face.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am challenging the authority of the Grand Steward. The man is dead. He went insane, threw himself into a trifle and then stabbed himself to death. Yes, after that I do think it appropriate to challenge his authority.’
There was a general intake of breath that seemed to leave the air thinner and slightly harder to breathe.
A long duel of stares followed. Neverfell saw neither flicker, nor could she imagine what weakness either was looking for in the other. She was having trouble keeping her mind clear, but she understood that an imaginary sword was hanging over her head, and that Maxim Childersin was putting himself in danger to stop it falling.
‘The Court shall decide the matter,’ called out Childersin at last. ‘Speak your piece, Enquirer, and I shall follow with mine. The Court shall weigh our words.’
‘Very well.’ Enquirer Treble narrowed her eyes at the vast, unseen gathering before her, and began to speak.
She gave a long, stark catalogue of all the attempts that had been made against the Grand Steward’s life in the last ten years. Poison-tipped paradribbles, weakened cavern-supports, whistles whose notes made the ears bleed, Perfumes that made you yearn to swallow spiked rocks, leaping leopard-spiders, venomous thorns in counterpanes and trained attack-bats.
‘And, after all this, you would have me believe that such a sudden death was not the result of malice? The Grand Steward’s enemies were tireless and ingenious. And although His Excellency was not always easy to fathom, he was ever prudent, wise and capable, and kept the city on an even keel for five hundred years. Does this sound like a man who would suddenly throw himself into a dessert and die?’
To her alarm, Neverfell could hear murmurs of assent from the unseen audience.
‘And, last of all, there are all the odd circumstances surrounding this girl. She is an outsider, brought in we know not how or by whom. She appeared at a banquet immediately after the death of His Excellency’s favourite food taster, just in time to be chosen as a replacement. Her behaviour has been bizarre and unexplained throughout. She is the key to this mystery, a key that I will turn, by hook or by crook.’
Neverfell thought of hooks and crooks, and trembled. There was a long silence, and for a terrible moment she feared that Childersin had decided not to offer any answer.
‘Bring the child forth,’ he said at last. ‘And bring light. Let the Court see her.’
Neverfell was led forward, blinded by the dozens of lanterns that were now all but thrust into her face.
‘Did you consume an antidote, Neverfell?’ Childersin’s voice sounded calm. ‘Was there a chance you might have done? Think hard.’
Neverfell shook her head. ‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve thought about it, and thought about it, and . . . no.’
‘Look at her.’ Childersin had turned away, and was addressing his audience again. ‘Can you look at her and doubt her?
‘If the Enquiry has leave to take this girl into custody, I am sure she will give a different story tomorrow. Lies can be wrung out of a witness as easily as truth. Yes, after a few hours with the Enquiry’s . . . instruments, I am sure she will be willing to swear that she had swallowed an antidote, or indeed that she had flown to the moon if that would make the pain stop. But, here and now, you can see she is telling the truth. There was no betrayal. There was no poison. There was no murder.’
The lanterns were lowered, and Neverfell found herself blinking in the murk once more.
‘My friends,’ continued Childersin after a long pause, ‘I do not deny the greatness of the Grand Steward. Caverna shaped itself around him like an armadillo’s shell, and we scarcely know how we can wear it without him. He was the city’s mind and soul, and seemed to be its destiny as well as its past.
‘How can I say what I must without seeming to slight him? Perhaps it is not possible. The Enquirer here has talked of the Grand Steward “suddenly going mad”. Deep in our hearts, however, we know that there was nothing sudden about it. My friends, the Grand Steward has been going mad for months. Years. Perhaps even more than a century. And we have all been too busy knocking our foreheads against the floor in fear and humility to notice each creeping, relentless step towards lunacy.
‘Men are supposed to sleep. That is why they do. Have any of you ever spent time out of clock? You remember what the sleeplessness did to your mind? Think of how long the Grand Steward has gone without such repose.
‘And do you pretend that you have not noticed how the two halves of his mind have been moving further apart from one another? The arrangements they have started to make to hinder and thwart one another? One of them distrusted his counterpart enough to hand out a powder so that he could be woken quickly to prevent the other doing something foolish. Yes, when the end came, it came quickly, and perhaps we should thank our luck for that. What would have happened if Caverna had been torn by a civil war, the two opposed leaders housed in a single body?
‘To us, the Grand Steward represented continuity. His persistence allowed us to play a game, and pretend that everything can stay as it is now forever. It cannot. The events of this day have shown us what happens when you try to keep things from changing. Sooner or later the sleeplessness catches up with you, the paranoia about threats devours you and your mind betrays you even if your body does not.
‘Change is necessary and, deny it as we may, in the end change is always inevitable. I know, it is tempting to turn now to the Enquiry, is it not? They will revere the Grand Steward’s memory, they say. They will carry out his orders. They will keep things as they have always been, and through them the ghost of the Grand Steward can be kept alive, to govern, terrify and reassure us. We can pretend that nothing has changed.
‘But the world has changed, and we must change with it. Caverna must change to fit us, instead of us cramping ourselves to fit its confining shell. For centuries, every thought has been focused upon the will and wishes of the Grand Steward. We have disdained to cast an eye outside our city. We have told ourselves that there is nothing out there worthy of our attention, just a wilderness covered in sunburnt savages and hurricane-beleaguered shacks.
‘Let me tell you, there is a rich, varied and fascinating world out there, and it can be ours. Do you know how the rest of the world sees us, truly? We are the mysterious enclave where the magic of the world is fashioned. Out there, a king’s ransom would be paid for a quantity of Perfume that one of our young debutantes might splash across her wrist for her first banquet. A spoonful of Paprickle would muster enough gold to pay a regiment for a year. Yes, we know that we can buy anything we choose from the outer world for tiny portions of our wares, but we are falling short, my friends – far short – of all that we could achieve.
‘Why do we not send emissaries, anointed with Perfume, to every powerful nation in the world, to enslave the minds of their kings, ministers and potentates? Why do we own no armies to conquer land for us? We could find the gold with ease. Our scouts, spice-touched, would have no equal. Our generals would have the benefit of cheese-visions to aid their strategy. Why must we look inward, and only inward, as if the world ends where the sky begins?
‘Why? Because we are still prisoners of the Grand Steward’s ghost. We must break free, my friends. The Enquiry has said that under his rule Caverna thrived for five centuries. The truth is it thrived for four centuries, but for the last hundred years everything has been breaking down, including our ruler himself. This girl is not to blame for the death of the Grand Steward. He has been dying for a very, very, very long time, and his span came to an end as all eras must.’
The applause started slowly, but gathered volume until it roused Neverfell from the stupor into which she had fallen. The votes were slowly gathered, counted, the numbers given. The Enquiry had lost. They would not be taking over Caverna. They had leave to investigate the Grand Steward’s death further, and present evidence at a hearing in the Hall of Gentles in two months’ time, but they would be given no special emergency powers. A Council, meanwhile, would be appointed to rule Caverna.
All of this meant very little to Neverfell. All she knew was that Maxim Childersin had given her a brief and reassuring smile. There was no longer an invisible sword hovering above her head. Childersin had marched in, risking torture and execution, and snatched her from beneath it.