The Choir Boats (48 page)

Afsana put her hands on her hips, and said, “What do you
propose then? You make it sound hopeless. We who have wished
ourselves to come will not end as slaves in an Ornish iron mine or
run away from Yount back to Palipash.” She lifted her head so the
silver threads in her hair flashed and her earrings glistened. Tom
would have followed her into Ornish rifle-fire at that moment. Even
Sally was impressed.

Jambres said, “No, I do not propose either. I offer instead a
plan to bring more Karket-soomi into this conflict, to wage a war
against Orn, not because they are Ornish but because they refuse to
relinquish slavery.”

Tom turned to the others. “See? This is what I told you about, the
‘Thieve’s Redemption’ that Billy and the other Minders speak of. A
rogue’s crusade to — ”

Afsana cut him off. “Crusade?! That is not a word I wish to hear.
Nor would the Rabbi of Palombeay or many other Karket-soomi who
dwell here. Nor, come to think of it, would the Yountians — they do
not worship your Christian Father!”

Tom stammered and blushed. “No, yes, I mean . . . of course, you
are right, dear cousin . . . a poor choice of words. I did not mean it
literally . . . figure of speech. . . .”

Sanford interrupted. “Tom has told us about the five with you
from England. Brave as these may be, they are hardly enough to turn
the tide of battle against Orn, no matter what we call the effort.”

Jambres said, “Quite so. I intend to recruit many more from the
poor wards of London, from the docklands of Liverpool, the slums
of Manchester and Glasgow. And beyond: there are many who would
join us from Port-au-Prince to Pondicherry, from St. Petersburg to
Cape Town.”

Afsana, with an angry glance at Tom, said, “But how can you do
that? Yount has never advertised its existence to Karket-soom.”

“Very true,” said the Cretched Man, as Isaak swiped his fingers
with one whisker. “That is why we must speak with the Queen.
She is a Proclaimer at heart. She might be persuaded that the time
has come for Yount to end its centuries of secretiveness. Though I
realize doing so would weaken her vis-à-vis the Arch-Bishop and his
faction.”

Isaak put her nose against the Cretched Man’s fingers for one
moment, like the hummingbird in the Winter Garden touching
a flower. Sally saw, deep in the Cretched Man’s eyes, far beyond
stratagems for war and questions of policy, a rivulet of joy. She
watched the tiny freshet as it coursed over alabaster dunes, banks so
long dry that the shock was almost painful. Jambres shut his eyes.

“Jambres?” said Tom.

The Cretched Man opened his eyes and said, “Forgive me. I lost
my part in the discussion, for a short instant.” He slowly flexed his
fingers and looked at Isaak out of the corner of his eye. Isaak was
sniffing at a red pant leg.

“Do you have time to gather the army you would send against the
Ornish?” said Sally. “All the way to Karket-soom and back?”

“I do not know,” said Jambres. “But I will make time work for us,
if I must. There are roads we might take. . . .”

Tom thought of what Tat’head said the night before and he
blanched.
Not that way
, he whispered to himself,
not that way
.

“The war cannot be won by defending Yount Major,” said Afsana.
“We must attack the Coerceries. That requires more ships. Where
will you find ships and sailors for your fine army?”

“Ships we can build at Sanctuary, the place Thomas has been
to. As for sailors, I already have some of the best in two worlds. I
can get more all too easily, if I recruit instead of waiting for strays
to find me. You see, the sailors are Yountians, all former enslaved
who have run away or been rescued from Orn. The only destination
beyond the reach of the Ornish is Sanctuary but most enslaved
think it legendary, a whispered rumour late in the night, and the
road thence is beset with incredible dangers. I will bring word to the
enslaved and make a straight road for them to Sanctuary.”

Sally watched Isaak the entire time Jambres talked. Isaak sat at
the Cretched Man’s feet, facing him without moving. As he spoke,
Jambres steadily moved his right hand towards the top of Isaak’s
head.

“Why do you offer this?” said Sanford. “As gatekeeper you are
barred from interfering, are you not?”

Jambres said, “Yes but no. I am willing to intervene because
slavery must be eradicated or else Yount will have no freedom. I
have observed for centuries but can do so no longer. I will answer
elsewhere if I overstep my authority.”

Sanford considered this, then said, “If you are to maintain at least
the pretence of minding the gate to Yount, shouldn’t you possess the
key? After all, it’s what brought us here in the first place.”

“Yes, if only — as you say — for the pretence. My time as gatekeeper is nearly at an end, no matter what happens. They sent me
back for one final attempt, with certain . . . warnings . . . stitched
into my new raiment. So, yes, I must ask the Queen for the key.”

The Cretched Man’s hand touched the top of Isaak’s head very
lightly. She did not move away. His eyes glistened as he said, “I believe
the war is a final test for Yount. Should slavery continue here, if
only in Orn, Yount will not simply have its sentence prolonged. I fear
a worse retribution. Do you remember the silent cities on Supply
Island? ‘How those cities sit now solitary that once brimmed with
people!’ You know those words. ‘They are become widows that weep
sorely in the night.’ That is the fate I fear for Yount if Orn prevails.”

Jambres stroked Isaak’s head as he said this. Isaak stood more
still than the statues of Bast in ancient Egypt. So they sat for a
minute or two, each considering the others’ words. All that broke
the silence was a small sound of purring. Jambres’s hand trembled
as he pet Isaak.

Sally said, “Let us find the Queen.”

The Queen met them in the small reception room, alone but for the
Lord-Chancellor. The Cretched Man had walked through the Palace
so that none except the McDoons could see him. The Queen and the
Lord-Chancellor recoiled as he revealed himself to them: they were
face to face with a nightmare.

“Your Highness Queen Zinnamoussea, respected Lord-Chancellor, I beg you hear me out,” said Jambres. “I must be swift. The
Learned Doctors suspect my presence here.”

With shaking hand, the Queen bid the Cretched Man to sit. Sally
brought Isaak out on the table. Isaak made her customary rounds,
rubbing and sniffing at the Queen’s hands and those of the Lord-Chancellor. The Queen did not hide her astonishment when Isaak
proceeded to the Cretched Man and did the same.

“We live in a time of wonders and miracles,” the Queen said.
“Does the osprey really try to save the tern? Or am I deceived?”

Tom put his three-fingered hand on the table and said, “Your
Highness, we who wished ourselves to come to Yount understand
your amazement. We were equally amazed in our turn. But we
believe you should entertain the Cretched Man’s idea.”

Listening as ones caught in the webs of sorcery, the Queen and
the Lord-Chancellor heard the Cretched Man’s plan. The McDoons
supplied additional details. The fraulein clutched her hands but said
nothing. The Queen agreed only that Yount Major needed allies
but did not see how an untrained army of Karket-soom’s poor and
dispossessed could be helpful.

“They will only get themselves killed in a world not their own,”
the Queen said.

The Lord-Chancellor said, “Besides, the Arch-Bishop will never
tolerate any of this. We mean no disrespect but I do not think we
can give you the key.”

Jambres exclaimed, “Think upon my proposal. I have no more
time today. The Sacerdotes are on their way . . . the Arch-Bishop
himself! Thomas knows how to summon me. Now I must away.”

Only Isaak and Tom seemed unfazed when Jambres walked
through the closed door. A minute later a knock came on the
same door. The Lord-Chancellor opened it to the Arch-Bishop.
The conversation between them was very short and even less
pleasant. He looked over her shoulder, registered the presence of
the McDoons, smiled nastily, and departed. They knew they had
only small time left.

Time got smaller on the morrow. A steam-driven frigate from Yount
Major on patrol south of the Fief-Lands had seen a large Ornish fleet
on the eastern horizon and made hard for Yount Great-Port with the
news. The Ornish were heading for Yount Major itself. The main
Yount Major battle fleet was in the waters between Yount Major
and Orn, squarely in the path of the oncoming Ornish fleet. Yount
Great-Port girded for battle.

The weather turned warm with winds out of the southeast.
Everyone in Yount Great-Port, some two hundred thousand souls,
strained their ears for any sound of battle brought by the winds.
Every rooftop had watchers looking to the east. From the Signal
Tower the observers could just see through their spy-glasses the
dark line of Yount Major’s battle fleet strung out like a curtain of
thorns on the horizon. Recking nothing of the coming conflict, the
ospreys took off from their harbour poles and the cormorants sat
drying their wings on the breakwater. But the dolphins understood
that something was amiss; they chattered in agitation and leaped
back and forth. No one sighted any whales. Companies of Marines
were on every street, the harbour promenade had cannon placed
every twenty paces, the batteries at Signal Tower and the Fort and
the Customs House were all trained eastwards. The wind blew and
blew. Every gust brought the Ornish invaders closer.

Under the looming threat, the Chamber of Optimates asked the
Queen to appear before them. The Arch-Bishop let others question
the Queen and her government, but few doubted the ultimate
source of the questions. The tone was strained from the outset. Led
by Optimates known for their friendship and sympathy with the
House of Loositage, the enquiry into the state of war preparedness
and the conduct of current operations pushed the Queen into a
corner. One Optimate made a seemingly off-hand remark about
the Queen attending a play after the war began. Insinuations were
made about the botched attempt to open the Door at the Temple
and about the government’s close ties to the Karket-soomi. Thinly
veiled allegations of sedition were dropped into questions.

During the debate, Sally sat in her room, not wanting to see the
Arch-Bishop or think about the war.
Sehnsucht is a deceiver
, she said
to herself.
The truest falsehood, honey that evaporates before you can
free it from the comb. There-Away and Over-the-Hill become Here with
all the grease and glaucoma, flatulence and ragged trousers of the place
you left. Yount too has giants in the earth that once knew the world and
spoke to its people but who have now fled or been submerged. Once upon
a time music was the language everyone spoke here but they cut open the
nightingale to discover how he sang.

Isaak jumped up into her lap.

“Our
tes muddry
,” Sally said, rubbing Isaak’s head. “The Yountians
yearn to be elsewhere just as I wished myself to come. Well, Isaak,
they and we will just have to find our Hyperborea, together.”

Isaak curled up for a nap.

“Fraulein always cautioned me against the fate of the Pease-Princess or of the Ashen-Gretha’s sisters. Oh, I do wish I could speak
to Mrs. Sedgewick and the Mejuffrouw. I would give anything to
be in the kitchen at Mincing Lane, listening to the cook mardling
with the maid. Or at the Last Cosy House, where nothing bad ever
happened. Ah, no, bad things
did
happen, even there . . . oh, not you
James Kidlington, not you.”

Sally stopped petting Isaak and reached to her neck for a locket
that was no longer there. As she did every evening just before falling
asleep, Sally “glassed off” the thought of James Kidlington, making
him a memory she could see but not feel or touch.

Her gaze opened out, fell upon one of the dolphins leaping
frantically in the harbour. Watching his powerful but erratic
motions, Sally glimpsed again in her mind the outlines of a plan that
had been growing over the past few weeks.

“Fulgination”, she murmured. “Fulgination is the . . . key. The key
is a fulginating device!”

This insight made her sit straight up, disturbing Isaak.

Only we do not know how the key fulginates within the lock. No one
even speaks in those terms. The dolphins and the albatrosses fulginate
but we do not know how. The music from the Mother, the notes I sang to
defeat the silence and to rebuff the Owl, they are akin to the melody — only
no one calls it that — of the Fulginator. There is also a melody in the starlines, the dance of the Three Torches with Sirius, Orion, and Aldebaran . . .
and the Maiden-Star’s dialogue with the Mother-Star. I think perhaps
Dorentius would understand.

She had another thought, one which repelled and fascinated her:
The Cretched Man fulginates too, or something very like it.

Someone knocked on the door, making Sally jump. She went to
the door and asked, “Tom? Reglum?”

“No, another,” replied a perfect voice. “Less welcome, I suppose,
but I have urgent need to speak with you.”

Sally debated with herself, opened the door, and swiftly stood
back. The Cretched Man walked in, shut the door, and took off his
top hat.

“Sarah,” said the Cretched Man. “I know how little you trust
me, and how much less you like being in my presence, but there is
much we could do to help Yount, all Yount, if we worked together.
Please, I have some time while the Arch-Bishop is preoccupied with
questioning the Queen, but not so much time that we can waste it.”

Sally motioned him to a chair. She sat down at the other end of
the room, and said, “I saw you and your men, far off across the cold
wastelands heading towards the Wurm-Owl.”

“Yes, the Tyton Ophis, Pechael, sitting on a pillar at the head of
the Watchers.”