Drowned Wednesday(29)
LADY WEDNESDAY
TRUSTEE OF THE ARCHITECT
AND DUCHESS OF THE BORDER SEA
HAS GREAT PLEASURE IN INVITING
ARTHUR PENHALIGON
TO A PARTICULAR LUNCHEON
OF SEVENTEEN REMOVES
TRANSPORT HAS BEEN ARRANGED
RSVP NOT REQUIRED
‘I don’t understand,’ said Catapillow. ‘Then you must be —’
‘But you can’t be,’ said Concort. ‘You’re just a boy!’
‘He is,’ said Scamandros. ‘Who else might have A Compleat Atlas of the House in his top pocket and the mark of the Mariner’s favour on a string around his neck? Not to mention this very curious invitation.’
‘Why is it curious?’ asked Arthur. For the first time since the wave picked him up he had time to ask some questions instead of just trying to stay alive, or recover from the effort of staying alive. ‘Why is everyone scared of her? Why do you call her Drowned Wednesday? And what was the Deluge and all that?’
Catapillow and Concort still looked stunned. Sunscorch looked at Scamandros.
‘Best if the Doctor explains all that to you,’ said Sunscorch after a moment. ‘The Captain and Mister Concort have duties to attend to, as do I.’
‘I trust you’ll join us for supper, Lord Arthur?’ murmured Captain Catapillow, without meeting Arthur’s eye. ‘Without any, ah, hard feelings as to our regrettable lack of, er —’ ‘Sure,’ said Arthur. ‘I understand. It’s just that the book makes me seem more like a big hero. Who wrote it anyway?’
Concort opened the book again and showed Arthur the title page. Catapillow looked embarrassed and walked off, muttering something to Doctor Scamandros as he went past.
‘It is, um, written by someone called Japeth, “Official Biographer, Chronicler, Annalist, and Recorder of Lord Arthur,”’ said the First Mate. ‘Published by the Dayroom Press of the Lower House.’
‘I see,’ said Arthur with a frown. Japeth was his friend, the Thesaurus he’d met in the Pit. He had asked Dame Primus to give him a job, but he hadn’t expected it would be writing something that was basically propaganda. He wondered what the point of it was. Why make him out to be such a big hero?
‘If you would care to walk with me, I shall attempt to answer your questions about Lady Wednesday and the Deluge,’ said Doctor Scamandros. He lifted his hand and a candle appeared there, lighting up as he blew softly on the wick. ‘We shall wade in the shallows, so that the sea shall cloak our conversation. There are some matters it is best not to excite the crew with.’
Arthur hesitated. While he thought about whether it would be smart to go off with the Doctor alone, he looked at Sunscorch and tapped the Mariner’s medallion. The Second Mate gave a slight nod.
‘All right,’ said Arthur. ‘Lead on.’
He followed the Denizen out of the bright pool of lantern-light, down the beach, and past a line of very neatly organised piles of spare clothing. Each pile was individually labelled.
Scamandros saw him looking at the tidy arrangement and guessed what he was thinking.
‘The crew was originally the staff of a counting house,’ he said. ‘A warehouse where goods were sorted and valued. They were made for that purpose and, being Denizens of a low order, they change and learn very slowly. Hence they are not very good sailors, but excel at the movement and ordering of cargo. Here we are. I shall just take off my shoes and roll up my breeches.’
Doctor Scamandros thrust the candle in the sand and sat to remove his shoes. Arthur sat down too, and took off his Immaterial Boots.
‘We must be careful,’ Scamandros said as he took up the candle again and waded into the froth. ‘The beach shelves very steeply. We shall stay near the tidemark.’
They started walking along, Doctor Scamandros on the lower slope, nearer the sea, so he was almost the same height as Arthur. He was very short for a Denizen, Arthur thought. Shorter even than the miserable Coal-Collaters in the deep cellars of the Lower House.
‘Where shall we begin?’ asked Scamandros.
‘What’s the story with Wednesday?’ asked Arthur. ‘Why is everyone afraid of even going near her?’
‘I can answer more easily than most, because I am a volunteer on the Moth and not in fact in her service,’ said Scamandros. ‘I also have made something of a study of both the Border Sea and its ruler. I am sure you are familiar with the Will of the Architect, the breaking of it by the Trustees, and so forth?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘You could say that.’
‘Around that time, Lady Wednesday began to be afflicted by an enormous hunger, something no Denizen usually has to any degree. We merely eat for amusement. She ate and ate and ate, and would normally have grown larger and larger. However, by using the power of the Third Key, she was able to keep this growth in abeyance. This continued for some two thousand years, even though by that time she was eating tons and tons of food every day.