In addition to the heat and light, there was also a dull, mechanical thumping noise that pervaded the room. That came from one end, where an axle powered by the waterwheel outside turned a slightly smaller interior wheel that in turn drove a series of lesser wheels, belts, and pistons that powered an array of mechanical hammers. The largest hammer had a head about the size of a family car, and the smallest had a head about as big as Arthur’s.
All the hammers were pounding away with mon-otonous regularity, Denizens busy around them, placing and snatching out gold that started as an ingot beneath the big hammer and ended up as a broad flat sheet by the time the smallest mechanical hammer was finished with it. From there the sheets of gold were taken by another line of Denizens to the farthest corner of the room, where two or three hundred workbenches were set up, each with a Denizen hammering away, making the sheets of gold even thinner.
There was constant activity everywhere, save for one area quite close to Arthur, where around fifty Denizens lay as if asleep, each with a narrow strip of pale blue parchment or paper stuck on their foreheads, extending down their noses to their necks.
Arthur looked quickly around at the workers and the odd sight of the papered Denizens, but didn’t waste any time in asking what they were doing. He had more important things to worry about.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ he asked. He had to shout to be heard over all the noise of the hammering, the Denizens calling out to one another and the gurgle and hiss of molten gold running along the gutter. ‘And is there any way to look outside to see what’s happening?’
‘You’re really, truly not going to kill everyone?’ asked Marek.
‘No!’ shouted Arthur. ‘Why do you keep asking? Do I look like some kind of crazy murderer?’
‘No …’ Marek sounded as if he did still think that but didn’t want to upset Arthur. ‘Forgive me. These are strange times … and I saw what you did to those Nithlings.’
‘Speaking of Nithlings, a whole lot more will be attacking here soon,’ Arthur warned. ‘I need to talk to whoever is in charge.’
Marek said something, but Arthur couldn’t hear it. Frustrated, he retreated back to the antechamber, gesturing to Marek to follow him. With the door half-closed, in the relative quiet, Arthur repeated his question yet again.
‘I don’t know who’s in charge,’ said Marek, cringing so low that his head was almost level with Arthur’s. ‘None of the telephones work. We had a letter this morning saying Lady Friday has gone away and Friday’s Dawn, our Guildmaster, went up the canal to find out what’s happening. After he left we got a letter from Superior Saturday saying she has taken over the Middle House and we are all to keep at work, that a new Guildmaster will soon come to oversee us.’
‘Who’s next in precedence within the House after Friday’s Dawn?’ asked Arthur. He was getting anxious about an imminent attack by Fetchers. ‘And is there any way to get a view from the tower of what’s happening outside?’
‘Elibazeth Flat Gold is the Master Foiler,’ said Marek. ‘But she is far too busy with the foil to interrupt. I am third, after Elibazeth, and responsible for collecting letters. Kemen is second, but he is experiencing and won’t be back for weeks. To look out from the tower, it is a matter of opening this inner door differently. However, if you are not going to kill us or destroy anything, why don’t you just leave? We have work to do!’
Arthur blinked. Marek had switched from cowardly grovelling to strangely aggressive in the space of a breath.
‘I’m Lord Arthur, Rightful Heir to the Architect, Commander of the Army of the Architect, and a whole lot of other stuff, and I’m taking command here, not Superior Saturday or anyone else. Understand?’
Marek immediately went back to cowardly grovelling, sinking down on one knee as he answered, ‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Go and interrupt Elizabeth—’ ‘Elibazeth, lord.’
‘Elibazeth, then. Go and tell her I want any Denizens who have served in the Army to gather near the door here, with whatever weapons you have or can improvise. And open this door the ‘different way’ so I can take a look out of the tower.’
‘Yes, lord.’
Marek showed Arthur how to pull out the door handle, rotate it ninety degrees, and push it back in. This time what lay beyond the open door was not the antechamber and the outer door, but a dim, cold, and very damp stairway, none of these conditions much relieved by the thin bands of light that came in through the gaps in the slats of the shuttered windows above.