Lady Friday(20)

Leaf looked at him, then at the sleepers, and shook her head.

‘I’m not helping you help Lady Friday kill these people,’ she said. ‘Or whatever it is she does.’

‘That’s what you say now,’ said Harrison. ‘I tried that too, when I first came here. But if you want to eat and drink and have somewhere safe to sleep, you’ll soon change your tune.’

Leaf didn’t answer. She’d forgotten they weren’t in the House and so would actually need sustenance. In fact, just the mention of eating and drinking made her feel suddenly thirsty. But it wasn’t enough to get her to help out Harrison. She’d have to be a lot thirstier to help someone prepare a whole bunch of innocent people to get killed … or worse.

Instead she tried to think of a plan. She couldn’t count on the Mariner’s help. If he came at all it would probably be too late.

I have to find Aunt Mango, she thought. Then I have to hide us both away and get in contact with Arthur or Suzy. But what can I do for everyone else? I have to try to do something. Maybe I should try to find a telephone to the House first …

‘Right, they’re ready,’ said Harrison. He went back to the table and picked up a small silver cone, which Leaf had assumed was a funnel. But he used it as a loudhailer, bringing it up to his mouth to speak in the narrow end.

‘Sit up!’ he called, and the silver cone changed his voice so that he sounded like Lady Friday when she had called the sleepers from their beds before, though this call was weaker and softer. Once again Leaf felt the words reverberate inside her head, but the compulsion was easy to ignore this time.

To the sleepers it was a command and, as one, they all immediately sat up.

‘Slide off the bed and stand up!’

Leaf could only imagine what came next.





Seven


‘WE ARE IN the Foil Mill of the Guild of Gilding and Illumination, on the Flat of the Middle House,’ said Elibazeth in a distracted tone, as if she were answering a child’s question while concentrating on something else.

‘Right,’ said Arthur. He gestured for her to continue, but Elibazeth offered no more information, instead looking with a critical eye at the Denizens scooping gold.

‘I need to know more than that,’ Arthur continued, shouting louder. The constant beat of the hammers was really getting to him. ‘What’s the ‘Flat of the Middle House’ and is there a map I can look at? I need to get to Lady Friday’s Scriptorium, wherever that is – and I need to get there fast.’

‘I am very busy, Lord Arthur,’ replied Elibazeth. She turned to look down at him. ‘The gilders at Letterer’s Lark and at the Aspect use more than four thousand hands of foil a day and I am the responsible guild officer—’

‘The quicker you answer my questions, the quicker you can go back to your normal work,’ said Arthur coldly. ‘If the Nithlings let you. Now, do you have a map of the Middle House?’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Elibazeth. ‘Come into my office.’

She walked towards the stacks of golden ingots. Arthur followed her, swallowing an angry complaint. No matter how many times he had to deal with Denizens, their single-mindedness about their jobs and their general lack of common sense when faced with things out of their ordinary experience always irritated him.

Elibazeth led Arthur down a very narrow lane between walls of golden bricks that ended at a wooden-framed door with a frosted window that had had M ster Foil r written on it in flaking gold letters.

Though its walls were still gold ingots, the office behind the door had a wood-panelled ceiling, was large and comfortable, and, most important to Arthur, it was much quieter. The sound of the hammers was only a distant vibration that he could feel more than hear.

Elibazeth went and sat behind the red leather-topped mahogany desk and began to rummage in the drawers. Arthur stood, ignoring both the simple wooden chair that faced the desk and the worn leather chaise lounge with the diamond-pattern rug over it.

‘Here we are,’ said Elibazeth. She used her forearm to push the various documents on the desk to one side, then unfolded a small map in the cleared area.

Arthur bent over it and frowned. All he could see were disconnected, meaningless squiggles. Elibazeth frowned too, and rapped the paper with her knuckles. The squiggles quickly organised themselves to show a three-dimensional drawing of the side of a mountain whose steep slopes were interrupted by three wide plateaus.

‘This is the Middle House,’ continued the Denizen, waving her hand over the whole mountainside. She pointed to the lowest and widest plateau, and the map obediently zoomed in, changed the perspective to an aerial view, and revealed several named locations, marked by dots of gold. ‘This is the Flat, where we are now. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Guild of Gilding and Illumination and its principle places of work are the Foil Mill here, the Hall of Excellent Aspect here, Letterer’s Lark, and Ribboner’s Redoubt here. Our place of repose is the town of Aurianburg, which you can see lies equidistant from the workshops.’