Neverwhere(106)

And then there were none.





Neverwhere





EIGHTEEN


The Lady Serpentine, who was, but for Olympia, the oldest of the Seven Sisters, walked through the labyrinth beyond Down Street, her head held high, her white leather boots squashing through the dank mud. This was, after all, the furthest she had been from her house in over a hundred years. Her wasp-waisted majordomo, dressed from head to foot all in black leather, walked ahead of her, holding a large carriage-lamp. Two of Serpentine’s other women, similarly dressed, walked behind her at a respectful distance.

The ripped lace train of Serpentine’s dress dragged in the mire behind her, but she paid it no mind. She saw something glinting in the lamplight ahead of them, and, beside it, a dark and bulky shape.

“There it is,” she said.

The two women who had been walking, behind her hurried forward, splashing through the marsh, and as Serpentine’s butler approached, bringing with her a swinging circle of warm light, the shape resolved into objects. The light had been glinting from a long bronze spear. Hunter’s body, twisted and bloody and wretched, lay on its back, half-buried in the mud, in a large pool of scarlet gore, its legs trapped beneath the body of an enormous boar-like creature. Her eyes were closed.

Serpentine’s women hauled the body out from under the Beast, and lay it in the mud. Serpentine knelt in the wet mire and ran one finger down Hunter’s cold cheek, until it reached her blood-blackened lips, where she let it linger for some moments. Then she stood up. “Bring the spear,” said Serpentine.

One of the women picked up Hunter’s body; the other pulled the spear from the carcass of the Beast and put it over her shoulder. And then the four figures turned, and went back the way they had come; a silent procession deep beneath the world. The lamplight flickered on Serpentine’s ravaged face as she walked; but it revealed no emotion of any kind, neither happy nor sad.





Neverwhere





NINETEEN


For a moment, upon waking, he had NO idea at all who he was. It was a tremendously liberating feeling, as if he were free to be whatever he wanted to be: he could be anyone at all—able to try on any identity; he could be a man or a woman, a rat or a bird, a monster or a god. And then someone made a rustling noise, and he woke up the rest of the way, and in waking he found that he was Richard Mayhew, whoever that was, whatever that meant. He was Richard Mayhew, and he did not know where he was.

There was crisp linen pressed against his face. He hurt all over; in some places—the little finger on his left hand, for example—more than others.

Someone was nearby. Richard could hear breathing, and the hesitant rustling noises of a person in the same room he was in, trying to be discreet. Richard raised his head, and discovered, in the raising, more places that hurt. Some of them hurt very badly. Far away—rooms and rooms away—people were singing. The song was so distant and quiet he knew he would lose it if he opened, his eyes: a deep, melodious chanting . . .

He opened his eyes. The room was small, and dimly lit. He was on a low bed, and the rustling sound he had heard was made by a cowled figure in a black robe, with his back to Richard. The black figure was dusting the room, with an incongruously brightly colored feather duster. “Where am I?” asked Richard.

The black figure nearly dropped its feather duster, then it turned, revealing a very nervous, thin, dark brown face. “Would you like some water?” the Black Friar asked, in the manner of one who has been told that if the patient wakes up, he is to be asked if he would like some water, and has been repeating it to himself over and over for the last forty minutes to make sure that he didn’t forget.

“I . . . ” and Richard realized that he was most dreadfully thirsty. He sat up in the bed. “Yes, I would. Thank you very much.” The friar poured some water from a battered metal jug into a battered metal cup and passed it to Richard. Richard sipped the water slowly, restraining the impulse to gulp it down. It was crystal cold and clear and tasted like diamonds and ice.

Richard looked down at himself. His clothes were gone. He had been dressed in a long robe, like one of the Black Friars’ habits, but gray. His broken finger had been splinted and neatly bandaged. He raised a finger to his ear; there was a bandage on it, and what felt like stitches beneath the bandage. “You’re one of the Black Friars,” said Richard.

“Yes, sir.”

“How did I get here? Where are my friends?”

The friar pointed to the corridor, wordlessly and nervously. Richard got out of the bed. He checked under his gray robe: he was naked. His torso and legs were covered in a variety of deep indigo and purple bruises, all of which seemed to have been rubbed with some kind of ointment: it smelt like cough syrup and buttered toast. His right knee was bandaged. He wondered where his clothes were. There were sandals beside the bed, and he put them on, then he walked out into the corridor. The abbot was coming down the passage toward him, holding onto the arm of Brother Fuliginous, his blind eyes pearlescent in the darkness beneath his cowl.