The earl was sitting at the end of the carriage, petting the enormous Irish wolfhound. The jester— Tooley, thought Richard, that was his name—stood beside him. Other than that, and the two men-at-arms, the carriage was deserted. “Who is it?” asked the earl.
“It’s him, sire,” said his jester. “Richard Mayhew. The one who killed the Beast.”
“The Warrior?” The Earl scratched his red-gray beard thoughtfully. “Bring him here.”
Richard walked down to the earl’s chair. The earl eyed him up and down pensively and gave no indication that he remembered ever meeting Richard before. “Thought you’d be taller,” said the earl, at length.
“Sorry.”
“Well, better get on with it.” The old man stood up and addressed the empty car. “Good evening. Here to honor young Mayflower. What was it the bard said?” And then he recited, in a rhythmic alliterative boom, “Crimson the cuts in the carcass, Fast falls the foe, Dauntless devout defender, Bravest of boys . . . Not really a boy anymore, though, is he, Tooley?”
“Not particularly, Your Grace.”
The earl reached out his hand. “Give me your sword, boy.”
Richard put his hand to his belt and pulled out the knife that Hunter had given him. “Will this do?” he asked.
“Yes-yes,” said the old man, taking the knife from him.
“Kneel,” said Tooley, in a stage whisper, pointing to the train floor. Richard went down on one knee; the earl tapped him gently on each shoulder with the knife. “Arise,” he bellowed, “Sir Richard of Maybury. With this knife I do give to you the freedom of the Underside. May you be allowed to walk freely, without let or hindrance . . . and so on and so forth . . . et cetera . . . blah blah blah,” he trailed of vaguely.
“Thanks,” said Richard. “It’s Mayhew, actually.” But the train was coming to a stop.
“This is where you get off,” said the earl. He gave Richard his knife—Hunter’s knife—once more, patted him on the back, and pointed toward the door.
The place that Richard got off was not an Underground station. It was above ground, and it reminded Richard a little of St. Pancras Station—there was something similarly oversized and mock-Gothic about the architecture. But there was also a wrongness that somehow marked it as part of London Below. The light was that strange, strained gray one only sees shortly before dawn and for a few moments after sunset, the times when the world washes out into gloom, and color and distance become impossible to judge.
There was a man sitting on a wooden bench, watching him; and Richard approached him, cautiously, unable to tell, in the gloaming, who the man was, whether it was someone he had met before. Richard was still holding Hunter’s knife—his knife— and now he gripped the hilt more tightly, for reassurance. The man looked up as Richard approached, and he sprang to his feet. He tugged at his forelock, something Richard had previously only seen done on television adaptations of classic novels. He looked both comical and unpleasant. Richard recognized the man as the Lord Rat-speaker.
“Well-well. Yes-yes,” said the rat-speaker, agitatedly, beginning in mid-sentence, “Just to say, the girl Anaesthesia. No hard feelings. The rats are your friends, still. And the rat-speakers. You come to us. We’ll do you all right.”
“Thanks,” said Richard. Anaesthesia will take him, he thought. She’s expendable.
The Lord Rat-speaker fumbled on the bench, and presented Richard with a black vinyl zip-up sports bag. It was extremely familiar. “It’s all there. Everything. Take a look.” Richard opened the bag. All his possessions were in there, including, on top of some neatly folded jeans, his wallet. He zipped the bag up, threw it over his shoulder, and walked away from the man, without a thank-you or a backward glance.
Richard walked out of the station and down some gray stone steps. All was silent. All was empty. Dead autumn leaves blew across an open court, a flurry of yellow and ochre and brown, a sudden burst of muted color in the dim light. Richard crossed the court and walked down some steps into an underpass. There was a fluttering in the half-dark, and, warily, he turned. There were about a dozen of them, in the corridor behind him, and they slipped toward him almost silently, just a rustle of dark velvet, and, here and there, the clink of silver jewelery. The rustle of the leaves had been so much louder than these pale women. They watched him with hungry eyes.
He was scared, then. He had the knife, true, but he could no more fight with it than he could jump across the Thames. He hoped that, if they attacked, he might be able to scare them away with it. He could smell honeysuckle, and lily of the valley, and musk.