Neverwhere(48)

Halvard turned back to them. “He wants to know who you all are. Keep it short, though. Don’t go on.” “I am the Lady Door,” announced Door. “The Lord Portico was my father.”

The earl brightened at this, leaned forward, peered through the smoke with his one good eye. “Did she say she was Portico’s oldest girl?” he asked the jester.

“Yus, your grace.”

The earl beckoned to Door. “Come here,” he said. “Come-come-come. Let me look at you.” She walked down the swaying carriage, grabbing the thick rope straps that hung from the ceiling as she went, to keep her balance. When she stood before the earl’s wooden chair, she curtseyed. He scratched at his beard and stared at her. “We were all quite devastated to hear of your father’s unfortunate—” said the earl, and then he interrupted himself, and said, “Well, all your family, it was a—” and he trailed off, and said, “You know I had warmest regards for him, did a bit of business together . . . good old Portico . . . full of ideas . . . ” He stopped. Then he tapped the jester on the shoulder and whispered, in a querulous boom, loud enough that it could be heard easily over the noise of the train, “Go and make jokes at them, Tooley. Earn your keep.”

The earl’s fool staggered up the aisle with an arthritic step. He stopped in front of Richard. “And who might you be?” he asked.

“Me?” said Richard. “Um. Me? My name? It’s Richard. Richard Mayhew.”

“Me?” squeaked the fool, in an elderly, rather theatrical imitation of Richard’s Scottish accent. “Me? Um. Me? La, nuncle. Tis not a man, but a mooncalf.” The courtiers sniggered, dustily.

“And I,” de Carabas told the jester, with a blinding smile, “call myself the marquis de Carabas.” The fool blinked.

“De Carabas the thief?” asked the jester. “De Carabas the bodysnatcher? De Carabas the traitor?” He turned to the courtiers around them. “But this cannot be de Carabas. For why? Because de Carabas has long since been banished from the earl’s presence. Perhaps it is instead a strange new species of stoat, who grew particularly large.” The courtiers tittered uneasily, and a low buzz of troubled conversation began. The earl said nothing, but his lips were pressed together tightly, and he had begun to tremble.

“I am called Hunter,” said Hunter to the jester. The courtiers were silent then. The jester opened his mouth, as if he were going to say something, and then he looked at her, and he closed his mouth again. A hint of a smile played at the corner of Hunter’s perfect lips. “Go on,” she said. “Say something funny.”

The jester stared at the trailing toes of his shoes. Then he muttered, “My hound hath no nose.”

The earl, who had been staring at the marquis de Carabas with eyes like a slow-burning fuse, now exploded to his feet, a gray-bearded volcano, an elderly berserker. His head brushed the roof of the carriage. He pointed at the marquis and shouted, spittle flying, “I will not stand for it, I will not. Make him come forward.”

Halvard waggled a gloomy spear at the marquis, who sauntered to the front of the train, until he stood beside Door in front of the earl’s throne. The wolfhound growled in the back of its throat.

“You,” said the earl, stabbing the air with a huge, knotted finger. “I know you, de Carabas. I haven’t forgotten. I may be old, but I haven’t forgotten.”

The marquis bowed. “Might I remind Your Grace,” he said urbanely, “that we had a deal? I negotiated the peace treaty between your people and the Raven’s Court. And in return you agreed to provide a little favor.” So there is a raven’s court, thought Richard. He wondered what it was like.

“A little favor?” said the earl. He turned a deep beet red color. “Is that what you call it? I lost a dozen men to your foolishness in the retreat from White City. I lost an eye.”

“And if you don’t mind my saying so, Your Grace,” said the marquis, graciously, “that is a very fetching patch. It sets off your face perfectly.”

“I swore . . . ” fulminated the earl, beard bristling, “I swore . . . that if you ever set foot in my domain I would . . . ” he trailed off. Shook his head, confused and forgetful. Then he continued. “It’ll come back to me. I do not forget.”

“He might not be entirely pleased to see you?” whispered Door to de Carabas.

“Well, he’s not,” he muttered back.

Door stepped forward once more. “Your Grace,” she said, loudly, clearly, “de Carabas is here with me as my guest and my companion. For the fellowship there has ever been between your family and mine, for the friendship between my father and—“