Sir Thursday brushed his hands to remove the last bits of powdered metal and stalked over to Arthur, leaning close.
‘You may have plans, Arthur, to try to free the Will yourself. But you are not Arthur Penhaligon here, Master of the Lower House, the Far Reaches, and the Border Sea. You are a commissioned officer in my Army and I am ordering you to do nothing to free the Will. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Arthur.
‘Disobeying orders on active service is considered mutiny,’ said Sir Thursday. ‘For which the penalty is death. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Then the matter is concluded, at least for the remainder of your service.’ Sir Thursday’s mouth curved up on one side, in what he probably imagined was a grin. ‘Much can happen in ninety-nine years, Mister … Green.’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Arthur, thinking, More like the next twenty-four hours. You’re going to get me killed on this suicide mission.
‘You had best join the assault unit and prepare yourself,’ said Sir Thursday. ‘We shall enter the Improbable Stair in eighteen minutes. Dismiss!’
Arthur saluted and did an about-turn. But as he spun around on his heel, he heard a distant voice speaking directly into his mind. It was very faint but clear, and he recognised the tone. All the Parts of the Will had a kind of monomaniacal directness, even in mental speech.
Arthur, I am here, bound to the Key. I can free myself if Sir Thursday’s attention and power are sufficiently diverted.
Arthur gave no sign he had been contacted. He continued marching, his mind juggling many plans, fears, and notions, constantly dropping, picking up, and throwing them about.
To hear what was said and to speak to his mind, the Will must have been in the room with Sir Thursday. It said it was bound to the Key, so that must have been there as well. But Sir Thursday carried no visible weapons. He wore a private’s uniform but without a cartridge bag or bayonet frog to put anything in.
But there was that badge, Arthur thought. That weirdly oversized badge on his cap. A sword with a snake wound around the hilt …
Twenty-three
ARTHUR FOUND A sergeant waiting for him. It felt strange to be saluted by him instead of being shouted at, but it was a pleasant kind of strange. Arthur thought he would quickly get used to being an officer. The sergeant led him down a winding stair to a vast, echoing armoury that occupied a cavern hewn from the rock under the Star Fort. There were racks and racks of weapons and armour, in eight rows that each stretched for at least a hundred yards. The eleven Piper’s children were clattering about, collecting their equipment. They were watched with resigned suspicion by three grizzled Denizen Armourer Sergeants. One of the sergeants, catching sight of Arthur and his new badges of rank, shouted, ‘Stand fast!’
The Piper’s children stood at attention, but not very fast or very smartly. One of them was even on the brink of slouching. Arthur ignored this.
‘As you were,’ he called. ‘Carry on. Corporal Blue!’
Suzy appeared from behind a rack of bell-barrelled musketoons. She had a savage-sword buckled onto a wide, non-regulation leather belt. On the cross-belts above, she carried four small Nothing-powder pistols in holsters.
Arthur gestured at her to go back behind another rack, then joined her there, where they were shielded from the others by a line of eight-foot-high arrow shields known as pavises.
‘Arthur, I’ve got the pocket!’ whispered Suzy. She tapped her tunic.
‘The pocket? My shirt pocket?’ asked Arthur, taken aback. He’d been about to tell her about Sir Thursday. ‘You mean the one used to grow the Skinless Boy?’
‘Well, I ain’t talking about just any pocket,’ said Suzy. ‘Do you want it now? I reckon you can stick it in that spike thing, if it’s made of Nothing.’
‘Yes,’ Arthur said quickly. He held out his hand. ‘But how did you get it? Did Leaf … is my family all right?’
‘Dunno.’ Suzy rummaged around inside her tunic and pulled out a clear plastic box with the scrap of material in it. ‘Leaf got the pocket, but she couldn’t get back to the House. She telephoned from your home, and I nipped through the Seven Dials, but by the time I got there that brain fungus had taken her over. I didn’t have time to stick around, so I flew into the Front Door. Only I got stopped by Superior Saturday’s Noon, who would have had my guts for garters if the Lieutenant Keeper, bless his white hair, hadn’t lobbed in –’
‘I’ll have to get the full story later,’ Arthur interrupted. He was desperate to hear all the details, but he had to concentrate on the problems immediately at hand. ‘We’ve only got a few minutes. Sir Thursday knows who I am. He’s ordered me not to free the Will, which I think is in that cap badge he wears. The snake. And the Key is the sword.’