Arthur nodded. ‘I probably could. But I would be worried about turning back again. But if you do it, it will wear off, won’t it?’
‘I should expect so,’ said Scamandros. ‘But I cannot be sure how any spell will affect you, Lord Arthur. It is possible the Key might perceive such a spell as an attack, and do the same thing to me that it did to that Newnith.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t if I was concentrating on wanting to turn into a Raised Rat,’ said Arthur. ‘Anyway, let’s give it a try.’
Goldbite coughed and raised a paw.
‘The Simultaneous Nebuchadnezzar that is twinned with the one we have secreted in the Upper House is not aboard this vessel. Should you wish to try it, upon the terms I have outlined, we must rendezvous with the Rattus Navis II. If I send a message and she steams towards us, and we to her, it should only be a matter of half an hour. We have been travelling in convoy.’
‘Convoy?’ asked Arthur. ‘With loads of Newniths aboard? I hope you’re not planning to attack Port Wednesday after all?’
‘I do not know the ultimate destination of the Newnith force,’ answered Goldbite. ‘But I can tell you that we took them aboard in the Secondary Realms, and so I expect we shall disembark them in another.’
‘Okay, good,’ said Arthur. ‘I think. What can they be up to? I wish the Piper would just stay out of everything. I suppose I could ask one of the Newniths—’
‘Please!’ interrupted Goldbite. ‘As I said, the Raised Rats seek to be noncombatants. At present the Newniths have agreed to the polite fiction that one of their number was lost in an accident at sea. They will not come below to seek you out, but should you make yourself known, then they will feel compelled to fight. I expect you would win, Lord Arthur, but your companions could be killed, and certainly many Newniths would die. Please stay here, drink cranberry juice, and when we have made our rendezvous, we will transfer you to the other ship as quickly and quietly as is possible.’
‘All right.’ Once again Arthur had to fight back the urge to stride out upon the deck and order the Newniths to bow before him. And if they would not, then he would blast them to cinders and let wind and wave blow them away . . .
No, thought Arthur. Stop! I will do this my way. No matter what I look like on the outside, I am not going to change who I truly am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn’t mean I have to use it!
‘I am going to need some things,’ announced Dr Scamandros, who was rummaging in his pockets. ‘Hmm . . . freshly cut Rat hair . . . four paw prints in jelly or plaster or sand, at a pinch . . . grey or brown paint, a bigger brush than this one . . . I think I have everything else.’
‘Watkingle can organise those items for you,’ said Goldbite.
‘Whose fresh-cut Rat hair, sir?’ asked Watkingle. ‘I ain’t due for a haircut—’
‘Someone will need one,’ said Goldbite. ‘See to it at once.’
‘Aye, aye,’ grumbled Watkingle. He left the cabin, mumbling to himself, ‘Hair, plaster, grey or brown paint . . .’
‘Let me see,’ continued Dr Scamandros. He set a green crystal bottle stoppered with a lead seal on the table. ‘The large bottle of activated ink . . . might be best to read up a little. There’s that piece in Xamanader’s Xenographical Xactions . . . sure I had a copy somewhere . . .’
‘Where is the other Nebuchadnezzar? The one in the Upper House?’ asked Arthur, though as always he was fascinated by the amount and size of the stuff Scamandros could keep in his coat. ‘And are there Rats who might be able to help me there?’
‘I don’t know much,’ replied Goldbite. ‘I believe it is in the very lowest levels of the Upper House, by the steam engines that drive the chains. We do have some agents in place. And, of course, the Piper’s children there who help us would probably assist you too.’
‘Piper’s children?’ asked Suzy. ‘I never knew there was a bunch of us lot in the Upper House.’
At the same time, Arthur asked, ‘Steam engines? Chains?’
Goldbite explained what little he could, with Scamandros interrupting a little, in between cataloguing items he needed and re-sorting strange things that had come out of his coat. As it happened, the sorcerer could add little to Goldbite’s explanations. Scamandros had been expelled from the Upper House several thousand years previously, and back then Superior Saturday had still used more conventional means to build her tower, and there had been other buildings too, not just one enormous, sprawling construction of iron cubes.