She climbed up onto one of the tables and waited expectantly. The last of the grease monkeys finished putting on his belt, and they all turned around to face their leader. Arthur and Suzy followed a beat behind.
‘Are we ready?’ asked Alyse.
‘Ready!’ called the grease monkeys.
‘Then let’s go!’ Alyse jumped off the table and took her place at the head of the line. The grease monkeys did a right turn that would have made Arthur’s old drill instructor Sergeant Helve start screaming at the informality and slovenliness of it. Completely out of step, they marched to the door.
TWELVE
ALYSE UNBARRED AND opened the door. Splashing through the first puddle outside, she led the grease monkeys out onto a rainy, cobble-paved square that was surrounded on three sides by warehouse-style buildings made of riveted iron, and on the fourth side by the sharp corner of a truly vast and massive construction.
There was a bedraggled reception committee waiting outside. A group of a dozen Denizens huddled under black umbrellas, wearing long black coats over grey waistcoats and pale-blue shirts, with grey cravats and hats that were like tophats, only not so tall. Their white trousers were tucked into green waterproof Wellington boots and they stood in a semicircular line around the door.
Alyse ignored them, splashing between them toward the huge building that Arthur figured was the one Suzy had spotted from the window of the warehouse. Now that they were closer, he could see it was a tower that stretched up and out of sight, its great bulk appearing to rise even higher than the pallid, rain-obscured sun that hung off to one side.
Arthur could now also see what he had been told – that this tower was completely made up of boxlike office units that had no walls and latticed floors, so you could see a long way up the inside. It was rather like looking into a modern glass skyscraper at night, if that skyscraper also had interior glass walls.
Judging from the closer offices, which Arthur could see into very distinctly, each one of these little boxes was inhabited by a Denizen working at a desk. Each desk had a green-shaded lamp and an umbrella over it. The umbrellas, Arthur noted, were of many different shades and colours, although he couldn’t figure out why.
Arthur was second last in the line of grease monkeys. The grease monkey behind him stopped to shut the door behind them, then ran to catch up. He was a good foot shorter than Arthur, had brown hair as badly cut as Alyse’s, and big sticking-out ears. Instead of marching behind Arthur, he walked next to him, spat on his palm, and offered his hand.
‘Whrod,’ he said. ‘Bolt-turner Second Class. We’ll probably be working together.’
‘Rod?’ asked Arthur, remembering to spit this time before he shook.
‘Whah-rod,’ said Whrod.
‘Good to meet you,’ Arthur replied, but he was already looking over Whrod’s shoulder at the black-suited umbrella wielders who had begun to follow them in a doleful fashion.
‘Don’t mind them,’ said Whrod, following Arthur’s glance. ‘Sorcerous Supernumeraries. Detailed to kill us if the Piper shows up and tries to make us do something. Terrible job for them, standing outside in the rain all night, not to mention trying to follow us all day and never quite managing to catch up. Still, they’re used to disappointment.’
‘Uh, why?’ Arthur asked. They certainly looked miserable. He’d never seen such mournful-looking Denizens. Even Monday’s Midnight Visitors hadn’t looked so terminally depressed.
‘They’re Sorcerous Supernumeraries, of course,’ said Whrod. ‘Failed their exams to become proper sorcerers and can’t get a decent post in the Upper House. They’ve got no chance of moving up higher than the floor . . . It gets them down.’
‘Why don’t they leave? Go to some other part of the House?’
Whrod looked at Arthur.
‘You did get a good washing, didn’t you? No one leaves Superior Saturday’s service. Unless you get drafted like you did, and then it’s only for a hundred years. Besides, I reckon they secretly enjoy being miserable. Gives them a focus in life. Come on, we’re lagging behind.’
Whrod walked faster, and Arthur picked up his pace. Behind them, the Sorcerous Supernumeraries followed at a gloomy lope.
Alyse led them into the base of the tower. Arthur thought they would go through a door and a corridor, but instead they just walked into an office, filing past the desk of a Denizen who was watching something in what looked like a shaving mirror. At the same time he was writing on two separate pieces of paper with a quill pen in each hand, occasionally dipping them in a tarnished copper-gilt inkwell. The umbrella that shielded his desk from the rain and the constant rush of water from above was dark brown and rather mouldy, letting in numerous drips that somehow only fell on the Denizen and not on his work.