Part 12 (1/2)

”Only met him once. He's a sort of legend in the City, but not for his personality. Not the flamboyant type, you know. Gray sort of chap, doesn't show emotion, may not have any. Cast-iron integrity. Wife died a long time ago; no obvious replacement. Must have married very young-probably got the girl pregnant-for he's not yet fifty and there's a son of thirty-odd and a f.u.c.ked-up daughter who spends all her time in rehab with the stars. Doesn't seem to bother Daddy much: he can afford the bills. Still, you never know. Where does your friend fit in?”

”My friend? Oh yes . . . well-” Gaynor succ.u.mbed to temptation ”-I'm afraid it's frightfully confidential.”

”Come on now. I gave you the goods. Not sporting for you to clam up on me now.”

”Actually,” Gaynor admitted, ”my friend knows the son. Lucas . . . Luc . . .”

”Met him, too. Bright boy, so they say. Not like the sister. Supposed to be attractive-couldn't see it myself. One of those dark, bottled-up types. Hope your 'friend' isn't really you. Like in old whodunits: the lady never says she's being blackmailed or having an affair; it's always 'my friend.' ”

”No,” Gaynor a.s.sured him. ”I really do have a friend. Well, lots.”

”Not little Fernanda? Shouldn't have thought a City whiz kid was her cup of tea: she usually goes for mature men in the meedja.”

”It's not her,” Gaynor said hastily. ”The thing is, according to Luc, his father's mixed up with a woman . . .”

”About time.”

”She's not very desirable,” Gaynor said, anxious to steer the conversation away from Fern. ”At least, she is is desirable, if you see what I mean, only not-not as a human being. We think she's a really bad lot-she could affect his cast-iron integrity.” desirable, if you see what I mean, only not-not as a human being. We think she's a really bad lot-she could affect his cast-iron integrity.”

”Sons always hate prospective stepmothers,” Hugh said wisely. ”Probably fancies her himself. Good for Dad, if you ask me. Van's seeing someone: did I tell you? Arty type, looks like a poof. Interior designer of some sort. I think she's trying to show me up. Says he's a New Man, changes diapers and that. Fine, I said. Let's start having s.e.x again, have a couple of rug rats and he he can do the dirty work. What's the point of a diaper-changing poof when she refuses to get pregnant?” can do the dirty work. What's the point of a diaper-changing poof when she refuses to get pregnant?”

Gaynor lapsed into sympathetic mode and concentrated on her sus.h.i.+.

In the lower branches of the Tree the spider spun its fragile webs, catching the few insects that invaded its airs.p.a.ce, drinking the sap from split stem and torn leaf. As it grew larger it ventured more often to the ground, exploring corners of the conservatory that the builders had not touched, behind stone jars and carved troughs where tropical plants flourished grimly, accustomed to the jungle gloom. There the spider spread its nets, no longer fragile, thickening the shadows. One day it caught a rat.

Morgus found it there on a night of the waning moon when she came to commune with the Tree. She stumbled into a sticky silken rope that tore her dress when she pulled it away, but she was not angered. Seeing the cl.u.s.tered eyes watching her, malevolent as Oedaphor's and intelligent as an aphid's, she laughed softly. ”So my Tree has acquired a guardian! It is well. It is very well. What have you been eating?” She poked among the plant debris with her foot, dislodging a pile of little white bones. ”Mice, perhaps? Too meager a feast for such a prodigy. I will bring you something more substantial.” The next day, she ordered a car and was driven into the nearest town, where she asked to be taken to a pet shop. There she bought an entire litter of pedigreed puppies.

”I want the best,” she told the a.s.sistant.

”These are purebred,” the young woman a.s.sured her. ”Look, aren't they adorable? Are they for your children?”

”For my-child,” said Morgus.

”They're not like cats, you know. They have to be properly looked after.”

”They will be taken care of,” Morgus replied.

She paid with plastic, where once she would have had to pay with gold. She had concluded that money in the twenty-first century was at once vitally important and completely meaningless. Rulers mislaid or misspent unimaginable sums, running deficits that outran her comprehension. And even the lowest peasant seemed to borrow and juggle and gamble in ways mysterious to her. She left all such matters to Kaspar, her helper, her counselor-and her slave. His name was on the plastic, but no one queried it.

The puppies cost two hundred pounds apiece.

Later, the spider hunted something that yapped and squealed, until the venom took effect and it was paralyzed into silence.

”When you are hungry, there will be another,” promised Morgus. ”Eat well, and grow!”

In her bas.e.m.e.nt spellchamber, she mixed a potion from the sap of the Tree and left a bowl out nightly for the spider to drink.

Upstairs in the kitchen, Grodda watched over the remaining puppies, stroking them and making inarticulate cooing noises, until one by one they were all gone.

Ragginbone stood outside a building site in King's Cross, reading the graffiti on the barrier walls. Among the usual scribblings of the lewd and crude there were signs that he recognized, or thought he recognized, though some were so ancient he was unsure of their meaning. All were freshly painted in various colors; he had a feeling each color, too, had a unique significance. He wondered who had done it. There were many strange creatures lost in the London crowds: werefolk, spirits in human or semihuman forms, a few of the Gifted who, like Moonspittle, had outlived their time and lingered on, furtive and ineffectual, telling fortunes, weaving petty spells, too old to die. But it did not really matter who was responsible. What mattered was that there could be something on that site which needed protection, or isolation, and there were those who had sensed it, or thought they had sensed it, and had taken the necessary measures. Ragginbone walked around the perimeter for some time before seeking admittance.

”I was hoping to talk to the archaeologists,” he told the guard at the gate. ”I am something of an expert myself.”

The man took one look at his eccentric garb and believed him. Ragginbone followed him through the site to an area crisscrossed with trenches where about a dozen people, mostly of student age, bent or squatted over various inscrutable tasks. Both s.e.xes wore jeans, T-s.h.i.+rts, long untidy hair, and, in a couple of cases, designer stubble. The guard called: ”Mr. Hunter!” and one of them straightened up, glancing toward the intruders with a preoccupied air. ”Visitor for you. Says he's an expert on this stuff.”

The man murmured an ”Okay,” and the guard returned to his post, showing no further interest.

”I don't want to disturb you,” Ragginbone said, ”but I was intrigued when I read about your excavation. You seem to think you may have found traces of something very ancient, or so I gathered. The roots of London run deep.”

”What's your interest?” asked the young man. He had a slight American accent, possibly Californian. ”You're definitely not the press.”

”I am also an archaeologist-of a kind. Purely amateur, I'm afraid. My name is Watchman.”

”Pleasure to meet you,” the young man said. ”I'm Dane Hunter. I'm in charge here. Most of my fellow workers are student volunteers. Everyone approves of salvaging our heritage, but no one wants to pay for it. Still, we welcome informed enthusiasts.”

”I was hoping,” said Ragginbone, ”that you you would inform would inform me me.”

The young man was actually not so young, he noticed. Perhaps thirty-five or so. The long off-blond hair, pulled back into a disheveled ponytail, and the jeans-and-T-s.h.i.+rt uniform gave him an air of superficial studenthood, but the planes of his face had hardened and there were faint lines around his eyes and barring his forehead. His mouth was slim and set, its seriousness belied by the more quizzical of the lines; his light tan and the muscles in his forearms indicated an outdoor lifestyle and regular physical exertion. But then, Ragginbone reflected, glancing around the site, much of archaeology did take place alfresco, involving digging with pickaxes or dental probes, exploring caves and graves, grubbing among stones and bones. Dane Hunter looked at once the man of action and the man of thought, though the action was undoubtedly careful and considered, his thought processes probably rather more rapid. Ragginbone noticed how the female volunteers glanced around at his approach and took their time before reverting to the work at hand.

Hunter talked easily about the indications of a building, possibly a temple from the layout, predating the Romans. ”We've found some fragments of a skeleton or more than one, though they don't appear to be human. They could point to some kind of sacrifice. There are also a few artifacts: a stone knife, a broken cup or chalice, and some pieces that may have a religious significance. We don't yet know what religion. There were so many primitive G.o.ds around, and we have so few written records of any of them. We think this would have been the altar . . .”

He stopped beside a rather deeper depression, where stone showed beneath the earth. A youth in his late teens was sweeping a brush across a partially exposed surface.

Dane said: ”We're hoping for an inscription. That would at least give us the language, which would be a starting point.” He added, politely: ”You said you were an expert. Have you any ideas?”

”Yes,” said Ragginbone, ”I have. But I think for the moment I shall keep them to myself. I trust you won't object if I return from time to time?”

”No,” said Dane, clearly slightly nonplussed. ”I don't object. But-”

”And if you find an inscription,” said Ragginbone, ”I should like to see it.”

He did not go straight back to the shop that never opened but made his way instead to Fern's flat, walking south through the park, taking his time. London flowed past and over him, a river blended of many million lives, many million stories. His tale was just one droplet in the flood, a single strand in a vast embroidery, and somehow it comforted him to think of this, to catch in faces anxious or hopeful, vivid or closed, a glimpse of the wider spectrum of existence. In the country, it had often calmed him to watch the ever-changing sky and think of Keats: ”Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,” but here Man, even more than nature, set him in his place in the world. He reflected with the philosophical outlook that comes from great age that if they lost their particular battle, it might matter for a little s.p.a.ce, a moment of eternity, but somewhere else, someone would win.

But he knew Fern would not see it that way.

She was home from work when he reached Pimlico. Whether his journey was long or short, fast or slow, he had acquired the knack of arriving at the right time. Maybe it had something to do with the Gift he had lost.

”I haven't seen you for a week,” she said. ”What have you been up to?”

”Walking. Thinking. I visited a building site today. I think you should come and have a look sometime.”

”At a building site building site? Why?”