Free Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle Page B

seated
herself on the window-sill, the reddish lump of fur in her lap stinking of
vixen, and bent her head to feed it, she said: "At a Masons’ Hall, in the East
quarter."
    "You know of it?"
    "Evelian told me this morning. I think she knew
someone in the hall. I knew that something had been destroyed." She held
out a free hand, the bandages on the palm newly bloodstained. "We respond, some
of us, to such disturbances."
    The warm wind blew in at the window, easing the
fox-stink.
    "What I say must go no further."
    She jerked her head at the room: the books, charts,
orreries and globes. "I am what I am, messire. If you want my help, tell me
why."
    "I . . . know so little," Tannakin Spatchet
confessed. "We’re not admitted to the mysteries of the halls. I heard of the
meeting only at the last moment. I and my councilors thought fit to force an
entrance. Would to god we never . . . Master Falke spoke there. Of ways to free
us from those who rule the city."
    Pain ached in her palm. The fox-cub whined, nipping
sleepily at her wrist.
    "Stupid! Stupid. What were you going to fight
Decans with, messire–your bare hands?"
    "Lady, I have no proof, but I believed Master Falke
to be a secret officer in the Society of the House of Salomon–they having their
secret officers infiltrated into almost every hall."
    He glanced over his shoulder at the open window.
    "The House of Salomon say that since we build stone
on stone to increase the Fane’s power, then we could raze stone from stone, so raze the Fane and the power of the Thirty-Six with it. Could that be
so, lady?"
    "In all the greater and the lesser magias, patterns compel."
    The White Crow rubbed her knuckles along the fox-
cub’s rough coat. It opened tiny amber eyes. She yipped under her breath, very
softly, and reached down to tap a heavily bound copy of Vitruvius’ The Ten
Books on Architecture resting on the sill.
    "This House of Salomon seems to follow orthodox
teaching. Vitruvius writes that the measurements of a truly constructed building
mirror both the proportions of the human body and the shape of the universal
Order. Microcosm mirrors macrocosm; the Fane mirrors the Divine within.
Theoretically, break Their mirror and you remove Their channels of power. But we
speak of the Thirty-Six."
    Tannakin Spatchet shivered. The White Crow
shrugged.
    "It’s foolhardy. The Decans aren’t so easily
challenged." She spoke with the contempt of long knowledge. "They loosed the least of their servants on you, and—"
    Tannakin Spatchet rose. "Do I look so much of a
fool? Falke called the meeting; I heard of it only by chance. Falke called in
Fellowcrafts from half the halls in the quarter; Falke brought in the
Rat-Lords, and a Kings’ Memory!"
    "This is the Master of the Hall? And you couldn’t
stop it, Master Mayor?"
    "A builder listen to any one of us! Very likely."
Deep sarcasm sounded in the Mayor’s voice. He looked down at the White Crow.
"Someone betrayed the meeting to those at the Fane. Falke’s dead. So are those
others who didn’t get out in time. If they knew who betrayed
them, I don’t."

‘ In all the greater and the lesser magias,
patterns compel ’. From A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes, Thomas Digges, London, 1576

 
    He wiped his forehead. "I’m sorry, lady. I’ve spent
the morning with widows and children. It isn’t easy explaining to them how I am
still alive and the others dead."
    The White Crow put the fox-cub back into its box.
She brushed orange hairs from her shirt and knee-breeches, sniffed her fingers,
and wrinkled her nose. She raised her head and stared through the open window.
No dark in her vision, no taste in her mouth but sour wine.
    "Decans. As if," she said, "you or I were to pour
boiling water into an ant’s nest. Does it matter if a few escape? With only a
little more effort they could cauterize the city itself, humans and Rats
together."
    Tannakin Spatchet sat down slowly. He