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Chapter Eighteen - Chapter Eighteen

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Home Truths

'He's stopped,' said Glospin. 'What's he doing?'

Satthralope squinted at her mirror. It reflected an image of the Doctor on one of the galleries. He was stooping to examine one of the tree pillars.

'More pomade,' she croaked and the Drudge sprayed more of the unguent on to her white hair. She snapped her bony fingers and the chair that held Glospin in its fist relaxed its grip. 'Come and sit by me,' she said.

Glospin slid from the chair and sat dutifully at the old woman's feet, letting her fondle his long hair. 'My wicked one. My naughty boy.' She felt him flinch as she squeezed her fingers over his head.

The Drudge snipped at the whiskers on her chin with ornate scissors. It reminded her of her wedding devotions. Just three hundred and two she had been. Just a girl still when the summons came, hardly ready for her vows and duties.

I shall serve you might and main, mortar and mortice.

The plain wooden ring on her finger, sometimes tight with possessiveness, sometimes hot with rage.

I shall guard your bounds, your chattels and your progeny from Loom to Tomb.

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Then she and the House were one. Blood and brick in union.

The Doctor was on the move again. Now that the candleday was up and lit, he no longer seemed worried about being seen. He was heading in the direction of her room. As he passed the mirror, he raised his hat in mockery.

'I'd know that arrogance anywhere,' muttered the Housekeeper. The rhythm of strokes on Glospin's hair slowed and hardened.

'He told me he'd come home to be the next Kithriarch,' said Glospin. 'He wants his due.' He cringed as she dug in her nails.

'If you want your inheritance,' she said, 'you'd better make sure he doesn't get a chance to wake Quences.'

There was a knock at the door.

She groaned and creaked, using Glospin's head as a support. Strands of web that still clung to her bodice and skirts stretched and tore as she rose from her chair for the first time in seventy-one years.

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By the time Chris had got lost twice and been back to Innocet's door by accident, he was truly crukked off. With the lights up, his sense of direction had gone to pieces. He took a different route and heard the Doctor's whee-whoo whistle echoing up through the labyrinthine building. He tried it himself, vaguely hoping that it would act as some sort of sonar thread through the maze.

On the third landing down, he heard the answer. The two notes came back at him, deeper and backwards.

Whoo-whee.

He kept walking, aware that something was behind him, something large and lumbering. But when he glanced back, there was nothing in the passage, not even a shadow in the lamplight.

He clambered down some stairs and found the funguretum at last. The fungi were all over the walls, even up to the black dome. A cloaked shape rose in the broken pen as he approached.

'He's gone,' said Innocet, excitably. 'We were wrong. You were wrong.'

Chris stepped in through the gap. 'No chance. I wish you were right, but no chance. Sorry.'

'Arkhew's gone away. Just like Maljamin.'

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Chris crouched and looked at the bootprints in the slime. 'You see? The body's been dragged out. Someone got here before us. Probably the killer trying to cover up the evidence.'

Innocet stepped out of the pen. A gaunt figure in her cloak, every emotion locked away. 'Where is he?'

'Oh, no,' said Chris. 'That's a big mistake. Wrong sort of shoeprint for a start-off.'

'Why did he bring you?' she said. She turned and her eyes pierced him. What is your family and chapter?

He winced and broke her stare. Standard technique. 'Don't do that, please.'

She frowned. 'Will he let us out or has he just come to torment us?'

'Um, I don't think he knew,' Chris said. 'He's shocked. But you didn't tell him everything, did you?'

'That's no business for an outsider.'

'I'm an impartial Adjudicator. I'm meant to be on the outside.'

'He regards you as his friend.'

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'Yes. The Doctor's a good friend. A close friend. That just makes it worse. So you must tell me what happened to Ordinal-General Quences.'

'Nothing happened.'

'OK,' he said, disappointed. 'Only one murder then.'

'That word is forbidden. Even concerning Arkhew's death.'

'Fine. The other mur... unexplained death was only something I dreamed anyway. But you'd better know about it, because Arkhew dreamed it too.'

'A shared dream?' she said.

'You don't seem surprised.'

'Once upon a time the phenomenon was quite commonplace.' She was being cautious. 'Did you speak to him?'

Chris nodded. 'He was terrified, poor little guy. He said we were seeing Quences's Deathday exactly as it happened. He was crying and shaking. We saw the Family row over the will and then when we saw Quences murdered...'

She shushed him and stared around. 'Keep your voice down. It's impossible. It isn't true. You couldn't have seen.'

'But you believe it happened.'

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'Quences is sleeping in stasis. You've seen for yourself.'

'Arkhew and I saw Quences murdered. Arkhew recognized who the killer was.'

Innocet was suddenly calm. 'And?'

Chris shook his head. 'He didn't say. But he knew all right. I think he's gone and confronted them with it. And that's why he's been mur- sorry, he's dead, too.'

'Exactly,' she said coldly. 'So it was the Doctor who killed Quences and now he's killed Arkhew as well.'

Chris thrashed his arms in exasperation. 'It wasn't the Doctor. I saw it happen too.'

'Then who was it?'

'It was an elderly man. Not tall. Dressed in black with longish white hair.'

She studied him for a moment. 'You'd better come with me,' she said. 'Then you can see for yourself.'

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The handle to Satthralope's door resisted turning several times. Finally, at her signal, the door opened itself and admitted the miscreant. He marched in and seemed almost put out to find the room apparently abandoned.

'I'm here, Satthralope,' he called. 'I await your displeasure.'

After an indecently short wait, he began to poke about among the Housekeeper's effects.

Satthralope leant heavily on her cane. She watched, secure behind a mirror gauze of free-standing reflections that showed an empty room to the casual observer. Glospin was watching beside her. She approved of the hatred in his glare.

The prodigal wretch was scarcely imposing in his bearing and his sense of attire had deteriorated lamentably. His manner however, still had all the old domineering disrespect that she recalled. She had clearly missed three or four of his lives - a small boon for which she must be grateful. He was crouching on the floor, squinting at the strands of web that hung from her chair. Then he took some different strands from his pocket and compared them. Unaccountable. He had not even removed his excuse for a hat. How could any Family live with such a scapegrace?

His attention was caught by the mirrors on her dressing table. To her indignation, he began to finger the manual control levers with their crystal tops.

She started to move forward, but Glospin's hand held her back.

Views of the House flickered across the centre glass. On one passage, something large blocked the view. It seemed to be furry with zigzag stripes. The wretch gave a chortle and flicked on.

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The next view reflected a first-level parlour where two people were in deep conversation. One was a young man with hair the colour of sulphur flowers - another uninvited intruder, and wearing particularly offensive apparel. The first outsider she had seen since the dark began. How dare he come here? How dare he be brought in? And he was talking to Innocet. Innocet again! She, of all Cousins, should know better.

Innocet invited him in, whispered Glospin's voice in Satthralope's thoughts. She invited both of them.

The Housekeeper stamped her cane in anger, but the wretch at her mirrors was too absorbed in trying to lip-read the reflected conversation to notice.

Chris helped pull the dusty cloth down from the picture frame.

Innocet stood back and surveyed the family portrait on the wall behind it. 'It's the only one I could think of that hasn't been defaced.'

The dust stung in Chris's eyes and nose. Again the sounds of the House were amplified in his head. He tried to concentrate on the three-dimensional portrait with its formal rows of people, many of whom he knew from the Deathday dream. Ordinal-General Quences sat at the centre of the group - a crusty old man with a fierce eye. Satthralope was next to him, small and malevolent, locked into a black fortress of a dress, a huge ring of keys in her fist. Beside her, staring fixedly, was the old black-haired version of Glospin. Venomous, thought Chris. On Quences's other side, sat Innocet, still young, still red-haired, a model of dutiful composure. Among the ranks of other Cousins, Chris finally spotted Arkhew's head, peering out, half obscured by the broad shoulder of a portly lady who was taking up nearly two seats.

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He remembered his own graduation class of 2975. Twenty-six young, grinning Squires ready to sort out the Universe. Three that he knew about were prematurely retired injured and two more were dead.

But amongst this line-up of the Doctor's Cousins, not one of the suspects was smiling.

'So many of them have gone away,' said Innocet quietly.

'Are they really dead?' Chris asked. 'Or are they just skulking about somewhere?'

He was met by a cold barrier of frosty denial. The sort of thing he'd got when Roz had been at that time of the month. He gave himself a minus grade for tact, but he understood what the Doctor meant about monuments.

'What else did you dream about the Deathday?' she said carefully.

'We saw you and Glospin arguing,' said Chris, determined to get some reaction. 'You'd taken some secret information about the Doctor's birth from Glospin's room. He thought it affected the Family. More than the Family. He was very angry.'

Innocet was shaking her head. She opened her mouth, but seemed lost for words. 'How. . . how did you...'

Chris suddenly felt ashamed. He'd lost the fine line between investigation and prying.

'It was nonsense,' she insisted. 'What did Arkhew say?'

'He didn't understand either.'

'Good. That business is long finished.'

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'OK. Sorry.' Chris turned back to the picture. 'I can't see the Doctor. Is he taking the portrait, or was he disinherited by this point?'

'Look again. Look for the... killer?' That word was still giving her trouble.

Chris rescanned the gathering. Most of the faces had a defiant look that suggested they would rather be elsewhere. But at the back of the group he noticed the figure of an elderly man, his face raised in an arrogant and withering glare of contempt. He wore a grey-green robe and his long white hair was combed back. He looked like the bad-tempered relation no one wants at parties, but are too scared not to invite.

'It's him,' said Chris, pointing at the figure. 'That's the one. He was in black then, but he's the one who killed Quences.'

'Yes,' Innocet agreed, frighteningly calm. 'That's him. I saw him leave the Ordinal-General's room moments before I found the body. He was the Doctor.'

'Framed,' muttered the Doctor. 'Lies! Not guilty! I've been set up. I deny it all!' Outraged, he turned away from Satthralope's mirrors and saw the advancing Drudges.

Simultaneously, the young man in the glass swooned and Innocet struggled under his weight.

Satthralope, still in hiding, waited until the Drudges held the Doctor fast. At her command, the free-standing reflections shimmered away to nothing, opening out the room and disclosing herself and Glospin.

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'So,' she said and hobbled towards her prisoner.

'Snooping again, Satthralope? Don't believe everything you see in mirrors.' To her annoyance, he showed no surprise at her appearance. 'What have you done? Why are you skulking down here in the dark? Burying my Cousins alive.'

Glospin moved forward angrily, but a sudden sweep of Satthralope's cane put pay to his advance. 'Plenty of time for that.'

'Back in favour again, Glospin?' teased the Doctor. 'At least Cousin Innocet has a sense of forethought. She got to the laws of Housepitality way ahead of you two old squintlocks . Result: you can't lay a demented finger on me. Not while I'm an honoured guest in the House.'

The Housekeeper buttoned her rage tightly. 'Those laws can be rebargained. In the meantime, you will observe such etiquettes as are expected of a tolerated guest.' She bowed her head with as little reverence as she could bear. 'So Doctor, since that is how you style yourself...'

'Since you saw fit to remove my nominal identity,' he observed, easing himself free of the Drudges.

'... so we welcome you to the House of Lungbarrow. Partake of its meagre facilities as we have endured them for the past six hundred and seventy-three years.'

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'Time is absolute for those who stand outside it.' He glanced at a clock on his wrist. 'It's the relatives that are time-consuming.'

'You are still late.'

'Late? Yes, I could be late. But still? No, you must be muddling me up with someone else.' He rubbed some strands of web off his hand. 'It's a lie, you know. I never killed Quences.'

'What?' she said and turned to Glospin. 'What's he talking about now? Quences is waiting. The old fool's been waiting all this time for him.'

Glospin smiled and nodded. 'Yes, House-nana. That's right.'

'Haven't you shamed us enough, Doctor? You were summoned by the Kithriarch, but you never came.'

He shrugged. 'I never got the invitation.'

'So you say. But since you have come back to us at Otherstide, which I recall is also your name day, there will be a special supper in your honour to welcome you home at last.'

The Doctor bowed reverently. 'Talking of home, when was this place last pruned back?' He fished out a pair of scissors and waved them at the Drudge. 'You'll need more than just a pair of secateurs. There are branches extending rooms all over the place. And a nasty case of trunk bloat on the lower levels.'

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Satthralope felt her temper run out. 'Show him to the library,' she instructed one of the servants. 'And leave him there till suppertime.'

'I don't want any supper,' he complained as the Drudge forcibly manoeuvred him out of the door.

'A doctor!' blustered Quences. His face was so red that Chris thought he might have a seizure. 'What do you mean, that's enough? Eh? How can a mere doctor be enough? By the megastar, any fool can be a doctor! Where's your ambition and sense of familial duty, eh? How d'you think I've worked... we've worked to give you this opportunity? And you dare to throw it back in our faces!'

As Quences ranted, his head seemed to swell and shrink with each outburst. Chris soon lost the focus of the tirade and it became a hectoring drone.

Behind Quences, amid stacks of old-fashioned books and-new-fashioned datacores, was a glass vivarium. Creatures were moving inside - elegant experimental creatures that Chris somehow remembered as accelerated genetic hybrids, half orchid, half axolotl. Their black and crimson speckled petal-heads waved in search of food as they clung to twigs with their spindly white lizard bodies.

Quences slowly turned away, clutching the furniture for support. 'I cannot understand it. I have nothing more to give. You'll break my hearts.'

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Satthralope rapped her cane on the desk for attention.

'The wretch means that a Cardinalship is not good enough. He'll leech us dry, the ungrateful brat!'

'Not good enough for whom?' Chris heard himself laughing. 'I reach my majority next name day. Time I had lives of my own, don't you think? Hmm?'

'Only a doctor.' She was wallowing now. 'But that's hardly unexpected. No backbone, you see. So disappointing to the Family and the House. Well, only the Ordinal-General can resolve the situation.' She glared at the old man. 'General?'

His hunched back was turned away. She leant in beside him, but her words were lost to Chris. All he caught was 'You must ...' and 'How will you have it end, eh!' and '...for the House's sake!'

He watched one of the creations in the vivarium. Its eye-stamens waved as it stalked and snatched a fly out of the air.

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At length the old man stirred, his eyes burning with fierce tears.

'Is that your final word? No plea for clemency? No extenuation?' He paused and looked at Satthralope, so determinedly triumphant. His voice tremored. 'So be it. Apparently Lungbarrow will no longer tolerate your hurtful presence. It is an affront, sir. There's no more to be said. You will quit the House immediately and never cross its threshold again.'

He fell into the dark.