He checked his calculations for the fourth time.
The Marquis de Carabas did not trust people. It was bad for business and it could set an unfortunate precedent. He did not trust his friends or his occasional lovers, and he certainly never trusted his employers. He reserved the entirety of his trust for the Marquis de Carabas, an imposing figure in an imposing coat, able to outtalk, outthink, and outplan anybody.
There were only two sorts of people who carried crooks: bishops and shepherds.
In Bishopsgate, the crooks were decorative, nonfunctional, purely symbolic. And the bishops had no need of coats. They had robes, after all, nice, white, bishopy robes.
The Marquis was not scared of the bishops. He knew that the Sewer Folk were not scared of bishops. The inhabitants of Shepherd’s Bush were another matter entirely. Even in his coat, and at the best of times, at the peak of health and with a small army at his beck and call, the Marquis would not have wanted to encounter the shepherds.
He toyed with the idea of visiting Bishopsgate, of spending a pleasant handful of days establishing that his coat was not there.
And then he sighed dramatically, and went to the Guide’s Pen, and looked for a bonded guide who might be persuaded to take him to Shepherd’s Bush.
His guide was quite remarkably short, with fair hair cut close. The Marquis had first thought she was in her teens, until, after traveling with her for half a day, he had decided she was in her twenties. He had talked to half a dozen guides before he found her. Her name was Knibbs, and she had seemed confident, and he needed confidence. He told her the two places he was going, as they walked out of the Guide’s Pen.
“So where do you want to go first, then?” she asked. “Shepherd’s Bush, or Raven’s Court?”
“The visit to Raven’s Court is a formality: it is merely to deliver a letter. To someone named Drusilla.”
“A love letter?”
“I believe so. Why do you ask?”
“I have heard that the fair Drusilla is most wickedly beautiful, and she has the unfortunate habit of reshaping those who displease her into birds of prey. You must love her very much, to be writing letters to her.”
“I am afraid I have never encountered the young lady,” said the Marquis. “The letter is not from me. And it doesn’t matter which we visit first.”
“You know,” said Knibbs thoughtfully, “just in case something dreadfully unfortunate happens to you when you get to the shepherds, we should probably do Raven’s Court first. So the fair Drusilla gets her letter. I’m not saying that something horrible will happen to you, mind. Just that it’s better to be safe than, y’know, dead.”
The Marquis de Carabas looked down at his blanketed shape. He was uncertain. Had he been wearing his coat, he knew, he would not have been uncertain: he would have known exactly what to do. He looked at the girl and he mustered the most convincing grin he could. “Raven’s Court it is, then,” he said.
Knibbs had nodded, and set off on the path, and the Marquis had followed her.
The paths of London Below are not the paths of London Above: they rely to no little extent on things like belief and opinion and tradition as much as they rely upon the realities of maps.
De Carabas and Knibbs were two tiny figures walking through a high, vaulted tunnel carved from old, white stone. Their footsteps echoed.
“You’re de Carabas, aren’t you?” said Knibbs. “You’re famous. You know how to get places. What exactly do you need a guide for?”
“Two heads are better than one,” he told her. “So are two sets of eyes.”
“You used to have a posh coat, didn’t you?” she said.
“I did. Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
He said nothing. Then he said, “I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to Shepherd’s Bush first.”
“Fair enough,” said his guide. “Easy to take you one place as another. I’ll wait for you outside the shepherds’ trading post, mind.”
“Very wise, girl.”
“My name’s Knibbs,” she said. “Not girl. Do you want to know why I became a guide? It’s an interesting story.”
“Not particularly,” said the Marquis de Carabas. He was not feeling particularly talkative, and the guide was being well recompensed for her trouble. “Why don’t we try to move in silence?”
Knibbs nodded and said nothing as they reached the end of the tunnel, nothing as they clambered down some metal rungs set in the side of a wall. It was not until they had reached the banks of the Mortlake, the vast underground Lake of the Dead, and she was lighting a candle on the shore to summon the boatman, that she spoke again.
Knibbs said, “The thing about being a proper guide is that you’re bonded. So people know you won’t steer them wrong.”
The Marquis only grunted. He was wondering what to tell the shepherds at the trading post, trying out alternate routes through possibility and through probability. He had nothing that the shepherds would want, that was the trouble.
“You lead them wrong, you’ll never work as a guide again,” said Knibbs, cheerfully. “That’s why we’re bonded.”
“I know,” said the Marquis. She was a most irritating guide, he thought. Two heads were only better than one if the other head kept its mouth shut and did not start telling him things he already knew.
“I got bonded,” she said, “in Bond Street.” She tapped the little chain around her wrist.
“I don’t see the ferryman,” said the Marquis.
“He’ll be here soon enough. You keep an eye out for him in that direction, and halloo when you sees him. I’ll keep looking over here. One way or another, we’ll spot him.”
They stared out over the dark water of the Tyburn. Knibbs began to talk again. “Before I was a guide, when I was just little, my people trained me up for this. They said it was the only way that honor could ever be satisfied.”
The Marquis turned to face her. She held the candle in front of her at eye level. Everything is off here, thought the Marquis, and he realized he should have been listening to her from the beginning. Everything is wrong. He said, “Who are your people, Knibbs? Where do you come from?”
“Somewhere you ain’t welcome anymore,” said the girl. “I was born and bred to give my fealty and loyalty to the Elephant and the Castle.”
Something hard struck him on the back of the head then, hit him like a hammerblow, and lightning pulsed in the darkness of his mind as he crumpled to the floor.
* * *
The Marquis de Carabas could not move his arms. They were, he realized, tied behind him. He was lying on his side.
He had been unconscious. If the people who did this to him thought him unconscious still, then he would do nothing to disabuse them of the idea, he decided. He let his eyes slit open the merest crack, to sneak a glance at the world.
A deep, grinding voice said, “Oh, don’t be silly, de Carabas. I don’t believe you’re still out. I’ve got big ears. I can hear your heart beat. Open your eyes properly, you weasel. Face me like a man.”
The Marquis recognized the voice and hoped he was mistaken. He opened his eyes. He was staring at legs, human legs with bare feet. The toes were squat and pushed together. The legs and feet were the color of teak. He knew those legs. He had not been mistaken.
His mind bifurcated: a small part of it berated him for his inattention and his foolishness. Knibbs had told him, by the Temple and the Arch: he just had not listened to her. But even as he raged at his own foolishness, the rest of his mind took over, forced a smile, and said, “Why, this is indeed an honor. You really didn’t have to arrange to meet me like this. Why, the merest inkling that Your Prominence might have had even the teeniest desire to see me would have—”