Their Majesties' Bucketeers (18 page)

“Good day, Papa,” I preempted. “Mama, Sasa—Zoobon, you’re dismissed this very minute—won’t you join us in some kood?” A heavy ring of brass keys whirled across the room, striking Zoobon on the ear. She slapped a palm over the orifice, cried in anguish, whirled to confront her attacker, and got a cushion of her own for the trouble of it. She lacked Papa’s stern disposition; it knocked her over and she was instantly trampled by a passing gaggle of Bucketeers and Unarchists. Sasa stepped back out of harm’s way, seizing Mama, but the Bucketeers leapt upon my father, clamping all his legs in irons despite his most vociferous and threatening protests.

Despite my better inclinations, I giggled, glad that I had lived to see my father’s dignity deflated just a little. There would be a reckoning for this, I knew. I hoped that I would live to see that, too.

FLASH
!
Niitood caught Papa in a most embarrassing condition, all his arms and legs bound up together above his jaws (Mav was having some influence, it would seem). Someone heaved a vase at the reporter, but he ducked, once again narrowly preserving his camera, and the object took Fatpa on the jaws. When his eyes cleared, Fatpa picked up a Bucketeer at random—also the two prisoners he was attached to—and in retaliation threw the whole lot back at the vase-thrower. There was a splendid
crash!
, but I could not quite make out where, nor upon whom, this trio of unfortunates had come to rest. Mama and Sasa huddled close beside the front wall to the left of the entrance, where they remained safe when the pair of original combatants, those watu drivers, tumbled in, still entwined in deadly struggle—their sham dispute, it would appear, had somehow been transformed into an honest duel—and bleeding copiously from a dozen minor wounds apiece. One of them tripped over the Archsacerdot, the other stumbled dangerously close to Niitood and his precious camera. The reporter danced and ducked away.

This whole affair was rapidly assuming the shape of an outrageous nightmare. The next time I dared to look up, my father, rocking on his carapace, was preparing to swing one single liberated fist at the person next to him, who turned out to be my own Battalion Chief, Waad Hifk
Tis
! Two brightly liveried footmen I’d not seen before now grappled with Fatpa, who held someone in gentlelam’s attire above his carapace, preparing to throw him across the room. The Lord Ennramo shouted ungenteelly until the former highwaylam was persuaded to release him—which transpired at the extremity of Fatpa’s swing. Ennramo flew some distance, where he smashed into the Archsacerdot, who had only just regained his walking hands. The pair lay insensate in a lump together.

A momentary pathway among the fighters cleared along the line of the Lord’s flight, and I could just see Mav and Hedgyt, the physician, still deep in conversation. Every now and again, some ruffian intent upon involving them in the violence would approach with a rush. Almost absently, Mav would stretch out a fist, strike a preemptive blow, and then return to his consultation with Hedgyt. The doctor scarcely seemed to notice. Vyssu stood nearby with an exceptionally elongated inhaling tube in her fingers, offering occasional comment of her own.

WHEET
!
Above the thundering chaos, a whistle sounded brilliantly, distracting the combatants from their labors and attracting their attention (and mine) to the entrance of the parlor. Leds, the old Museum guard stood in the doorway, and beside him, Sathe. There was a murmur, then a groan, which circled about the room as each enthusiast began to appreciate the extent of his strains and injuries.

Sathe, surveying the erstwhile field of battle, waited patiently as Mav interrupted his conversation and waded among the damaged carapaces toward her. He paused but once, to retrieve a ring of keys from the floor and return it to the landlurry.

“I say, Mother! How good of you to come! What on Sodde Lydfe brings you down here to the Kiiden?” He took her hand and nodded to old Leds, then noticed Tis, who had somehow acquired a set of female undergarments, which were draped over his jaws. This apparition Mav tactfully disdained to acknowledge, very likely winning, in the process, a friend in Tis for life.

“Good evening, my dear,” Sathe replied with equal aplomb. “Why, I read your advertisement in the newspaper and thought to ask you how matters were developing.” She looked around her once again, taking in Ennramo and the Archsacerdot. The Bucketeers had begun to sort things out but were running short of lamacles. “It would appear that you have had results.”

“By Pah, I think you’re right! Have you met Vyssu—and Doctor Hedgyt? And can you stay for kood?” Mav caught the eye of a Bucketeer who seemed to recognize him. “That’s quite correct, dear fellow, take
everybody
in—they’re all murder suspects, every one of them. Get up from there, will you, Mymy. There’s a good lurry. I believe your skills will soon be needed at the Precinct.”

Outside, there was the grumbling of bad weather once again, and rain began to fall. Through the parlor window, miraculously unbroached by the fighting, I watched a cab draw up, its watun and driver protected by Mav’s new waterproof garments. “Anybody needs a cab?” he shouted smugly.

“Mav, will you kindly tell me something?”

“And what might that be, Mymy?” He fussed with the lapels of his dressing gown and began to dribble fluid into his pipe.

“The meaning of a word—the Reverend Adem’s last, that is. And perhaps Podfettian, from the sound of it. The word is ‘danokih.’”

“I see. How very interesting.” He shook the little flask impatiently and held it once again over the end of his inhaling tube. “It isn’t Podfettian, although it’s close. It’s Old Fodduan.”

“Whatever does it mean?” I asked.

Across the room, Niitood
flashed!
a final photograph, glanced out of the window at the lone cab, and moved briskly toward the door. He took a step, tripped over the Archsacerdot, and fell, crushing his camera.

I believe the word he uttered then was Old Fodduan, too.

“You wouldn’t want to know,” Mav answered, glancing in disgust at both his empty flask and Niitood. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

XVI: Mathas Behind Bars

Someday,
I am confident, there will exist a rational process for determining which victims of mass tragedy, such as an apartment fire or railroad accident, ought to be assisted urgently, which succored at comparative leisure in hospital, and which invited to depart, as it were, under their own sail and rigging. At present, these crucial judgments, inevitably made in haste and never without error, constitute an esoteric art, absorbed by its practitioners pragmatically, and doubtless at the cost of many lives. Perhaps it shall be I who ultimately establishes the principles for this procedure. If so, then I shall have also become an inventor of sorts, like Mav, Niitood, Hedgyt, Law, or any hundred of my other acquaintances, along with nearly everybody else who lives in this highly stimulating epoch of Great Fodduan progress.

That being as it may, the evening of the Kiiden Riot (as it afterward came to be called, typifying the general reliability of history) there existed for me no recourse but to allow our Bucketeers to escort away those persons capable of carrying themselves, a contingent suffering minor fractures, lacerations, and similar indignities.

This left a residuum of serious injuries at Vyssu’s establishment, which occupied my attention for a considerable period. May Pah be praised, with the exception of the Reverend Adem (whom I, myself, had despatched, I recalled again in shocked disbelief!), no further fatalities evinced themselves, this likely owing to the substantial number of pistols, knives, and bludgeons present, these artifacts occupying hands that might otherwise have been employed in the more deadly practices of ripping joints, gouging eyes, or tearing jaws from their carapaces. Thank Heaven’s Desiccation that the gentlelamly insistence upon weapons has filtered downward even to the lower classes!

A Bucketeer had fetched my bag and I attended to the wounded, who, excepting the extremest cases, were carted off to Hedgerow over the disgruntled objections of Bucketeers from other Precincts who comprised the majority of the law-enforcement delegation present. Tis was the highest ranker on the premises; had he not been, Mav, as the Inquirer, would have given precisely the same command.

So off they went in chains, a gay and colorful procession, from the pair of watu drivers to the battered Lord Ennramo, who, upon regaining consciousness, vowed imperiously first that Mav would do his future investigations upon some ice-bound island weather station—then, on hearing his own words, began to laugh and, with his hands in irons, clapped my friend upon the carapace and strode aristocratically through the door into a waiting kood waggon appropriated for the purpose, heartily shouting, “Well done, good Inquirer! Do come and share a lamly jolt when this is over!” Frightfully decent of the fellow, I thought, until I noticed Mav, a thoughtful aspect to his fur, making further entries in his notecase.

Thus, with the final insensible victim—or coperpetrator—hauled away, I was left quite by myself. Nor was this excluding Vyssu, who had, upon her own insistence, also been arrested. Sporting of her, everyone admitted; Mav took obvious delight in making sure the lamacles upon her wrists did not chafe. This policy of hers manifested a certain good business sense, for her clientele and admirers cheered and clapped and rippled comradely appreciation of her mettle as she followed in Ennramo’s handsteps. Of such gestures are legends born, particularly profitable ones.

Thus nearly everyone departed in a spirit of good fellowship, as if to a celebration rather than to gaol (sparing Mav and his subordinates a deal of logistical difficulty in the process), and I followed sometime afterward.

“Oh, I say, Mav?” Our Precinct’s “clientele” had overflowed from the small shabby office over the gaol into the watu barn, where there had been set up a table for the filling out of appropriate paperwork. This ritual was being accomplished by what was at the time a novel means: those transported here from Vyssu’s, practically without regard to rank or class, were formed up in three winding queues before the table; meanwhile, paracauterists trafficked up and down applying bandages and liniment. Upon completion of the forms, each “prisoner” was remanded to another crowded corner of the stable, where kood was being served.

“Hullo there, MyMy, I am happy to—
blast the thrice-accursed desklam who composed these questionnaires!
” He sat behind the table, attempting to record data my erstwhile landlurry supplied within a number of spaces far too small to write in. This amused the elderly Unarchist, who, on that account alone, perhaps, was being unusually cooperative.

“Your full name, if I may ask—Mymy, there are paracauterists aplenty here. Would you mind greatly doing me a favor?”

“
Minymmo
Pemmopan Viidawasiivyt-Koed,” replied the lurry cheerfully, little brushmarks of it tracing through rher fur.

I said: “Not if it means filling out these forms in your stead. How many have you had arrested, anyway?”

He rubbed dispiritedly at the misspelled first half of rher last name. “Your
unmarried
appellation, if you please—No, Mymy, I’ve something altogether different in mind; I’d appreciate your knocking up Tis and telling him—
Wet!
” The eraser had torn through the cheap and pulpy paper. “Now I shall have to begin another—”

“Koed-Viidawasiivyt,” offered the landlurry. “Married a third cousin on me father’s side. That’s four I’s, Inspector darlin’, an’ a Y. Tell me, where’d they take me keys?”

“Pray continue, Mav. What is it I must tell Tis?” I watched another of the queues: Fatpa stood on line in front of Hedgyt, the latter clutching his invention. Behind Hedgyt stood the bureaucrat with whom he argued over who was next. “What is it Hedgyt has there, a bomb?”

Mav chuckled. “No, my dear, a clock; it is his fancy that people might enjoy to read the time in numbers, as they’re written, rather than off the face of a dial. Ridiculous, but beautifully conceived—and executed: I’d know the model maker anywhere, simply from the cut of his lathe turnings. Now where was I? Ah, yes: dear lurry, your lawful occupation?”

“But, Mav, you haven’t said why I must go to Tis’s office.”

Rhe looked down thoughtfully at the space provided. “Hostelier and Chaperone to Young Surmales of Good Character.” Ripples spread throughout rher fur again.

“Landlurry.” Mav began to write it down upon a dotted line insufficient for even those nine letters.

“Hostelier and chaperone!” the elderly person insisted. “Sayin’ less is hurtful slander, most particular in th’ Kiiden!”

“You may have a point,” conceded Mav. “Mymy, I’ll get to you if you’ll be more patient!” Here his pencil snapped in two; he breathed heavily, then took up his inhaling tube and flask, rediscovering that the latter was still empty. “
Damp!
”

“Mav?”

“Hostelier and chaperone to young surmales of good character!”

“Young fella, won’t you have a drop or two of mine?” Hedgyt had finished with his Bucketeer. Standing now beside me, he set his experiment upon the littered table, fumbling in his tunic for a well-used bronze Navy flask.

“How good of you…” Mav stretched across, then withdrew his hand. “
Now
I recall! Mymy, please ask Tis for a sample of that Continental spirit, which he offered me. Hedgyt here, in recompense for inconveniences he has suffered, might appreciate it, too. Also”—he turned the ruptured form upon its back, scribbling a lengthy note—“by rights this ought to be my resignation, and is likely yet to be. However, take it to the old fellow, and read it on the way as it concerns you in part.” He rose and gave the pencil stub to a recruit. “I am waterlogged if I’ll fill out another of these forms!”

I took the message and left him with the surgeon, pausing to read upon the spiral stairs:

My dear Tis:

Kindly, in about two hours’ time, authorize release of all whom I have detained, excepting:

2nd C’conventional Unarchists
(not
3rd);

Ypad P’dits
Fatpa
, Esq.;

Rewu Uomag
Niitood, Imp’l Intelligencer
;

C’dr Zedmon Dakods
Hedgyt
, Imp’l Navy;

that gormless little Nazemynsiin creature, I’ve forgotten his name, the one who shot at me;

His Grace, the Lord Ennramo.

Tomorrow at third hour, if you will gather these together (save the Unarchists, who may go directly to gaol), with Law, Myssmo, and Ensda, I shall clear up this matter once and for all. Please take special pains to obtain the presence of Law; this may be most important.

Meanwhile, I am

Yr. Ob’t. Svt.,

Agot Edmoot
Mav

There were two more present upon the next morning: I, after pleasant hours in my own flat (Mav having asserted that, with half of Mathas in our gaol, most likely our murderer was as well); Vyssu, who had not remained, but had returned to her own house in thought of restoring it to its previous elegance. This was well; news of the rioting had greatly enhanced the number of curiosity-seekers through the Kiiden, and thus her clientele.

I often despair of the lamviin race.

My parents were now somewhat mollified by not having been incarcerated with “half of Mathas”—and, to appearances, impressed that this should be so on account of a few words to the “authorities” from their own little surdaughter. They had spent their evening at home as well, and in future I was to have more confidence and independence of them—and no maid servant.

Yesterevening’s rainfall had been brief; the sun was streaming into Tis’s office windows, yet there were many more than could be accommodated there with comfort, and we moved out into the hallway with a large, imposing Bucketeer at the stairwell to control admission and egress.

I, to my great satisfaction, was back in uniform. Mav, not wishing to abandon any precedent that, despite words to the contrary, had been thus established, wore civilian garments fully equal to anything the Reverend Adem had displayed, and far more tastefully selected. Vyssu, who arrived with him, had adorned herself conservatively, reeking of expensive restraint. Tis was his habitual wrinkled self; Niitood, having spent a second night in gaol, looked even worse. He had received another camera by messenger, however, and was happily preparing to make use of it upon a moment’s notice.

Seating cushions formed a loose triangle in the broad corridor: one for Tis at an apex, Mav’s beside it, Vyssu’s next to his, then a very large one for Fatpa. He alone looked better for a night behind bars; it struck me that all this might be reminding him of a vigorous youth. Niitood took a place between the former highwaylam and another Bucketeer who occupied a second corner of the triangle. Upon the other side, there was a cushion to which I was directed; Hedgyt was set next to me, then Leds, and then the nameless civil servant. At this corner bulked another Bucketeer. Across the final side were placed Ensda, Myssmo, the Lord Ennramo, and Law. I had pondered through the night over Mav’s written words concerning the young inventor; for the life of me, nothing about him now seemed of special interest. Well, I would learn soon enough.

Behind Tis, a very large window looked down upon Kevod Lane and caught the morning light, brightening the otherwise dreary scarlet-painted hall. When everyone was seated, Mav ordered a wick, whose service he had placed inside the triangle rather nearer Ennramo than Tis.

“I apologize that some of you have spent an uncomfortable night. I trust this morning’s results will compensate you all—all save one—for, as I promised in the newspapers, I am about to reveal the murderer of
Srafen
Rotdu Rizmou, Professor and Curator of the Imperial Museum, my good friend and teacher.” He produced his pipe and flask, prepared the little tube, and thrust it into a nostril.

“Before proceeding further, there are questions I should like to ask some of you. Principally, it is important to ascertain your motives in appearing yesterday at Vyssu’s. We shall begin with Niitood, as I was there for obvious reasons, as was Vyssu, it being her house, and Fatpa, who is employed there. Niitood?”

The reporter hesitated, fidgeting with his camera. “I say, old sandshrimp, I’m a correspondent, after all. I read your advert, waited till the news was well spread through the city, then came to sniff out what had developed.”

Mav’s pelt indicated satisfaction. “This seems to have been the motive of fully ninety-nine percent of those who attended our little party yesterday. I shall have to think over this newspaper advertising scheme again, very soon. Very well, Law we shall pass over, for he did not appear that afternoon. M’Lord, why is it that you came?”

The fellow likewise took a while in answering. “As you are aware, sir, I represent some highly placed interests of the Empire. Equally, you surely know that these parties have had an eye upon this affair from its inception. I wished, on their behalf, to observe the consequences of your effort in the newspapers, and—”