[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
personified. That's not him. And the false accounting of that factory is it
really such a crime, to keep the people in your hometown well and happy? You
make it all sound so simple, the way only someone who's lived their life
Page 228
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
outside the guilds could ever possibly do. I mean, where did the spell in that
chalcedony come from?
You really think that by pointing your finger at Daddy, you've got to the end
of the trail?'
I said nothing. All my life or what now seemed like most of it I'd been
searching for my darkmaster. And I wasn't going to let Sadie's equivocating
words take him away from me.
`And do you imagine you'd end up with those monsters in St
Blate's, Anna, someone as lovely and beautiful as you? What would happen if I
tried to pull that bellrope over there and called for the house yeomen?' Sadie
shook her head, inspected the empty contents of her cigarette packet and threw
it towards the fire. `What would you do, Anna? And just how hard would you try
to stop me, Robert? Have you really got it in you to kill someone?' Slowly,
with a rustling effort, she stood up. She had her hand laid across the
whisperjewels at her throat.
`Just how badly do you want this thing, Robert whatever it is that you
really want? For it isn't you, Anna, and it certainly isn't me, or anything or
anybody in this house, or back in London, either ...' Slowly, she was moving
towards the tasselled bellpull, when, with an angry twist of her mouth, she
jerked her hand and the chain of whisperjewels parted from around her neck.
One of them twinkled in her palm, then it clattered onto a low table.
`Sadie, I '
`Don't thank me, Master Robert. Don't say anything.
I'm not doing this for any reasons I'm proud of, or because of your fucking
citizens
I'm doing it because I'm Grandmistress Sarah Passington, and I'm entirely
bloody selfish ..
In a swoosh of white, she left the room.
It's a trick that many guildsmen have. On the edges of some building site or
outside the summer-hot doors of a foundry, we Coney
Mound children would gather around a plasterer or ironsmith who'd grown bored
enough to entertain us for a few minutes while the foreman wasn't looking.
He'd take a few scrapings from a jar or chalice, and then half a handful of
dry earth, which he'd spit on, shape, make into something small and neat and
hard in his big, quick, hands, muttering as he did so. Then, flourishing it
look, lads; a little dog, a flower, more daringly, a lady's bare torso.
Sometimes, they even let us touch the things, which felt light and hot and
scratchy. Often as not, you'd have had to be told what they were, but to me
they were fascinating, and the most interesting part of the performance came
at the very end, when the guildsman took the little object back from us and
cupped his hands around it again and blew softly as if it were an ember on a
fire. Puff! He'd spread his palms and laugh as we children spluttered in a
cloud of empty dust.
From something, to nothing. A puff of air, the breath of a spell
then dissolution, unmaking. That was what that numberbead and the guilds of
England were to me, that Christmas night in Walcote House.
Back in London, and in many other cities and towns, the signal would soon be
given for the people to stir themselves and advance. Neither secrecy nor
openness really mattered now. This was winter instead of
Midsummer, and it would be to the back and underbelly of Northcentral and the
tinder of factories and the gates of sidings and the doors of engine houses
towards which these citizens would now march. Those guns of Saul's, perhaps,
would make the difference. That, or a willingness to violence which the guards
and police, guildsmen themselves who had also suffered, might be slow to
counter. But nobody knew. And meanwhile, those who had given their orders were
Page 229
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
preparing themselves for midnight and the Christmas Ball, which would
continue, just like the bloodshed, long beyond the dawn.
The corridors were bustling when Anna and I left Sadie's suite. It wouldn't
have been safe to open the door to the Turning Tower yet, even now we had
Sadie's whisperjewel and it was still before the time I'd promised Saul. So
there was little for Anna and I to do other than to return to our rooms, and
pretend to prepare for the ball. A suit sprawled on my bedspread like a
beautiful corpse. I sat down. I stood up. I gazed from my window at the
snowlit parkland. I decided against running myself another bath. I touched the
swallows on the walls. All of this, one way or another, would be taken from me
in the morning. A hotel, a hostel, a citizen's university, a roofless and
ivied ruin Walcote House might become any of those things in the coming Age,
but in its heart, and in mine, it would remain the place I remembered tonight.
The people who bustled towards the ball along the passageways outside could be
as graceless and disappointing as the worst inhabitants of the boroughs of the
Easterlies but there was a beauty to this building, and the entrapments of
wealth, which I told myself I would be sad to lose.
Fully dressed in white tie and tails, I held Sadie's whisperjewel, and the
breath of Walcote House sighed out to me in whispers of holly and dark. I
thought of the springs here which I would never see, and of firelit autumns,
and endless days and nights of dream. Even now, the place was stirring with
light and colour in the ballroom as the Master of
Ceremonies began the call of names. Bows and smiles, the beckoning music,
rustles of taffeta in crimson and green .. .
There was a brisk knocking. `Robbie? Are you in there?'
Anna had also dressed for the ball. I blinked and swallowed as I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
personified. That's not him. And the false accounting of that factory is it
really such a crime, to keep the people in your hometown well and happy? You
make it all sound so simple, the way only someone who's lived their life
Page 228
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
outside the guilds could ever possibly do. I mean, where did the spell in that
chalcedony come from?
You really think that by pointing your finger at Daddy, you've got to the end
of the trail?'
I said nothing. All my life or what now seemed like most of it I'd been
searching for my darkmaster. And I wasn't going to let Sadie's equivocating
words take him away from me.
`And do you imagine you'd end up with those monsters in St
Blate's, Anna, someone as lovely and beautiful as you? What would happen if I
tried to pull that bellrope over there and called for the house yeomen?' Sadie
shook her head, inspected the empty contents of her cigarette packet and threw
it towards the fire. `What would you do, Anna? And just how hard would you try
to stop me, Robert? Have you really got it in you to kill someone?' Slowly,
with a rustling effort, she stood up. She had her hand laid across the
whisperjewels at her throat.
`Just how badly do you want this thing, Robert whatever it is that you
really want? For it isn't you, Anna, and it certainly isn't me, or anything or
anybody in this house, or back in London, either ...' Slowly, she was moving
towards the tasselled bellpull, when, with an angry twist of her mouth, she
jerked her hand and the chain of whisperjewels parted from around her neck.
One of them twinkled in her palm, then it clattered onto a low table.
`Sadie, I '
`Don't thank me, Master Robert. Don't say anything.
I'm not doing this for any reasons I'm proud of, or because of your fucking
citizens
I'm doing it because I'm Grandmistress Sarah Passington, and I'm entirely
bloody selfish ..
In a swoosh of white, she left the room.
It's a trick that many guildsmen have. On the edges of some building site or
outside the summer-hot doors of a foundry, we Coney
Mound children would gather around a plasterer or ironsmith who'd grown bored
enough to entertain us for a few minutes while the foreman wasn't looking.
He'd take a few scrapings from a jar or chalice, and then half a handful of
dry earth, which he'd spit on, shape, make into something small and neat and
hard in his big, quick, hands, muttering as he did so. Then, flourishing it
look, lads; a little dog, a flower, more daringly, a lady's bare torso.
Sometimes, they even let us touch the things, which felt light and hot and
scratchy. Often as not, you'd have had to be told what they were, but to me
they were fascinating, and the most interesting part of the performance came
at the very end, when the guildsman took the little object back from us and
cupped his hands around it again and blew softly as if it were an ember on a
fire. Puff! He'd spread his palms and laugh as we children spluttered in a
cloud of empty dust.
From something, to nothing. A puff of air, the breath of a spell
then dissolution, unmaking. That was what that numberbead and the guilds of
England were to me, that Christmas night in Walcote House.
Back in London, and in many other cities and towns, the signal would soon be
given for the people to stir themselves and advance. Neither secrecy nor
openness really mattered now. This was winter instead of
Midsummer, and it would be to the back and underbelly of Northcentral and the
tinder of factories and the gates of sidings and the doors of engine houses
towards which these citizens would now march. Those guns of Saul's, perhaps,
would make the difference. That, or a willingness to violence which the guards
and police, guildsmen themselves who had also suffered, might be slow to
counter. But nobody knew. And meanwhile, those who had given their orders were
Page 229
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
preparing themselves for midnight and the Christmas Ball, which would
continue, just like the bloodshed, long beyond the dawn.
The corridors were bustling when Anna and I left Sadie's suite. It wouldn't
have been safe to open the door to the Turning Tower yet, even now we had
Sadie's whisperjewel and it was still before the time I'd promised Saul. So
there was little for Anna and I to do other than to return to our rooms, and
pretend to prepare for the ball. A suit sprawled on my bedspread like a
beautiful corpse. I sat down. I stood up. I gazed from my window at the
snowlit parkland. I decided against running myself another bath. I touched the
swallows on the walls. All of this, one way or another, would be taken from me
in the morning. A hotel, a hostel, a citizen's university, a roofless and
ivied ruin Walcote House might become any of those things in the coming Age,
but in its heart, and in mine, it would remain the place I remembered tonight.
The people who bustled towards the ball along the passageways outside could be
as graceless and disappointing as the worst inhabitants of the boroughs of the
Easterlies but there was a beauty to this building, and the entrapments of
wealth, which I told myself I would be sad to lose.
Fully dressed in white tie and tails, I held Sadie's whisperjewel, and the
breath of Walcote House sighed out to me in whispers of holly and dark. I
thought of the springs here which I would never see, and of firelit autumns,
and endless days and nights of dream. Even now, the place was stirring with
light and colour in the ballroom as the Master of
Ceremonies began the call of names. Bows and smiles, the beckoning music,
rustles of taffeta in crimson and green .. .
There was a brisk knocking. `Robbie? Are you in there?'
Anna had also dressed for the ball. I blinked and swallowed as I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]