Skies Discrowned and An Epitaph in Rust Read online

  “Oh, yes,” Tyler nodded, a little clumsily. “Didn’t old Sam tell you? I’m the true son of Topo.”

  Orcrist caught Frank’s eye and frowned warningly. Don’t worry, Frank thought, I won’t say anything.

  “Oh, hell yes,” Tyler went on. “Many’s the morning Dad and I would go hunting deer with the game wardens. I had my own horse, naturally, a speckled roan named… uh… Lighthoof.” He drank the last of his wine and refilled his glass. “Oh, and the long evenings on the seaside terrace, the sunset light reflecting in our drinking cups carved of single emeralds! Sitting in our adjustable recliners, fanned by tall, silent slaves from the lands where the bong trees grow!”

  “For God’s sake, George,” said Orcrist.

  “Oh, I know, Sam,” Tyler said with a broad wave of his hand. “I shouldn’t… dwell on these things now that I move in lower circles… present company excluded, of course. But I long even now for that old life, to mount old… Lightboy and ride off on adventures and quests and whatnot.”

  At this point Frank slumped forward onto the tablecloth, fast asleep.

  Frank opened his eyes, but closed them again when he saw that the room was in pitch blackness. Not dawn yet, he thought instinctively. I wonder if Dad is home. A raucous, choking snore from another room made him sit up, completely awake. That’s not Dad, he thought; and this isn’t my room. Where am I? He felt around on the top of the table beside the bed, and soon had struck a match to a candle.

  I’m in one of Orcrist’s guest rooms, he realized. And we’re underground, so God knows what time it is. He got out of bed and found his gaudy clothes draped over a chair. Odd as they were, he felt better when he was dressed. Now then, he thought, what are Orcrist’s breakfast customs?

  He sighted the door, and then snuffed the candle and groped to it in the dark. To his relief the silent hallway beyond was lit by wall cressets, and he wandered along it until he came to Orcrist’s sitting room.

  “Ah, Frank,” said Orcrist, who sat in his customary easy chair with a book and a cup of coffee. “Up with the sun even down here, eh? As a matter of fact, I’ve been waiting for you.” He stood up and took two rolls of parchment out from behind a bust of Byron on one of his bookshelves. Then he unrolled them on the carpet, using books to hold the corners down. On one of them had been done a finely shaded drawing of a girl’s head; the other was blank.

  “What do you think of that picture, Frank?” Orcrist asked.

  “I’d say it’s one of Gascoyne’s best sketches of Dora Wakefield. People used to say he was having an affair with her, but my father never believed it.”

  Orcrist blinked. “Well, you know your field, Frank, that’s certain. Yes, it is a Gascoyne, though I didn’t know the name of the model. What I want to know is whether you can, without compromising any principles, copy it for me on this blank sheet. Hm?”

  “Sure I can,” Frank answered carelessly. “Have you got black ink, a little water, and a… number eight point pen?”

  Orcrist pointed to them on the bookcase. “I’ll be back in an hour to get you for breakfast,” he said, and left the room, carrying his coffee.

  Frank rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and got to work. He lightly sketched the face onto the blank sheet using a dry pen to lay down some guide-scratches; then he dipped the pen in the ink and began carefully mimicking Gascoyne’s delicate stippling and cross-hatching. The discipline of his craft took his mind off of the uncertainty of his current situation. Except for the occasional clink of pen-nib against ink bottle, the room was silent.

  When Orcrist returned, he found Frank sitting in the easy chair, reading.

  “Given up?” he asked with a little annoyance.

  Frank handed him the two rolls of parchment. “Which one is Gascoyne’s?” he asked. Orcrist unrolled one, looked at it, and replaced it on the table. He unrolled the other one more carelessly, stared at it closely, and then spread both of them out on the floor.

  “Given up?” asked Frank.

  Abruptly, Orcrist laughed. “Yes, by God,” he said. “Which is yours?”

  “The one whose ear lobe is showing. I didn’t want to do an absolute copy.”

  Orcrist laughed again and clapped Frank on the shoulder. “Come along to breakfast,” he said. “And we can discuss your career possibilities.”

  CHAPTER 5

  BEARDO WAS STARING WITH ill-concealed distaste at a glistening fried egg on his plate. With a petulant jab of his fork he ripped open the yolk.

  “There’s a sad sight for you, poet,” he said somberly.

  “Oh, quit playing with it,” said Tyler.

  Both of them were frowning and squinting, and they seemed to have occasional trouble in breathing.

  “Beardo,” said Orcrist, leading Frank into the breakfast room, which was cheerily lit by actual sunlight reflected down a shaft from the surface. “Your boy here proves to be a competent art forger. I propose to buy him from you. How does sixty malories sound?”

  “You’re too generous, I’m sure,” smiled Beardo, cheered by this unexpected windfall. “Sixty it is.”

  Frank was surprised to find that he was a buyable article, but he said nothing.

  “How do you feel about that, Frank?” asked Orcrist. “You’d be a licensed art forger, bonded to me. You can have room and board here, plus a good salary, half of which, for the first two years, goes to me. Then when your bond is paid off you keep all of it. Will you take it?”

  How can I not take it, Frank thought. It sounds like a good deal, and there’s absolutely nothing else I can do. He bowed. “I’d be delighted, Mr. Orcrist. Where do I sign?”

  “After breakfast, can’t do business before breakfast. Why, gentlemen, you’ve eaten nothing! Not hungry?” He winked at Frank. Beardo and Tyler shook their heads.

  “Well, I thank you for your company anyway. I assume two such busy citizens as yourselves must have many appointments, so I won’t inconvenience you by insisting that you stay for lunch.”

  Orcrist told Frank that they’d get him registered with the Subterranean Companions that night. In honor of the occasion he provided Frank with some clothes of a more sober nature: a suit of brown corduroy, black boots and a black overcoat. “It’s not a good idea to be too conspicuous down here,” he confided. “If you went out dressed in those other clothes, the first thief that saw you would figure it was Ali Baba himself walking by, and bash you before you could blink.”

  Frank examined the conservative lines of his new overcoat with some relief. “Who are the Subterranean Companions?” he asked.

  “A brotherhood of laborers engaged in extralegal work. A thieves’ union, actually. And we’ve got to get your name on the roll. Freelance work simply isn’t permitted.”

  “Well, I want to do this right,” Frank put in.

  “Of course you do.”

  That evening, after a much simpler dinner than the previous night’s, Orcrist and Frank set off down Sheol Boulevard, a grand street whose brick roof stood a full twenty feet above the cobblestones. Streetlamps were hung from chains at intervals of roughly fifteen paces, and taverns, fuel stores and barber shops cast light through their open doorways onto the pavement.

  “This, I guess you could say, is Downtown Understreet,” said Orcrist. “Three blocks farther are the good restaurants. We’ve even got a couple of good bookstores down here.”

  “Will we be passing them?” asked Frank.

  “Not tonight. We’ve got to turn south on Bolt after this next cross street.”

  They walked on without speaking, listening to the sounds of the understreet metropolis—laughter, shouts, clanking dishes and lively accordion music—echoing up and down the dim avenues.

  At Bolt Street they turned right, and then took a sharp jog left, into an alleymouth, and stopped. They were in almost total darkness.

  “Where are we?” whispered Frank.

  “Sh!”

  He heard the rattle of keys, and then the scratch and snap of a lock turning. Orcris
t’s hand closed on his shoulder and guided him forward a few paces. There was a breath of air, and the sound of the lock again, and then a match flared in the blackness and Orcrist was holding it to the wick of a small pocket lantern. The narrow hallway smelled of old french fries. Orcrist put his finger to his lips and led Frank forward, past several similar doors to a stairway.

  “Going down,” Orcrist whispered.

  At the bottom of the stairs, six flights down, Orcrist relaxed and began chatting. “Got to be careful, you see, Frank,” he said. “There are people who’d pay a lot for the death of a ranking member of the Companions, so I never come by the same route twice in a row.” They were walking along another corridor now, but it was brighter and wider, and Orcrist extinguished his lantern and put it away.

  “Why aren’t you armed?” asked Frank, who had noticed the absence of a sword under Orcrist’s cape.

  “Oh, I’m adequately armed, never fear. Ah, and here we are.”

  They stepped through a high open arch into a huge hall that Frank thought must once have been a church. The pews, if it ever did have any, had been ripped out and replaced by ranks of folding wooden chairs, but the place was still lit by eight ancient baroque chandeliers. A big, altar-like block of marble up front was currently being used as a speaker’s platform.

  Frank followed Orcrist up a ramp to an overhanging structure that might have been a side-wall choir loft or a theater box. “Make yourself at home,” Orcrist told him, gesturing at the dusty chairs and music stands that littered the box. “I’ve got to count the house.” He pulled a pair of opera glasses from his pocket and began scrutinizing the crowd below. Frank sat down. His injured ear was throbbing, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  After about ten minutes Orcrist put the glasses away and turned to Frank. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “I’ve got to give your name to the registrar and pay your first month’s dues. Don’t leave the box.” He waved and ducked out.

  Frank leaned on the balcony rail, looked out over the restless throng, and soon saw Orcrist’s dark, curly hair and drab cape appear from a side door. He watched him make his way to the speaker’s stand and huddle for a moment with one of the men there. Frank’s attention was distracted then by a fight that broke out in the middle of the hall, and when he glanced back at the speaker’s stand Orcrist was gone. He was still trying to sight him when Orcrist’s voice spoke softly behind him.

  “Don’t look so eager, Frank. Don’t be conspicuous.” The older man pulled a couple of chairs close to the rail. “Sit down and relax,” he said. “This may take a while.”

  Frank had been expecting great things of this secret, underground meeting of thieves, but soon found himself bored. The speaker, a pudgy man named Hodges, spent the first few minutes exchanging casual jokes with members of the audience. Frank understood none of the references, though Orcrist frequently chuckled beside him. Hodges addressed everyone by their first names, and Frank felt more excluded than he had at any time in the past three days. He felt a little more at home when Hodges read the list of newly-bonded apprentices and he heard “Rovzar, Frank” read out as loudly as any of them.

  What would Dad say, Frank wondered briefly, if he knew I was making a living as an art forger? He’d understand. As he once told me, while squinting against the hideous sunlight of a cold morning, “Frankie, if it was easy, they’d have got somebody else to do it.”

  The meeting dragged on interminably, and just when Frank was convinced that he must fall asleep, a new figure appeared on the speaker’s platform. It was a burly old man with a close-cropped white beard, and Frank saw the other officials who were standing about bow as the old man nodded to them.

  “Who’s that?” Frank asked.

  “I thought you were asleep,” Orcrist said. “That bearded guy? That’s Blanchard. He’s the king of the Subterranean Companions. I expected to see him here. He must have heard about the palace rebellion—it’s only something big that brings him to one of these meetings.”

  Blanchard now rapped the speaker’s table with a fist. The crowd quieted much more quickly than it had for Hodges.

  “My friends and colleagues,” he began in a strong, booming voice. “I’m sure many of you have noticed evidences of a concealed crisis in the Ducal Palace.” There was a pause while the more literate thieves explained the sentence to their slower-witted fellows. “Well, I am now able to tell you what’s going on. Prince Costa has formed an alliance with the Transport Company and, day before yesterday, overthrown and killed Duke Topo.” There were scattered cheers and outraged shouts. “We now have a new Duke, gentlemen. It is too early to estimate the effects this change will have upon us and our operations, but I will say this: proceed with caution. The Transport spacers are no longer just drunken marks whose pockets you can pick and whose girls you can abuse. They are now our rulers. They will almost certainly function as police. Therefore I abjure you—” again there was a flurry of interpretation for the less bright thieves “—step carefully; don’t cause unnecessary trouble; and keep your eyes open.” The old man glared out at the cathedral-like hall. “I hope you ignorant bastards are paying attention. Maybe some of you remember Duke Ovidi, and how he hung a thief’s head on every merlon of the Ducal Palace. Those days, friends, may very well be upon us once more.”

  On the way home from the meeting Frank’s ear began to bleed again, and he passed out on the Sheol Boulevard sidewalk. Orcrist carried him back to the apartment, changed his bandage and put him to bed.

  Frank tossed a paintbrush into a cup of turpentine and ran his hands through his unruly hair. It’s going well, he thought. He’d been trying to get this painting in line for three days and had finally mastered Bate’s style. He raised his head and stared at his still-wet painting, then turned and studied the original, hung next to it. I’ll have this canvas finished this afternoon, Frank thought, which leaves the problem of darkening it and cracking it so that it looks as old as the original. But that was purely a technical detail, and he didn’t anticipate any trouble with it.

  The front door swung open and Orcrist strode in. He took off his black leather gloves and tossed them onto a chair.

  “By God, Frank,” he said, studying the forgery, “you have got the soul of Chandler Bate on canvas better than he did himself.”

  “Thanks,” Frank said, wiping off a brush. “I’ve got to admit I’m pleased with it myself.”

  “It was the philosopher Aurelius,” said Orcrist, sinking into his habitual easy chair, “who observed that ‘the universe is change.’ If he’d thought of it, he’d probably have added ‘and an art forger’s duties vary with the season’.”

  “Ah. Are my duties about to vary?”

  “As a matter of fact, they are.” Orcrist poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to Frank. “For three weeks now you’ve been working away here, and you’ve copied four paintings and eleven drawings that I’ve brought you. Where do you suppose those art works have come from?”

  “Stolen from museums and private collections,” answered Frank promptly.

  “Exactly. And whom do you suppose I had do the stealing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you. A cousin of mine named Bob Dill. And two nights ago he was stabbed to death by a zealous pair of guards at the Amory Gallery. They chased him all over the building, hacking at him, and finally brought him down in the Pre-Raphaelite room.”

  Frank was unable to guess the appropriate response to this story, so he said nothing.

  “What with one thing and another,” Orcrist continued, “I find it impractical to hire another thief. The fine art market is suffering these days; Costa’s damned taxes have taken up a good deal of the money that should rightfully go to people like you and me. The market isn’t dead, you understand, just a trifle unsteady.”

  “So how will you get your paintings now?” Frank asked with a little trepidation.

  “You and I will pinch them ourselves,” Orcrist announced with
a smile and a wave of his glass.

  Frank had a quick vision of himself bleeding out the last of his lifeblood on the floor of the Pre-Raphaelite room. “Make Pons do it,” he suggested.

  “Now, Frank, I know you don’t mean that. I knew when I first saw you that you had an adventurer’s heart. ‘The lad’s got an adventurer’s heart,’ I said to myself.” Frank looked closely at Orcrist, unable to tell whether or not he was being kidded. “Besides,” Orcrist went on, “I once gave Pons a chance to… prove himself under fire, and he absolutely failed to measure up. He’s a fine doorman and butler, but he does not have an adventurers heart.”

  “Oh,” said Frank, wondering how adventurous his own heart really was.

  “At any rate, Frank, we’ll begin tonight. Since it’s your first crack at this sort of thing, I plan to start with the Hauteur Museum. It’s an easy place.”

  “I’m glad of that.”

  “Relax, you’ll enjoy it. Now go get something to eat. We’ll leave at ten.”

  As Frank crossed to the door, he heard a soft creak behind it, and when he stepped into the hall he saw the door of Pons’s room being eased quietly shut.

  The Hauteur Museum had once been Munson’s pride, but with the building of several new theaters in the Ishmael Village district to the north, the Hauteur found itself no longer the heart of metropolitan culture. It was still well-thought-of when anyone did think of it, and it could still boast some influential paintings and sculptures, but its heyday was passed.

  At eleven o’clock Frank and Orcrist entered its cellar, having wormed their way up a laundry chute that had once, when the Hauteur had been a hotel two centuries before, emptied into a now-abandoned sub-basement. Orcrist had carefully lifted off the mahogany panel that hid the forgotten laundry chute. “We want to replace it when we’re done, you see,” he told Frank in a whisper, “in case we ever want to come back again.”

  They stole silently up the carpeted cellar stairs. Their way was lit by moonlight filtering through street-level grates set high in the walls, and Frank realized with a pang of homesickness how long it had been since he had seen real moonlight. I hope the museum has windows, he thought.