The Skies Discrowned

by Tim Powers

  “Black coffee?” queried Frank with a quick smile. “Why black coffee, my lord?”

  “Because you’re drunk,” Emsley replied carelessly, not seeing the snare.

  “That will do, I think,” Frank said, “especially in front of thirteen witnesses. You will do me the honor, Lord Emsley, of meeting me in East Watson Hall tomorrow morning at ten?”

  Emsley paled. He glanced at Hussar, who was staring at the tabletop, and then at Frank. “But I—” he began. Frank raised his eyebrows. “All right,” Emsley said weakly. “Ten o’clock.”

  “Now back to more important things,” said Frank. “George, tell them about your bedtime story.”

  Tyler awkwardly outlined the story his mother used to tell him, and told them where she’d claimed the birth certificate was hidden.

  “And I know where that copy of Winnie the Pooh is, gentlemen,” said Frank. “I was with Topo when he was killed, and just before the Transports kicked down the door, I saw where he hid it.”

  “Where?” asked Hussar.

  “In the throne room. For the time being I’ll keep to myself the exact hiding place. Now pay attention, here is what we’ll do: I’ll assume a disguise and apply for the job of painting Costa’s portrait; I’m confident that I’ll get it. Once in the throne room I will quietly remove the Winnie the Pooh from its concealment, make an excuse to visit a bathroom, and blow a loud whistle down the bathtub drain.”

  “And what will that do?” asked Hussar with exaggerated politeness.

  “It will summon our army, which will be waiting in the sewers under the Ducal Palace. They will dynamite, from beneath, all the bathrooms, janitor closets and laundry rooms in the ground floor of the palace, and attack through the resultant holes. Our army is large and adequately trained, as you all know, even though it’s made of thieves and farmers. I don’t think there’s any doubt that we can take the palace. And with an acknowledged prince to set on the throne, we can hold it.”

  There was a thoughtful silence. “I think it’s good,” said Hodges finally. “I think it’ll work.”

  “If you’ve got it right about this birth certificate,” said Hussar cautiously, “I agree.”

  The others all nodded their somewhat qualified approval, except for Emsley, who looked nauseous.

  “With George on the throne we’ll be able to evict the Transport from Octavio,” Frank said. “They won’t go cheerfully, but they haven’t become strong enough to openly oppose the government. In a year they would be strong enough. I suggest, therefore, that we mount our attack on the day after tomorrow, first to strike before they get any stronger, and second to prevent them from hearing about it in advance.”

  “This seems hasty, your majesty …” began Hodges.

  “It’s quick, Hodges, but it isn’t hasty. Now send me maps of the palace sewers, and their connections with the understreet sewers. You’ll all be hearing from me tomorrow (later today, I should say), so be where I can reach you. And Hodges,” added Frank as they all stood up, “since it looks like I’m going to get no sleep tonight, bring me a pot of black coffee, will you?”

  For the next three hours, Frank studied multi-level sewer diagrams and drawings of the palace, making copious notes and drinking quantities of coffee. Finally he threw down his pen and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

  “I think I see how we’ll do it,” he said to Hodges, who was lighting his twelfth cigarette since the meeting. “The palace sewers all run into a long watercourse that joins the Leethee near the Bailey District. That’s the most direct route, and it shouldn’t be hard for you to get the army organized there. Then you run them up the line and into the pipes that connect with the palace. The pipes are all five feet high and probably well-built, since they date from the time of Duke Giroud. Then you’ll just wait for the whistle.”

  “Sounds good to me, sire,” said Hodges a little sleepily.

  Frank sat back and drained his most recent cup of coffee. “Hodges?”

  “Yes, sire?”

  “Was the Subterranean Companions’ meeting hall ever a church?”

  Hodges blinked. “Uh, yes. A couple of hundred years ago some philanthropist built two churches understreet. He later disappeared—some say he ascended bodily into heaven, some say he fell into the Leethee.” Hodges took a long puff on the cigarette and exhaled slowly. “So one of his churches became our meeting hall, and one, to the northwest, was converted into a cheap hotel. It was destroyed, incidentally, when that bomb took out four levels last year. The place had two carved-iron gates out front, said to have been cast by some sculptor of note. They both fell into the Leethee flood when the explosion kicked the place apart. Haven’t been found yet.”

  “Ah.” Frank reached for the coffee pot. “Well, I’ve got to figure out the arrangement of our troops, Hodges, but you can go home. Get some sleep; we’ll all be busy as hell later today.”

  “Right. Thank you, sire.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Thirty miles northwest of Munson—separated from the city by slums, suburbs, small cities and, eventually, the most wealthy neighborhoods on the planet—stood the Ducal Palace, a grim fortress of centuries-old stone under the bright banners that waved from its walls.

  The sun had made dust of the spring mud, and the merchants who thronged the gate and courtyard wore veils across their noses and mouths. Street musicians fiddled and clanged at every corner, storytellers babbled to rings of children, and palace guards fingered their sweat-damp sword grips and squinted irritably at the crowds. The place was a carnival of smells: garlic, curried meat, dust, sweat, hot metal and exotic tobacco.

  Under the barbican, across the bridge and through the gate plodded a tall man on a gray horse. The man wore a ragged brown leather jacket and a white cape, and had wrapped a length of white cloth around his head and across his lower face, so that only his cold blue eyes, a glimpse of a scar and a lock or two of black hair showed. He was unarmed, and carried only a wooden box slung behind him on the saddle.

  Whichever way it falls today, Frank thought, this is the end of a circular road I’ve traveled for a year. It’s been a busy year, too—I’ve been an art forger, a thief, a kitchen boy, a fencing teacher and a king of thieves. I’ve fallen in love, and climbed out of it. And I’ve seen more deaths—of friends, enemies and strangers—than I want to think about.

  He nudged his tired horse across the crowded courtyard to the steps of the keep.

  “What’s your business, stranger?” asked the guard, a red-faced man in the ubiquitous Transport uniform.

  Frank unwrapped the white cloth from his head and shook back his hair. An artificial moustache clung to his upper lip. “I’ve come to paint the Duke’s portrait,” he said. “I understand he wants it done.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, he does. Leave your horse here and go down the hall inside. Third door on your left. Are you armed?”

  “No. I’m a painter.”

  “Well, open up your box and let me see.”

  Frank unstrapped his battered wooden box and handed it to the guard, who set it down on the dusty pavement and flipped up its lid. He rummaged about for a few seconds in the brushes, crumpled tubes and bottles, and then closed it and gave it back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Go on in. Third on your left.”

  Frank dismounted and let a footman lead his horse away, then picked up his box and walked up the steps into the keep. The third door on the left opened easily when Frank turned the knob, revealing a counter behind which a dozen people sat at paper-littered desks. An old man shambled up to the counter.

  “You’re applying for the custodial position?” he asked.

  “No,” Frank said. “I’ve come to paint Duke Costa’s portrait.”

  “Oh. Okay. Wait on that bench for a moment.”

  Five minutes later a grinning, slick-haired clerk approached. “You’ve brought your portfolio, yes?”

  “No,” Frank said, “but I’ll draw you in two minutes.”

  The man raised an
eyebrow. “Go ahead.”

  Frank took a chewed pencil from a pocket in his leather jacket. He laid his box across his knees and quickly sketched the man, using the side of the box for a surface. The drawing was quick and graceful, shaded with the fine cross-hatching of which his father had been master.

  “Hm,” said the official, peering at it. “Not bad. But can you paint? It’s a painting he wants, you know.”

  “Paint. Sure.” Frank took three tubes of paint, all shades of brown. out of his box and squeezed blobs from them onto the bench. He dipped a brush in one and went to work on the wall. In five minutes there glistened on the ancient plaster a portrait, done in the style of Goya, of the slick-haired clerk.

  “Well,” said the clerk. “You’ve got the job, assuming the Duke likes your work, which I think he will; but I’m afraid I’ll have to fine you five malories for defacing government property.”

  “Take it out of my salary,” Frank said. “When can I start on the portrait?”

  “Anytime, I guess. I’ll have a guard escort you to the throne room, and you can discuss it with the Duke himself. Uh, what’s your name?”

  “Richard Helder,” Frank told him. The clerk scribbled it on a piece of paper, then handed it to a guard.

  “Just follow him, Mr. Helder,” the clerk said. Frank nodded his thanks and followed the guard upstairs.

  The throne room, as Frank noticed when he was finally admitted, had changed considerably during his absence. The bookcases and desk were gone, replaced by overly colorful tapestries, the throne had been painted, and the year-old, unfinished Claude Rovzar portrait of Duke Topo was nowhere to be seen.

  Duke Costa, a little redder of face and ampler of belly, was sitting on the throne and staring at a sheaf of star-maps. “Who’s that?” he asked the guard, pointing at Frank.

  “An artist,” said the guard. “Richard Helder. Briggs passed him.”

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Costa smiled, returning to his star-maps. Frank nodded and sat down in a chair by the entrance. He glanced at the doors and saw, dimly under the new paint, the unevenness of the putty filling in the old bullet holes.

  The rise and fall of Duke Costa, Frank thought. Or maybe the rise and fall of Frank Rovzar. This is the room our fathers died in.

  Under this building, he thought, staring at the floor, crouches, silently, my army. It would be an interesting development if the army wasn’t down there—if they’ve simply stayed home, as Emsley told them to do yesterday, just before I killed him.

  Idly, as he waited, Frank did a couple of sketches of Costa in profile on the reverse side of the paint box.

  Finally Costa flung the maps aside. “Mr. Helder?” he said. “I understand Briggs likes your work. He’s not too easily pleased. What were you drawing there, just a second ago?”

  Frank walked forward and showed the Duke the profiles.

  “Not bad,” Costa said with a critical squint. “I like the style. Did you ever study the works of Rovzar?”

  “What artist hasn’t?” replied Frank.

  “Just so,” nodded Costa. “When can you begin?”

  “That depends,” said Frank in an artificially casual voice. “You see, the only canvases I have are small—fit for paintings of children, or kittens, but hardly Dukes. I can order a canvas, of course; but with the interplanetary shipping system in the state it’s in, God knows when it would come.” He hoped Costa was unaware that canvases were made on Octavio. “Uh … you wouldn’t happen to have an old canvas, a painting, lying around, that I could paint over? Something roughly ten feet by five feet?”

  “By God, I have!” laughed Costa. “Hey, guard!” he yelled. “Bring that picture in here! The big unfinished one!” He grinned at Frank. “You, sir,” he said, “are to have the privilege of painting over a genuine unfinished Rovzar.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.

  The painting was brought in, still on the original easel. It was dimmed with dust, and something greasy had dripped down the left side of it, but Frank easily recognized his father’s work, and the sight of it brought back memories of the old man with more force than anything else had in a year.

  The guards bowed and withdrew. Frank took a rag out of his paint box and gently wiped off the canvas. There, looking nobler than Frank had ever seen him look in life, sat Duke Topo. Frank reached out and ran his fingers over the fine brush strokes.

  He turned to Costa to speak, but saw the Duke, suddenly pale, rising from the throne and pointing a trembling finger at him. “I … I was told you were dead,” he whispered.

  “You’ve got me confused with someone,” said Frank levelly. “No, no. Your drawing style—I should have guessed immediately.” The Duke slid his jewel-hiked rapier out of its velvet scabbard and then ran at Frank with the weapon held over his head like an axe. Frank snatched up the paint box and caught the descending blade with it; the sword stuck, and Frank roughly levered it out of Costa’s grasp. He kicked the Duke in the stomach and Costa dropped to the floor. Frank wrenched the paint-smeared blade loose, raised it—Costa cowered under an upflung arm—and brought it down across the face of the painting, slashing the canvas open from top to bottom.

  “Guards!” bellowed Costa, scuttling away from him like a frightened beetle. “I’m being killed!”

  Frank reached in behind the split painting and seized the book, then ran to the door just as it was flung open by the first of four sword-waving Transport guards.

  Frank drove the paint-colorful rapier at one of them, who parried it hard, flinging drops of color at the wall. The Winnie the Pooh was in Frank’s right hand, so he hit the man in the face with it. A sword tore a gash in Frank’s right shoulder, and he twisted around and cut the throat of the guard who held it. Then he was through them, and running to find a bathroom. He impatiently peeled off the itchy false moustache and flung it to the ground.

  “Get him! Get him!” screamed Costa. “He’s insane!” Frank ducked into one room and surprised a half-dozen women who were tacking typed pages onto a bulletin board; he fled them and their panicky, guard-drawing screams and dashed down another hallway. Blood from his shoulder spotted his cape and ran down his arm onto the leather binding of the book he held.

  Ahead of him a guard appeared from around a corner. The man raised his arm and a bang sounded as a strip of plaster beside Frank’s head turned to powder. Frank convulsively kicked open the nearest door, ran through the room beyond it and, whirling his cape over his head, leaped through the closed window.

  He fell, together with a rain of shattered glass, through fifteen feet of air onto a pavement, rolling as he landed to minimize the impact. He tore his cape off, picked up his book and colorful sword and looked around. He was in an enclosed garden; tables stood among the greenery, and astonished people were flinging down forks and getting to their feet; two guards, swords out, strode toward him.

  Frank desperately picked up a chair from beside a nearby table and tossed it through the largest ground-floor window, which burst inward with a hideous racket. Frank leaped through it, hearing the shouts of guards from all sides. I’ll never get to a bathroom now, he thought dizzily. They’ve got me surrounded.

  He was in a bar-lounge occupied only by a sparse mid-morning crowd. He vaulted over the bar, scattering glasses and ashtrays, and sent the bartender sprawling with a blow of his sword-pommel. Then, lying under the bar sink, he fumbled in his pocket and put a powerful whistle to his lips, and blew it with all the strength he could wring out of his lungs directly into the floor-drain.

  “Where is he?” called someone excitedly.

  “He’s hiding behind the bar!” howled the bartender, who had run off while Frank was blowing the whistle.

  “All right, Pete, bring your boys in from the left, and we’ll go in from the right. We may be able to get him alive.”

  Frank blew his whistle twice more, cupping his hands around the drain to aim the noise downward.

  “The Duke’s
right,” someone called. “He is crazy. He’s trying to play music back there.”

  Frank took hold of his sword, stuffed the book in his shirt and stood up. A dozen of them. Here’s where I die, possibly. “What’ll it be, gents?” he asked with a smile.

  They charged—and simultaneously the wall behind them exploded into the room like a gravel pile kicked by a giant. Frank was hurled backward into a display case full of bottles, and two of the Transports landed on top of him. After the debris had stopped falling he flung their limp bodies aside and struggled to his feet, coughing in the dust-foggy air. He heard the roars of two more explosions; and a third; and a fourth.

  The silhouettes of men moved behind the rubble of the wall. “Hey!” Frank called, waving his sword. “This way, Companions! I’m Rovzar!”

  The men cheered and ran to him, led by Hussar. “Should have known I’d find you in the bar,” the lord grinned.

  “We’ve got to get upstairs,” Frank said. “Costa’s up there. Come on.” Every second, more men were climbing out of the hole in the foundation where the ladies’ room had been, but Frank impatiently hustled the first ten out of the bar and up the first flight of stairs they came to.

  They met three guards on the stairs; two died and the third fled upstairs, hotly pursued. Yells, cheers and explosions echoed up and down the embattled corridors. Frank’s band of Companions took off after the fleeing Transport, but Frank concentrated on his search for the Duke. After a few minutes of running and dodging he saw, at the end of a corridor, the two doors bearing the scarred Frankie-and-Johnnie bas-relief. He ran toward them and launched a flying kick that ripped the bolt out of the wood on the other side. The doors slammed inward, knocking over a Transport guard and startling six others. Behind them all stood Costa, radiating both fear and rage.

  “There he is, idiots!” he yelled. “Get him, quickly!”

  Frank ran at the six guards and, with only a token preparatory feint, drove his point through one man’s throat. He parried a downward-sweeping blade with his right arm, and winced as the edge bit through the leather jacket into his skin; then he riposted with a quick jab between the ribs and the man rolled to the floor, more terrified than hurt. Two Transports now engaged Frank’s blade while a third man ran in and swung a whistling slash into Frank’s belly. The impact knocked Frank off his feet and the guards cheered as their adversary fell.