invitation. It was the major-domo’s job to recognize all of the capital’s quality by sight and greet them personally like long lost relatives. How could it be that there was someone standing here with an invitation he had never seen before? Then he read the beautiful calligraphy of the name. Cornelius Fortune! His eyes opened in understanding and the major-domo looked at Cornelius as if he had just discovered a mythical creature on his doorstep. ‘Mister Fortune! A rare pleasure, sir. I do not believe we have ever had the honour of your attendance at Whittington before. Allow us to take your cloak for you …’
Cornelius shrugged his hand away. ‘I get cold, man. Do you want me to pass away of the fever in your corridors?’
‘That would never do, sir. Please, come inside. You will find warmth and a special buffet cooked by our own chef, a man who once attended to the culinary needs of the Sun King personally.’
‘Very good, very good.’ Cornelius stumbled inside, ignoring the solicitations of the other staff and the tremor of interest that ran through the crowd as his name was announced. So, this was Whittington Manor? He should have brought Damson Beeton, she would have appreciated it. A peculiar resting place for the stripped-down components of antiquated steammen turned out of their graves and kidnapped by the flash mob. But this was the location that the mechomancer on the
Cornelius walked through a series of ballrooms until he came to the buffet tables, as many staff waiting to serve behind them as there were platters in front. ‘This is all foreign muck. Don’t you have any eels, or a nice lamb pie? Nothing spicy, mind, my plumbing is delicate.’
So, it appeared, were the sensibilities of the other guests. They seemed to vanish as the uncouth newcomer moved along the table, piling his plate with boiled potatoes, scraping off the buttery cream sauce and shovelling it onto a spare plate.
‘The meat on the river crab is very good,’ a voice announced. ‘If you can get under its shell to catch it.’
Abraham Quest. Word of Cornelius’s presence had been discreetly passed to the master of the manor and his curiosity had no doubt been piqued — as well as his ego flattered — that it was at one of
‘It’s a tough shell to get past,’ said Cornelius.
Quest picked up one of the long, tongue-like silver forks from the table, a single edge serrated and as sharp as a scalpel. ‘But not impossible. As long as you have the right leverage. Do I have the honour of addressing the Compte de Speeler?’
‘That’s not a title I use anymore. I prefer plain Mister Fortune.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Quest. ‘My experts in heraldry tell me that your title never actually existed, outside of the pages of a three-hundred-year-old adventure novel written by an obscure Quatershiftian author.’
‘I believe the writer used my family’s title in her book,’ said Cornelius. ‘There were so many small titles and noble grants in Quatershift … and then the revolution came.’
‘Yes, the revolution, and so much of the ancient regime’s history and documentation went up in the smoke of the Carlist book burnings,’ said Quest. ‘Interestingly enough, the word speeler has a different meaning in Jackals. In the argot of our criminal underclass it means a thief or a cheat.’
‘Really? I have never heard that before. Speeler is a small mountain village in the north of Quatershift, quite close to the border with Kikkosico.’
‘Your accent, if you don’t mind me saying so, sounds more rural Shapshire than Quatershiftian,’ said Quest.
‘I married into the family,’ said Cornelius. ‘I was born in Jackals.’
‘And now you are back. That can’t have been an easy journey.’
‘No,’ said Cornelius, ‘that it was not.’
‘Well, the only Carlists we have in the capital are the ones we’ve elected along with the Levellers to parliament. They seem a fairly harmless bunch in comparison to your revolutionaries in Quatershift.’
Cornelius gnawed greedily on a chick leg as if he was a hound. ‘I trust that they will stay that way.’
‘I trust they will, also. A little change is always good for the system.’
‘While a lot of change is better described as a cancer,’ said Cornelius, ‘something to be dug out with a surgeon’s blade.’
‘Or a trowel, perhaps?’ said Quest. ‘Someone with your name published a paper in the
‘You have a good memory.’
‘I have a freakishly unique one,’ said Quest, ‘although truth to tell, I find it a curse as much as it is a blessing. I can tell you the colour of the apron of the serving boy in the first drinking house I went into at the age of six. I can describe the conversations I heard there. I could tell you all of the drinks we consumed and in what order and how many pennies each of us paid for them. But, alas, all memory is dust without the wisdom to apply it. I haven’t noticed any papers published by yourself for quite a while.’
‘I like to spend my time in my garden on the Skerries on more practical pursuits,’ said Cornelius. ‘I still read the
‘Capital,’ said Quest. ‘Most of the people I meet at my functions think that gardening is what you do when you order the head groundsman to take the lawn roller out of the shed.’
‘You are telling me that the richest man in Jackals spends his Circleday afternoons in the rose beds behind this fortress?’ Cornelius was amused.
‘More or less,’ said Quest. ‘I have a conservatory on the roof and a collection of rare orchids up there. Their maintenance and care helps me relax. I am surprised you haven’t seen the cartoons lampooning my pastime in the Dock Street news sheets.’
‘I prefer the Quatershiftian press,’ said Cornelius.
‘Really?’ Quest raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m astonished there’s anything still coming over the border. I thought it was closed.’
‘Oh, you might be surprised at what makes it over the cursewall. One way or another.’
‘I’m sure I would be surprised by nothing where human nature is involved,’ smiled Quest. If he had been unsettled by Cornelius’s comment, he did not show it. ‘Are you familiar with orchids, Compte de Speeler?’
‘I was raised on a farm,’ said Cornelius. ‘My upbringing gave itself over to more practical horticulture. Manure and irrigation; the nurture of apple orchards, pearl barley, pear trees …’
‘I was raised in the alleys of Middlesteel myself,’ said Quest. ‘Cheap jinn and sleeping in the gutter with the other urchins. I was running with a bad crowd when I was younger. But I used to love the plants at Driselwell Market, the small flash of colour in the smoke, the traders from countries with names I couldn’t even pronounce, let alone locate in an atlas. It was one of those traders who gave me my first break — gave me an honest job and taught me to read, gave me the numbers I needed to help keep his ledger.’
‘From market-stall boy to all this,’ said Cornelius, indicating the ballroom. ‘That can’t have been an easy journey, either.’
‘Surprisingly easy,’ said Quest, ‘and diverting enough along the way. In fact, I rather think I enjoyed the journey more than the destination. When I was homeless on the streets, I couldn’t have afforded the price of the pot my orchids came to market in to piss in, let alone one of the flowers. Now I possess the rarest collection in Jackals. Perhaps I can convert you to my cause.’
‘Me?’
‘To a fancier of orchids, Compte de Speeler.’ Quest pointed up to the roof. ‘I am sure I can find time for a tour, for a fellow
Rare orchids and a chance to nose around for evidence of an even rarer trade in vintage steamman components. How could Cornelius refuse?
While the other drivers, footmen and assorted cabbies tossed a set of dice in the illumination of their coach lamps around the rear of Whittington Manor, Septimoth had moved to the inside of the old mail coach rather than perching on the step. He had tied up the horses inside the manor’s stables, all four of them used enough to the lashlite that they were not unsettled by his presence, not worried that he might swoop down from a height and bury his talons into their backs. This was slow work, following the precognitions of the seers of the crimson feather,
