“You thought she would read it and then be more inclined to listen to your suit.”
The young man looked down at his duffel coat with a puzzled expression. “I’ve not got a suit,” he said. “Only what I’ve got on.”
The Marquis tried not to sigh. The Mushroom woman put a cracked plastic plate down in front of him, with a steaming slice of grilled the Mushroom on it, soaking into a brown slice of crusty toast.
He poked at the Mushroom experimentally, making sure that it was cooked all the way through, and there were no active spores. You could never be too careful, and the Marquis considered himself much too selfish for symbiosis.
It was good. He chewed, and swallowed, though the food hurt his throat.
“So all you want is for me to make sure she reads your missive of yearning?”
“You mean my letter? My poem?”
“I do.”
“Well, yes. And I want you to be there with her, to make sure she doesn’t put it away unread, and I want you to bring her answer back to me.” The Marquis looked at the young man. It was true that he had tiny mushrooms sprouting from his neck and cheeks, and his hair was heavy and unwashed, and there was a general smell about him of abandoned places, but it was also true that through his thick fringe his eyes were pale blue and intense, and that he was tall, and not unattractive. The Marquis imagined him washed and cleaned up and somewhat less fungal, and approved. “I put the letter in the sandwich bag,” said the young man, “So it doesn’t get wet on the way.”
“Very wise. Now, tell me: who bought my coat?”
“Not yet, Mister Jumps-the-gun. You haven’t asked about my true love. Her name is Drusilla. You’ll know her because she is the most beautiful woman in all of the Raven’s Court.”
“Beauty is traditionally in the eye of the beholder. Give me more to go on.”
“I told you. Her name’s Drusilla. There’s only one. And she has a big red birthmark on the back of her hand that looks like a star.”
“It seems an unlikely love pairing. One of the Mushroom’s folk, in love with a lady of the Raven’s Court. What makes you think she’ll give up her life for your damp cellars and fungoid joys?”
The Mushroom youth shrugged. “She’ll love me,” he said. “Once she’s read my poem.” He twisted the stem of a tiny parasol mushroom growing on his right cheek, and when it fell to the table, he picked it up and continued to twist it between his fingers. “We’re on?”
“We’re on.”
“The cove as bought your coat,” said the Mushroom youth, “carried a stick.”
“Lots of people carry sticks,” said de Carabas.
“This one had a crook on the end,” said the Mushroom youth. “Looked a bit like a frog, he did. Short one. Bit fat. Hair the color of gravel. Needed a coat and took a shine to yours.” He popped the parasol mushroom into his mouth.
“Useful information. I shall certainly pass your ardor and felicitations on to the fair Drusilla,” said the Marquis de Carabas, with a cheer that he most definitely did not feel.
De Carabas reached across the table, and took the sandwich bag with the envelope in it from the young man’s fingers. He slipped it into one of the pockets sewn inside his shirt.
And then he walked away, thinking about a man holding a crook.
THE MARQUIS DE Carabas wore a blanket as a substitute for his coat. He wore it swathed about him like hell’s own poncho. It did not make him happy. He wished he had his coat. Fine feathers do not make fine birds, whispered a voice at the back of his mind, something someone had said to him when he was a boy; he suspected that it was his brother’s voice, and he did his best to forget it had ever spoken.
A crook: the man who had taken his coat from the sewer people had been carrying a crook.
He pondered.
The Marquis de Carabas liked being who he was, and when he took risks he liked them to be calculated risks, and he was someone who double- and triple-checked his calculations.
He checked his calculations for the fourth time.
The Marquis de Carabas did not trust people. It was bad for business and it could set an unfortunate precedent. He did not trust his friends or his occasional lovers, and he certainly never trusted his employers. He reserved the entirety of his trust for the Marquis de Carabas, an imposing figure in an imposing coat, able to outtalk, outthink and outplan anybody.
There were only two sorts of people who carried crooks: bishops and shepherds.
In Bishopsgate, the crooks were decorative, nonfunctional, purely symbolic. And the bishops had no need of coats. They had robes, after all, nice, white, bishoppy robes.
The Marquis was not scared of the bishops. He knew the Sewer Folk were not scared of the bishops. The inhabitants of Shepherd’s Bush were another matter entirely. Even in his coat, and at the best of times, at the peak of health and with a small army at his beck and call, the Marquis would not have wanted to encounter the shepherds.
He toyed with the idea of visiting Bishopsgate, of spending a pleasant handful of days establishing that his coat was not there.
And then he sighed, dramatically, and went to the Guide’s Pen, and looked for a bonded guide who might be persuaded take him to Shepherd’s Bush.
HIS GUIDE WAS quite remarkably short, with fair hair cut close. The Marquis had first thought she was in her teens, until,
