They worked. After a while his friend hauled what was left of some former members of the flock over to the pit, and pushed them in. The pit went down a long way.
The Marquis tried to ignore the stranger, who was now standing behind him. He was quite put out when he felt something slapped over his mouth, and his hands being bound together behind his back. He was not certain what he was meant to do. It made him feel quite out of step with the flock, and he would have complained, would have called out to his friend, but his lips were now stuck together and he was unable to do more than make ineffectual noises.
“It’s me,” whispered the voice from behind him, urgently. “Peregrine. Your brother. You’ve been captured by the shepherds. We have to get you out of here.” And then, “Uh-oh.”
A noise in the air, like something barking. It came closer: a high yip-yipping that turned suddenly into a triumphant howl, and was answered by matching howls from around them.
A voice barked, “Where’s your flockmate?”
A low, elephantine voice rumbled, “He went over there. With the other one.”
“Other one?”
The Marquis hoped they would come and find him and sort this all out. There was obviously some sort of mistake going on. He wanted to be in step with the flock, and now he was out of step, an unwilling victim. He wanted to work.
“Lud’s gate!” muttered Peregrine. And then they were surrounded by the shapes of people who were not exactly people: they were sharp of face, and dressed in furs. They spoke excitedly to each other.
The people untied the Marquis’s hands, although they left the tape on his face. He did not mind. He had nothing to say.
The Marquis was relieved it was all over and looked forward to getting back to work, but, to his slight puzzlement, he, his kidnapper, and his friend with the huge long flexible nose were walked away from the pit, along a causeway, and, eventually, into a honeycomb of little rooms, each room filled with people toiling away in step.
Up some narrow stairs. One of their escorts, dressed in rough furs, scratched at a door. A voice called, “Enter!” and the Marquis felt a thrill that was almost sexual. That voice. That was the voice of someone the Marquis had spent his whole life wanting to please. (His whole life went back, what? A week? Two weeks?)
“A stray lamb,” said one of the escorts. “And his predator. Also his flockmate.”
The room was large, and hung with oil paintings: landscapes, mostly, stained with age and smoke and dust. “Why?” said the man, sitting at a desk in the back of the room. He did not turn around. “Why do you bother me with this nonsense?”
“Because,” said a voice, and the Marquis recognized it as that of his would-be kidnapper, “you gave orders that if ever I were to be apprehended within the bounds of the Shepherd’s Bush, I was to be brought to you to dispose of personally.”
The man pushed his chair back and got up. He walked towards them, stepping into the light. There was a wooden crook propped against the wall, and he picked it up as he passed. For several long moments he looked at them.
“Peregrine?” he said, at last, and the Marquis thrilled at his voice. “I had heard that you had gone into retirement. Become a monk or something. I never dreamed you’d dare to come back.”
(Something very big was filling the Marquis’s head. Something was filling his heart and his mind. It was something enormous, something he could almost touch.)
The shepherd reached out a hand and ripped the tape from the Marquis’s mouth. The Marquis knew he should have been overjoyed by this, should have been thrilled to get attention from this man.
“And now I see . . . who would have thought it?” The shepherd’s voice was deep and resonant. “He is here already. And already one of ours? The Marquis de Carabas. You know, Peregrine, I had been looking forward to ripping out your tongue, to grinding your fingers away while you watched, but think how much more delightful it would be if the last thing you ever saw was your own brother, one of our flock, as the instrument of your doom.”
(An enormous thing filled the Marquis’s head.)
The shepherd was plump, well-fed, and was excellently dressed. He had sandy-gray-colored hair and a harassed expression. He wore a remarkable coat, even if it was somewhat tight on him. The coat was the color of a wet street at midnight.
The enormous thing filling his head, the Marquis realized, was rage. It was rage, and it burned through the Marquis like a forest fire, devouring everything in its path with a red flame.
The coat. It was elegant. It was beautiful. It was so close that he could have reached out and touched it.
And it was unquestionably his.
The Marquis de Carabas did nothing to indicate that he had woken up. That would have been a mistake. He thought, and he thought fast, and what he thought had nothing to do with the room he was in. The Marquis had only one advantage over the shepherd and his dogs: he knew he was awake and in control of his thoughts, and they did not.
He hypothesized. He tested his hypothesis in his head. And then, he acted. “Excuse me,” he said, blandly. “But I’m afraid I do need to be getting along. Can we hurry this up? I’m late for something that’s frightfully important.”
The shepherd leaned on his crook. He did not appear to be concerned by this. He said only, “You’ve left the flock, de Carabas.”
“It would appear so,” said the Marquis. “Hello, Peregrine. Wonderful to see you looking so sprightly. And the Elephant. How delightful. The gang’s all here.” He turned his attention back to the shepherd. “Wonderful meeting you, delightful to spend a modicum of time
