Weaveworld

off, and turned his attention to Cal. Any luck?’

‘Not yet. I’m not very good with wires.’

‘Maybe I’ll find somebody in Nonesuch,’ he said, ‘who can do it for me. It’s only spitting distance now.’

‘We’re going to Capra’s House,’ said Suzanna.

‘And I’ll go with you. Only via the town.’

Suzanna began to argue.

‘A man’s got to eat,’ said de Bono. ‘My stomach thinks my throat’s cut.’

‘No detours,’ said Suzanna.

‘It’s not a detour,’ de Bono replied, beaming, ‘it’s on our way.’ He cast her a sideways glance. ‘Don’t be so suspicious,’ he said. ‘You’re worse than Galin. I’m not going to lead you astray. Trust me.’

‘We haven’t got time for sight-seeing. We’ve got urgent business.’

‘With the Prophet?’

‘Yes …’

‘There’s a piece of Cuckoo-shite,’ Cal commented.

‘Who? The Prophet?’ said de Bono. ‘A Cuckoo?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Suzanna.

‘See, Galin wasn’t entirely wrong,’ Cal said. ‘The radio’s a little piece of corruption.’

‘I’m safe,’ said de Bono, ‘it can’t touch me.’

‘Oh no?’ said Suzanna.

‘Not here,’ de Bono replied, tapping his chest, ‘I’m sealed.’

‘Is that how it has to be?’ said Suzanna, sighing. ‘You sealed up in your assumptions, and us in ours?’

‘Why not?’ said de Bono. ‘We don’t need you.’

‘You want the radio,’ she pointed out.

He snorted. ‘Not that much. If I lose it I won’t weep. It’s worthless. All Cuckoo stuff is.’

‘Is that what Starbrook says?’ Suzanna remarked.

‘Oh very clever,’ he replied, somewhat sourly.

‘I dreamt of this place –’ Cal said, breaking into the debate, ‘I think a lot of Cuckoos do.’

‘You may dream of us,’ de Bono replied ungraciously. ‘We don’t of you.’

‘That’s not true,’ Suzanna said. ‘My grandmother loved one of your people, and he loved her back. If you can love us, you can dream of us too. The way we dream of you, given the chance.’

She’s thinking of Jerichau. Cal realized: she’s talking in the abstract, but that’s who she’s thinking of.

‘Is that so?’ said de Bono.

‘Yes, that’s so,’ Suzanna replied, with sudden fierceness. ‘It’s all the same story.’

‘What story?’ Cal said.

‘We live it and they live it,’ she said, looking at de Bono. ‘It’s about being born, and being afraid of dying, and how love saves us.’ This she said with great certainty, as though it had taken her a good time to reach this conclusion and she was unshakeable on it.

It silenced the opposition awhile. All three walked on without further word for two minutes or more, until de Bono said:

‘I agree.’

She looked up at him.

‘You do?’ she said, plainly surprised.

He nodded. ‘One story?’ he said. ‘Yes, that makes sense to me. Finally, it’s the same for you as it is for us, raptures or no raptures. Like you say. Being born, dying: and love between.’ He made a small murmur of appreciation, then added: ‘You’d know more about the last part, of course,’ he said, unable to suppress a giggle. ‘Being the older woman.’

She laughed; and as if in celebration the radio leapt into life once more, much to its owner’s delight and Cal’s astonishment.

‘Good man,’ de Bono whooped. ‘Good man!’

He claimed it from Cal’s hands, and began to tune it, so that it was with musical accompaniment that they entered the extraordinary township of Nonesuch.

V

NONESUCH

1

s they stepped into the streets de Bono warned them that the township had been put together in considerable haste, and that they shouldn’t expect a paradigm of civil planning. But the warning went little way to preparing them for the experience ahead. There seemed to be no sign whatsoever of order in the place. The houses had been laid cheek by jowl in hapless confusion, the tunnels between – the terms streets flattered them – so narrow, and so thick with citizens, that wherever the eye went it found faces and facades ranging from the primitive to the baroque.

Yet it wasn’t dark here. There was a shimmering in the stone, and in the paving at their feet, that lit the passages, and turned the humblest wall into an accidental masterpiece of bright mortar and brighter brick.

Any glamour the town could lay claim to was more than matched by its inhabitants. Their clothes had in them that same amalgam of the severe and the dazzling which the visitors had come to recognize as quintessentially Seerkindish; but here, in the Fugue’s closest approximation to an urban environment, the style had been taken to new extremes. Everywhere there were remarkable garments and accoutrements on view. A formal waistcoat that rang with countless tiny bells. A woman whose clothes, though buttoned up to the throat, so matched the colour of her skin she was dressed as if naked. On a window sill a young girl sat cross-legged, ribbons of every colour lifting around her face on no discernible breeze. Further down the same alley a man whose fedora seemed to have been woven from his hair was talking with his daughters, while in an adjacent doorway, a man in a rope suit sang to his dog. And style, of course, bred anti-style, like that of the negress and the white woman who whistled past naked but for pantaloons held up with string.

Though all took pleasure in how they appeared, it was not an end in itself. They had business to do this new morning; there was no time for posturing.

The only sights that seemed to be drawing any significant attention were the few items of late twentieth- century bric-a-brac that a few of the citizens were playing with. More gifts from the Prophet’s Elite, no doubt. Toys that would tarnish in days, the way all Shadwell’s promises would. There was no time to try and persuade the owners of these glittering nonsenses to discard them; they would find out soon enough how frail any gift from that source truly was.

‘I’ll take you to The Liars.’ said de Bono, leading the way through the crowd. ‘We’ll eat there, then get on our way.’

From every direction sights and sounds claimed the attention of the Cuckoos. Snatches of conversation came at them from doorstep and window; and songs (some from radios); and laughter. A baby bawled in its mother’s arms; something barked above them, and Cal looked up to see a peacock parading on a high balcony.

‘Where’s he gone, for God’s sake?’ said Suzanna, as de Bono disappeared into the crowd for the third or fourth time. ‘He’s too damn quick.’

‘We have to trust him. We need a guide,’ said Cal. He caught sight of de Bono’s blond head. There –’

They turned a corner. As they did so a cry went up from somewhere in the packed alleyway ahead, so piercing and so grief-stricken it seemed murder must have been committed. The sound didn’t silence the crowd, but hushed it enough for Cal and Suzanna to catch the words that followed, as the echo of the howl died.

‘They burned Capra’s House!’

‘That can’t be,’ somebody said, a denial taken up on every side, as the word spread. But the news-carrier was not about to be shouted down.