"What was that?"
She"d heard nothing, but she did now: a distant rumbling from below.
"Whatever were you up to down there? Not destroying the library, I hope. I wanted that satisfaction for myself. Oh, dear. Well, there"ll be plenty of other chances to play the barbarian. It"s in the air, don"t you think?"
Jude"s thoughts went to Celestine. Dowd was perfectly capable of doing her harm. She had to go back down and warn the G.o.ddess, perhaps find some means of defense. In the meantime, she"d play along.
"Where will you go after this?" she asked Dowd, lightening her tone as best she could.
"Back to Regent"s Park Road, I thought. We can sleep in our master"s bed. Oh, what am I saying? Please don"t think I want your body. I know the rest of the world thinks heaven"s in your lap, but I"ve been celibate for two hundred years and I"ve completely lost the urge. We can live as brother and sister, can"t we? That doesn"t sound so bad, now, does it?"
"No," she said, fighting the urge to spit her disgust in his face. "No, it doesn"t."
"Well, look, why don"t you wait for me downstairs? I"ve got a bit of business left to do here. Rituals have to be observed."
"Whatever you say," she replied.
She left him to his farewells, whatever they were, and headed back to the stairs. The rumbling that had caught his attention had ceased, but she hurried down the concrete flight with high hopes. The cell was open, she knew it. In a matter of moments she"d set her eyes on the G.o.ddess and, perhaps as importantly, Celestine would set her eyes on Jude. In one sense, what Dowd had expressed above was true. With Oscar dead, she was indeed free from the curse of her creation. It was tune to know herself and be known.
As she walked through the remaining room of Roxborough"s house and started down the stairs into the cellar, she sensed the change that had come over the maze below. She didn"t have to search for the cell; the energy in the air moved like an invisible tide, carrying her towards its source. And there it was, in front of her: the cell wall a heap of splinters and rubble, the gap its collapse had made rising to the ceiling. The dissolution she"d initiated was still going on. Even as she approached, further bricks fell away, their mortar turned to dust. She braved the fall, clambering up over the wreckage to peer into the cell. It was dark inside, but her eyes soon found the mummified form of the prisoner, lying in the dirt.
There was no movement in the body whatsoever. She went to it and fell to her knees to tear at the fine threads that Roxborough or his agents had bound Celestine with. They were too tough for her fingers, so she went at them with her teeth. The threads were bitter, but her teeth were sharp, and once one succ.u.mbed to her bites others quickly followed. A tremor pa.s.sed through the body, as if the captive sensed liberation. As with the bricks, the message of unmaking was contagious, and she"d only snapped half a dozen of the threads when they began to stretch and break of their own volition, aided by the motion of the body they"d bound. Her cheek was stung by the flight of one, and she was obliged to retreat as the unfettering spread, the threads describing sinuous motions as they broke, their severed ends bright.
The trdmors in Celestine"s body were now convulsions, growing as the ambition of the threads increased. They weren"t simply flying wildly, Jude realized; they were reaching out in all directions, up towards the ceiling of the cell and to its walls. Stung by them once, the only way she could avoid further contact was by backing away to the hole through which she"d come and then out, stumbling over the rubble.
As she emerged she heard Dowd"s voice, somewhere in the labyrinth behind her. "What have you been doing, lovey?"
She wasn"t quite sure, was the truth. Though she"d been the initiator of this unbinding, she wasn"t its mistress. The cords had an urgency of their own, and whether it was Celestine who moved them, or Roxborough who"d plaited into them the instruction to destroy anyone who came seeking his prisoner"s release, they were not about to be placated or contained. Some were s.n.a.t.c.hing at the edge of the hole, dragging away more of the bricks. Others, demonstrating an elasticity she hadn"t expected, were nosing over the rubble, turning over stones and books as they advanced.
"Oh, my Lord," she heard Dowd say, and turned to see him standing in the pa.s.sageway half a dozen yards behind her, with his surgeon"s knife in one hand and a b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief in the other.
This was the first sight she had of him head to foot, and the burden of Pivot shards he carried was apparent. He looked utterly maladroit, his shoulders mismatched and his left leg turned inward, as though a shattered bone had been badly set.
"What"s in there?" he said, hobbling towards her. "Is this your friend?"
"I suggest you keep your distance," she said.
He ignored her. "Did Roxborough wall something up? Look at those things! Is it an Oviate?"
"No."
"What then? G.o.dolphin never told me about this."
"He didn"t know."
"But you did?" he said, glancing back at her as he advanced to study the cords, which were emerging all the time. "I"m impressed. We"ve both kept our little secrets, haven"t we?"
One of the cords reared suddenly from the rubble, and he jumped back, the handkerchief dropping from his hand. It unfolded as it fell, and the piece of Oscar"s flesh Dowd had wrapped in it landed in the dirt. It was vestigial, but she knew it well enough. He"d cut off the curiosity and carried it away as a keepsake.
She let out a moan of disgust. Dowd started to stoop to pick it up, but her rage-which she"d concealed for Celes-tine"s sake-erupted.
"You sc.u.mbag!" she said, and went at him with both hands raised above her head, locked into a single fist.
He was heavy with shards and couldn"t rise fast enough to avoid her blow. She struck the back of his neck, a clout that probably hurt her more than him, but unbalanced a body already too asymmetrical for its own good. He stumbled, prey to gravity, and sprawled in the rubble. He knew his indignity, and it enraged him.
"Stupid cow!" he said. "Stupid, sentimental cow! Pick it up! Go on, pick it up! Have it if you want to."
"I don"t want it."
"No, I insist It"s a gift, brother to sister."
"I"m not your sister! I never was and I never will be!"
Mites were appearing from his mouth as he lay on the rubble, some of them grown fat as c.o.c.kroaches on the power he carried in his skin. Whether they were for her benefit or to protect him against the presence in the wall she didn"t know, but seeing them she took a step away from him.
"I"m going to forgive you this," he said, all magnanimity. "You"re overwrought, I know." He raised his arm. "Help me up," he said. "Tell me you"re sorry, and it"s forgotten."
"I loathe everything you are," she said.
Despite the mites, it was self-preservation that made her speak, not courage. This was a place of power. The truth would serve her better here than a lie, however politic.
He withdrew his arm and started to haul himself up. As he did so she took two steps forward and, picking up the bloodied handkerchief, claimed with it the last of Oscar. As she stoofl up again, almost guilty at what she"d done, she caught sight of a motion in the wall. A pale form had appeared against the darkness of the cell, as ripe and rounded a form as the wall that framed it was ragged. Celestine was floating, or rather was borne up as Quaisoir had been borne up, on ribbons of flesh, the filaments that had once smothered her clinging to her limbs like the remnants of a coat and draped around her head as a living hood. The face beneath was delicately boned, but severe, and what beauty it might have possessed was spoiled by the dementia that burned in it. Dowd was still in the process of rising and turned to follow Jude"s astonished gaze. When he set eyes on the apparition his body failed him, and he fell back onto the rubble, belly down. From his mite-sp.a.w.ning mouth came one terrified word.
"Celestine?"
The woman had approached the limits of her cell and now raised her hands to touch the bricks that had sealed her in for so long. Though she merely brushed them, they seemed to flee her fingers, tumbling down to join the rest, There was ample room for her to emerge, but she hung back and spoke from the shadows, her pupils flicking back and forth maniacally, her lips curling back from her teeth as though in rehearsal for some ghastly revelation. She matched Dowd"s single utterance with a word of her own: "Dowd."
"Yes ..." he murmured, "it"s me," So he"d been honest in some part of his biography at least, Jude thought. She knew him, just as he"d claimed to know her.
"Who did this to you?" he said.
"Why ask me," Celestine said, "when you were part of the plot?" In her voice was the same mingling of lunacy and composure her body exhibited, her mellifluous tones accompanied by a fluttering that was almost a second voice, speaking in tandem with the first.
"I didn"t know, I swear," Dowd said. He craned his heavy head to appeal to Jude. "Tell her," he said.
Celestine"s oscillating gaze rose to Jude. "You?" she said. "Did you conspire against me?"
"No," Jude said. "I"m the one who freed you."
"I freed myself."
"But I began it," Jude said.
"Come closer. Let me see you better."
Jude hesitated to approach, with Dowd"s face still a nest of mites. But Celestine made her demand again, and Jude obeyed. The woman raised her head as she approached, turning it this way and that, perhaps to coax her torpid muscles back into life.
"Are you Roxborough"s woman?" she said.
"No."
"That"s close enough," she told Jude. "Who"s then? Which one of them do you belong to?"
"I don"t belong to any of them," Jude said. "They"re all dead."
"Even Roxborough?"
"He"s been gone two hundred years."
At last the eyes stopped flickering, and their stillness, now it came, was more distressing than their motion. She had a gaze that could slice steel.
"Two hundred years," she said. It wasn"t a question, it was an accusation. And it wasn"t Jude she was accusing, it was Dowd. "Why didn"t you come for me?"
"I thought you were dead and gone," he told her.
"Dead? No. That would have been a kindness. I bore His child. I raised it for a time. You knew this."
"How could I? It was none of my business."
"You made me your business," she said. "The day you took me from my life and gave me to G.o.d. I didn"t ask for that, and I didn"t want it-"
"I was just a servant."
"Dog, more like. Who"s got your leash now? This woman?"
"I serve n.o.body."
"Good. Then you can serve me."
"Don"t trust him," Jude said.
"Who, would you prefer I trust?" Celestine replied, not deigning to look at Jude. "You? I don"t think so. You"ve got blood on your hands, and you smell of coitus."
These last words were tinged with such disgust Jude couldn"t stem her retort. "You wouldn"t be awake if I hadn"t found you."
"Consider your freedom to go from this place my thanks," Celestine replied. "You wouldn"t wish to know my company for very long."
Jude didn"t find that difficult to believe. After all the months she"d waited for this meeting, there were no revelations to be had here: only Celestine"s insanity and the ice of her rage.
Dowd, meanwhile, was getting to his feet. As he did so, one of the woman"s ribbons unfurled itself from the shadows and reached towards him. Despite his earlier protests, he made no attempt to avoid it. A suspicious air of humility had come over him. Not only did he put up no resistance, he actually proffered his hands to Celestine for binding, placing them pulse to pulse. She didn"t scorn his offer. The ribbon of her flesh wrapped itself around his wrists, then tightened, tugging at him to haul him up the incline of brick.
"Be careful," Jude warned her. "He"s stronger than he looks."
"It"s all stolen." Celestine replied, "His tricks, his decorums, his power. None of it belongs to him. He"s an actor. Aren"t you?"
As if in acquiescence, Dowd bowed his head. But as he did so he dug his heels into the rubble and refused to be drawn any further. Jude started to voice a second warning; but before it was out of her mouth, his fingers closed around the flesh and pulled hard. Caught unawares, Celestine was dragged against the raw edge of the hole, and before the rest of her filaments could come to her aid Dowd had raised his wrists above his head and casually snapped the flesh that bound them. Celestine let out a howl of pain and retreated into the sanctuary of her cell, trailing the severed ribbon.
Dowd gave her no respite, however, but went in instant pursuit, yelling to her as he shambled up over the heaped rubble, "I"m not your slave! I"m not your dog! And you"re no f.u.c.king G.o.ddess! You"re a wh.o.r.e!"
Then he was gone into the darkness of the cell, roaring. Jude ventured a few steps closer to the hole, but the combatants had retreated into its recesses, and she saw nothing of their struggle. She heard it, however: the hiss of breaths expelled in pain; the sound of bodies pitched against the stone. The walls shook, and books all along the pa.s.sageway were thrown from their shelves, the tide of power s.n.a.t.c.hing loose sheets and pamphlets up into the air like birds in a hurricane, leaving the heavier tomes to thrash on the ground, broken-backed.
And then, suddenly, it was over. The commotion in the cell ceased utterly, and there were several seconds of motionless hush, broken by a moan and the sight of a hand reaching out of the murk to clutch at the broken wall. A moment later Dowd stumbled into view, his other hand clamped to his face. Though the shards he carried were powerful, the flesh they were seated in was weak, and Celestine had exploited that frailty with the efficiency of a warrior. Half his face was missing, stripped to the bone, and his body was more unknitted than the corpse he"d left on the table above: his abdomen gaping, his limbs battered.
He fell as he emerged. Rather than attempting to get to his feet-which she doubted he was capable of doing-he crawled over the rubble like a blind man, his hands feeling out the wreckage ahead. Sobs came from him now and then, and whimpers, but the effort of escape was quickly consuming what little strength he had, and before he reached clear ground his noises gave out. So, a little time after, did he. His arms folded beneath him, and he collapsed, face to the floor, surrounded by twitching books.
Jude watched his body for a count of ten, then moved back towards the cell. As she came within two yards of his body, she saw a motion and froze in her tracks. There was life in him still, though it wasn"t his. The mites were exiting his open mouth, like fleas hastening from a cooling host. They came from his nostrils, too, and from his ears. Without his will t6 direct them they were probably harmless, but she wasn"t going to test that notion. She stepped as wide of them as she could, taking an indirect route up over the rubble to the threshold of Celestine"s asylum.
The shadows were much thickened by the dust that danced in the air, an aftermath of the forces that had been unleashed inside. But Celestine was visible, lying crookedly against the far wall. He"d done her harm, no doubt of that. Her pale skin was seared and ruptured at thigh, flank, and shoulder. Roxborough"s purgative zeal still had some jurisdiction in his tower, Jude thought. She"d seen three apostates laid low in the s.p.a.ce of an hour one above and two below: Of them all, his prisoner Celestine seemed to have suffered least. Wounded though she was, she still had the will to turn her fierce eyes in Jude"s direction and say, "Have you come to crow?"
"I tried to warn you," Jude said. "I don"t want us to be enemies, Celestine. I want to help you."
"On whose command?"
"On my own. Why"d you a.s.sume everybody"s a slave or a wh.o.r.e or somebody"s d.a.m.n dog?"
"Because that"s the way the world is," she said.
"It"s changed, Celestine."
"What? Are the humans gone then?"
"It"s not human to be a slave."
"What would you know?" the woman said. "I don"t sniff much humanity in you. You"re some kind of pretender, aren"t you? Made by a Maestro."
It would have pained Jude to hear such dismissal from any source, but from this woman, who"d been for so long a beacon of hope and healing, it was the bitterest condemnation. She"d fought so hard to be more than a fake, forged in a manmade womb. But with a few words Celestine had reduced her to a mirage.
"You"re not even natural," she said.
"Nor are you," Jude snapped back.
"But I was once," Celestine said. "And I cling to that."
"Cling all you like, it won"t change the facts. No natural woman could have survived in here for two centuries."
"I had my revenge to nourish me."
"On Roxborough?"
"On them all, all except one."
"Who?"
"The Maestro... Sartori."
"You knew him?"
"Too little," Celestine said.