"Yes, sir."
"Then," Mountjoy went on, glimmering unpleasantly, "a quarter of an hour later you meet him sauntering down a corridor with a girl."
"Yes, sir."
"Whereupon he kills you."
"Sir."
"Pursuivant," Mountjoy said, glowing like a constipated firefly, "you excel yourself. Thanks to you, they"ve disappeared. Completely. Without trace."
"They, sir?"
"The Pope, you idiot. And the Anti-Pope, And ..." Mountjoy mimed a one-armed, partially-sighted man. "Vanished into thin air. What were you playing at?"
"I was being killed, sir."
"When I"ve finished with you," Mountjoy roared, "you"ll wish you were dead ..." He tailed off, and a few desultory sparks crackled from his nose, singeing the hairs. Pursuivant stayed rigidly at attention. He knew from long experience that having your arms drawn tightly in towards your body made you a smaller target.
"Anyway," said Mountjoy, "the question now is, what are you going to do about it?"
"Me, sir?" Pursuivant said, realising as he did so that he"d gone and c.o.c.ked it up again. "I mean, sir -"
"Yes, soldier, you." Mountjoy stood silently for a moment, looking for all the world like a pensive table lamp. He turned as the door opened and White Herald came in. He was limping, probably because they"d run out of offside tibias in 63E again. He held a sheet of paper.
"Fax just come through, sir," he said. "Marked F.A.O. Acting General Manager. Brought it straight here."
Mountjoy frowned and grabbed at the paper. A moment later he made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat, grating and ominous, like the sound of hubcap on kerb.
"Now look what you"ve done," he said. "This is from de Nesle."
"Sir."
"Stop saying sir like that. He claims to have overpowered them and locked them up in his dungeons." Mountjoy sighed. "Well now, this is a bit of a problem, isn"t it? Well?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir. And there"s not really much point in sending you to get them out again, is there?"
"No, sir."
"No, sir. Because you don"t know where to look. And even if you did, you"re too incompetent to do even the simplest ... What is it?"
Pursuivant knew better than to look round. In the arcane and convoluted code of regulations by which the Chastel guard was governed, looking round in the presence of a superior officer was punishable in a number of cleverly devised ways, most of which included swapping components around between the individual offenders. When the newcomer spoke, however, he recognised the voice of the chief warder of the dungeons.
"Sorry to interrupt, chief," said the warder, "but I thought you ought to know. I was just doing my rounds when I noticed, there"s two new prisoners in Cell Fifty-Nine."
Mountjoy dimmed incredulously. "Two new prisoners?"
"Yes, chief."
"You mean somebody"s broken into the prison?"
"Looks like it, chief."
The Chaplain furrowed his brows, producing interesting kaleidoscopic effects on the ceiling. "Cell Fifty-Nine? You"re sure?"
"Sure, chief."
"Well, now," Mountjoy said, "I think we"d better have a look at this."
Musicology records that the concert was a success.
"His lambent woodnotes," wrote the critic of the New Theosociologist, "blended pellucid leitmotiven with an extravaganza of polychromatic detail, often resulting in a vibrant antagonism between line and length which found its ultimate apotheosis in the semi-cathartic culmination of Nellie Dean. De Nesle continues to build on the firm foundations of his earlier flirtation with the neo-structural; and if he manages to resist the meretricious temptations of the merely beautiful, may yet prove that his pan contains further and more transcendent flashes."
As far as Blondel was concerned, though, it had been a good sing-song, it was nice when the audience all joined in the final verse of L"Amours Dont Sui Epris, and what he really needed now was a shower and a cup of warm milk.
He was annoyed, therefore, to find his dressing room deserted and in rather a mess. In fact, ransacked would be a better word. It looked like a haystack in which someone has eventually managed to find a needle.
"Mmmmmmmm," said a voice from inside the wardrobe.
Blondel raised an eyebrow. One of the wardrobes in this room led directly to the past, the future and a tasteful selection of presents. The problem was, there was no way at any given time of knowing which.
"h.e.l.lo?" he enquired "Mmmmmm."
"Giovanni? Is that you?" "Mmm."
"What on earth are you doing in there?"
It"s remarkable how quickly you can pick up a new language. Quite soon, Blondel was fluent enough in gagged noises to understand that Giovanni was trying to tell him that he"d explain much better if only somebody took this sock out of his mouth.
"Coming," Blondel said.
He tracked the noise to the smaller of the two wardrobes and opened it. A quick glance revealed three bound and m.u.f.fled investment consultants.
"My dear fellow," Blondel said, gently removing the sock from Giovanni"s mouth, "whatever"s been going on?"
Giovanni gurgled, made a noise like a rasp on formica, and said, "Revenue."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I think," Giovanni muttered, "they were from the Revenue. Looking for receipts or something."
"Who?"
"The men," Giovanni replied. "The men who searched the place. We tried to stop them but..."