King Rat jerked his head. He raised his hand, pointingperfunctorily.

Something moved in the flat, leaden light. Two small creaturesedged backwards and forwards uneasily in the brick warren. They crepta few ineffectual inches in one direction, then in another, withoutonce taking their eyes from the figures before them.

Rats.

King Rat was quite still. Saul hovered, bewildered.

One rat stood on either side of the dirty water. They moved inconcert, forward together, backwards together, a tentative dance,staring at King Rat.

‘What’s happening?’ whispered Saul.

King Rat did not answer.

One of the rats scuttled forward and sat up on its hind legs, sixfeet in front of King Rat. It paddled its front legs aggressively,squeaked, bared its teeth. It returned to all fours and crept alittle further forward, baring its teeth, clearly afraid butapparently angry, contemptuous.

The rat appeared to spit.

King Rat suddenly barked in outrage and lurched forward, his armoutstretched, but the two rats had bolted.

King Rat picked himself silently out of the muck and continuedalong the tunnel.

‘Hey, hey, hold on,’ said Saul in amazement. King Rat kept moving.‘What the fuck was that all about?’

King Rat kept moving.

‘What’s going on?’ shouted Saul.

‘Stow it!’ screamed King Rat without turning. He crept on. ‘Notnow,’ he said more quietly. ‘That’s the seat of my sorrow. Not now.Just you wait till I get you home.’

He disappeared round a corner.

Saul became lulled by the sewers. He kept King Rat in his sights,losing himself in the damp brick convolutions. More rats passed them,but no more taunted them as the first two had seemed to do. Theystopped when they saw King Rat, and then quickly ran.

King Rat ignored them, winding through the complex at a constantquick trudge.

Saul felt like a tourist. He investigated the walls in passing,reading the mildew on the bricks. He was hypnotized by his ownfootsteps. Time passed as a succession of brick tributaries. He wasignorant of the cold and intoxicated by the smell. Occasional growlsof traffic filtered through the earth and tar above, to yawn throughthe cavernous sewers.

Presently King Rat stopped in a tunnel through which the twoexplorers had to crawl. He turned to face Saul, a trick which lookedimpossible in the tiny space. The air was thick with the smell ofpiss, a particular piss, a strong, familiar smell, the smell whichpermeated King Rat’s clothes.

‘Righto,’ murmured King Rat. ‘So have you clocked yourwhereabouts?’ Saul shook his head. ‘We’re at the crossroads ofRome-vill, the centre, my very own conjunction, under King’sCross. Hold your tongue and prick up your ears: hear the trainsgrowling’ Got the map in your bonce? Learn the way. This is whereyou’ve to get to. Just follow your I Suppose. I’ve marked out mymanor nice and strong, you can sniff it out from anywhereunderground.’ And Saul felt suddenly sure that he could find hisway there, as easy as breathing.

But he looked around him, and could see only the same bricks, thesame dirty water as everywhere else.

‘What,’ he ventured slowly, ‘is here?’

King Rat pushed his finger against his nose and winked.

‘I set myself down anywhere I bloody fancy, but a king wants apalace.’ As he spoke, King Rat was busying himself with the bricksbelow him, running a long fingernail between them, creating arising worm of dirt. He traced a jagged square of brick whoseuneven sides were a little less than two feet long. He dug hisfingernails under the corners and pulled what looked like a trayof bricks out of the floor.

Saul whistled with amazement at the hole he had uncovered. Thewind played over the newly opened hole like a flute. He looked at thebricks King Rat held. They were an artifice, a single concrete plugwith angled edges under the thin veneer on brick, so that it sat snugand invisible in the tunnel floor.

Saul peered into the opening. A chute curved away steeply out ofsight. He looked up, King Rat was hugging the lid, waiting forSaul.

Saul swung his legs over the lip of the chute, and breathed itsstale air. He pushed himself forward with his bum and slid under thetight curve, greased with living slime.

A breakneck careering ride and Saul was deposited breathless intoa pool of freezing water. He spluttered and gobbed, emptying hismouth of the taste of dirt and squeezing his eyes clear. When heopened them, he stopped quite still, water dripping from his openmouth.

The walls stretched out away from each other so suddenly andviolently it was as though they were afraid of one another. Saul satin the cold pool at one end of the chamber. It swept out, athree-dimensional ellipse, like a raindrop on its side, ninety feetlong, with him dumbstruck at the thin end. Reinforced brick ribsstriped the walls of the chamber and arched overhead: cathedralarchitecture, thirty feet high, like the fossilized belly of a whalelong entombed under the city.

Saul stumbled from the pool, took a few short steps forward. Toeither side the room dipped a little, creating a thin moat drawingits water from the pool into which the chute had deposited Saul.Every few feet, just above the moat, were the circular ends of pipesdisappearing, Saul supposed, into the main sewer above.

Before him there was a raised walkway, which climbed an inclineuntil at the opposite end of the chamber it was eight feet from thefloor, and there was the throne.

It faced Saul. It was rough, a utilitarian design sculpted withbricks, like everything under the ground. The throne-room was quiteempty.

Behind Saul something hit the water. The report leisurely exploredthe room. King Rat came to stand behind Saul.

‘Ta very much, Mr Bazalgette.’

Saul turned his head, shook it to show that he did not understand.King Rat scampered up the walkway and curled into the chair. He satfacing Saul, one leg thrown over a brickwork arm. His voice came asclear as ever to Saul’s ears, although he did not raise it.

‘He was the man with the plan, built the whole maze in the time ofthe last queen. People owe him their flush crappers, and me… I canthank him for my underworld.’

‘But all this…’ breathed Saul. ‘This room… why did he buildthis room?’

‘Mr Bazalgette was a canny gent.’ King Rat snickered unpleasantly.‘I had a few whids, burnt his lugholes, told him a few tales, sightsI’d seen. We had a conflab about him and his habits, not all of whichwere unknown to me.’ King Rat winked exaggeratedly. ‘He was of theopinion that these tales should remain undisclosed. We came to anarrangement. You’ll not find this here burrow, my cubby-hole, on anyplans.’

Saul approached King Rat’s throne. He squatted on all fours infront of the seat.

‘What are we doing here? What do we do now?’ Saul was suddenlyweary of following like a disciple, unable to intervene or shapeevents. ‘I want to know what you want.’

King Rat stared at him without speaking.

Saul continued. ‘Is this about those rats?’ he said. There was noanswer.

‘Is this about the rats? What was that about? You’re the king,right? You’re King Rat. So command them. I didn’t see them showingany tribute or respect. They looked pretty pissed off to me. What’sthis about? Call on the rats, make them come to you.’

There was no sound in the hall. King Rat continued to stare.

Eventually he spoke. ‘Not… yet.’

Saul waited.

‘I won’t… yet. They’re still… narked… with me. They’ll notdo what I tell them just yet.’

‘How long have they been… narked?’

‘Seven hundred years.’

King Rat looked a pathetic figure. He skulked with hischaracteristic combination of defensiveness and arrogance. He lookedlonely.

‘You’re… not the king at all, are you?’

‘I am the king!’ King Rat was on his feet, spitting at thefigure below him. ‘Don’t dare talk to me like that I’m the King, I’mthe one, the cutpurse, the thief, the deserter chief!’