‘Like what?'

‘Houses. Pieces of land. Usually they'd get a good Babu in, who could put the field or the house or whatever it was, into a screed. That way it could be carried, you see -'

‘No, I don't see,' said Cal. ‘Explain.'

‘It's your Family,' said Lilia to Jerichau. ‘You explain.'

‘We Babus can make hieroglyphs,' Jerichau said, ‘and carry them in our heads. A great technician, like my master, Quekett ... he could make a screed that could carry a small city, I swear he could, and speak it out again perfect down to the last tile.' Describing this, his long face brightened. Then a memory brought his joy down. ‘My master was in the Low Countries when the Scourge found him,' he said. ‘Gone.' He clicked his fingers. ‘Like that.'

‘Why'd you all gather in England?' Suzanna wanted to know.

‘It was the safest country in the world. And the Cuckoos of course, were busy with Empire. We could get lost in the crowd, while the Fugue was woven into the carpet.'

‘What is the Fugue?' said Cal.

‘It's everything we could save from destruction. Pieces of the Kingdom that the Cuckoos had never truly seen, and so wouldn't miss when they were gone. A forest, a lake or two, a bend of one river, the delta of another. Some houses, which we'd occupied; some city squares, even a street or two. We put them together, in a township of sorts.'

‘Nonesuch, they called it,' said Apolline. ‘Damn fool name.'

‘At first there was an attempt to put all this property into some kind of order,' said Freddy. ‘But that soon fell by the wayside, as refugees kept arriving with more to be woven into the carpet. More every day. There'd be people waiting outside

Capra's House for nights on end, with some little niche they wanted kept from the Scourge.'

That's why it took so long,' said Lilia.

‘But nobody was turned away,' said Jerichau. ‘That was understood from the beginning. Anyone who wanted a place in the Weave would be granted it.'

‘Even us,' said Apolline, ‘who weren't exactly lily-whites. We were granted our places.'

‘But why a carpet?' said Suzanna.

‘What's more easily overlooked than the thing you're standing on?' said Lilia. ‘Besides, the craft was one we knew.'

‘Everything has its pattern.' Freddy put in. ‘If you find it, the great can be contained within the small.'

‘Not everyone wanted to go into the Weave, of course.' said Lilia. ‘Some decided to stay amongst the Cuckoos, and take their chance. But most went.'

‘And what was it like?'

‘Like sleep. Like dreamless sleep. We didn't age. We didn't hunger. We just waited until the Custodians judged that it was safe to wake us again.'

‘What about the birds?' said Cal.

‘Oh, there's no end of flora and fauna, woven in -'

‘I don't mean in the Fugue itself. I mean my pigeons.'

‘What have your pigeons got to do with this?' said Apolline.

Cal gave them a brief summary of how he'd first come to discover the carpet.

That's the Gyre's influence.' said Jerichau.

The Gyre?'

‘When you had your glimpse of the Fugue.' said Apolline. ‘You remember the clouds in its heart? That's the Gyre. It's where the Loom's housed.'

‘How can a carpet contain the Loom it was woven on?' said Suzanna.

The Loom isn't a machine.' said Jerichau. ‘It's a state of making. It drew the elements of the Fugue into a rapture which resembles a common-place carpet. But there's a good deal there that denies your human assumptions, and the closer you get to the Gyre, the stranger things become. There are places there in which ghosts of the future and past are at play -'

‘We shouldn't talk about it,' said Lilia. ‘It's bad luck.'

‘How much worse can our luck become?' Freddy observed. ‘So few of us ...'

‘We'll wake the Families, as soon as we recover the carpet,' said Jerichau. ‘The Gyre must be getting restless, or else how did this man get a look? The Weave can't hold forever -'

‘He's right,' said Apolline. ‘I suppose we're obliged to do something about it.'

‘But it isn't safe,' said Suzanna.

‘Safe for what?'

‘Out here, I mean, in the world. In England.'

The Scourge must have given up -' said Freddy,'- after all these years.'

‘So why didn't Mimi wake you?'

Freddy pulled a face. ‘Maybe she forgot about us.'

‘Forgot?1 said Cal. ‘Impossible.'

‘Easy to say,' Apolline replied. ‘But you have to be strong to resist the Kingdom. Get in too deep and next thing you can't even remember your name.'

‘I don't believe she forgot,' said Cal.

‘Our first priority,' said Jerichau, ignoring Cal's protest, ‘is to retrieve the carpet. Then we get out of this city, and find a place where Immacolata will never come looking.'

‘What about us?' said Cal.

‘What about you?'

‘Don't we get to see?'

‘See what?'

The Fugue, damn you!' Cal said, infuriated by the lack of anything approaching courtesy or gratitude from these people.

‘It's not your concern now,' said Freddy.

‘It damn well is!' he said. ‘I saw it. Almost got killed for it.'

‘Better you stay away then,' said Jerichau. ‘If you're so concerned for your breath.'

That's not what I meant.'

‘Cal,' said Suzanna, putting her hand on his arm.

Her attempt to calm him merely inflamed him further.

‘Don't side with them,' he said.

‘It's not a question of sides -' she began, but he wasn't about to be placated.

‘It's easy for you,' he said. ‘You've got connections -'

That's not fair -'

‘- and the menstruum -'

‘What? said Apolline, her voice silencing Cal. ‘You?'

‘Apparently,' Suzanna said.

‘And it didn't dissolve the flesh off your bones?'

‘Why should it do that?'

‘Not in front of him,' said Lilia, looking at Cal.

That was the limit.

‘All right,' he said. ‘You don't want to talk in front of me, that's fine. You can all go fuck yourselves.'

He started towards the door, ignoring Suzanna's attempts to call him back. Behind him, Nimrod was tittering.

‘And you can shut the fuck up,' he told the child, and left the room to its usurpers.

IV

NIGHT TERRORS

1

Shadwell woke from a dream of Empire; a familiar fantasy, in which he owned a vast store, so vast indeed that it was impossible to see the far wall. And he was selling; doing trade to make an accountant weep for joy. Merchandise of every description heaped high on all sides — Ming vases, toy monkeys, sides of beef — and customers beating at the doors, desperate to join the throngs already clamouring to buy.

It wasn't, oddly enough, a dream of profit. Money had become an irrelevancy since he'd stumbled upon Immacolata, who could conjure all they needed from thin air. No, the dream was one of power; he, the owner of the goods that people were bleeding to buy, standing back from the crowd and smiling his charismatic smile.

But suddenly he was awake, the clamour of customers was fading, and he heard the sound of breathing in the darkened room.

He sat up, the sweat of his enthusiasm chilling on his brow. ‘Immacolata?'

She was there, standing against the far wall, her palms seeking some hold in the plaster. Her eyes were wide, but she saw nothing. At least, nothing that Shadwell could share. He'd known her like this before - most recently two or three days ago, in the foyer of this very hotel.

He got out of bed, and put on his dressing gown. Sensing his presence, she murmured his name.

‘I'm here,' he replied.

‘Again,' she said. ‘I felt it again.'

‘The Scourge?' he said, his voice grey.

‘Of course. We have to sell the carpet, and be done with it.'

‘We will. We will.' he said, slowly approaching her. ‘The arrangements are underway, you know that.'

He spoke evenly, to calm her. She was dangerous at the best of times; but these moods scared him more than most.