Their Majesties' Bucketeers Read online

  Exactly what to make of all this, I had no idea, so for the moment abandoning further surmise, I climbed to the first-floor infirmary where I belonged.

  North Hedgerow Precinct, like many another public building (much like the Imperial Museum, in fact), occupies a city block, in this case bounded upon the south by Rihnat Road, the northeast by Kevod Lane, which wanders into the Kiiden, and northwest by Gesnat Street, an artery of the City. It is a massively imposing edifice in the style of architecture perhaps three generations old, whose ground floor is occupied by the watu barn, the pump and ladder companies, and a small, depressing chamber where criminals are brought to book before being taken to the basement, where the gaol is kept.

  Above, the first floor is partitioned into working spaces for the paracauterists and shift-quarters for the Bucketeers, as well as permanent lodgings for those unmarried individuals who think it good to reside within the territory of their duties. This custom, octaries old, dates from a time when Fodduan soldiers, returning from the Continent after nonades of war and finding themselves unemployed, threatened, in the King’s view, the peace and civil order of the city. Thus the peace-keeping Bucketeers were commissioned and tranquility immediately restored—due in no small measure to the fact that it was the soldiers themselves who were hired to do the job.

  Upon the second floor, Tis and his lieutenants maintain their offices. Inasmuch as North Hedgerow is not only the neighborhood Bucketeer station but also Battalion Headquarters for a third of the city, facilities are made available for administration of Sound Point Precinct, upon the upstream tip of King’s Island, and for Riverside, at the northernmost extremity of the town. Although it is not officially a part of our Battalion, we also associate quite closely with King’s Hall Precinct, possibly because our own Sound Point is little more than a formality as Precinct stations go, nominally protecting the Palace and Royal Grounds and, more important, providing brilliant-emerald dress uniforms and showily trapped watun for Their Majesties’ frequent parades.

  Walking along the drab corridors of government-pink and red, at last I found my fellows busily at work sterilizing bandages in an essence not unlike those Mav inhales in his silver pipe, and rolling them for their kits. My own supplies in this regard had dwindled severely, having been twice called upon the evening before, so I cast the scrolled-up papers aside and joined my half-dozen comrades at the worktable. A pleasant wick of kood was smoldering as I offered a modest contribution to the morning’s gossip.

  “The Lord Ennramo?” shrieked Poadpo, “Surely you must be mistaken, Mymy! Here, at old North Hedgie? What would a Lord be wanting here?” There followed numerous unlikely guesses, a few of them unrepeatable in mixed company. Poadpo always pretended neither to understand nor to believe whatever tidbits were presented by others. I suspect this disagreeable tendency of rhers arose at puberty when rhe was disappointed at not becoming male. In any case, rher own stock of rumors were invariably of the most personally ruinous variety, and I shudder to imagine what rhe said of me whenever I was absent.

  “Perhaps,” offered Zoddu, it’s something to do with Chief Niifysiir, who visited our Chief this morning shortly after sunrise.” Indeed it seemed unusual for the Chief of Chiefs to call, particularly at such an hour as to require our own superior to arrive early. I added that I had seen the Archsacerdot—or some deputy, I conceded—which only generated more inane remarks from Poadpo, but was confirmed by Zoddu and others who lived here at the Precinct. “We’re attracting all sorts of celebrities today.”

  “Aye,” agreed Nrydmou, leaning in the doorway. “An’ maybe it’s our prisoner that we booked last night. Plenty hot he was, goin’ on about th’ rights of th’ Fourth Estate, whatever that might be.” Nrydmou and Zihu, the other male paracauterist, preferred avoiding our “little surrie koodklatsches”; his sudden appearance now was nearly as unusual as the rest of the morning’s events. “In any case, I bear a message from our Glorious Leader upstairs, Mymysiir, m’love. I’m to inform you he desires an interview, whenever you find it convenient.”

  Another precedent demolished, I thought, as with some trepidation I climbed the stony steps around the spiral slide of brass down which our gallant Bucketeers ride swiftly to their waggons when the fire trumpet calls. Before I could give much thought to what else Nrydmou had disclosed, I heard raised voices at the far end of the office-lined hallway.

  “Great Blessed Anhydrosity, lam, what do you take me for? You said yourself how the soggy bastard stood and primed his deadly mechanism, whereupon your Professor simply—”

  “Sir, I have also shown you this springbow bolt, which—”

  “Which, in your own words, it is dampening impossible to’ve employed in the manner you originally…‘deedooced,’ did you say?” Tis’s blustering was unmistakable, as were Mav’s somewhat more restrained replies.

  “Yet it’s sturdier evidence than that upon which you have—Hallo?”

  I knocked upon the frosted glass somewhat timidly.

  The door swung open, its knob in Mav’s leftmost hand. “Come right in, Mymy, and guess, if you can, who has been detained in the unfortunate matter of Professor Srafen!” He stood before the old Battalion Chief, irritated certainly, but crisp and undisheveled, as if he, too, had not skipped one or two periods of hann. For my part, when I miss my rest, my lobes cannot decide which pair of them should properly be on duty, and take a day or two to get things sorted out again.

  Waad Hifk Tis squatted behind his battered freewood desk, thinning fur erect in indignation, as was ever the case when the two of them were in the same room. I was sorry indeed to witness, let alone be expected to contribute to, this altercation. The elderly civil servant looked rumpled, but there was nothing novel in this; he was the permanently rumpled sort, likely the despair of both his wives.

  The ruins of Niitood’s camera lay scattered upon the desk in pieces large and small, and Tis poked at them occasionally as he spoke, as if they were some small, dead, venomous inhabitant of the damper regions east of the city. I’m sure that being summoned at an early hour to his post had done his disposition no great good. The cornerstone of Tis’s character was regularity of habit. Indeed, I have heard (from an Extraordinary Inquirer who shall otherwise be nameless) that upon the stroke of second hour every morning, as he has done unfailingly for thirty years, Tis removes his service revolver from a drawer in which he keeps it at home, carries it upon his person to the Precinct, and promptly discards it in an identical drawer. He has discharged it neither for practice nor in line of duty during all those years, except upon the Queen’s Birthday, when his family takes holiday in Tesret. Then he fires it three times in the air, emptying the cylinder, and reloads from a packet of cartridges purchased twenty years ago. On the first day of each month (and this I have observed myself), he disjoints and scrubs the poor machine with a ferocity that has caused it to become quite as worn as if he fired it every day.

  Small wonder Bucketeers set both clock and calendar by him.

  Some hardy spirit once inquired why he takes his enormous brood each year to Tesret, since he invariably complains for weeks afterward of the food, weather, prices, and accommodations. Why not Feviikdyho, or even East Gymnat for a change? He replied that he always holidays in Tesret and saw no reason now to alter the practice—which makes me wonder how he acquired his habits in the first place. They must have been new to him at one time or another, and hence unthinkable.

  Returning my attention to lesser mysteries, I replied to Mav’s rhetorical question: “I gather Rewu Uomag Niitood of the Mathas Intelligencer had been blamed.”

  “Too right,” muttered Tis with belligerent satisfaction, “And there’s an end to it!” He deferred to a corner of the room where sat an individual I hadn’t noticed until now and did not recognize, a smallish, professionally anonymous lam in the drab pink civilian “uniform” of a career bureaucrat. This socially invisible creature nodded confirmation, causing Tis to relax visibly.

  “Of course, there
’s proving it,” Mav offered mildly.

  Tis began to splutter once again. “Technicalities, I say! By desiccation, we’ll demonstrate he had some sort of fiendish weapon secreted in this picture box of his! That is why I’ve called you here this morning, Mymy.” He pushed and poked the shattered remains around his desk top. Some portions had survived the violence surprisingly intact. “Would you say this is all of it, or has anything been removed or left behind?”

  I leant over his desk to examine what was there. “It’s difficult to say, sir.” (The poor old fellow grimaced, as he always does. It confuses him that well-born individuals such as Mav and myself desire the work we do and, accordingly, address him by the honorific.) “It has certainly been severely damaged, although not quite as much as I recall under the strain of last evening’s events. The coincidence of Niitood’s standing at the very moment does bear consideration, Nonetheless—”

  “Yes?” growled Tis, echoed by Mav with kindly encouragement. The plainly dressed stranger sat silently, as before, puffing on a little brass inhaler.

  Summoning courage: “Nonetheless, these fragments bear no mark of having had a greater part in the catastrophe than simply being in the way when it transpired. They’re unscorched, nor do they have that odor of gunpowder, which Mav’s springbow—”

  “Ehrumph…thank you, Mymy, that will be all.”

  “Sir, if I may—”

  “Yes, Mymysiir, you may go now. Ahum!”

  “Sir, that isn’t what…I mean, I don’t particularly like Niitood, but should he be convicted, would they not—”

  “Premeditated murder? The Blocks, of course, as he jolly well deserves!”

  “I’d much prefer the ancient honored custom of drowning,” Mav remarked.

  “Mind your language, Bucketeer, there’s a lurrie present!”

  “Oh. Sorry, Mymy.” On the side of his carapace neither Tis nor his mysterious guest could see, Mav let his fur ripple humorously. “In any event, sir, I’m afraid you’ll have to let your prisoner go. You see, by peculiar circumstance, I examined this very camera not long before the murder, and I assure you—”

  “You what?” Tis stood straight up, and even the stranger seemed suddenly to pay more attention to the conversation. Briefly, and with many a kindly emendment, the detective related how we had met Niitood in the Hose & Springbow. However, all that this anecdote accomplished, at least for the moment, was that Tis seized eagerly upon the reporter’s somewhat threatening intoxicated remarks against the Professor.

  Mav did protest that this, too, was insufficient evidence.

  “Never mind,” insisted Tis. “The fellow’s clearly a dangerous radical and has condemned himself. Here’s the way of it, then.” He glanced once again toward the stranger for approval. “What I want—Aren’t you gone yet, Mymy? There’s surries’ work below, I’m sure, and lamtalk yet to be accomplished here. Now off with you!”

  The remainder of the negotiations between them I shall, in the manner of ancient historians, be compelled to relate from inference, as if I had stood eavesdropping outside the office door. Naturally, I did no such thing, but returned, instead, to my comrades in the infirmary.

  “Look here, Mav—Oh, do sit down, Inquirer, and get your pipe out, if you wish. I’ve a stimulating new mixture from the Continent you might enjoy to try.” Here there was a pause as the gentlelamn attended to the mechanics of their vices. “Now, as I was saying, you needn’t take the situation as irretrievably wet and without hope. In your belief, we haven’t enough to put this Niitood between granite slabs where he belongs. Well, here’s your chance, then. Prove his guilt completely, beyond any question; we’ll see if we can’t do a bit more in future about this detectiving business of yours, eh?”

  There followed some few words, which were indistinctly rendered and didn’t seem to originate from Mav’s or Tis’s corner of the room.

  “Quite right,” Tis replied. “We only ask that you do it quickly.”

  “I was not aware there was a need for haste,” Mav said with an ironic tone.

  “Erruhm! Well, the sooner we are shut of this nasty business, the better. And incidentally, with the firm understanding that we are not establishing a precedent, I have decided that we’ll try your other idea as well.”

  “Which idea, sir? I have many.”

  “So you do, Mav, ahum! I refer to this notion of pursuing your duties unencumbered by your uniform—although why you should not be perfectly proud to wear it…well, er, never mind that now. It is settled: you shall go about your duties in this matter in civilian attire.”

  “Anything you say, sir, and thank you. I do have one additional request which—”

  “Oh, for Pah’s sake, Mav, what is it now?”

  “Well, sir, could you spare me a Bucketeer or two as assistants?”

  “Absolutely not! We’re overworked as it is, and I’ll not take firefighters from where they’re needed and waste them on—”

  Here, again, there was that mumbling as before.

  “Oh, I say, indeed, good Inquirer, take Mymy! Rhe’ll be of little use until this nonsense is done with; possibly rhe’ll prove so adept at it, they’ll make detectiving a surmale occupation, too! Haw, haw, how’d you like that?”

  I confess that my hearts gave a discoordinated flutter when I—er, inferred this development later. I was busy, quite busy at my ordinary work when Mav arrived, somewhat reluctantly, I believe, to inform me of it.

  I’m not sure how I personally felt about conducting my new duties in civilian dress. I was rather fond of my uniform, having been put to somewhat greater pains to earn it than any male. It was, indeed, adapted from male clothing and appropriately spare and utilitarian—quite unlike the clumsy antiquated fettering of “proper” surmalehood. The insignia were sewn into the cap and sleeves, but it was now Mav’s idea (among many, many others recorded in that notecase of his) that one of the embroidered patches might be removed and carried in a billfold so that we might, upon appropriate occasion, officially display our credentials.

  “What was it, do you suppose, that changed our Chief’s mind?” I asked as we descended the stairs from the first floor to ground level. I’d had time to replenish my bag, but wondered now whether, in civilian attire, I ought to carry it, since it, too, was emblazoned with Bucketeer insignia.

  “Nothing ever changes Tis’s mind, Mymy, he is the scion of countless generations of civil servants, father and grandfather of legions more who are destined to follow in his well-worn footsteps: as Srafen was often wont to express it, the stolid, unprogressive backbone of our Empire—and an increasingly crippling drain upon its resources.”

  At the ground floor we made our way back to the shabby office where Mav obtained permission to visit with the prisoner. We were also given a carbide lamp and admonished to mind the stairs. I ventured reserved agreement with Mav and his Professor when we were once again alone, for it seemed to me that every year there were more and more of us who wore the livery of Parliament, and fewer businesslamn and workers to support us.

  “However, you have not answered my question: why, at this particular moment does Tis decide that—” I began.

  “It should be obvious, Mymy. There are some few who would prefer the Bucketeers not put up too publicly enthusiastic an inquiry into the death—which many regard as well-deserved and possibly a social benefit—of one they looked upon as a dangerous heretic.” He warned me further of a tricky twist upon the ancient stone-cut stairway.

  “Surely you don’t mean to name the Archsacerdot? I had been under the impression that—”

  He held up a hand. “Of course not, nor the Lord Ennramo, who was here this morning. Theirs is simply a concern for whatever interests in the matter Crown and Church may have, principally that justice be pursued despite a considerable political pressure to the contrary—have a care here, I’m afraid the steps are actually damp—we have them to thank that any action is being taken at all.”

  Finally, we reached the floor at th
e foot of the stairs, only to discover that it exuded the unmistakable odor, in concentrated essence, of the watu stalls above. Mav struck a bronze bell attached to the wall, removed and hung his pistol upon a peg beside it.

  “Then who is left,” I asked, “powerful enough to exert such an influence?” I shifted uneasily from foot to foot, distressed in the presence of so much chilly moisture.

  An unhappy-looking Bucketeer, no doubt assigned this post as punishment, arrived to challenge us from behind a heavy grillework of rusted interwoven iron strapping. Mollified by Mav’s assurances that we were here officially, he threw a switch. Electric candles blazed into the gloom, and Mav extinguished his lamp. The officer turned a key, admitting us among squeaks and groans from the corroded door. The illumination was a questionable blessing, for the nitre and dampness of the floor and walls were rendered by it even more disgustingly perceptible.

  “I refer, of course,” Mav whispered as the gaoler shuffled off to find our prisoner, “to the gentlelam you saw in Tis’s office. You know, if I were Battalion Chief, these dungeons would be closed forever—they do our Service no credit.”

  “That undistinguished little fellow? I took him for a busybody from the Exchequer—he had the look of an accounting clerk.”

  “Which, in a manner of speaking, he is—of voting in the Nazemynsiin, the Middle House of Parliament. He represents our masters, Mymy, the Ministry of Public Safety. And, one would infer from his presence this morning, those worthies now find themselves caught between two stones.”