“ … among the leading churchmen I have found extreme distaste and dissatisfaction with the bill. It is said that the bishop, in the ninth clause, must appear ‘in a fatherly character’, but before the canons come in, he must practically have pronounced that some offense had been committed which ought to be proceeded against. Thus the power of the bishop as arbitrator can never commence until he has pronounced and sanctioned the prosecution—”
Urruah reared up and peered through the glass of the doors. His view was largely blocked by frock-coated men standing between him and the floor of the House, and talking nonstop.
Well, vhai’d if I’m going to stand here all night, he thought. Very carefully Urruah slipped through the wood paneling of the lower half of the door, slowly, so as not to upset the grain of the wood, and being careful not to become strictly solid again until he knew exactly where the legs of the ehhif on the other side were. Fortunately none of them were too close.
Once in, Urruah stood there at the back of the House and listened for a few more minutes … finally wondering why in Iau’s name anyone would come here late at night to hear this kind of thing … unless indeed they were all insomniacs in search of treatment. Up in the stranger’s gallery, various visiting ehhif were either asleep or on their way to being so: on the other side, journalists were scribbling frantically in notebooks, trying to keep up with what the ehhif who spoke was saying. Urruah wondered why anyone would bother. The man had the most soporific style imaginable, and in this hot, still room, made hotter yet by the primitive electrical lights, the effect produced put the best sleep-spells Urruah knew to shame.
Urruah peered about him again, looking for any sign of McClaren. The ehhif was tall and had a big beard, but unfortunately that described about half the ehhif in here: this was a very hairy period for ehhif males in this part of the world. McClaren also had a long hawkish nose and very blue eyes, but again Urruah’s view was somewhat blocked.
He’s probably not here, Urruah thought. Still … I’ll take a look around. And the impish impulse struck him.
He unsidled.
At first no one noticed him. It was late, and he was walking softly down the carpeted floor of the gangway on the Opposition side. He knew where he was headed: toward the center of the room, the “aisle”, where he could get a good view of both front benches. McClaren was a government minister, and would normally have been sitting there on the left-hand side of the Speaker as Urruah was facing the Speaker’s Chair.
He looked around him at the weary, complacent faces as he came down the gangway … and they began to look at him. Urruah put his whiskers forward as the laughter started. That’ll wake them up, he thought: this’ll probably make the papers tomorrow … He came down to the aisle, took a long leisurely look across at the Government benches … and saw McClaren there.
Urruah stopped short, with the laughter scaling up all around him.
What’s he doing here?!
For he was not supposed to be here. He should have been up in his office—writing a letter—
Sa’Rrdhh in a five-gallon bucket, Urruah thought, no—
He bolted toward the Government benches, ignoring the surprised or shocked faces turned toward him, and jumped up on the back of the first front bench, almost getting into the beard of the surprised minister sitting nearest. Urruah jumped with great speed from there to the first of the back benches, and to the next and the next, going up them like steps in a staircase and not particularly caring whose leg, shoulder or head he stepped on in the process. The laughter became deafening. There was a door at the back of the last of the benches, at the very top. Urruah jumped down and went straight through it, this time without the slightest concern for the grain of the wood.
He raced out through the West Division lobby, through it into the little hallway at the corner of the Lobby and up the staircase two floors. He knew well enough where McClaren’s office was. Through that wooden door, too, he went, sidled again this time.
There was no one in the office.
Urruah stood very still for a moment and licked his nose three times in rapid succession. Then he glanced around him, and looked up into the box on the bookcase.
No letter.
He jumped up onto the desk, covered with the same leather and paper blotter that Arhu had seen. There were no writings on it, but there were faint depressions as of writing.
Urruah looked across to the small narrow fireplace at the other side of the office. Perfect, he thought.
He did a very small wizardry in his mind and put his paws down on the blotter, electrostatically charging it. Then he glanced over at the fireplace, and spoke courteously in the Speech to the soot up in the chimney.
Tidily, in a thin stream, it made its way across the room to him. Urruah guided it down onto the blotter, then levitated the blotter a little way up on its edge to let the soot slide down it.
It adhered here and there on the blotter, mostly to signatures. But one recent piece of writing showed up most clearly where the soot clung.
MR JAMES FLEMING
14 KENNISHEAD AVENUE
EDINBURGH
Dear Mr. Fleming,
Thank you for yours inst. the 6th of July regarding passes to the Speaker’s gallery. Such may only be granted by the Speaker after introduction by the applicant’s own member of Parliament. In your case this would—
Oh, no, Urruah thought.
It’s gone. It’s gone already. How can it be gone?
He ran out of the office again, through the door, his heart pounding and his mouth dry with terror.
Everybody! Everybody! Windsor, now, hurry, now!
…He unlatches the door with one gloved hand, slips in through it, shuts it gently behind him. Stands still in the darkness, and listens. A faint hiss from the hot-water boiler behind the coal stove: the tick of cinders shifting in the box: no other sound.
He takes his twelve steps across the kitchen, reaches out his hand … finds the shut door. He eases its latch open, slips through this door too, pulls it gently to behind him. Six stairs up to the hallway. Two steps out into the middle of the carpet in the hall; turn left. Sixty steps down to the second landing, and out onto the carpet. In the darkness he passes by the doorways he knows are there, to the Picture Gallery, the Queen’s Ball Room, the Queen’s Audience Chamber. Silently past the Guard Chamber: no guards are there any more—the place is full of suits of armor, some of them those of children, and silken banners and old swords and shields, the gifts of kings. No more kings after tonight, he thinks, with the slightest smile in the dark. No more queens…
Fifty-nine steps, and there is the change in the sound. Sixty. His toe bumps against the bottom step. Five stairs up to the landing: turn right: three steps. He puts his hand out, and feels the door.
Gently, gently he pulls it open. From up the winding stair comes a faint light: it seems astonishingly bright to him after the dead blackness. Softly he goes up the stairs, taking them near the outer side of the steps: the inner sides creak.