"Cease your tramping, boy! You're making my head throb! Or would you prefer to remain behind this evening?"
Nathaniel shook his head numbly and descended on tiptoe to the library, where he kept himself out of trouble researching new Constraining spells for middle—ranking djinn. Time passed agreeably, and he was still busy learning the difficult incantation for the Jagged Pendulum, when Mr. Underwood strode into the room, his best overcoat flowing behind him.
"There you are, you idiot! I've been calling for you, up and down the house! Another minute and you'd have found us gone."
"Sorry, sir—I was reading—"
"Not that book you weren't, you dozy fool. It's fourth—level, written in Coptic—you'd never have a hope. You were asleep and don't deny it. Right, snap to sharpish, or I really will leave you behind."
Nathaniel's eyes had been closed at the moment his master walked in: he found it easier to memorize things that way. All things considered, this was perhaps fortunate, since he didn't have to come up with any further explanations. In an instant the book was lying discarded on the chair and he was out of the library at his master's heels and following him in a heart—pounding flurry down the hall, through the front door and out into the night, where Mrs. Underwood, in a shiny green dress and with something like a furry anaconda wound loosely round her neck, waited smiling beside the big black car.
Nathaniel had only been in his master's car once before, and he did not remember it. He climbed into the back, marveling at the feel of the shiny leather seat and the odd, fake smell of the pine—tree odoriser dangling from the rearview mirror.
"Sit back and don't touch the windows." Mr. Underwood's eyebrows glowered at him in the mirror. Nathaniel sat back, his hands contentedly in his lap, and the journey to Parliament began.
Nathaniel stared out of the window as the car cruised south. The countless glowing lights of London—headlamps, street lamps, shop fronts, windows, vigilance spheres—flashed in quick succession across his face. He gazed wide—eyed, blinking hardly at all, drinking everything in. Traveling across the city was a special occasion in itself—it rarely happened to Nathaniel, whose experience of the world was confined mainly to books. Now and then, Mrs. Underwood took him on necessary bus trips to clothes and shoe stores, and once, when Mr. Underwood was away on business, he had been taken to the zoo. But he had seldom gone beyond the outskirts of Highgate, and certainly never at night.
As usual, it was the sheer scale that took his breath away; the profusion of streets and side—roads, the ribbons of lights curving off on all sides. Most of the houses seemed very different from the ones in his master's street: much smaller, meaner, more tightly packed. Often they seemed to congregate around large, windowless buildings with flat roofs and tall chimneys, presumably factories where commoners assembled for some dull purpose. As such they didn't really interest him.
The commoners themselves were in evidence too. Nathaniel was always amazed by how many of them there were. Despite the dark and the evening drizzle, they were out in surprising numbers, heads down, hurrying along like ants in his garden, ducking in and out of shops, or sometimes disappearing into ramshackle inns on street corners, where warm orange light shone through frosted windows. Every house like this had its own vigilance sphere floating prominently in the air above the door; whenever someone walked below, it bobbed and pulsed with a deeper red.
The car had just passed one of these inns—a particularly large example opposite a subway station—when Mr. Underwood banged his fist down on the dashboard hard enough to make Nathaniel jump.
"That's one, Martha!" he exclaimed. "That's one of the worst of them! If it was up to me, the Night Police would move in tomorrow and carry off everyone they found inside."
"Oh, not the Night Police, Arthur," his wife said, in a pained voice. "Surely there are better ways of re—educating them."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Martha. Show me a London inn, and I'll show you a commoners' meeting house hidden inside. In the attic, in the cellar, in a secret room behind the bar… I've seen it all—Internal Affairs has raided them often enough. But there's never any evidence and none of the goods we're after—just empty rooms, a few chairs and tables… Take it from me—it's filthy dives and pits like that where all this trouble's starting. The P.M.'ll have to act soon, but by then who knows what kind of outrage they'll have committed. Vigilance spheres aren't enough! We need to burn the places to the ground—that's what I told Duvall this afternoon. But of course no one listens to me."
Nathaniel had long ago learned never to ask questions, no matter how interested he was in something. He craned his head and watched the orange lights of the inn dwindle and vanish behind them.
Now they were entering central London, where the buildings became ever bigger and more grand, as befitted the capital of the Empire. The number of private cars on the roads increased, while the shop fronts grew wide and gaudy, and magicians as well as commoners became visible strolling on the pavements.
"How are you doing in the back, dear?" Mrs. Underwood asked.
"Very well, Mrs. Underwood. Are we nearly there yet?"
"Another couple of minutes, John."
His master took a glance in the rearview mirror. "Time enough then to give you a warning," he said. "Tonight you're representing me. We're going to be in the same room as all the major magicians in the country and that means men and women whose power you can't even begin to guess at. Put a foot out of line and it'll ruin my reputation. Do you know what happened to Disraeli's apprentice?"
"No, sir."
"It was a state address much like this one. The apprentice tripped on Westminster steps while Disraeli was being introduced to the assembly. He knocked against his master and sent him tumbling head over heels down the stairs. Disraeli's fall was broken by the Duchess of Argyle—fortunately a well—padded lady."
"Yes, sir."
"Disraeli stood up and apologized to the Duchess with great courtesy. Then he turned to where his apprentice was trembling and weeping at the top of the steps and clapped his hands. The apprentice fell to his knees, his hands outstretched, but to no avail. A darkness fell across the hall for approximately fifteen seconds. When it cleared the apprentice had gone and in his place was a solid iron statue, in exactly the wretched boy's shape. In its supplicating hands was a boot scraper, on which everyone entering the hall for the last one hundred fifty years has been able to clean their shoes."
"Really, sir? Will I see it?"
"The point being, boy, that if you embarrass me in any way I shall ensure that there's a matching hat stand there too. Do you understand?"
"I do indeed, sir." Nathaniel made a mental note to check the formulae for Petrifaction. He had a feeling it involved summoning an afrit of considerable power. From what he knew of his master's ability, he doubted he would have the slightest chance of accomplishing this. He smiled slightly in the darkness.
"Stay beside me at all times," Mr. Underwood went on. "Do not speak unless I give you leave and do not stare at any of the magicians, no matter what deformities they may possess. And now, be quiet—we're there, and I need to concentrate."
The car slowed; it joined a procession of similar black vehicles that moved along the broad gray span of Whitehall. They passed a succession of granite monuments to the conquering magicians of the late Victorian age and the fallen heroes of the Great War, then a few monolithic sculptures representing Ideal Virtues (Patriotism, Respect for Authority, the Dutiful Wife). Behind soared the flat—fronted, many—windowed office towers that housed the Imperial Government.