Ambergate (37 page)

But the members of the Ministration were rising, taking off their bird heads. Some were pushing others to get out of the pews,
had even left the heads behind. I caught a glimpse of a woman’s white face, streaked where sweat had run down through the
powder. Mather was trying to get through them, to reach the Protector. I could see Chance running hither and thither to Mather
with messages for him, orders for the officers.

“What on earth is happening?” said Nate, dazed.

And then I understood. We all did up by the altar. The smell had reached us by then: no longer the fragrance of the incense
burners, but now the faint but unmistakable smell of smoke drifted through the chill air of the Cathedral.

The Facilitator tried to keep his composure. “I advise you not to move until we know what exactly is happening,” he said quietly
to the Chief Cleric.

Nate gripped my arm. “There must be a fire somewhere!” he whispered.

“Where?” I said, bewildered, for how could a stone building catch fire?

“The scaffolding outside, I think.” He put out his hand to Leah, who still held the swanskin to her. “Miss Leah, your safety
must take first priority…”

“Oh, fiddlesticks! My life’s not worth saving.”

Caleb scrambled to his feet. “Well, mine is. My life’s more valuable than hers, you numbskull. I’m the son of the Lord Protector.
Where’s Papa? Are they putting the fire out?”

“I’m sure it’s being dealt with, Master Caleb,” said the Facilitator.

Through the agitation of the musicians there were glimpses of the Protector surrounded by bodyguards and anxious members of
the Ministration. The noise came to us from a long way away, as if across a rough sea. Some of the musicians’ stands swayed
and toppled as the musicians rose to their feet in panic; sheets of music floated to the floor. Someone slipped, causing further
commotion. The choristers were rising, leaving the stalls in a flood, jostling down the side aisles.

“What should we do, Nate?” I said.

The calm of the Facilitator was disappearing. “My dear brothers in God, colleagues…” he protested as the other officiating
clergy broke from their line behind the altar table and began to cluster in small agitated groups. In their cages the birds
began to flutter wildly. The Bird Keeper fussed around them, crooning in a high voice.

“We should put out the candles as a precaution,” said the Facilitator.

“Let me do it, Master,” said a young cleric. He fetched the long candle-snuffer from somewhere behind the altar table.

The Facilitator picked up a candle, stepped up to the lectern, and raised his voice strongly.

“Fellow men and women, let us fall on our knees and pray forgiveness for our sins, lest our lives be cut short without the
Last Words. Let us pray for courage in this moment of adversity. Let us remember the example of the tiny Wren, who flew through
thunder and molten rocks to reach the Eagle’s side and take her place in the peaceful heavens above the sky. Let us kneel
at this moment and beg for her fearlessness.”

I could see some were kneeling, but most had not heard or were too panicked to pay attention. Leah remained on her feet, her
face inscrutable. Nate and I sank to our knees—Nate, I think, to please the Facilitator, but I tried to pray and held my amber.
I was not sure it would save me this time; I’d asked so much of it.

“This is punishment, Master,” shouted an elderly musician. He clutched his long samphrit to his chest as if it too were an
amulet. “We have committed sacrilege.”

A woman in Ministration robes close to the Protector moaned, “We hung up the pelt of an avian, violating His holy place. We
gathered to witness a marriage between our Protector’s son and a member of the avia.”

People turned to glare at Leah; their hatred and fear were tangible. She went paler still, but she did not flinch nor drop
the shreds of swanskin. Close to me, two clerics muttered together. “The Protector spoke heresy.”

“This is retribution sent by the Eagle Himself!” shouted another musician, waving his sheet music.

The Lord Protector held up a hand. It was enough to stop the voices, at least near the chancel. His voice carried easily,
a guttural boom with no trace of panic.

“My friends. I gather this is the work of the rebel, Titus Molde, who was arrested earlier. A sack of kindling has been found.
He must have managed to fire the scaffolding outside the main entrance before he was arrested. However, there is another way
out of the Cathedral, through the north door. If you allow the soldiers to guide you, you will find yourself escorted safe
outside.”

There was a sudden blast of heat as one of the west doors began to char on the inside. Flickers of flame ran up the sides.
A horrible shriek pierced through the Cathedral: someone had been standing too close.

Even on the altar steps I felt the heat touch us like the searching of a blind finger. Then the last of the candles on the
altar steps was snuffed out, and for a moment I could see nothing.

Caleb began to scream.

“I’m going to get my ratha case,” Nate whispered in Scuff’s ear. “Don’t move!”

All around there was a confusion of milling bodies. Someone must have extinguished the other candles in the Cathedral. In
the darkness, he could hear officers trying to control the panic, trying to usher people in the right direction, toward the
north door. Caleb had stopped screaming and was shouting for his father.

The darkness seemed to lift a little; his eyes were adapting, but the air was filling with a fug of smoke. The back of his
throat stung; his eyes smarted. As he fumbled for his ratha case on the floor of the chancel, he heard Scuff cry, “Where’s
Miss Leah?”

His hands touched leather; thankfully, he fitted his ratha inside, and held the case to him. He looked around for Scuff. She
had found Miss Leah; in the choking semidarkness they were struggling down the altar steps to join the people crowding to
the north door.

That was when the main doors blew in.

There was a huge explosion of flame and smoke, a roar. Sparks flew halfway up the nave, as if someone hurled burning stars.
Heat blasted through the Cathedral, hotter than the sun. In a second the pews nearest the doors had caught fire. A snake of
flame coiled through the pews in the Chapel of the Wren. A soldier beat at his head, where his hair was alight; a tongue of
fire licked down the back of another man’s jacket.

The bird heads of the Ministration fell to the ground and were crushed. People were shrieking, choking. They scrabbled their
way to the north door, their hands to their throats, coughing, pulling up the necks of their ceremonial robes to cover their
mouths, making strangulated cries for air. It was now almost impossible to breathe.

“Open the door, for God’s sake!” shouted a voice somewhere in the smoke, and others took up the cry.

“The rebels are outside! We’re surrounded!” came another shout, despairing.

A tall figure was beside Nate, the lapels of his white frock-coat pulled up around his face. “Get the girls! Get them down
to the crypt!”

Nate stared up and made out the deep-set eyes of the Messenger. “But—the guards!” he gasped.

“They’ve run, left their posts. The stairwell’s clear. The air’s clean down there.”

“Won’t we be trapped?” protested Nate, but the Messenger had already vanished into the shimmering, spark-filled air.

With a crash the north door was opened, and as fresh air fed the flames, the fire inside the Cathedral intensified. The crowd
pressed forward to escape, then swayed back in a panic-stricken body as the sounds of a fierce battle outside echoed into
the Cathedral over the crackling of the flames. Gunshot and a clashing of weapons, the shouts of men, and from somewhere—outside
or within the doorway—a horrible, muffled screaming.

“Quick, Nate!” Scuff had grasped his sleeve, was pulling
him with her; beside her Miss Leah still gripped the ruined swanskin.

Nate came to himself, tucked the ratha case more securely under his arm. “Not that way—to the crypt!”

He caught Scuff’s hand, and she caught Miss Leah’s, and the three of them ran from the turmoil. In the apse the air was fresher,
the area deserted. Nate blinked away tears: his eyes were streaming. Beneath the arches, oil lanterns burned in readiness
for the showing of the crypt. He let go of Scuff’s hand, seized a lantern, and made for the stairwell. “Come on!”

The lantern light moved over the narrow stone walls and the steps leading down into darkness. Miss Leah hesitated and clutched
the torn swanskin to her. “What is this place?” she said wonderingly, her voice hoarse. “I smell water.”

Nate could smell nothing but the smoke still in his nostrils and clinging to his garments.

“Is it far down?” said Miss Leah. Her voice trembled a little. “I don’t like enclosed spaces, Master Nate.”

“But Nate, there’s no way out below!” Scuff said. “The Amber Gate is locked, and you’ve no key.”

The two girls were hanging back from the dark hole, white-faced. In desperation Nate said, “Do you want to be burned alive
or slaughtered by the rebels? The air will be clean down there, the Messenger said so!”

“The Messenger?” said Miss Leah.

“He said to go down.” He felt a momentary pang at how the Messenger’s name seemed to persuade them both to move at last.

He led the way down, holding the lantern high, and
stepped out into the crypt. The three of them stood in the lamplight, looking silently around at the alcoves closest to them,
where candles had already been lit, and at the shadowed arches beyond. The air was cold and fresh, and as a tiny draft stirred
against his hot cheek, he too could smell water.

Behind them, footsteps slipped down the stairwell: not the ring of boots, but shoes, soled with soft leather. The Messenger
emerged, holding a hemp bag in one hand and the wooden box Scuff had given him beneath his other arm. He’d found his way down
without a light, Nate thought. He must see in the dark like a wild creature.

Miss Leah ran to him at once and put her hand to his cheek without speaking; she showed him the ruined swanskin. Nate could
not see Miss Leah’s face, but he saw the Messenger’s expression as he set down the bag and box and took the swanskin from
her. He was trying to hold the rents together as if he could somehow mend them with his fingers for her, and all the time
she clutched his arm as if she’d never let go.

Nate saw that they loved each other. He wondered if Scuff had seen it too, and felt painfully for her.

The Messenger kept hold of the swanskin and clasped Miss Leah’s hand with his free one. “The Militia will overpower the rebels
soon,” he said urgently, looking around at the three of them. “There are few rebels and many soldiers. I couldn’t see what
had happened to the Lord Protector, but no doubt he has survived. We should wait down here until the fire burns itself out
in the Cathedral.”

“You could have left with the Protector,” Nate blurted out,
almost aggressively, and he saw the grave eyes focus on him. “You could be safe outside in the open air by now. The Militia
would have guarded you. Why come back to us?”

“Does it need explanation?” said the Messenger quietly. He turned to Leah, as Nate felt a flush rise to his cheeks. “Take
my bag; there’s a water bottle in it. We could all do with wetting our throats, I think.”

They passed the stone water bottle around. Nate watched Scuff as she drank, her eyes on the Messenger. While he tried not
to gulp more than his fair share, desperate to relieve his parched throat, he wondered if she would ever look at him in that
way, or trust him enough to tell him what she’d been through. When this was all over, he’d compose a romance, play it to her
on his ratha.

Slowly they all sank down and sat on the cold stone in the pool of lamplight. The Messenger opened the box and took out a
feather, running his fingers idly over its softness, his eyes narrow as he looked into the darkness beyond the arches. Leah
stuffed the bottle back into the hemp bag. She dragged off her pearl snood and flung it down, shaking her hair free. They
stared around at each other, taking stock of their red-rimmed eyes and blackened faces, the drooping, bedraggled wedding finery,
the once-beautiful silks and satins scorched from the smoke.
We look like a gang of street urchins
, thought Nate as he settled his ratha case against him. He felt unutterably weary.

There wasn’t a sound except the
drip, drip
of water and their quick breathing. The stones waited, stolid, unmoving.
Time stretched. Nate’s heart slowed. They were in another world from the tumultuous hell above.

“Look above you,” said the Messenger’s voice softly. “Do you see the swans, Leah?”

When Erland came into the crypt, his eyes went straight to Leah. I minded that, but I think I expected it. But then Erland
looked at me, and there was something in his gaze that made me happy.

We sat down finally, for there was nothing else to do. We knew we would have to wait a long time before it would be safe to
go back up into the Cathedral, and none of us could bear to think of what might follow then.

“Look above you. Do you see the swans, Leah?” Erland said. Above our heads the colors glowed; the gold leaf glinted in the
candlelight.

“Do they have a meaning, I wonder?” she whispered, staring up. Nate beat a tiny tune on the leather of his ratha case. “Can
you tell me, Nate? Your father was Keeper of the Keys, I believe, and knew much about the city’s history.”

He cleared his throat and began a little bashfully; even in the lamplight I could see him blush at being the center of attention.

“My father always said this was a mystical ceiling, of great importance to the city, Miss Leah. Do you see that in each panel
the swan wears the crown? The Protector chose to interpret that as a prophecy, to suit his own ends. He thought
he could present himself as the begetter of a dynasty through your marriage to his son. He knew it would stop any members
of the Ministration from plotting to overthrow him and his son after him, if they thought Caleb was ruling by divine providence.”