Ptolemy's Gate (27 page)

At this, Ms. Lutyens looked at him in such a way that he was suddenly transported back half his lifetime, to the days when her rare displeasure cast his schoolroom into desperate shadow. He found himself looking at his shoes. “Do you really think,” she said tartly, “that I'll want to tell the world that I once saw you, the great John Mandrake, our beloved Information Minister, hanging upside down with your bottom in the air? That I heard your yelps and wails of pain as cruel men beat you? You think I'd tell this? That's really what you think?”

“No! Not that. I meant about my name—”

“Oh,
that.”
She gave a short, dry laugh. “It may surprise you to know,” she went on, “that I've got better things to do with my time. Yes, even I, with my silly little unimportant job, don't have a great desire to betray the children I once worked with, no matter
what
they've become. Your birth name, Mr. Mandrake, is safe with me. Now I must go. I'm late for my work.”

She turned, began to stride off along the pavement. He bit his lip, his anger mixed with distress. “You're misinterpreting what I'm saying,” he cried. “I didn't come here to crow over you. I just didn't get a chance, back then, to thank you….”

Ms. Lutyens paused, and looked back over her shoulder. Her face had lost its anger. “No, I think I
do
understand,” she said. “And I am pleased to know it. But you mistake yourself. It was the boy who was grateful to me, and you are no longer that boy. You do not speak for him. We have nothing in common, you and I.”

“I wanted to say that I know you were trying to save me, and—”

“Yes,” she said, “and I'm sorry I didn't. Good-bye, Mr. Mandrake.” Then she was off, walking swiftly away from him among the damp leaves.

17

A
nother few hours, another summons—hey, that's the way I like it. A day without enslavement is a day that's wasted, as far as I'm concerned.

Let me see … I'd had Mandrake. I'd had the girl. Who would it be
this
time? After Kitty's surprise appearance in the pentacle I half expected this one to be the postman.

No such luck. It was my dear old master again, face like thunder. With a silver-tipped spear held ready in his hand.

His evident intent stimulated a swift response. I forced my poor old essence into an imposing shape: a lion-headed warrior, of the kind that fought in Egypt's wars.
¹
Leather breastplate, looped bronze skirt, eyes that shone like crystal, fanged teeth glaring from black gums. Nice. I held out a warning paw.

“Don't even
think
about it, squirt.”

“I want answers, Bartimaeus! Answers! And if not—see this spear? I'll make you
eat
it before I'm done.” The words came tumbling from his twisted mouth. His eyes were wide and staring like a fish. He seemed a little upset.

“You?
You'd only recognize the sharp end if you sat on it.” My voice was velvet-smooth. “Be careful, though. I'm not exactly defenseless myself.” From my paddy-paw a talon popped, curved like a sickle moon. I turned it idly, so it caught the light.

He grinned nastily. “Ah, but that's all show, isn't it? Two days ago you weren't even able to
talk
, let alone resist attack. I'm betting if I prod you with this silver here, you'll know about it. And you won't be able to reverse it on me either.”
²

“You reckon?” The lioness drew herself up to her full height. Her tufty ears scraped the ceiling. “Them's mighty big words, stranger. Go ahead and prove 'em.”

He snarled, lunged weakly with the spear. The lioness flinched sideways and sliced down at the spear shaft with her claw. It was a pathetic display all round: we both missed by miles.

“What sort of thrust d' you call that?” the lion scoffed, hopping from one foot to another. “You're like a blind sparrow pecking for a worm.”

“You were no better.” The magician was shuffling from side to side within his pentacle, ducking down, jerking up, feinting with his spear in every direction known to man. He wheezed, he gasped; he displayed all the skill of someone whose servants normally lift his knife and fork.

“Hey,” I said. “I'm this way. To the front.”

“Answers
, Bartimaeus!” he cried again. “Tell me the truth! No delays, no evasions. Who summoned you?”

I'd expected this. But I couldn't tell him that Kitty was still alive, of course. However misguided she was, she'd treated me with honor. The lioness looked sheepish.
³
“Who says
anyone
summoned me?”

“
I
do and don't deny it! I tried last night and you were gone. Who was it? Which magician were you seeing?”

“Don't get so worked up. It was a brief encounter. Nothing serious. It's over.”

“Nothing serious
?” Another jab with the spear, this time pronging the floorboards. “Think I'm going to believe that?”

“Calm down, Mr. Jealous.You're making a scene.”

“Who was it? Man or woman?”

I tried to be reassuring. “Look, I know what you're thinking, and I
didn't.
Is that good enough for you?”

“No! You expect me to trust a word you say?”

So much for reassurance. The lioness reverted to barefaced cheek.
⁴
“All right, then—trust this: Get lost. It's none of your business. I owe you nothing.”

The boy was so angry I thought he was going to burst out of his suit. It was the fear in him, of course; the fear of me passing on his name.

“Listen, sonny,” I said. “I never pass information from one master to another unless it's firmly in my interests, so don't expect me to say anything to you about last night. By the same token I've not told anyone your pathetic little birth name. Why should I? It means nothing to me. But if you're so worried about me revealing your childhood secrets, there's a simple solution. Dismiss me for good! But no—you can't bring yourself to do that, can you? In fact, I don't think you actually
want
to break away from your past. That's why you keep me around, no matter how weak I get. It's so you can hang on to the Nathaniel you once were, as well as the big, bad John Mandrake you've become.”

The magician said nothing, but looked at me blankly with his hot and hollow eyes. I couldn't blame him. I was a bit surprised myself in actual fact. Don't know where those piercing insights came from. All the same, I wondered if they rather went over his head. He wasn't looking well.

We were in his study; it was, I guessed, late afternoon. Papers were strewn about the place; there was an uneaten plate of food upon his desk.The air had a sour, stale smell that suggested prolonged occupation by an unwashed youth. And sure enough, the youth in question was
not
his usual dapper self. His face was puffy, his eyes red and wild; his shirt (distressingly unbuttoned) hung over his trousers in sloppy fashion. All very out of character: Mandrake was normally defined by his rigid self-control. Something seemed to have stripped all that away.

Well, the poor lad was emotionally brittle. He needed sympathetic handling.

“You're a
mess”
I sneered. “You've lost it big-time. What's happened? All your guilt and self-loathing suddenly get to you? It can't
just
be that someone else called me, surely?”

The boy looked up into the lioness's crystal eyes. “No …” he said slowly. “I've other cause for complaint too. And
you're
at the heart of it all.”

“Me?” And there was I, lamenting my decline! Looked like there was life in the old djinni yet. I perked up. “How so?”

“Well”—he set the spear against the ground, narrowly avoiding impaling his toe—“I'll just run through it for you, shall I? Firstly—in the last twenty-four hours there have been a number of serious riots in London. The commoners have caused much damage. There has been fighting and some casualties. Even now there is disorder on the streets. This morning Devereaux declared a state of emergency. Troops have blockaded Whitehall. The machinery of Empire has been seriously disrupted.”

“Sounds like a bad day at the office for you,” I said. “But nothing to do with me.”

He coughed. “A certain frog,” he said, “began it all two nights ago by causing chaos in St. James's Park. Thanks to his actions, a dangerous djinni was set loose among the crowd. It was
this
incident that triggered the riots.”

The lioness uttered a roar of protest. “That was hardly
my
fault! I was trying to carry out
your
orders in a thoroughly weakened state. I succeeded in difficult circumstances. Stop—don't laugh like that. It's creepy.”

The youth had thrown his head back and uttered a hollow, barking laugh not dissimilar to a hyena's. “Succeeded?” he cried. “Is that what you call it? Nearly expiring at my feet, unable to give me one word of the report I'd asked for, making me look a fool in public? If that's success, give me failure any time.”

“
I
made a fool of you?"The lioness could barely contain her mirth. “Get real. You don't need any help on that score, chum. What did I do? Draw attention to your cruelty, perhaps, on account of being nearly dead. What magician keeps a djinni in this world till it's too weak to survive? I'm surprised you didn't finish me off.”

Mandrake's eyes blazed. “They wanted to!” he cried. “They wanted to wrest the information from you and let you die! Fool that I am, I saved you. I let you go. Which left me with no defense against all the destruction you caused. As a result, my career's almost certainly finished. Maybe even my life too. My enemies are gathering. I'm due for trial tomorrow, thanks to you.

His voice quavered, his eyes were moist; you could practically hear the sound of wistful violins. The warrior lioness stuck out her tongue and made a disrespectful noise. “That could all have been avoided,” I said savagely, “if you'd trusted me enough to dismiss me more. I'd have been in better nick then and could have easily avoided Hopkins's demons.”

He looked up quickly. “Ah. So you found Hopkins?”

“Don't change the subject. I was saying: it's all
your
fault.You should have had faith in me. But even after all these years, after what I did for you with Lovelace, with Duvall, with the Anarchist and the Oyster—”

He winced. “Don't mention that last one.”

“—even after all
that,”
I continued remorselessly, “you reverted to type, became a typical magician, treated me like an enemy. I'm a nasty demon, therefore I can't be trusted to—” I broke off.
“What?
Listen, that laugh of yours is
really
getting to me.”

“But that's just it!” he cried. “You
can't
be trusted. You
do
lie to me.”

“Name one occasion.”

His eyes glittered. “Kitty Jones.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“You told me she was dead. I know she's alive.”

“Ah.” My whiskers drooped a tad. “Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“Then you're mistaken.” I rallied as best I could. “She's as dead as they come. I've never seen deader. That golem swallowed her down whole. Gulp! Smack of the lips! Gone. Sad, but still, nothing to be worrying yourself about all these years later.…” I petered out here. I didn't like the look in his eyes.

Mandrake nodded slowly. Red swathes of anger competed with white blotches for possession of his face. It was a tie, a fifty/fifty split. “Swallowed whole, was it?” he said. “Funny, I seem to remember you said the golem burned her to a crisp.”

“Oh, did I? Yes, well, he did that too. First. Before the swallowing bit—ouch!”

Without warning, the magician had raised the spear and jabbed. I was too slow, too weak to react—the spear caught me firmly in my midriff. I gasped in shock, looked down … and relaxed again.

“Wrong end,” I said. “That's the blunt bit.”

Mandrake had noticed this too. With a curse of frustration, he hurled the spear away from him, out of the circle. He stood staring at me, breathing hard, attempting to master his emotions. A minute or so passed. His heart rate slowed.

“Do you know where she is?” I asked.

He said nothing.

I spoke quietly. “Leave her alone. She's doing you no harm. And she saved your life, remember—I
didn't
lie about that.”

He seemed about to speak, then gave his head a little shake, as if forcibly flinging the subject from his mind. “Bartimaeus,” he said, “I stated to you the other day that I would dismiss you if you completed your mission, and—despite the endless provocation—I stand by my word. Tell me what happened when you followed Jenkins, and I will let you go.”

The lioness's brawny arms were folded. She looked down on him from a great height. “Permanently?”