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"You want me to find you a what?" The marquis de Carabas had clearly not misheard Richard, because the marquis de Carabas was not in the habit of mishearing anything. However, Richard got the distinct impression that the man was giving him the rare opportunity to reconsider the words he'd just spoken aloud before it was revealed that they meant something terribly foolish.
"A flat." Richard repeated. He paused, considering. "Or, I suppose it doesn't have to be a flat, but a room or some sort of living space where I can stay long term."
"You called me all the way out here for this?" The marquis's shoulders tensed, and he seemed to be on the verge of flying into an apoplectic rage or bursting into uncontrollable laughter. "Flat hunting?"
Richard did not point out that Tottenham Court Road Station was only a short walk from the marquis's current residence. He was here to ask for help. "Door's been putting me up in one of her spare bedrooms for weeks, but I don't want to impose on her hospitality forever. I need to find my own place."
It was more complicated than that. Door was busy with her plans to unite the Underside, and also looking after little Ingress, who trailed after Door like a wide-eyed, smaller version of her sister. Richard found that he was doing much the same thing, falling into the pattern of Door's daily routines, echoing her footsteps. While he enjoyed her company and was grateful for her help, Richard knew the arrangement wasn't good for either of them. There was too much he still had to learn and unlearn about London Below, things he needed to figure out on his own.
He had been making some small progress. Richard startled less easily now, attracted fewer stares, and could sense an encroaching rat or pigeon from about ten yards off. He kept coins in his pockets for tolls and tributes, but made sure that they never, ever jingled against each other. And he always made sure there was something edible on his person, because when asked if he had anything to eat, the safest answer was always yes.
But Richard knew he still had a long way to go before he could truly fend for himself.
The marquis was regarding him with incredulous, arched brows, as if trying to gauge the correct approach to take with a small child who has just announced his plans to dig a hole to Indochina or Darkest Peru.
Richard took a deep breath and tried again. "I'd really appreciate your help with this. You would be doing me a very big favor."
That got the marquis's attention. He held up a hand, all traces of doubt and derision gone in an instant. "Say no more. If you're calling in your favor, that's a different matter entirely." A broad grin appeared, gleaming white teeth a sharp contrast to dark skin and darker eyes. "I'll find you your flat, Richard Mayhew. But as for holding and defending it, you're on your own."
Richard nodded. "Agreed."
---
As they descended from the tube station into the unseen places Below, a familiar trepidation began to creep into Richard's mind.
Seeking out the marquis de Carabas had not been his first choice. It wasn't because Richard disliked him – the marquis was decent company when he wasn't making Richard feel hopelessly inadequate at everything – but he was a dangerous man of shifting loyalties, and associating with him always carried certain risks.
"I'm afraid that traditional flats are in short supply, as I understand there's still a great demand for them Above." The marquis was still wearing his most pleasant smile as they made their through a subterranean access tunnel that lead back into the interior of London Below. He looked every inch the helpful, considerate, eager-to-please Good Samaritan that Richard knew he most definitely was not. "However, I know of several sites that could be converted into something more hospitable easily enough."
"Sure." Richard nodded, trying to not to look doubtful.
He'd tried to make inquiries himself, approaching Iliaster Tertius, Lear the saxophone player, and the few others he knew by name. He'd even bought information from one of the Rat-Speakers about prospective locations, only to spend three days lost in the tunnels below Camden Town chasing his own shadow. Door had scolded him after that adventure, and it had taken a lot of effort to convince her that Richard really didn't need her help. But she did get him to promise that he wouldn't go off flat-hunting alone again.
And that brought him to the marquis's very big favor. It had only come about because of an incident at the last Floating Market, where Richard had inadvertently saved the marquis's life from a quick and messy end. Though it had been an accident, there were rules about these things, and saying "No thank you" when the favor was offered was not an acceptable answer. Richard had tried anyway, only to be sharply elbowed by Door, who urgently whispered into his ear that Richard should accept graciously and not piss off the marquis any further if Richard knew what was good for him. So he did.
But Richard didn't want the marquis to owe him a favor. Men had been killed and dismembered for less. The obligation had hung over his head these past few weeks like a lingering cough that might be a sign that one was slowly dying from consumption. He had to get rid of it. While flat-hunting might not technically be something that required a very big favor, it was the safest sort of request Richard could think of.
Of course, safety was a relative thing in London Below.
The marquis caught hold of Richard by the wrist suddenly, making him stumble in the dark. Richard's other hand immediately went for the knife at his side, expecting they had run into trouble already, but the marquis was pulling him closer and staring up at Richard with a sharp, appraising gaze. "I don't believe you're hardy enough for underground living," he declared. "Probably won't be for another century or two. We'll need to ensure that you have regular access to fresh air and sunlight."
"I'm not a geranium," Richard protested.
"Exactly. They can grow anywhere. You're more of a hothouse orchid, the kind that shrivels up and dies if you overwater it." The marquis released his hold, and was striding forward again as if nothing had happened. Richard hurried to catch up. "Vaults are out, of course, and the sewers. I suppose this is why you haven't taken up residence in the Labyrinth."
Technically the vacated chambers of the Angel Islington and the Labyrinth of the Beast were now Richard's domain by right of conquest. Door had patiently explained that Richard could expect to be challenged for them if somebody wanted the real estate. So far nobody had.
Richard expected that having a deep, dark, almost completely inaccessible chamber in the depths of London Below would come in handy eventually, but he couldn't imagine living there. The thought of it made him a little queasy, actually. He'd known too many people, Above and Below, who stayed in less than optimal conditions - not because they particularly liked their surroundings, but out of obligation, or to maintain their social status, or simply to make sure that no one else could.
"You're right," Richard replied. "I wouldn't like to be too far underground."
"Of course I'm right." The marquis's pace slowed. He pointed toward a set of rusted metal rungs in the side of the passageway, leading upwards toward the surface. "We'll start from the top."
---
"This isn't going to work."
It was a stunning view, one that would have cost millions of pounds if Richard were taking it in from the balcony of an ordinary flat. However, at the moment he was standing on a narrow ledge jutting out from the side a very tall stone tower. He could see a church below him, though he couldn't tell which one it was. Richard thought it might be the one near Fenchurch Street Station, except the one he was thinking of had been rebuilt after a fire, and was surrounded by modern buildings on all sides. There was nothing remotely modern-looking about any of the buildings around him. Only the stones in the churchyard appeared to be recently placed. His stomach lurched, and Richard looked away quickly. He had the awful suspicion that the ledge he was standing on was only decorative and not meant to support so much weight.
"What do you mean it's not going to work? There's open air, sunlight, and convenient access to all the shops." The marquis was a few feet above Richard's head, sauntering across the tops of the battlements. He peered down at Richard, eyes brimming over with amusement. "You're the Warrior who defeated the Great Beast of London and you still can't overcome a little vertigo? This isn't nearly as high as some of the other roofs I had in mind."
Being a Warrior, and sometimes The Warrior of the Underground, was something Richard didn't think he'd quite grasped the full meaning of yet. It was a title to live up to that came with certain responsibilities, but he was sure that none of them required living on top of unreasonably tall towers.
"I think we can rule out roofs and towers and any other very tall buildings." Richard closed his eyes and pretended that he was standing on good, solid ground, and the steady gusts of wind whistling in his ears were not about to send him toppling over into thin air and certain doom at any moment. "Can we go away now, please?"
---
"This should be more to your liking."
They were somewhere underneath St. James's Square, and Richard found that he and the marquis were descending into a small village, with rows and rows of buildings lined up along winding streets, mostly small houses and shops. There was something strange about them, but Richard couldn't quite say what it was.
It was only once they came closer, that Richard realized that the walls of all the buildings were papered over with a hundred million pages from books and periodicals and newspapers of every language that had ever been typeset and printed. Or perhaps the walls themselves were paper, layers and layers of knowledge accumulated over time until they had formed protective cocoon-like bulwarks against the outside world. Here was the glossy laminate sheen of a medical text, sheets of smudgy gray newsprint, and even brittle, ancient, cumin-coloured pages from long-forgotten Victorian novels, that would surely disintegrate at the slightest touch.
Richard couldn't stop looking. "Are we under the library?"
"Under one and in another." The marquis pointed toward the ceiling, where several spiraling staircase structures led up to the mouth of a tunnel. "Technically the same one, I suppose. This is a section of the original London Library before it was reconstructed in 1898, currently home to the best wordsmiths, pagemongers, and printwrights to be found in the Underground. It's one of the safer fiefdoms, and connected to the Library Above for all your informational needs."
There were people everywhere, carrying piles of books to and fro, cataloguing them, trading them, and stacking them into neat, orderly piles. The inhabitants spoke in whispers to each other, though no one seemed bothered by the presence of strangers. In one corner, unwanted volumes were being cut apart, shorn of their covers, and the loose leaves sorted by color and size. And Richard realized that it wasn't just the walls, but items of furniture, clothing, and an array of other objects that were all made from paper, many of them on display for sale. He spotted a metal bed frame supporting a mattress entirely sewn from gift-wrap tissue paper. The topmost layer was pattered with the words HAPPY CHRISTMAS! in alternating bands of green and red.
The marquis cleared his throat loudly, and Richard realized he'd been staring with his mouth agape. "Sorry."
"As I was saying, the village is one of the oldest in London Below and one of the few where you can usually find rooms to let." The marquis led the way toward a cluster of larger buildings, and Richard followed nodding, but his attention soon wandered again.
He spotted a flock of moths flitting behind one of the houses, their wings the same color as the papered walls, dappled with inky markings. As they crawled and fluttered over the pages, they created the illusion that the words were moving. Richard's eyes followed them instinctively, and he knew then that it would be impossible for him to live here. He kept trying to read everything, his attention constantly being snagged by faded letters and incomplete fragments of text. He couldn't control the impulse, just like he couldn't help pricking up his ears every time he overheard someone speaking French, his mind automatically trying to translate the words in his head even if he had no interest in the conversation itself.
Richard imagined himself lying awake at night, staring up at a ceiling where the paper-colored moths kept rearranging the words so that he would never be able to finish reading a single sentence. But he couldn't stop trying. Because if he just focused hard enough, long enough, he could almost -
For the second time that day a firm hand clamped around his wrist, squeezing tightly enough to pull Richard back to earth. "Don't get lost," the marquis warned, his voice cutting sharply through the fog.
Richard blinked, and managed to tear his gaze away from the moths and the words and the walls. His heart was racing as he looked up to see the marquis's exasperated expression. "Let's keep looking," he heard himself say.
---
"Well, what do you think?"
"It's too damp," said Richard. There were several other adjectives that were also coming to mind to describe the sub-basement of the abandoned hospital, including creepy, eerie, sinister, oppressive, and unpleasant. Sickly fluorescent lights illuminated chipped blue-green tiles, stained linoleum, and metal fixtures. The smell of mold and stagnant water seemed to permeate everything. Richard hovered by the doorway, not really interested in getting a closer look.
"Dampness is easily remedied." The marquis did not seem bothered in the least by the condition of the place, and was busy taking inventory of the furnishings, oblivious to Richard's discomfort. "I know a man with a thriving business in tarps and plastic sheeting. We'll have this place drier than the Sahara in no time at all."
Richard reluctantly shuffled into the center of the room. Someone - or someones - had been here recently. Razor blades were scattered over a section of the floor, gleaming silver shards of sharpness untouched by rust despite the moist conditions. There was a marmalade jar on the table with a centipede caught inside. Richard thought it was dead at first, but as he approached it sprang to life, a thrashing coil of orange and black spines.
"Poisonous," the marquis remarked, without looking up from the sink he was inspecting.
Richard didn't like the idea of leaving any living creature trapped in this place. He unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the instant he began to lift it up, the centipede had scurried out on to the table, then made its way down to the floor, and finally disappeared into a crack in the wall.
The marquis gave him a disapproving look. "And the next time you're in mortal peril I suppose you'll expect it to return the favor. You really are thick, aren't you?"
Richard shrugged. "I don't think he'll remember me. He was in an awful hurry to get away." Like we should be, he mentally added. Richard spotted a smear of something reddish on the wall by the smashed-up remains of a rotary telephone, and quickly averted his eyes.
"Oh it'll be back." The marquis frowned and turned toward doorway, motioning for Richard to follow him out of the basement. "That particular breed of terrestrial Chilopoda is quite intelligent and emotionally developed. They're known for having tremendously strong social bonds. And they also have the unfortunate habit of expressing their gratitude by biting each other's legs off. We don't want to be here when your new friend recovers enough to come back and say thank you."
"You're overreacting." Richard was glad they were leaving, but he couldn't help being incredulous. "Something that size can't possibly do much damage."
The marquis grimaced. "As I said, they're very social. And they get bigger." His steps quickened on the linoleum as Richard heard a faint scratching sound coming from the room they'd just left. "Pray it doesn't recognize you in the future when it's grown up. Now walk. Faster."
---
The marquis's idea of a modest villa on the edge of the city turned out to be a palatial Roman villa rustica with its own vineyard and enclosed gardens. They were obliged to go all the way out to Chorleywood, where an undiscovered natural cavern kept the villa hidden from the village Above, but Richard couldn't complain.
He couldn't believe how well preserved the place was. At the marquis's urging Richard wandered the grounds on his own, finding his way to the main building. The found the entry vestibule and walked down the corridor to the central hall, which was beautifully lit by natural light that filtered in from mouth of the cavern. There were a few marble inlays and mosaics on the floors but his attention was drawn to the wall murals depicting scenes of the pastoral countryside, mythological creatures, and a few discreet Roman figures.
Opening a door, he found himself in a quiet courtyard lined with stone benches. Another door brought him to a long passageway, which branched off into chambers and antechambers. There were almost no signs of wear to the structure, no cobwebs, no molds, and not even much dust in the corners. Richard could imagine himself occupying the little room on the end that had a window looking out on the orchard. He could use the one next to it for storage, and another for an office. He could even ask Door to link this place to hers, once he'd settled in. It could be perfect.
However, there was a strange smell to the air, dry and acrid. Richard walked out into the back garden. From here, he could see the walls of the surrounding cavern were scorched and blackened as though they'd been burned.
"This is the best one we've seen so far, but there's a reason it's deserted, isn't there?" Richard spoke aloud. He turned to find the marquis de Carabas standing a few feet away. The fact that he hadn't heard the man's approach might have concerned Richard once, but not anymore. "All right, what's wrong with it?" he demanded.
"With the villa? Nothing." The marquis sounded ever-so-slightly offended at whatever Richard might be implying. "I've used it for private retreats a dozen times myself. It's as safe as sunlight."
"And at night?" Richard pressed. Something wasn't right and he knew it. Nature abhorred a vacuum, especially in London Below. "Why isn't anyone else living here?"
A pause. "Well, there is the little matter of the Iceni." The marquis was looking at his pocket watch. "In fact we might have - "
He was interrupted by a shrill, high-pitched shriek from somewhere in the distance. A few seconds later, it was joined by a chorus of cries and howls from the shadowed end of the cavern where the light didn't reach, getting louder, getting closer.
Richard had both hands clapped over his ears. "What is it?!"
The marquis heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Just our luck. They're early tonight."
And then Richard heard the horses.
In AD 61, the Iceni warrior queen Boudicca and her daughters wreaked their vengeance upon young Londinium by razing the city to the ground and slaughtering untold thousands of their Roman oppressors. These days, the remaining three dozen or so from the original uprising kept themselves occupied by burning a single villa to the ground every night, which obligingly resurrected itself from the ashes each morning.
Whether this arrangement had originally been intended as a curse or a blessing was a matter of some debate, but the Iceni enjoyed the exercise and it kept their weapons from getting dusty.
As for Richard, who did not hear the marquis's comforting reassurances that the fur-clad warriors never so much as touched the north wing of the villa, he was glad to count among his newly acquired skills the ability to go from standing still to running at full break-neck speed like a bat out of hell in less than three seconds.
---
It was slightly after four o'clock in the morning.
Richard was sitting on an uncomfortable metal bench in one of the Heathrow terminal tube stations, staring at a posted advertisement for vacations packages to the islands. He was tired, his feet hurt, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up into a fetal position and sleep away all memory of the day's events. They'd been from one end of London Below to the other, and seen every possible kind of room, closet, vault, chamber, cave, nook, and crevice that Richard could have possibly crammed himself into. And try as he might, Richard couldn't imagine living in any of them.
Even the marquis was standing perfectly still for the moment, a tall figure that could have been mistaken for an errant shadow on the edge of the platform. "I will admit," he announced, "to being temporarily short on ideas. Do you have any suggestions?"
Richard shook his head. "Maybe we should give up."
"We are not giving up." The marquis's tone suggested that he would tolerate no argument. "We're seeing this little tour through to the end, even if I have to drag you back around to every foxhole from here to Calais."
And he would, of course. Heaving a sigh, Richard flopped over on to his side, wishing the seat wasn't quite so hard. "Maybe I should try living with the fairies at Kensington Gardens."
"I wouldn't recommend it." The marquis was suddenly standing next to him, hands in the pockets of his waistcoat. "Most fairies these days have developed a rather unhealthy fixation on human teeth. And the rest of Hyde Park is the Squirrel-Eaters' territory."
Richard was about to ask whether a Squirrel Eater was anything like a Rat Speaker and decided it was the sort of distinction that he probably didn't want to know about until it was absolutely necessary.
Fatigue was making his thoughts wander off in odd directions. "How about Picadilly Circus?"
"The Greasepaint Tribes are still at war with anyone that gets within bludgeoning distance."
There was a note of impatience in that unflappable voice, and Richard couldn't help himself. "Buckingham Palace?"
"The lost tourists will eat you alive," the marquis deadpanned, "And I do mean that literally."
Richard burst out laughing, a wild, cathartic, full-bodied eruption of ridiculous noise. The fact that the marquis was dead serious and Richard knew it really was all true just made him laugh harder. A few of the commuters on the platform turned their heads, but nobody noticed their presence. They never did.
The marquis patiently waited for him to recover. "Get up," he said, when Richard had stopped gasping like a beached fish, and his face was mostly the right colour again. "I've thought of another prospect we should have a look at."
---
"Where are we?" Richard looked up at the sign that said ORME PASSAGE. "Isn't this your place?"
They were standing in the dead-end street where Richard had first met the marquis De Carabas not so long ago. It was early morning, and the flames of the gas lamps were burning low.
"You'll see." The marquis walked up to the lamp-post, knocked on it three times, then took hold of one of the decorative wrought-iron curlicues and gave it a good twist.
A section of the brick wall swung open, revealing a passageway behind it. Following the marquis, Richard stepped through the darkness and into a carriage house that had been converted into an apartment. It was almost jarringly ordinary, furnished with pieces that might have come from secondhand or charity shops, but nothing noticeably outdated. Framed posters of Soho jazz musicians hung on one wall, along with what were unmistakably photographs of the marquis's closest relations.
From the rabbit-eared telly to the sheepskin rug to the matching tea cozies there was absolutely nothing that suggested that this was the home of a dangerous, mercurial, trickster nobleman who habitually went about in tattered Victorian clothing.
"You're a fraud," declared Richard.
The marquis de Carabas ignored him. "There's an adjoining storehouse that's been vacant for decades, and I've been having a fine time keeping squatters out. It's yours for £40 a month or the equivalent in goods or services. Or favors." He opened another door in the wall to reveal a smaller room. In it stood the bed from the library, two murals from the villa, and the sink and basin from the hospital, all cleaned and neat and ready for use. "You can move in as soon as you like."
Richard opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again just as quickly. He'd asked the marquis to find him a place, and the marquis had found him one. And Richard could not complain that it wasn't a perfectly reasonable, affordable alternative to the ones that he had been shown earlier in the day, or that the marquis hadn't expended considerable time and effort to take him around and give him every opportunity to say yes to something else. For Richard to turn this down would not only make him a prat, but a prat who still didn't have anywhere to live.
Of course, it was also quite clear that the marquis de Carabas had planned all of this from the beginning.
It took a few moments for Richard to think of something to say. "I wonder how people will react when they learn you've taken in a lodger."
"I've not taken in a lodger," the marquis corrected him. "I've taken on a bodyguard, specifically the Warrior, Richard Mayhew, who slew the Great Beast of London." He clapped Richard fondly on the shoulder. "Now that all our debts have been paid, how about some breakfast?"
Landlord and employer. Whatever Richard's doubts, the universe apparently had its own ideas about Richard's proper place in London Below.
He nodded, gamely facing the inevitable. "Of course."