Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [55]
He paused, and a puzzled, halfhearted cheer went up.
“In honor of which discovery, I will now give away three packs of cigarettes to everybody who steps forward to congratulate me.”
A much heartier cheer arose.
“Form a line!” Darger cried. Then, dragooning the slum-boys as his helpers, he pried open the first crate and gave a handful of cigarette packs to a drab woman at the head of the line. “They are yours if you say: Congratulations for finding the library.”
“Congratulations for finding the library.”
“Excellent. Next. You must say…”
“Congratulations for finding the library.”
“Good.”
Beside him, Kyril was handing out cigarettes and receiving perfunctory congratulations, as were his four comrades. Darger noted that their pockets already bulged with packs.
“Congratulations for the library.”
“Congratulations.”
“Good luck. Glad for ya.”
“Um…books?”
“Close enough,” Darger said. “Keep the line moving.”
It took less time to give away the cigarettes than Darger had expected, and yet the experience left him wearier than he would have thought. Finally, though, all the crates had been opened, their contents distributed, and the troglodytes (and a certain number of habitués from the bar and nearby service workers who had come out to see what the noise was about) had gone.
Darger scrupulously paid out the promised money to his half-sized allies. He would have done so even if he hadn’t known how such young men repaid broken promises.
When they had been paid, four of the young men instantly scattered. Kyril, however, remained, looking unaccountably abashed. “Uh, sir,” he said. “What you said about finding the library…does that mean I have to move out of it now?”
Zoësophia was pleasantly surprised by Surplus’s performance. He had, as it turned out, extraordinary stamina for one not born of the breeding vats of Byzantium. It was not until the Way of the Wounded Crane that he gasped, “Enough! Pax! I am but mortal—I must… I have no breath! I can do no more!” And then, when she ignored his pleas and continued onward, he made it all the way through the Way of the Supple Monkey before turning pale and passing out.
“Well!” Zoësophia said, pleased.
Having gotten more of a gallop than she’d expected, Zoësophia found herself feeling decidedly fond of the ambassador. She scratched him behind the ears, and noted with amusement how his feet scrabbled briefly against the cushions. Then she gathered up all the scattered items of clothing and carefully smoothed and laid them out for the morning. She always carried a small mirror with her and this she used to make sure she had no scratches or bruises that would show when dressed. Her hair was a dreadful mess. So she commanded it to go limp and then flicked her head so that it flew out, undoing any snarls or tangles. Six passes of her hands and a command for it to resume its usual body, and she looked as if she had just spent an hour with a beautician.
As she always did before sleeping, Zoësophia took a mental walk into her memory palace and carefully sorted her day’s thoughts into three cabinets—one sculpted from fire, one of ice, and the third merely rattan. She was all but certain that the ambassador was nothing more than a confidence trickster, doubtless planning to run some elaborate scheme on the Duke of Muscovy. But that was tangential at best to her real mission, so she placed that thought in the rattan cabinet, which she reserved for whims, fancies, and idle speculations.
Finally, Zoësophia lay down alongside Surplus, with one hand around his root, so that he could not awaken without her knowing of it. The first thing in the morning, she would dictate terms. For now, she could enjoy her beauty sleep with a clean conscience and a sense of a job well done.
The carriage climbed toward the estate’s hedge-wall, swaying on its springs so that the manor house behind it seemed to dance in the starry night sky. Gentle strains of music could be heard in the distance, for the baronessa