A round lunchtime, the Court held the second state funeral Brian and Gregory had attended since they’d come to the city of the Norumbegans. It was in memory of Sir Pleckory Dither, the knight who’d been killed in the first mannequin bombing attack on the palace. Once again, the streets were thronged with people. Once again, vendors sold roast chestnuts and scoops of icy gelato. They sold balloons painted with faces like corpses.
Gregory and Brian stood near the Earl of Munderplast in a crowd of aristocrats as the parade began. Once again, the nobility of Norumbega were dressed in top hats and the face paint of mourning.
“After the requiem,” said Munderplast, “I shall hold parley with Lord Dainsplint. I have no doubt that we shall discover he has been involved in something dastardly which shall add quite satisfactorily to my dismal opinion of what we’ve all become.”
Brian said, “You could maybe search him, or get that wizard investigator, Thoth-Chumley, to search him. I think whoever is guilty of the murder might be wearing a secret transmitter that broadcasts everything to the Thusser. The Thusser are in communication with at least one person in the capital.”
“And we think it’s someone in the Imperial Council,” Gregory said. “Whoever’s responsible for the assassination must have one of those rings.” He pointed at the signet ring on Lord Munderplast’s finger. “He sealed a command to one of the servants with the Imperial mark on the day that the Regent was killed.”
Munderplast held up his own ring and inspected it. “It’s terribly exciting. One feels almost refreshed.” He thought for a moment. “No,” he corrected. “Not refreshed. But as if a new and more vigorous strain of rot and decay had taken over this old body.” He smiled faintly and patted his own belly.
The Imperial band went past at the head of the parade. Behind them came dancers dressed as animals.
Gugs appeared at Munderplast’s side. “I say,” he said, “quite a ruckus.”
Brian still couldn’t believe that the Norumbegans were confronting an enemy army and attending the funeral of one of their own knights, and could only say things like “What a ruckus.” Now he understood why, at the last funeral, Lord Dainsplint had talked about pinning the murder to Dantsig, whether Dantsig was guilty or not. Now Brian hoped it could just be proved easily that Dainsplint himself was guilty. Then Brian and Gregory could point the finger, get their mechanical friends revived, find a way out of this mess of a city, leave Dantsig with the invading host, and head into the hills to find the hermit.
A band of musicians playing weird, wailing pipes walked past. A bagpipe with innumerable little horns was slumped on the shoulders of three men, all of whom blew and pumped its bellows.
Then came a choir, screeching a song in a high-pitched, unnatural voice, saying, “Alas! He has passed! He is out of the Great Body now! He is lost! He is tossed! He is …” They were gone down the street.
And then came the dancing girls, Gwynyfer among them.
She whirled along, doing the old dances of her people. Her eyes were sly and thin. This time, when Gregory waved, she nodded to him quickly before spinning by.
“You seem to much affect the daughter of the Duke of the Globular Colon,” said the Earl of Munderplast. “One does so like to see young love. It reminds one faintly of when one had hope.” He scratched his chin. “Faintly,” he repeated.
“She’s a grand gal,” said Gregory. He could barely keep the giddiness out of his voice. He told Brian proudly, “Did you know her father is on the Imperial Council?”
Brian shook his head — then froze — and stared.
Gwynyfer Gwarnmore danced away, her hair shifting around her shoulders. Behind her came the young men of the Court, painted in blue woad, dancing on the mud of the road with their bare feet.
Brian felt tremendous alarm. “Her father?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” said Gregory. “She told me yesterday. They’re a really important family.”
The Earl of Munderplast explained, “A decayed branch of the ancient royal line. Descended from King Durnwyth Gwarnmore the Navigator.”
“Good blood, that,” added Gugs. “Runs golden as honey. Clots when necessary.”
“Clots?” said Gregory.
“Scabs,” Gugs explained.
“Gregory,” Brian interrupted, “her father is a suspect.”
Gregory thought about it. “Well, yeah, okay, technically.”
“Not technically!” Brian protested. “He really could have done it! And we’ve been telling Gwynyfer everything.”
The rusted old automaton built to represent the Norumbegan Empire Herself, Grieving, rattled along the street, painted eyes blind, squirting tears. She threw flower petals. The petals were ground in the dirt of the avenue as the crowd surged forward and fell back.
Brian and Gregory weren’t paying attention. Gregory challenged, “What are you saying?”
“That Gwynyfer could have been spying on us.”
Gregory rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure.”
“Yes, sure. And what about all those times she tried to convince us to stop investigating? Why do you think she did that?”
“She’s one of these people,” Gregory said, throwing his hand out toward the earl and Gugs with disgust. “You know they can’t keep a thought in their heads for more than five minutes.”
“I say,” Gugs interjected. “That’s a bit cheeky, old thing.”
“Oh, come on.” Gregory turned to Gugs. “You got to admit it. You people have the emotional lives of gnats.”
Gugs shrugged. “Not entirely off the mark,” he agreed. He looked anxiously over the shoulders of the mourners to see if the ice-cream man was out of banana gelato.
“Wasn’t always like that,” the Earl of Munderplast complained. “Once we wrote epic poems that made us cry for weeks.” He pointed. “I say, look at this.”
Brian didn’t want to look at anything. He wanted to run after Gwynyfer and question her. She had disappeared, however, and clanking by was a set of three drones, all draped in black silk. Brian didn’t care.
The Earl of Munderplast explained, “They’ll be buried with Sir Pleckory Dither — in his tomb — to serve him in the afterlife. Time was, a member of the Norumbegan Court would have had ten or fifteen fully conscious mannequin servants entombed to accompany him to the next world. But, alas, if we had any mannequins now, we couldn’t spare them. And imagine — now they’re surrounding us. They’re entombing us.”
“Outrageous,” said Gugs.
And Munderplast sighed. “Sad times. Sad times.”
“You would entomb mannequins?” Brian said. “When they were alive?”
“They’re never alive,” replied Gugs.
“They think they’re alive,” Brian said.
“You’re getting very emphatic,” said Gugs.
“You would just force conscious automatons to walk into the tomb? And you’d seal them up in there?” Gugs nodded, bewildered. Brian asked, “What happened to them?”
Gugs shrugged. “’Spect they wound down. Unless someone left a key so they could wind each other up. Then maybe they’d last for a few years, keeping the tomb clean, till they decided the game was up, and they’d let themselves slow down and stop.” He looked sadly at the disappearing drones. “When I was just a little lad, I was frightfully keen on being buried with a bevy of clockwork dancing girls. Thought they could do a little mourning polka.”
Brian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. No wonder, he thought, the mannequins have formed the Resistance!
“We’re not finished with the Gwynyfer subject,” Gregory said. “You’re just paranoid.”
“Her father is a suspect.”
“You just don’t like her.”
“Why should I like her? She’s —”
And Brian was just about to scream about everything that had been bothering him for days — all the snotty comments, the confusing talk, the mean lies, the cruel pronouncements, the insane evasions —
But then the screeching horn blew to announce the arrival of the dancer portraying Death.
“Look away! Look ye away!” the Earl of Munderplast demanded.
Brian and Gregory turned, along with the others. A great drum beat. Its sound thudded through the stone and sand. Brian could feel it in his skull, in the pads of his fingers.
There was a loud bang.
No one stirred, for fear of Death.
Except Gugs. He twisted his head to look.
Brian wondered what the bang had been. He thought it didn’t sound much like the drum.
The crowd huddled in the square, facing away from the parade. They waited for the all clear.
But the all clear didn’t come.
Gugs said something strange. It didn’t sound like language. He bent down, looking for something on the ground.
Brian wondered if they were supposed to say a prayer or touch the dirt.
Then Gugs collapsed.
Brian yelped.
“Slungs,” exclaimed the Earl of Munderplast.
Brian squatted at Gugs’s side. The nobleman was lying facedown. “Help me flip him!” he said.
They heard the crowd exclaim — people were wondering what was going on. As he and Gregory heaved, Gregory gasped. “He’s — it’s a hole.”
“Shot!” Brian said.
Gregory put his hand in front of Gugs’s mouth. He held it there, feeling for breath. Brian watched Gregory’s face. Gregory had gone white with terror.
Slowly, Gregory shook his head.
Brian stood up and, shielding his eyes so he wouldn’t see Death, called out, “Count Galahad Ffines-Whelter has been shot in the back! Gugs is dead!”
The crowd roared. People pushed and shoved. Screaming. Panic.
And in the middle of it, the dancer costumed as Death scampered on its route, flinging out its arms — seen by many.
“We can see Death,” said Gregory, delighted.
“Don’t!” Brian called, grabbing his arm. “Don’t forget these people are magic. Death might be fatal.”
“Indeed,” said the Earl of Munderplast. “ ‘Death might be fatal.’ Such wisdom in one so young.” The old man watched the Wizard Thoth-Chumley elbowing his way through the crowd. “Thoth-Chumley!” called Munderplast. He curled his hands around his mouth. “Seek Lord Dainsplint! Lord Dainsplint!”
Gregory asked, “You think Lord Dainsplint shot Gugs?”
“Of course. The late Gugs was living proof that Lord Dainsplint was lying about where he was at the time of the murder.”
Brian didn’t agree. He said, “But Gugs was Lord Dainsplint’s best friend.”
“Which is precisely why the fool Gugs doubtless told Dainsplint that I’d be questioning them about their alibi. And that is what sealed Gugs’s doom. Dainsplint had to kill him once he knew that.” The earl was waving again to Thoth-Chumley. He informed Gregory and Brian, “There is nothing more deadly than a best friend. Who else do you let come so close? Who else may wield the dagger against you better?”
Gregory and Brian looked at each other.
Brian was thinking of Gwynyfer.
He wondered who Gregory was thinking of.
Far above, slim birdlike things lifted off the palace battlements and swarmed the air.