Lord Sunday Read Free Page B

quill pen out of the closer desk, Suzy spun herself slightly away from the Denizen so that he couldn’t see her as she wriggled two fingers under the rope around her waist, feeling inside one of the pockets of her utility belt. She could only reach one pocket and she knew there was nothing as useful as a knife in there. Still, ever optimistic, she thought there might be something. It was an effort, but she did manage to get a grip on a cake of best-quality waterless soap. Slowly she drew it up into her hand.
    Bloomin’ soap, she thought. What am I going to do with that?
    “This will serve,” said Giac. He set out a sheet of thick paper on the floor near Suzy’s feet and quickly drew up the board. “I’ll rip up some more paper to make the draughts. Do you want to be blue or white?”
    “Blue,” said Suzy. As she rotated around again she manoeuvred her hand so that she could push the soap between two strands of rope. Being waterless soap, it was quite slippery and she thought she might be able to make it shoot out, if she could just get a good grip and snap her fingers in the right way. “What’s your friend doing?”
    “Hmmm? Aranj?” asked Giac. He looked around at the other Sorcerous Supernumerary, who had stopped pacing by the door and was now sitting down with her legs pulled up and her face on her knees, appearing rather like a crushed black spider. “She’s gone into a slough of despond. It couldn’t have helped to have you talking about our heads getting cut off.”
    “What’s a sluff of despond?” asked Suzy.
    “Acute misery,” replied Giac as he tore up ablue sheet of paper, “resulting in withdrawal from the world. Happens to a lot of us Sorcerous Supernumeraries. Had a bout of it myself a thousand years ago. Not too serious, mind – it only lasted twenty or thirty years. I suppose I should be suffering now, but you were right about the draughts. I’m looking forward to our—”
    At that moment, Suzy forced her fingers together with a snap and the soap shot out. It struck Giac in the side of the head, but with very little force.
    “Ow!” he said. He looked around wildly, but Suzy was still all tied up and slowly spinning in place. “Who did that?”
    “Dunno,” said Suzy. “It just came out of nowhere.”
    Giac picked up the soap and looked at it.
    “Grease monkey soap,” he said. “Probably thought it was funny to drop this over the side, somewhere up top. Oh, well. Let’s get started.”
    “You can go first,” said Suzy.
    Giac nodded and set out the paper draughts on the makeshift board. He’d only just laid them all down when a breeze blew in, picked them up andlofted them over the edge of the veranda to spin and twinkle away.
    “We’d better use Noon’s board and the pawns for draughts,” said Suzy. “Tell you what – if you don’t want to touch it, how about you cut me down and I’ll do all the moves? That way you can say you never went near it.”
    “I don’t know…” said Giac. He looked longingly at the board. “I would so love to play a game. It’s been such a long time since I played anything.”
    “You get me down and we’ll play draughts until someone shows up. If it’s your lot, you just say I escaped a minute ago. If it’s the Piper’s Newniths, you can change sides.”
    “Change sides?” asked Giac. “Um, how could I do that?”
    “Well, you just stop obeying Superior Saturday and start obeying the Piper…or someone else. Lord Arthur, for example.”
    “Just like that?” asked Giac wonderingly. “And it would work?”
    “Well, I s’pose it would,” said Suzy. “As long as you didn’t run into Saturday herself. Or one of her superior Denizens, like Noon.”
    “But they’ve gone up top,” said Giac, pointing. “Invading the Incomparable Gardens. I could change sides now .”
    “First things first,” said Suzy. “It’s one thing to change sides; it’s something else to have the other side accept you.”
    The half smile that had