The City's son

CHAPTER 26

‘Gutterglass won’t say so, but I’m fairly sure my mother was ashamed of me. Now, now, no need to choke up. I’m not looking for sympathy; I only want to explain, give you the context, so you’ll understand why she did what she did.

‘She must have been gutted when I was born, with these fingers with their bones so easy to break, these eyes that can see only seven colours. I was so small compared to her — she was this Goddess, this city, and me? I was a tear-and-turd-squirting bundle constantly yammering to be fed.

‘I once asked Glas if my father was human and though she always said she didn’t know, I think either my old man or one of his relatives must have been. The weaknesses bred true.

‘I know, I know, brings a tear to your eye and all that. But that’s how it was. Of course, I was still the son of a Goddess, and that had its perks. If she’d just left me to grow naturally my arms would have been as strong as girders and I’d have outrun the trains. But for what she wanted me for, that wouldn’t have been enough.

‘Mater Viae needed more: she needed me to shine like the Thames on a summer’s day. She needed my bones to outlast the city foundations, and more than that, she needed me to be proof of her, to carry her name.

‘She took me out east, out to the docks, though London’s old port belonged to Reach then. She walked wrapped in rags, with only Fleet, the bravest of her retinue of Cats, beside her. As she passed, the street signs yearned to change, but she bid them hold.

‘She kept to the brickways, the roads of fish and sewage and opium and knotted rope, the old paths — as hard as Reach tried, he could never gentrify the docks. They were loyal to her spirit, even while he reared his towers up over them.

‘She walked beside the canals and the wrecks of the old tea clippers raised themselves out of the depths, eager to relive their memories of bringing her tribute. She shushed them down again, gracious but urgent: she wasn’t there to be noticed. Fleet wound her way, meowing, around her mistress’ ankles, and my mother stroked her with slate-skinned fingers. They crept along, me in her arms, my mother cooing road-shanties to keep her infant child becalmed, her voice low enough that the vibrations in the air wouldn’t disturb the crane-struts.

‘-what? What? I’m building a picture up, all right? I’m “setting the scene”. You want me to get on with it? Fine. It’s night. It’s dark. It’s enemy territory. They’re sneaking. It’s risky. Get it? Good. Excuse me for trying to make it interesting.

‘So anyway, there’s this old abandoned dye factory, hunched over the river like a hungry old man scouring it for fish. The men that live there, the Chemical Synod, they exist beyond my mother’s sway, but she’d done deals with them before — making deals is their reason to be.

‘She’d given me all she could of her own power, but to challenge Reach’s growing strength, to be her champion, I needed more.

‘And they smiled their oil-black smiles and rubbed their frictionless palms together. They bowed deeply and in their quiet, courteous voices they named the price.

‘You see, this city is built on a lot of things: brick and stone and river clay, but under that, under everything, this city is built on bargains. Those’re the true foundations of the city, those intricate contracts. Deals are sacred here.

‘Behind the factory lies the chemical marshes, where the effluent of the docks has seeped into the city’s flesh. These are the synod’s cauldrons, where they brew their experiments. They mix liquid chaos in carefully measured quantities, pouring it from rusted drums, peppering it with more exotic ingredients — splinters of skull from road accidents, or a vial of rainwater that flowed through London’s gutters in Roman times.

‘And then, at eventide, with the Thames at low ebb, they sit in their fields inhaling the mist of the alkali fens and discuss in slick-tongued sibilants the markets they can make for that day’s brew.

‘These men showed my mother through one gate and then another, laughing as she slipped over the sodden ground and swayed giddily through the gas. Her hands went numb and I nearly slipped from them, and the synod reached out, eager to catch me, to claim their most exotic ingredient yet. But she gripped me tighter, set her shoulders and walked on.

‘They led her in circles, letting the poisons they farmed seep into her blood, until she was impossibly weak when they arrived at their destination: a ragged-shored pool slick with a rainbow sheen.

‘My mother unwound the billboard scraps that she’d swaddled me in. Fleet flattened her ears and hissed, threatening the synod, and they smiled their black smiles and spread their hands and stepped away.

‘My mother held me by the ankle, her all-too-human child, and she stared her defiance at the cranes on the horizon as she lowered me into the pool.

‘And then what, you ask? What do you think? Then I changed. I took on those aspects of the city the synod had hoarded. My sweat became petrol to keep me warm on the coldest night. I could flow as silently and as fast as shadows. My wounds would close as fast as oil over a stone.

‘And their part of the deal given, the Chemical Synod demanded their payment.

‘Gutterglass found me, the way she always has. Her pigeons spotted the baby lying in the marshes and bore her to me. Fleet was still hissing and yowling to keep the synod at bay. Glas always says I wasn’t crying, just staring up at the clouds, giggling, drunk on the fumes. I wasn’t even aware my Mother had gone.

‘No one but the synod knows what was demanded, but whatever the price was, Mater Viae didn’t have it. That’s why she went, had to be: she had to go hunting for it. That’s why she disappeared.

‘Not long after, Fleet vanished too, following her, and from that day to this, from Shepherd’s Bush to Cripplegate neither Mater Viae nor her Cats have been seen.

‘And now she’s coming back — who knows why? Perhaps she’s completed the task the synod gave her, retrieved whatever rare commodity they need for their next experiment in mortal chemistry.

‘But still, she’s been gone a long time. And sometimes I catch Glas’ reflection in a window-pane, when she thinks I can’t see, and her face… Well, I can’t help but wonder if she thinks that I cost her a Goddess, for all those years at least.

‘So that’s where we’re going, Beth, if you’re willing: out to the chemical marshes, to put petrol in your sweat and steel in your bones. We’re going diving for a new you amidst the opium and tea and the old bloody brick. I asked you to give up home, give up safety, and you did, and I’m grateful. Now I need you to give up this one more thing. It’s double or quits, Beth — I just hope it’s not sudden death.

‘Do you really want to be like me?’