Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods (22 page)

‘It fell. Out of the sky.’

‘Let him up,’ said
Marianne
. ‘I believe he will talk with us.’ And that fact disturbed her. He would talk with them. He would tell them the truth. She knew it. Why did it upset her?

Makr Avehl tied the man’s hands behind him, and Aghrehond saw that two of the momegs were at either side of him before he was allowed to sit up against the canvas, glaring at them in the light of the lantern. ‘Who are you?’ he hissed. ’Who?’ This at least seemed an honest question. He really didn’t know.

‘Never mind,’ said
Marianne
. ‘You don’t really want to know. Now, tell us what your father told you.’

The man’s eyes glazed. He mumbled a moment, ‘Fell from the sky, he said. Dreaming, all night, under the stars… stars like a great river, running away across the sky, and near morning a red star, burning, like a forge, hot over his head, east to west, falling. He went where it fell… all the trees bent down around it. A great hole, hot. And when it cooled, this thing was in it. So he picked it up and put it in his ghost bag and went away from there.’

‘So, then, we know how large it is,’
Marianne
murmured. ’Small enough to be carried away in his ghost bag. How big was his bag, Chevooskak? You saw it many times, how big was it?’

‘So,’ he motioned with his hands, a small square, perhaps a foot on a side.

‘With many things in it, no? Bones, perhaps?’

He nodded, unwillingly. ‘Many things.’

‘What did your father do with this time bender?’

‘He could make time stop. He could make people stop moving. He could make animals stop moving. He was very powerful. Very great. Until she came.’

‘She,’ crooned
Marianne
. ‘Did he love her, Chevooskak?’ Perhaps this was what bothered her.

The man glared, spat, honestly angry. ‘Like a dog after a bitch. Everything he knew, he told her. Everything he had, he gave her.’

‘Instead of to you, his son?’

The shaman growled, deep in his throat. ‘When she had it all, she killed him.’

Marianne
looked at Makr Avehl and shrugged. This last was real, very real. Chevooskak felt that. The other? She was not comfortable with what little they had learned, but she knew of no way to get at the source of her discomfort. Makr Avehl leaned forward to press his hands on the shaman’s neck. The shaman fell forward, unconscious, and the momegs stepped fastidiously away from him.

‘He smells terrible,’ said the Blue Dragon Dog. ‘I don’t think he ever bathes.’

‘I would have hated to bite him,’ admitted Wolf Dog, ’though honor would have constrained me to do so.’

‘It wasn’t necessary,’ commented Makr Avehl. ‘
Marianne
seems to have found out what we needed to know. Let’s dose him with that potion Ellat gave me, Hondi, then haul him back to his yurt. The potion should guarantee he remembers none of this.’ He turned to Marianne with a puzzled look, a look he retained when he returned to the tent. ‘Don’t you think that was too easy?’ he murmured.

‘Perhaps not,’ Aghrehond argued, without real conviction. ’He is not the man his father was. That is clear. Perhaps the power which would have passed from father to son passed instead to her – Madame?’

‘Possible,’ Makr Avehl acknowledged, ‘but I still think it was much too easy.’ The expression of concern stayed on his face and was still there early in the morning, before most of the camp was astir, when they left with their flock. Chevooskak came out of his yurt to stare bleary-eyed after them, a look of confusion on his face.

‘Too easy,’ said Makr Avehl again.

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that,’ said Marianne. ‘It doesn’t seem easy to me. You may know more or less what you’re looking for, but you still have no idea where she keeps it or what it really looks like.’

‘We know a few things about it,’ said Makr Avehl. ‘She uses it to move people into her false worlds. She used it on
Marianne
– my Marianne – at the top of a flight of stairs in Marianne’s own house. She had it with her. Was she carrying anything at that time?’

Marianne
answered. ‘Nothing but a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. Nothing in her hands.’

‘And what was she wearing?’

‘A cap, like a uniform cap, and dark shirt and trousers, I think. Yes, I’m sure. I thought she was a delivery person until she raised her head.’

‘Shirt and trousers. Nothing voluminous. Something, then, that would fit in a pocket or, more likely, on a chain around the neck.’

‘She never wears low-cut clothes,’
Marianne
said. ‘I have been trying to remember every time I’ve seen her. She always wore a high-necked dress or shirt.’

‘So, we assume when she leaves her home, she wears the thing around her neck. When she’s at home, however, she could put it almost anywhere.’

‘So,’ Aghrehond continued, ‘we have a better chance if we get her to come out than if we go in after her.’

Marianne snorted. ‘How do you expect to do that?’

‘Very simple,’ said Makr Avehl. ‘We invite her to the wedding.’

Marianne was furious. ‘I know why he’s doing it. I know it’s a good plan. I know Madame will probably come like a shot, if just to have a chance at me! But this kind of haste – well, it’s unseemly, that’s what it is. People will think I’m pregnant.’

Ellat said reasonably, ‘Well, what’s that matter in this day and age? What’s that matter in any day and age, come to that? Even here in Alphenlicht, it’s not that unusual.’

‘Papa will split a gusset,’ Marianne snarled, quoting Cloud-haired mama, who always asserted that Papa would split a gusset. Marianne herself had no very clear idea of what a gusset might be. ‘He’ll name a new executor. He’ll… Besides, I don’t want to get married.’

‘My brother won’t be marrying you, dear.’

‘You tell me how he’s going to marry
her
without marrying
me
. We just happen to be sharing a body. There are certain—intimacies that go with marriage you know.’ She stopped, flushing. When it came right down to it, she could not be repelled by the idea of those intimacies, though she tried. ‘It’s like rape,’ she told herself vehemently, not believing a word of it. Her body –
their
body – refused to consider it rape.

‘My dear, be calm. Please. Be calm. Makr Avehl will do nothing to offend your sensibilities, you have my word. Take a nap. You look tired.’

‘I do nothing these days but take naps. I slept half of yesterday. Don’t try to put me off, Ellat. It’s international news. Papa will hear of it.’

‘Leave that to the Prime Minister, my dear. He will handle everything.’

Marianne subsided, wondering as she did so where the other
Marianne
had taken herself. Though her presence could still be felt, she had not recently interrupted or taken over. She yawned. It was true that she seemed to do nothing but sleep, lately. And she was becoming forgetful. This morning when she woke from a quick nap, she was not wearing the same blouse she remembered having on when she lay down. This morning, she remembered putting her slippers on one side of the bed and woke to find them on the other. Why did Marianne have this feeling that something was going on, that
Marianne
and Makr Avehl were plotting something, when they could not possibly plot anything without her knowing. Was there some way that
Marianne
could remain active while Marianne was asleep? ‘Lying low, are you?’ she snarled at the mirror. ‘If I could get my hands on you.’

All Alphenlicht had been delighted to learn that the wedding would take place only a few weeks hence. A couturier had been summoned from Paris to create a wedding gown, and the tiny state newspaper had run pictures of previous gowns created by this master. The menu for the nuptial banquet was published, occasioning much comment, particularly on the matter of wines. The Residence servants brought in their cousins and sisters and started an orgy of cleaning out and refurbishing. Various members of the Kavi were said to be rehearsing the rituals that would be used. Plate and porcelain were unpacked and polished. It would be a small wedding. Only three hundred guests were invited, virtually all of them from Alphenlicht.

Marianne did not recall being interviewed, but various international publications ran stories about her, quoting her view on the Alphenlicht-Lubovosk controversy, on feminism, on agricultural management. One writer commented on the soundness of her opinions concerning sheep. Her image smiled brightly from the pages of
Time
and
Newsweek
, Makr Avehl’s striking darkness looming protectively in the background.

Cloud-haired mama called. Papa called. Somehow neither of them was as upset as Marianne had supposed they might be. Somehow she was unable to tell either of them that she was being kidnapped, shanghaied, invaded by an alternate self and married off without her consent. Even during her phone conversations with them, she yawned, sleepily, wondering what was going on.

A week in advance of the ceremony, there was to be a small ‘family’ dinner, to which certain aunts and uncles and cousins were invited, along with some of the Kavi and Marianne’s parents. A special messenger was sent to deliver an invitation for Tabiti Delubovoska to attend this event.

‘I worded it very carefully,’ said Ellat. ‘Along the lines of “let bygones be bygones, join us in celebration, all one heritage after all.” I have no idea if she’ll believe any of it, or even if she thinks I believe it, but it should do the job.’

‘I wouldn’t believe it,’ said Marianne, flatly. ‘I don’t think she will either. She won’t think it’s natural.’

‘It all seems very natural,’ objected Makr Avehl. ‘Our getting married.’

‘To you, perhaps,’ Marianne jeered. ‘It feels anything but natural to me. Besides, that’s not what I meant. I meant after everything we’ve been through with her, she won’t think the invitation is natural. As to this putative wedding, I still haven’t agreed to go through with it!’

‘Well, perhaps it won’t be necessary to go through with it.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’ Her heart had stopped, and she was trying to cope with an emotional flood. Surely she didn’t want to marry the man! Then why this terror at the thought she might not?

‘We believe Madame will make her move at the family dinner,’ said Ellat. ‘And, if she does, and if we are successful, then one of the major reasons for the wedding will have vanished…’

‘The family dinner! Mama and Papa will be here. She might do something to them!’

‘No, they won’t be here. They’ll be delayed, in Paris. I’ve arranged for that. They’ll have to charter a plane to get here, and I’ve arranged for that, too. They won’t get here until after – well, after.’

‘So – it’s just me and you, and Ellat, and Aghrehond.’

‘And a few aunts and uncles, and Therat, and Cyram, and Nalavi. A dozen or two people. Nothing threatening at all.’

Marianne wasn’t at all sure of that. She could not get it out of her head that something was going on that she didn’t know about.

‘You know, this dress looks familiar to me, and yet I know I’ve never had one like it.’ Marianne looked at herself in the mirror, glittering and swaying in her silver sequined sheath. ‘It was kind of you to order it for me, Ellat.’

‘Well, that silly man was making such a fuss over one wedding dress, I decided he needed something to occupy his mind. I’ve had him do half a dozen things for me, as well. I even talked Therat into having a few gowns made. She’s such a dear woman—though Makr Avehl claims to find her scary, she’s really very sensible – but she’s never paid any attention to clothes at all. Before you came along, my dear, I often hoped that she and Makr Avehl would get to know one another better.’ Ellat smiled sweetly at her, and Marianne felt something clutch her stomach at the thought of Makr Avehl and Therat.

‘Still, the gown does look familiar,’ she faltered, needing to say something.

‘Well, you know, the other
Marianne
may have one like it.’ Did have, Ellat told herself. Definitely did have. Fought Madame off in it, she did, for a whole evening. She pressed a hand flat on her own stomach, quieting the slightly sick feeling of apprehension that kept coming and going, remembering a recent conversation with Makr Avehl.

‘My dear, it is so risky my heart stops, thinking of it!
’

‘Of course it’s risky, Ellat. Life is risky. However, you yourself said we had to confront her. So, we ‘re going to confront her
.’

‘She’ll twist. She’ll fight She’ll bite you like a serpent, brother.’

‘She will that. She’ll come in all smiles, but she’ll plan to leave with me dead and Marianne in her pocket.’

‘You’ve been to the Cave?’

‘You know I have, dear Ellat. The Cave says fishes whole walls full of fishes. Therat thinks she has it figured out.’

‘And yet she’s letting you go ahead?
’

He shook his head at her, sadly. ‘Let, Ellat? Let? It has to be done, and that’s all there is to it
.’

Now she took Marianne’s hand to descend the curving main stair of the Residence, smiling bravely and wondering if she were going to be able to eat anything at all.

The guests arrived. There was much sparkle and laughter, many congratulations for Makr Avehl, many good wishes for Marianne. Tabiti arrived in a long, black limousine, escorted by a much bemedaled officer of uncertain rank. She twinkled and glittered, congratulating Makr Avehl, exclaiming over Marianne’s dress, falling fulsomely upon Ellat’s neck, her eyes and mouth in ceaseless motion.