The Malacia Tapestry (17 page)

Book Two

A Feast Unearned

We were staggering rather drunkenly through the dark streets of Malacia, de Lambant and I, each carrying our guitars, and occasionally attempting a ballad. Night was wearing thin about its edges. The second day of the Festival of the Buglewing was over; the bird was on its way towards the third, and nothing was left but dawn.

When Armida and Bedalar were confined to their respective family circles, de Lambant and Portinari and I roistered with our friends in the town until our money ran out. Otto's zahnoscope had been put away during the festivities, but word and an honorarium had come from Pozzi Kemperer, by way of one of his uglier servitors, that there would be work for us as soon as autumn approached. Our credit was restored. We were welcome again in Truna's.

Some time during the course of the evening – it had stretched on for ever – we serenaded both Armida and Bedalar under their windows. Slops had been thrown at us at the Hoytola mansion, and a dog set on us at the Nortolini mansion.

So we tottered back through the lanes of Stary Most. We had lost the portly Portinari. We were out of money and mischief, and unwilling to go to bed. We sang, and were also out of voice.

We were crossing a footbridge over the Rosewater, a stinking ditch despite its fragrant name, when Guy exclaimed and looked over the parapet into the swirling water.

‘De Chirolo, fancy a swim? There's a body down here, quick!'

I looked into the flood and saw nothing.

‘Your reflection.'

‘By the bones! He must have sunk again. He went rolling under the parapet. A man without a head.'

‘Your reflection.'

‘I saw him. Man without a head.'

‘Either it's an omen or you're drunk. There's nothing there.' He looked ghastly. A dim lamp lit the bridge. As we stood and stared at each other, making sure our own heads were in place, a cock crowed.

Arches of old warehouses met here in ruinous corners, leaning against each other for support. Forgotten aberrations of architecture rested their ancient cheekbones against one another. In a derelict potter's shop, shapes of unglazed pitchers stared out at the world like blank faces, while furtive animal lives littered the dead doorways with bones and rubbish. It was an appropriate place in which to encounter corpses.

Glancing about, I saw over my shoulder no corpse but the apparition of a beautiful woman. I nudged de Lambant. The woman stood erect and commanding, clear of eye, ample of breast, her golden hair plaited in two plaits which dangled to her nipples. She wore a loose, white gown which hung from one shoulder, leaving a breast naked and covering the rest of her body down to her feet. A helmet was on her head. She carried a burnished shield.

‘De Lambant!' My whisper rasped my throat.

The striking creature appeared to shimmer. As I took a step towards her, she rippled like a reflection in water and was gone. Where she had been stood an old man, an ancient husk, upright, skeletal, without a wisp of hair on his head. He bore a staff and stared fixedly beyond us. His eyes blazed.

‘The demon drink again,' I said. ‘I could have sworn I –'

‘Swear not,' cried this aged figure. ‘Whoever swears becomes less than the man he was. You will be here only a minute.'

‘We aren't even staying that long. We're off home,' de Lambant said, but the old man spoke again, unmoving in the deep penumbra of his arch.

‘I come from the far north and I go to the deep south. I pass by the misty windows of your life like a crane in flight, making for the Sahara marshes, and tomorrow shall have left your city.'

‘We are out of money, I'm sorry,' I said, feeling bolder now, for the mouthing of such platitudes as his was a habit common among the ancients of Malacia. ‘We were hoping you might stand us a drink. Or introduce us to your lovely daughter.'

‘You witnessed an illusion, young fellow. Nor was it my daughter who visited you, but Minerva, mother of us all. She holds special meaning for you.'

‘What special meaning?'

‘She is wisdom. You must be visited by wisdom …'

‘Come on, de Lambant,' I said, for Guy showed every sign of forming himself into an audience of one. ‘I've had enough advice recently, and would prefer to run my own life, whichever way the cranes are heading.'

Although I took his arm and tried to move him on, he resisted and went up to the old man.

‘What can you tell me about my life, sire? Am I likely to get a good part in the next drama, do you think?'

The old man, still unbending, said, ‘You two will both enact roles and hate each other if you do not heed my words and turn to Minerva.'

‘Guy, you're playing the ape just by standing here! Let's go and wake Caylus and scrounge a drink off him. This old louse would turn a lifetime to tatters, given the chance.'

Almost by force, I dragged my friend away. The skeletal man neither moved from his place nor even stared to one side as we left.

‘The old chap had a dreadful warning to deliver,' Guy protested.

‘Old chaps always have dreadful warnings to deliver, like Seemly Moleskin. Don't listen. It's their stock-in-trade. My stock-in-trade is not listening.

The serpent on the staff

It only makes me laugh
.

The apes that flitter

Queerly, nearly
,

Merely

Make me titter too.
'

‘How do you manage to be so poxing cheerful at this time of morning? I feel half dead …'

We were staggering together. I stopped so suddenly that we almost fell in a heap. Stretched out on a low stone balustrade, with one arm dangling down to the pavement, was the figure of a man. It appeared solid, but lax in death.

‘A second manifestation!' This time I did believe – and was preparing an attitude of reverence – when I saw that it was none other than Gustavus Portinari, who stirred as he heard our approach. He sat up and peered at us, yawning, picking up his guitar from his side.

‘The dawn gives you an unearthly pallor, friends. Mind you aren't mistaken for spectres. I was resting on my way home. Where did you get to? Dodging me again.'

We went along with him, whistling. Portinari's father kept a dairy, together with a room in which one could eat simple dishes, at the west end of Stary Most, where the evening shadows of the old West Gate swung across the street. Behind their quarters was a small yard, where cows and goats were kept, and a lane winding down to the riverside.

Portinari's parents were already up for the day when we reached the dairy. Holiday or no holiday, they had animals to milk. With much grumbling, the old man set a plate of cold meats before each of us, together with a pitcher of milk, while Portinari, when his father's back was turned, managed to filch some spirits. His mother and sister lit a fire and in no time we were fully awake and singing, much to everyone else's disgust. It was good to eat proper breakfast; not to have sung a catch or two would have been a shame. We kept the songs polite, in respect for the hour. Then we started talking about the apparition of Minerva.

‘All that stuff we learned at school is about as much good as the hermetic books,' I said, and Portinari agreed with me. De Lambant thought there was something in the old truths.

‘No, my pious friend, the old truths, as you call them, must be dead, because the civilizations that nursed them are dead. The Hellenic World sank below the horizon ten millennia ago, if you recall your history.'

‘What if so? Minerva was before that and will be long after. Some things are permanent, you know, like your pimples.'

Hearing what we said as he staggered in with a pail of water, Portinari's father joined the debate.

‘Aye, the gods and the qualities they administer live as long as there are ages of the earth, young de Chirolo. Let me tell you, the Portinaris didn't come from these parts. We hailed from Toulouisa in the Frankish Kingdom, which is over ten days' ride on horse north of here, across the flat plains of Habsburgia. My grandparents made the journey in a cart, taking the best part of two months on the journey. I remember it well, although I was only a lad of four at the time. Four or five. And –'

‘Oh, let's go home and sleep,' I said to de Lambant. ‘With something in my stomach, I shall dream well.'

‘We might dream of Minerva with nothing on, if we're lucky,' said my friend, rising with me. We shook Portinari's hand, promising to see him again in a few hours. He gave us his wide, amiable smile.

‘Bid my father farewell,' he said. Guy pretended to punch him in the stomach and he doubled up in pretended pain.

As we reached the door, the old man said, ‘I remember what I was going to tell you. Your mentioning Minerva reminded me. As I say, we Portinaris came from a long way away, virtually from another culture, as you might put it – from a rural area, too, not a city. And we had never heard of the Greek deities. All the same, we knew about the things they stood for. We had our own versions of Minervas and satyrs, the intellectual and spiritual or the luxuriant, and –'

‘I'm sure it must have been so, sir. We go now to exercise our luxuriant side in our beckoning beds, thanking you for the kindly meal, much welcome.'

So de Lambant and I bowed ourselves out.

Outside the day was beautiful with the rosy airs of dawn. A single layer of mist, infiltrating from the Toi, hung almost at eye level. A few smudged lights burned in houses along the way, outshone by the flaming clouds overhead. With a swish of wings, cranes flew by at chimney-top height.

I thought of Tvrtko stirring in his sleazy tent, wondering if he recalled me superstitiously in the sky. People said in the market that the plague was gaining in the Ottoman ranks.

‘What a morning! It's good to be alive. Let's not sleep now, Perian. We can do that later. Besides, there'll be trouble if I arrive on our doorstep at this hour.'

‘Let's go down to the harbour and see the fish catch landed – I haven't watched that for ages. They may have netted a few siege-whales.'

We fell in together, marching down the middle of the street in step. You would not have thought there was a Turk within a thousand miles.

‘And then I'll tell you what we'll do. Smarana's wedding day approaches. We'll go and find her a proper present. My father has promised to pay the bill. Not without complaint, but he has promised.'

‘He's made of money.'

‘A greater proportion's wine.'

‘What will you give your sister?'

‘After the delights of the fish market, we'll go and see old Bledlore.'

The loft in which Letitia Zlatorog and her family lived was bad enough. Master Bledlore's studio was altogether stranger and more filthy.

His hideaway would have seemed more appropriate to a hermit than a sought-after craftsman, being merely the empty space under the roof of an old godown. The godown had been perverted from its original use of housing Bishop's merchandise to storing fragrant timbers. Most of these timbers, as I saw when we climbed the rickety stairs, had been stored a long while and had so attracted all the woodworms in the vicinity that every inch of the building was stuffed as much with freckles as wood. Such was the activity generated by these freckles that dust hung everywhere, and the sunlight pouring through the windows turned it into golden columns.

Panting as we reached the top of the stairs, we found ourselves on a narrow landing facing a narrow door. Its orange paint was flaking, falling like leaves beneath our feet. The single sullen word
BLEDLORE
was written on a card pinned to this door; so long had the card been there that the occupants of the freckles had bored through it on their way in and out of the wood beneath.

When de Lambant knocked, a crumbling sound came forth from the panel.

‘Wish I'd brought Bedalar,' he said.

‘I wish you had.'

‘Her taste is good.'

‘I'm sure her taste is delicious.'

‘You cheeky grab-skeeter, keep your lustful thoughts off Bedalar! She could exercise her taste in what to choose for Smarana. If the old blighter
has
anything to choose from. He's supposed to be the best glass-engraver in Malacia. I'll wager he charges a fortune. We ought to have brought Armida and Bedalar.'

‘I wouldn't expose Armida to your corrupting influence. Knock again. The old fool's probably still in bed.'

‘Or dead. We'll see the girls at the fair this morning, if they can get away. Armida'll have to put up with my corrupting influence then.'

‘Perhaps he's got a woman in there with him. I hope the toxic effect of your personality won't be so powerful outdoors. Anyhow, Armida's totally absorbed in me. Give another knock, if the door'll stand it.'

‘I wonder what exactly you two get up to? I'd love to know. By the looks of her, Armida's a proper little stove, when she gets going.'

I kicked him lightly. He laughed and made the wormy panel emit more crumbling noises.

The door opened at last. There stood Master Giovanni Bledlore, dressed in ragged waistcoat and trousers, with a shawl pinned over his shoulders. He had a grey, unshaven cheek and a fierce, bright eye.

He shuffled on to the landing, an ague-ridden figure, closing his door behind him and coughing dryly as he did so.

‘You young fellows are a nuisance to an honest craftsman. You disturb the dust, and dust spoils my colours. What do you want, coming up here? I shall have to go back and sit still for a quarter of an hour before the dust settles and I can open up my palettes again. In that time my bones will seize up.'

‘Then you should keep cleaner premises, Master Giovanni,' I said. ‘Open up some windows – look at all the bluebottles trying to escape!'

De Lambant soothed him by announcing that he had a commission.

‘I need you to make me a dozen goblets with local scenes depicted on them, such as you designed for Thiepol of Saville a twelvemonth ago. A different scene on each, all joyous, for a wedding.'