The Malacia Tapestry (21 page)

Seizing up my guitar, setting one foot on my chair, I began to play. I wanted a song that would connect all things, the large with the small, the real with the ideal. All that came was something of Cosin's:

Among the graves each winter's day

There echoing sounds the woodman's blade
.

You're far away:

The birds sing not, the spring's delayed
.

No, something more was needed. I required company. Pozzi had taken La Singla to Vamonal until the forces of Stefan Tvrtko were vanquished, or I would have gone to talk with her. Instead, I walked in the streets and began thinking again of Bedalar with her lazy eyes.

By a natural association of ideas I came to recall the gardens of the Renardos. If I could not visit Bedalar, I might go to see her brother Caylus, the thought of whom now became more tolerable than previously.

Nothing in Malacia was more gracious than the gardens of the Renardo palace. The grounds represented a unique combination of nature and fancy. Near the great house were formal gardens, laid out in the classical manner, together with mazes and herbal gardens. Beyond these lay arboretums, zoological gardens housing ancestral and wild animals, and many hectares of manicured wilderness. Everywhere flowers abounded, while the whole was decorated with plants collected by agents of the duke from all corners of the known globe. The grounds were further adorned with streams and pleasant pavilions designed in a variety of architectural styles.

Towards one of these pavilions, Caylus Nortolini and I made our way. We followed a path that led among glades of ginkgo and fern and ancient cycads; these glades were the haunt of slobbergobs – qutun-firs, to give them their proper name – the large, shaggy sloths which once abounded near Malacia.

Since the Nortolinis claimed a distant blood-relationship with the dukes of Renardo, Caylus and I were welcome in the grounds of the palace.

Caylus could be amusing when it pleased him. His face was distinguished but well-equipped for sneering, since his chin was small and the tip of his elegant nose slightly overhung his mouth. His chin was camouflaged by a small beard. He had unexpected grey eyes which could be turned on people with destructive effect; today I saw that they were not unlike Bedalar's. His talk was generally of sport, particularly of bull-fighting, or of his amours.

Statues of goddesses and vanished or imaginary animals peered from the foliage about us. Or we came on a live creature chained and lolling in the sunshine. The slobbergobs were not to be seen, but we passed a mandrill imported from Africa, which drew its brows together and squinted at us down its gaudily striped cheeks.

‘Since it insists on wearing its fantastic mask at all times,' said Caylus, ‘we cannot tell what sort of face lies beneath it, a savage's or a savant's.'

‘In such a mask I would visit Africa and be bombarded by parakeets.'

A mating pair of military macaws flew over as I spoke, flashing blue and sea-green and orange as they alighted in a palm tree.

‘There may be savage savants. Sometimes I believe our fighting bulls are enormously wise, sometimes simply ferocious … They say that those hunters who have slain the really formidable ancestrals such as the tyrant-greave or the devil-jaw believe at the moment of the kill that they confront beings of infinite wisdom.'

‘I'd better go and see my old savant father. He's not far from here. He knows so much, yet he's never stirred from Malacia.' The mandrill shook his silver chain as we moved away.

‘To kill a devil-jaw – that must be the ultimate thrill, to bathe in its blood. When devil-jaws mate, since their forearms are so puny, the male wraps his great, scaled tail about the throat of the female to ensure compliance. Sometimes she is strangled in the act.'

‘Dying for love may be highly regarded in the animal kingdom, as in the human. I'm duty bound to go and see him. He sent me a letter full of complaints when I made my balloon ascent. He is rather ill.'

‘Fathers are generally ill in my experience. Forget the old fool. Did you ever long to kill a devil-jaw, de Chirolo?'

‘What I wish is somehow to encompass all things possible in the world. That doesn't include slaying a devil-jaw. By the bones, perhaps I'm more like my father than I imagined. He also seeks to encompass –'

‘Spare me your parents. I have my own, you know. Look, we'll lunch with Gersaint – he's bound to get us hopelessly drunk – unless any better sport presents itself.'

‘I'd better go to my father first. He becomes upset if I'm drunk.'

‘Of course he does. Old men do. It's one reason for getting drunk.'

‘You're right, but I'd better go nevertheless. I haven't been to see him for long enough.'

‘Think of Gersaint's board, Gersaint's cellar, postpone your decision – preferably for a week or two. With any luck, your old chap may have shuffled off his mortal coil by then. See this pavilion – let's eye some paintings; it's stacked with queer junk. Sporting pictures, too.'

We were never far from the music of water. The old duke's father had employed Malacia's great engineer, Argenteuil, to design fountains, sluices and waterfalls to punctuate the streams within his grounds. To these light noises was added the sound of strings as we reached the marble stairs leading to an art pavilion. This pavilion was built in the Khmer manner with curling eaves.

At the foot of the stairs, four gardeners with a barrow were labouring in the earth, planting a line of exotic trees. One of the four was a willowy lad; I suspected him of being the Hautebouy who had played an accidental role in my affairs.

At the top of the stairs, among bronze monsters from the East, two women stood playing musical instruments, a girl with a mandoline and an older woman with a viol. They were executing a lively forlana, six-in-a-measure, a relic of earlier times whose tune they gaily tossed to one another.

A velvet-clad man in saffron hose leaned against a column, idly listening. His was a heavy, awkward figure. He wore a plumed hat and animal mask, and was tapping his foot to the music. He paid no attention to us as we approached.

One of the women was well in the toils of time, her hair white and her skin flecked with rust marks. Although her hands on the strings were nimble, her wattle hung like a lizard's and the lines of her mouth had begun to collapse.

Her companion was scarcely more than a girl, but well-built for all that, with golden hair piled on her head – though there was artifice in its colour. To her face she had applied rouge and powder which, in the bright sunshine, was the least pleasing thing about her. It made her skin lifeless. She would be one of the duke's courtesans, to judge by her manner and dress. She eyed us challengingly as we came abreast, without ceasing her playing. Her eyes were haughty and cold. She played to the man in the animal mask.

This striking courtesan wore a gown of shimmering white silk, slightly soiled about its hem, from under which one softly-shod foot looked out. About her throat was a lace collar; a low-buttoning, russet jacket adorned her elegant bosom. This was not day attire, even at the court of a duke. I dismissed her for all her beauty, turning instead to the paintings ranged under the low colonnade. Caylus paused to eye her and take in her melody, so I went ahead of him, stepping into cool shade.

All the time the man in the animal mask paid no heed to us.

The dukes of Renardo had collected many exotic objects during their conquests and travels. The most treasured objects adorned the palace, the least adorned the pavilions.

Since our company was to perform the comedy of
Fabio and Albrizzi
at Smarana's wedding, I needed a costume for my part. My hope was that I should find inspiration for one among the duke's pictures.

Contrast had been the foremost quality in the mind of the genius who built the mock-Khmer pavilion, perched on its artificial hill. He had so contrived the perspectives of his columns and courts that one vista looked towards the steps where the women played, and the pastoral scenes beyond them; while the opposed vista took in at once the ruin of an old palace, with ferns sprouting from its crumbling pediments, and the baroque splendours of the ducal residence. With these two contrasting reminders of nature and art, one turned readily to their echoes in the canvases ornamenting the walls.

‘Look at all this beauty!' I said. ‘The amount of
construction
in the least of these pictures … How dearly I love art and drama and opera and music, and all those great things which offer amalgams of our living world and the creator's private world! So wonderful it is, even if this is a decadent age …'

My head was still full of our beautiful time on the mountain near Heyst, of the conversations we had there, as well as the loving. Also, I have to confess, I always tried to impress Caylus a little. He was such a scoundrel, with his chatter of bulls and mating devil-jaws.

‘We live in a dualist universe, but the creator's world is a special, privileged version –'

‘Oh, don't go
on
, de Chirolo,' Caylus said. ‘You'll be bragging next that you read books.'

‘I leave that to my father. He writes them. Music and painting and of course the play, all the
edifices
of art –'

‘Hush! You'll shit yourself!'

He placed a hand on my shoulder, humming the air plucked out by the mandoline below. He gazed without exertion at the pictures, while obviously thinking of something else.

‘A pretty little painted creature with the mandoline, and no mistake … She'd make sweeter music than comes from wooden instruments. She looked boldly at me. You couldn't help noticing.'

‘Who's the fellow hiding behind the wolf-mask? A favourite of Renardo's, I suppose?'

‘What's she to him? Deuce take it, a pretty little painted creature, no mistake.'

I was looking at the canvases.

‘What do you think of this “Landscape in Arcadia”, Caylus? See that perfect little background behind the huntresses …' I indicated the mythical scene before me, but he scarcely gave it a glance.

‘Too misty for my taste! Founder's bones, if I could get her to one side … my rooms are near. She'd surely need no persuasion, once that fop disappears. A man has a duty to pay his tribute to Venus every day.'

‘My duty to my father …'

‘Come, Perian, we'll stroll upstairs, where the older pictures are. Tell me not about your precious father again.'

‘I was telling your sister the other day –'

‘Let's leave my precious sister out of the account too, if you don't mind.'

The keeper of the pavilion who was lolling on the stairs, feeding titbits to a small pied dog, jumped up and bowed low as we passed. On the upper floor, the paintings were fewer while the views were finer than those below. It was pleasant here and the dance air still reached our ears. But Caylus remained discontented. He loitered at a low casement, looking down.

‘Come and see this delineation of an outdoor concert,' I called to him. ‘By a forgotten artist. How poignant the stances of the musicians as they earn an hour's attention from the court! And what words could describe that tender colour – though it's faded – and the mistiness so perfectly expressing a dream of youth and happiness … the freshness of those clouds in the background, the clarity of the foreground with its grouped figures …'

‘Mmmm … Perhaps I should go down and kick the buttocks of that fellow in the wolf-mask.'

‘True to nature, yet more true … The tableau living still, its creator long since dust … “One who seduced us to thinking life jolly …” Only relegated to this pavilion by a damp stain in one corner. Who executed such a sweet design? How long ago, and in what country? The fashions are not of Malacia … This gallant here, look, Caylus, in the grand green coat …'

I ceased. I had found the costume I needed. The cut of the grand green coat was unfamiliar yet not unfashionable, stylish yet not too pretentious – and not without humorous exaggeration, as befitted the character of Albrizzi.

The gallant in the canvas wore a white wig. His features were youthful. The coat was tailored of damask with silver buttons. It hung long, shaped in at the waist and then ample, with ample pockets, and terminated just below the knee, to reveal breeches and elegant hose from which ribbons depended. It had wide cuffs and was embellished deeply with silver braid. Beneath the coat could be seen a waistcoat of brocade, decorated with landscapes done in – I surmised – petit-point. A white tie tight to the throat completed the ensemble. That was it! – Albrizzi to the life! I would send Kemperer's tailor to copy it.

‘Caylus, my morning's labour bears fruit!' I said. ‘There's no calling this fine gentleman back to life to establish who he was, but his costume shall be restored in time for Smarana's festivities.'

Caylus sprawled half out of the window, unheeding. I went and gazed over his shoulder. The two women stood there, still playing their forlana on the sunny stairs; the courtesan with the golden hair was singing.

Something there disquieted me. When I searched for a reason, I realized that the girl's perfume had drifted up. A trace of it had reached me as we passed her. It was the same distinctive patchouli that Armida wore.

The fop with the wolf-mask was making off down the steps. Suddenly I thought I recognized him – the walk mainly, but also the figure. Although costumes and circumstances were opposed, this was the man from the Supreme Court, the sinister black figure who had been in Hoytola's gallery.

I watched as he disappeared into the grove. I could not be sure it was he. Yet just to recall that sinister figure made me uncomfortable.

‘She's alone now,' said Caylus. ‘Look at her lovely hands!'

Indeed, they were fine; so supple that the fingers became an integral part of the music, as they plucked out notes with a light tortoise-shell plectrum. From where we stood looking down, I could note the unusual design of the plectrum. It had two little horns on one side, as if fashioned in the likeness of a satyr. The touch seemed characteristic of the girl, for whom I felt distaste, I knew not why.