The Malacia Tapestry (41 page)

My pleasure was spoiled, though. My stomach churned.

I went away to relieve myself, to press my temples, to pour cold scented water over my head. Locked in a little cool bathroom where a fountain played, I heard near-by laughter. It came from liars, from hypocrites, from secret enemies, from people who would merely laugh if they knew my dilemma, people who would invite Guy and Armida into their rooms and thrive on the situation.

The Pindaro song was being played:

His lusts in tether

To her bright dancing eyes
.

Again I soaked my face, telling myself I was mad, that what I suffered was not jealousy but guilt, that I was feeling what Armida felt when she discovered my lapses. Until this moment, I had not understood her.

I rushed forth, resolved to find her, to beg her forgiveness, to take her in my arms, to show her that now indeed her need for happiness was real to me. Friends called. I gave a salute and pressed on – anxious to appear as normal, yet too troubled to keep up the deception. A drunken man with bloodshot eyes barged into me, muttering incoherently. As I shouldered him away, I saw it was de Lambant senior. He gave no sign of recognizing me.

The de Lambants, considering their own house insufficiently grand a stage for their daughter's wedding celebrations, had taken over a more elegant villa belonging to wealthy relations. A long corridor lined with statues divided the house into reception rooms on the one side and apartments on the other. The chief features were an atrium in the high Byzantine style, a large bath-place, and the peristyle, where fountains played against a background of colonnades. Here, under an open sky, the wedding ceremony, as well as our comedy, acrobatics and the Mendicula play, would take place.

I came at last upon Armida, sitting with her parents in one of the smaller reception rooms among a host of friends, none of whom I recognized. The young Duke of Renardo was not present; I had ascertained already that he had not been invited.

This was the first time I had seen her father since the ancestral hunt. In a few patronizing words, he praised my luck in the kill, helping himself to a pinch of snuff meanwhile.

Looking on Armida, poised beside him like Beauty herself, with one arm resting nonchalantly on the brocaded arm of her chair, I became bold and addressed Andrus Hoytola in a resonant tone.

‘Sir, I thank you for your compliments. I went hunting to slay an ancestral, and slay an ancestral I did, though I nearly died for it. But then, there's nothing without risk.'

‘One can't doubt the truth of that,' he said, giving me a suspicious glance. ‘Lives are always at risk, and not only in the forests of Juracia.'

‘I hear that while I was recovering from my wounds, sir,' I continued, ‘the story of my devil-jaw circulated about Malacia, making something of a popular hero of me. I am no warrior. What I did was only possible because your fair daughter Armida was facing death. If I may make bold to say so, sir, I hold myself to have been of some service to your illustrious family.'

‘That you certainly have, Master de Chirolo,' said Armida's mother, but she was hushed immediately by a gesture from her husband. As for Armida, sensitive creature that she was, the colour came and went in her cheek as she perceived what request I was about to make.

‘You have been of some … service,' said Hoytola, scratching his jaw in such a way that his face was much lengthened. The elongation made his words come slowly. ‘Do not be under the misapprehension that one is ungrateful. Before the – ah, forest incident, there was that hydrogenous balloon. Although –'

I had the impudence to interrupt him. ‘And, sir, what about our play,
Prince Mendicula?
Otto Bengtsohn's mercurized miracle, in which your daughter and I appear to such effect. To be shown here tomorrow night, for the first time. Do not forget, sir, how hard I worked in that pet scheme of yours.'

My voice faltered. I knew I had ventured on dangerous ground by the way both Hoytola and his wife stiffened and their friends began to move quietly elsewhere. I was made aware of two servitors behind the upright, brocaded chairs upon which the Hoytolas securely sat; they appeared to grow uglier at the mention of Bengtsohn and mercurization; while Hoytola himself, who always wore the aspect of a man with a bad smell under his nose, suddenly found difficulty in breathing.

‘One must inform you that the venture has been cancelled. The – ah, instrument has been broken up.'

‘Broken up …'

‘That was my phrase. A word further, sir, then you may go. That man to whom you made reference has returned to the northern city from whence he came. One need speak of him no more.'

Through a restriction in my throat, I managed to say – I couldn't look at Armida – ‘But our play, the slides! They were to have been shown here – we never saw them – we –'

‘Be silent, sir! One paid you. That's enough. You were hired, no more. As you were hired for the balloon. That person's slides are all smashed. No one will see them. He is a proven Progressive. My gallery will have nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with the matter. Or with you, depend on it, if you utter one word further.'

I was trembling. ‘Sir, I cannot understand. We completed the play, absurd though it was. It was a novelty. My hopes – and Bengtsohn's hopes and yours also, I believed –'

‘Enough, I say! Keep silent, or trouble will befall. If the Hoytola family is indebted to you for saving our daughter's life, then one will see that you are paid in sequins. For the rest, stay away from us, young man, or you will regret it.'

Armida's mother leaned forward and said, ‘If you have formed any sentimental attachment for our –'

Hoytola smote the arm of his chair. ‘If you have formed any sentimental attachment whatsoever, forget it. Carry it back to your playhouse and bury it before someone buries you.' His lips were pale. He rose.

‘Your servant, sir,' I said, and withdrew. Were he but a devil-jaw, said I to myself, and I had my spring-load spear with me …

What prompted the impulse to kill him was the stricken look on Armida's face as I turned away. Her knuckles were as white as her face as she clutched her chair.

I took myself back to the cool bathroom and poured more water over my head. Through a miniature waterfall, I saw myself killing Andrus Hoytola. The vision was there in all its dreadful power, as clear as the sight of the magicians at their forest altar. I hated the man and all he stood for; I discovered that I always had, ever since he spoke to me in his stables. As I plunged my face into the water, I could experience the healthful shock at my wrist as the sword grated between his ribs and blood gouted over his impeccable clothes. His teeth showed like a bolting mule's as he shed his precious dignity and pitched to the floor at my feet.

When my murderous impulse was over, and I felt less like vomiting, I began to worry about Armida. I dried my face and took myself into one of the rooms where young couples, friends of Smarana's, were dancing. Servants brought in fruity drinks. Settling behind a bank of flowers, I tried to compose myself.

Guy entered the room with a girl and saw me. He excused himself to her and came over.

‘Perry, old partner, you're looking seedy. Didn't you notice that girl? Have you had a quarrel with Armida?'

‘Guy, no banter, please.' I made him sit down by me. ‘I've been talking to Hoytola. The Mendicula play is broken up. All the slides have been smashed. He broke all those images of Armida. All our art destroyed.'

‘Is this the work of critics?'

‘Hoytola simply said that Otto Bengtsohn has left Malacia.'

‘Why should he do that?'

I shook my head. ‘How I loathe that man … Otto and Flora must have had good reason to leave – the old reason. The Supreme Council's edict against change. If the Council foresaw dangerous applications of the principle of mercurization, as Otto himself did, they would put pressure to bear on Hoytola. They allowed him his balloon in an emergency. The more reason not to relax the edict a second time. Mercurization was too much a new thing, and they ruled against it. Hoytola, to save his own skin, has closed down the whole venture. Otto, a sworn Progressive, has fled.'

‘What's happened to the zahnoscope?'

‘It's been smashed up, too. Hoytola must have discovered that Otto was a Progressive. I'll wager he turned the old fellow out to mend his own standing with the Council …'

De Lambant shook his head. ‘All very devious, if true. Perian, beneath the civilized if venereal veneer of your life flows a dark and dangerous stream. Stay away from wrong-headed people like Otto, if you value safety.'

A word of friendly advice comforted me. I put an arm about his shoulders. ‘I'm beginning to think that the Ottos of this world understand it well.'

Even as Guy had said, there was a dangerous stream in me. No sooner did my anxieties about him cease than I became anxious about Otto. What had really happened? After the nuptial ceremonies I would seek out Bonihatch and find the truth.

The face of Bonihatch appeared before me, custardy whiskers and all. I had done him no good turn by pursuing Letitia when he was in love with her; but he was only a cocky apprentice, and I would make my peace with him.

The main question was Armida. She had not followed me, perhaps because she could not escape her father. He was injuring her more than me. She was simply a pawn in his cold, complicated game.

Come, I had read my fairy stories and believed them. When the personable but poor young man saved the life of the king's beautiful daughter, she was given him in marriage, and everyone in the kingdom rejoiced. Why was the fable not fulfilled, particularly when I was no pauper and Hoytola merely a trumped-up merchant – not half so worthy a man as my own father?

Rising after Guy had left me, I saw that Caylus, his crutches banished, was dancing with a vivacious, dark-complexioned girl. No desire rose in me to be convivial. A servant came over and offered me a glass of wine. Better to be drunk than sober. In keeping with the festive tone of the occasion, the menials wore masks, some horrific, some comic, some pretty. I took my glass from a multi-hued orchid.

Soon I was back into the swim of things, at least as far as appearances went. La Singla and Pozzi called me. He was full of wrath because the Duke of Ragusa was not coming and so would not, after all, see our performance.

‘The old fool sends word that he has heard Malacia is ripe for revolution! Malacia! No doubt he also believes that the moon is a giant cow-pat!' said Pozzi. ‘The crosses we artists have to bear, de Chirolo!'

When evening fell, the festivities were at their height. I was impersonating my old light-hearted self; there was always another day, when a way through present troubles would be found.

A servant insisted on bringing me more wine, though my glass was half-full. I tried to push him away but he had me trapped behind a column in the atrium. His face was an elaborate flower, his eyes glittering at its centre.

‘I'm not a chrysanthemum, de Chirolo, as you may drunkenly imagine,' this servant said. ‘Perhaps you recognize my voice.'

‘Be off before I report you.'

‘Don't think yourself so secure.' We were screened from the dancers. He lifted the flower-mask momentarily, so that I saw the face of Bonihatch.

‘What are you doing? Prince Mendicula was a more likely role than this floral act.'

‘You're surprised. We workers have to secure what jobs we can. As for this decadent mob – all will perish when the Progressives win their struggle.'

‘Bonihatch, never mind that. Believe me, I am glad to see you. There have been differences between us –'

‘I owe you a beating up, if truth be told, de Chirolo, but I am capable of setting party before personalities. Founder only knows why, but you're something of a popular hero and we need you. I was deputed to approach you. There's a meeting soon which we want you to attend.'

‘Listen. Andrus Hoytola is here –'

‘The Council have arrested Otto. He may be dead by now. By great luck, his wife was away with a relation when they came, and she warned me. She's in hiding, as I am.' We had moved to a dark corner. His eyes moved constantly behind the flower-mask.

‘Let's go outside and talk. I was told that Otto had left for Tolkhorm.'

‘I've no time. Don't trust the Hoytolas. Can't you understand that? The Council came for Otto in the middle of the night. They smashed all the equipment, the slides, the zahnoscope, everything … Hoytola betrayed him. Who knows whether Otto's dead or being tortured to death in their filthy dungeons. You have courage at least. Think which side you're on.'

‘When – I'm all confused –'

‘Come to the meeting. We'll clear your head. Late tomorrow night, after your play. Get out of those foppish clothes before you come. Someone will contact you tomorrow and tell you where the meeting is to be.'

‘You're asking me to throw up everything I'm striving for, Bonihatch, I –'

His eyes gleamed through the petals. ‘You aren't striving for anything worth having. Till tomorrow.'

He was gone.

An alliance with Bonihatch and the dingy apprentices … The mere thought made me wish I had taken the wine he offered. But there was a dedication about him which I found impressive.

‘Ha, you're positively mooching, my heroic friend!' cried a familiar voice as I took a turn along the colonnade. An arm hooked itself through mine, and there was the laughing face of Caylus and the bold, sharp countenance of his doxy. Caylus liked them highly coloured.

‘De Chirolo – the hero of the hour, the dragon-slayer, and looking as if life was not fit for the living. This is the beautiful Teressa Orini from Vamonal, who has been longing to talk to you.'

Teressa placed herself seductively before me and offered a ringed finger for me to hold.