by Tanith Lee
The carriage travelled through the day, almost as the sun did. There was only one brief stop.
In the first hours, I saw very little from the window, after the fragmentary passing of the City. Once, after we had clattered across the great bridge that spanned the last northern loop of the river, a vagary of the curving road laid out before me one ultimate vista of Paradys. It rested behind us in a valley of light, glittering there like water, for the day was already growing hot. The towers and domes had melted down into the molten whole. It was a landscape solely, only possibly inhabited. And thereafter, the only bells we heard, the speechless, sweating Baron, and I, were the sheep-bells from the orchards and pastures at the roadside.
Later, the dust came and furred the windows, already shut by glass and sun. We rushed then through a pollinated world, lost in bright mist. When there were woods, the carriage darkened. Here and there a fountain jetted from a rock, or a stream-bed widened, flashing like diamonds.
I slept, or swooned, rising in and out of deep silences to the clash of wheels and the groans of the vehicle. I was not alarmed he would set on me, my companion, that I should be taken up unconscious and thrown out on to the road. He had acceded. He had given in to destiny which had assumed my form.
At noon, the sun was overhead, striking the carriage roof with its spears. I rose from my stupor and lay in another one of unbearable heat and savage excitement. I was proceeding where I must. I was a creature that was itself beyond all transgressions, all impediments. I could revel in that, half-dead in the heat and deathless, as the Baron mopped his face and drank water from a travelling bottle.
Afternoon came, and all things slept but we. Black sheep lay in the shade of colossal oaks. Crows on a parched field stood as if petrified. Blond wheat parted at the wind of our passage, and closed again together like the tines of a fan. Black as agates, the grapes on the vinestocks, among the grey and dusty leaves –
About three in the afternoon, came the halt. There was an inn above the road, and the horses were to be changed. As it was seen to, a man materialised at the Baron’s window, and handed in a hamper.
The Baron unfolded for himself a wooden tray, and spread a napkin over his knees. He ate shiftily, then took a goblet from the hamper and a bottle, uncorking and pouring the red wine. Now the glass bulb glowed like a huge garnet. He gulped the glass, spoiling it.
Just before we started up again, von Aaron, discarding the remains of his meal, the tray and napkin, leaned diagonally, across the carriage and offered me a glass of the garnet wine.
“The day is very hot.” He apologised for showing kindness or pity, breaking his vow not to speak. But I respected the vow. I raised the veil of the hat, and drank a little wine. A very little – I had no intention that nature should force me to quit the carriage. Though he superstitiously dared not put me out, an independent withdrawal would obviate destiny in an instant.
When I set down the glass, he was staring at me in distressed fear. He shook his head, retrieved the goblet and himself swallowed all its contents. Then, he spoke again. “Mademoiselle St Jean, if you would reconsider. Do you see that inn? It’s very pleasant. I have money here – and I must come back this way, and can then … Surely –”
“No.”
“Why this stubbornness?” he pleaded. “What can you hope for?”
What indeed? The hope, ghostly, unclaimed, flooded me like fire at his question.
“We were not to converse, I thought,” said I. “And you have misremembered my name.”
The man appeared at the window for the hamper, and von Aaron pushed it out to him. He dropped a coin in the man’s hand. Hamper, wine and waiter moved away.
Perhaps a quarter of an hour had elapsed. The coachman called a query from his box. The Baron shouted out to him to go on. Nor did the Baron evince any want or need to vacate the carriage.
The new horses started forward with all the rush of the old.
Towards sunset, when a pink-geranium glare filled the vehicle, the Baron spoke again.
“I think, Mademoiselle St Jean, that we should talk.”
“Formerly, you thought otherwise. You were then correct.”
“Mademoiselle – Mademoiselle St Jean –”
“Sanjeanne, if you must.”
“This is very ill-advised on your part.”
“You believe so.”
“This venture. Let me tell you what I conclude. That you have some strange irrational dream of vengeance on your mind.”
“Vengeance for what, pray?”
“The death of your brother.”
“I have no brothers, Baron.”
“The – gentleman whom you saw leaving my house in the City – he is not to be trifled with. You should not – I’m telling you, mademoiselle, you are embarked on a dangerous course.”
I laughed. A girl’s laughter, it came to me unexpectedly and delighted me a moment.
We plunged on through the radiant pink light, and pines began to come along the road, which rose upward, upward. Then we entered a great vault of geranium sky, with, hanging in it, cliffs and spires of rock, the dark forests boiling over them, and the sun, a transparent burning-glass, only the colour of the air.
As I gazed at it, he said quite crisply, “You will have to cross the northern border, mademoiselle, if you mean to go on with this. Do you have papers?”
But it was the beauty of the sunset which was real. The Baron apparently did not understand about the being of reality, its translucence, its elasticity.
When the sun sank, the forests closed on us. Now it grew chilly. Timelessly time advanced.
It was near midnight, and I was numbed and stiff with cold. I had slept further it seemed, or at any rate, been absent from the carriage where my body journeyed. Now, the carriage had stopped again.
This, and the stealthy movements of the Baron, had alerted me, but I gave no sign. I lay motionless, scarcely breathing, my eyes shut. Soon I heard the carriage door softly opened. Something eased itself out, and then the door was tenderly closed. A footstep on earth. One of the horses blew and stamped, and the carriage rolled and steadied. Nothing more.
I opened my eyes. Beyond the windows the pine trees pressed on the carriage. Between hung the lucid avernal daylight of full moon.
Von Aaron was gone. Not prompted by any natural urge –
Sufficient space allowed, I lowered the window and looked out with care.
The road had become little better than a track, packed earth littered with small shards, through the edges of which the roots of the trees had sometimes clawed. And there indeed was the coachman, box deserted, plodding in between the pine stems to relieve himself.
Ahead, a second carriage stood across the road, blocking the way. It was like a phantom thing; it had no horses in the shafts, and no driver.
I opened my door and got out, the far side of the vehicle from von Aaron’s coachman. I walked along the track in the moonday-night, past each pair of black horses, and then across the interval of track between the carriages.
The vehicle which blocked the road had, within its body, a white coffin, whiter than the moon. It rested on the floor where one of the long seats had been removed to facilitate its presence. On the opposite seat lay a pair of pale kid gloves.
I went beyond the carriage, walking now off the track, among the pines. The road dipped up and down, and just over the brow two men stood. I heard the voice of one of them, I hesitated, then stole on until I was some nine or ten metres away.
“Well, you must send her back again. Take her yourself, since I tell you you will be going.”
“I think,” von Aaron said, “she lacks documents. She could not cross the border.”
“Well then.”
“This is your last word.”
“As you are aware.”
Scarabin, tall and slender, a pillar of ice, black midnight of hair poured down his back. The other fawning, placating, angry and helpless. Before them both, the lands of night. The moon
rode high, stopping for no one.
“She was sleeping,” said the Baron.
“Perhaps.”
Von Aaron looked back apprehensively, directly at me, staring into my face, and did not see me at all.
“Do you suppose? But where could she go?” Back again he looked at Scarabin. “I will put her out, if you tell me to do so, Anthony. She would be lost in this place. Let me come on with you, as it was arranged.”
“Who arranged it? You. Your constant expositions. Return to that City where you let her out, where you let her do as she wanted.”
“I? How could I prevent it – how can I answer you – what terms will you accept? It is you –”
They were no longer speaking of me, but of another. Of Antonina.
And Scarabin turned in that moment too, and thrust von Aaron from him.
“I’m tired of listening to this. You have no say in any of it. You’ll do as I tell you, nothing more. Now get away, get out of my sight.”
But, “There are the horses coming,” said von Aaron importunately, pointing down the track ahead. Black movement from the black pines there. A fresh team of drays being brought for the foremost carriage, to replace others already taken. Some village hereabouts, or some other servitor of Scarabin’s.
“Anthony,” said von Aaron now, “you may yet need me –”
There was no strategy in overhearing any more. I turned and retraced my way through the skirts of the pine shadow, to Scarabin’s carriage. I opened its door and entered it, and shut myself in. There was a vibrancy in the air of it, scentless, tuned and pitched. I put my hands on the lid of the white coffin. How secure? But I had broken one such box already.
I drew up the lid with ease, it had not been secured at all.
Within, in the dark bed of silk, a woman’s outline was deeply imprinted. I had known there would be nothing else. I had known that Antonina was not here, not here. Instead, I stepped into the silk, and lay down in this shape of her, which fitted me. Then I drew the lid up and resettled it. This time, some jigsaw groove connected with another. It sealed itself above me.
I placed the mesh purse under the folds of my skirt, and crossed my hands over my breast. I had not lain so eloquently or so neatly before.
How peaceful the dark was, out of the strident moon.
In a short while I heard the horses come up, and that they were being backed into the shafts. A man vaulted to the box. Then, the door opened. He came into the carriage, he, Scarabin. I knew him, by his step, the susurrous of the coat he wore, the faint intake and expiry of his breathing. Now he sat, now took up the gloves and threw them down again. Now the beautiful voice called out its order to the driver.
Hoofs trampled and wheels revolved. The carriage was angled and positioned and set northward on the road, and with only this prelude, exploded into a great and nearly maniacal speed. The floor bounced under me. I was stunned by it, by the intimacy of its noise and motion. Then a light gentle impact came above, the click of a boot-heel. Anthony Scarabin had put his feet up on the coffin.
We came to the border.
I was by now hypnotised in my shell. I heard, or felt, the carriage draw up. At the window, muffled voices courteously insisted that the passenger must descend. He did so. Out on the roadway, I heard a man say to him, “And the coffin. Regretfully, we must inspect it.” In response I could ascertain only the notes of his voice, no words. But then the door was opened, and rough nervous hands came down on the lid of my shelter.
I ceased at once to breathe; I had learnt this knack in the grave. As the lid sheared off, moonlight and shadow sprinkled me like cool water. A man drew in his own breath harshly, then let it go in a long sigh. I sensed, but did not see, that he crossed himself. Then the lid was awkwardly replaced, grating about until the grooves again engaged, and the dark, my coverlet, covered me.
“Your papers are correct. My condolences. Your sister’s death is a great misfortune. Ah, a sad loss, so young. She seems only sleeping.”
Scarabin re-entered the carriage. Orders were spoken on the road. The horses broke into their run. We raced across the northern border.
He had carried the box from Paradys for show. He had therefore required papers which noted it. Finding such luggage empty the border’s watchdogs might have torn the receptacle apart, but a vacant coffin was no crime, an eccentricity, like a silver bullet … But full, such a sad loss, the young sister, looking only as if she slept. He knew now he had company.
Would he speak? Would he himself lift off the lid, and should I see that face look in at me, and those eyes?
He might do anything.
He had had melted down the silver of Antonina’s wedding rings, that had made the ammunition for his duel with me before. He was inventive, and capable, and quite as fey as I.
Nothing happened for a little while.
Then he called again to the driver, and the carriage halted, the driver dropped down and was at the window.
Scarabin said: “You see this?”
Together they raised it from the floor of the carriage, and I was borne a short distance, as it seemed, from the road.
Cautiously, as I was swung with the coffin in their grasp, I raised both hands and pressed against the lid. I could not in any way shift it. Some trick of the grooved mechanism made the box accessible only from without.
“Here. This will do,” said Scarabin, above me.
The coffin was lowered, and let go. A slight fall, yet it jolted every bone of my body. I repressed the urge to laugh at his malice.
I made out their footsteps, retreating.
Then, in another minute, from some way off, I heard the carriage start up and tear away. After that, came a great stillness.
Having spontaneously evicted myself from the earth of a grave, the insoluble problem of the coffin bored me. I lay and did nothing, did not even think of it. I thought only of the carriage bounding along the tracks and roads between the pines. How should I find it? How catch up?
My mind flew after, never lost him. But I never could. Wherever he might go, my dearly beloved enemy, into whatever dim, invisible reach, I must come on him again at last, by design, or by accident. We could not be parted.
I relaxed, I composed myself.
What now?
There was a scratching on the lid of slumber. As I wakened I knew better than to call encouragement. Perhaps some hopeful thief had found me. He would be frightened off if the corpse merrily greeted him. Or perhaps it was some bird at work, or a large insect taking its constitutional along the lacquer.
Then the coffin-lid moved. Brightest daylight entered like a dagger. As I lifted my hands to assist, the lid was abruptly shovelled off and fell away. Against a blinding lace-work of leaves and sky, I saw the pagan beast-face of Satan himself, gazing in at me. A handsome black goat with a long Roman nose, and whorled medallions of horns.
I sat up with a cry of elation, and he frisked away.
I came from the coffin and stood in a young meadow. The spot was fringed by pines, but a wild orchard bloomed between, and here the goats were feeding. The tindery sweet scents of morning sun on clover, the wholesome stink of the herd, were here and there touched by the fermentation of fallen red apples lying in the grass. There was no sign or symptom of any road or track.
I cast off the veiled hat into the coffin, and took up the mesh purse and spilled it over the silk. Like the field-lily, it seemed to me I had no need of items such as money, paper, or matches. So I buried the latter, for fear they might combust and set the land on fire, and left the rest. What a sight it made, the opened coffin on the grass, and the papers and the coins, and the hat. The silver bullet alone I placed in the bodice of my costume.
Then I strayed away over the meadow, among the feeding goats, and picking up an apple, ate the red skin and the white flesh of it.
Possibly I might come on a goatherd. I would say, Where is the road? And he or she, meeting the eyes of Anna or of Andre respectively, would blush and hoarsely i
nform me there were no roads at all: this was Elysium.
But I met no goatherd.
Light and shade rained down and spangled everything. Then, on a slope beyond the orchard, I found a path after all, not wide enough for any carriage, yet I followed it. What did it matter if I lost my way? I should find it again. Help was always available. And he, like the moon in the sky of night, could not hide himself for very long.
The day was an idyll. I think I never spent such a day. Perhaps I had, as Andre; some picnic or excursion into the hills above the City.
I was all alone in a country that had no human things, only sunshine, trees and wild flowers, only the strands of streams and huge boulders clung with moss. Birds flashed and fluted. And though I saw animals playing and eating, never once did I discern a cot or hut, let alone a village, let alone the mirage of any distant metropolis.
How quickly it came and went.
Noon passed over like a wave, and afternoon, three waves, or more. The sun westered, the world slipped back towards the shadow.
High among the pines, I came on a stone that might have been an altar. Beyond, the forest lessened. Far away, miles away, in a cup of distance, I saw an architectural structure, which I knew from some dream.
Going down the escarpment I lost the view, but found a broad stream, not at all shallow. It wound away northwards, under the trees. Not quite a river, but by the stones, a small narrow boat with one long pole lay tethered and waiting.
Though not underground, the Hadean stream coiled through the trees, and night began to fill the hollows and put out the afterglow. Then a mist did rise, out of secret places in the banks; cold and fragrant. I stood in the boat and poled my way along. Often a fierce current drifted us downward with no labour on my side at all.
Blackness came, and black willows swept to the stream. I poled my way through mourning-veils. The pines seemed more animal than floral. Did they move about when I had passed, with huge soft steps? The mist encircled my thighs, my waist, but rose no higher. And now I myself was Charon.
Suppose this is not the way? Then I will find it at another hour.