The Architecture of Desire

by Mary Gentle

  She reached up and drew a long pin from her hair. Gold sparkled. Without hesitation she held up her left hand, and thrust the pin through the centre of her palm. She dropped to one knee. Her bloodied fingers traced sigils in the frozen slush and on hard-trodden ice.

  Silence.

  The night darkened. Icy air breathed in his face. Lilly rubbed his eyes. "Madam, well done!"

  Thickening snow fell faster. A sharp crack echoed. He stepped back, thinking it a stone; another fell, and another.

  Hailstones plummeted down.

  The night skies opened. Within three heartbeats he could hear nothing but a million hailstones hiss and crack, splintering down on cobblestones; sky thickly grey over the convent- garden walls; the bonfires guttering to extinction. Splinters of ice shrapnelled the pillars.

  In the open square men and women covered their heads with their hands, running abjectly for shelter.

  Hailstones drummed. The woman hissed between her teeth, tugging the needle from her hand. The skin of her palm pulled up as the metal withdrew. Blood welled. She sat down hard in the slush, on the stone under the portico, legs sprawling; her face running with sweat.

  Her voice, when it came, rasped with utter exhaustion:

  "I was ten years a trained Scholar-Soldier. I was the best they had with a blade. Now I’m Master-Physician and no soldier . . . Don’t think I never knew who I injured, or what it meant, or how much I risked. I miss fighting. I miss all the dangers of a duel. It was—it’s like air and sunlight to me."

  A new morning chilled her. Olivia touched a gauntlet to the blood-marked stone and straightened. Soldiers crowded the construction-site behind her, pikes and crossbows ready under a cold and brilliant sky.

  The workman’s body lay already shrouded.

  "And no answer from Master Casaubon?"

  Humility Talbot shook his head.

  "I’ll have an answer today," she said grimly, "if I have to go for it myself."

  The Lord-Architect lifted one large, bare foot from the bowl of hot water, examined it morosely through the steam, and sneezed. His foot thumped down. Water flew across floorboards and bedroom rug.

  "I am perfectly well!"

  The woman sat back on her heels. She brushed at her now-wet shirt with a bandaged left hand. "Of course you are. Or at least, you will be."

  Aromatic herbs floated in the steaming bowl. He sniffed. Under his vast nightdress, talismans on chains hung hot against his skin. As he watched, she unwrapped the rough bandage and squeezed a drop of blood from her palm into the water.

  "Will that cure me?" he croaked hopefully.

  "That and staying in bed for the next twenty-four hours."

  "I have no intention of going back to bed!" Casaubon paused; took out his handkerchief; blew a long, wet, trumpet-blast; and surveyed the result dismally.

  "Except," he finished weakly, "possibly for the next twenty-four hours."

  The Queen and Sir Denzil Waldegrave stood at one window of the Whitehall Palace, looking down into the snow-choked yard. Carola cradled a bottle of Madeira. A team of four horses strained at the crack of a whip. The driver, a lanky fair-haired countryman, pulled the team up on treacherous ice. Washed, if not polished, the elderly coach shone in the morning light.

  "Odds me, madam, a rare present."

  "More than you know." The swarthy woman laughed, clinking bottle to windowpane, and pushing the window open. Freezing air cleared the fug of the night’s marathon card-game. Waldegrave shuddered, pale.

  "We will have you stow Roseveare’s gift safely away. Very safely." Carola hesitated. She pointed with one blue-silk-clad arm. "Sir, who’s that? With yonder little puritan girl."

  Below in the yard, the woman Guillaime entered under the arch and stopped dead. A gentleman-mercenary, one among many entering the Palace for the morning’s audience, took off his tricorne hat and bowed. Brown curls glinted. The young woman straight-armed past him, skidding in the snow. His guffaw floated up to Carola.

  "Captain Calmady, ma’am. A mercenary. An incurable violent man." Denzil Waldegrave inclined his head as the man saluted the Queen. "He raped the girl and must hang for it, since the woman Olivia has him under her arrest."

  She lifted the bottle to her lips and drank the dregs. A faint cheer drifted up from the crowd in the courtyard. She waved carelessly, turning from the window.

  "The ‘Protector’ is holding trial on one of our subjects?"

  "A mercenary, your Majesty. And, the situation being how it is, it would hardly be politic to complain."

  She turned on him a face from which all humour and all laziness vanished.

  "The Queen’s writ still runs in this commonwealth, does it not? The Queen’s justice is the fount of all justice?"

  "Yes, madam, but—"

  "Arrest Captain Calmady. Find witnesses and have him brought to trial. It may prove politic," the swarthy woman considered, "to have what Justice the woman Olivia approves of on the bench, but we will have no man tried but by the laws of this commonwealth, and they, after all revolts and confusions, remain mine. "

  Desire walked to stand by the window.

  The White Crow hesitated, closing the door. Noon’s snow- reflected brightness shone in on the young woman’s face, but called out no fire from the matt darkness of her hair. Each hand clasped an elbow. Her chin was sunk into the collar of her coat.

  The door closed with a creak.

  "I said I’d examine you, didn’t I? Yes . . ."

  The White Crow shivered, crossing to the fire and squatting down to place fresh coals. The scent of seacoal permeated the air. Frost-patterns starred the window-glass.

  "I would know, if I carry a child? Or a disease?"

  A quiet voice, low and resonant. The White Crow straightened. In some interest, she looked down at her fingers. They shook. She rubbed her hands together, a slight smile on her face; taking a brief glance around the room.

  Books piled on window-seat, oaken chair, and floor. Bundles of herbs lay scattered across the big desk, together with half-incised talismans. She absently cleared the remnants of an amulet to one side, and tapped her finger to her lips, gaze moving along the meagre row of bottles on the shelf above the workbench.

  "Sit down. The couch, there. Have you eaten today?"

  "Nothing."

  "Good."

  Three bottle-necks between her fingers, the White Crow pulled the cork from a fourth with her teeth as she walked across the room. She held out the blue-white glass container.

  "Do I drink it?" The young woman held the bottle, sinking to sit on the couch. White linen creased where she sat. The White Crow took the cork from between her teeth.

  "Drink from one, spit in t’other. Then we’ll wait. Trust me."

  "I already trusted you once." Mocking, calculating: Desire’s eyes shone. "At Roseveare. You failed me."

  "You can’t trade on that forever."

  "Can I not?"

  "Oh, but you . . ." A wealth of tones in that word: speculation, resentment, admiration, envy. The White Crow rested her knee up on the couch, the bottles in her left hand clinking softly. Recalled, she held each up to the window-light in turn; shook each; and placed them one at a time on the floor.

  "I’ll have to examine you."

  The young woman lowered the bottle, frowning a little. A tongue-tip flicked out, clearing the last oily liquid from her lips. Noon leached colour from her pale, prominent cheekbones; shadowed her eyes with sepia and her lips with blue.

  The White Crow leaned weight on her knee that rested on the couch. Close enough to breathe in all the scents of her—herb-comfrey, and the rankness of just-stale sweat— she watched Desire’s fingers unknot the clasp of her coat.

  Desire pulled her arms from the sleeves, awkward as a child.

  A black, ragged doublet came next; buttoned at every second or third button. A grey shirt, clean but faded. Desire pulled her shoulders up, down; sliding the cloth free. Her hands dropped to her belt. She tugged loose the s
ash of a ragged, full skirt.

  The White Crow slipped. Her knee skidded from the couch’s linen cover. One hand, flying out for balance, knocked against the young woman’s arm.

  The air of the room tingled: hot with fire, cold with snow. Frozen condensation whorled the windowpane. A coal snapped in the grate. Her face burned. With hands now perfectly steady she reached out and unbuttoned the young woman’s thin cotton shirt.

  Black eyes glinted. One of the comers of her pale lips tugged up: as it might be Desire smiled.

  The White Crow cupped her hands over the young woman’s shoulders, every crease of the last white, sleeveless shirt pressing her palms. She slid her hands down around the small, heavy breasts; traced the sharpness of ribs; held her with one hand to each hip. Each impossible touch broke barriers between possibility and actuality.

  Shaking, heightened; simultaneously aware and with a complete sense of unreality, she pulled the girl to her feet and tore at the buttons fastening her cobweb-thin shirt.

  The young woman stood stiff, resistant.

  "Trust me!" The White Crow reached out, knotting fists in the unbound masses of Desire’s coarse black hair, pulling her head forward and kissing her fiercely.

  One heel skidded on the floor: a bottle shattered.

  The White Crow grabbed and fumbled her grip; ripped the sleeveless shirt, and lowered her mouth to lick at the sweat on the curve of Desire’s shoulder. Smooth here, rough there with old scar-tissue: tasting of all sweetness, all sour discordancies of taste.

  Breath hissed in her throat.

  She sat back up onto one heel, staring the young woman in the face. Skin tingled. Silence sang, waiting for the shout that would break it.

  The fire, the linen couch, the deserted floor of the house: all determined, all planned. To end here, with a face heavy-lidded, black and delicate lashes lowered. Feeding on itself now, the desire reified by its first act.

  Deliberately moving the remaining bottles aside, she pushed the young woman’s body back on the couch. Her hands dug to feel the heat of flesh across the slender back. She pushed her unbandaged hand under the waistband of the young woman’s black skirt, sliding fingers across the soft flesh of her belly, fighting the resistance of cloth, fingers prodding between her thighs.

  "I’m not—!"

  An elbow hit her jaw and ear. Jarred, she shook her head to clear it.

  "—not healed yet; it hurts—"

  The White Crow recovered her free hand from under the solidity of flesh. She pulled at her own shirt, buttons flying. Some fierce grin fired her. She pulled the young woman’s head to her breast, feeling the shiver of warm breath across her nipple; reached down and tugged her belt-buckle undone with a bandaged hand. Desire struggled.

  "—hurts!"

  A shrill whisper.

  "I’ll be careful. Trust me. Trust me."

  The White Crow forced her down, one arm now across Desire’s collarbone, pinning her. A knee hit her shoulder. Her breeches slid down her hips, bare flesh shivering in the winter room.

  "You’re beautiful!"

  Pressed bare breast to belly, sweat-slick, hand thrusting still between the young woman’s legs, rubbing soft and damp hair; fingers probing hot, slick interior flesh. The White Crow caught her breath, dipped her head and bit roughly at warm flesh: at white-scarred arms and prominent ribs; mouthing saliva across small, heavy breasts.

  The Protector-General Olivia lifted her gloved hand to knock on the door of Roseveare House. It swung open. She nodded briefly to the two black-mantled soldiers. They took up unobtrusive posts along the Court, cursing the deep snow. She stepped over the threshold.

  Somewhere distantly upstairs, a bottle smashed.

  She swung the door to and walked swiftly through the hall. One hand rested at the belt of her buff coat, on a pistol’s butt. Stairs went up into gloom. She climbed, alert for further sound.

  Silence.

  Closed doors confronted her on the first floor. About to push one open at random, hand on the latch, she heard a creak from the bannisters of the landing above.

  The Lord-Architect Casaubon leaned over, draped in the folds of a scarlet-and-gold nightgown, and with a tasselled nightcap on his head.

  "No servants, master architect?"

  The fat man wiped his eyes, fingering yellow sleep-grit from the corners. He stuck his finger in his mouth, sucked and removed it. "Servants’ day off, rot ’em. Valentine should answer the magia-wards. I don’t know what she can be thinking of. I, myself, am far too ill to leave my bed—"

  "I need to know about the eye of the sun, Master Casaubon. Now. When I returned to the Tower this morning, I found your written report."

  "You’d better come up."

  He swirled yards of cloth about his arms, bundling himself up and raising the hem of the gown of his stockinged calves. Olivia chuckled. She took the stairs two at a time, following him into a bright room.

  "However, I was working." The Lord-Architect pried up the blankets on the immense four-poster bed and climbed back in.

  Blueprints tipped across the blankets. Plans covered the bed, the floor; hung pinned to the bed’s draperies, and crackled under the Lord-Architect as he leaned back against the pillows. He wiped his red nose.

  Olivia cleared a space and seated herself on the foot of the bed. "I want answers if you have them, educated guesses if you don’t."

  "Guesses?" He unrolled a six-foot plan across his lap, pinning down the end with a jar of wintergreen ointment. "I can guarantee you, the burglaries and thefts of St. Sophia will drop by two-thirds when you allow me to make alteration to the Rookery tenements." His fat finger prodded the paper. "With these building alterations I can guarantee a lessening in the crimes committed there."

  "The poor of this town don’t need lessoning in crime." "Wittily said."

  Olivia stripped off her gloves. She pushed the wispy yellow-white hair away from her face. "The Rookeries are corrupt. Master Casaubon, men are made of sin. I don’t think you’ll deny them the desire to thieve by denying them one walkway to reach a window by, or one more exit by which to flee. Now: the temple—"

  "Pox rot you, they’re not different! Structures compel—"

  The man broke into a fit of coughing. The Protector steadied herself on the bed, her feet not quite touching the floor. Heaped blankets shook, covering the immense legs, stomach, and torso of the man in the bed; he peering down at her red-faced, watery-eyed.

  "Master Casaubon, the eye of the sun is builded according to those proportions and rules that govern the universe; it has within it an outer light to mirror man’s Inner Light; it is a temple, and not a slum!"

  She stood up, pacing the room.

  "Your report says that I need the blood-royal and that I can’t use it because it is diseased. Why can it not be used? What else is there? Are the Rookeries your price for telling me?"

  "The Rookeries slums are something you’ll have me do if you want to save your tenants from what you’d call opportunities to sin. Death and furies!" He sat up in bed, a volcano-lava of sheets and blankets spilling down. A smell of sweat and ointment breathed across her.

  "Master Casaubon: the eye of the sun!"

  "This city’s had its temples consecrated by the royal- bloodline for how long? Centuries?" He nodded massive satisfaction. "The foundations of the earth have reached saturation point. Hereditary—that blood carries a virus. By now it attracts as much demonic power as it dispels."

  "Carola’s blood feeds demons." She tapped her gloves against her bulbous chin. "Consecrates ground—and attracts demons. And yet the ground must be consecrated. I don’t see the answer."

  "Blindingly simple." The large man spread his hands. "Build it in another city."

  "What?"

  "Your Carola." He sniffed. "The Sun Monarch herself couldn’t build a temple to the sun in this city! No matter how harmonic the proportions, how much in conformity with the Universal Architect’s laws, you’ll have an infestation of demons before t
he pox-rotted foundations are sunk. They’ve been taught to expect it."

  She stopped with one hand holding the bottom poster of the bed.

  "I must build here. I must build in the capital." "Dammit, you can’t!"

  "Our Lord’s light, and the light of reason, have to be manifest here." Her hand closed hard on the carved wood. The edges bit into her fingers. "We’re the only legitimate protection against the godless woman’s tyranny, master architect; and we can only prove ourselves legitimate in this ancient seat of government. I must be able to complete the building."

  "You may. Eventually. And have to call in a demolition expert inside a decade to get rid of the thing."

  "That dangerous?"

  "I’ve seen corruptive architecture before." The fat man leaned back against stacked pillows. The room’s light altered, chilling to sepia; and she glanced at the window and saw, tiny and slow, black specks spiralling down against a yellow sky. Fire snapped in the grate. Somewhere in the depths of Roseveare House, a door slammed.

  "You have a plain choice." The Lord-Architect grunted, swinging his legs down and feeling with his feet for red-heeled slippers. "Use some poor royal bastard’s blood, build the place, and have it corrupt more of its worshippers than it heals. Or don’t use it, and have the building collapse. Or, by the Great Architect’s anus, build it in some other city!"

  Olivia made a wry mouth.

  "That’s no choice at all. Obviously I cannot choose any of these actions—and yet—I must choose."

  The Lord-Architect plodded back up the stairs from seeing Olivia out. He paused at the door to the herb-room.

  "Little one?"

  The White Crow, visible though the now-open door, sat up on the couch. The rucked-up sheet tangled her ankles. One elbow rested on her knee, and her forehead on her fist. Her shirt hung open, two buttonholes tom, and her unbuckled breeches slid down over her hips; brown cloth against fair, faintly-freckled skin. She looked up.

  "Yes! All right? The answer is yes."