I struggled backward over the bench, cutting at Montsorbier’s arm as he brought up his pistol which flew high into the air and was wonderfully caught by my Duchess who pressed it against the throat of the man behind her while she slipped his dirk and rapier from his hips, taking the whole belt.
Only Klosterheim held back, staring at the golden maiden like a monk at a vision of Our Lady. He was useless to us. I had another pistol now. The men were dazed cattle, only gradually waking, and I was harvesting their weapons willy-nilly! I aimed a barker. With a flash and a roar its ball struck a little cowled officiate who went rolling and squealing to the feet of his baffled mistress. Another pistol took one of Montsorbier’s military pack. Libussa also pulled triggers, downing two of von Bresnvorts’ pox-polluted coven.
Now every lip snarled and all I could see were angry teeth, glaring eyes. My own throat was no safer than the lamb’s. Libussa discharged a further brace of sticks, almost simultaneously downing two more. The chapel had taken on a charnel-house look, with blood all over it, with bits of bone and brain spattering walls and pews. The congregation milled in panic and Libussa and I were almost at the door. Another flash – a great roar. She might have touched off a cannon, the sound was so amplified. It missed the golden-tressed vein-biter but took down one of the great candles which fell in a rush against the tapestries and fired them. Our advantage temporarily increased, we opened the door. Air fanned the flames. We fled out into darkness and cold. But nothing would hold those hounds for long. We dropped our emptied barkers and ran hand in hand down a slippery alley, up a street so steep it had rails set in its walls, pushed through a few languorous opium-eaters who interfered with our progress only because they could not see us, and we were fully lost!
Behind us was the chase. Klosterheim had carried our map. Libussa was confounded. We leant beneath a bridge which crossed above the lane and she whispered: ‘What happens here? Why do they sacrifice and chant? Bestial nonsense! For what? I gave no such instructions.’
‘Plainly more than you and Klosterheim believe this Concordance will provide an antidote to their frustration,’ said I. My observation was unwelcome to her. I went on. ‘’Tis a veritable epidemic, my lady. Familiar enough to me. So frequently we believe ourselves unique, only to find our ideas are shared by half the world…’
‘Oh, be silent, you fool.’ She was brooding, considering fresh strategy.
My peril, however, made me babble. ‘Surely they waste their time if Satan’s already master of our world?’
‘He must be ousted. The father must make way for the child.’ She spoke severely. ‘Mankind must rule itself.’
‘With your encouragement?’ My levity was also a condition of my fear.
‘Von Bek, it is your destiny as well as mine. You forget.’ Her fingers squeezed my arm. ‘We need allies in this. But who? I thought Montsorbier was in my following – Ah, I am betrayed!’
‘Sense calls for retreat to Prince Miroslav’s. A fresh battle plan.’
‘We lose important hours.’
‘In the circumstances –’ Then we were running again as beast noises, torches, footfalls, Montsorbier’s and von Bresnvorts’ recognisable voices, turned in our direction. We were in utter darkness for a moment, passing through a tunnel. We slowed to catch our breath as the sounds of pursuit faded once more. I leaned back against the slippery wall, reaching for her hand. Our fingers touched.
Then, with a gasp, she had fallen away from me. To the ground? I was on my knees, stretching out. Not there. An alcove? I felt along the wall’s base. Nothing. ‘Libussa!’ I whispered. ‘Libussa?’ My foot touched a step, an empty doorway. I heard something flutter, as if a bird were trapped. But she had gone entirely. Surely she had not been netted by our enemies. I was horrified. I could not exist without her! I plunged against the doorway and my face struck stone. I turned – stone again – and more stone. ‘Libussa!’
She had vanished. Oh, Satan, take my soul, but give me back Libussa! There was a terrible silence. No Montsorbier or gibbering von Bresnvorts – no torches – no animal cries. I stumbled to the other side of the tunnel, hoping to find her there. The street was empty. The red-gold radiance of the Autumn Stars was fitful in the far-off vault of blackness. ‘Libussa!’ Someone had ripped my heart from my breast. My bowels were torn loose of my body. She was myself! In furious misery I hammered with my sword hilt on stone so thick it had no resonance. How I yearned for a brand, even a tinderbox. The long buildings rustled and swayed like trees in a wind. They groaned and ached. They cried out. The Autumn Stars seemed to grow dimmer.
This was horrid confirmation of my every secret terror. The Black Host was coming! The Beast, the Anti-Christ, was coming! Chaos and the Day of Judgement followed… This was hideous nonsense to me. I was still at heart a rationalist and a democrat. The rule of Common Consent remained the only reasonable goal of mankind. It would be sheer madness for me to follow demagogues even greater than Robespierre! In speaking of the Rule of Man, Libussa and the others meant the rule of an élite, themselves. And like Robespierre they now claimed dominion by right of the common people. Better wicked Lucifer for a master, thought I, than a pious Tyrant!
Yet she was more deeply informed than I. Perhaps I did misunderstand, as she insisted? My love for her overruled my logic. Could it overrule my morality? I ran like a frightened cur, up alley, down steps, in and out of archways, doorways, even, once, an open window. Love, love, love! She possessed me. No ecstasy had ever been more intense. I was a pigeon pecking at the place where the barley used to be. I scuttled in circles. My sense had deserted me.
Tripping suddenly I fell upon a bundle. It was warm and sweet-smelling; a sleeping girl, little more than twelve. I turned her face to the faded starlight. Her eyes rolled and she snored faintly. Opium doubtless poisoned her. The lips parted and from them came a song which seemed to fill the alley, the whole quarter. It was a song so lovely in its complex melody, so accurate in its rendering, so subtle in its cadences, I think my obsession was momentarily abated.
At first the language of her song was new to me – perhaps the ancient speech of the Deeper City. Her chest rose and fell in perfect control. Gradually the song’s words changed to Slavonic, telling of ship’s sails against a coppery sky, a burnished ocean, a creature that had no home save the deepest grottoes of the sea and even those were lost to it, while women waved upon a cliff, looking back: the village was empty. One fire burned in the square. The sun was banished. On its worn mast a flapping flag was revived by a powerful wind and then was set on fire so it blazed even as it fluttered. But the cup could neither be filled nor drained. Thor drank from such a cup, as did Hercules. Yet both were lost.
Both were lost, she sang. A black beast with red eyes stalked into the square. He had a club in one paw and in the other the severed head of a child. He lifted his muzzle and uttered a red roar. Chaos was come upon the world! The cup was drained. The cup was lost. Where were the men and women who had promised victory and tranquillity? Were they captured or dead?
In her song a black sun rose. Huge riders came from each horizon. Their helmets were black and their eyes were red. They had wings at their shoulders. They were the angels of the final fight, the sworn enemies of mankind. Now they were closer, she sang. Now they were nigh upon us. And the cup was lost!
I was still on my knees, peering into her sleeping face. ‘You sing of the Grail?’ I spoke Russian. She did not hear. She sang on. The ancient people of Britain had such a cup and let it go. The Persians knew of it. It had been in India and in China, and all Christendom’s lands. What was it that could bring life so easily and let men perish in its pursuit? There were horsemen riding slowly on big stallions. When the tapestry was woven, they could go free. But the tapestry was not complete. None could know the future, not even God. The future they pretended to see was only the past repeated. The true future, by definition, could never be revealed. There were ship’s sails in a coppery sky, a burnished ocean, a creature that had no
home…
I kissed her full on the lips and she sang no more. This was an oracle of an accuracy not to be endured. She returned to her laudanum stupor. Around us the buildings grew restless again. They tilted and rasped as stone shifted on stone. I panted like a hunted dog. I sat down beside the girl, attempting to recover myself.
She spoke suddenly in an ordinary voice, though her eyes were blank. ‘Every native of Amalorm is psychic by disposition. It is neither a choice, nor yet an outstanding gift. My intuition says you should seek the Goat Queen in the forest.’
‘Forest, girl? There’s none hereabouts!’
‘Yonder.’
She sat upright and pointed, her eyes still sightless, at a hole in the wall from which issued a faint lamp glow. It was a window, but on a level with the ground. No place for a forest.
‘Yonder,’ insisted the blind child.
Then I was crawling towards the window, staring in, seeing nothing. I squeezed under the arch to drop down into a small room full of damp books and mildewed vellum. The door was of thick glass and it was from this the lamplight issued. Opening a rusted catch I followed the source down a short passage. It grew brighter. Grey stone shone. A large lantern swung on chains from the roof. Beyond this was a pool of clear water and on the other side of the pool an enormous oak tree, smelling of fresh Arcadian woods in full leaf.
There was no Voltairean fixedness to the nature of the Mittelmarch, especially at the centre. I approached this single tree, the blind girl’s forest. But where was the Goat Queen? I cast an eye about for Nanny Regina, expecting nothing. I sniffed. Not a perfume or a neigh.
My sword still comforting my fist, I pressed on, skirting the pool. Again I was convinced of some kind of preordainment. What was it which pushed me? I could not even tell if it were benign or malevolent. I remained, however, offended by whatever it was interfered in my own volition. I rounded the oak and there was a rustic bench. On it sat a frail old lady wearing a silver coronet. She looked up at me with mild, reddish, purblind eyes. She had a little white beard, folded ears, but (unlike Lord Renyard) there was no telling if she were beast, human or hybrid. Her thick lips parted in a toothless smile. ‘The girl sent you to me?’ Her voice was high and quavering.
‘She did, Madam.’
‘What were you offered?’
‘It’s hard to say, Madam.’ I felt awkward with the sword in my hand. I placed it beside the tree. She noted my gesture. ‘If you’ve information, I’d be grateful for it, Madam. Perhaps I was promised sanctuary. I’m fleeing enemies and seeking a lady who disappeared but an hour or so gone. Others tell me I’m upon a quest for the Holy Grail.’ I grinned at this last.
‘The girl pities me,’ said the white crone. ‘She sends anyone to me who’ll go. She’s a well-meaning, dreamy child. If you’ve been distracted from more important matters, Sir, I apologise. I’ll not regard your leaving as impolite.’
‘Pardon my curiosity, Madam, but what keeps you here alone?’
‘Habit, I suppose, Sir. And my apes, of course. They sleep at present. And my tree. Have you seen such a tree in any city?’
‘I have not, Madam. But I can’t understand, still, why you lack courtiers or emissaries from other monarchs.’
‘We are,’ she said, raising red eyes to look directly into mine, ‘no longer fashionable.’ There was a trace of a smile on her lips.
‘I hope you’re soon in vogue again. Would you have a notion, Madam, as to the whereabouts of a gentleman called the Red O’Dowd?’
‘The Red O’Dowd is a ruffian, Sir. He brought wild war to the Deeper City and for no good reason. My guard – only four of them to be sure – all died in battle against that Hunnish oaf. Yet, when he’d won, he asked for nothing, took no spoils, claimed no authority. That’s insensible, Sir. He’s a wolverine! What do you want with him? Some revenge?’
‘I’m told, Madam, he knows where the Grail is to be found.’
‘I’ve heard that, too, Sir.’ With arthritic, knotted hands she stroked at her little beard. ‘I know not where he dwells. He neither visits nor receives. He issues no edicts. It is not kingly, eh, Sir? Nor seemly. He keeps all in suspense and has done these twenty years. He does not rule us and he announces no abdication. He demands no tribute. What’s that, if not the uncouth action of a mere Hun, Sir?’
‘I hope to discover the answer, Madam.’
She lifted a sleeve to point. ‘Go that way, Sir.’ A low door. ‘Since you say you’re pursued, likely it will be safer for you.’
‘I’m obliged, Madam.’
‘I’m obliged to you, Sir. Take one of my flambeaux.’
‘If there’s any service, Madam, I can perform for you…’
‘Thank you, Sir, no. The girl brings food.’
I bowed, trying to kiss her hand, but she would not let me. Laughing at herself, she drew back her arthritic hoof, then she shrugged. ‘Good luck to you, Sir.’
I saluted her with my sabre.
Approaching the exit she had recommended I became again sensible of the chase close by. It was still possible to detect Montsorbier and von Bresnvorts baying on different notes. Suddenly, at my back, the Goat Queen spoke: ‘Were Theseus more constant to his Ariadne, mayhap she would have wept less. But would the world have known such mighty wars?’
I could not place her quotation, but there was Theseus again! Crete, it seemed, was everywhere. It was mighty disquieting to a rational man who had failed even to approve the Classical pretensions of the French parliament and whose Latin and Greek were ever weak. As for that Hero, all I recollected was that he habitually carried off maidens, with unpleasant consequences (or considerable inconvenience at very least) for a great many Attic Greeks and through absent-mindedness killed his own father, whereupon he was made King of Athens. Then there were the other tales, of his killing the last of Earth’s old monsters and bringing to an end the reign of the gods. Was that what the Goat Queen meant?
Beyond the doors were spirals of stone: I moved without any real goal, merely relying on the constrictions of the Deeper City and the prejudices of Providence to see me safe. I would give myself so much time, then try to return to Prince Miroslav’s for aid.
Libussa! I love you!
My brain scarcely ruled me at all as I blundered on through passages and flights of steps leading me lower at every pace. My brand gave off sufficient light to mark my way, but it scarcely heated me against the chill. I heartily wished for a cloak. My teeth were chattering when at length I paused to rest, having come to a flagged landing between two flights of stairs. Then I found myself staring down into a golden haze which was surely the natural dawn!
This alarmed me. I was thoroughly underground, but here was air so clear and warm it might have belonged to a spring day in Saxony! My bodily need for comfort defeated suspicion and I continued down. The stairway led into a massive hall with a perpendicular, richly decorated ceiling and the light came through huge Gothick windows. It was as though I had entered a Cathedral transept. The windows were stained with simple, rural scenes, the work of a genius, so it was impossible to see beyond them. At the far end of the hall, which was furnished only with white flagstones, benches of dark onyx, a carved wooden chair and table, sat a figure beckoning me forward.
‘Welcome at last, von Bek. You are without doubt most dissimilar to my old friend, your ancestor. I am glad you have found me.’ I could not tell if man or woman spoke. The face was obscured by a shaft of light from the far window. The same light half blinded me. Blinking, I lifted a protecting hand. ‘Friend, you have the advantage.’
‘So I’m frequently informed, Sir.’
I still held up my flickering brand. It had no function, but neither could I see anywhere to put it down. This time I tried to shield my eyes with the flat of my sword. The light was not unusually bright yet it possessed an odd, unstable effect which continued to dazzle me.
The figure rose to its feet. There was a kind of aura around its silhouette which made it difficult for me t
o distinguish details, yet it was tall and well proportioned and I received the impression of great beauty.
‘Sir, would you be so good as to tell me where this is and to whom I’m speaking.’
‘Not at all, Sir. You are intermediary, at present, for this room lies half in earth while the other half’s in Hell. And though I’m called by many fanciful names, I prefer Lucifer. The same as bargained with Graf Ulrich, Sir.’
I held my ground. There had been so much deception already I refused to be easily convinced by such claims. ‘Hard to believe you, Sir.’
‘But true, Sir, nonetheless.’ The voice was melodious, the bearing graceful. Lucifer strolled towards me. He was two and a half yards high, if an inch! ‘I cannot bargain with you, Ritter von Bek. Neither can I offer to reward you. I have my own contracts, you see, which I must honour. But I have a gift for you.’
I grew still more nervous. The creature was powerful, even if he were not the Devil. Again fear made me attempt levity. ‘Dem’ me, Sir, but I’d be inclined to mistrust any gift of Satan’s. Ain’t they meant to have unpleasant consequences for the recipient?’
‘I’ll not make an effort to persuade you, Sir. I’ve agreed to forgo that means of gaining my ends. Your ancestor, the Krieghund, did me a great service in finding the Grail. He it was who set in motion a course of events which led to our present meeting. Could you remind me, Sir, of your family’s secret motto?’
‘Do you the Devil’s work.’
‘Just so, Sir. And what’s that work, do you suppose?’ His voice, so gentle and beautiful, lulled me, yet by an effort I maintained my reason.
‘I’ve never quite guessed, Sir.’
‘It is to help bring harmony to mankind. To seek a Cure for the World’s Pain. But lately you’ve seen for yourself how certain political experiments do nothing to ease that pain. And now comes what the alchemists term “the Concordance”. Do you understand their eagerness, Sir?’
‘I’d be devilish pleased –’ I paused in some embarrassment. ‘I’d be mighty pleased for some illumination on that, Sir.’
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 29