The River of No Return

by Bee Ridgway

  “It can be mended. In any event, it’s not every day that I am complimented on my looks. And please.” He smiled. “Call me Nick.”

  Alva opened her mouth to say something, but they were interrupted again, this time by Bertrand Penture. “Excuse me, Miss Blomgren.” He bowed, and Alva curtsied, grimacing slightly at Nick as she did so, though by the time Penture straightened up her face was a mask of beautiful disinterest. “I am afraid I must steal your companion from you.” Penture turned to Nick. “If you would accompany me, my lord? I would like you to try a cognac I have saved for just such a special guest.”

  Nick bowed. “Of course, Monsieur Penture. It would be my pleasure. Please allow me to make my good-byes to this lovely creature and I shall be with you shortly.” He winked broadly at the Frenchman and was pleased to see a look of revulsion flit across Penture’s stony face.

  “Of course. A footman will direct you to the study when you are . . . finished.” Penture curled a lip and left.

  Alva and Nick watched him until his black back disappeared among the revelers. Then both began speaking at once.

  “I—”

  “We—”

  They both halted, amused, and then Alva carried on. “We have not concluded our interesting conversation.” She laid a hand on Nick’s arm. “You may find me in Soho Square, if you decide that you do, after all, need friends.” She turned to go.

  “Wait.” Nick caught her hand. “I don’t want to be your lover, but I do want to be your friend. I want . . . I want to learn from you. I am beginning to think that I like you very much indeed.”

  “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand.

  “One more thing, Alva.” Nick looked searchingly at her face. “Henry couldn’t tell if you were an angel or a goddess. But I think I know.” He felt her hand twitch in his, just once. “You are an angel, aren’t you? A very specific kind of angel.”

  She lifted a finger to her lips. “Shh.” With a twist and a flurry of blue silk, she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A footman waited just inside the doors that led to the terrace. “If you will follow me, my lord,” he said. He was a short man, with a thick accent that Nick couldn’t place. He led Nick across the ballroom, where dancers were forming for the next set, through a door on the other side, down a long hallway, and up a flight of stairs. Finally they reached a small, inconspicuous wooden door, and the footman knocked three times slowly, followed by a pause, and then four times, fast.

  The door was unlocked from the inside, in a series of soft clicks that sounded, to Nick’s ears, like the mechanism of a computerized lock. Eventually it opened. Penture stood looking at them. “You are alone?”

  “Yes,” the footman said.

  “No one followed you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Come.” Penture stood aside and Nick followed the footman in, glancing back to see that yes, on this side the door was smooth, gleaming metal, inset with a lock that looked like it belonged to a bank vault.

  It was a large, windowless chamber, much older than the house that now surrounded it. A small fire in a large fireplace created a pool of light against the far wall; otherwise the chamber was lit only dimly by a few flickering wall sconces. A massive, carved Jacobean table ran down the center of the room, set around with a mélange of sleek modernist chairs. The floor was mosaic, clearly Roman, though Nick could not see what was depicted in the center. Only some naked arms and legs and the head of a snake emerged from the shadows under the table. The vaulted ceiling was Norman, the walls hung with tapestries that, to the extent that they were illuminated by the wall sconces, seemed to depict the horticulture of tulips in be-windmilled Dutch landscapes. Hanging above the center of the table was a grotesque chandelier of white hand-blown glass, which Nick recognized as the twenty-first-century work of Dale Chihuly. A few candles gleamed somewhere in its bulbous interior but shed no light outward. Beneath it, a vase of white tulips seemed to flush with their own light, like phosphorescent sea creatures in the gloom.

  It was, Nick thought, one of the ugliest rooms he’d ever seen, for all that each individual part of it was refined and rare.

  People were emerging from the shadows to greet him. Arkady—Nick could tell him by his great height and shock of white hair. And that was Alice Gacoki the Russian had tucked in by his side; she was dressed in a twenty-first-century business suit: black slacks and jacket, and white shirt. The other two were unknown to him: a middle-aged Asian man dressed in a shimmery gold fabric that seemed to move almost as a liquid, and a woman in a farthingale and stomacher embroidered all over with Tudor roses.

  “Nick.” Alice hugged him and began to introduce him around. “Arkady and Bertrand you know already, of course.” She grasped the fingers of the man in gold. “This is Alderman Ahn Jun-suh, from the mid-twenty-second century.”

  “Call me Ahn,” the man said, disengaging from Alice and shaking Nick’s hand.

  “Nick Davenant.”

  “Great to meet you.”

  “And this,” Alice said, putting a hand on the footman’s shoulder, “is Mürsel Saatçi. He is playing the part of a servant tonight. In fact, he is Bertrand’s secretary and the cornerstone of the Guild in this era.”

  “Davenant.” Saatçi gripped Nick’s hand; he had an eager, friendly air.

  Alice turned last to the other woman in the room. “This is my friend Marjory Northway. She is our head of intelligence for the mid-fifteenth century in Britain, though she sometimes works farther afield. In fact, she made a three-month case study of you, Nick, leading up to your Summons. She gave you a glowing recommendation.”

  This woman with a ruff the size of a hubcap had spied on him? Nick peered at her, but it was impossible to see past the Elizabethan costume. Her face was painted as white as paper; her lips and cheeks were cherry red. A heavy rose scent wafted from her.

  Her eyes glittered and her mask cracked open in a smile, revealing a set of startlingly perfect white teeth. “Hi, England,” she said, her southern drawl exaggerated. “How’s them cheeses hanging?”

  The awful truth yawned beneath him like a trapdoor. When he’d last seen this woman, she’d been dressed in jeans, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had been waving out the open window of her BMW as she pulled away down his driveway, early in the morning. Out of his life forever. Or so he’d thought.

  The cheese inspector.

  Those straight white teeth, shining in that red, red mouth. He had taken her to bed, for God’s sake, to keep himself and Tom Feely out of the FDA’s leg manacles. Did everyone in the room know that? He glanced at their audience. They were watching as if this were a play. Very well then. If they wanted a play, they would get one.

  He quirked a smile at Marjory, letting her see he knew she knew he knew, and that he was mildly amused. He took her hand. “I hope I rewarded your months of hard work,” he said. “Tailing a farmer around Vermont. I’m sure the fifteenth century is much more exciting.”

  She sank down in a graceful bob. “I was amply rewarded, thank you.” Her accent faded back to its original twang, which he now heard as quaintly English. She had never really been in disguise; indeed, her half-rusted old car had even been a BMW. He caught a glimpse of those white teeth again as she flashed him a coy smile from the bottom of her curtsy.

  He raised her up. “I’m so glad.” He turned to the others, Marjory’s hand still in his. “I’m delighted to meet you all,” he said to their expectant faces. “But especially my lovely spy.” He bowed to her, wishing that he had a hat to sweep from his head. “I am flattered that I passed your inspection.”

  “With flying colors.”

  He kissed her hand.

  The group laughed; apparently the scene had pleased them. Nick laughed with them, but he was really laughing at himself and his own internal contradictions. Why was he so enraged at being asked to whore himself out to Alva, who was lovely and compassionate? He had quite happily serviced the cheese inspector to sav
e Tom Feely’s farm, and the cheese inspector was much less charming.

  Nick turned to Penture, a self-deprecating smile still haunting his lips. “Now then, Alderman. Miss Northway has decided that I make the grade. Tell me what you want of me.”

  “But of course,” Penture said, and opened his hands to encompass everyone in the room. “Shall we sit?”

  They all pulled out seats. Nick’s was a little wooden chair that looked as if it had been cut from a cardboard pattern and hinged together with brass brads. He tipped it at an angle to admire it. It was enchanting.

  “You like it,” Saatçi said, pulling out his own seat, a Saarinen tulip design not at all to Nick’s liking. “That is a very unusual chair. Breuer designed it in the 1930s for a college dormitory. Eventually the college threw the old chairs away. I rescued this one from a skip. It was broken, so sad.” Saatçi reached out and touched the pretty golden wood. “I brought it back here and mended it—I sanded away all the graffiti.” The little man blushed. “Graffiti like that I have never seen! But now he is clean and new.”

  Nick settled down into it. “But it’s so short.”

  “The college was for women.”

  “Ah.” Nick stretched his legs under the table, enjoying the thought of generations of students sitting on this hard seat, cramming their heads full of knowledge. Carving their desires into the yielding wood. Desires that had been sanded away to a blank prettiness. Nick’s enjoyment faded. He looked around the table at the men and women gathered to tell him about his mission. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this party started. What do you want of me?”

  “I am glad you are eager to cooperate,” Penture said. “Let us begin with this man you call Mr. Mibbs. I would like you to tell us all about him, if you please.”

  Nick glanced at Alice, then told the gathered Guild elite everything he knew, again excluding Leo.

  “He controlled your emotions, you say,” Penture said when Nick was finished. “To the point that you feared for your life.”

  “Yes. He seemed to be trying to kill me with despair.”

  “Kill you with despair? But we cannot use emotions as weapons. And we cannot use despair at all.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me.” Nick smiled. “Nevertheless, he came at me with despair. But I am a jolly fellow, and I survived.”

  Penture folded his hands on the table, gazed at Nick for a moment, then turned to Alice. “There has been no sign of Mibbs in the London of your era since that strange encounter?”

  “No,” Alice said. “Nor anywhere or anytime else. He has disappeared.”

  Penture nodded. “Very strange indeed. This man who can do things with the river of feelings that we cannot. This man who can harness the one emotion that repels us.” The Frenchman’s strange green eyes were intent upon Nick. “I assume that you are telling us the truth about your experiences.”

  “I am.”

  “Do you think he is Ofan?” Ahn asked Penture.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  “I do not think so.” Arkady scowled. “The Ofan spout their nonsense about knowledge and happiness. They dress like the hobo bums. They would not even think to try to harness the despair.”

  “Arkady,” Alice said. “We have had this argument many times. You must accept that Mibbs is probably Ofan, that he is the clue to what the Ofan are doing. The Ofan you hate, the revolutionaries who killed Eréndira—they are dispersed. The revenge you want—you aren’t going to get that, darling. Vogelstein must be dead. And now things have changed. The stakes are too high for us to fight the Ofan on your terms. We must fight the Ofan as the Guild, and because we want to protect the river. Not because you are a heartbroken father who wishes to revenge his child.”

  Arkady pushed his chair back and stood. He raised his face to the grotesque chandelier for a long moment, then looked down at his wife. “From you,” he said quietly, looking at Alice. “From my wife I have to hear this.”

  “I am speaking to you as your Alderwoman,” Alice said, her voice quiet. “And I am speaking the truth.”

  “Sit, Altukhov,” Penture said gently.

  The old Russian looked around the room. No one said anything. After a long moment, he folded himself back down into his chair and clasped his white hands in front of him, staring fixedly at his ring. Alice put her hand on the table near him, where he could see it, but she made no move to touch him.

  After a moment of respectful silence, Penture turned back to Nick. “Alice and Arkady have assured me that you are loyal to the Guild and that you are ready to join forces with us in our battle against the insurgent Ofan. Is that correct?”

  Nick didn’t answer.

  “I saw, when I came to collect you, that you have met your target. I assume this means that you are taking on the duties that Arkady explained to you.”

  Nick again said nothing.

  The Alderman leaned back in his chair, and a lock of black hair fell onto his forehead. His mouth was a stern line. He really was movie-star handsome, but less Gary Cooper, Nick decided, more Gregory Peck. “Is this the silence of considered thought, of petulant resistance, or of imbecility, Mr. Davenant?”

  “Nick—” Alice began.

  Penture held up a hand to silence her.

  “I reject the assignment,” Nick said. “When I agreed—reluctantly—to help the Guild, I believed I was joining you as a soldier, not as a gigolo.”

  Penture let a thin smile touch his lips. “I am sorry if you had any misapprehensions about your assignment,” he said. “But I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter. Miss Blomgren’s bereavement is a chance we cannot pass up. She is in need of a new lover. You have the status and the wealth to appeal to her.”

  “Surely there must be other ways.”

  Penture made an impatient Gallic gesture, as if he held a bird in his hands and was setting it free. “You are enraging! This Englishness!”

  “I told you,” Arkady said, not looking up. “He is a priest.”

  “Alva Blomgren is the most beautiful woman in London and a fabled courtesan,” Penture said to Nick. “She is also the head of a ring of Ofan who have established themselves in Soho Square. We have known about her activities for a few years, but until recently there was no need to crack down on the Ofan; they seemed a harmless enough group of dissidents. Laughable, even, with their wild notions. But now things are different. It is possible that we must purge the world of the Ofan once and for all. But first we must learn more about what they are up to. We need you as a spy, not a killer.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Oh, for the love of God!” Alice rolled her eyes. “First Arkady and now you—behaving like children!”

  “Let me tell you about Alva,” Penture said. “She jumped from 1348 to 1790, a teenager, suddenly free of her plague-wracked medieval village. She was the brightest new recruit the Guild had seen in decades. Everyone thought she was destined to lead. The Alderwoman at the time, my predecessor, was a woman named Hannelore von Trockenberg. A genius. Under her governance the Guild was as powerful as in any other age. She never showed favor to anyone. Except Alva—Hannelore loved her. Alva was always at the Alderwoman’s side. But then . . . it is hard to believe, even now. Alva informed us all that she was not interested in a Guild position. That she would use her yearly stipend to open a high-class brothel in Soho Square. That she had already covertly established herself as a courtesan of the highest caliber.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a departure. Why did she do that?”

  Penture shrugged. “Who can say? But Hannelore’s rage was boundless. It was as if her own daughter had turned to prostitution. After that Alva was no longer in favor. She continued to receive her stipend, as prescribed by Guild law, and she came to the larger Guild functions, but if Hannelore heard her name, or saw her face, she would rage for days. We all began to spend our time making sure the two women never met. Then, a few years ago, Hannelore was dying. She asked to see Al
va. Alva came. They spent an hour together. When she left, Hannelore called us to her bedside. Me, Saatçi, and one other. She said to us: ‘That woman is a traitor, she is Ofan. And if she is Ofan, then the Ofan are now a danger to the Guild.’ It was soon after that we realized . . .” Penture paused. “That we realized the damage the Ofan have actually done to the river.”

  Nick twitched his cuffs into place. “I am sorry that you find yourselves in a sticky situation with your ancient enemy,” he said. “And I am flattered that you think my towering prowess as a lover will breach the defenses of a woman you have described as a sexual, entrepreneurial, and political mastermind. But I hope you will forgive me when I say that you are fools. Sex only makes people more like themselves. A powerful, secretive woman becomes only more powerful and more secretive in the throes of passion. Whereas an easygoing, gullible fellow like myself, confronted with a woman like Alva Blomgren?” He shrugged. “She would have me singing Guild secrets from the rooftops, and I would come away having learned nothing from her.”

  “Why do you think we haven’t told you any Guild secrets?” Arkady growled.

  Penture held up his hand, silencing the Russian. “So this is why Arkady calls you his priest. You are belligerently pure.” He shrugged. “So be it. I cannot force you into her arms. And perhaps you are correct that she would not sing her secrets in the midst of passion. You are wiser than I thought. But however you go about it, your assignment is to infiltrate the Ofan and learn Alva’s secrets. Let’s see . . .” He looked around the room. “What skills does our friend Mr. Davenant have besides womanizing? Cheese making? Will he perhaps succeed in gaining Alva’s trust with a fine wheel of Cheddar?”

  “Actually, he’s good at farm management in general,” Marjory Northway said brightly. “He owns a couple of other organic operations in Vermont.”

  “Well, there we are.” Penture turned to Nick. “I’m sure the most intriguing woman in a glittering era of fashion and romance will be transfixed by your tales from the tilth. Anything else?”