“But why a priest? Surely you can find a more credible scapegoat?”
Arthur stepped to Rosacher’s side. “Would you prefer we plucked some poor lad out of Morningshade?”
“Because I want you to bleed,” said Rosacher. “Apart from that, it will go down well with the citizenry. Your priests are commonly seen in the brothels, and there is resentment over the fact that they proclaim themselves pure while wallowing in the same mire as do ordinary men. Such a sacrifice will help the church’s reputation more than it will impeach it. Imagine the sermons you’ll be able to preach. You can exult in your shame, make a pageant of public humiliation. It will humanize Mospiel, set a penitent face atop its bloated body. But you must decide now. I won’t waste more time on this. Should you choose to die a martyr to the cause, my men have work to do.”
“Would you condone such a slaughter?” asked Ruiz, appearing shaken. “How can you possibly profit from it?”
“Fewer priests, for one,” said Arthur.
Flatly, without a trace of sarcasm, Rosacher said, “What are the lives of a handful of priests when measured against the good of the Church?”
“What choice do I have?” Ruiz waved weakly in the direction of the rectory. “Take whomever you wish.”
“No, no,” said Rosacher. “The process of selection should be an informed one. We’ll leave that little chore to you.”
Ruiz said, “I’ll do as you ask.”
“We’ll just wait here whilst you make your selection, shall we?” Arthur showed his teeth in a horrid grin.
“This may take some time,” said Ruiz. “I’ll have to…”
“I’m aware of your methods,” Rosacher said. “You need to console, to comfort, to offer assurances of a place beside the Beast in his eternal kingdom. We’ll be patient while you work your magic.”
Ruiz walked stiffly toward the rectory door, but then he turned, his face knotted in fury. “You bastard! You…”
“I know, I know,” said Rosacher mildly. “But you were warned.”
8
The tower that Meric Cattanay had erected so he might observe the progress of his great work was a rickety affair some eighty feet high, so hastily carpentered of boards and poles that a strong wind would sway it, threatening to send it crashing down onto the rooftops and smoking chimneys of Morningshade below. From a platform at the summit, it afforded one an unimpeded view of the painting on the dragon’s side (albeit one complicated by scaffolding and the dozen or so artisans currently occupying it) and of the painting—it appeared to Rosacher’s eyes as a blotch of gold a few shades lighter than the dragon’s natural color, spreading from the middle joint of the foreleg around the curve of the side. Other colors were beginning to emerge from the blotch, but gave no hint of the image that would one day be presented. Also visible against the gray morning sky were the enormous vats that had been constructed atop Griaule’s flat forehead. In these, the raw materials that produced the poisoned paint were distilled. Smoke rose from beneath them at every hour of the day and night, making it seem that the dragon was venting frustration through his skull.
Rosacher had climbed the tower in order to be alone (an ambition thwarted when he discovered Cattanay, bearded and bedraggled, sketching on the platform) and to gain perspective, though not on the painting. He had taken to sleeping as little as possible, doing everything in his power to stay awake, yet some sleep was essential and he had woken that morning to discover he had lost another four years—at this rate he calculated that he had at best another week or so to live, and he hoped this elevated position would lend itself to a fresh comprehension of the problem. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Cattanay, who seemed as perturbed by Rosacher’s presence as was Rosacher with his, returned to his sketching, and Rosacher sat on the lip of the platform, dangling his legs off the side, staring at the golden blotch. His thoughts were in disarray and resisted all attempts to marshal them. He kept coming back to the panicked recognition that he was now, as best he could determine, forty-three years old, and that the better part of sixteen years had been stripped from him. The obvious thing to do would be to stop moping and get to work on his study of the blood and hope that it led to an insight into his current difficulties. He had built a laboratory in his factory and nothing stood in his way…unless it was Griaule. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he must have been close to achieving a breakthrough, one detrimental to the dragon’s health or contrary to his schemes, for Griaule to have intervened and set his life upon such a different course. This inspired him to go forward with his researches, but the idea that Griaule might thwart him at any second neutered the impulse. And, too, he wondered if he still retained the discipline to stare for hours into a microscope. Ludie was probably right—he made a more successful criminal than he did a scientist.
Boards creaked behind him and, turning, he saw Cattanay sitting cross-legged, unwrapping a sandwich from a packet of brown paper. Glancing up, he offered half to Rosacher, who declined. Cattanay took a bite, chewed with gusto and swallowed. He made a contented sound and brushed crumbs from his beard.
“This cheese is excellent,” he said. “You should try it. Allie, my companion, soaks it in an infusion of berries. Quite tasty.”
Again Rosacher declined. He watched the artist eat for several seconds and then, feeling awkward with the silence, he asked how the work was going.
Cattanay shrugged. “It goes and it goes. I’ve been unable to manufacture a proper magenta. The color changes so much on the scales…” He gestured with the sandwich. “We’ll get it right sooner or later.”
“I meant to ask if you had any idea of how long Griaule can survive?”
“Haven’t a clue. Sorry. I suppose he could pop off any old time. You need to ask an expert in dragon physiology…if there are such. You were a doctor once, no? You’re more qualified than I to give an opinion.”
Pigeons perched on a beam beneath the platform began to squabble. The wind shifted, bringing a burning smell from the vats. Rosacher realized he’d become so accustomed to the dragon that most of the time he paid it no more attention than a rock—whenever he spoke about Griaule, he did so in the abstract, as if he were referring to an idea, a principle, something other than the dragon’s monstrous reality.
“How’s business?” Cattanay asked.
“Manageable. We make plenty of missteps, but one learns to adapt.”
“It’s the same with me. Always something. Loggers haven’t returned with wood to keep the vats going or someone’s taken a fall. I’ve delegated responsibility, yet it’s a rare day when I’m not called away to deal with some trouble.”
“At least when you’re done you’ll have a monument to commemorate your labors.”
“The mural? I doubt it. How long do you think it’ll take before they decide to rid themselves of Griaule’s corpse? A week? A month? No more, surely.”
Rosacher murmured in agreement.
“There’s a man in Punta Esperanza who’s had some success with reproducing images from life,” said Cattanay. “Perhaps by the time it’s finished, he’ll have refined the process and the mural will survive in that way. It’s hardly the same thing, though.”
Cattanay had another bite of sandwich and Rosacher, kicking his heels against the side of the platform, said, “May I ask a personal question?”
His mouth full, Cattanay signaled him to go ahead.
“Are you happy?”
Cattanay swallowed, wiped his mouth. “That’s a hell of a question…though I hear it often. Allie asks it of me almost every night.”
“I’m certain the context is very different.”
“Oh, without a doubt.” Cattanay picked at a bit of food trapped between his teeth. “Happy’s not a word I generally apply to myself. You might say I’m content. I’m doing work I love. Things aren’t perfect, but I suppose I’m happy enough. Happier than you by the look of it.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that account.”
“I used to be passionate about science, but no more. I was never passionate about the business. The business…it was something to do, something easier than science. I think I’ve used it as an excuse not to do what I really wanted.”
“You’d best find something else you really want, then. That is, if happiness is your goal.”
“I think my goals may be changing.”
“Pah! Mine change a dozen times each morning before lunch. I’ll wish for a better source of a magenta and then the sight of an art student with a nice derriere…well, you know how it goes.”
With a grunt, Cattanay got to his feet. He balled up the paper in which his sandwich had been wrapped and tossed it off the tower. Thin streams of people were passing in the streets below. “I have things to take care of at the vats. Have you been up on the dragon recently?”
“Not for years…and then only to the edge of the mouth.”
Cattanay stepped into the basket of the elevator attached to the side of the tower and prepared to lower himself. “You ought to take a walk up there when you have a chance. It can be inspiring. You never know what you might encounter.”
+
After puttering in his laboratory the rest of the morning and into late afternoon, unable to come to grips with the scientific elements of the issue that confronted him, Rosacher heeded Cattanay’s advice and climbed the scaffolding to the vats and then walked out onto the dragon’s back, following a meandering track through dry-leaved thickets until he came to Hangtown. The settlement had grown from a handful of shacks surrounding a polluted puddle of rainwater half an acre in circumference to a village of perhaps two hundred souls housed in fifty or sixty shanties, the largest of these serving as a tavern and marked by a neatly hand-lettered sign that read:
MARTITA’S HOME IN THE SKY
It was a relatively new structure with windows that were not merely square holes in the walls, but had panes of warped, opaque glass, and its wood was still a roach-brown, not faded to gray like the majority of the shanties; yet it was equally as ramshackle, with a slumping roofed porch and a partial second floor that appeared to be in the process of sliding off. A man—a scalehunter judging by his profusion of green and gold tattoos—sprawled unconscious in a chair on the front porch, an advertisement for the effectiveness of the establishment’s spirits. Having experienced neither exhilaration nor inspiration during his walk, Rosacher entered the spacious common room and its atmosphere of gloom and fried onions, thinking a pint would help fuel his descent to Morningshade. Behind the bar (boards laid across a half-dozen barrels), a robust, round-faced woman of thirty or thereabouts, unprepossessing in aspect, her brown hair in long braids, dressed in cloth breeches (a style favored by Hangtown’s female population—skirts tended to catch on twigs and thorns) and a low-cut blouse, busied herself with polishing mugs. An elderly white-haired man with a scarred face and a man young enough to be his grandson played cards at a bench by the window. They eyed him indifferently and the woman came bustling over to Rosacher, who had taken a seat at the rear.
“We’ve a good blond ale from Port Chantay,” she said. “Otherwise it’s homebrew. Quite nice, it is, and very strong, if that’s your pleasure.”
Rosacher opted for the ale and cast an eye about the room. Basically unadorned, it had here and there a feminine touch: gillyflowers in a vase; a print showing Griaule against a mass of clouds; a framed needlepoint homily with letters so crooked that he was unable to read them. The woman returned with the ale, she hovered beside the table, and after he had paid her she continued to hover. He had a sip and said, “This will do,” thinking she wanted him to approve the ale, yet she remained standing by the table, beaming at him. Finally she said, “You don’t remember me, do you? Truly, there’s no reason you should. You didn’t take much notice of my face.” She winked broadly. “You were mainly interested in my backside.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Martita.” She tapped her ample bosom, dislodging a silver locket that had been half-concealed in her cleavage, the image of a dragon scratched on the casing as if by her own hand. “Martita Doans. I was a maid in your house. The night the assassin came, it were me what was sent to bandage you.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “We made love.”
The term “made love” befuddled him for a moment and, once he had sorted it out, feeling embarrassed, shamed, yet not wishing to admit to anything, he said weakly, “Of course. Uh, I…How’ve you been?”
“Lately I’ve been doing very well, thank you. But directly after I left your service, now that were a bit of rough road, what with me being in a family way and having no family to turn to.”
She took a seat opposite him and leaned forward, her milky breasts squashed against the tabletop, threatening to overflow their flimsy restraint. “I wanted to tell you, seeing how the babe was yours, but that Ludie hustled me out so fast I scarce had time to pack,” she said in a stage whisper. “And Mr. Honeyman said if I gave him any trouble, he’d let his men at me and sell tickets to whoever cared to watch. So there I were, out on the streets and big as a house. I couldn’t even sell meself.” She dropped back into a normal tone. “Griaule knows what would have happened had not Mister Doans—that’s my late husband, Nathan Doans—took me in.”
“I had no idea!” Rosacher said. “I mean I wouldn’t…”
“I didn’t figure you did. Mister Honeyman made it clear I wasn’t to pester you. He said that should I try to inform you of my situation, there’d be hell to pay. Still and all, I didn’t think kindly toward you those first months.”
The elderly card player called to her and Martita went to see what he wanted. Stunned by what he had learned, Rosacher drained his pint in two swallows. If what she told him was true, and he had no reason to doubt her, Ludie and Arthur had much to answer for. Not that he would have done much better than they for Martita. He likely would not have accepted paternity of the child, yet he would have at least seen to its care and feeding. It seemed he could feel a space inside himself that affection for a child would have occupied, and this sparked a deeper resentment. He would have to rein in Arthur and Ludie, rein them in sharply, perhaps even to the point of reconfiguring the business—they had been acting more-or-less independently in recent years, and probably not to his benefit. It might be time for a housecleaning. Neither of them were indispensable and it was evident he could no longer trust them.
Martita returned, bringing a second pint, and he asked, “The child? Is it a boy or a girl?”
Her face fell. “It were a boy. I couldn’t carry it to term.”
Speechless for a moment, he said, “I obviously can’t make things right, but you must let me help.”
“I don’t want for much. Mister Doans was a scalehunter, like most here. He did very well for himself. Found several loose scales of museum quality during his day.” She shook her head ruefully. “Two years back it were he died…and him still a young man. But that’s the way of it with scalehunters, ain’t it?” She nodded toward the card players. “Jarvis is the only one I know what’s lived past middle years. For all the good it does him. He’s a miserable sod. But like I was saying, Mister Doans left me the tavern and a tidy sum besides. I’ve a decent life now.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“You might stop in and have a pint now and again. Having you here tones up the place.” She blushed. “And it would please me.”
“Why would you want me around? First I force myself upon you and then…”
“Oh, don’t be thinking that! Maybe that was your view of things, but it weren’t mine. All the girls what worked in the house had an eye for you…and me most of all.”
“I see.”
“I could have done with a little romance, but you heard no complaints from me at the time and you’ll hear none now.”
Perplexed as much by his concern for her as by her forgiving attitude, he said, “If you want me to come around, I will…though I question whether either the moral or spiritual tenor of your establishment will be improved by my presence.”
She apparently didn’t understand his words and simpered to cover her confusion.
“Well.” She rubbed her hands together and beamed. “I need to start me cooking. Folks will be wanting their tucker.”
He would have liked to catch her hand and make some promise, swear an oath to right all wrongs done her, but shame and the fear of a weakness that shame might reveal locked him into a stoic posture, for he had come to think of himself as a hard man and now, recognizing he was not, understanding how drastically he had changed during the past six years, he thought he should try to preserve the impression, at least, of rigor. He lingered a while, keeping an eye on Martita as she moved between the stove, visible through a door at the back end of the bar, and the front room, hoping business would pick up and allow him to make an inconspicuous exit. A few more customers came in, but not enough to provide him with cover. He finished his second pint, gave her a casual wave and went out.
The cool air seemed to illumine him, bringing new and untried emotions to light. He hurried past Hangtown’s shallow, semi-permanent lake, filmed over by algae and scum, glazed with moonlight, realizing how isolated he had become. With Ludie leading a separate existence and Arthur spending every waking hour with the militia, his life had emptied out and, while he consorted with a variety of women and had no end of business acquaintances, he had not sought to replace these losses with relationships of an equivalent depth. In his solitude he’d had time to dwell on regrets and recriminations, and had developed a streak of self-pity; this in turn had created a sentimental side that he despised on principle, yet had come to depend on as a companion to his calculating and brutal nature, taking the place of lovers and friends. Whereas previously the sight of a mother nursing an infant or a small boy playing with a puppy would have barely registered on his consciousness, now these incidences seemed brightly human, striking him as emblematic of the world’s fragility and beauty, often causing his eyes to tear. Yet he knew better than to accept this change at face value and suspected that his reactions were linked to self-interest, perhaps to a renewed apprehension of mortality and a sense that his personal failures were unredeemable.
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