“In such a world, the greatest blessing is never to have been born. Failing that, it is a short life. But it is not God’s will that we should escape His testing, and so there is Hell. All suicides go to Hell, and that wicked place is the most loathsome world in all existence. Which is to say that it is exactly like this Earth in every detail save one. This far from insignificant detail is that Hell is totally divorced from God. Is this not so?”
“So you have taught me, holy one.”
“How, then, can we tell that this world is not indeed Hell? From the fact that pleasure exists here, as it cannot in the Infernal Place. First and foremost, there is the experience of religious ecstasy, which is the highest of all pleasures. Second, there is the experience of being persecuted by the unjust, which is a pleasure second only to that of God’s presence. Very few are fortunate enough to experience the first or pious enough to appreciate the second. Yet there is also a third such proof, and that is the pleasure of sex, which is available to all. Though the deed be disgusting, the pleasure it engenders is pure. It comes not from the flesh, which is to be abhorred, but from the Spirit, which all human souls must embrace or be damned. Therefore, no pleasure is wicked or wrong or to be avoided, however much the mind may flinch away from it. Do you understand me, son?”
“Yes, kindly father.” “Then kneel and receive your blessing.”
Arkady complied. He closed his eyes and waited for the monk’s hand on his head. But it did not come. Instead, he heard the sound of Koschei’s robe sliding to the floor. Oh, he thought.
…9…
Surplus helped Zoesophia into the carriage and then went around to the far side and climbed in, leaving the footman to shut the door behind him. The interior was dark and snug, and the cushions deep and soft. There was not a hand’s-breadth of distance between the two of them. Yet Zoesophia held herself with such a frosty reserve that it might as well have been miles. The coachman shook the reins and the horses started off. “You are quiet today, O Dark Flame of the West.”
For a time, Zoesophia stared out the window at the passing buildings. Then, without turning, she said, “You must never touch any of the other Pearls.”
Affecting a wounded tone, Surplus said, “Madam, I am a gentleman! Which is as good as to say that I am a devout believer in serial monogamy.”
“In my experience, what a gentleman believes and what he does are seldom the same thing. But let me ask you this. Suppose you were to kiss one of my sisters-Olympias, let us say-ever so lightly upon her fingertips, and those fingertips did not blister. What do you think she would do then?”
“One imagines she would seize the chance to rid herself of her troublesome virginity. But I would never-”
“My sisters are all warm-hearted and generous. They were created so. The first thing Olympias would do is inform her sisters of this happy opportunity. Then, as a group, they would descend upon you. Now, I want you to reflect back upon these last several nights and ask yourself this: What condition would you be in now, had there been six of me?”
“Oh, dear lord.” “Precisely. It would take a stronger fellow than you to survive the experience. I want you to think about that most seriously.”
Surplus did. After a moment or so, he broke to the surface of his thoughts to discover in the window’s reflection a rather silly smile upon his face and, over his shoulder, Zoesophia scowling darkly. She clapped her hand to his crotch and in a fury cried, “You pig! You’re in lust!”
Assuming his sincerest mien, Surplus said, “What male would not be, given such images as you urged me to reflect upon? You conjure up an Arabian Nights fantasy of female flesh, an Aladdin’s cave of erotic treasure. Of course I lust after them-in my imagination. So too do I enjoy the original tales, as translated in classical times by Sir Richard Burton. Yet I have never gone to Deserta Arabia in search of the riches described in them.”
“Only because you knew those riches to be fictional. Otherwise, I am quite certain you would possess the fabled lamp today. You are most damnably ingenious in getting what you want.” As she spoke, Zoesophia peeled off her gloves. She took Surplus’s paws in her strong bare hands. When Surplus tried to draw free of her, he found he could not. Her grip was implacable.
Zoesophia favored Surplus with a ruefully amused smile, such as a woman gives a scoundrel who, while he may or may not have necessarily intended to do so, has given her great physical and emotional pleasure. It mingled scorn and fondness in equal measure. “Sweet, sweet ’Sieur Plus,” she murmured, “I am so sorry to have to do this. But I have sworn to protect the Pearls, and so I must.”
“Wh-what do you intend to do?”
“I am going to kiss you, long and hard and so delightfully that, whether you wish it or not, it will first take your breath away, then starve your brain of oxygen, and finally leave you in a state of mindless euphoria. Then, at the moment of greatest bliss, I will snap your neck.”
“Madam! This is not the act of a friend.”
“When the carriage door is opened, your corpse will be found and with it me-hysterical and clearly traumatized by whatever outre events have transpired within. By the time I have recovered well enough to narrate those events, I shall have concocted something convincing, I am sure.”
Without releasing her grip, Zoesophia leaned forward. Her lips parted. The pink tip of her tongue licked them moist. Her eyes were tender and merciless. Surplus had looked death in the face many a time. Yet never before had it looked so desirable. Nor had beauty ever seemed so terrifying.
“Wait!” Surplus cried. “This is not necessary! I know your secret!”
Zoesophia paused. “Oh?”
“You alone of all the Pearls were not a dedicated virgin. The reasoning I gave you was, as we both know, mere sophistry-the others would blister at my touch and die from my caress, for the mental commands they were given cannot be undone by logic-chopping. You, knowing the true situation, could pretend to be convinced by me, and so you did.”
Zoesophia released her grip and leaned back against the cushions. After a very long silence, she said, “How did you know?”
Rubbing his aching paws together to restore their circulation, Surplus said, “It was the simplest thing in the world. I asked myself whether, in a contingent of seven women who could be expected to have intimate contact with the Duke of Muscovy, the Caliph was likely to have neglected to include a spy. ‘Unthinkable!’ was my reply. Further, I reasoned, that spy was unlikely to be bound by the same mental commands and restrictions as the others, lest it hinder her information-gathering activities. Finally, I asked myself which of the seven brides was the most likely to be the spy-and one stood out like a lamp in the darkness for her shrewdness, intellect, and self-control.”
“But to take such a risk with one who was supposed to be a dedicated virgin! Had your reasoning proved incorrect…” Zoesophia’s expression was complicated, but Surplus, who had some experience with women, could read it like a book. She was waiting to see if he was simpleton enough to tell her that it had been obvious to him that she was no virgin. At which point, she would doubtless rip off his head, or other parts. It was true that she was far from a virgin. Far, far indeed, to judge by the last several nights. Still, young ladies had their pride. A careless word now would cost him dearly.
“Indeed, and there was always the chance that I had guessed wrong,” Surplus admitted. “You may be sure I thought about this long and seriously. Knowing not only your strength but your passionate nature as well, I was only too painfully aware that were I wrong, my life would be forfeit.”
“Then why take the chance?”
“I decided, finally, that the prize was worth the risk.”
Briefly, Zoesophia was silent. Then, wrapping her scarf about her lower face to preserve her modesty, she cranked down the window so she could lean out and call up to the coachman, “How much longer until we reach Chortenko’s house?”
“Fifteen minutes, Gospozha,” the driver replied.
; “Then there is just enough time.” She closed the window again and began to unbutton Surplus’s shirt.
“My dear lady!” Surplus cried with more than a touch of alarm. “Whatever are you doing?”
“I have belonged to the Byzantine Secret Service literally since my genes were mingled in vitro,” Zoesophia said. “There is nothing-absolutely nothing-that I find irresistible.” Her hand caressed his cheek.“But a man who is willing to risk death in order to possess my body comes close.”
Kyril and his bandits had stacked two empty crates atop each other and thrown a white cloth over them for a table, and were playing three-card Monte, exactly as they had been taught. Kyril slammed down three cards: two black deuces and the queen of hearts, creased lengthwise, so that when he flipped them face down, they were like shallow tents. One could almost-but not quite-see the markings under them. “Find the lady, find the queen,” he chanted. “Five will get you ten, ten will get you twenty. Watch carefully-the hand is quicker than the eye.” There was a scattering of banknotes on the cloth to catch the eye and avarice of the bystanders.
“I switch the cards once…twice…three times and where’s the queen? To the right?” He flipped over the rightmost card. A deuce. “No. To the left?” Another deuce. “No.” He flipped both back and turned over the center card. “She’s right in the middle, right where I put her. The hand can do what the eye cannot see.” His hands spun the cards about the cloth. “Who’ll play? Who’ll play? Five will get you ten, ten will get you twenty. You, sir. Will you play? Or you? You can’t win if you don’t play.”
A crowd of idlers had gathered to watch, but so far there were no players. Which was Dmitri’s cue to come forward. He squirmed through the spectators and slapped down a copper ruble. “Betcha I can spot it.”
“Only a ruble? Only one? One’ll get you two, but ten’ll get you twenty.” Kyril flicked the cards about, turned them over-one, two, three-and turned them back again. “Twenty gets you forty and fifty a hundred. Only one? All right, then. Here’s the queen.” He held the card up and turned from side to side so that all could see. Then he slammed it down onto the cloth, switched the cards rapidly about, and finally took a half-step back from the table. “Choose.”
Dmitri’s finger jabbed. “That one.”
Kyril turned the card over. It was a deuce. He flipped over a second card. Also a deuce. The red queen he turned over last.
“Here! Lemme see that!” Dmitri snatched up the red queen and examined it suspiciously. But as it was only a pasteboard card, there was nothing to be discovered, and so Dmitri returned it to the table.
But as he did, he bent up one corner of the card.
Kyril swept the ruble coin to the side, along with the bills, and began manipulating the cards again. He did not appear to notice that the queen had been altered.
Dmitri turned away to give the crowd a broad smirk and a wink. Then he dug deep into his pockets and came up with a grimy five-ruble note. “Here! This is all I got. Gimme one more chance.”
“Everyone’s money is good. We have a player. Five’ll get you ten, ten rubles for five. Watch the cards. The hand moves faster than the eye. Here’s the queen and over she goes. She dances with one, she dances with his brother. Everybody dances, everybody wins. Annnnd-make your pick!”
Dmitri pointed at the card with the bent corner. “That one.”
“Are you sure?” Kyril switched the other two around and then flipped up one. A black two. “Double your bet and I’ll let you choose the other card.”
“Naw. I want that one.”
With a shrug, Kyril flipped over the remaining two cards, showing the queen where his friend had pointed. Then he brushed two banknotes to the front of the table. Dmitri waved them triumphantly in the air and then, pocketing the money ostentatiously, swaggered off.
“Ten’ll get you twenty, fifteen thirty.” Kyril flipped the cards face down, face up, face down again. “Who’ll play, who’ll play? Thirty gets you forty, fifty a hundred.” The queen was still turned up at the corner.
“I’ll play!” A gent with gold-rimmed pince-nez fumbled several banknotes from his wallet and, face gleaming with greed, laid them down. “Fifty rubles says I can find the queen.”
“Everyone’s money is good,” Kyril said. “Here’s the queen, watch her go. She dances with the deuce, she dances with his brother…” As he slid the cards back and forth, he smoothed down the corner of the queen with his thumb, and bent up the corner on one of the deuces. Now all he had to do was let the mark choose the wrong card and sweep in the winnings.
“Caught you!” Muscular arms wrapped themselves around Kyril, holding him motionless. “You’re under arrest, you vicious little swindler.” It was a goat-and in uniform, too! How had the lookouts let him get so close without whistling a warning?
Looking wildly about, Kyril saw Stephan and Oleg, standing too close to have been doing their jobs, take to their heels. Saw, too, Lev snatch up the white cloth with all the money on it, and run as well. At least he was doing his duty. But that still left Kyril in the strong grip of the policeman.
“Lev!” he shouted. “Remember what you promised!”
But instead of throwing the money in the air, Lev clutched it tight.
“Lev!”
Kyril saw his faithless friend disappear into the crowd.
Desperately, then, Kyril snarled over his shoulder, “Get your mitts off me, you ass-fucker. I’m not gonna be your butt-boy, no matter how much you beg me.”
The goat’s ugly face twisted in outrage. He pulled back one fist to give Kyril a hard punch in the face.
But Kyril had a hand free now and that was all he needed. He plunged it into his pocket, pulled out the wad of money and, snapping the thread, flung it into the air.
Pandemonium.
Just as the Englishman had predicted, everyone-even the goat-was snatching at the banknotes fluttering down from above. Bodies slammed into bodies. Grown men crawled after bills lying on the ground. Somebody shoved somebody else, and fights broke out.
Weeping hot tears of anger, Kyril fled to freedom.
“They none of them stood up for me. Not Oleg or Stephan-hell, they was supposed to be keeping a lookout and didn’t. Dmitri wasn’t no use either. And Lev! I shouted for him to throw up the money, but did he? No. I fucking begged him. I got down on my fucking knees. He was gonna let me go to prison, just so he could keep a few lousy rubles!”
“You will remember that I cautioned you that your associates were of unknown mettle,” Darger said gently. He set down the Telegonia in order to give the urchin his full attention. “This is a hard lesson to learn at such a tender age, and yet a necessary one as well. Most people are untrustworthy and, as a rule, only in it for themselves. Better you know that now than not at all.”
“Well, it sucks!” Kyril said. “It sucks big fat donkey dicks!”
“Your bitterness is natural. But you must not let it distract you from learning your games.”
“Games! What good are games, if I ain’t got no friends?”
“No friends?” Darger said in a tone of mild astonishment. “Why do you think I’ve been teaching you a trade, if not out of friendship?”
“You’re just doing it so you can keep all these-” Kyril spat out the word as if it were an obscenity-“books.”
“Oh, my dear chap! You don’t imagine that I’ll be allowed to keep these books, do you? No, no, no. As soon as it is discovered I have found them, the Duke of Muscovy-or rather his people-will take them away from me. Nor will I be offered any sort of adequate recompense or reward. This is simply the way of the world. The strong take from the weak, and afterward they call it justice.”
“Then what the fucking hell are you doing here?”
“It would take some time to spell out the workings of the operation in which I am engaged. Suffice it to say that I have a trusted associate who will pretend to set a trap for me. The great powers of Muscovy will bait that trap with what I trust will be en
ormous wealth. And in the natural course of things, there will come a fleeting, magical moment when that bait is solely in my associate’s control. The rest, I trust, you can work out for yourself.”
“You’d better watch out your pal doesn’t grab everything and skip out on you.”
“My associate has proved himself a hundred times over. This is what I was trying to explain to you earlier: Not that friends are unreliable, but that a reliable friend is a pearl beyond price. I would walk through fire for him. As, I truly believe, he would for me.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t walking through fire for nobody,” Kyril said intensely. “I’m not putting myself out for nobody ever again.”
“Then you’re not half the fellow I believe you to be. Incidentally, did you bring today’s papers with you?”
“Don’t I always? I set ’em down over there.”
“And there’s my proof! Even in your heightened emotional state, you have demonstrated your reliability. Look here. It is true that this is a very bad world. It is true that the strong feed upon the weak, and the weak feed upon each other. But not all the weak are content to remain so. Some few-such as you and I, Kyril, you and I!-employ our wits to better our lot and to regain some fraction of what was stolen from us long before we were born.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I shall be leaving you soon, and without so much as a word of farewell, as often is necessary in our trade. But before I do, I would like to impart to you a few words of fatherly wisdom. If…” Darger stopped, thought, and began again. “To do well in this world, this is what is required of you: First of all confidence, patience, and the ability to keep your head when those around you are mad with hysteria. You must learn to present a bland face in the presence of lies and hatred. Let others underestimate you. Take care not to look too good or to sound too wise. Spin dreams for others, but don’t get caught up in them yourself. Plan for triumph and prepare for disaster. There will be times when you lose all you have; pick yourself up and start over again, and don’t whine about it afterward.
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