by Michael Shea
He stared open-mouthed in her eyes, letting his preposterous declaration hang in the air, finding an unexpected rush of confidence and humour in the fact that it was now the dowager’s task to meet his odd apparition with poise. He had seen Snolp’s name find a nerve in her.
While she stayed mute he rushed on easily, knowing that each awkwardness or hesitation would fit his part: “It is madness I know, marvellous lady. I’ve stood in amazement at myself since I saw you in the inn this evening! But all that concerns only me—I must put it aside. This lunatic Snolp walks at large. He slanders your husband to strangers on the street. I was so astonished by him, his prattling bland way was so hypnotic, I actually let him walk off without strangling him for your sake—that’s the most surprising thing of all!”
The muscularity of the woman’s jaw had become subtly more pronounced. Hex knew he had sketched a portrait she recognized.
“Do you tell me you come as a suitor, sir?” The cold, measured question was the first he had heard of her voice. It was an alto woodwind voice, its low clarity had a sensual graininess—an unexpected pleasure of a voice.
Hex’s organ of mendacity moved smoothly in him now. If she threw him out, so be it. He urged his part, delighted at his own ease:
“Oh please, I see the insanity of it even more than you. My orderly life, thrown over! I was an infra-magus of no small standing—and now I am nothing. Forgive my crassness, but when I saw you, a craving filled me, and now I am not happy with my life. I had to tell you this, not hoping for anything at all—how could I—but merely because a man must declare such a thing, must attempt to have his happiness, or think himself a coward. I’m a bookish man, tactless and direct in the world at large. And so here I am, Madam Poon—Bramt Hex, utterly at your service, making his crazed avowal. I am luckless, as in the melodeon I chose to please you with—but in my own world I’m widely known for my work in lore and letters, it’s only justice to myself to say so. And thus my short story’s told, esteemed madam. I stand before you desiring the impossible, not hoping for it.”
With an effort, Hex stilled his tongue. It was harder to look in her eyes when he was not rapt in his performance. She advanced two steps. The neutrality of her stare was, he realized, a concession—anything but a curt dismissal at this point was.
“What did Arple Snolp say of me?” she asked evenly.
“Of course, that’s the vital matter! Nothing at all of you personally, madam. That would have wakened me to outrage. But of your late husband! He spoke filth as I could never repeat to you. Strangely, he spoke of himself in the same terms—that was largely what baffled my anger.” Hex saw he had added another detail that she knew. She looked at him in silence, absently crossing her forearms below her bosom. Her black eyes canvassed him with candid freedom; they were eyes which from birth had enjoyed the right of assessing others to their faces. At length she smiled faintly.
“I thank your concern, Master Hex. As it happens I’m aware of Snolp’s calumnies. I’m glad however to be warned of his promiscuous forwardness in urging them. As to your suit. I must ask—is this possible? I recall you from the inn, of course. Could such a project arise from so brief an exposure?”
“Ah! I marvel too! Perhaps it is my aesthete’s life, my long training to exalt the spirit’s highest feelings. Only a moment’s exposure was needed, for a soul taught to seize life’s greatest treasures quickly—I mean, of course madam, your person.”
“I hope you have no thought of seizing my person, sir,” she said coolly. “The attempt would cost you your life. I am forced to say that you are overbold and naive, Master Hex. I forbear to have you ejected only because you are obviously sincere and seem, outside your folly, to be a man of polish and culture. You put me in a unique position. Your chance service to me, along with certain of your qualities, demand my grateful acknowledgement. Your madcap proposal excites only my amazement.”
Hex sighed, sharing her amazement: “It calls to mind those lines in the Epic of Urkh—you know them, I’m sure: ‘… the winds of passion pluck our souls—mere leaves, mere scraps of longing—on…’ ” He paused and looked at her intensely.
She stared back, scowling slightly. As if against a sudden draught, she hugged herself a trifle closer and spoke.
“Master Hex, I have decided to take a risk, and be the equal of what seems to be my good fortune. You may be a man who can perform for me a vital service. If so, if your character is such as I feel it, instinctively, to be, then a certain form of union is actually possible between us—all this provided that I act as abruptly as this opportunity has arisen, and take you on slight acquaintance into my confidence. I am resolved to do this.
“But first, to mince no words: I am cold-natured and without passion. Quell all loverly imaginings, sir. Still, as chance has contrived, a friendship close and enduring can be established between us.”
“Any nearness to you, madam, would be better to me than utter separateness!”
“Then, good Infra-magus, kindly return here tomorrow forenoon. In the meantime I may rely on your discretion?”
“Absolutely. I am a man practically alone in this city, but if I had a thousand friends, they would not hear of it!”
“I rejoice. I would dread undue publicity. Korl!”
The door opened behind the dowager. “See Master Hex to the gate,” she said, and with a smiling nod, returned through the door the housekeeper had emerged from. The stout, ferret-eyed woman led him outside, and along the walk.
“Well hasn’t it been a night?” she said over her shoulder. “Imagine—a melodeon! I did not think the custom survived!” She opened the gate and stood aside. “Good night, sir. Your doublet is quite splendid, I assure you!”
Bramt Hex set off into the night with a fierce stride. The wind framed his exultation. His fortune dawned more largely upon him the longer he thought of it. Spreading his arms he shouted at the wind-whipped stars: “So much! And from so little!”
3
The Dowager’s Whorehouse
Hex passed the night on the roof of an abandoned house. It was in a north sector neighbourhood of the Glorak Hills, where fishing tycoons had built with grand arrogance in the days before homunculi and the skinfarms. Near-standing trees gave him a couch of dead leaves from which, looking past the dark roofs of other derelict mansions, he viewed three adjoining immensities: the stars, the city, and the sea.
He navigated among them till the sunrise, steering smoothly from aerial voyages with hired wizards, down to cross-ocean treks in purchased exploring fleets, and thence to the secret chambers of power where the application of a pen-stroke or a flame to a parchment made or unmade hosts of lives.
He had walked this city end to end, dawn noon and night, and had thought he knew it, but he smiled at the thought now. To a man of fortune it would be new terrain, threaded by different paths. And the world at large, so fragmentarily known to even the greatest cartographers—what great new map might not be drawn of this, by a determined man with wealth behind him? The first torch of sunlight, kindling on the sea’s rim, took him by surprise, though he had been staring for half an hour at the dawn’s deepening saffron.
At an inn not far from the Academy quarter, Hex took an heroic breakfast, and bathed in a rented stall. For digestive reasons he walked to the dowager’s mansion, whither he had planned to take a cab. The day was overcast, and all the streets were reamed clean and dry by strong winds—wet-smelling wind promising rain. Each prosaic step by which he moved towards unguessable rewards summed up the miracle of his leap to new life: simple, direct, complete.
At the mansion’s gate he had reached for, but not touched, the bellpull, when Korl stepped out of the front door and swept forward. The fronds were still bowing crazily with her haste, a leafy accolade, as she ushered Hex back up the walk.
“You are resplendent sir—No! Effulgent. How your doublet takes the sun! My mistress will be dazzled! I’m sure you have breakfasted, but if you’d like to do so again, I’m ins
tructed to offer you whatever you wish.”
“Why are you so sure I have breakfasted? I haven’t, in fact, and I won’t. There are certain feelings, you see, good dame, that have a way of killing hunger.”
“Oh. You haven’t been dyspeptic, I hope?” She brought him across the antechamber to the door opposite the house’s entrance. Opening this, she stood aside, and Hex passed through.
He entered a high-ceilinged room, triangular in plan. Its apex, where the dowager sat by a lively fire, lay towards the centre of the house. Three other such rooms completed the square of the pyramid’s base, Hex guessed. The air was cool, but the chamber’s field of colours was hot; it was carpeted in amberfur and the fat, abundant furniture was upholstered with off-shades of the same, or with the cornelian pelts of the rare fjord-otter.
The dowager’s gown was silver, coolness amid heat, reflecting the wavering of the yellow flames stretching up beside her. Her smile and nod were effortlessly articulate, welcoming him, conditionally. Hex answered with a bow and advanced.
As he took the seat she indicated, he guessed she meant to speak first. A freshness surrounded her—the morning was clearly her season.
“Infra-magus Hex.” Her voice weighed the epithet gently. “I know enough to be flattered by the praise of discriminating men. Such I knew you to be. I have inquired. While you are not, in point of official detail, an infra-magus, you are unanimously reported to be a brilliant scholar, whose examinations are impending, and who is expected to pass with dazzling ease. The Urkh teaches us how to esteem learning:
‘… give me the man whose mind is tuned and true, whose gaze is turned
To the lore and lays and laws of humankind…’
Aren’t those the lines?”
“Wamph’s oration, letter-perfect madam.” His heart pounded with expectation. His one sally had set his luck in motion, and this woman’s cool control, her studied preamble, told him that an offer was prepared for him. He added with an unfeigned fervour:
“Your openness puts me to shame. I confess the paltry lie—perhaps forgivable—that my knowledge of my own brilliance persuaded me to tell. But now I wish to emulate your honesty. Please go on.”
“I will speak quite candidly then sir, for I think much might come of a complete understanding between us. I have told you I am cold-natured and disinclined to passion. This was a polite understatement. The bare notion of copulation between two persons has always struck me as ludicrous. It is an activity whose grotesqueness has always, for me, been accentuated by the vigour with which it is customarily performed—to such a point that it moves me to nearly uncontrollable laughter.
“Banish forever all notions of physical union, then. This is an essential point. At the outset you must make clear you can accept this.”
Hex blessed her directness. He felt glib and sure now. They were moving towards some colder, more occult bargain than sex—one perhaps even deeper in the mysteries of wealth than he had imagined. “It’s as I’ve told you, dear madam. I’ve been for years a bookish acolyte. Restrained passions are sometimes more gratifying to me than fulfilled ones. I don’t deny certain drives, but I’ve never needed crass possession to enjoy a cherished object.”
“Splendid, Master Hex. Let me then sketch my position. My current social objective requires that I have a husband. If you could know, sir, the joy with which I greeted my abominable husband’s death, you would appreciate the strength of my desire for this objective, that it could move me to re-enter matrimony. I only do so resolved on certain conditions, and these are what make a close and fruitful bond possible between us.
“Moving through my own stratum I might find a match of suitable culture and polish—for this is one of my conditions. I might also find one who would grant me, in the union, the physical freedom which is my second condition. But I would be very unlikely to find one who would waive legal prerogative, and leave the bulk of my holdings in my sole ownership, my third condition.
“You, if I may remain candid, possess the mental refinements essential to my tastes, and at the same time have much more to gain from even a restricted union than would one of my peers. You would have neither power over me nor title to my properties. But you would enjoy an annuity of five million lictors, from which you could quickly build your own body of holdings. You would always be treated by me with unfailing courtesy and respect, but you would be in essence my hired companion. If you can accept this completely genial, but limited, post, Master Hex, then I have every hope of our speedy marriage.”
“Madam, I am stunned.” It was the truest thing Hex had said thus far. “The proposal does me tremendous honour—”
“Not at all, sir. Connection with a man of learning has long been regarded as acceptable, regardless of the savant’s material status—especially once a publication or two have been financed, and his attainments given the airing they deserve.”
“Madam! You load an honest man with unmerited bounties!” He understood now that their exchange of words was mere trimming—the exchange of services was everything. He waited rapt, sensing that he must perform something more than she had named, feeling certain he would be able to. She paused courteously over his ejaculation, and then went on.
“Our way is clear then. One difficulty only remains, a troublesome inequity.”
“My own unworthiness of course, Madam Poon!”
Her headshake dismissed this notion; a gesture of her hand acknowledged it. “In all that matters, Bramt Hex, we are peers. Nonetheless, this remains a situation in which you, at the mere asking, are to be blessed with the highest advantages and, more importantly, with intimate knowledge of my affairs. To put it rather brutally, what pledge have I of your loyalty in return?”
“I am ashamed that it was not I who spoke first, madam! How may I serve you?”
“Your warmth and tact amply reward my trust. And I confess I would never have called you to this interview at all, if I had not felt an instinctive reliance on your character. May I suggest a beverage?”
The dowager summoned Korl and bespoke hot morning wine. She and Hex discussed the Epic of Urkh a while. When Hex rose to feed the fire, she returned to the topic at hand.
“My late husband was a swinish man, Bramt Hex—no, a mannish swine. He was a bundle of ungovernable, degenerate lusts whose envelope alone was manlike. I brought our union a considerable dowry, and in Orgle Poon’s lifetime he involved many of these funds in disgusting properties.”
Hex took his seat again and nodded attentively. “Yes—as I mentioned, this lunatic, this—” He stopped, seeing her upraised palm and closed eyes signalling to prevent the utterance of a coarse word. After a moment she spoke it herself in a low voice. “Arple Snolp. Please don’t use his name, Master Hex. He is the major and foullest part of my present dilemma. You see, he heads a group of decadent wits among the elite who vaunt their own evils. They are fork-tongued persons with the hearts of lizards. They believe their own ill-won fortunes render them immune to justice, and they utter all the slanders they can against other fortunes which, being honestly amassed, these toads can’t bear to see unmaligned.
“My husband, however, while he did not go so far as to boast of it, was as foul as Arple Snolp himself, and anything the loathsome man told you regarding him was probably the truth. It was my ill luck to be a woman in the eyes of the law, and, as I have said, my properties became enmeshed with his.
“And now the grand object that I spoke of, Master Hex. I have just advanced my candidacy for the Thetataliad. Not merely for the Thetataliad, but for the seat of Archia Thetatalia, whose vacancy Lissaba Marm’s present illness promises. I am likeliest candidate—my line has held at least one priestesshood at all times for seven generations. The seat of the Archia is undisputedly my right by every consideration.” An intensity had entered her speech. She paused, and when she was calm again, resumed. “I entered my candidacy the instant I learned of Lissaba’s failing health. I alleged a private betrothal and imminent marriage, and the Thetatali
ad took me at my word, setting me down as remarried and thereby eligible. I had in fact no suitable husband in view. That problem, however, quickly gave way to worse.
“Just after advancing my candidacy, I made a devastating discovery. Over a hundred million lictors of my uncle’s holdings outside Ungullion have been, these thirty years past, invested in the largest and most egregious brothel in all of Glorak Harbour. The moment Snolp’s carrion birds get hold of this fact, the foul breath of their rumours will blow away my chances of the Chair in a single day.
“This then is the service—call it the pledge—you must perform. You must sign an antedated deed of title to this infamous property. The document would designate you the sole owner of it as of thirty years ago—I believe you are twenty-eight years of age?”
“Yes.”
“Your age will not come in question. I don’t deny a remote element of risk. You will be committing a crime for my sake and in the unlikely event of discovery, would stand liable before the law, though of course you would enjoy the discreet defence of my fortune. But honesty has already made me exaggerate the risk. The overwhelming probability is that you will never be called on to answer any questions. You’ll be selling the property on the same day you sign the deed, and that is today, if you are willing. The buyer you will probably sell it to is a denizen of one of the subworlds, whither the house will be transported this same day, if all goes as foreseen. I and my agents are certain that secrecy is thus far intact. Even if we assume the worst, that Snolp or his ilk have lately broached the matter, the empowering of bailiffs and drawing of charges takes time, and both property and deed would be days in hell before any doors were knocked on.
“I know you can appreciate the extent to which I have already revealed myself to you. I do so in certainty of your discretion, whatever your decision.”
“Can you doubt what that is? Let pen and ink be brought, and this danger to you speedily removed!”