The Golden

by Lucius Shepard

  He glanced down at the body. Until that moment he had given little thought to the Golden’s personal tragedy, relating to the case as a breach of honor and tradition; but now he recalled her beauty, her gracefulness, and wondered what she had made of all the passion surrounding her and what sort of woman she had been. Had she known the particulars of the ritual? Had she been greedy for immortality? So close. Almost a queen and undying. His mind turned to Giselle, equally beautiful and informed by the same imperatives. He considered her childhood in Quercy, her genteel education, her debut in Paris. None of that could have prepared her for the life she now led. How she must tremble to live among these dandified, morose lords and ladies, these blazing-eyed killers with their blood full of dreams and strange weathers, and thoughts like black spidery stars shriveling in their brains. How deeply her fear must flow! Fear that in an instant could be transformed into love, like an underground river bursting out into the light of day. He considered her eventual fate. Either dead by his hand or immortal. How would he react to that first and most probable result? He would be desolate, surely. Distraught. He would weep. Yet he knew he would find a means not only of placing her death in perspective, but also of exulting in it, and that sickened him—this ability to justify every horror in the name of dark arcana and mystic passions. Agenor was right: the Family must change…and not simply because it would be the wise thing, the safe and pragmatic thing. And if by bringing the murderer down, he, Beheim, could be an agent of that change, that would go a long way toward effecting redemption for what he had done to Giselle.

  He stepped back from the body, looking out over the worn hills, yet he retained an image of the Golden’s sprawled limbs and clawed hands, a featureless image resembling a golden root that seemed to settle in his mind and melt like butter into the dark matter of his brain, infusing him with new resolve. Insoluble though the problem appeared, he was determined to ferret out the guilty party. This was, after all, only a murder, no matter how unusual its perpetrator. In Paris he had solved crimes of violence that had initially offered even less hope of solution. Full of resolve, he turned toward the turret door, but as he moved back into the darkness of the castle, his confidence was dispelled by the irrational fear that behind him the silver and proper moon had waned, and hanging in its place, like a cancer in the sky, was a bloated, disfigured sphere of sickly yellow, an emblem of derangement and unholy fever, of a new fire in the blood, of mysteries and terrors yet undiscovered, whose dread particulars he could not presuppose.

  Chapter THREE

  The interior design of Castle Banat had been contrived not with practical considerations of fortification or habitation in mind, but according to a series of peculiar architectural fantasies created by an Italian artist who had been one of the Patriarch’s lovers some six hundred years before, and its insane enormity reflected the scope and complexity of the problem that confronted Beheim. Vast chambers as large as entire castles themselves were spanned by bridges—some of them drawbridges—that led to doorless walls; hundred-foot-wide stairways ended in midair, and there were chambers that opened onto gulfs in whose murky depths stranger edifices yet could be glimpsed. Windowed towers sprouted from the most unexpected places and rose toward dim vaulted roofs, and here and there were enormous wheels such as those used to raise and lower a portcullis, only the majority of these had no purpose whatsoever. At any point one could look up to see—in the light of the wrought-iron lanterns that hung everywhere—seemingly infinite perspectives of arches and stairways, with thick loops of chain hanging down like vines, and pulleys and ropes with no apparent function, and lofty stone porches embellished with nymphs in bas relief and bearded faces with great iron rings depending from their mouths. On one level a body of black water spread from a shore of bolted iron plate, horrid statuary rising from its depths, showing frilled heads and taloned hands. Pigeons that had never flown under the sun nested in crannies and on ledges, and soared through the heights, fouling the surfaces beneath with their droppings, and there were other beasts aside from the sculpted gargoyles and dragons that stood guard over the supreme emptinesses of the bridges: rats, centipedes, serpents, and, most notably, degenerate men and women who had once served the Patriarch but had in the end been loath to accept the risks of blood judgment and now, still too much in love with the possibility of eternity to leave, lived like vermin in the depths of the castle, fleeing at shadows, stealing garbage, traveling—it was rumored—along secret ways that permitted them access to even the most sacrosanct areas of the castle, and performing brutish ceremonies that were gross imitations of those practiced by the Family. The size of the place was such that it had its own weather. Clouds could form in the heights; rain fell from time to time. A man standing athwart one of the bridges would appear no more than a speck to someone below. This insane scale, along with the bizarre design and ornamentation, seemed redolent of a monumental conceit and folly. Indeed, certain of the internal structures had been designed as ruins: crumbling stone piers with ferns sprouting from their cracks; shattered fountains in the shape of griffons’ heads and gigantic infants and various other creatures, from which water spilled into ponds or gutters or mere crevices in the floor; a spiral staircase with a holed railing; faceless statues and iron beams protruding from a gapped wall. Throughout could be felt the chill, brooding presence of the Patriarch. It was as if he had built an immense skull of grayish black stone to contain the bleak materials of his personality, and while Beheim found the wealth of baroque invention oppressive, he could not help but admire the grandiose conception that underlay it.

  Yet as the first unrewarding results of the investigation became apparent, his admiration was replaced by a profound frustration, and he wished he could raze the enormous building, hammer it down into its constituent stones, because, he thought, only by doing so, only by eliminating the profusion of formal inessentials and blind alleys it emblematized, would he ever unearth the vital fact necessary to a solution. Not one of the Family had failed to account for their whereabouts during the time of the murder, and though a number of their alibis were certainly fraudulent, it would be impossible to discredit them in the time available. No bloodstained clothing had been found, nor was there evidence that any of the guests suffered from an affliction of the eye. He had wasted most of an entire night, and he was near the end of his rope, unable to think how to proceed, when Lady Alexandra Conforti, perhaps the most powerful woman of the Valea branch, burst into his quarters, followed by a breathless and agitated Giselle.

  “This thing of yours,” said Lady Alexandra coldly, indicating Giselle with a toss of her long auburn hair, “has had the gall to invade my rooms.”

  Giselle flushed, and her cheekbones appeared to sharpen; but she kept silent.

  “I apologize for whatever inconvenience you may have suffered, but you must be aware of the exceptional circumstances,” said Beheim, crossing the bedroom toward Lady Alexandra. “And I would be grateful if you would refer to my servant either by her position or by her name—Giselle.”

  Lady Alexandra turned a deaf ear to this. She looked away from Beheim, offering him a view of her graceful neck and stunning profile. She was so extreme in proportion, it was impossible to deem her beautiful in any ordinary sense of the word. Though her suitors tended to describe her as “willowy,” as far as Beheim was concerned she gave new and eccentric meaning to the word, being freakishly tall, nearly four inches over six feet. Her limbs, particularly her legs, had an alien elongation. Her heart-shaped face, with its porcelain skin and lustrous, widely set green eyes, arched eyebrows, and full crimson mouth, verged upon an erotic caricature. Yet due to the cautious grace with which her every movement was invested, making a balletic act out of even the simplest gesture—likely a conscious compensation for a fear of clumsiness resulting from her unusual height—and because of the sexual confidence that rose from her like steam, she nonetheless conveyed an impression of great beauty. Giselle had apparently caught the lady at her toilette, for she was
wearing a robe of pale blue silk worked with gilt thread, its loose fit allowing Beheim a glimpse of the freckled upper slopes of her breasts, cupped in shells of white lace. But from what he knew of the Valeas, and of Alexandra in particular, who had flirted with him on several previous occasions, he understood that no matter how compelling her anger, she would never have visited him dressed in this fashion unless she had desired her appearance to have an effect, and this caused him to doubt the depth of her mood, and to wonder toward what end she wanted to manipulate him.

  “I take it as an insult that you would send a thing to question me,” she said, showing him her back. “Send it from the room.”

  Beheim made silent speech with his eyes to Giselle, at once offering an apology and asking her to do the lady’s bidding. After she had gone, he stepped to the lady’s shoulder, an intimate proximity from which she did not withdraw, and asked in what way he could assist her.

  With a languid gesture, keeping her back to him, she held up her right hand, showing him the antique silver bottle cap that he had discovered on the turret.

  “I believe it is I who can help you.”

  “Ah!” said Beheim, touching the cap with his forefinger. “Then can you tell me who owns this?”

  Her long fingers closed over the cap, making him think of the petals of a carnivorous flower folding about its prey. She moved away and glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Lady,” he said, “the Patriarch has charged me to catch a murderer, and I’m afraid I must forgo the amenities in seeking information. I have no time for coyness. If you have something for me, you must tell me now. Otherwise I’ll be…”

  “Otherwise you’ll do nothing.” She moved farther away, peering down at the carpet, placing her feet carefully as if fitting them into old tracks. “You have no promising line of inquiry. All you do have at the moment is the hope that I may help you. And without my help, you will continue to sit here and contemplate your failure. Do you know why that is?”

  “I’m certain you’re bursting to enlighten me.”

  “Don’t take that tone,” she said, facing him. “You have no power over me, except to ask questions that I may or may not choose to answer. Of course you are beautiful, and that is a characteristic that lends one a certain kind of power, it is true. But my power over you is unqualified. Undeniable.”

  “So you say.”

  “Yes, so I say.” She sauntered back toward him, brushing against his sleeve, sending a static charge across the skin of his arm.

  Beheim repressed an urge to catch up her hand, partly because he was not sure what she might do once he had hold of her, whether she would attack or attempt to seduce. Like all women of the Family, she was infuriating in the manner in which she employed her sex. Though she did not accord with his ideal image of feminine beauty, he could not deny that he was attracted to her; but the nature of the attraction was perverse, an anticipation of shivery delights, the sort of fascination one might have for a serpent with breasts. He imagined that should they ever lie down together, a tangle of limbs far more complicated than that achieved by any ordinary coupling would result—a Gordian knot of living white ropes whose contorted heaving would resemble the writhing of a nest of worms.

  “The Patriarch did not appoint you to investigate the murder because of your skill at detection,” she went on. “He is wiser than that. Surely even you must understand that given the time allotted for a solution and the character of those you must investigate, you have little hope of success. The Patriarch understands this, too. Yet he also knows what a marvelous pawn you make, weak and new as you are. And he is aware of what an excellent game your investigation offers. He knows how dearly we love intrigues, how deeply our passions run. And he knows, too, that various of our number will be unable to resist the temptation to turn the game to our own purposes. Whether for gain, revenge, or some more obscure motive; that is irrelevant to the Patriarch’s scheme. It is his belief that by taking part in the game, we will solve the crime, or else inadvertently set you upon a course that will lead to a solution.”

  Despite the fact that her summary of the situation was so at odds with Agenor’s, Beheim heard a ring of truth in her words and absorbed them with a minimum of resentment. It might be, he thought, that Lady Alexandra’s intervention was the product of the mysterious alliance of which Agenor had spoken.

  “So,” Beheim said, “you have come to make the first move.”

  She returned a deferential shrug and strolled across the room to the tapestry and made a show of examining it; then she leaned against it, gazing at Beheim with undisguised amusement. Her white face and reddish hair stood out sharply against the black tangle of the evil forest, looking as if one of the mysterious denizens hiding among the branches had been recently retouched. She held up the bottle cap between thumb and forefinger. “This belongs to one of my cousins.” She paused—for dramatic effect, or so Beheim assumed. “To Felipe Aruzzi de Valea.”

  Beheim seized upon the name. Felipe Aruzzi de Valea: the patriarch of the Valeas; a colleague and ally of Roland Agenor’s; a blood scientist of the highest reputation; considered a moderate in the debates now raging. And yet of late he had become the lover of Lady Dolores Cascarin y Ribera. It was rumored that the Lady Alexandra was no longer Felipe’s supporter, that she had aligned herself with Lady Dolores and other reactionaries against Agenor and his friends, and that she sought to unseat Felipe as the head of the Valeas. He was not sure he believed that Alexandra had become a reactionary; it was more likely she was pretending to be one in order to consolidate her power and effect some ambition, be it the unseating of Felipe or something else. He did not doubt that she was telling the truth about the ownership of the bottle cap—a lie would be too easily detected. But when he considered the complexities of the situation, the variety of plots that might be at work, plots of political significance to both the Valeas and the Family as a whole, he was visited by a new depth of understanding concerning the murder, elevated to a height from which he could see clearly and with great detail the maze of potential intrigues surrounding the crime. What if Alexandra was attempting to ruin Felipe by supplying false evidence that appeared to incriminate him? And had she or one of her lovers done the murder? Or had Felipe actually been the perpetrator? Or could this be another blind alley, another waste of precious time? In their statements, Felipe and Dolores had used one another to establish their whereabouts during the time of the murder. Might not this mean that they had both been present on the turret? Or was their affair an element of a larger scheme, a tactic on the part of Lady Dolores to neutralize a potent adversary? Or was Agenor himself playing a game? More and more Beheim began to discern Agenor’s fine hand at work in all this dubious matter, and this caused him to believe that the answers to his questions would be of little moment. Knowing the identity of the owner of the bottle cap might serve no more to illuminate the black field of the crime than did Lady Alexandra’s head illuminate the murky foreground of the tapestry against which she was leaning. It was a beginning, true enough. Yet by supplying a single answer, she had only increased the number of questions he would be forced to ask; thus, in essence, he was at a greater loss than before.

  He glanced up at Lady Alexandra, who was smiling broadly.

  “Now do you see?” she said, and laughed—a melodic trill as precise as a piano exercise. “You have no choice but to allow yourself to be moved from square to square, to hope that our passionate errors will direct you to a successful end.” She walked slowly toward him, as graceful in her approach as a wend in a river channeling bright water; the eerie formality of her white face seemed both artful and vital, like a face painted on a flower come to life. “One more thing. Felipe and Dolores are creatures of habit. Several hours before dawn, they will lock themselves away in Felipe’s bedchamber, and there they will remain for the day. His servants are among those currently assisting your investigation. It will not be difficult to make sure that they are ke
pt busy. If you intend to search his apartments, you may do so at that time. It will not be so great a risk. The bedchamber is separated from the other rooms, and Felipe will not hear you so long as Dolores occupies him.” Another delicate laugh, a springtime laugh of lacy dew on cobwebs and joyous green energies. The Lady Alexandra, Beheim realized, was enjoying herself immensely. “That, and not my revelation, is the first move,” she continued. “Once you take it, you will be inextricably mired in the game, without control or direction. And you must take the move or else give up the charade of this investigation.” She stopped beside him and rested a hand on his forearm. “I know you cannot trust me, and I will not claim to have other than my own interests at heart. But I am your ally in this. However, to begin with, you must learn to trust yourself, and to do that you must enter the game. Only in the game will you discover who exactly it is that you can trust.”

  “Are you suggesting that I do not know myself?”

  “Is that not a concern of yours? It was one of mine when I was new to the Family.”

  She released his arm, but it seemed to Beheim that the connection between them remained constant, the warm charge of her blood encircling his wrist.

  “You cannot pretend with me,” she said. “I have lived through the turbulent time, the time of metamorphosis that you are now entering. I know the conflicts within you, the storms that will beset you, the decisions you will have to make.”

  “Well, then,” said Beheim, irritated by her pose of superiority, “perhaps you’ll be kind enough to enlighten me as to how these conflicts will be resolved.”