Arcana

by Cooke, Edward

  I wanted to go back to my cave and look at my father’s paintings until spring.

  Vizier

  The Bishop was preaching in his cathedral. I went along to kill time until the Magus was ready to receive me.

  The Bishop was an old man and so stooped that he pointed the very apex of his mitre at the congregation. He delivered himself of his sermon seemingly to himself, unconcerned about the edification, let alone the salvation of his listeners. He would have made a poor lecturer.

  I had plenty of time to admire the rather ghastly imagery of martyrdom all around. There had been so much pain and suffering in the Kingdom, most of it the result of too much religion, that I could not understand why the King tolerated such memorials. There was nothing clever about being a saint: all it took was to cling stubbornly to outmoded beliefs. The man who did that in our rational modern world needed his head examined.

  Such fragments of the sermon as I managed to pick out seemed meaningless: forgiveness, second chances. What the people needed to be told was not to make mistakes in the first place. The Bishop’s voice was dead leaves decaying, all but lost underneath the great wind of choristers shuffling in their stalls.

  At least our noble King had the excellent sense to permit the practice of Science to proceed unhindered by the Church. The previous Bishop had been extremely outspoken, which must have contributed to the curtailment of his tenure. Perhaps the present one was outspoken too, and it was just that no-one was listening.

  Automatically I rose with the rest of the faithful to sing the next dirge of a hymn. The trouble with religion, I was sure, was that it attracted only the desperately guilty. They would be much more useful citizens if they could only apply themselves half as vigorously to their duties, to the situation before their eyes, as they did to wailing and gnashing their teeth over a past that was done and dusted. The same past they were so keen to preserve in the form of old dead dogmas.

  We knelt for prayers. The hour was late and I almost fell asleep. Had it been possible to doze off while kneeling on one of those knitted bricks, I would surely have done so.

  The time was not of my choosing. The Magus insisted I arrive shortly before midnight.

  #

  ‘You are disturbed,’ the Magus said when I walked into the crypt.

  ‘Your clairvoyance astounds me.’

  ‘Perhaps it is your wife who is at the root of it.’

  ‘A guess, but a good one.’

  ‘The spirits tell me many things.’

  ‘Then the spirits will have told you whether my wife is making the beast with two backs with other men.’

  ‘Or women. We are living in enlightened times, as you never fail to remind me.’

  ‘Or women,’ I conceded. ‘Can you conjure an appropriately informed spirit?’

  ‘I can do better than that. I can summon a demon.’

  ‘You could, were there such things.’

  ‘They have been and shall be forever. But they have a will of their own and do not simply come whenever they are called.’

  ‘You sound just like His Grace upstairs.’

  ‘At least he perceives the spiritual realm, however dimly.’

  ‘Dim perception is not my idea of a virtue.’

  The Magus sprang to his feet. ‘Then I shall show you more clearly than mortal man was ever meant to see.’ He extracted a book from the foot of a precarious pile and leafed through it. I seemed to recall his early career had been in the circus.

  He followed the recipe, or whatever adepts liked to call it, so precisely that midnight came and went. I neglected to conceal certain signs of impatience.

  ‘Stop tapping your bloody foot!’

  ‘For someone with his eye on multiple realms, Magus, you show a lack of composure some would regard as surprising.’

  ‘I’m tired. We should postpone this enquiry.’

  ‘Do you expect me to let my wife go on cuckolding me until the next full moon? Should it turn out we have to wait even longer for some favourable astrological conjunction, I might be forgiven for thinking you were one of her lovers.’

  ‘I can’t find the right bloody candlestick.’

  ‘Does it have to be exactly as set out in the book? You magicians are terribly hidebound. I’m sure the demons would welcome a variation of routine as much as anybody.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. You don’t believe in anything.’

  ‘Not in anything I can’t see. Nor do I keep any of my notions past its sell-by date.’

  ‘Alright. We’ll just have to make do.’ The Magus propped up his candle in a pool of its own wax. He stepped inside his meticulously-chalked circle and began to chant.

  I was almost as bored as I had been in church, this time without even an excuse to close my eyes.

  Of course I would not have missed it for the world when the demon emerged from whatever drab realm is given over to them and punished the Magus for his oversight regarding the candle by biting his head off.

  #

  ‘Good morning, Your Grace.’

  ‘Well, well, Doctor. Last week you donated a beautiful candelabrum to the cathedral—a genuine antique, unless I am much mistaken—and now here you are at prayer for the second time in less than a day.’

  ‘God works in mysterious ways.’

  ‘He does. And so does our King. But if as simple a churchman as I has heard rumours he intends to appoint a Grand Vizier, they can hardly have escaped you.’

  ‘I had heard something to that effect.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you’ll be tossing your hat into the ring. I expect you would like to know whether I shall be doing the same with my mitre.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘Let me put it at rest. I am quite satisfied with my present duties in the Church.’

  ‘If you truly wanted the post, I am sure it could be yours.’

  ‘Perhaps. Besides the two of us, the only striking candidate I can think of would be the Magus.’

  ‘He won’t be applying.’

  Something in my voice made the Bishop arch an eyebrow. ‘It was inevitable he would suffer for his trafficking with evil. May God have mercy on his soul.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Shall we pray? We might remember him before God.’

  I stood up. ‘The urge has quite left me. I must go home and work on my acceptance speech.’

  #

  The Bishop was taken ill and could not attend my ceremony. He had been scheduled to put the mace into my hands, but the King, improvising, did it himself. That redoubled my sense of having finally arrived.

  I had underestimated the amount of work a Grand Vizier was called upon to perform. At first I made every effort to keep my research going, but I found it more and more difficult to send apologies to the interminable meetings I was expected to attend with foreign potentates. As I frowned down my agenda, I could not help wondering whether the King had left himself anything to do.

  One day he came into my private chamber unannounced and told me we were at war with the Luskentians.

  That was the kiss of death for my research. I had to let that ass Jakobson take over at the Institute.

  From the start of the war I barely slept, except for a few minutes here and there, hunkered down in the darkest corner of the War Room. If I had learned anything from the Magus it was that a tired man is apt to become a little slipshod in the performance of his duties. Though a valuable lesson to learn, it proved impossible to communicate to the King. Even if I had had the time, I was not sure I would have been able to get hold of him. He seemed perpetually in motion, yet produced nothing. I was pinned down, held back from the coalface of Science, and I felt the loss keenly.

  The war dragged on. I had to approve the introduction of rationing. Since I had had a hand in them, I felt obligated by my own regulations. The King had in any case long since stopped inviting me to banquet with him. His excuse was, ‘I’m sure you’re too busy.’

  I couldn’t have argued
with that even if I had wanted to.

  Inevitably, enemy prisoners fell into our hands. They proved deliberately ineffective at forced labour and I discovered there is only so hard you can force a man before he is no longer capable of working. Yet since there is no such limit on research subjects, I welcomed the opportunity to return to my real calling. I established research installations throughout the realm, headed up by all those of my former staff who would accept the positions: everyone who was not too busy licking Jakobson’s boots clean. I set in motion a thorough programme of medical investigation that was bound to yield useful insights into the human person. I looked forward to seeing life expectancy in the Kingdom increase.

  At first the research subjects were exclusively Luskentians, but it proved expeditious to ensure a regular supply by adding to their number the least patriotic of our own people. The idea came to me when one of my own staff officers remarked in my hearing, ‘If the Magus had still been around, he could have sent a legion of demons to fight for us. Then it would all have been over by Christmas.’

  By definition, research is uncertain. Results were slow in coming. I confess that I became impatient enough to begin threatening my research directors that if they did not produce results they would become subjects themselves. That was reasonable Science but poor diplomacy.

  I could not say when the Bishop began dining with the King.

  If I had noticed at all, I should have dismissed it as one more proof of the fellow’s hypocrisy. But he must have been responsible for the marked change in the King’s attitude. One day our monarch was content to let the war continue as long as it did not interfere too much with his hunting parties. The next he seemed to think the war a matter for him to attend to personally. Why would he have appointed a Grand Vizier if he wanted to take matters into his own hands?

  When he did intervene, he did not do so very well.

  ‘Doctor, I think God is trying to tell me something. I think he is searching me, inviting me to think more deeply about my fellow man.’

  ‘Are you ill, Highness? The results of my research will soon enable me to cure any affliction.’

  ‘I’m fine. I ought to go on a diet, but apart from that. It’s other people I begin to worry about. I haven’t been sleeping.’

  ‘Nor have I.’

  ‘I can tell, from the way you’ve been handling things of late. I think you deserve a break.’

  ‘You’re not talking of replacing me?’

  ‘No-one else would want to do the job as it now stands. No, I’m thinking of wrapping up this whole sorry business. I realise now I was just cross because old Zauk wouldn’t let me marry another couple of his daughters. The Luskentians aren’t bad people. They must be just like us.’

  ‘Physiologically, they are vastly inferior.’

  ‘You can’t have seen the tits on Princess Suzan. No wonder I was so smitten, and then so cross. Anyway, if they are significantly different from us, what’s the use of all your poking and prodding?’

  ‘Highness, I am close to a breakthrough.’

  ‘Breakdown, you mean. I think we should all leave it at that. Tell the men to retreat. If they want to bring a bride or two back with them, let them grab hold now and I’ll argue the toss with Zauk later. If he makes a fuss I’ll let him have those bloody silly islands back or something.’

  Those were the sorry beginnings of the armistice.

  #

  The war had not been over long before I returned to the cathedral.

  The Bishop preached what might have been the same sermon I had not heard last time. There were no choristers, only the wizened organist who had not been fit to serve his country. Yet the congregation was larger than ever, spilling over into the choir stalls and the aisles. They all seemed to think God had had something to do with bringing an end to the war, when of course the peace treaty derived from nothing more than a whimsical monarch too easily swayed by a doddery clergyman.

  We knelt for prayers and spent far too long on our knees remembering, first in silence and then all over again by name, those who had given their lives. I doubted the war had made any real martyrs: I had introduced conscription early on.

  After the closing hymn, which sang the praises of a rather blurred amalgam of God and our country, though if anyone else noticed the jarring juxtaposition they gave no sign, I went to greet the Bishop.

  Before I could open my mouth, the young Archdeacon began to rebuke me. I feared he might have struck me, had not the Bishop laid a crêpe-paper hand on his arm.

  I waited until the young rascal was out of earshot before I broached the subject I had come to discuss.

  The Bishop sighed. ‘We have not been using the crypt since the Magus moved out.’

  ‘That is what makes it ideal. I am working without the aid of a team now. I don’t want to have to share my discoveries.’

  The Bishop said nothing.

  ‘I’ll be very quiet. No trouble.’

  ‘Have you anywhere else to go?’

  ‘This is just one of several options I’m considering.’

  ‘You do realise I have no power to protect you from the tribunal.’

  ‘I shan’t need protection. Really I deserve a decoration, for my service to the state.’

  ‘I believe they called Professor Jakobson to testify just yesterday.’

  ‘Let that fool bleat what he will. Did the Magus happen to leave any food downstairs?’

  Money Sex Magic

  Miss Anita Arbuckle’s stay with Aunt Agatha and family, occasioned by the coincidence of her mother’s illness with her father’s prolonged absence in the City, proved uneventful until the very last day.

  Mr. Arbuckle had arranged for his coach to collect Anita that evening, hot on the heels of Aunt Agatha’s insinuation that if his business affairs were proving lucrative then he might be able to contribute something towards the care and feeding of his daughter. Mr. Arbuckle was not a mean man, but since his money was tied up in industry his relations thought him mean, and he had given Anita over to them only as a last resort. He feared that though Anita were spared the visible hazards of the City, she might suffer more subtle and lasting depredations in the company of sniping relatives. When Aunt Agatha began asking for money for a duty she ought to provide freely and almost certainly did not discharge well, Mr. Arbuckle saw he had no choice, his wife’s health having barely improved in three months, but to gather his daughter to his own bosom in town and do the best he could to keep her from urban harm.

  Anita knew nothing of her father’s reservations. As far as she was concerned, it was a fine and an exciting thing to get to know relatives of whom she had heard little and seen nothing. After three months in their company, she would be sorry to leave.

  The prospect of close proximity to cousins her own age had stirred her enough to ease her farewell to her ailing mother. She loved her parents very much, and they her, but they had been desperately busy ever since she was born and work pressures had estranged them from childhood in general and Anita’s in particular. So Anita worshipped them from afar, and trusted that whatever it was they did so frenetically testified to their great love for her.

  Part of Mr. Arbuckle’s apprehension about his sister Agatha was that she was wedded as much to fads and fashions and ephemera of all kinds as she was to her husband Mr. Pilkington, whose modest artisanal income could barely keep pace with Agatha’s carousel of childish demands. It must have been a great burden to Mr. Pilkington, to see his wife discard one after another the great cavalcade of consumer goods he bought her in the vain hope of sating her appetite for novelty. In Mr. Arbuckle’s humble opinion, this was no way for a grown man and a grown woman to behave.

  Nevertheless, Mr. Pilkington was not heard to utter so much as a word of complaint. Perhaps he was the last great Stoic, and perhaps it was simply the case that his wife and three daughters were not listening. Anita’s first faux pas upon arrival had been to solicit Mr. Pilkington’s views as eagerly as she was wont to consult he
r father. For this peculiarity she was taken to task almost at once by Deirdre, the youngest daughter.

  ‘What do you care what Daddy thinks? He’s so old, he must have forgotten everything that is of any interest by now.’

  ‘But he’s here,’ Anita objected. ‘He isn’t at work. Don’t you think you ought to make the most of him while you’ve got the chance?’

  ‘Oh,’ Deirdre said airily, ‘he isn’t going anywhere. That’s what Mother says.’

  ‘He simply doesn’t go anymore,’ Nuala remarked archly. ‘Not that he needs to. Mother has other amusements these days.’

  Macha said nothing, but she kicked Nuala under the table. She felt keenly it was her prerogative as oldest child to understand adulthood. She was proud of how much of the sexual life she had already assimilated through reading her mother’s magazines, and resented Nuala pretending to be equally well versed.

  Perhaps it was to re-establish her pre-eminence that Macha decided to share the fruits of her learning with Anita. Certainly she was both disappointed and relieved when Anita was ingenuous enough to admit she knew nothing of the way of a man with a maiden. In her understanding Anita proved to lag somewhat behind even Deirdre. Macha had been trying to find an apposite moment to make her revelation, without success. Ideally she would have liked to get Anita on her own, but Nuala, perceiving Macha’s need for an audience, had developed the habit of following Anita everywhere so as not to miss out. Macha was on the brink of abandoning the very idea of sharing her secret when the news that Mr. Arbuckle’s carriage would be bearing Anita away that same evening forced her hand.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pilkington were receiving another interminable visit from Reverend Oates, a very earnest young woman who had lately taken over as parish priest. That made it no difficult task for Macha to spirit Anita away. When Nuala made to follow, Macha sent her into the living room with a pot of tea, knowing that she would receive a lengthy inquisition from the vicar, who invariably asked people whether they felt God calling them to do this, that or the other. Meanwhile Macha led Anita to a remote spot she had kept secret from her sisters, where she liked to retire with those magazines her mother usually kept locked in a cabinet.