Viriconium

by Michael John Harrison

  He always lost two or three of these clients when the finished portrait turned out a little less “sympathetic” than they had expected.

  “La Petroleuse” complains that I have made her look provincial. I have not. I have given her the face of a grocer, which is another matter entirely, and in no way a judgement. There are so many other things to think about that I cannot regret it. Audsley King seems lower in spirit every time I see her. Emmet Buffo is anxious about his part in our plan, and lately has sent me several letters on the subject of disguises. He does not want to enter the zone without one. He thinks we should both have one. He knows where there is an old man who can get them for us.

  After some thought Ashlyme decided, I don’t care for this idea. Nevertheless, to Buffo he wrote, I will meet you to see this man as soon as I can get away.

  It was a cool, bright morning in the High City.

  “How lucky you are to live up here!” exclaimed Buffo. “The plague hardly seems to have changed anything.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Ashlyme.

  “Well, I love to come here,” Buffo insisted, “especially if I’ve been working all night. Look: there’s Livio Fognet on his way to lunch at the Charcuterie Vivien.” He waved cheerfully. “Not a care in the world!”

  Buffo was tall and thin, with a loose, uncoordinated gait which made him look as if the wrong legs had been attached to him at birth. His face was clumsy and long-jawed, he had limp fair hair and a pale complexion. Years of staring through homemade lenses had given his eyes a sore and vulnerable look. His researches, which had something to do with the moon, were regarded with derision in the High City. He did not suspect this. Lately, though, he had been short of funds. It had made him absentminded; when he thought no one was watching him his face became slack and empty of expression.

  “You even have better weather in Mynned,” he went on, stretching, expanding his chest, and blinking round in the weak sunlight. “It’s always so windy where I live.” He had bought himself a pound of plums and was eating them as he went along. “I don’t know why I like plums so much,” he said. “Did you see the sky just after dawn today? Extraordinary!”

  They were on their way to the cisPontine Quarter, a Low City district as yet untouched by the plague. To get there they had to cross Mynned and go down to the canal. It had rained quite heavily an hour or so before. As they made their way between the deserted quays and warehouses, the eggshell colours of the sky were reflected in the puddles on the towpath. A coolish breeze blew across the lock basin at Line Mass, giving it something of the windy spaciousness of a much larger body of water and reminding Ashlyme without warning of the Midland Levels, where he had been born. He thought suddenly of bitter winter floods, eels coiled fat and unmoving in the mud, and herons standing motionless along the silvery margins of the willow carrs. He shivered.

  Buffo was describing the man they were going to meet.

  “He is a great collector of stuffed birds. He makes them, too. He sells, among other things, the clothes the beggars wear. He lives behind ‘Our Lady of the Zincsmiths,’ and thinks as I do that the future of the world lies with science.” (Ashlyme, hearing only the word future, looked guiltily in the direction Buffo happened to be pointing. He saw only an old lock gate, behind which had collected a creamy brown curd full of floating rubbish.) “His researches take him into the old towers of the city, and their derelict upper floors. You will not believe this, Ashlyme, but there among the jackdaw colonies and sparrows’ nests he claims to have found living birds whose every feather is made of metal!”

  “He should avoid those old towers,” said Ashlyme. “They can be dangerous.”

  “It’s interesting work, though. Do you want the last plum or can I have it?”

  Presently they came to the cisPontine Quarter and found the old man at home in his shop. The small dusty window of this place was full of birds and animals preserved in unrealistic poses, and above it hung a partly obliterated sign. It stood on one side of an old paved square, entry to which was gained through a narrow brick arch. Fish was being sold from a cart at one end of the square; at the other rose the dark bulk of “Our Lady of the Zincsmiths”; children ran excitedly about between the two, squabbling over a bit of pavement marked out for the hopping game “blind Michael.” As Ashlyme stepped through the arch he heard a woman’s voice, shrill, nasal, singing to a mandolin; and the air was full of the smells of cod and saffron.

  The old man was watery-eyed and frail. He stood amid the clutter at the back of the shop, clutching one stiff hand with the other and smiling uncertainly. The skin was stretched over his long skull like yellow paper. He had on a faded dressing gown which had once been embroidered with fine silver wire. A few twists of this still poked out of its lapels and threadbare elbows. He took Emmet Buffo by the arm and drew him away from the door.

  “Come and look!” he whispered excitedly.

  In a garret near Alves he had found a metal feather. It was the first proof of his theories. Smiling and nodding, he held it out for Buffo to examine. He cast quick, anxious little glances over his shoulder at Ashlyme. Ashlyme looked away and pretended to be interested in the stuffed birds which stood on the shelves as if they were waiting to be revived. The gaze of their small bright eyes made him shift impatiently. The old man looked like a bird himself, with his thin bones and nodding skull. He is frightened I will steal his discovery, thought Ashlyme. Buffo should have come on his own.

  “Hurry up, Buffo.” But Buffo was engrossed.

  Ashlyme picked his way between the bales of rags and secondhand clothes which made up the shop’s stock-in-trade. He found what he thought was a nice piece of brocade, folded into a thick square and heavy with damp. When he shook it out and held it up to the light from the doorway, it turned out to be a decomposing tapestry, in which was depicted a city at night. Huge buildings and monuments stood under the moon. Along the wide avenues between them, men dressed in animal masks were stalking one another from shadow to shadow with mattocks and sharpened spades. He dropped it quickly and wiped his hands. He heard the old man say, “The clue I have been looking for.”

  “What do you think, Ashlyme?” asked Buffo.

  “It looks like an ordinary feather to me,” said Ashlyme, more bluntly than he had meant to. “Apart from the colour,” he amended.

  “These birds are real!” said the old man defensively. He came closer to Ashlyme, holding the feather tightly. “Would you like a cup of chamomile tea?”

  “I think we’d better just look at what we came to see,” said Ashlyme. Buffo and the old man bent down and began to root through a pile of disintegrating bandages. Ashlyme watched uneasily. “What are you looking in there for?” he said. “Who would wear things like that?” He walked off irritably.

  “Don’t you want to choose your own disguise?” Buffo called after him in a puzzled voice.

  “No,” said Ashlyme.

  He stood outside in the square, watching the children run about in the chilly sunshine. Above him the partly obliterated sign creaked. If he studied it carefully he could make out the word SELLER. The fishmonger was pulling his barrow out under the archway; the woman was still singing. Ashlyme closed his eyes and tried to imagine how he would paint if he lived here rather than up in Mynned. He decided that one day he would find out. The smell of the food being cooked was making him hungry. Suddenly he realised how rude he had been to Buffo and the old man. He went back inside and found them drinking chamomile tea. “Can I have a look at that feather?” he asked.

  The old man held it out. “You see?” he said. “Look at the craftsmanship. These birds were built long ago, by whom and for what purpose is as yet unclear.” He leant forward. “I believe,” he said, in a whisper so quiet that it forced Ashlyme to lean forward, too, “that one day they will speak to me.”

  “It’s interesting work,” said Ashlyme.

  Later, as they were preparing to leave, the old man touched his sleeve. “This will surprise you,”
he said. “I don’t know how old I am.” Suddenly his eyes filled up with tears. He rubbed them unembarrassedly with the back of his hand. “Can you understand what I mean?” He gazed at Ashlyme for a moment or two, with a look in which could be read only a vague anxiety, then turned away.

  “Goodbye,” said Ashlyme. And outside, to Buffo: “Do you know what he was talking about?”

  “It means nothing to me,” admitted Buffo, hefting the brown paper parcel which contained their disguises. “I can’t wait to get these home and try them on.” But on the way back to Mynned through Line Mass he stopped suddenly. “Look,” he said. “That’s the fishmonger following us. I saw him in the High City this morning, and he had some nice hake. I think I’ll cook a bit of that for tea.” He was unlucky. For some reason, as soon as he saw Buffo approaching, the fishmonger went into a side alley and made off, his barrow clattering on the cobbles.

  THE SECOND CARD

  THE LORDS OF ILLUSIONARY SUCCESS

  This card implies a transaction which leaves you unsatisfied. Be prepared for unexpected events. If it comes next to No. 14 you will lose a favourite overcoat.

  “Viriconium is all the cities there have ever been.”

  AUDSLEY KING, Reminiscences

  Ashlyme seldom took his own meals at home. Before the plague he had eaten with his friends at the Luitpold Café in the Artists’ Quarter. Now, more often than not, he could be found at the Vivien, or one of the other charcuteries on the Margarethestrasse, eating a chop.

  One night he had supper there with Mme. Chevigne, who wanted him to design the programme for a production called The Little Humpbacked Horse. This had been devised as a vehicle for Vera Ghillera, the city’s newest principal dancer, illegitimate daughter of a laundress, with a lyrical port de bras, and would run as a rival to Die Traumunden Knaben if that play was ever produced. Ashlyme was not enthusiastic but allowed himself to be persuaded. (Later he was to make two or three sketches for this commission; but they were of young dancers caught unawares during exercises often far from graceful, and they were never used.) The sharp-nosed little Chevigne, who in her time had danced as well if not better than Ghillera, amused him with her scandals until late. When he got home a bluish moon was shining through the roof lights of the studio, giving an odd look of frozen motion to his easel and lay figure, as if they had been moving about just before he came in.

  A note had been pushed in through his front door and lay on the mat.

  Come at once, it said, in a self-assertive script. It was unsigned, but with it the Grand Cairo had sent a massive silver signet ring which he treated nightly in powdered sulphur to maintain its tarnish. Ashlyme sighed, but he set out immediately for Montrouge.

  The night was quiet and dry. A wind had got up and was scattering dust over the surface of the puddles. In Montrouge the Barley brothers had fallen out over a white geranium in a pot, which they had stolen in some midnight adventure along the Via Gellia. They were rolling about in the moonlight among the half-finished brick courses of the dwarf’s municipal estate, kicking over stacks of earthenware pipes and biting one another when they got the chance. Ashlyme found himself watching them silently from the shadows on the other side of the road. He could not have said why. Presently Gog Barley got on top of his brother and gave him a punch in the chest.

  “You bit of snot,” he said. “Give us me rose back.”

  He twisted Matey’s arm until he got the geranium. It was more foliage than flower. He jumped up and made off with it, but Matey gave him the “dead leg” and he fell into a trench. They scuffled stealthily in there for a minute or two, then bolted out of it with enraged howls. Suddenly they spotted Ashlyme.

  “Oh, gor,” said Matey. “It’s the vicar.”

  He dropped the flower and stood there breathing heavily, wincing and squinting and shading his eyes as if Ashlyme had unexpectedly held up a bright light. He nudged his brother in the ribs and they both ran off shouting in the direction of the Haadenbosk. After a moment the night was quiet and empty again. The geranium pot rolled slowly across the road until it came to rest at Ashlyme’s feet. He bent down to pick it up and then thought better of it. One ghostly white floret remained among the leaves of the geranium, luminous in the moonlight; a musty smell came up from it and surrounded him.

  He got into the tower by showing the dwarf’s ring.

  Pride of place in the salle had been given over to a delicate little drawing by Audsley King. It was of boats, done in charcoal and white chalk on grey paper, and Ashlyme had not seen it on his last visit there.

  He found the dwarf pacing impatiently to and fro, dressed with a kind of ignominious majesty in a studded black jerkin. A pair of spectacles gave him a judiciary air. His hair gleamed with Altaean Balm. Despite his new acquisition he was in a dangerous temper, and he greeted Ashlyme brusquely. “Begin drawing,” he said, taking up immediately a stiff seated pose which threw into prominence the tendons of his ageing neck. Confused by the lateness of the hour and the vertiginous spaces of the old building, Ashlyme made some attempt to set up his easel. The dwarf watched disapprovingly, fidgeting about in his chair as if the pose had already become intolerable to hold, and said as soon as Ashlyme had settled down,

  “What fresh secrets have you found it necessary to hide from me today, Master Backstabber?”

  He gave Ashlyme no time to answer this accusation. “Say nothing for the moment,” he warned, with an irritable gesture. “Don’t bother to try and justify yourself to me.” Suddenly he gave a sly laugh. He jumped out of his chair and took off his spectacles. “I got these when I lived in the North,” he said. “But I can see very well without them. What do you think of this new drawing of mine?”

  Ashlyme, unconvinced by this change of mood, swallowed. “I should not like you to think that I had deceived you deliberately—” he began. He saw the dwarf watching him with the patient, ironic eyes of the secret policeman, waiting for an answer. He could not organise his thoughts. “It is very good,” he said at last.

  “And you recognise the artist, of course?”

  Ashlyme nodded.

  “Audsley King,” he whispered.

  The Grand Cairo nodded. “Just so.” He sat down again. “Go on with your work,” he advised. “I think that would be best for you now.” But he was soon back on his feet, rearranging a display of sol d’or. He picked up one of his cats and stroked its greyish fur. Every time he said its name the animal purred loudly and poked its head into his armpit. “You are not a man for secrets, Ashlyme,” he said contemplatively as he opened the door and watched the cat run out into the corridor with its tail in the air. “Never imagine you are.” He listened for a moment at the door. “I am your man for secrets,” he mused. “They’re safe with me.” He went up to the Audsley King sketch, regarded it with his hands behind his back, then tapped its frame. “Why didn’t you tell me about your little scheme to smuggle this woman out of the quarantine zone?”

  “I—” said Ashlyme. He was confused and frightened. “She is the great painter of our age. We—”

  The dwarf studied him silently for a moment, head on one side. “ ‘She is the great painter of our age’!” he mimicked suddenly. “Do you know, Ashlyme, I can’t quite make you out. That’s not a very responsible attitude in the face of our present plight, is it?” He took out a leather notebook. “What about this other man, this ‘Emmley Buffold’, who is so fond of fish? He gave my man quite a fright, chasing him like that! What does he hope to gain from it?” He laughed at Ashlyme’s expression. “Oh, make no mistake. It’s all written here. I know who’s in it with you.” He shut the book decisively.

  “I am the man for secrets,” he said. “You must always bring them to me. It is the only safe course.”

  Ashlyme looked at him in dismay. “What will you do with us?” he said.

  The Grand Cairo put his notebook away.

  “Why, I’ll join you!” he answered, and winked.

  Nothing would persuade him otherwise. He wou
ld listen to none of Ashlyme’s arguments. He had the romantic temper, he said. He needed action! Besides: Audsley King was the greatest painter of their age. Only a criminal oversight could have placed her in such jeopardy. She was a resource. He made Ashlyme sit down, poured out two glasses of bessen genever, and insisted they drink to their adventure. “Confidentially,” he admitted, “I am bored with all this.” His gesture took in the whole of Montrouge. “This morning I woke up wishing I was back in the North again.” He emptied his glass. “You can’t imagine how appalling it is up there,” he said. “Constant intrigue and backstabbing, and black mud in everything you eat. The wind never drops. Ruined cities full of cripples, and insects as big as a horse!”

  He shuddered. “Even the rain was black. But I’ll tell you something, Ashlyme: at least we were alive then! Our intrigues had bowels. A kingdom was at stake, even if it was a kingdom of mud!”

  “But what about your own police?” appealed Ashlyme, who had understood little of this reminiscence, with its implications of habitual conspiracy in a country which could barely support life. “What if they catch you with us?” This was his last argument. The wine had made him feel sick but slightly less frightened. He was sure that the dwarf would never forgive him his deception; he suspected that his position was only slightly less insecure than it had been when he first entered the room. “Won’t that put you in wrong with your employers?”