“One has to keep telling oneself, doesn’t one,” Mickey said, “that there’s nothing one could have done.”
She nodded. Mickey noticed she had neither plate nor glass in her hands. Without stopping to wonder if she was on some sort of a ritual fast, he offered her his champagne. She looked at it wryly, then half smiled and tipped back a mouthful, wincing.
“That’s the ticket,” Mickey said. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s sit down for a bit, shall we?” She let him lead her through the crowd. Some distance up the slope, Mickey took off his jacket and spread it on a slate outcropping. They sat and watched the black-clad processions, fewer in number now, winding across the desert.
“We shouldn’t be seen together,” Rae said.
“Oh, I expect your Sisters will take me for an Enkhoupista—the Kirekuni branch—if they even notice us. Crispin and I had been planning to show up unannounced and pass ourselves off as Breeze’s secret admirers—” Rae snorted. “It was a stroke of luck the party ended up being so large.”
Seen from above, Breeze Enkhoupista’s funeral resembled nothing so much as a raucous family reunion. Under the influence of the champagne, decorum was already giving way to laughter, amicable squabbles, and the exchanging of house-party invitations.
“A loyal family. Some of them seem to have come from so far off they don’t even speak Ferupian. Perhaps there is a Kirekuni branch! Do you know any of them personally?” He knew full well she’d never met any of them before.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to, either.”
“I take it Breeze wasn’t completely open about her background.”
“I thought she’d been open.” She flicked a glance at him. “It always stings, doesn’t it, when you learn you weren’t the only one holding things back.”
If that was an apology, it was so indirect Mickey dared not acknowledge it, dared not say anything that might jeopardize her confidences. She might yet tell him her side of the Crispin story.
“She should have been a Kirekuni. She should have lived in Okimachi. Then she wouldn’t have joined the Enclave. And she’d still be alive.”
Rae’s sudden venom took Mickey off guard. He fumbled, “People inclined by nature to join—orders—will join them regardless, I think.” You’re a pretty good example, darling cousin. “And your order seems—well, it seems far preferable to any that existed in Kirekune.”
She gave a dry little laugh. “If by that you mean we’ve survived—”
“No.” At least she acknowledged that her “order” was, in fact, a cult! “The Enclave seems to be run by people who believe in…well, I haven’t been here long enough to know what, but it’s clear to me that you believe in something nobler than wealth or politics, which were the driving forces behind the two major cults in Okimachi, the Dynasty and the Decadent Easterners. Your founders aren’t manipulating you for their own ends. That alone sets you apart from every other religious organization I’ve heard of.”
His flattery made no impression on her. “What I mean is that if Breeze had been a Kirekuni, she wouldn’t have felt the need to join a cult. Because the Royals occupy the same position in our patriotism that the Lizard Significants do in yours. They embody a set of moral ideals that everyone should aspire to. A way of life, and an attitude toward death, that are beyond reproach.” She spoke passionately, as if she were trying to convince herself. “Who could ever have qualms about following leaders—figureheads, examples, call them what you will—who define morality? Who could ever question them? Our Enclave, of course, is an imperfect copy of the system, since we have to take our orders from the Founding Sisters, not from the Royals themselves—there’s a gap of communication, just as there was in Ferupe, which there isn’t in Kirekune—but all the same, here in Cype, the Enclave is the best bet for those who need moral ideals. Breeze needed moral ideals. You’re right to speculate that that was her nature. And it was her misfortune to be born in a country where morality has historically been beside the point. That, perhaps, is why Cype has always been ruled by someone else.”
And perhaps that’s why Kherouge finds it so easy and profitable to accommodate the Westerners nowadays, Mickey thought. In the next century, I’d stake money on the probability that moral ideals will be a handicap, not an asset. And he thought, with mingled pain and cynicism: Oh, darling, you’ve constructed a mythic Kirekune out of Kirekune’s own propaganda—just the way I constructed a mythic you. If Significance’s moral leadership is sufficient, why was Okimachi so receptive to the cults? And how, I wonder, would you explain Greater Significance? Didn’t you read a thing I wrote about Them? I have three concepts for you to brush up on, my cloistered cousin: wealth; politics; and the fact that the washed and the unwashed masses alike want nothing more than to be duped. Just like you.
All he said was, “You’ve explained very concisely why Kirekunis think they have a moral right to world dominance.”
“I think,” she said, and took another sip of his champagne, “that the Enclave can’t last much longer.”
“Why? Because Kirekune rules Cype now?”
“That might obviate us in time. But no.”
“Then…” In the thin sun and the biting wind, he scanned the crowd below. He pointed in relief. “There’s Crispin.”
“Where?”
“Talking to that couple. The woman has a small hat with a feather. The man’s wearing gold chains in his waistcoat. Looks as though Crispin’s ingratiated himself. Hi!” He waved. “Cris! We’re up here!”
Rae put out her hand as if to stop him, then drew back. Crispin had already seen them. He excused himself and started up the slope. Mickey looked Rae full in the face. “Are you thinking of leaving the Enclave, cousin?”
She looked shocked. “Queen! No!” She chewed her lip. “Have you forgotten I have children?”
He had, as a matter of fact. But it was too late to apologize or to argue further, for Crispin was on them. His shadow fell across Mickey’s knees. He had a cigarette in one hand and a light sweat on his forehead—he’d clearly had more than his share of champagne. Mickey remembered what Rae had said about his drinking. Crispin greeted them, “Holding up, love? Mick, I’ve got us somewhere to stay! We’re spending the weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Sibelye-Enkhoupista, otherwise known as the Kherouge branch of the family. A refined, well-regarded couple. They and I have acquaintances in common. They insisted I come, and bring whoever I want: their place is right in town, we’ve passed it dozens of times. What d’you think of that? Isn’t it a turn-up?”
Rae scrambled to her feet, clumsily. Mickey saw to his horror that half a glass of champagne had ruined her coordination. “I must be going. I don’t expect any of my Sisters will want to stay much longer. I’m sure I can find someone to walk back with me.”
“Are you game, Mick?” Crispin blustered on. “If so, the Sibelye-Enkhoupistas want to meet you. Point of fact, I think having a Kirekuni as a houseguest is half the attraction. You could prob’ly get an invitation to any of the big houses in Kherouge if you wanted.” Yet his eyes flicked toward Rae, who lingered, biting her lip. Mickey knew there was more going unsaid than he could imagine, and his heart felt like a stone. But he knew one thing: Rae didn’t want to leave, and Crispin didn’t want her to, either. In his despair he had a brainwave.
“Cris, would the Sibel-whatevers agree to our arriving later? Say, before dinner?”
“Probably,” Crispin said guardedly. “What do you have in mind?”
Mickey fumbled in his pocket and produced the theater tickets he’d bought days ago. He flourished them in Crispin’s and Rae’s faces. “Wasn’t it foresighted of me to buy four? We can cash the other one in, or give it away—they weren’t exactly pricey.” He shifted into the jovial mode of the tour guide. A pimp could also be a matchmaker. “It’s opening day for the theater season, and, as I recall, they’re doing three shows, one a matinee. Nothing like it for taking your mind off death and—” he burst out laughing and c
lapped his hands. “If you could see your faces, my dears!”
“It is a beautiful afternoon,” Rae allowed.
Crispin threw up his hands and expostulated.
we let go of each other’s shoulders the beautiful morning shatters between our dangling arms
—Ryuichi Tamura
Twist
1 Marout 1900 A.D.
Cype: Kherouge: the Abbatoir Fairgrounds
The theatrical afternoon couldn’t have been a worse catastrophe if he’d planned it that way.
Escaping the funeral buoyed them all up. They hired one of the motor-taxis vulturing about the foot of the Mountain of Bones. Mickey took the jump seat so that Crispin and Rae had to sit together facing forward. With a little prompting, a cheerful repartee developed: Rae admired Mickey’s and Crispin’s new suits, and wanted to know about fashions in Okimachi and Lamaroon. Thanks to Fumie and Rumika, Mickey was eminently familiar with the topic, but he left it to Crispin, who hadn’t lost his talent for expounding on subjects he knew nothing about, and pressing the most harmless sentences into service as innuendo. Rae giggled in delight. Even Mickey, who wasn’t in the line of fire, felt Crispin’s charm carbonating his blood. The wind surged into the open-topped taxi, bringing tears to his eyes.
Along the slaughterhouse strips, the road was clogged with mooing, baaing droves. They jolted in a haze of exhaust between the setback abbatoirs and the meatpacking factories, their driver yelling at the top of his lungs as he jinked his vehicle around traffic jams and avoided head-on collisions. Kherouge’s road regulations were still medieval: there existed no concept of “lanes” such as Okimachi had enforced in its Veins for centuries. Over the racket Mickey could no longer hear what Rae and Crispin were saying.
Half an hour later they paid off the taxi at the gate of the fairgrounds. They marched three abreast through the milling crowds. This seemed to be one of those rare public events that caused the social spectrum to collapse into a point. All Kherouge was here, from the ragged, quiet drybones to the mercantile nouveaux riches to the tenement families in all their self-imposed subclassifications. So were the old-money aristocrats from Ghixtown and the leafy northern suburbs. So were Kirekunis, looking so superior and amused that Mickey wanted to hide his face, and Ferupians wearing expressions as rigid and respectable as their weekend best. He pitied them, because he knew their position: for centuries they’d owned this city, and now they couldn’t visit their old neighborhoods without risking jeers and harassment, or worse, arrest by the Disciplinarians who’d usurped their authority. Here they were ignored, where they would once have been fawned on.
A man who looked so much like Crispin that Mickey did a double take loomed before them. Grinning, he said something Mickey couldn’t catch. The next instant Crispin was gone. The stranger looked puzzled and turned to Rae. Mickey dragged her onward. His nerves screamed. He hadn’t felt such a primal impulse to escape since the Fire. They joined the queue in front of the tent marked AUTHROND’S MASTER PLAYERS PRESENT VULVETTA!; ten minutes later Crispin reappeared, elbowing in between Mickey and Rae, his bowler pulled low to hide his face. His shoulders lifted and fell under his jacket as his breath slowed. “Who was that?” Mickey said. “He seemed to know you.”
“I don’t know him,” Crispin snarled.
Rae raised her chin, her lips pinched together in the shadow of her hat. “We’re not dressed for this.”
Mickey shrugged, too upset to care.
“We’re all in mourning! I don’t know what I was thinking.” She glanced desperately at Authrond’s Master Players’ blue-and-white tent. “It’s entirely inappropriate. I think I should go home. I’m going home.”
Crispin said, “Screw that.” He seized her hand and pulled her out of the queue, up to the tent. Mickey wanted to die of embarrassment but could only follow. “We already have tickets,” Crispin told the collector at the entrance.
The man squinted in the sunlight. “So does the rest of ‘em.”
“Your point?” Grabbing the tickets from Mickey, Crispin thrust them at the collector’s face and shouldered into the babbling dark, where early comers seated in the “Dead heaven” whispered like a sea, and the sawdust underfoot could have been sand. The lanterns carried by the program-hawkers could have been the headlights of scaly horrors finning to and fro across the ocean floor. They took seats in the first row; Mickey found himself between Crispin and Rae. A motherly employee with a blond bun waddled up and offered them bottles of beer. “No, thanks,” Crispin said tersely.
“It’s free today, my sweets. Compliments of Master Player Authrond.”
“I said no thanks.”
Ignoring him, the woman narrowed her eyes at Rae. Rae stared determinedly at her program. When the woman had gone, she blurted, “Let’s change seats.”
“What’s wrong with these?” Crispin propped his boots on the edge of the stage. “Can’t judge the show unless you can see it.”
“See what, the leading lady’s drawers?” Rae snapped. Her vulgarity shocked Mickey. “You’re not at the music hall. Nor at the circus!”
“Could just as easily be.”
“I can tell you’ve been in Lamaroon! This is a troupe of professional actors, not clowns. Authrond’s has been touring Ferupe and Cype for thirty years. Their reputation is unmatched.”
“I mean we could just as easily have gone to a circus. There’s one on the other side of the fairground.”
“Would you rather we go there?” She started to rise.
Crispin gestured for her to sit down. “I’ve already seen it.”
It was past time for Mickey to put his oar in. “Which circus is it? One I’ve heard of?”
“The only Ferupian circus you’ve heard of,” Crispin snapped, and would say no more. But it was enough. Mickey’s thoughts whirled with pity and anxiety until it became an effort to sit still: the thought of staying here for another two hours horrified him. Yet the tent was almost full, the anticipatory chatter at high-seas volume, and they didn’t need to draw attention to themselves by getting up and squeezing out. The stranger who’d wanted to speak to Crispin might even have come in after them. That might be why Crispin had scrunched down so low in his seat. And it seemed a fair bet that once they got outside, he and Rae would start fighting in earnest. Why, oh, why had Mickey brought them here? He could have picked no worse venue in all Kherouge for the beatific reconciliation he’d envisioned.
Rae pinched his arm. Her mane of dark hair tickled his face and her breath heated his ear as she hissed: “We have to sit somewhere else.”
“We can’t move now, I’m afraid, darling. It’s a full house.”
A shiver ran visibly through her, and she felt for his hand. Bemused, he let her lace her fingers through his. Her palm wasn’t damp as he’d expected, but hot and dry. She gripped his shoulder in her other hand and whispered, her forehead resting on his hair, “Then there’s no hope for it. Hildy’s already recognized me! And everyone on stage will see me when—there’s a scene where a spot dances over the audience, although I don’t know how they’re going to manage that without daemon glares, and Hildy’s sure to have tipped Gideon-thelights off to aim it at me. And there’s another part where Vulvetta kneels at the edge of the stage and sings to the men in the front row. ‘Won’t you help me? Won’t you come with me?’—that song—and Annette’s doing the role, I saw her name on the program, and she’ll sing to you because you’re a Kirekuni, and then she’ll see me here. And then I shall have to—”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” Mickey whispered. “I take it you’ve seen this opera before?”
She caught her breath in a half laugh of excitement. “Seen it before? I’ve acted in it! I was Vulvetta the first time we did it.” She pulled away and sat up straight, regarding him with big, dark eyes that reminded him suddenly of Gaise. “I traveled with this company for more than a year. Didn’t I tell you? I know I haven’t told Crispin, but I thought I wrote—”
Mickey shook his head
. “Anything like that I’d have remembered. I asked how you came to live in Cype, but—”
“Shit! That’s right, I tore it up. I’m sorry. But anyway, I—”
“Wait. Wait, wait.” Mickey took both her hands. “You were an actress?” That didn’t fit with his image of her—or with Crispin’s story. Crispin said she’d been a seamstress when he met her, not a thespian! “With a road company?
“Darling, I headlined.” Without moving a limb, she struck a pose. It was all in the face and the way she held her head. She became a pouting, air-kissing nymphomaniac. Mickey laughed. “Of course”—she let the pose go—“I was wardrobe mistress, too. Everyone had to do more than one thing. And that’s how I got my start—not with Authrond’s, long before that—slaving away in wardrobe.”
A seamstress. Mickey glanced at Crispin.
“Back then, I didn’t know how much more fun it was to be on stage. Women couldn’t act in the music hall, so the possibility never entered my mind. But after—when I joined Authrond’s Players—oh, I found out then. I found out what I was really good at.” She smiled wistfully. “We were just a mud show. I was exaggerating about our reputation. In those days, if we’d applied to be one of the season openers at the Abbatoir Fairgrounds, we’d have been laughed out of the city. The last show I did with the troupe, we pretended we were playing Kherouge, but we were really on the outskirts of Center City, outside the drybones shantytown. The only reason anyone other than loiterers came was because Authrond was—and still is, although it’s catching on a bit more widely now—one of the only road-repertoire managers who allowed women on stage. People came for the novelty. He’s got a real reputation now, apparently. Maybe his unconventionalness isn’t, anymore. I wouldn’t know. It’s been years since I kept up with the theater.”
She looked up at the high-ribbed roof of the tent and twisted to see back to the dark, crowded tiers of bleachers. All around them, a susurration was growing in volume. “Ssssh! Ssssh!” Up high, the drybones stamped their feet. Watching the fine slant of Rae’s jaw, the little ticking muscle by her ear, Mickey thought that for the first time she’d really confided in him. “If you enjoyed acting so much, why did you leave the troupe?”
A Trickster in the Ashes Page 18