The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  His voice broke, and the Fräulein interrupted him. “Do not read any more,” she ordered. “All you need to do is buy it for him. I am sure he knows what he is doing.”

  “But, Princess!” cried the alchemist. “That is not all. You do not understand. He—he is a monster—a—a sex maniac. He spends his time debauching those poor young girls, not just at night in bed, but in the evening, in the bushes, on the beach! I myself have watched them through my telescope—”

  One of the footmen snickered.

  “At over eighty years! It is indecent. It is demoniacal! Your noble ancestor, Paracelsus, himself said that sexual indulgence always prevents success in alchemy! Now, do what you will, but I must warn you. If you persist in using Schimmelhorn, you must first do to him what the Arabs have done to Ismail. Otherwise, through his lust and ignorance, terrible forces may be set free. You yourself will be in fearful peril. You, Princess, are descended from great Emperors, ancient Kings, priests and priestesses who have handed awful secrets down to you over many centuries—secrets you are sworn to guard!” Meister Gansfleisch was gibbering now, and Twitchgibbet was squeaking horribly in his pocket. “You yourself are a priestess! Y-you must choose! You—”

  She silenced him with a lifted hand. “Listen, Gaspar,” she said, and her voice had a cutting edge like a headsman’s axe, “all you say is true. I am a princess and a priestess. But”—pausing, she leaned forward to fix him with her eyes, the eyes that had made so profound an impression on Herr Doktor Rumpler—“but that is on one side only. On my father’s side, I am a Swiss, with the famous Paracelsus in my family. I am a Swiss first—and a Swiss banker first and foremost. Never forget that. Do you understand?”

  He uttered a dry sob.

  “Now, as a Swiss banker, I doubt very much that you can make gold. As a Swiss banker, I have every reason to believe that Schimmelhorn can. So, as a Swiss banker, I will give you one more chance to work with him without making trouble, to do his shopping, to assist him in every way. Otherwise”—she paused to let her words sink in—“otherwise, I shall again be the princess and the priestess, and you will end up in the Labyrinth.” She gestured to Mavronides. “Take him away.”

  She waited until the whimpering Meister Gansfleisch had departed. Then, “Bring me this Schimmelhorn,” she commanded, “and perhaps you had better bring his young women with him.”

  Mavronides hesitated. “Highness,” he said apologetically, “it may be impossible to bring him down immediately. He—he may be engaged in his favorite, er, exercises. In that case, he—well, he might have to dress.”

  She smiled thinly. “Very well. Bring them to my apartments in one hour exactly.”

  * * * *

  Mavronides had been quite right in his estimate of Papa Schimmelhorn’s activities. He knocked tactfully on the door, waited until it was opened just a crack by a giggling Emmy, announced that they had been summoned by the Princess, and told them he would call for them.

  When he arrived, all of them were ready, Niki and Emmy discreetly garbed in their best Parisian tailorings, Papa Schimmelhorn wearing his form-fitting jeans, huaraches, a vermillion shirt emblazoned with cactuses, burros, and sleeping Mexicans, and his cuckoo watch. On his shoulder, on this special occasion no longer confined to quarters, rode Gustav-Adolf; in a brown paper bag he carried one of his own very special cuckoo clocks, which he had brought tucked away in his carpetbag. It boasted a trio of cuckoos, who not only sang out “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” but actually, against a Matterhornish background, yodeled the hours melodiously. “Ach, Gustav-Adolf,” he declared, “for die Fräulein-Prinzessin it iss a fine present. She can listen vhile she sits und sews und vatches qviz shows or reads die lidtle Gothic nofels like Mama.”

  Somehow, never having asked anyone for a physical description of Fräulein von Hohenheim, and because he knew that she was a person of some authority, he had formed a mental picture of her as a woman of mature years, perhaps somewhat younger than his wife, possibly a shade less determined in her attitudes, but probably with a very similar view of men, manners, times, and opinions.

  As they walked beside Mavronides, down staircases and through one corridor after another, he rehearsed what he would say when he was introduced. Like his grandfather, who had guided many a crowned head into the Alpine vastnesses, he would first bow—gracefully but independently as befitted a true Swiss—then he would murmur, Küss die hand, Serene Highness, and if she offered him her hand, would keep his promise as aristocratically as any archduke.

  Unhappily all these good intentions came to naught. They entered a section of the castle that looked like an especially florid Venetian palazzo with a touch of Neueschwannstein; they marched down a final corridor lined with portrait busts on pedestals, with beautifully nude statues from classical antiquity, with glorious tapestries. They came to a great polished door, on which Mavronides rapped discreetly. It opened instantly, and he urged them forward.

  “The Princess Philippa Theophrastra Paleologus Bombast von Hohenheim!” he proclaimed.

  Papa Schimmelhorn beheld a drawing room which could easily have been designed and decorated for Lola Montes by her infatuated king—but he did not see it. Before him, in the full light of the tall windows, reclining on a First Empire chaise longue, still garbed in her throne-room finery, and with her astounding cleavage displayed to best effect, was the Fräulein.

  He halted in his tracks. For a moment, words failed him. Then, “Mein Gott in Himmel!” he said, more to himself than to the world. “Such a beaudtiful pussycat!”

  He didn’t even feel Mavronides kick him in the shins; nor did he hear his companions’ little gasps of astonishment. He simply stood there goggle-eyed, grinning foolishly as the Princess rose and flowed toward him.

  “Ja, ja!” he murmured, doing his best to X-ray her attire. “Herr Doktor Rumpler vas so right! There iss more to Schviss banking than meets der eye.”

  The Fräulein appeared not to hear. Instead, she was regarding Gustav-Adolf. “He truly is a handsome cat, Herr Schimmelhorn,” she said. “But I don’t think he would appreciate your calling him beautiful or a pussycat.” She reached up and rubbed Gustav-Adolf’s chin, and he responded with a passionate mrrrow that expressed his master’s feelings perfectly. “Come, you and your pretty friends must sit down with me, and we shall talk after we have been properly introduced.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn said nothing; Mavronides had kicked him in the shins again. They were led forward; they were seated on three First Empire chairs; the Fräulein, all Princess now, questioned them: were they comfortable? had her staff provided them with every comfort and necessity? and did they not consider the climate of Little Palaeon simply wonderful? Niki and Emmy replied enthusiastically, thanking her for her gracious hospitality, and Papa Schimmelhorn, still bedazzled, did the best he could with nods and chuckles and mumbled incoherencies. Finally, when she abandoned small talk to ask him about his work, catching Mavronides’s now steely eye upon him, he managed to inform her that eferything was going beautifully; that ja, he could vork vith Meister Gassi, who vas nodt much help, alvays making shtinks in pots und shmokes in fires; that he was nodt vorried efen aboudt that because in der subconscience he vas a chenius. Still not quite in gear, he demonstrated the workings of his cuckoo watch, explaining that no vun else could haff infented it, and then presented the yodeling cuckoo clock.

  “Serene Highness,” he explained untruthfully, “I haff made it chust for you. Maybe you hang it by der bathtub so der lidtle cuckoos can all see—” He broke off, chuckling to himself and actually blushing at the picture in his mind’s eye.

  The Fräulein signed to a handmaiden to take the clock. She thanked him for his consideration, commending him for his cleverness; she told his pretty friends to take good care of him because, after all, he was a genius. Mavronides took him by the elbow, and turned him round.

  “Good-bye, He
rr Schimmelhorn,” said the Fräulein. “Auf wiedersehen.”

  And, “Auf wiedersehen, Serene Highness,” called Papa Schimmelhorn. Philippa Theophrastra Bombast von etcetera, he thought as Mavronides propelled him through the door. Maybe vhen ve know each oder a lidtle bedter I chust call you Philli.

  As they returned, Mavronides explained to him that never before had he seen the Princess so gracious, so condescending, so slow to take offense. Indeed, Papa Schimmelhorn had been honored above the commonalty of men. Truly, it was beyond his understanding, and he warned him not to take advantage of it, not to be in any way impertinent.

  Papa Schimmelhorn slapped him on the back. “Herr Zorba,” he declared, “she iss nice to me because I am a chenius.” But quite a different idea occurred to him. Maybe, he told himself, maybe she iss chust like oder vomen und sees dot I haff plenty of vinegar….

  Meanwhile, the Princess had turned from the door to her handmaiden. “By the Gods of Greece!” she exclaimed. “By all the Satyrs! By the Minotaur himself!” She burst out laughing. “Niobe, I thought that Gottfried Rumpler was the ultimate male chauvinist schweinhund! Compared to this old goat, he is just nothing. This Schimmelhorn is unbelievable—he is a male chauvinist überschweinhund! It’s lucky for you he has those two little trollops with him—otherwise he’d probably have you running clear around Little Palaeon! Did you see the way he leered at you while he was in the room?”

  “At me, my lady? He wasn’t ogling me.”

  The Princess frowned. Her laughter died. “He must have been,” she stated. “He is a peasant. He never would have dared to look at me that way!”

  She returned to the chaise longue. “Niobe, bring me a decanter of fine brandy and a glass.”

  She waited until Niobe poured. Then she smiled as she gazed down into the brandy-breather—a smile like the coming of the Second Ice Age.

  “Let him play!” she murmured. “Even with Niobe if he wants to. If he can indeed make lead into gold, what does it matter?”

  V.

  The Princess and the Peasant: Overture

  It did not take long for Niki and Emmy to notice that Papa Schimmelhorn was no longer his usual ebullient self. Now he seemed completely unaware of their existence or of Mavronides’s presence except when he was more or less forcibly reminded of it. On their way back to their quarters in the keep, he actually had to be steered around several corners. Occasionally, he would close his eyes, smile secretly, and lick his chops. Even Gustav-Adolf, perturbed, more than once rubbed his whiskers against his master’s hairy ear and uttered a querulously questioning meow? Mavronides, however, was not concerned. Initially, he had been worried by the first Schimmelhorn reaction to the Fräulein, but afterwards, like her, he had concluded that, since any such effrontery was unimaginable, it must have been Niobe—indubitably a pretty pussycat—who had stirred his gonads. He spoke reassuringly to Niki and Emmy. Papa Schimmelhorn, he told them, was after all an impressionable old gentleman; once the initial impression had subsided, everything would return to normal—and anyhow they shouldn’t let little Niobe, a mere serving wench, the distraction of a moment, disturb them.

  They were relieved. When Papa Schimmelhorn’s strange mood continued, when during supper he merely dallied with his food, staring vaguely into unknown distances and answering their efforts at communication with nothing more than vague murmurs, they finally gave it up, assured each other that given an hour or two he would once more be his old ardent self, and told him that they were going for a walk along the beach, perhaps to swim, perhaps to gather seashells.

  They left him to his reverie, but it was not a peaceful, contemplative one. For a time, he tried diligently to give his talented subconscious full rein, for he knew that even then it was doing its best to design the complicated device that, it had indicated, would infallibly turn lead into gold; specifically, it was trying to determine the precise shape and proportions of a structure to be made of nice, clean, wire coat-hangers, on which a horribly complex crystal was to be grown. With a green felt pen, Papa Schimmelhorn tried to trace its intricacies on a piece of brown wrapping paper. However, his inner voices kept interrupting him. One of these, small and cautionary, kept telling him that a Fräulein-Princess was definitely a no-no, and that he should be satisfied with the two lovely pussycats Fate had already blessed him with. The only trouble was that this voice sounded very much like Mama Schimmelhorn’s; it seemed to have a sarcastic bite to it, while the other voice, very definitely his own and speaking with a glandular insistence, kept telling him that all women, whatever their social station, were alike. It reminded him of a Belgian baroness with whom he had once enjoyed a hectic fortnight, and of an interesting dark lady whose claim it was that her ancestors had belonged to Dom Pedro’s Brazilian nobility. The cautionary voice would whisper he should be ashamed—ach, such a dirty old man!—while the other would tell him forthrightly that, as der poet Rudyard Tvain had written, Chudy O’Grady und der Herr Oberst’s lady vere all sisters vhen der undervear came off.

  Finally, after enduring a couple of hours of this moral wrestling, with a great sigh he let himself be persuaded that a walk along the shore, and perhaps a refreshing swim, might solve his problems. He stripped down to a gaudy pair of green, pink, and yellow polka-dotted shorts and his huaraches, donned a terry-cloth bathrobe, and set off, instinctively retracing the way that led to the Princess’s own apartments. It vould do no harm, he told himself, chust to valk by her door….

  As he approached it, he realized that his heart was beating somewhat faster, that his breathing was deeper, that the roots of his whiskers were tingling. He paused, the door before him.

  It was, though very slightly, open.

  Just so might an amorous lady have left her door open as an invitation to a lover. Just so, in fact, had any number of doors been left, at one time and another, for him.

  The cautionary voice mumbled its feeble argument. It didn’t have a chance. He pushed the door a little farther. He tapped on it very gently. No one answered. There was not a sound. He entered. The room was empty, but across its vast expanse another door stood open an inch or two, invitingly. He tiptoed massively across the splendid Persian carpet. He peeked in.

  The Princess was sitting in front of a carved and gilded Florentine dressing table. Her back was to him. She was brushing her glowing hair, now freed from its restraints. And she was, he saw, magnificently naked.

  He drew his breath in sharply. He knocked very lightly on the door.

  “Come in, Niobe,” called the Princess over her shoulder. “Come in, girl—don’t just stand there!”

  And. “Peek-a-boo! I see you!” bellowed Papa Schimmelhorn coyly.

  The Princess whirled to face him. Brushing her hair aside, she stood….

  Papa Schimmelhorn stared at her. For a moment, he just stood there goggling, gasping like a suddenly stranded fish. Never, never in all his long experience, had he beheld so lovely a display. His cautionary voice guttered feebly and winked out.

  “Ach, Serene Highness! Ach, meine predty lidtle Philli—ach, Herr Gott, how beaudtiful!” He threw his arms wide, as though to embrace the world. His robe fell open, revealing not just his brawny chest and vivid polka-dotted shorts, but also the astonishing degree of his impressionability. “Wünderschon! Listen, lidtle Serene Highness, oudtside iss shpring, und all die predty shtars, und ve can chase each oder down der beach, und—ho-ho-ho!—maybe sometimes catch, und also shvim togeder vith die porpoises, und—”

  He saw that, very slowly, she was advancing on him. For the first time, he raised his eyes from her more startling attractions to her face. Indubitably, it was not the face of one who shared the pretty idyll he had been describing. Her black brows were drawn down to form an absolutely terrifying Medea-mask; she was as pale as death itself; her incongruously red mouth was working, uttering words in a language he could not identify; hoarse wo
rds, harsh words, words like high-pitched rip-saws, they obviously were not endearments.

  He shuffled his feet uneasily. Uncomfortably, he rewrapped his unfortunate robe.

  She kept advancing. Agitatedly, he retreated, one pace, then two. “B-but, Serene Highness,” he mumbled. “I haff made maybe a mistake, ja? It vas chust you are so—”

  Now her strange words inundated him, drowning out his own. She halted. She pointed a dreadful finger at the door. And Papa Schimmelhorn Finally looked into her eyes. As Herr Doktor Rumpler had done in Zürich, but much, much, much more profoundly, he shuddered.

  Muttering that he was sorry, that he begged her pardon, he backed toward the door. “Okay,” he said, “I know vhen I am nodt vanted! I go avay. It vas chust I am so full vith vinegar—ha-ha! Now I go to vork hard und maybe make der lead into der gold.”

  Somewhere in the background, the yodeling cuckoo clock cheerfully sang the hour.

  An instant later, he was in the corridor, the door shut tight behind him. Still shaken, he began to stagger off—but Papa Schimmelhorn was nothing if not resilient. By the time he reached the next turn in the passage, he was beginning to feel sorry for the Fräulein, who simply didn’t know what she was missing. So sad! he thought. Maybe iss something like vith Herr Doktor Freud, in der subconscience. Vhen she iss lidtle somvun shcares her, maybe vith a shnake. The thought cheered him. So perhaps tomorrow she vill nodt be angry. But it iss a shame—such a vaste, und such a predty pussycat efen if she iss die Prinzessin. He shrugged. Ach, vell, is plendty fishes in der sea.