The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Mavronides, of course, immediately got on the phone to the Fräulein, gave her a rundown on the alchemist’s report, agreed with her that without doubt it was biased, and was informed that she would arrive back on her island on the following day.

  At suppertime, he himself conveyed the news to Papa Schimmelhorn, advising him to appear as abject as he could and to wear his best bib and tucker on the morrow, and rather gloomily wished him well.

  “Pray to the Gods that your machine will really work,” he said, “for then your chances of—well, of escaping without punishment may be much better. I also shall pray for you.”

  “Punishment? How? Efen if she iss die Prinzessin, shtill she iss a Shviss banker, und cifilized.”

  Mavronides laughed a hollow laugh. “In Switzerland, she is a banker, true. But I have told you—here on Little Palaeon, because she is the Princess and the Priestess, she has powers of life and death. Not even the authorities in Crete dare to interfere.”

  Later, at the first opportunity, Papa Schimmelhorn talked it over with Humphrey, who informed him that, though he had overheard few details of the island’s secrets, what he had heard indicated that they were ancient, dark, cruel, and often bloody. He advised his friend to walk very carefully, to take no unnecessary risks, especially where good manners were concerned, and to be sure to use the love potion exactly as he had been instructed to. Papa Schimmelhorn, though he did not pray to the Gods as Mavronides had suggested, did thank his subconscious and his lucky stars that he had had the forethought to fortify the potion.

  The Fraülein-Princess-Priestess Philippa Theophrastra Paleologus Bombast von Hohenheim reached her domain shortly after noon the following day, and was escorted to her apartments by Sarpedon Mavronides, a groveling Meister Gansfleisch, and a retinue of servants. Assisted by her handmaidens, she arrayed herself in court costume for her formal greeting to her subjects in the Throne Room, to which neither Papa Schimmelhorn nor his two pussycats were invited. When the ceremony was over, she stood up regally, her tresses shining under the great jewels of her tiara, her figure splendid under its pearls and cobalt blue.

  “Have the man Schimmelhorn taken to the laboratory!” she commanded coldly. “We shall see what he has or has not accomplished.”

  She ignored Meister Gansfleisch’s protest that the presence of the machine’s inventor would be quite unnecessary, that he himself could operate it just as well if Schimmelhorn were forced to deliver up the key; and two footmen were dispatched to fetch the genius from his turret.

  The Fräulein did not hasten. She gave them ample time to complete the errand, and even more time for him to worry about the encounter. Finally, attended only by Mavronides and the alchemist, who was bowing and scraping at her side, she made her way to the laboratory. At the door, she stood aside so that the alchemist could open it. She dismissed the footmen. She entered.

  Papa Schimmelhorn stood next to his machine. Seeing her, he dropped down on one knee, hung his head, and mumbled, “Serene Highness, Serene Highness!” sorrowfully.

  “Tell the man to rise,” she ordered.

  “Stand up, Herr Schimmelhorn,” commanded Mavronides.

  Papa Schimmelhorn came to his feet, and Meister Gansfleisch bustled up from behind him, pushing him aside, and fishing in the pocket of his robe. “See, Your Highness! See what I have for you!” Eagerly, he held out a small, big-bosomed, big-bottomed, snake-entangled lead statuette. “It is ancient, Your Highness. It is your own Serpent Goddess! I have chosen it especially. It is symbolical!”

  She brushed him off. “I suppose it will do as well as anything,” she said, and indicated Papa Schimmelhorn. “Give it to him!”

  Angrily, running his dry tongue around his twisting lips, Meister Gansfleisch did as he was ordered.

  Papa Schimmelhorn received the tiny figure. He placed it squarely in the center of the ceramic plate.

  She gestured to Mavronides. “Have the machine turned on,” she said.

  Papa Schimmelhorn pushed the big red button. The motors screamed; the gears screeched against each other; flashes and glowing balls of lightning rent the air; the blue ray darkened, turned a savage purple, and, moaning hideously, drowned the statuette in its dark light.

  Mavronides took a quick step backward, making a protective sign. Meister Gansfleisch squirmed aside. Only Papa Schimmelhorn and the Princess held their ground.

  For five full minutes, during which he stood with his eyes fixed on his cuckoo watch, the sound and fury maintained their crescendo. No one could hear the small voice of the cuckoo when the time came. He pushed the off button. Gradually, the purple ray thinned and paled; the din subsided; the electrical discharges died away.

  The statuette was still there on the plate. It had not moved. But it was no longer dull and leaden. It gleamed. There was no doubt, no doubt at all, that it was now of purest gold.

  Papa Schimmelhorn picked it up. Holding it cupped reverently in his two hands, a votive offering, he turned toward the Princess, scarcely a foot away. With an effort—for her astounding cleavage drew them like a magnet—he raised his eyes to hers.

  “Serene Highness,” he whispered, “der gold iss yours!” And simultaneously, his sly right thumb crushed the tiny ampule. For a moment, he held his breath….

  Suddenly, the pupils of her great eyes widened; suddenly, her entire expression underwent a sea-change; suddenly, it no longer resembled any expression he had seen before.

  But she was not staring at the statuette. Her gaze was fixed on Papa Schimmelhorn himself.

  She accepted the golden object without even looking at it; and when she spoke her voice was slow, and very gentle, and wonderfully melodious. “You have done well,” she murmured. “You have done very well….”

  “Yes, yes, indeed we have!” chattered Meister Gansfleisch. “You can’t imagine how hard I’ve worked. You—”

  She did not even look at him. “Sarpedon,” she said, “tell this—this creature to go away. He can come back and make his usual stinks and messes some other time.” She waited while Mavronides, none too gently, hustled him to the door.

  “And now,” she added, “I shall repair to my own apartments. I have much to—to think about. In one hour, send Herr Schimmelhorn up to me.”

  * * * *

  What had happened to Fräulein von Hohenheim had been so abrupt, so overwhelmingly complete, that she could hardly remember or believe the state of mind that had preceded it. There before her stood Papa Schimmelhorn, whom suddenly she knew she had never really seen before; and gazing at him thus for the first time, she realized that previously she had never even known herself. How could she have believed throughout her adult life that she passionately hated men when, in actuality, she now knew, she had hated only the contemptible inadequacy of all those whom she had encountered. She, Swiss banker, Princess-Priestess, sacred guardian of even more sacred mysteries, temporal ruler of this ancient isle, spiritual shepherd of its populace! A woman of such powers and attainments—and almost terrifyingly beautiful, besides—needed no ordinary man. What her soul secretly demanded, what it had always secretly yearned for, was a hero—a hero in the classic mold. And there he stood before her, bearded like Zeus, tall as a Titan, thewed like Hercules, as old as Priam but still with all the vigor of his youth, all the noble simplicity of his Homeric passions!

  Gods! she thought. What have I done? What have I done to him? Turning to Mavronides, she gave him her instructions, and doing her best to hide her inner turmoil swept out of the laboratory and hastened to her chambers, where swiftly she called Niobe to her, divested herself of her Borgian panoply, donned a chaste peignoir of gold lamé, let free her glorious hair. Parting its canopies, she knelt beside her great four-poster bed and kissed its pillows, its coverlets.

  She ran into the salon again, found Niobe staring at her open-mouthed. “Don’t just gape,
child!” she exclaimed. “Fetch me a fine white wine, the very finest, properly chilled! Fetch two stemmed glasses—the best crystal—to drink it from. Then get Ismail for me. I shall prepare the menu for a banquet—ah, how we’ll feast tonight!—and Ismail shall serve it to us here; he knows the proper etiquette. Be sure the table’s set for two. Oh, but of course—I haven’t told you! Today, Niobe, my eyes were opened. The Gods have spoken. For the first time, today, I recognized Herr Schimmelhorn for what he is. He’s an Olympian! Such men have not existed since heroic times. Now hurry, hurry, hurry!”

  She busied herself excitedly, setting a small table next to the chaise longue: two crystal goblets, two small damask napkins, and finally—with trembling hands—a little vial containing the antidote prepared by Meister Gansfleisch. Ismail came, all bows and smiles, having heard from Niobe about her transformation, and he received her banquet menu for transmission to the chef.

  When all was ready, she tried to settle down and wait with all the dignity befitting a Princess. She could not. She paced around the room, into the bedroom to the mirror; she smoothed the bedclothes with a smile.

  Finally, precisely on the hour, she heard Mavronides’s discreet knock on her door.

  As Niobe opened it, Mavronides whispered, “Soon you will know your fate!” in Papa Schimmelhorn’s ear. “I do not think the Princess is now very angry, but still you must remember to be truly abject, truly penitent.”

  “The Princess wishes you to come to her alone, Herr Schimmelhorn,” Niobe said; and she accompanied Mavronides as, bowing, he turned away, waiting only long enough to give Papa Schimmelhorn a gentle shove and close the door behind him.

  Papa Schimmelhorn advanced hesitantly into the room, eyes down, a properly penitent expression on his face. So preoccupied was he with being appropriately abject that he did not even see the Fräulein’s features. Slowly, he advanced toward her. At her feet, rather clumsily, he knelt. “Küss die hand, er, Serene Highness,” he began. “Ach, I vant to make der apology—dot iss—”

  He broke off. Standing there, she had extended her two hands to him.

  “It is not you who should apologize, mein Herr!” she murmured passionately. “It is I! To think what I have done to you! But come, take my hands! Stand here a moment with me. I shall make amends….”

  He took her hands, a little apprehensively.

  “It was just that I did not recognize you for what you truly are. All my life I, the Priestess of the Minotaur, have waited for a hero—an Achilles, an Odysseus, a Theseus! You came—and I did not know you. I have done you a grave injustice. It was unforgivable. But fortunately—ah, how fortunately!—it is reversible. We shall drink wine together, and in minutes you shall be restored!”

  Papa Schimmelhorn came to his feet. He looked down into her eyes. They were no longer icy wells that could swallow sacrificial virgins; instead they were deep, warm glowing pools in which a lover happily could drown himself.

  She seated him. With her own hands she poured the wine, and—as she added the antidote to his—she kissed him on the lips. She sat down next to him, and raised her glass.

  “My Prince!” she whispered. “My love! I have waited much too long for you.”

  They drank, and looked into each other’s eyes, and drank again; and Papa Schimmelhorn, having experienced one astonishment after another, and only now realizing just how effective Humphrey’s love potion had really been, found himself almost tongue-tied. He felt familiar electric currents surging through him. He stared admiringly at the Princess. “Ach Gott!” he cried. “How beaudtiful!” Then, “Down der hatch!” he shouted, and drained his glass.

  She laughed a girlish laugh at his simplicity. She took him by the hand. She led him to the bedroom; seated him on the edge of the great bed.

  Very slowly, she turned around before him. She came toward him.

  “And now, my Prince,” she ordered. “Undress me!”

  Just as he always had, Papa Schimmelhorn rose to the occasion.

  * * * *

  It is not surprising, considering the dreadful shock of his sudden deprivation, the stark misery of having to endure it, and the overwhelming rapture of an instant and complete recovery, that the afternoon passed joyously and tumultuously for Papa Schimmelhorn. Nor, considering that in all her life she had never before plumbed the wellsprings of her own passion nor found an object worthy of it, is it at all astonishing that the Fräulein reveled quite as enthusiastically in him and in her newfound self.

  In his time, he had made love to any number of pretty pussycats, of all sizes and complexions, temperaments and aptitudes, some simpering and bashful and inexperienced, others bold as brass and as experienced as motel mattresses. Philippa Theophrastra Paleologus Bombast von Hohenheim was something else again, and had he been in any condition to think clearly he might, even then, have realized that he was in bed, symbolically, not with a pretty pussycat at all, but with a very much larger and thoroughly untamed member of the same general species. The Princess was, to put it mildly, a tigress—a lovely tigress, a sweet tigress, an ardently loving tigress, but a tigress nonetheless—and one who had been given a mighty overdose of what was beyond doubt the most effective love potion in all history. However, in his innocence, Papa Schimmelhorn simply assumed that she was a superpussycat, congratulated himself on his good fortune, and made the very best of his opportunity.

  Their conversation, throughout the afternoon, was fragmentary—brief expressions of mutual desire, mutual surrender, mutual conquest, unimportant grace notes to the unvoiced but stormier music they were making.

  Finally, as the afternoon waned and suppertime approached, at her suggestion they bathed luxuriously together, and she, radiant now, reassumed her gold peignoir and brought him a splendid brocade dressing gown, made a century and a half before for a world-renowned ancestor, which she declared only enhanced his royal bearing and heroic stature. Niobe, summoned, brought them another bottle of cool white wine, and over it they conversed lightly, the conversation of new and eager lovers, in which words seem almost meaningless and sentiment governs absolutely.

  Papa Schimmelhorn, thoroughly bedazzled, paid little heed to what she said. She spoke of secrets underneath the earth, secrets she would eventually reveal to him. She told of ancient mysteries and ceremonies in which no one shared but her loyal subjects on Little Palaeon, of snake goddesses and priestesses, of youths and maidens bull-dancing laughingly, dangerously, of how little the foolish archeologists who had excavated Knossos on the main island really knew about the history and the myths of Crete. But also she sang love songs to him, pausing occasionally to offer him her wine glass and to kiss him caressingly.

  Suddenly she sighed. “My love, my love!” she cried. “I have been enraptured, ensorcelled! But I must not forget—you yourself must not allow me to forget—that I have duties! Before we banquet, I must see Sarpedon and give him his instructions for the household. He is the most faithful of my servants, and would be injured were I to fail him. Besides”—she kissed him once again—“I must tell him about us, so that he too can rejoice and begin planning proper celebrations. So dress yourself, my adored, for you have duties too.”

  “Ja,” replied Papa Schimmelhorn regretfully. “I must go back und feed mein Gustav-Adolf. He iss a brafe cat. No oder cat could haff killed dot Tvitchgibbet.”

  For a second, doubt assailed him—should he have mentioned it? But she only laughed delightedly. “Killed Twitchgibbet?” she exclaimed. “No wonder Gaspar Gansfleisch looked so sour today when you made gold for me. Go! Feed your cat quickly, then hurry back and tell me all about it, how we’re rid of that disgusting rat at last!”

  “I vill hurry, Serene Highness—”

  Immediately, she shushed him, touching a finger to his lips. “How can you call me that? I told you—you are my Prince. To you I must always be Philippa, or your love, your darli
ng—oh, call me what you will, as long as I am yours!”

  “Okay, shveetheart,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, pulling on his pants. “I vill hurry und feed Gustav-Adolf, und maybe chanche der catbox, und tell my pussycats tonight I don’dt come back.”

  For just an instant, her eyes narrowed. Then she laughed, the sort of laugh Hera might have uttered on hearing of Zeus’s extra-Olympian escapades; and she made a mental note to add one more instruction to those she was preparing for Sarpedon Mavronides.

  Once more they kissed, and he hurried back to his apartment, finding to his relief that Niki and Emmy were away. Only Gustav-Adolf greeted him, and with no enthusiasm. “Where ya been, chum?” he growled in Cat. “No, ya don’t hafta tell me.” He sniffed. “As if I didn’t know! And me up here alone without even a pretty little tortoiseshell to play with. Huh! If that’s all the thanks I get, you can bite yer own goddam rats from now on!”

  Papa Schimmelhorn did his best to soothe him, told him again what a splendidly heroic cat he was, and explained that the Princess herself would eventually come and pet him and tell him so. Then he fed him an enormous helping of raw liver, freshened his catbox, and brought Humphrey out of the compartment.

  The homunculus was all agog to hear about the working of the potion. He leaned forward eagerly in his small chair as his huge friend gave him an only slightly expurgated, almost blow-by-blow account of what had happened, clapping his little hands at the news of the making of the gold and Meister Gansfleisch’s discomfiture, and literally jumping up and down when Papa Schimmelhorn described how he had snapped the ampule under the Princess’s nose. However, as the narrative progressed from laboratory to salon, and from salon to bedroom and to bed, he began exhibiting signs of distinct disquiet. Finally, when the raconteur reached a momentary lull between bouts of love-making, he interjected a worried query.