Along the hall, Prospero’s door was open, his rooms lit. He stepped out as I fumbled with my keys.
“H’lo. G’night.”
“Hullo, Gwydion.”
“I’m not drunk,” I said, dropping my keys. “Just tired.”
He nodded, skeptical. “Good.”
I got the door open and he followed me in and closed it.
“What is Ottaviano doing here?”
“Partying,” I replied wearily.
“I have eyes to see that. You spoke with him; wherefore hath he left Ollol? I knew nothing of’t; was it done with your knowledge?”
I sat, yawning, and looked up at him. I shrugged. “Walter invited him. You know how he is. So he’s here, partying. What’s wrong with that?”
“The timing disturbs me,” Prospero said.
“Timing?” I repeated. “New Year’s?” I pulled off my shoes awkwardly.
“The day after Ulrike springs into our midst.”
“Oh,” I said, and tried to think about it. “He was here anyway. In Ollol.”
“Your mother would not have suffered him within the City walls,” Prospero reminded me. “He was poison in her sight. Nor am I overly fond of him myself.”
“I don’t trust him either. But he’s just here for New Year’s. For the parties. He’s not coming near the Citadel or the Spring. He’s over at Walter’s. Walter will keep an eye on him. He knows. I can’t worry about this now, Prospero; I’m too tired.” I slumped back in the chair and yawned again. “Can it wait until morning?”
“As you wish,” he said, frowning, and left.
11
IT WAS LATE MORNING WHEN I woke. I lay face-down among my pillows, thinking somewhat morose thoughts—Evianne had left by the time I’d gotten down to the dance. I supposed she had come with her brother and sister, who lived in Argylle City; Evianne lived on the coast south of Ollol, and we had been circling one another whenever possible with mutual consciousness of attraction since summer. Long, curly red hair; long, changeable blue eyes; long, graceful arms … It was aggravating that I hadn’t been able to find her yesterday. I’d never had time to move the relationship from public to private places. I gave a few hard, uncharitable thoughts to Ulrike and then sighed and climbed out of my bed and started the bath filling.
After bathing, combing and brushing, and dressing, I hunted through my wardrobes and chests and found the black cloak, domino mask, and broad-brimmed hat I would wear that night. I used to be very fond of the fancy-dress parties of the second day of New Year’s celebrations, the Day of Illusions, and then after Mother’s death I had no heart for it, and now it was just too much trouble. So I had settled on this simple and concealingly anonymous garb.
I went down to the deserted kitchens and prepared breakfast for myself. Then I went for a long walk along the Wye, up toward Threshwood, to finish clearing the cobwebs from my brain. When I got back, I spent an hour or so in my office on the scant business that had come up during the past couple of days. In a fit of exceptional virtuousness, I even started flipping through the collection of papers I had had Anselm put together before New Year’s, to begin writing the annual report which, following Mother’s lead, I put together each year for my own reference. The Archive staff did another version for the Council and for public consumption which was a useful compendium of facts like wine production by region and house and variety, trade figures, harvest figures, and prices and so on; the reports Mother and now I assembled had less regular information in them, notes on trends to watch, editorial comments. Some years I found them a tedious duty and sometimes a snap.
I had not searched through the old ones and collated a report on the history of intrusions of unnatural beasts into Argylle. Even while I’d been recovering from Gemnamnon’s battering, I’d had no time. I thought about that with a corner of my mind as I worked and decided to pass it off to the Archive staff when they had finished the annual report for the Council. It would be unfair to divert them from that now. Even though the visitations had stopped abruptly—as had the disturbances associated with Tython’s infiltration of our Spring, following his removal—still it would be a useful thing to know, and there might even be a cycle in it or something of that sort. Most things had one somewhere.
As I noted down an outline of what I meant to write about Gemnamnon, there came a tap at my office door. I invoked the spell I had put on it to open it, and it swung quietly back to show a slightly wan Ulrike.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good afternoon,” I replied, arching an eyebrow.
She blushed.
“How are you?” I asked, setting aside my pen.
“I, I’m fine, thank you …”
“If you are hungry,” I said, “you can just go down to the kitchen and help yourself to whatever there is …”
Hesitantly, she nodded.
“Or,” I sighed inwardly, “actually, I was beginning to feel a tad peckish myself … I’ll go down with you.”
Ulrike nodded again, relieved.
In the kitchen, I had a cheese-and-chutney sandwich and a glass of cider. Ulrike, with considerable effort, prepared scrambled eggs and bread-and-butter, warmed cold stewed fruit, and made a pot of tea. I watched her cooking with inward amusement. She was not very capable at it. However, Mother had always insisted that I be self-sufficient, and I did not intend to ease that standard for Ulrike, inept though she be. The girl ought to at least be able to cook a couple of eggs for herself.
She did manage to do that, and ate them while I had another sandwich and more cider. By the time we were done, the short winter afternoon was nearly gone; the light that came in through the high, narrow windows was blood-orange in color.
“We should be going along to the Vintners’ Hall,” I said.
“I, I don’t have a costume,” Ulrike said diffidently. “Perhaps I shouldn’t …”
“Nonsense, Walter will have an extra for you,” I urged her. “It is the Day of Illusions. Get your cloak and we’ll go.” I was beginning to lose patience with her hesitancy and lack of spirit.
I went up with her, donned a heavily gold-embroidered black velvet doublet, put on mask and cloak and hat, and went out. Ulrike had fetched her own cloak and was waiting in the hall; she jumped and gasped when I stepped out beside her, closing my door quietly behind me.
“What’s wrong?”
“You … you startled me …”
I took her elbow and led her along, flashing a grin at myself in a mirror as we passed. “Indeed. You’re in good company. Sometimes I startle myself,” I told her.
Walter was still home. He said that he would fit Ulrike with a costume and take her over to the Guild; I was thereby freed to follow my fancy. My brother mentioned that Prospero had dropped by, earlier in the day, and that reminded me that I had intended to talk to him about Ottaviano that morning—it had fled my thoughts until now. Too late—Prospero was gone. Walter also said that Ottaviano was still about, dressed as the King in Green (a figure of ancient myth), but I didn’t see him as I left the house in the rapidly-deepening winter darkness.
The streetlamps were lit. I paused a moment just outside the door and surveyed the street. People in coaches, carriages, and on foot, all guised as what they were not, what they thought they were, or what they would like to be … I turned left, following a whim, and wandered through the city, watching the revelers and joining the revelry from time to time. There were parties, dancing, open buffets at many of the merchants’ and vintners’ great houses; I slipped in and out, dancing awhile in one many-windowed crystal-hung ballroom with a tall, swaying lady dressed as a flame, all in rustling ribbons of silks colored in every shade from crimson to gold, and refused her whispered invitation to dance further, more privately, when the dance ended; I danced other dances, in other places, with other partners; I drank good wine and laughed and flirted and smiled and jested and wandered out into the streets again to see what more I could find to amuse me.
I passed t
he Vintners’ Hall, but not yet, not yet; now I took the road to the Great Bridge and crossed it to the other side of the cold Wye, which reflected the colored-meteor fireworks shot over it from boats and moved slowly toward Ollol and the sea. There on the other bank was wilder, rougher partying; there were bonfires and mulled spiced wine and food and dancing and drinking and crowds of gaily-dressed celebrants. I drank when I was thirsty and danced when I met someone who attracted me and ate when I smelled something good; and I punched a half-drunken man who became too possessive of his dancing-partner, a dark sloe-eyed beauty dressed as a black cat who had rubbed up against me as we turned and turned again in the sensual, slow mahall dance, and I laughed at the cat and left there, desire quenched in the adrenaline of the fight. With a surreptitious word and a gesture I caused a great bonfire to burn blue and green and violet, agitating the crowd around it who speculated feverishly about what that could portend, and I met a bent old woman in red as I left that place, smiling to myself, who looked at me with seeing eyes and told me I had a gryphon behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing and laughed at her.
I recrossed the silent Wye, back to the City proper, where I danced again in houses and ballrooms, and I passed an hour in heated dalliance in someone’s headily-perfumed darkened bedroom with a nameless, husky-voiced lady in a green-feathered mask and a wreath of red flowers who moved like a reed before the wind and who parted from me afterward with deep kisses and a whispered farewell. Then I drifted gradually toward the Vintners’ Hall and made my way around the back, past numerous amorously-engaged couples in the garden that surrounded the Hall, and threaded my way into the ballroom through knots of conversation.
A pleasant afterglow of satiety lay on me. I took a glass from a servitor’s tray and stood on the first balcony, looking up at the gaming and dining on the second and down at the dancing on the floor below. A slender lady in midnight-blue spangled with stars caught my attention, staring down at me from the upper balcony to my right; she wore a silver mask adorned with the crescent Moon, and I caught her eye for a second before she turned away.
I returned my gaze to the dancers below, who were winding about in three concentric circles, but as I dropped my eyes I saw another lady looking at me, across the floor from the other side of the first balcony. She wore feathers of bronze and red-gold and a golden-plumed bird-beaked half-mask, and I noted that she looked at me often, and I looked at her from time to time also as we both stood there watching the dance below. She smiled once, and so did I, and I began to feel a certain pleasant anticipation. Our eyes met repeatedly—oftener than chance would have it.
She glanced toward the exit after catching my gaze in hers yet again and smiled once more.
I smiled also and set my wineglass down. The crowd was thick. When I glanced over again, she was gone; but, feeling certain I’d read her aright, I made my way to the stairs and down.
I saw her passing through the outer doors just ahead of me. She glanced back as she descended the steps, smiled invitingly again, and turned right along the street. I caught up with her just between two streetlamps. She paused and turned and looked at me as I drew near.
Her costume was feathered. They were soft, downy feathers that stirred with each movement of her body, her breathing and pulse included, with longer, stiffer plumes adorning the mask and headdress. Her full lips were glossed with gold and her fair skin dusted with gold powder. Her graceful pale bare arms glistened golden within the long, slit-open feathered sleeves, and the lyre-shape of her body was not hidden by the rest of her garb, which was low-cut and close-fitting but gave nothing away. I could not guess what her hair color or eye color might be; she was a Gryphon tonight, brazen-plumed, touched with red and gold, Argylle’s emblematic beast incarnate.
Neither of us spoke. She made no move toward me, either; we regarded one another for just a few heartbeats, and she lifted her head slightly, showing a lovely throat, her lips slightly parting. Invitation and desire, conveyed in an instant. Her chest rose and fell a bit rapidly, and my own breathing began to speed up. I lowered my head in acquiescence and smiled slowly, keeping my eyes on hers.
She smiled also and turned and started away with a beckoning gesture. Intrigued, sparked with ardor and the promise of pleasure, I followed her.
We went along the street and through several small residential squares and alleys. Few others were out travelling by foot now, and they were all on the main roads; we saw no one else as we passed through Gouronnay Square and went down another alley. It was cold and still. At the corner of Gouronnay and the alley snow lay on top of a gryphon’s-head wall fountain and in its basins below. The stars were clear above the housetops and streetlights.
My guide said nothing but went quickly, lightfoot dancing steps, without a sound. I hurried to keep pace with her; she glanced back from time to time and smiled at me, staying just out of reach, and I desired her all the more, tantalized by her smile, her graceful movements, and the sensuality conveyed thereby. I would have made love with her on a snowbank had she wished.
We emerged from a narrow side street into East River Lane, and she turned left and went rapidly along it toward the Boulevard that leads to the Citadel’s Iron Bridge. I surmised that she was leading me to the Citadel, and shrugged inwardly—she must have recognized me. I did not care; I wanted her. She hastened to the corner and turned right, toward the Citadel, and I, smiling beneath my domino, liking the game and planning the ending in my mind, strode quickly to catch up to her and turned also.
The street was empty.
She was gone. I stopped, confounded, and stared up and down like a fool. Then I looked in the doorway of a shop on the corner, in the doorways of other shops up the street, and at the doors and windows of the townhouses. The golden Gryphon-lady was nowhere to be seen. I saw no lights, no movements. Not a sound broke the cold winter silence.
Was she standing somewhere out of sight, laughing up her sleeve at me, having beguiled me so? My disappointment was too crushing to allow for anger. I stepped back, out of the light’s reach, and looked again for her, scanning the pavement. No sign …
A movement to the left caught my eye. Not wanting to be seen as I tried to collect my thoughts, I withdrew another step back into East River Lane. Two people on foot, coming toward me, toward the Citadel. I looked away, then looked again. They passed in and out of pools of illumination below the streetlamps. The one was costumed in green; the other, in dark colors and silver and a crescent Moon which flashed on her head.
I recalled, with a chill rush, that Ottaviano was dressed, according to Walter, as the King in Green. That must be Ulrike with him, masked as the Moon—yes. It was her I’d seen at the Vintners’ Hall. Now she went toward the Citadel with him, arm in arm with Ottaviano whom our family does not trust and has held ever at arm’s length. I frowned and waited until they were nearly abreast of me in the nearest streetlamp’s light. Then I stepped out.
Ottaviano jumped half a foot, reaching for a sword or dagger that he wasn’t wearing, and then uncertainly said, “Prospero …?”
Ulrike, gasping with shock, exclaimed “Gwydion!” in the same moment. Behind the mask, her eyes were wide.
“Well-met indeed. I was just on my way home,” I said, smiling and bowing slightly to her. “I trust you had a pleasant evening.”
“I … Y-yes,” she said, “thank you.”
“It is most kind of you to accompany my sister thus far afoot, on a night when the hansoms are on holiday, but I shall spare you the rest of the journey,” I said to Ottaviano.
Our eyes met, masks hiding our expressions. I moved forward and he turned to Ulrike.
“Good night, m’lady cousin, and thank you for your companionship this evening.”
She took her left hand from his arm and, with half a movement, uncertainly offered him her right; he took it quickly and bowed over it, kissing it lightly I thought before releasing it.
Ulrike in a near-whisper said, “Good night, Otto.”
> I drew her hand through my arm and we went along the Boulevard and over the Iron Bridge. Regretfully I left my teasing Gryphon-lady to her own devices and took my foolish little sister home. Ulrike glanced back once to wave a small wave to Ottaviano, who stood beneath the light watching us go.
The third day of New Year’s celebration and the first day of the year is more sober and less riotous than the last day of the Old Year and the Day of Illusions. It is the Day of Intentions, for giving practical gifts, whereas the two previous days are filled with playful presents and practical jokes. It is also a day for family gatherings. Our family assembles in the Citadel for a formal banquet with certain of our household’s intimates and a few others, any guests who might be about, and the occasional (rare) diplomatic visitor. Thus, this year our table should include Ottaviano.
With the sight of Ottaviano with Ulrike fresh in my eyes, I wrote a note to myself to speak to Prospero first thing in the morning and left it in the washbasin before I slept. Thus the first thing I did after rising and dressing was to knock on his door. There was no answer, so I went down to breakfast wishing I’d remembered to talk to him the previous day and hoping he was home. The first day of the New Year is also sometimes occupied in figuring out how you got where you are and getting back to wherever you ought to be.
Ulrike was not there, but the breakfast room bore signs of having been visited already. When I was nearly through, the door opened and Prospero came in.
“Good morning. I’m sorry about yesterday, I forgot when I woke up—” I began.
He shrugged, poured himself coffee, and sat down with a glance at the door. “If it worries you not,” he said, “then you’re not worried.”
“I am concerned. I find that we … are in a slightly awkward position. We cannot exclude Ottaviano today. It would be—”
“Smart,” Prospero concluded, setting down his cup with a brittle clink. “You’re too damned punctilious, Gwydion. What measures shall you take ’gainst his intrusion?”
“Put extra guards in the Core and at the Black Stair.”
The Well-Favored Man Page 21
