The Malacia Tapestry

by Brian W Aldiss

  I did not stay to watch the warm blood fly. I quaffed wine and threw myself into the midst of the whirling figures. I caught hold of a young woman whose conversation I could not understand. We talked madly to each other, gesturing, laughing, grimacing, once kissing. Was it a foreign tongue she spoke? I never knew, nor whether she understood what I said. Movement was all-important, movement and gaiety. As I reeled from her arms, there was Armida, flushed, rushing by with another young woman.

  Grasping her unceremoniously, I whirled her into a dance, and so out of the nearest door on to a verandah. A chill night wind blew. I clutched her to me, pouring out professions of endearment, many of which I had just recently exercised — but vocabularies have a limited exchequer, after all.

  'You darling feathered creature, plunging by me in the torrents of night — you are the moon in this terrible place, the sun — everything's so terrible — I believed you weren't here, that you had gone, even that you had submitted to one of those full-bellied —'

  'Hush, hush, you're mad!'

  I flailed my arms. 'Madness and terror are beautiful. Ask the Natural Religion. What else do you expect in this terrible place?'

  'No, no, Perry, nothing here is terrible. Calm down, will you please? It'll all so delightful, such fun, and the people are so grand, and important —'

  'They matter not a fig, they're beasts in a jungle of the mind, whereas you and I — oh, the music of madness, don't you hear the true sound under it all —'

  'And tomorrow — listen to me, will you? — tomorrow there will be chariot races and the parade of mounts and all kinds of entertainment, and then in the late afternoon — stop! — in the late afternoon —'

  'How I hate that word "afternoon"! Trade only with blazing noon or midnight, my love, my honey-lipped! Afternoons are for children. Look at the great monster hulk of this place above us, lumbering towards midnight, and out there nothing, nothing, but blackness, unknown universes, and what can we fight such things with? Only our own weapons: my poor imagination, your white thighs —'

  Under my hands her body was glorious in the reeling darkness.

  'Leave my thighs out of this, sir. In late afternoon begins the main ancestral hunt, when we pit ourselves against the most terrible of Satan's creatures. It's sure to be thrilling and someone's bound to get killed… What's the matter with you? Stop that. You're drunk so early. You're taking advantage.'

  'What's the sight of you but drunkenness? What's life but intoxication? What's sobriety but the misery my father puts himself in? I know which I prefer. You darling, you darling, perhaps I'm a little drunk on you, but not yet enough —'

  'My father's wine has played a greater part, that I'm certain. All our wine is grown here in our own vineyards. We have some of the best slopes for hundreds of kilometres.'

  'And your slopes, your ravines, your dells— You look so splendid tonight!' Indeed she did. She had on a fine crimson silk gown with a small matching turban for her head, from under which her dark electric locks escaped. Over the gown was a cape made of the long feathered spines of tree reptopines, while the gown itself extended to the floor and there burst into ruffles, like a ship decked in bunting.

  'Armida, you are the most lovely girl. I adore you as owls adore the night, and long to have our betrothal made public. I will always be true to you and you only. I don't even understand the language other women speak.'

  She laughed. 'You're certainly ambitious. No harm in that. But our betrothal's just our secret fun, don't forget. Do you know, this year we have brought an extra fifty hectares under cultivation — mainly grapes, — at Juracia, at no expense to the hunt territory. Isn't that good husbandry?'

  'Marvellous, I'm sure. Someone must have worked hard.' 'Oh, father worked himself so hard —'

  'But the land means nothing to me. It's you, you yourself — Armida, feel what I feel —'

  'You're drunk, you don't listen. Sometimes you don't seem to understand what's really important. It's father's ambition to be the largest wine-grower in the region. Although the peasants are lazy, the soil is fertile, and —'

  'We're all fertile.' I was clutching her tightly. 'How things do sprout from the heart! How circumstances sail upwards like balloons, into the sky of light, of hope — of achievement! With you to inspire me, Armida, I could do all things. I'd grow grapes — no, I don't want to grow grapes — I'd become a captain in the cavalry — no, I don't care to be in a regiment — I'd buy a ship and trade with the East in fantastic objects — no, who needs to go to sea? — I'd do anything, almost anything, for you. I don't have to remain a player. There are great things in me which the night brings out. Yesterday I was down. Today I'm up. Perhaps I could rise to serve on the Council and help Malacia — those who serve there don't have our interests at heart.'

  'You're so sweet, Perian, but you have to be well-born, or exceedingly clever, like my father, to get anywhere near the Council. You have a cheerful heart, but' —

  I wagged a cautionary finger at her. 'You think I'm frivolous. Didn't I embark on that little flying adventure your father and you planned for me — and come out of it well? Haven't I sworn to be true? I'm serious beneath my light-hearted air. Of course I can go about looking sober if you require it.'

  She burst with pretty laughter, covering her mouth with her finger-tips as I gave my impression of sobriety.

  'You have too handsome a face for that, sirrah! My father says that —'

  'Then kiss it, if you find it handsome. Let me in return kiss you all over, not only on this beautiful nose — mahh! — or this lovely cheek — mahh! — but on these luscious shoulders — mahh! — and this heavenly bosom — mahh! — but creeping like an Arab into this crimson tent of yours to find what secret treasures you have concealed…

  We fell delectably upon each other. Cold though it was, we were warm to one another's touch. In that moment, in a pool of dark between one gleaming window and the next, I saw into my love for her, my Armida, and understood all the difficulties with which she was surrounded: the prosperous household sponged on by untrustworthy nobles, the conventions threatening to defeat her, the father dominating her life. She needed simpler things. It was true, as Bengtsohn said, that wealth corrupted the rich. I could save her from it, if she would dare come away with me.

  I jumped up.

  'Let's leave immediately,' I said. 'We could take your carriage. Damn the soothsayers. This drunken rout would not miss us for hours. The nobles of Malacia, Armida — they are corrupt, one and all, and should be done away with.'

  'What? You are drunk, you rascal! Where would the wealth of the state be without the nobles?'

  'Let's leave here together. We could go to Tuscady. I have a friend there, a captain of cavalry. We could live simply and honestly, in a small house on the street, with a hound, and a cage of singing birds at the window. We would see the hills from our upper windows.'

  'You have picked up revolutionary ideas from Bengtsohn, Perian. My father says so. That man is dangerous. I'd better warn you, those who consort with him are also in danger.'

  'What I say is true. Let's escape now. Tuscady. Or a cottage on the estuary where my kinsmen live.'

  'Why will you not listen to my warning?'

  'Why do you mention Bengtsohn? Only yesterday, he attacked me with a cudgel.' But I did not want to enter into that tale, so I went on hastily, 'All unprovoked, let me add. But he will be a different man when Mendicula is exhibited to the world. Ridiculous though its story may be, its presentation makes it a new form of art, and success will soften him.'

  'That play may never be shown to anyone, Perian, so please keep quiet about it. You'd better go to your bed and sleep.'

  'Only if you come with me and so rob me of the desire to sleep.'

  'I can't. I'd be missed — and compromised.'

  'Then come away with me.'

  She stamped her foot. 'Stop being so impossible. Why do you wish to escape as soon as you are here? Enjoy yourself properly.'

  'I'
m trying to! Just think what's happening here. People are drinking their heads afloat. They'll all be in each other's beds in a few hours' time, the dogs! Let's race them to it. Nobody will know — or care. I'll wager your precious chaperon is already pinned under some filthy, randy leather-clad groom in a convenient pile of hay.'

  'You're so coarse. Why should you think of them — supposing it were so — in the same breath as us?'

  'Yolaria may well be as grateful for the chance as any.'

  She drew away angrily and I saw I had been too outspoken.

  'Old people care less about that sort of thing,' she said.

  'They care till their dying day — my father once told me so, and he's a scholar. Old Pope Lacrimae II did it on his deathbed at the age of ninety-nine.'

  'Why, I'm glad my father never tells me things like that. Did he really?'

  'Yes. With a virgin aged fourteen brought in from the country. Such intercourse is thought to have curative powers. Gerocomy, they call it.'

  All the time we were talking, the wind was blowing itself into a gale. Shutters banged overhead. Hounds barked distantly.

  'Perry, you do know such funny things. Is that true about Pope Lacrimae?'

  'Come to bed with me and I'll keep you amused till daybreak.'

  She put her arms round my neck. 'I can't. Really I can't. I am needed to help entertain guests. This is the great occasion of my father's year. Keep yourself happy — find another girl. There are plenty here prettier than I.'

  'What if I did so? Would you blame me?' I asked teasingly.

  'Oh, don't dare even say it! I'd be so jealous — I'd hate you for ever afterwards! You are pledged to me and you are mine and for me. Don't think such loathsome things.'

  'Who suggested it? I only said what I did to see what you'd say. And I'm glad of your anger because it shows you do love me.'

  She shook her head. 'Envy and jealousy are apart from love. Just remember your role as Gerald — he didn't love the princess, he merely envied Mendicula's marriage. Don't be like that, please. Don't merely envy what I have, love what I am. You think me difficult, I know it, but matters are difficult for me. At heart, there's a difference — just love me patiently and don't be unkind.'

  The cold wind which blew that evening brought indifferent weather next day — yet not indifferent enough to spoil the great organized tumult of pleasure pursued so strenuously at Juracia. By afternoon, rain was falling out of a sky piled to its farthest recesses with cloud. Golden summer was giving a first token that it could not rule for ever.

  I wondered if I was not at last loving Armida more than she wished to be loved. Perhaps there was a special way of loving each special person. I languished the day away with thoughts of her.

  Julius and the Mantegan kin were helpful. The head groom of the Hoytola hunt pronounced my Capriccio unrideable and suggested he be chopped up to use as carnivore bait. Julius found me a small, black cob, a sturdy beast called Bramble. Bramble had a sardonic eye. He snuffed the oats in my palm suspiciously before I mounted him, whereon he proved manageable.

  The inhospitable weather was such that many of the guests who had ridden to hunt the day before declined to ride today. Some fifty of us assembled as the cloud brightened towards the west. For weapons we were permitted only spring-loaded spears, with short-swords in reserve. We wore chest armour, and that too I borrowed from the Mantegans. Behind us on foot came a line of peasants with staves, our beaters, with a body of Hoytola's personal guard. The guard carried muzzle-loaders.

  The great sight was the lines of ceremonial hunters mounted on ancestral steeds. Renardo favoured wattle tassets, Tuscady grave-dippers; other noble houses, like the Dios, had the one or the other, or both. Wattle tassets were the more massive beasts, some of them standing seven metres high — truly an impressive sight, blinkered as they were, standing upright on their clawed, three-toed feet, trailing massive tails. Their fore paws were harnessed, to prevent damage from their horned thumbs, and they were decked in the colours of their noble houses. They were proud beasts, the tassets, slow but virtually inexhaustible.

  The grave-dippers — or duck-beaks, as the simple folk called them — were almost as tall but lighter in structure. Like the tassets, they are vegetarian. Riders of dippers sit higher up the backs of their mounts than is the case with tasset riders, to prevent them assuming a four-legged posture at speed. There was great variety among the grave-dippers; many had curiously shaped crests, rendered more bizarre by being adorned with the house emblems of their owners. Most of them were heavily blinkered and snaffled, often with an extra bit forced through their nostrils, for grave-dippers become nervous at the scent of carnivores like tyrant-greave or devil-jaw. Yet they are more popular than tassets because they can swim rapidly across rivers.

  Needless to say, these valuable sporting animals were also useful in time of war.

  As a seal of his approval, Gondale IX had sent up his two marsh-bags, rigged with banners for all their twenty-six-metre lengths. These perambulating bladders, with wrinkled skins and four enormous plodding legs, were useless on a big game hunt, yet added distinction to any occasion. Their clownish aspect — only their vast size made them alarming — was emphasized by the traditional use of eight dwarf riders. Each marshbag bore a rider at the extreme end of its long neck, just behind the skull, and another — this one armed with a goad — at the base of the tail, while six more dwarfs sat or performed acrobatics along a wooden saddle secured on the creature's, back. Marshbags are traditionally escorted by a drummer. They respond to a regular beat and keep gravely in step.

  Animals and men, we paraded nobly across the grass towards the forests. The rain died as trumpets hurried us forward.

  What excitement to be there! Whatever befell, I would always remember the day. I wished that my father could see me, brave and warlike, taking part in an ancestral hunt. Already I saw more dashing ways in which I might play Albrizzi.

  Hoytola laid claim to good hunting country. It was predominantly hilly with occasional outcrops of rock, well forested with lofty oak, acacia and chestnut, beneath the shelter of which ferns grew to the height of a man, affording cover for the game on which carnivores feed. The hills bred streams, and there were open spaces where succulent marsh and bog and stagnant water lay, the haunt of duck and many other varieties of fowl, all ready to take to the wing if disturbed.

  In this whole region only an occasional forest ranger, woodman or charcoal burner was to be found. The larger carnivores are reputedly a dying breed; they are left to their own pursuits — except for the one occasion every year. Indeed, Hoytola's gamekeepers reared young devil-jaws, tyrant-greaves and shatterhorns from the egg, to try to keep up the numbers.

  We forged deeper into the wilds. Silence became more intense. Not for years had I been out of earshot of another human voice. I whispered to Bramble and patted his neck. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the next hunter to my left or right flank; but it was impossible to keep them in view when the lie of the land did not permit.

  The territory became more broken, the path more boulder-strewn. As Bramble picked his way up an old river bed, trees closed in on either side. The span of sky became obscured, although at first I could see an infrequent leather-tooth sail overhead. Then foliage surrounded us completely, and large branches intertwined above our heads. We continued into the forest for some time.

  We came out on a mound surmounted by thistle and rock. As I pushed Bramble through the undergrowth, I saw that the other side of the mound fell away sharply, leaving a recess or possibly a cave below. It provided a likely lair for a reptile. Dismounting, but keeping tight hold of Bramble's rein, I went to the edge of the drop, peering down and kicking a stone over the lip. Nothing stirred. Far away, I heard shouts, very faint. Somebody's sport had started. I stood where I was, listening. The shouts were not repeated. Silence had overtaken the forest.

  Remounting, I urged Bramble back to a point where we could scramble down the bank and investigate the c
ave. We made a wide circle; I knew the speed of predatory reptiles.

  There was a cave, as I suspected, most of its entrance hidden by shrubs. The undergrowth was trampled, although there was no sign of bones. I coaxed Bramble forward.

  It was impossible to see how deep the cave went. As we were almost up to it, two creatures burst forth, uttering croaking screams as they rushed towards us. Though I had my spear ready, I was taken by surprise. I could do nothing but sit crouched in the saddle.

  The animals were about the size of greyhounds with thick reptilian tails which they carried high as they rushed forward on their hind legs. They were of a mottled green and brown. One, as it swerved, gave a glimpse of yellow belly. They were jerks or clapper-diles or something similar, and very fleet, as befitted the small kind of the forest. And they ran with their mouths open, presenting a disconcertingly vivid green maw to their prey.

  Not that I was their prey. They scattered in fright, one on either side of us, darted into the bush, and were gone. They were no more startled than I — or Bramble, who shied violently, wheeled about, and galloped madly among the trees.

  My wits had gone for the moment. Bushes, branches, ferns, whipped by me in a blur. Head tight down against the cob's neck, I yelled to him to stop. Then I gathered myself and the little horsemanship I had, and endeavoured to calm him. Still he dashed on until we met with a stream half-hidden by clumps of bamboo. Whereupon Bramble stopped so abruptly that I nearly slid off his neck. He began mildly to crop grass.

  I kept hold of the reins and dismounted, panting, finding myself considerably shaken.

  'Nothing to be scared of, old friend,' I said, glancing round nervously: I had lowered my voice.

  A brownish tinge hung over the forest. Branches drooped without motion, as if caught in the midst of some depressing dispute. Water drops splashed to the ground. There was nothing to harm us; yet the idea of harm remained.

  I led Bramble by the bank of the stream, following it without much forethought, listening for sounds of other hunters.