Caperwill looked up from his scattered papers. “Are you sure, Lady Isabella, you should go? You are terribly ill, you know.” She looked at him with her gentle defiant eyes.
“Good night, Caperwill.”
“Good evening, Lady Isabella.”
“Caperwill?” said Lady Isabella before the day closed.
“Yes?”
“If I don’t return anytime soon, please continue Le Chateau de Crawler in the Mortestrate. You will know what to do.”
Barrister Bruno laughed loud and low. “Such a flare for the melodramatic. Don’t worry, Cap. I will have her back on that sofa in no time.”
They headed through the noodle house and to the awaiting carriage outside. Bruno helped her in—her body the weight of a Persian cat, all hair but skin and bones beneath. The smell of gunpowder and booze hung heavy on the air. The streets were as Bruno described: a drunken mayhem with just the hint of violence mixed in with the joy. The people of Barrenwood were descending into the Capital district and the streets were chock-full of hooligans, children, grandparents and gentry. It was the medley of the civic and it thrilled Isabella to see it. This festival was an orchestrated movement of the masses that brought waves of nostalgia, desire, hunger and wonder. Getting to the central square became increasingly difficult as throngs of people pushed off the sidewalks and into the streets. Isabella stared blankly out the carriage window. The mobs of humanity looked like one of her black and white films playing quietly behind the glass—an aquarium of pathetic madness.
Her reverie was interrupted with a big red splat. A tomato exploded on the window and the seeds and guts made a sinuous mess. A gravelly voice yelled out, “Die, monarchical scum!”
Bruno laughed. “I should say thank you. They take me for a regent. Being part of the royal family is just not what it used to be, I guess. These people have no idea how cheap these carriages really are.”
As they got to the Rue de Blunt, the carriage could go no further. They would have to walk. It suited Isabella fine. She didn’t like being cut off from the people anyway. That tomato had acted as a punctuation mark, reminding her that this was no time for a carriage. Bruno picked Isabella up onto his shoulders (she would have usually never allowed such a thing, but she found it a terrifying prospect to navigate the mob of bodies with her cane).
The pair of them pushed through the sweating bodies. The smell of alcohol soaked laughter, beer lined gutters over ripe bananas and rotting garbage mixed with the fetid humidity that was Barrenwood at this time of year. The streets were a spa of urbanity. Barrister Bruno laughed his way through the crowd, enjoying the frenzy of the night atmosphere. Eventually, they made their way to the large oak door of the residence in question that sat opposite of the Ellindale Plaza: quite the esteemed residence.
The door opened to reveal a well-dressed doorman who upon seeing the two, proceeded to give Bruno a big hug. Bruno said an enjoyable joke or two while he took Isabella off his shoulders and then they both made their way up six flights of steps to the penthouse apartment. The trip was nearly all Isabella and the Barrister could take. They were panting and heaving at the top of the stairs.
“My god,” he said, “the view just isn’t worth it. Give me a first-floor apartment any day. I will use a telescope if I need a view.”
He lit another cigar at the top of the stairs and collected himself. Perspiration covered his brow and Isabella felt the irony of her feeling sorry for him.
“Okay let's do this.”
Bruno opened the door to an extremely lavish apartment. A place along Ellindale Plaza really could be nothing else. Men and women in the finest attire were smoking and drinking throughout the flat. Bruno led her through the crowd, occasionally greeting someone or other and found his way to their host.
“Isabella, I would like you to meet Conner Deville”
Isabella looked up to see the man from many moons ago that Fennel had accosted near the Drunken Boat—the night that had in many ways triggered the series of events that now had her sick as a dog. This man, whoever he was, was just another part in the displaced conspiracy to rid the city of the mad. She gazed at him. He was a charming man who cared little about the implications of being a cog in the machine. She was too sick to protest and put out her hand.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said, curtseying. Conner looked down at her with a wrinkle in his brow.
Conner kissed Isabella’s hand. “It is a pleasure to have you here, my lady. Any friend of the good Barrister. Please allow me to get some seats for you so you will have a spectacular view of the festivities.”
Conner made his way to the balcony and quickly negotiated some guests out of their seats. On her way, she couldn’t help but notice the faint aroma of coriander on the air. She spied around for monks or any familiar face from the School, but not a face appeared. Instead, the home was just a world of young entrepreneurs whose trajectories must surely match those of Conner.
“Please sit here, Lady Isabella and Bruno. I think this might be a show one won’t want to miss. Can I get either of you something?”
“Scotch, an ashtray and a young hot man for my pleasure,” gruffed Bruno.
“I’m fine with grape juice, please. And Conner,” she said with a slight smirk, “don’t be long.”
Isabella went back to looking over the crowd who packed themselves into the smooshed plaza below. They were pushing and shoving each other to get closer to center stage where the jazz band was blasting their District of Jed-inspired party songs. The songs were rough. Already something new.
In general, the bands were orchestras playing traditional music with the square filled with couples of the gentry, a meeting and a greeting. But that was not possible this year as the square heaved with the bodies of the populace. The jazz band wore the bright pink feather headdresses and dangly glittery beads of the Harpy’s Parades. The men in beards full of food and laughter were giggling madly as they wailed on their horns and banged on their drums. The tuba player, a rotund beer swilling mechanic of a man, held a 40 oz. beer in one hand and the tuba in another as between blurts he wailed songs about the rise and fall of the lobster tail as the boat creaks and groans from the hungry couple on its deck.
And that boat gonna rock cause ya love wail wide
Crawdads and peanut shells mystery tales
Crawdads as chums, gumbo in ya gums
And that boat gonna rock, cause ya drunk in da tide
These Jed-songs were hugely popular and there were moments when the entire plaza was singing along—a singular voice coming out in a frazzled mass of sound reverberating off the walls of the elite and ricocheting back into the ears of the adrenaline masses, wailing glorious soccer songs bouncing around the city in the excitement of some class barrier being hurdled in the midst of celebration. Some men in the band were dressed in skirts and every so often they would waddle their way to the front of the stage and flash their dangling balls to the squeezed up crowd. Taffeta, testicle hair, brass, and sweat were the callings on the big stage.
Isabella looked down with pleasure to see the rabble that was ensuing. She and Fennel had never been allowed to come to the festival. They had only caught whispers of it from Marty as he ever loved a good time. He would indicate that the finest wine and most beautiful women had made themselves available to him in some alcove of desire that must have manifested late into the night in some questionable grotto. He said they were too precocious for such an environment, that they would make a mess of it, and that above everything else, their existence needed to remain a secret.
“Ya gonna catch one sniff o da sweat and booze and ya gonna do some dum-dum trick. Ya gonna give it ups to dem and den wats we gots will be gone. Wat we got, we gotta keep it hush. We gotta keep it low down. If dey knowd, they be a comin and dey hungrier den dey knowd.”
Nevertheless, they had always dreamed and imagined the whirl of the river that would spill out in the height of human revelry. And the truth of it made its imprint on Isab
ella immediately. She had tasted it at Le Chateau de Crawler, and now she was in the midst of its feast. And even though this was her first taste of the collective bacchanal, she could sense quite clearly that something on this particular occasion was amiss.
She leaned over the railing of the balcony to see the other balconies that lined the square's edge. Leaning out, drinking wine and anise, were the dressed up coteries of the ruling classes. Their aspirations to rule ever so evident in the painful way they huddled together on the tittering balconies. They looked over the rabble and couldn’t help but feel small; their sense of scale making it all the more clear to them that on this particular occasion they were a minority most palpable. And being outnumbered, it must be admitted, is a very visceral feeling. Something the skin informs the brain. The elites laughed all the more nervous as they tried to shout over the chants of songs from the District of Jed, which rose up like a wave in the center of town.
Across the plaza, Isabella could see the great Houses gathered together. She could see Rana and Yosune together in what was probably to be an evolving dynamic. Rana had her arms around a young woman and was clearly talking as fast as she could while Yosune stared off clearly perturbed. On the next balcony, standing resolute was what must be the House Imbetta as their colors were gold and black. A young, incredibly beautiful woman stood prominently at the center. She was hypnotic and stoic. Her black smeared eyes glistened next to her jewelry, as did her golden gown that reflected with great luminescence the fireworks exploding in the night. Next to her were the Revans in all their magenta and gold. They possessed three balconies next to each other and were clearly having a wonderful time even as the night was already obviously a complete disaster.
The younger Gerald Revan was drinking his fill of wine and enjoying being the center of attention. Tucked in the corner Isabella spied the now familiar sight of Minasha Darkglass. She sat in a corner with the fire-red-haired Chelsea Revan who was clearly chatting wildly. Minasha looked deeply pre-occupied and Isabella could spy the faintest sign of her talking to herself on occasion. Isabella imagined those from the houses saw her as mad as can be, but little did they know that she might be their only hope at salvation. And noticeably absent, was the bright blue of House Ellington—the one house who, it seems, felt no need to demonstrate fealty to this most regular of occasions.
On the balconies stretching to the west of them were the throngs of minor houses whose numbers went on and on—the Callibans, the Chillbachs, the Nethertons, the Neros and the Ghents. Their coteries stretched out vast and long, painting a picture of some out-of-touch society who knows little of the agony of the people below. As a grouping, all the houses appeared as a series of color swatches against the immense gothic architecture, their bodies some tribal testament to the self-organizational needs of some primitive society. For the people below, there perhaps were not enough tomatoes in all the farms of Barrenwood.
But the music, masses and monarchy were not all that was on display, for the festivities were beginning and the Peanut Family Circus was just about to begin. Stretched across the central plaza, high up in the air, an acrobat danced with flames on a high wire. She balanced ever so gingerly, her feet of the koala, as the wire itself moved quite visibly from the shaking that was the movement of the masses. She hovered above the crowd, throwing sticks of fire lithely one after the other. Upon each catch, the fire would erupt just a bit more. If she were to fall, it seemed as though she would either careen to her death and splatter on the cobblestone, be caught like a pillow by the drunken mob, or simply float away into the heavens, a guest to the terrestrial plane.
On either side of the acrobat, were two children dressed as pigs. They waddled their way to either side of the tightrope and came back with mud pies. They flung them at each other across the body of the acrobat. The mud pies going splat at times on each other's clumsy paper mache' bodies, or, in general, descend down into the crowd, often landing on someone’s consternated head. How the children stayed on the tightrope was hard to say as it looked as though they could fall at any second. Their clumsy steps, as they muscularly wrestled with their awkward costumes, made their trick all the more tenuous and death defying. Their vulnerability was an aesthetic that only heightened the frantic fueled night. For the acrobat and pig children were a collective display of terror as agent of amusement. Their hovering above death was a physical steroid to the drunken masses below.
Next arrived the clown car. It separated the crowd as it came moving up. The clowns piled out in half painted makeup. They went into the crowd and grabbed volunteers who they then quickly painted to look just as dumb as they did. Smeared red with white with smiles and tear drops. People couldn’t help but laugh at the clowns as they stumbled over themselves to get the volunteers to juggle with them. Bowling pins went up then came clumsily down, falling to the cobblestone below. When the volunteers failed to be of much amusement, the clowns proceeded to pelt them with old vegetables and beer cans. The crowd laughed wildly as the clowns berated one of their own.
Next came the contortionists, whose appearance was made known by a spotlight shining bright on a rooftop. They leapt and hurtled and ended with their heads facing the crowd as they bent over backwards and stared out with blank-eyed faces between their legs. The crowd applauded as the contortionists then began a strange display of frantic bending combined with banal positions. Their legs miraculously folded back behind their heads while another scratched at their toes, getting the lint and crust out. Two contortionists grappled each other's legs to make a perfect circle and roll about the edge of the roof, a rolling tire of taut exercised flesh, while the third scratched their head vigorously as though infected by fleas. The girls then each placed one leg behind their head and hopped up and down on the remaining leg. They each hopped in unison and proceeded to enact their awkward Pina Bausch routine. Gesticulating wildly with their hands, they moved in a heated display of modern dance that appealed to the audience below not one bit. The crowd began to get bored and then suddenly the girls launched themselves off the roof to land safely in the net below. The crowd laughed and applauded.
Popping and snapping in the grey clouds above, fireworks burst. They were strange colors of greys, mauves, puke yellow and Pepto Bismol pink. As opposed to the usual flower style of explosion, these fireworks predominately streaked slowly across the night sky. Slowly descending as though the night sky was a sink with the fireworks toothpaste draining down the side—a dripping affair of gunpowder and heavenly drear. Occasionally, the fireworks would shoot up in that knowing sound of a rocket launched from a tube and then explode into words that smeared above. Nightmare, nail biter, cheese-head, clumsy clumsy and doo doo party were all words that glittered above in a pale reminder that perhaps anything with enough sparkle could be embraced.
He had done a great job. Wherever Fennel was at this moment, Isabella could only imagine the state of delirium he must have reached at this point. It was a choreographed clumsy work of genius. The sound of water was rising up in the din of the festivities. It was a babbling brook at this point. It gave Isabella a lift in her skin that oozed against the termites in her tummy—the sound so flowing. Fennel was putting his best work to work on this night and Isabella had a front row seat to enjoy it. She scooted herself up to appreciate it all the more.
On the stage, at the far right, Isabella saw a giant tarp covering what most surely be Fennel’s statue. It rose two stories in an awkward shape that barely gave the impression of a human figure. It was such a monstrosity of scale and tarp one could only wonder how Fennel had managed the affair—how one could talk the entire city into lumbering it as a central element on their stage of glory.
She spied Castilla standing with the Duke of Revan on the stage and alongside them were a group of city politicians that included Big Boy Charlie. Castilla’s bent and emaciated frame looked terribly uncomfortable in the company of the large bellied men of governance with white moustaches and monocles. It was clearly a show of force and
Isabella saw the fights of the city standing together as though they were all the closest of friends.
Conner arrived with their drinks and took a seat next to them.
“Thanks for this, Conner,” said the Barrister. “You are most definitely going to have a cameo in my next book. I will have to wait then for some of my other orders,” he laughed.
Conner rolled his eyes and looked to Isabella. “I hope this view pleases my lady.”
“It does, in fact. Quite an assembly of people. I see the great Houses aren’t lacking in their customary view.”
“I don’t think they truly want to be this close to the events this time around,” said Conner. He lit up a cigarette and pointed out over the crowd. “You see that? Those men on stage. If you look closely you can see the world changing before your eyes. The city boys and the money boys and guess who isn’t in that conversation at all?” He flicked his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “The great Houses can only look down and wonder what they are discussing.”
Bruno gulped on his Scotch. “Now there’s the truth of it. I think Gaventas put this whole thing together tonight. Paid for it top to bottom. Must make the houses insane with their antiquated proprieties. Ha! Serves them right! Now they must look down as spectators.”
Isabella turned to Conner, “I don’t suppose that you have some horse in this race, do you?”
“Well, of course, I do. This flat wasn’t paid for through my lamentable inheritance. This is a new era. There is money to be made and opportunities to jump on. The quick mind with a flair for the new can roll up their sleeves and make a tidy profit on it. Doesn’t take much of a betting man to know which way this wind is blowing.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” said Bruno.
“Are you familiar with that man with the wiry moustache talking to the Mayor?”
“Yes. Yes, indeed I am,” smiled Conner. “He is the emissary of the force of history: Castilla, head man at Gaventas. A horrible man sick with ambition and little soul to hold him together; that said, he is in a way, my hero. May we make a toast? Let's toast Castilla, the man responsible for our night here.” Conner raised his glass.
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