The Year's Best SF 25 # 2007

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

DASHWOOD MISSION SUCCESS SO FAR. HAVE GAINED ACCESS TO LIBRARY. MUCH TO INTEREST COMPANY INVESTORS! WILL REQUIRE TWO DRUMS PAPYRO-FIX AND ONE OF PARCH-FIX. KINDLY SHIP BY EARLIEST POST.

  HOWEVER, NO SIGN OF QUOTE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERY SCROLL UNQUOTE. NO SIGN OF PAGAN ORGIES YET. NO ORGIES OF ANY KIND, IN FACT. SUGGEST INFORMANT MISTAKEN?

  After an hour the reply came back, in glaring yellow letters:

  PAPYRO-FIX AND PARCH-FIX HAVE SHIPPED.

  LOOK HARDER, LEWIS.

  “This is excellent bacon, my lord,” said Lewis, at the breakfast table.

  “Eh?” Sir Francis looked up from watching the nurse attempting to feed his offspring porridge. “Ah. Good pigs hereabouts.”

  Lewis wondered how to gracefully transition from pigs to the subject at hand, and couldn’t think of a way.

  “I wondered, my lord, whether, since it is the Sabbath, I might not have the day to walk in the gardens,” he said.

  “What? Oh, by all means!” said Sir Francis. “Yes, you’ll enjoy that. A man of classical education will find much to engage his attention,” he added, winking so broadly that his little daughter was fascinated, and sat there at the table practicing outrageous winks, until her nurse quelled her with a deadly look.

  Lewis slipped forth after breakfast and had hoped to spend a profitable day spying out likely places where a scroll might be hidden, but he had got no farther than the Temple of Venus when Sir Francis popped out of a folly.

  “There you are! It occurred to me that you’d benefit from a guide; there’s rather a lot to see,” he cried heartily.

  “You’re too kind, my lord,” said Lewis, concealing his irritation.

  “Oh, not at all.” Sir Francis cleared his throat a little self-consciously and went on: “Well! The Temple of Venus. Note, sir, the statue.”

  “Which one?” Lewis inquired politely, for there were before him nearly thirty figures decorating the slope up to the temple, among the bright fallen leaves: boys bearing shields, various smaller figures of fauns, nymphs, cherubs, and what looked suspiciously like a contingent of garden gnomes.

  “Venus herself,” said Sir Francis, leading the way up the hill. “The one actually in the temple, you see? Regard the rather better execution than in all the little figures; I got those at a bargain price, though, by God. Someone’s plaster yard in Genoa had gone bankrupt and was closing out its stock. This, sir, is a copy of the Venus de Medici; rather fine, don’t you think?”

  “Profoundly so,” said Lewis, wondering whether Sir Francis was guiding him away from something.

  Sir Francis stepped back and swung his hand up to point at the dome of the temple. “And, see there? Look closely. It’s a little hard to make out, at this angle, but that’s Leda and Jove in the guise of a swan.”

  Lewis stepped back and looked. “Oh,” he said. “Oh! Well. She, er, certainly looks happy.”

  “I think the sculptor caught perfectly the combination of ecstatic convulsion and divine-regarding reverie,” said Sir Francis. “Pity we can’t have it down here where it might be better viewed, but … well, perhaps better not. Awkward to explain to the children.”

  “I expect it would be, yes.”

  “And down here we put Venus’s Parlor,” Sir Francis went on. “That one represents Mercury, you see? Rather an ironic reminder to incautious youth. Observe the many elegant references to sweet Venus’s portal of bliss, or, as some have called it, the Gate of Life itself, whence we all are come.”

  “How evocative, my lord,” said Lewis, stammering rather.

  “And that yonder is a temple to the nymph Daphne,” said Sir Francis, pointing. “Must have the laurels trimmed back somewhat, so as to disclose it with more art. I put that in during my druidical days.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Was going to worship trees, once,” said Sir Francis. “Applied to Stukeley—the Head Druid, you know—for initiation and all that. Got a charter to start up a grove, as it happened; but they grew vexed with me and withdrew it. No sense of humor, those fellows.”

  “Not the eighteenth-century ones, at any rate,” Lewis murmured.

  “And I don’t know that I see much to worship in mere trees, in any case,” said Sir Francis. “They’re not good company, eh?” He nudged Lewis. “Same thing with the Freemasons; I always did my best to behave with them, but ’pon my soul I couldn’t keep a straight face. Though I trust I give no offense, sir?”

  “Oh, none, I assure you.”

  “I suppose I ought to have inquired whether you were a Christian,” said Sir Francis.

  “I frankly own myself a pagan,” confided Lewis. “Though I have Christian friends.”

  “Oh, I too! I’d never mock Christ himself, you know; it’s the institution I can’t abide. Loathsome, cruel, sanctimonious greedy hypocrites! But regard my little church up there, on the hill; what d’you think of that, sir, hey?”

  “I did wonder what the golden ball was for,” said Lewis.

  “It represents the Sun,” said Sir Francis. “To my mind, much the more appropriate symbol for the Light of the World, wouldn’t you say? But certain folk took umbrage, of course. Though I expect I only made things worse by having drinking parties up there, for I had it built hollow, you know, with seats inside. Then I slipped and nearly broke my neck climbing down out of it … dear, dear.” He began to snicker shamefacedly. “Still, you ought to have seen the vicar’s expression!”

  They walked on a little, and Sir Francis pointed out the lake, with its swans and authentic fleet of small ships, useful for mock sea battles at parties (“though last time a fire broke out—burning wadding flew everywhere—so we haven’t fired the cannons in years”). On an island in the center of the lake was another folly, with yet more statues.

  “Looks rather like the Temple of Vesta in Rome,” Lewis observed. Hastily he added, “At least, as it might have looked before it became a ruin.”

  “Ah! You saw that, did you?” said Sir Francis. “Very good! That was my intent, you know. You are a scholar, sir. I sketched the ruins myself, once. Dearly loved classical Rome when I was a young man. Still think its religion was quite the most sensible men have ever made for themselves.”

  “You know, I’ve thought that, too,” said Lewis.

  “Have you?” Sir Francis turned to him, positively beaming. “Their gods are so like us, you know: ordinary people, with faults and family quarrels. Some of them quite dreadful, but others rather endearing. Much more likely to have made this dirty, silly world than some remote Perfection in th’ ether. Or wouldn’t you say?”

  “It has always seemed that way to me,” said Lewis, thinking wistfully of his human ancestry. He considered Sir Francis, and decided to cast out a hook. “Of course, there wasn’t much prospect of an afterlife for mere mortals in antiquity.”

  “Not so!” said Sir Francis. “Or what would you make of the Eleusinian Mysteries, then?”

  Lewis drew a deep breath and thanked Mercury, god of schemers.

  “Well, what can one make, my lord? The Eleusinian rites are unknown, because their initiates were sworn to secrecy,” he said.

  “Ha! I can tell you how much an oath of secrecy’s worth,” said Sir Francis, shaking his head. “Depend upon it, my young friend, people blabbed. Life everlasting was offered to mortals long before St. Paul and his cronies claimed the idea.”

  True enough, thought Lewis, reflecting on the Company’s immortality process. “So it’s rumored, my lord; but, alas, we’ve not a shred of proof for that, have we?”

  “That’s as may be,” said Sir Francis blandly. “If I were to tell you that there are certain sacred groves in Italy where satyrs yet dance, you’d think me mad; yet I have seen something pretty near to them. Ay, and nymphs, too!”

  Lewis did his best to look like a man of the world. “Well, I could name you a nymph or two here in England, if it comes to that,” he said, attempting a nudge and wink.

  Sir Francis clapped him on the back. “I dare say you could! Yes,
we really must have another Chapter Meeting. I’ll sponsor you, if you like.”

  “Oh, sir, what kindness!”

  “Not at all,” said Sir Francis, looking immensely pleased. “We’ve needed some young blood in our ranks. I’ll send to Twickenham for Whitehead; he’ll arrange it.”

  Lewis looked at the box of fragments and shook his head sadly. The pornographic papyrus was in shocking condition, nearly as bad as some of the Dead Sea Scrolls would be, though this damage seemed due to recent abuse of some kind. Worse still, some of the little bits were gummed together with something, and it wasn’t gooseberry jam. Lewis had begun to have a queasy notion as to the circumstances of his immediate predecessor’s departure.

  “Well, let’s see if we can’t put things to rights,” he muttered to himself, and set out the larger pieces. Three nymphs, five satyrs, and … possibly a horse? And a flute player? And a lot of bunches of grapes. Three sets of unattached, er, bits. Part of a … duck?

  Frowning, the tip of his tongue between his teeth in intense concentration, Lewis sorted through all the fragments of wildly posturing limbs. With a cyborg’s speed in analysis, he began to assemble the bits of the puzzle.

  “There … and he goes there and she goes there and … no, that doesn’t look anatomically possible, does it? Ah. But if this leg goes up this way … no, that’s an elbow … oh, it’s a centaur! Well, that makes much more sense. Silly me.”

  The door to the library opened, admitting a draft and Sir Francis. Lewis spread out his hands to prevent the reassembled orgy scene from sailing across the tabletop.

  “There you are, Owens,” Sir Francis said. He sounded a trifle hesitant. Lewis looked up at him sharply, but he did not meet Lewis’s gaze; instead he kept his eyes on the papyrus as he approached.

  “Well! H’em. What a splendid job you’re doing! Deplorable state that one was in; should have had this seen to ages ago, I suppose. But, then, I’ve been busy these last years bringing myrtles to Venus myself, rather than reading about other people doing it. Eh?”

  “Very wise, my lord.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, looking on in silence a moment as Lewis went back to fitting fragments together.

  “I remember acquiring that one as though it were yesterday,” Sir Francis said. “I was seeing Naxos. My guide was a shrewd man; you could trust him to find you absolutely anything. Girls fair or dark, plump or slender, whatever your mood; and the very best houses for drinking, you know, whether you wanted wine or stronger spirits. If you wanted to see temples, he could find those, too; and I had but to mention that I was interested in antiquities, and, by God, sir, he showed me …”

  “A certain shop?” said Lewis, carefully applying Papyro-Fix from a plain jar, with a tiny brush. He fitted two fragments together. They reunited so perfectly it would have been impossible to say where they had been sundered. “A dark little place down a winding street?”

  “Look at that! I declare, sir, you are a very physician of books! … But no, it wasn’t such a shop. I’ve seen those places; they’re all too eager to snare a young fool on his first Grand Tour, and sell him Homer’s very lyre and Caesar’s own laurels to boot. All impostures, you may be certain. No … this was another sort of place entirely.”

  Lewis was silent, waiting for him to continue. He looked up and saw Sir Francis gazing out the window, where the autumn forest showed now black branches through the drifting red and gold.

  “The man led me up a mountainside,” said Sir Francis. “A mountain of golden stone, only thinly greened over with little gnarled holm oaks, and with some sort of herb that gave off an aromatic perfume in the sunlight. And what sunlight! White as diamond, clear and hot. The sunlight of the very morning of the world. Transparent air, and the dome of blue overhead so deep a man could drown in it.

  “Well, the path was less than a goat path, and we climbed for the best part of an hour, through thorns half the time, and how I cursed the fellow! He kept pointing out a little white house, far up the mountainside, lonely and abandoned looking. But I followed him, very surly indeed as you may imagine by the time we’d gained the house at last.

  “Up there it was a little better; there was a great old fig tree that cast pleasant shade. I threw myself down in the coolness and panted, as an eagle sailed past—at eye level, sir—and the sea so far below was nothing but a blue mist, with little atomies of ships plying to and fro.

  “I could hear murmuring coming from the house, but no other noises at all, not so much as the cry of a bird, and the drone of the insects had ceased. It was all very like a dream, you know; and it became more so when I got to my feet and went inside.

  “There in the cool and the dark, a row of antique faces regarded me. They were only the heads of statues that had been ranged along a shelf, but upon my life I took them for persons at first, perhaps interrupted in conversation.

  “My guide introduced the old man and his daughter. He’d been a scholar, evidently—dug amongst the ruins and through forgotten places to amass his collection—penniless now, and selling off the better pieces when he could find buyers. She was a beauty. Very Greek, gray eyed and proud. Brought me a cup of cold water with all the grace of Hebe.

  “Well, we commenced to do business. I’d a well-lined purse—stupid thing to carry in such country, of course, but some god or other protects young idiots from harm. He sold me the scrolls at once. His daughter brought out a few painted urns, very fine some of them, and I bought one or two. I had my man ask if there were any more. They talked that over between them, the father and his girl, and at last she signed for us to follow her.

  “We went out through the back of the house. There was a spring, trickling from the rock, and a sort of pergola joining the back of the house to a grotto there. It was all deep in vine shade, with the little green grapes hanging down. Blessedly refreshing. That Achaean charmer led me back into the shadows, and I was upon point of seeing whether I might coax a kiss from her when—there—on my life and honor, sir, I tell you I looked on the face of God.”

  “What did you see?” said Lewis, enthralled.

  “I think it must have been a little temple, once,” said Sir Francis. “It certainly felt sacred to me. There were figures carved at the back of the grotto, into the living rock: Bacchus with all his train of satyrs and nymphs, coming to the rescue of Ariadne. Primitive, but I tell you, sir, the artist could do faces. The revelers were so jolly, you wanted to laugh with them—and, oh, the young Divinity, immortal and human all at once, smiling so kindly on that poor girl, seduced and deserted on her island! Holding out his hand to save her, and, in his compassion, granting her the golden crown of eternal life.

  “It was a revelation, sir. That’s what a god ought to be, I said to myself: wild joy in flesh and blood! And, being flesh and blood, generous enough to preserve we wretched mortals from death’s affliction.

  “I was desperate to buy the panel, but it wasn’t to be had; no indeed. The girl had brought me in there simply to show some few small bronzes, stacked on the floor for want of room in the cottage. I sought by gestures to convey I wished to break the figures free of the wall; she understood well enough, and favored me with a look that nearly froze my blood. You’ll think me a booby, sir, but I wept.

  “I never close my eyes at night but I see that grotto still. I have had the god’s likeness made many times, by some tolerably good painters, and bought me several images of him, yet none can compare with his countenance as I saw it on that bright morning in my youth.

  “And I cannot but believe that, for a brief moment on that morning, I escaped this world’s confines and walked in the realm of the ineffable.”

  “An enchanting story, my lord,” said Lewis. He looked down at the bits of paper before him, fragments of some long-dead mortal’s imagination.

  How different their perception is, from ours. How I wish …

  “Not the story I came in here to tell, alas,” said Sir Francis, looking sheepish. “The past ru
les the present when you reach my age; you’ll understand in your time, my boy. I, er, haven’t quite been able to arrange the party. Not the initiation party into the Order, in any case. Paul’s been ill, and our friend Dr. Franklin sends his regrets, but he’s otherwise engaged—still trying to salvage something from this calamity with the Americans, I’ve no doubt.”

  “I quite understand,” said Lewis.

  “And Bute’s quite taken up with his gardening now … . Montagu sent word he’d certainly come, but for the entertainment he owes his guest—you’ve heard of Omai, the wild South Seas fellow? Captain Cook brought him back for show, and he’s been feted in all the best homes. I said, ‘Bring him with you; we’ll initiate a noble savage!’ But it seems his time’s all bespoke with garden parties … well. You see how it is.”

  “Quite,” said Lewis. “Perhaps another time, then.”

  “Oh, indeed! In point of fact, sir …” Sir Francis turned his head to peer at the doorway, then turned back and spoke with lowered voice. “I had contemplated something else, a rather more exclusive affair entirely. We haven’t had one in a while; but now and again the need presents itself, and you being such an agreeable pagan, I thought …”

  Lewis, scarcely believing his luck, put down the brush and leaned forward.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain mystery we spoke of in the garden, would it?”

  “Yes! Yes! You understand?” Sir Francis looked desperately hopeful.

  “I believe I do, my lord. Trust me, you may count on my discretion,” said Lewis, setting a finger beside his nose.

  “Oh, good. Although, you know …” Sir Francis leaned in and spoke so low that if he hadn’t been a cyborg, Lewis couldn’t have made out what he was saying. “It won’t be quite as, er, jolly as the services at the abbey. Perhaps we’ll have a little dinner party first, just to warm us up, but then things will be rather solemn. I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

  “I’m sure I shan’t be,” said Lewis.