‘Wedding?’ I turned in some surprise. She had said nothing so direct before, and I was used to such things being announced months, sometimes years, in advance. ‘What? Married at the barrel?’
‘Sir, I’ve no burden awaiting legitimate entry to the world, but the auguries are good. There’s no question, by all the signs, that we should not become one.’
I became inane with joy. ‘I should have welcomed, Madam, the chance to order a new suit of clothes! Is the parson picked?’
She smiled. ‘And the choir and congregation, too.’
‘The Church?’
‘All arranged.’
St Odhran did his best to note this exchange with good grace, but it was plain he liked it not at all. Could men be jealous of other men in such matters? Did St Odhran love her himself? Was that why he hated seeing her kill Klosterheim?
‘And here’s what shall join us in our matrimony,’ said she, striding across the floor and picking up the sack she had carried with her from the tavern. It was still heavy, presumably full of shot and powder. She loosened the top and drew forth an old metal helmet, a battered iron-and-brass chapelle-de-fer, with a simple half-sphere for the head and a flat brim all around. This she put upon the sideboard. St Odhran looked at it and made no comment at all. I knew she believed herself to be in possession of the Grail. She had gone back to the cellar on the pretext of anticipated attack and grabbed the first old helmet she had seen. ‘It’s not hard to withstand the discomfort of handling it,’ she said. I could hardly keep a sober face and nodded very slowly in the hope that my response would satisfy her. Yet I did not give a fig for her peculiarities and aberrations. I loved her and she intended to marry me! And if I must balance an antique salade upon my head while the ceremony took place, or indeed wear it forever cemented to my skull, I would do it to please her!
‘What’s that, Madam?’ asked St Odhran innocently enough. ‘A relic of your family’s wars?’
‘’Tis more a relic of von Bek’s family’s struggles,’ she said.
‘It looks the same as sheltered the Welsh archers’ heads at Agincourt,’ said he. ‘It must be two hundred years old at least, eh?’ He attempted joviality. ‘Is there some ceremony attached to it? Some antique tradition, like the riding round the oak tree or the spinning of the bridal fleece?’
‘Some ceremony’s involved, aye, Sir.’ She was pleased by his amiable ignorance and delighting in what she thought her secret knowledge, but I remained convinced the thing was just an old war-hat dug out of O’Dowd’s untidy cellars. What had made the supernatural light could have been the Holy Cup – but not that helmet.
So much, thought I, for any so-called affinity with the Grail we von Beks were supposed to possess. Neither it nor whatever I had seen in the cellar produced a twinge of recognition. But I would not spoil her moment, particularly if I risked her changing her mind as to our nuptials. I would humour her in every way, concur in any fantasy, join any club, coven, clique, canting sect or secret society to please her. I was hers. Now, she’d be mine! Joy for ever! I had grown used to her volatility. Her decisions it seemed were always made suddenly. It did not surprise me she had chosen this unconventional means of announcing her desire to wed me. The fact that she had announced it was enough to overwhelm any other consideration. I grew drowsy, I thought, with delight.
‘Which church did ye say, Madam?’ I heard St Odhran politely enquire. ‘Presumably it’s picked.’
‘It shall take place within the crucible,’ she said.
‘Aha!’ He raised his toddy in a toast. ‘A civil marriage, eh? Ain’t they the rage in France at present?’
I was more than half-drunk as I stumbled towards her. She grinned. ‘Are you sure you’ll welcome our becoming one flesh?’
‘Madam, I can think of nothing more fulfilling, though I lived through eternity!’
‘’Tis that possibility I presently investigate.’ She winked.
Did I understand her? I had grown so weary. Did I speak plain words which she interpreted as profound? Or did she love me so much she thought anything I said of magnificent eloquence? Could it be? Befuddled as I was I still doubted that! I could make a good leg and my brain was normally sharper than most. I could display a decent suit of clothes and was less short of courage than of inches, yet it did not seem to me enough. What was it then that had struck the crucial chord? Then it came to me she saw all in terms of alchemy: she believed we were elementally compatible – my sulphur to her mercury, an Adam to her Eve!
Or was it, I thought, that she was attracted to an opposite? Was she attracted to the notion of my line of honest, decent Saxon freeholders combining with hers of questing, darkling, intellectual Mediterraneans? I thought I heard the Beast roaring but it was only Prince Miroslav clearing his throat.
‘Twenty hours,’ said she gently. ‘Can you wait, Sir?’
‘I think so, Madam.’
She looked at me with repressed glee, with a crazy, near-disbelieving glitter, her lips just parted a fraction, signifying lust: but it was lust for more than physical joy. It was lust for the wisdom carried on the blood. A wisdom fresh-born, like the Earth in Genesis, that was ancient as the dust of the former universe whose remains obscured the light of the Autumn Stars; a wisdom that was the body’s rapture and the mind’s delight. For this her lips were parting and her breath gasped while she assessed me from the depths of her darkening, heated eyes. ‘Oh, it will be the ultimate marriage,’ she said.
St Odhran, either missing all our intensity or ignoring what he could not approve, said: ‘If it’s a Best Man ye need, von Bek, I’ll cheerfully volunteer.’
‘Thank you,’ said I sincerely, ‘dear friend.’
Libussa swayed like a snake captive under the fakir’s flute. Prince Miroslav came forward to touch her. ‘Madam.’
She blinked. The spell was not dismissed, but set aside. I returned to my normal stance, though still confoundedly muzzy. St Odhran’s face was slightly shadowed. ‘Marriage is an adventure for only the bravest,’ said he. ‘’Twould not do for me. I lack the bottom for it. But I wish ye well.’ He turned, as if he hid his expression.
Libussa swiftly ended their whispered conference by glaring at Prince Miroslav. ‘It has to be!’ She almost shouted. Did he object to our splicing? Was he perhaps her guardian or mentor, whose permission she must seek? No, it was inconceivable my Libussa should ever require blessing from anyone! She would command God Himself if He came down to Earth. She was His senior in divinity, that goddess who had ruled before the Hebrew Jove cast His first thunderbolt! The Beast roared from the centre of the Labyrinth, but he was tamed. She ruled him, contained him, and he was her ultimate power to release only at the final moment. But I prayed that moment would never come. Was it not bad faith to let the Beast live on? I realised my lids had fallen over my eyes and I rose, bidding them all good night. A servant led me to my bed.
I went to sleep still within my ecstatic fantasy. She would come for me, she had promised, to carry me to our wedding. I should be garlanded in white and red flowers, dressed in samite. I should be one with my destiny, with my Duchess of Crete. Was it not cowardice, I insisted as I dreamed, to let the Beast live? Surely he should have been left to die, where Theseus left him, groaning, with slowing heart, with flooding lungs, with gushing jugular; dying in his own hairy stink. I could not believe the Beast would be allowed to remain. She said he was only a threat, that he need never be released, but why lead him, even on a golden rope fixed to a golden ring which tugged at the flesh of his red, flaring nostrils, into our paradise? I thought she claimed in that dream to protect paradise? Did Jehovah employ the Serpent to protect the Garden of Eden?
This was beyond my understanding. I was perturbed. Yet I would follow her like the Beast, even if my nose were pierced and my ankles chained and all my strength shivering to break those massive links. As the Baptist to Salome, as Samson to Delilah… no madness was stronger, none more worthwhile, whether it end in death or triumph!
Alone in my bed I anticipated resolution and ultimate fulfilment. It would be no ordinary marriage. Perhaps a pagan ceremony or a Byzantine one. Who would witness our unique, our universal union? All? Or would it be secret? I cared not. O, Madam, I murmured to myself, so much in me is changed through your alchemy. Your powerful femininity turns all to quicksilver. How shall we be when the transmutation’s complete? ’Tis absolute malleability we look forward to, absolute chaos… Are we truly set to accomplish nothing less than the re-creation of the world? ’Tis logical, if things are to be properly improved. ’Tis all we wish: and no unworthy ambition, surely? Did not God make His first human creature androgynous? And only later did it divide, male and female. Then later still came the Snake, which is also named the Beast. Who welcomed the apocalypse? God? Satan? Humanity?
The Beast strained on an iron harness. Mad, crimson eyes were glaring. His breath was a great stink infecting our Earth and poisoning Paradise. The tree was dying. It had a foulness in its roots.
We were only flesh and could be nothing else.
But now it was cold in my room. I opened my eyes. Through the uncurtained window I saw the Autumn Stars and it seemed their light faded rapidly. As the light faded, so did the cold increase. I was shivering. She is gone. Von Bek, man…
St Odhran stood there in a white nightshirt, a candle in his hand. The linen fell away from his strongly muscled arm. He was breathing heavily, brushing unbound hair from his face. He was drawn and pale. ‘Von Bek! For the love of God, rouse yourself man! Are ye drugged?’
She had fallen away from me. We could never truly be parted. I closed my eyes to sleep.
‘Von Bek, ’tis murder! And they’ve taken your damned betrothed!’
It was hard to lift my head. It rolled on my shoulders. I heaved with arms and buttocks until I was sitting. All the adventuring, I supposed, had tired me. Now there was fresh murder and I scarcely cared. And what else?
‘Libussa,’ said my friend harshly, ‘is kidnapped.’
I did not believe him. Libussa could be neither stolen nor threatened. She had too much power and intellect. She controlled her own destiny more thoroughly than any mortal before her. She was Libussa Urganda Cressida Cartagena y Mendoza-Chilperic, descendant of the world’s most antique races, daughter of the Merovingian kings, who claimed direct lineage (and could prove it) from Jesus Christ, who in turn was of the direct blood of Solomon, Scourge of the Genii. In her our wisdom was crystallised; she was the rightful bearer of the Cup and the Sword, the Lion, first alchemical adept… this was no dream. St Odhran was shaking me. His face was terror-struck in the faded light. The dust of that long-decayed universe became a fog obscuring all hope… ‘She’s gone, man! And Miroslav murdered!’
‘It’s not possible,’ I told him reasonably.
‘Sir, I assure you – Miroslav’s downstairs, breathing his last on his own damned carpet, with a sabre cut that’s chopped him near in two! And he says ’twas Montsorbier did it!’
‘He’s still alive, of course. The last of the Beast’s captains. And the most determined.’ I put bare feet to floorboards while St Odhran helped me dress. I insisted on the proper attire, for I still had it in mind I was to be married that morning. Linen, stockings, breeches, waistcoat, front-laced shoes, a fresh neck-cloth. And my friend continued to call to me, slapping and swearing at me. ‘For pity’s sake, man, rouse yourself from this rum reverie. Was there opium in your drink last night?’ Frock-coat, a wig, now to the mirror. The suit was good, though the man within had a sleepy, silly look about him and the man behind was almost leaving the ground in rage at his friend’s slowness.
‘I must look my best, St Odhran, for my wedding.’ The sword had a ceremonial look; it was an old one with a great scarlet pommel in a blue velvet scabbard. Now there was a figure, not quite in the fashion, yet you could not call him absolutely unmodish. It would do. The face was so gaunt. Was that von Bek or Klosterheim? Did we merge? Klosterheim screamed and clawed at the air…
‘By God, von Bek. D’ye not care if she lives or dies?’
I shook my head to clear it. What folly had seized me? Some spell of Montsorbier’s discovery? Was I to be subject to witchcraft on top of all else? And St Odhran hobbled with me, having got himself half dressed between his shouting and his slapping at me, his breeches not quite buttoned, followed me as I went stumbling down the stairs to the hallway where huddled, frightened servants waited.
Prince Miroslav had been cloven right through, shoulder to waist. He was holding on to the sabre which had killed him, as if the sword was life itself. His pink face was wonderingly boyish but his blue eyes were round with agony. ‘It was one she knew,’ said he carefully, perhaps afraid his speaking would rob him of a few moments. He loved life too much to leave it carelessly. ‘A Frenchie. Polished boots. Tricolour.’
‘Montsorbier,’ supplied St Odhran. ‘Have you a potion, Sir, to cure you of that cut?’
Miroslav said in a small, even voice: ‘No.’ He smiled.
I had an urge to embrace that kindly bear but knew any movement would kill him sooner. Though he would dearly have loved the comfort of another human body, he held me off with a look. ‘This is wrong,’ he said. ‘She does not need to make the sacrifice. It is the old, black thinking somehow got into her. She has summoned up the Beast.’ He paused to draw a slow shivering breath. ‘Well, it was in the blood. But she had such genius. I did not expect her, out of all of them, to succumb. I’ll take that brandy now, St Odhran. Can you remember the principle of my engine?’
‘I think so, Sir.’ My friend’s gentle hand extended a glass to those full, bearded lips. The adept sipped almost sensually.
‘My lord,’ I said urgently, ‘what is she doing?’
‘We alchemists have a tendency to merge the symbol with the actuality. It gives us our path, of course, but it can create the most abominable perversions. She’s fallen back on the old, debased methods and nothing will, it seems, inhibit her. She’s convinced it is the only way. You might have persuaded her otherwise, von Bek. You might still.’ He drew another careful breath, clinging to life by the force of his will alone.
‘She went willingly with Montsorbier?’
‘I think not. Originally, I gather, there were secret bargains, long since broken. The ritual is not intrinsic to the marriage, but you, of course, are. You have only yourself as collateral. Could you refuse the ritual, von Bek? Refuse her?’
‘No,’ I told him.
‘At least pretend.’ He swayed where he sat and his hand grew limp upon the sword. ‘They will have returned to the Centre. They took everything – cup, tincture – and she knows by heart the incantation. Worse – they have my crucible…’
His body began to slump, but St Odhran and I moved forward to support him. He thanked us with a smile and died.
‘St Odhran,’ said I, straightening, ‘they’ve returned to that tavern. We must follow.’
‘If she wished to go,’ said he heavily, ‘then it’s her decision and I’ll not interfere. Von Bek, I mislike all mysteries and all magics. These are waters I’ll not swim in, Sir. Let Montsorbier substitute for you. Don’t he plan to be the groom?’
‘I can save her. Prince Miroslav said so.’ The sluggish wine still hampered my movements and distorted my speech.
‘Let us simply leave this place, my friend,’ said St Odhran, ‘and return to our own Mirenburg. I’d rather face their whole militia than continue with this black magic. Miroslav told me that conditions were now perfect for crossing the realms. He gave me all the information necessary for the journey…’
‘But you’re my Best Man, Sir,’ said I. ‘And on your honour to escort me to my wedding!’
With the shrug of one who had volunteered to ascend the scaffold with good grace, St Odhran led the way back up the stairs and out to the roof where his great Air-ship swayed like a pendulum overhead.
Soon we sailed again beneath the Autumn Stars, while rooftops, dark and glistening with rain, passed slowly do
wn below. The engine had constantly to be tended and failed four times. I grew agitated with each pause as St Odhran tinkered. Montsorbier was probably already in the Deeper City. I began to long for a horse, but the Air-ship was all we had. As the strong wind sprang up, our Donan was hard put to fight it. We were blown this way, towards the wide, transformed Falfnersallee; we were blown that, towards the palace and the ornamental lake. We dropped too low and horses reared not twenty feet from our gondola’s keel, while citizens gaped and pointed. Then we were up again. The new gas was more responsive than St Odhran was used to, he told me.
The Air-ship’s screw laboured and our bulk pushed hard against the wind which seemed to conspire to keep us ever from the Centre. Our hair and clothes were blown every which way. Then all at once there came a lull and our machine gained sudden momentum, a sort of grip upon the air, and we were above that strange spiral of streets and swaying buildings which creaked still more energetically around the central pit, the core of the Deeper City. It seemed their agitation had increased and I was reminded of mourning Indians I had once seen, not far from Brandywine Creek one December morning, wailing as they watched their dead chief’s body, on its high bier of birch saplings, pecked clean by carrion birds. We began to drop down. Those mourning terraces rose to surround us. We were directly above the embers of what had once been Salzkuchengasse. The Friend Indeed was entirely gone, was smoke and charred timber, flattened. In a vast circle, some two thousand supplicants, all in pale robes, in the high pointed hoods of the auto-da-fé, stood looking inward at the Centre. Their silence was the silence of creatures who had renounced humanity in favour of that horrible semblance of power.
They had raised a black cross, some twelve feet high and five wide. Upon it, hands nailed and bloody, feet impaled likewise, clothing stripped and rags fluttering, a halo of pink briar roses twisted about the lifted, agonised head, bruised naked body, still strong and proud, bearing many thin cuts, still oozing, was the woman I would wed.
And beneath that cross, like some centurion transported by deep emotion, hand upon the sword at his hip, stood Montsorbier. His other hand was gauntleted and held an upturned helmet of antique form in which he caught, drop by drop, her blood.
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 37
