“There are a few details over here,” Ramon volunteered, encouraging Rosacher to turn to the next page.
A black paw with three nasty-looking talons; an eye, almost human, but having a slit pupil and red shadings at the corners; a fang and several teeth, discolored in the way of ivory.
“Does any of this seem familiar?” Carlos asked.
Rosacher shook his head—he no longer had to act in order to simulate the confusion of the recently traumatized. “No, I…I never saw its face, but this…It’s impossible! It’s the face of something out of hell!” He laid down the sketchbook. “It can’t be!”
“Cerruti swears to it,” Ramon said.
“He was in shock! His memory can’t be trusted.”
“The only sure way to ascertain the truth,” said Carlos, “is to hunt it down and kill it. I hope that you and Mister Cerruti will join us in the enterprise.”
Confounded by this pronouncement, Rosacher fumbled for an excuse, citing fatigue and the need to be in Alta Miron by market day; but the king insisted, saying, “There will be other market days and I assure you that you will not find the hunt taxing. We will set a trap for the creature at some distance from the village, but not too far away, and near the river so that we’re able to take refuge should the occasion arise.”
“I fear for Mister Cerruti’s health,” said Rosacher. “Perhaps he should be left back to recuperate.”
“My doctor will examine him and make a determination.” Carlos laid his hands flat on the table. “In the meantime, my men will go on ahead to find a suitable location for a campsite. We will join them in mid-afternoon. You may do as you wish until then. Sleep, rest…or if you will grant me the pleasure of your company, we can chat some more. I’m sure both of us would find it edifying.”
15
Try as he might, Rosacher could find no viable reason why Teocinte’s national integrity should be preserved at the cost of Carlos’ life. Aside from being vain about his appearance and his skill as a hunter, the king had no apparent flaws. Over the next few hours he discussed with Rosacher his intentions for the people of Temalagua, a grand design involving land reform and the gradual elevation of the peasant class by means of education and the opportunities presented by an emerging industrial state. He treated all around him as equals and they clearly loved him—not only the villagers, but also his guards, who engaged their king in rough yet good-natured repartee, and those who, upon hearing of the king’s presence in Becan, had made their way to the village in order to pay their respects and, in some few instances, to ask that he decide some matter of local controversy—this he did with uncommon grace and charity. A case in point, Gregorio, a farmer from the town of Sayaxche whose wife had left him for another man—all three parties came before the king to offer testimony. Gregorio’s wife, Bedelia, did not deny that Gregorio was a decent man and a good provider, but they had married sixteen years ago when they were but children and she had fallen out of love with him and in love with Camilio, who owned a dry goods store. Since her union with Gregorio had proven childless, and as she was already carrying Camilio’s child, she felt justified in moving on with her life. Gregorio claimed to love Bedelia still and, though not a violent man by nature, he had been humiliated and was plagued by thoughts of retribution. For his part, Camilio wanted to avoid bloodshed, but did not believe this would be possible under the circumstances, since he was unwilling to foreswear his love for Bedelia and refused to relinquish his parental rights to the child. The king adjudicated the matter thusly: “In my palace there are many lovely women, the great majority of them yet unwed. I invite you, Gregorio, to come to Alta Miron and live on the palace grounds and work in my gardens, this in the hope you will find there a more suitable wife. If at the end of a year, you have not found a wife or are otherwise unhappy in your estate, you may return to Sayaxche.”
Carlos then turned to Bedelia and Camilio. “You will see that Gregorio’s fields are worked and worked well for the term of one year, with all profit going to Gregorio. Should he return to Sayaxche, the fields will revert to his ownership. Should he not return, the fields will become yours. As to the child, is his parentage in dispute?”
Gregorio lowered his eyes and said, “No.”
“Then the child shall remain with Bedelia and Camilio,” said Carlos. “But I hereby direct and declare that Gregorio be named the child’s godfather. It is my hope that this shared responsibility will over time heal the breech between you.” He turned again to Gregorio. “A condition attaches to my offer: you will leave within the hour for Alta Miron, thereby avoiding any further conflict with your wife and Camilio. I will give you a paper signed by my hand and sealed with my ring to present at the palace gates. You will be installed in your quarters and on the morrow you will begin what I trust will be a fruitful and happy life.”
All parties appeared satisfied with this agreement, Camilio less so for having to take on the burden of working Gregorio’s fields, but Bedelia expressed her contentment with the king’s justice and it was evident from Gregorio’s smile that he had overstated his love for Bedelia and would not be returning soon to Sayaxche, exhilarated by the potentials of life at the palace and a prospect of work far less onerous and better paid than that of a farmer.
Carlos’ rendering of this judgment, the facility with which he had delivered it and the kindly yet firm manner of handling a ticklish situation made an impression on Rosacher. It reminded him of how he had come to deal with people, except that with his winning charm and patience, his clear intent to be even-handed in all things, Carlos seemed a better him, an idealized Rosacher, one who did not manipulate for gain but was motivated by the desire to govern fairly. The idea that he was about to kill such a man grew ever more unappetizing and Rosacher’s guilt was amplified when the king invited him to the palace upon the conclusion of the hunt so that he could select from amongst the rare birds in the royal aviary a bird or two of his choosing, this in compensation for his assistance in trapping the beast that had terrorized the villages of Becan and Dulce Nombre.
“I believe our golden caiques have recently reproduced,” said Carlos. “Perhaps you would consider one of their children a fitting reward.”
“I would be honored by such a gift,” said Rosacher.
In mid-afternoon they rode to the camp established by the king’s guard on the banks of the Rio Coco. An area some forty feet in length and half that in width had been cleared about the king’s tent, situated on the verge of the water. A table and chairs had been placed in front of the tent and it was here that Rosacher and Carlos seated themselves, attended by one of the guards who provided a meal of sandwiches, chicken and pork, and a good burgundy. Riflemen had been positioned here and there in the surrounding jungle, setting up a crossfire, and both Carlos and Rosacher kept their rifles at the ready. Cerruti sat on the ground at the edge of the jungle some thirty feet away, joined there by a group of men from Becan also armed with rifles. That he and Cerruti were being kept separate caused Rosacher a modicum of unease, but he told himself that this must be a question of class and, though it seemed out of character for Carlos to make such distinctions, he likely was bound by some personal regulation that prohibited his association with a ruffian of Cerruti’s stamp…or it might be that during his interview with Cerruti, which had occurred while Rosacher slept, he had developed a distaste for the man and did not relish his company. The disquiet Rosacher felt in relation to this state of affairs gradually ebbed, washed away by Carlos’ affable and diverting conversation, but his anxiety over Frederick and the murder of the king did not abate. Whenever possible, he tried to catch Cerruti’s eye and, when he managed to do so, he gave his head a surreptitious shake, thereby hoping to communicate his desire to have Cerruti call off his pet and end their mission. Once he thought Cerruti responded with a minimal nod, but he could not be confident that this had been anything other than a twitch, since certain of Cerruti’s behaviors—long stares into nowhere and a general unresponsiveness to the m
en about him—gave evidence that he remained traumatized. Rosacher reached a point in his mental process at which he recognized that he had done all that he could short of making a full confession to Carlos, an admission that would guarantee his execution, and realized that he had put his fate into Griaule’s hands or, assuming the dragon’s indifference, had left it to chance.
As dusk gave way to night, the lingering afterglow of the sun reduced to a ragged band of indigo at the edge of the world, torches were lit, lending an air of barbarity to the encampment. Insects sizzled, frogs bleeped and belched up deeper sounds, the river gurgled placidly, a night-blooming cereus yielded its soft perfume, and Rosacher drank most of a second bottle of wine, and not because he was desperate—he had bypassed desperation and gone straight to an acceptance of his lot. If this was to be all of life, so be it. He’d had enough of striving, of contending against the forces of man and nature (he was convinced that the two were hopelessly at odds), and he surrendered happily to the kingdom of wine, the nation of tipsiness, and whatever constituency those entities embodied. The night was exceptional in its clarity. Stars like wildfire orchids sparked in the overhanging boughs of the great trees and the color of the sky, a rich, deep blue, a royal blue, seemed the product of a curdled mass of light behind it, as if a small galaxy had been brought close to the earth but was held just out of view, so as to illuminate an intimate scene on the riverbank, a pocket of tranquility at the heart of a diseased and trembling world.
“Richard…” said Carlos. “May I call you Richard?”
Rosacher froze and before he could think of a clever lie, something that could extricate him from a circumstance he had only begun to comprehend, he realized that his reaction had already given him away—yet still he made the effort and said to the king, “I beg your pardon?”
“Are you aware, Mister Rosacher, that there is no such bird as a golden caique?” Carlos asked.
“I assumed you spoke out of ignorance,” Rosacher said. “I didn’t think it my place to correct you.”
“I might believe you if you were not Richard Rosacher, but since you are…” Carlos made a comically sad face. “I don’t?”
Rosacher rummaged about for an escape, some trick of words to persuade Carlos that he was not this Rosacher; but he had drunk too much and was too far gone along the road of surrender. “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.
“It’s as I said. You’ll be my guest at the palace.”
“But what will be my punishment?”
“Why should I punish you? Have you committed some crime? True, you operate a business of which I disapprove, and you are the de facto representative of a government that has been no friend to Temalagua. And I suppose you and Mister Cerruti have entered the country illegally—but the penalty for that is a fine and expulsion from Temalaguan soil.”
“Your predecessors have chosen to interpret ‘expulsion from Temalaguan soil’ rather liberally. The sentence of expulsion has frequently been carried out post-mortem.”
“I am not my predecessors,” Carlos said firmly. “You will return with us to the palace and be given quarters among my guards. Your movements will be circumscribed, but no other restraints will be placed upon you. You may eat and drink what you wish. A variety of women will be made available. These conditions will continue until you disclose the reason for your presence in Temalagua. After that you may do what you will. Leave. Stay. I have no intention of harming you. Should you decide to stay, well, I’m aware of your accomplishments—I’m certain you will have much to teach me, particularly as regards managing a business. And I’m equally certain that we will identify areas of common interest and have a great deal to discuss. You’ll be a welcome addition to my court. Of course…” The king’s smile seemed an article of complacent self-assurance. “You may choose to confess your motives here and now, and thus make all this unnecessary.”
“What leads you to think that I would ever reveal my motives?” Rosacher asked.
Carlos’ placid smile resurfaced. “We are much alike, Richard, you and I. In fact, I think we may be very nearly the same person. However, I have the advantage over you in that I have been this person since birth, while you have been forced, either by circumstance or some more powerful agency, to acquire the skills that have shaped our mutual character. Having this advantage, I know things that you do not, and one of these things is that eventually you will become bored with the unchallenging life I offer and will reveal your secrets if for no other reason than to create a dramatic episode.”
Rosacher could not deny the truth of these words, but even as he admitted to Carlos’ estimation of their kindred souls, it was as if he were receding from him, looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope, a view that enabled him to see that Carlos was, indeed, a well-intentioned man, a man capable, should he live, of doing great things, of changing the course of a nation and raising up an entire people from poverty; yet he would achieve this not because he was an altruist or a saint, but rather because he was a narcissist. Like all narcissists, like Rosacher himself, Carlos was likely prone to sudden shifts in temperament and, though by all reports the king had never varied from his benevolent pose, it was a pose. And thus it was possible that one day an event would transpire to turn him from a man whose ego was nourished by enacting good deeds to one with the capacity for unimaginable evil. Rosacher’s impression of Carlos had been so thoroughly transformed, he felt at sea, inclined to let the night go forward without intervention, and he said querulously, “None of this would have occurred had you been more cautious in your foreign policy.”
Carlos’ smile faded, replaced by a wary look. “I don’t follow. To what are you referring?”
“Your alliance with Mospiel,” Rosacher said. “Your designs against Teocinte.”
“Are you mad?” Carlos chuckled. “I have no designs against a country that is ready to tear itself apart. As for Mospiel, I’d sooner lie down with a barba amarilla than join with the prelates in any enterprise.”
“Teocinte has never been so strong as now,” said Rosacher.
“Perhaps I’ve been misinformed and your ties to the government in Teocinte are not as close as I imagined.” Carlos splashed wine into his glass. “Could you be unaware of Breque’s activities during the past year?” He sipped the wine and held the glass up so it caught the light; then he cast a sidelong glance at Rosacher. “Why have you come here?”
Rosacher ignored the question and said, “Councilman Breque has been a competent administrator. I haven’t been diligent in my oversight for some months now—my interests lay elsewhere. But I trust Breque to do what’s right for Teocinte.”
“Then you placed your trust in a fool or a madman. Or both. Breque sends me letters reaffirming Teocinte’s long-standing friendship with my country, and at the same time he has squandered a fortune on naval weaponry. Weaponry that can have no other purpose than an attack upon our ports. I might be concerned about this, but I have it on good authority that he has emptied his exchequer and has insufficient funds with which to buy ships. But you must know of this!”
Rosacher, shaken by Carlos’ assertion, said, “How did you get your information? Are you certain it’s accurate?”
“Oh, yes! In a short time, a few months, six months at best, Teocinte’s economy will collapse. No matter how much mab is produced, your debts will come due well before you can expect to receive payment. They have already come due in many instances. Breque will have to sell his weaponry and reduce the price of mab in order to sustain even a feeble economy.”
“The purchase of a few weapons…I can’t see how that will topple the economy.”
“Do you call seven hundred cannons a few? Six thousand rifles, the latest Russian model! One hundred armored war wagons designed to traverse the jungle, each large enough to carry a company! But you’re right. These are only Breque’s most recent expenditures, the ounce that tipped the scale. In the shipyards of Mataplan lie the keels of seventy great vessels that he
has commissioned, intended to carry an invasion force…yet he cannot afford to complete them. I could recite a long list of Breque’s ridiculous purchases. Apparently the man had designs on the entire littoral, perhaps the entire continent. But to whatever end, he has accumulated more weapons than he has soldiers, more ships than men to fill them. I have no fear of Teocinte. Your country is doomed. It’s Mospiel I fear, for once Teocinte has been gutted by this idiot Breque, they will rush in and impose order, and there will be no buffer state between Mospiel and Temalagua.” Carlos paused. “You have been duped, my friend. That much is clear from your reaction. But this raises the question, for what reason were you duped? And how does your presence here relate to that fact?”
A mosquito whined in Rosacher’s ear. He slapped at it and, as if the slap were a cue, a grumbling noise issued from the jungle, then a roar that might have come from the throat of Griaule himself, so shattering it was—this followed by a volley of rifle fire and screams.
Carlos and Rosacher grabbed up their rifles, aiming them at the jungle. More screams, and Frederick, accompanied by a splintering of twigs and branches, burst from the shadowy foliage—Frederick as Rosacher had never before seen him, solidified into that bear-like shape that prior to this moment had only been hinted at, except in an artist’s depiction. Standing on his hind legs, slashing at the air with taloned paws, roaring as rifles continued to fire, Frederick’s torchlit reality was far more frightening than his portrait had been. In that posture he must have measured twenty feet from tip to toe, his body covered in coarse black fur, and as he swung his elongated head from side-to-side, its form that of a strange fruiting, some sort of mutant melon or squash, his face came into view, a leathery mask, slightly less black than the fur, that seemed to have been stamped onto the stump-end of a severed limb and had over time become a part of that limb, its nerves and musculature connecting, annealing with those of the stump, growing capable of gross movement, producing snarls and leers and various other expressions of rage and lust. His eyes were rheumy, redder than the artist had portrayed, and were set at more of a slant above the cheeks, giving him the aspect of a Tibetan devil god; but this was no brightly colored, ritualistic abstraction of evil, this was evil itself, evil incarnate, fanged and drooling and monstrous, with a lolling tongue and a furrowed brow and a quality of insane vacancy that somehow dominated the face, that was its base emotion.
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