Hespira

by Matthew Hughes

  “I think we have been very discreetly placed,” my client said.

  “I think you are right. Did you understand the import of the brief Chumblot showed us?”

  “I believe so,” she said. She tried for an arch expression, with comic effect. “Shall I endeavor to appear mysterious?”

  “You will not need to try,” I said. “You are already mysterious. And by the glances we drew as we entered, I would say that we are already the most interesting couple in the room—and it is not I who has earned us that distinction.”

  “It is just harmless playacting?” she said, uncertainty showing beneath the gaiety. It drew a protective response from me, and I assured her she would come to no harm.

  “In that garb, you are sacrosanct,” I said. “It is all the rest who must beware a fate worse than neural stingers.”

  The server came, carefully averting his eyes from both of us. We ordered as Chumblot had recommended; what was the point of getting good advice if one did not take it? The Four Glories turned out to be a succession of baked pastries: the first filled with a boneless fish; the second with a light-fleshed fowl; the third with a richer meat in gravy; the last with sharp cheese. Seasonal vegetables and small dishes of varied sauces supported the pies, and the summer ale was as perfect an accompaniment as Chumblot had advertised, light and nutty with an odor of sweet apples.

  Between the third and fourth courses, I asked Hespira if any of the tastes were familiar. She answered that she was sure she had eaten similar dishes, but none as handsomely prepared. “If you are expecting to find that I am some lost princess, I fear you will be disappointed. I think I am but an ordinary girl from some little house down some little road.”

  “That would not disappoint me,” I said. “Whatever else you may be, you are my excuse for a highly enjoyable trip. I am beginning to think that I have devoted far too much of my life to my profession and not nearly enough to the simple business of living.”

  Then the cheese tarts arrived and we went straight at them. By the time we had finished them and made our way through two cups of punge—a sharper blend than was usual on Old Earth—I had a distinct feeling of roundedness. But I had learned from many a trip out among the Ten Thousand Worlds that every world—especially the Grand Foundationals—has the potential for gastronomical exquisitry and a wise traveler does not forgo an opportunity to discover another of them.

  I summoned the server and asked to see the dessert card. It appeared in the air before us and I read the entries, each with its description of ingredients and their promised effects on palate and mood. At the bottom, in discreetly small type, I noticed a dish described only as “Singular Cream,” with no embellishments.

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing to the laconic item.

  The server flicked his eyes over Hespira and me and said, “I am not sure that is available.”

  Ordinarily, when the phrase “not available” is spoken in a restaurant it means that earlier-arriving diners have consumed that day’s supply of the item referred to, or that the dish has waited too long and has spoiled. But there was something in the server’s tone that led me to hear an unspoken addendum to “not available”—the words “to you.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  The fellow lowered his tone as if broaching a subject that ought to go unmentioned in public. “Singular cream is only available to persons of upper superlant and elegantiast rank.”

  “How do you know,” I said, “that we are not of that rank?”

  His eyes went over us again, lingering for a moment on Hespira’s costume, which seemed to give him pause. But when he inspected me, his doubts evaporated. “You would appear… different,” he said, and when I affected not to understand, he whispered, “Your accent. I suspect you are offworlders.”

  I had always been a great respecter of other peoples’ customs; indeed, it was the only safe attitude to take if one wished one’s travels among the worlds of The Spray not to be interrupted by unfortunate incidents like being urinated upon or spending time in official custody. But my curiosity was aroused, so I reached into an inner pocket and withdrew a small but quite beautiful jewel. This I placed beside my ale glass and said, “And if I add this to my palette? How do my colors appear now?”

  His face did not change, except around the eyes, which suddenly became as bright as the faceted stone. “Is it possible,” he said, his fingers drifting toward the stone, “that on your world, the colors worn by superlants are different?”

  “It is quite possible,” I said.

  The stone disappeared. The server looked about cautiously. “I will see what I can do,” he said.

  He returned bearing a salver completely hidden beneath a domed cover that he did not remove until the view of other patrons and staff was completely blocked by the surrounding plants and the server’s back. Beneath the cover were two tiny bowls of damascened silver, each containing a pale custard, and two small silver spoons. I reached for one of the implements, but the server quickly signaled that I should wait.

  “There is a… a ritual,” he said, and proceeded to demonstrate. He was still holding the cover of the salver. Now he lifted Hespira’s spoon and briskly struck the former with the latter, sounding a chime that resonated in sudden silence as the background buzz of conversation abruptly ceased. The man set down my client’s spoon and took up mine, again ringing a clear, thin note from the cover. In the silence, the sound reverberated until it slowly died away. Only then, as the server returned the spoon to the table, did the restaurant refill with the susurration of subdued voices.

  “Is it an ancient ritual?” I asked.

  “No. Indeed, the singular cream has only lately been introduced to Razham.”

  “From where?” I wondered.

  The server’s brows drew in. “I have never been told. I have heard that it comes from some secondary world. I do know that its means of manufacture is a secret and that it is exclusively supplied only to the most select establishments.”

  Intrigued, I dipped my spoon into the stuff, finding it neither liquid nor solid, but something in between. I brought it to my lips and sniffed discreetly, getting a pungent odor like that of roasted chestnuts steeped in spiced wine. With the waiter watching as if he were the tutor and I his student poised on the brink of enlightenment, I delivered the spoon’s contents to my tongue. The first taste was simple sweetness, the texture a creaminess that instantly dissolved. Then came a wash of an indescribable flavor, something like lobster that had been fed for years on almond paste, accompanied by a lingering musty finish for which the only word I could summon was “haunting.” By the time I had registered this final sensation, the mouthful had disappeared.

  I looked up at the waiter. “I did not swallow,” I said.

  He spoke softly. “The residue is absorbed by the flesh of the mouth and throat. Or so I am told.” From the pause between the two statements, I deduced that the servers, as always, had sampled the dish, privileges of rank be damned.

  “Remarkable.” I dipped into the bowl again. Though the spoon was half the size of that with which I had stirred my punge, it scooped up half of what remained. “Only three mouthfuls to a customer?” I said.

  “More is inadvisable. The palate becomes overwhelmed, the joy debased.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Also, it can become addictive.”

  Again, I would take the advice of a local expert. But I ate the second and the third spoonfuls with a joy that mingled with sadness. Pleasure cannot last, else it ceases to be pleasure, I quoted to myself as the final must-freighted wisp of flavor faded on the back of my tongue, wondering if the ancient epigrammist who coined the aphorism had ever tasted singular cream. The thought led me to another wondering.

  “What is it?” I asked the waiter. “Is it of animal or vegetative origin?”

  Again, the man knew little. “It is said to come from an isolated commune in some small canton on a secondary world, a whimsy or two from here. I cannot vouch for the tr
uth of that, but I have heard it from several sources. As to what it is made of, the recipe is an absolute secret. Our senior chef tried to isolate the ingredients, but even his superb palate could not decipher their subtle intermixture.”

  I did not doubt it. Though I had a more than educated palate, I could not have deduced the substances that combined to create the cream’s singular taste. “And you do not know what world?” I said.

  He smiled dismissively. “Some rough little place,” he said, “that harbors a single jewel. The Spray is full of such inconsistencies.”

  Hespira made a small noise. I had paid her no attention since the singular cream arrived, so rapt was I in its uniqueness. Now I looked at her and saw that she had taken a mouthful from her own bowl; on her face was an expression like that of someone who strains to hear a note so faint as to be on the farthest edge of hearing.

  “Do you know the taste?” I said. Scent and flavor are the deepest seated of the senses, acquired by our remotest ancestors even before they developed eyes or the faculty of locomotion; the memories they create are the last to fade, even when the forgetting is imposed under duress.

  She looked at me, her green eyes wide with recognition. “Not the taste,” she said, “but the scent of it, that, yes, and most definitely.” Then she shook her head and said, “But I don’t know where I know it from.”

  I turned to the waiter. “Where, besides here, might my companion have encountered singular cream?”

  “In Razham, three other restaurants besides this one,” he said.

  “Not down at New Kutt?” I said.

  “No. The supply is very limited.”

  “Only four places on all of Ikkibal,” I said, “and all of them cater to a wealthy clientele.”

  “It is not a question of wealth,” the man corrected me, with an acerbic pursing of his lips, “but of rank.”

  “Ah,” I said. “And it does not go to other worlds?”

  “Apparently the commune will export only to Razham.”

  “And you truly have no idea where it comes from?” I said.

  “I have heard gossip, but it was from less than credible sources.” The waiter reached to take away the empty bowls. “Two spacers arguing in a tavern,” he said, lowering his voice again. “Both claimed to have seen it on cargo manifests. One said it came from Tuk, the other said Shannery. When I sought to join the conversation, they disdained me. I would not take that from such rough fellows. I left.”

  The vanity of social rank, coupled with a lust for gossip, seemed to be the twin elements of the Razhaman soul; but in this specimen, at least, pride outranked prurience. I paid the score and added an appreciative gratuity then led Hespira to the exit. I noted that once again she drew sidewise glances and provoked some behind-the-hand murmurs, whereas I sparked little curiosity.

  Chumblot was waiting for us. When my client was settled in her seat I delayed joining her, as I could see the Razhaman had some news to impart. “That man,” he said, pitching his voice low, “I saw him again.”

  “Indeed?”

  “He drove by. Twice.”

  “Ah. And did he seem curious?”

  “He looked this way, both times.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Probably nothing, but thank you.” I pressed another sequint into his hand and moved to enter the car. But as Chumblot’s palm took the coin, his fingers passed me a small piece of folded paper. “I took his particulars,” he said.

  I slipped the paper into a pocket of the suede vest and got in beside Hespira. “What were you two whispering about?” she said.

  “It would be premature to say,” I told her.

  “A surprise?”

  “For somebody, perhaps.”

  Outside the Espantia, I asked Chumblot to call for us after breakfast. He looked at me sideways. “Maybe I will see that fellow again.”

  “It might be better if you did not,” I said. “He was, after all, only looking.”

  His heavy shoulders lifted and settled, his brows moved and one corner of his mouth briefly disappeared.

  “Let it be,” I said. “Tomorrow, if he still hovers, we will decide what to do.”

  For a moment, his face resembled that of a boy denied an outing, then he showed me his palms in a gesture of acceptance, and we parted. Hespira was waiting at the top of the ramp, an unvoiced question in her expression. I waved away her curiosity, saying, “It is nothing.”

  The man at the door opened for us and we entered the lobby. I noticed that he regarded us with covert astonishment, far more interest than he had shown when he had first admitted us earlier that day. Our passage across the lobby also drew a startled glance from the clerk, which was quickly transformed into that expression of polite neutrality that hotel clerks must master in their first week or else there is no second. But behind the facade I sensed genuine apprehension.

  It was the kind of hotel where the guest left the key at the desk before going out and recouped it upon return. I recovered both our keys, then led Hespira toward the ascender, but midway across the common space I bade her continue on her own and wait for me, while I returned to the desk.

  “Pardon me,” I said, “is there something of which my companion and I should be aware, but might not be?”

  The clerk seemed a person of broad experience but my question brought a flush of color to his neck. He averted his gaze. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, “you do. It is I who does not know.”

  He looked about and, although there was no one but us within earshot, he lowered his voice. “This is a public place. One does not discuss…” He moved one hand in a complex and subtle gesture from which I was apparently supposed to draw a significant meaning. But I could not.

  “No one can overhear us,” I said, I drew three sequints from my purse and slid them across the counter to him. His head lowered and his eyes flicked from side to side then his hand covered the shining metal. He leaned toward me and whispered, “Your…” He struggled for a word, then settled on the one I had used—“your ‘companion’ is wearing the habit of a Sister of Repose. You are dominoed.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know. It is a necessary subterfuge.”

  “But I took you for offworlders.”

  “We are.”

  I saw his mental gears try to engage this information but fail to mesh fully. “Is the… the institution also established on—” He consulted a screen in the top of the desk. “—Old Earth?”

  “No,” I said. “For reasons I do not care to explain, my companion is unable to establish rank. The subterfuge is merely to spare her embarrassment.”

  “Ah,” said the clerk, relief taking the stiffness out of his pose. “So there is no prospect of some enraged dominee arriving with his retainers and…” He realized he had said more than was necessary.

  But now my own gears had engaged. I realized that Chumblot’s brief had told only the official story which, as in many sophisticated societies, departed starkly from the practical facts. “So the institution is not as neatly operative a solution as advertised to offworlders.”

  Plainly, he would have preferred to push no farther into that particular thorn bush, but I slid another sequint across the counter, meanwhile signaling to Hespira that I would rejoin her shortly.

  “Well,” said the clerk, lowering his voice to a whisper, “there was the case of Excellence Issus Khal. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Really?” He consulted his countertop screen. “Where did you say you are from? Everyone here was talking about the Khal Affair.” From the way he said the last two words, I inferred the capital “A.”

  “I may have been traveling,” I said. “Please enlighten me.”

  He paused expectantly, his eyes dropping to my hand in which he could hear sequints chiming.

  I said, “If what I hear is indeed enlightening…” I clinked the coins meaningfully.

  Watching him, I realized that
greed was only part of his motivation, and perhaps not even the greater part. I was coming to realize that, as in many repressed cultures, salacious gossip was irresistible to Razhamans, who found it as delightful a gift to give as to receive.

  “Well,” he said again, and in a hushed but rushing voice he told me the tale of Issus Khal, a dominee of elegantiast rank, whose spouse had departed their manse for the Sisterhood. It was understood that she felt she had been “given cause,” as the Razhamans said, because rather than leave through the “small door” at the rear of the house, she had stepped boldly out of the main portico, during the early evening when the streets were filled for the daily promenade. She had gone straight to the cloister, but soon reappeared in public, escorted by a dominoed bravo who was reputed to be the sole recipient of her favors whenever she returned to the house of the Sisters.

  Word of the contretemps between Khal and his lady had spread like oil on still water. The dominee found himself unable to visit his favorite haunts and habitudes; all were full of whispers and half-hidden smirks. In due course, he made an offer to the errant lady, as was customary, but such was his pride that the overture was scanty and delivered with poor grace, Khal having sent it by way of an underhousemaid rather than through her matradomo. Now deeply offended, his estranged spouse rebuffed him and redoubled her escorted excursions, making sure to visit his favorite dining spots and even having her companion insist that they be seated in her spouse’s favorite boite.

  The dispute was on every Razhaman tongue for two weeks. At the beginning of the third, Issus Khal waited in an alley across from the Sister House. When the lady appeared, he followed her to a pleasure garden in the exclusive Radiast district. There he accosted her and her escort. Hard words were flung, caught, and returned as blows. A bitter struggle ensued. Though the attendants rushed to pull apart Khal and his spouse’s paramour, they were, ironically, as inseparable as the married couple were not. By the time Khal’s fingers had been pried from the lover’s throat, that organ had admitted its last breath.

  The Watch seized Issus Khal, conducted a scarcely necessary discrimination, and sent him to the procurator-major for trial. That process would require a jury of the dominee’s peers, and in Razham that standard was taken literally—only persons of elegantiast rank could sit in judgment on him. In the time-honored manner, the procurator-major canvassed Khal’s social equals and was surprised to find there was no shortage of nominees willing to take the pledge of unbias and a seat on the adjudication bench; of those ready to condemn Khal there was ample supply, of those inclined to bless him there was a pronounced shortage.