by Tim Willocks
‘Jean’s gone. You felt it. You know it.’
‘Yes.’ Her lips curled. She licked them. ‘Yes.’
‘Draw the blade and step aside.’
Pascale pulled the knife out and stepped back.
‘Never linger. The instant you’ve killed, be ready to kill again.’
‘Yes.’ She thought about it. ‘Yes. I understand.’
‘A fight to the death must be over in seconds. If a man has the skill to survive three of your attacks, he has the skill to kill you in one of his own. Don’t get wounded.’
Tannhauser draped Jean over the rail like washing and wedged the corpse’s feet between the balusters to anchor its weight. In the bedroom, Tannhauser kicked Ebert in his broken ribs until he wormed himself back out from under the bed and crawled to the landing. There, while he wept, and following Tannhauser’s instructions as to the best approach to the great arteries of the neck, Pascale cut Ebert’s throat.
Her fascination with the result, which was torrential, fascinated Tannhauser. Many a farm boy had baulked at his first pig. Pascale had just murdered two men as if she’d been born to the practice. Perhaps she had. She looked at him. He felt a dread kinship.
He hoisted Ebert and hung him over the rail. The blood of the two dead youths cascaded down the woodwork and onto the floors below. The drops danced and burst in tiny fountains. The stairwell filled with a humid red mist.
‘Well? Were they students or actors?’
‘They said they were both. Perhaps they were neither. I don’t care.’
‘We can at least applaud this final performance.’
Flore came to the door. ‘I can hear someone walking on the tiles.’
Tannhauser listened. Flore was right.
There were at least two men on the roof directly above them.
‘Can they reach the trapdoor and the ladder?’ he asked Flore.
‘The hatch has a bolt on this side but it’s open. Papa sent us to the rooftops, but Pascale stopped to abuse the students, and they caught her. I couldn’t leave her. I didn’t think to throw the bolt shut again.’
‘Sisters should stick together,’ said Tannhauser.
‘Will you stick with us?’ asked Flore.
‘I’ll stick with you until you’re safe.’
Tannhauser felt the heat of Pascale’s eyes. He looked at her.
‘Does that mean you’re adopting us?’
Tannhauser almost laughed; then saw she was just as serious as she’d been when she’d driven a knife into Jean’s chest. He went to the window in the bedroom and looked down at the street. He was in time to see the militia rush in a mass towards Malan’s front door.
‘Our luck has turned. They’re going to try to take us by storm.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Madman Has No Master
CARLA LOOKED OVER Alice’s shoulder at the four cards.
They were tarot trumps, in the Italian style, and had come from different decks. Two were printed from woodblock and coloured by hand, and were numbered XII and I; two were painted a tempera, with great beauty, by different artists. These last had neither names nor numbers and were slightly larger. She had seen similar used in games, though she’d never played. She’d seen them used by soothsayers on the streets in Naples, in the market on the waterfront in Marseilles. She had never consulted them, being wary of Catholic doctrine, though she knew Mattias had. The particular cards on the table made her shiver.
‘Do you read the cards?’ asked Alice.
‘No.’
‘But you have a sense for them.’
‘The Church forbids divination in all its forms.’
‘For which we may be thankful, for they’d turn the practice to wicked ends, like most else they’ve purloined. If you’re averse, speak up.’
‘I trust in you.’
‘You’ll have to show more willing than that or you’ll close the doors to your own knowing, and that’s where the cards speak from.’
‘But I know nothing of the cards. I don’t even know their names.’
‘Divination hopes to catch the wind, too, as it blows through your soul. Your Follia opened doors in this old pagan even she didn’t know were there, so the moment was meet. No doubt it is for you, too.’
‘I’m not sure I want to know the future.’
‘No one can know the future, not in the way you mean it, not even God.’
‘Surely God by definition knows all things –’
‘No, only by the definition of them as appoint themselves his overseers, so as to keep the rest of us trembling. If God knew what we were going to do, don’t you think He’d have the decency to stop us?’
‘God gave us free will –’
‘Whether He gave us free will or not – and this woman doesn’t believe it, not least as everything the clever say of Him describes a being who would loathe the very notion – we have it, which is very much to the point. Like all that was, and all that is, the future is woven from boundless small threads, which is our Mother’s genius. With each breath we take, we warp one thread rather than another, mostly without knowing which or why, because we take not the care to know. Divination is a means to better come to that knowing, and thus to take part in the divine, which is the way of Creation – the making of all that is, and all that will be, the dance of Life Her-own-self.’
‘Her dance goes on inside me, right now.’
Alice smiled, as if proud of her.
‘Yes, love. And never is Her dance more beautiful.’
‘Please go on. How can I better take part?’
‘If your soul is open to itself – and thence to you and all that you are, and thence again to all that is around you – the question becomes: how can you harvest some of all that knowing to help you warp a thread or two with care, instead of with blind groping? For all that knowing is too much for any mere mind – or its will, free or otherwise – to encompass. Too much from which to make a choice of thread or warp or knot. And so, no wonder we are so much in confusion.’
‘Yes. I understand. But if you speak of blind groping, is it not so that the cards are selected by blind Chance?’
‘Not so blind, though you put your thumb on the answer, which is: we invite Chance to take its right place in the doings. For not only does Chance encompass all possible knowing, it is, by its essence, the opposite of mortal will – to which it pays no heed at all, much as we might like it to. Thus, Chance knows not what it is to be in confusion, for confusion is part of its essence, too. Confusion, that is, as mortal will might see it.’
Alice took a slurp of cold tea to give Carla the time to absorb these notions, which were mighty, and yet which Carla heard as if she had known them all her life. She took a sip from her own cup, and nodded that Alice might continue.
‘Since all things are connected – for how could they not be? – these cards, or rather their images, provide a meeting between the knowledge possessed, in confusion, by the soul, and the power of Chance to choose from among that knowledge. From that meeting, a divination can be made, which is not wholly blind, for we do direct its gaze, even if only seen as through a glass darkly. From amongst all that which we do know – but which by its abundance confuses us – our attention can be pointed towards that which we need to know.’
In its challenge to her prior conceptions, the conversation put Carla in mind of more than a few winter evenings she had spent sitting by the kitchen hearthstone with Mattias and a jar of wine; and before him, of other mystic moments with Amparo. But before she could respond, another pang came.
She leaned on the table and groaned, trying not to lose the thread of her deliberations. Alice put a hand on top of hers and watched keenly but without concern. Her unconcern was welcome. Both of Carla’s previous labours had been carnivals of anxiety, most of it neither hers nor of her making. Carla opened her eyes and found the drawn cards lying inches from her face.
The row of three chosen by Chance and Alice’s soul.
The first was the Hanged Man, reversed.
The second, a figure dressed all in red, also reversed.
The third portrayed a beggarman, shoeless, in patched rags. His golden curls were threaded with feathers and flowers, and on his right shoulder he carried a staff, as if not sure why he did so, or what he ought to do with it. He was young, and his mazed black eyes swam with pity, as if haunted by all he had seen on the long road. He stood alone with his back to the dark blue edge of yonder – an ocean, a river, an abyss – as if he could go no further. He seemed altogether lost.
The first two cards were woodblock prints. The beggar was an exquisite painting; as too was the fourth card, the one Alice had chosen at the start and set above the rest. Carla had avoided this last, being unable to deny its name; but now she looked on it full.
Death, his bones bedight with a robe of crocus-yellow finery, rode bareback on a black horse rampant. A long white ribbon was knotted round his leering skull, just above the sockets, and fluttered gaily behind him like a lady’s favour. Above his head he wielded an enormous black scythe, its shaft embossed with gold.
Never had the Reaper looked more gaudy, more joyous and deranged.
His charger, with its bared teeth and crimson tongue and demon’s eye, was nearly as horrible. It galloped towards the left-hand edge of the card. Trampled beneath its hooves – in a field of daisies – lay the corpses of a king, a bishop, and two cardinals, who flanked a dead pope, perhaps Peter himself, for a wound as if made by a nail scarred his right hand.
Certainly, thought Carla, as her pang ended, the artist had made his point.
‘If these deep doings exhaust you, we can stop. My reading’s done.’
‘Not only do these doings keep fatigue at bay, they have enthralled me. But let me ask, if the future cannot be known, what is it that the cards tell us?’
‘What will happen is not important – for what will happen is Life Her-own-self, and she dances to no tune but her own. What matters is how we take part in that happening, the way that we make of it one future rather than some other. If we listen to who we have been, and who we are now, our soul can show us what we can be, and thus make us better ready for what we will be – or not – in the future.’
Carla looked again at the beggarman.
‘Where did you learn all this?’
‘This woman didn’t so much learn it, as learn that she knew it. No doubt the wise men are drawing up their rules, and no doubt they’d say she doesn’t know what she’s up to, but no one’s obliged to listen to her. Whether anyone listens or not is their affair, not hers.’
‘I’m listening.’ Carla indicated the draw. ‘What are these cards called?’
Alice pointed to each in turn.
‘The Traitor. The Juggler. The Lunatic.’
‘Why did you choose Death?’
‘The card purposely chosen represents the quester and her question. It overlooks the whole tale and sees what lies beyond. Don’t let it upset you. My question didn’t concern you or your babe.’
‘The tale these tell seems a grim one. What do they say?’
‘Each card always speaks anew, for its purpose is to raise the unseen images hiding in the quester’s soul, and lurking in the realm of the question, so that the reader might catch their meaning. Like a dog flushing birds to the wing. And aye, up to a point, these are grim doings.’
She indicated the three cards from left to right.
‘This old woman sees these pictures whole, forward and back, arse over tit. She knows them as you know your fiddle. But a simple view, a beginning, is to see in these three images, past, present and future. How did we? How do we? How will we do?’
Alice picked up the Hanged Man and held the card the right way up. A man in green pantaloons dangled by his left ankle from a rough-hewn gallows supported by two posts. His arms were tied behind his back; gold coins tumbled from his pockets. His face was strangely unconcerned with this fate. It seemed as if he were almost about to smile.
When Alice spoke, her voice was bitter.
‘The pelican feeds her chicks with her own blood. The worm eats his own tail. The Traitor’s head sways over troubled waters and his mind sinks down, yet he knows it not, for he has despised all prudent counsel and lost his wits. He has not loved his life and never will, even to the loss thereof. He that he has betrayed is but his own self, and though he renounce the false path, though he expiate his sins, though he cut the bonds that bind him with the knife of sacrifice, he will drown. For he sees not his secret enemies, and he will never spend their coin.’
Alice replaced the card, reversed. She took up the Juggler, who was dressed in red. He stood at the table of a street gambler, on which were arrayed the tools of his trade: dice, a knife, a pea and three shells, money, a cup of wine. He held a thin stick, or perhaps a whistle for attracting custom. Alice plucked notions from some inner vision.
‘A falcon winged by an arrow. A she-wolf, snared, chews on her own leg. A cry of hounds. A bull untamed. Falsehood. Sleight of hand. Ambition. Festering wounds. Subtlety rejoices in evil and wields in its name the warrants of a spiteful god. Yet among even the conspirators fear abounds, for the cup is poisoned and the poisoners will drink it to its lees.’
Alice waved the card as she put it back in its place.
‘This Juggler is the enemy the Traitor does not see. No one yet sees him.’
‘Then a card may embody a particular individual, a real person.’
‘Of course, usually several. The cards capture the quester’s quest, a drama that might well boast many actors. The particulars of this one needn’t concern you, though you’re right: the play so far runs on intrigue, avarice and lies. Yet all’s not lost, for beyond all calamity, and beyond all fear, stands the madman.’
Alice took the Lunatic and regarded him with something like tenderness.
‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggar is come to town. His belly is as empty as his plate and he has no pockets. They punished him not for the errors he made, but for those that he did not: for over his brothers and sisters the Lunatic never sought power, nor did he seek dominion over Our Mother. The sea is made over to the crocodile, and the petals and the thorns to the rose. His journey has been from darkness to light and to darkness he must return home. He has walked every path worth walking, he has known every thing worth knowing, and now, at the last, he knows he knows nothing at all. The Abyss gapes at his heels, and he does not see it, and he will fall. It is deep beyond human reckoning but not without a floor; its bowels are strewn with the stones of ruined empires; of obelisks that once stood seven times seven tall. Yet, if the Lunatic started at nothing, and at nothing he now stands, we must ask: is his journey over? Or is it about to begin again?’
Alice proffered the card.
‘Do you know? Does this old woman? Does he?’
Carla stared at the lost, bewildered outcast, whose pity extended to all but his wretched self. Feelings she could not name overwhelmed her. She sobbed.
‘Amparo.’
‘Yes, love.’
‘And my child.’
‘Yes, love. And you and I, too.’
Carla let her heart speak and Alice took her hands in hers. Just as Carla feared that her sadness was too infinite and formless ever to end, a new contraction began, and she was almost grateful for its unfeeling progress. It was remorseless, dwarfing in power and duration all its predecessors. At last, this pang passed, too, and Carla blew her cheeks and looked at Alice and Alice winked, and Carla gave in to a grim smile. She wondered why she did not need to sit down, or lie on her back; her thigh bones throbbed; yet she kept her feet.
‘Don’t some call the Lunatic “the Fool”?’
‘Does he look like a Fool? You’re right, that is how most call him, these days. But how could some jester with bells who cuts capers for kings – a slave whose daily bread is dirt – know what the Lunatic knows? The madman has no master. A fool crawls at his master’s feet, and his pay is grubbing for
table scraps with the dogs. How could such as he show us how to walk untainted through chaos and corruption and pain?’
Alice scoffed – that curl of purpled lips, which Carla had come to look forward to. She sighed and shrugged, forsaking anger for resignation and regret.
‘The Lunatic will be robbed of all he has, of all that is most precious, not to him, but us. And what is most precious is Nothing. He’ll be cast out from even his own rags, he’ll be forgotten and damned, and in place of his truth we’ll have bells. Lots of bells. But bells is popular and the long road to Nothing is not. It’s no more than they’ve done to Jesus and plenty more. In the end, they’ll take it all. But your pardon, the question was fair.’
‘What was your question, that you had Death speak it for you?’
‘It was a question fit only for an old woman to ask.’
‘Thank you for telling me something of its answer.’
Alice gathered up the four cards and turned them face-down and slotted them back into the deck amongst the others. And they were gone. The void left by their going was so strong that Carla was shocked to find how real their presence had been.
Alice handed her the deck. Carla hesitated.
‘I don’t know enough about them.’
‘If you don’t want to ask, this woman won’t mind.’
‘Alice, I don’t even know what to ask. I don’t know how to.’
‘Let your card do the asking.’
‘But which card?’
‘You’ll know it when you see it. It’s there, waiting, in the twenty-two. The right card for this here and this now. At another moment, another card, or the same card in some other aspect. Don’t worry, don’t think, don’t dwell, don’t compare. I’ll tell you their names so you don’t have to wonder. Just look. And when you choose, choose quickly.’
Carla accepted the deck and shuffled them face down. The sizes of the cards varied, and by the patterns on their backs they had come from at least four different decks; whether by necessity or design she didn’t ask.
