The City in the Autumn Stars

by Michael Moorcock

  The Chevalier scratched his head, looked to the horizon, wet a finger and held it to the wind, crossing rapidly to the side of the gondola, swayed suddenly and set the whole vessel to rocking, apologised as I clung to a rope to stay upright, stared at the darkening sky, studied the western mountains, stroked at his chin, frowned upon his watch, patted his neck-cloth, tapped a foot on the boards of the vessel’s bouncing floor and shrugged. ‘It depends, Captain, upon the weather.’

  It seemed we would have to wait for the air to cool. Then we should slowly descend. The Chevalier explained in some embarrassment that there were perfectly accurate means of controlling the ship but for this exhibition he did not have time to install every piece of equipment normally utilised. He would explain, he promised, as soon as we were on the Globe’s surface once again.

  Thus I witnessed from that gondola a magnificent sunset. The stars grew bright and clear in the darkening sky. The cold wind brought the sharp scents of snow; and inch by inch, it seemed, our vessel gradually dropped earthward. At last we clambered from our basket to be greeted by Sergeant Schuster, together with two shivering boys of about ten years, their mangey poodle, the resentful militia men, an old woman wanting to sell us a charm against, she said, vultures, and a thin, long-nosed clerk from the partnership, he said, of Hoehenheim, Plessner and Palaski.

  ‘We’re dem’ near frozen, Sir,’ said the Chevalier, rubbing at his hands. ‘Is your business so urgent?’

  ‘We’re advocates, Sir,’ said the clerk. And when the Chevalier offered him a blank look: ‘A legal practice, Sir. The law, you know. We are lawyers!’

  ‘Aha!’ With an aggressive movement, St Odhran accepted a card and squinted at it hard in the light from the brazier (which, for their own comfort, the militia had maintained). ‘Too dark to read. Bailiffs, eh? Leave it with us.’

  ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Sir,’ said the puzzled clerk. ‘Something to your advantage, I believe.’

  ‘Advantage, hm?’ The tall Chevalier’s manner changed suddenly and he put one arm around my shoulders, the other around Schuster, and stared up at Mirenburg’s exquisite silhouette. The moon was by this time quite high. He murmured to me: ‘A bite, I’m certain. Say nothing.’ Then more loudly he added: ‘Come, friends, we’ll celebrate our success with wine.’

  From the darkness the clerk wailed his bafflement. ‘Shall you be there, sir?’

  The Chevalier paused. He was grand; he was haughty. ‘Very well, tomorrow. But it must be eleven.’ He spoke as if to an ill-bred child.

  ‘Eleven, Sir. Yes, Sir.’

  Behind us the aerial ship, guarded now only by the boys, swayed and creaked and sighed, its canopy forming bumps, distortions, ripples as the air slowly escaped. ‘’Tis a question of weights and counter-balances,’ said St Odhran, ‘of simple ballast, too. In the larger vessel, or one with a metal gondola, for instance, a brazier’s carried which is damped until the need for hot air arises – to keep one aloft, you understand. But it did not seem wise to introduce such an instrument today. One goes up heavy, using ballast to lighten, and comes down cold. What d’you think, von Bek? Did you enjoy the adventure? Are you with me?’

  ‘I’ve already given you my hand, Sir. But I’m still curious as to how you believe I’ll be handy to your enterprise.’

  ‘Handy? Demme, man, you’re essential. Who would give a Scottish soldier cash before the job’s completed? But a Saxon, a von Bek, is a different tale.’

  We returned to the warmth of The Martyred Priest and when Sergeant Schuster had gone off to explain his long and inconvenient absence to his wife, we sat together in the inglenook, smoking good, cool churchwardens and toasting our boots against the firedog, knowing something close to contentment as we continued to discuss the coming of the New Age and how best we might enrich ourselves by it.

  Then we went to our suppers and immediately thereafter to our beds. For the first few hours I slept undisturbed, only waking just before dawn, hearing a noise from Mladota Square outside my window. I rose and turned down the lamp I had left burning, so that I might clearly look through the glass upon deserted flagging, cobbles and statuary. Waning moonlight presented yet another aspect of Mirenburg. Two figures stepped rapidly from the eastern corner to the western. Both men wore swords and held scabbards against their thighs as they walked, in the manner of soldiers. The pair doubtless went to duel, almost certainly near the Mladota Bridge which spanned the Rätt. It was the traditional meeting-ground for such encounters. I envied them the simplicity of their conflict which would be concluded in an hour or two without appeal. A little snow danced against my window and thin light came swaggering up the sky from behind a black line of steeples and eccentric roofs. A cold wind entered the room and I hastened back to bed to lie for a while in a reverie of melancholy and dramatic rhetoric, the consequences of my own vanity. How I longed to see my Libussa again!

  At last, impatient with this, I was up to the water bowl and splashing hastily before dragging on my clothing and homing like a cat for the warmth of the kitchen stove below. Disconcerting the maids and Frau Schuster, who would not usually expect to see me for another two hours, I retreated to a quiet corner with a cup of warm milk and brandy, claiming it was a headache which affected me.

  Watching those hardworking people go about their business, preparing stoves, food, beverages; cleaning all that must be cleaned in a thriving hostelry, drawing up inventories, planning what must be bought, and doing all with fair grace, even cheerfully, I felt divorced from ordinary life and jealous of their apparent tranquillity. I had spent my youth and manhood largely in the service of enlightened causes (save for my Russian years), and this devotion to politics, to campaigns and strategies, to the ‘general welfare’, had left me in some ways ill-prepared, even naïve, when it came to viewing the concerns which these women, for instance, took for granted. There was an attraction in grand designs, for they frequently allowed us to ignore the daily matters of domestic drama which surrounded us. I imagined myself Ulrica Schuster, that friendly, good-hearted girl. If I were she, would I not by her age already have felt half my current disappointments and be expressing almost none of the resentment which I, by sex and position brought up to take power for granted, currently suffered? This observation, while improving my moral state, did very little for my pain.

  When St Odhran came down he was dressed like a Forester or a country gentleman, in hunting green, with a brown waistcoat and top-turned riding boots. A costume my father might have worn to visit the pastor on a weekday. And indeed the Chevalier wore his outfit, he said, in order to create an impression of himself as an unostentatious aristocrat, someone with land-wealth. He had the actor’s gift of responding accurately to whatever disguise he adopted. He smiled at my lifted eyebrow. ‘I’ve a carpenter, and a smith, who must be induced to allow me credit. They would supply a landsman what they’d refuse point black to a popinjay in dandy’s threads.’

  ‘So the von Bek name shan’t be used yet?’

  ‘Used,’ he said, ‘but not abused.’ And he winked.

  ‘I presume you shall not take me with you.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re needed, my friend, for the Prospectus. It must be written in a properly educated manner.’ He drew some folded documents from his tail pocket. ‘Here are all the saliencies of my aerial man-o’-war. Make her a merchant craft instead. Put a literary and fanciful touch to her particulars while I’m out. Then meet me at the lawyers’ in Königstrasse at eleven.’

  ‘You require the whole Prospectus by then?’

  ‘I’d be obliged, aye.’ He drank a rapid tot of hot grog to prepare him for the weather outside then stood up, plucking his heavy cloak and his stick, his gloves and wide-brimmed hat from the bench beside him. ‘I’ll take it to the printer this afternoon. By tomorrow we’ll be ready to begin. Wear whatever you fancy for yourself. You have an old name, which can always carry the newest fashion. Those of us with shop-new names must endeavour by our waistcoats to suggest antiqui
ty!’ And with a wink he was gone out into the awakening street.

  Having paid my respects to Sergeant Schuster I returned up the stairs, passing Ulrica coming down. She greeted me pleasantly and asked if I intended to stay in my rooms that morning. When I told her I’d be writing there, she said she would light the stove in my little parlour. It was too cold, she said, for thinking and shivering at the same time. I was touched by her thoughtfulness. I wondered how I should have fared in Mirenburg had I arrived there without friends and my obsession still upon me.

  Soon, in the easy warmth of my parlour, I had composed the following:

  AN AERIAL EXPEDITION

  The Latest Intelligence of a Modern Columbus

  But recently reported in the English Press, the return of a remarkable aeronautical navigator, Le Chevalier Colin James Charles Gordon Cowie Lochorkie St Odhran, nobleman of Scotland and Luxembourg, lately in the service of the Emperor Frederick of Prussia, was celebrated with great Rejoicing in London and Edinburgh after the Chevalier’s absence of nearly a year aboard his Aerial Schooner, the DONAN. In his Address to the Royal Exploration Society at Greenwich, the Chevalier spoke of new Lands discovered beyond the Antarctic Continent and of the Astonishing variety of Creatures and Peoples he had found there. At the end of his Address he displayed Gems of unique size and purity. These were subsequently loaned to the Crown Agents who are yet attempting to Assess their monetary Value, since nothing of their like has been seen before.

  The Chevalier de St Odhran, who is both a Hero of the East Indian Campaigns and a Knight of St Leopold, informed the Society of his intention to Found an Aerial Navigation Society which would equip a larger vessel to journey by Air to the Newly Discovered Regions and return with Examples of both Flora and Fauna together with further Examples of those Precious Minerals which he himself saw in considerable Quantities.

  VENALITY OF THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT

  This Noble Scheme has been Threatened, however, due to the English Government insisting, in Spite of Considerable Publick Outcry, that the Crown receive half of any Cargo so Discovered. Subsequently the Chevalier de St Odhran Departed in his Vessel from England and it is Rumoured that he journeyed to his Estates in Africa, which may only be reached from the Air.

  INTENTION OF HIS VISIT TO MIRENBURG

  On the Eve of his Departure the Chevalier expressed his Hope of meeting more Confidence and less Greed amongst the Continental Nations. He Expressed the Intention of visiting the Enlightened City of Mirenburg, which is the Capital of Wäldenstein whose People are Famous for their Generosity and Positive Curiosity. There, he would Solicit Interest in his Newly formed Para-Antarctical

  AERIAL NAVIGATION SOCIETY

  I will admit I was singularly proud of my literary invention. For the past few years I had written nothing but speeches, and their high-toned Rhetoric, it now seemed to me, was better suited for the form of commercial advertisements. In this time of Revolution and Discord, I went on to say, it was wise for men of property to invest their capital in more distant lands, not yet settled by civilised peoples with Radical notions. The Chevalier St Odhran possessed charts, made by himself and other explorers, of lands as yet unmarked upon the familiar Globe. It was his intention to have built a great Aerial Frigate, armed with the latest in weaponry and with a complement of seasoned veterans of good character, and, thus equipped, embark for these lands, claiming them in the name of the Society or any nation which should commission him. Any commissioning body or individual should have the honour of assuring one of the noblest ventures in modern times and, moreover, be enriched by a profit many degrees greater than the original investment.

  I went on in this vein for a while, making reference to the drawings (which were excellently done) of the projected frigate itself, which would consist of an oval-shaped canopy and a wooden hull. Upon this would be mounted an assemblage of sails and Wind Oars, as well as various forms of ballast. The present Director of the Society was none other than the Ritter Manfred von Bek of that great and noble Saxon family whose name had been associated for many centuries with ventures of only the most reliable stability and provenance. The Ritter’s experiences in France, where he stood against Robespierre and defied the Mob in his valiant defence of the King and his family, were now common currency, I wrote. These events impressed upon the Ritter von Bek an urgent need for fresh Colonies abroad where the mistakes of the past could not be repeated. To ascertain himself of the Chevalier St Odhran’s absolute integrity, he himself accompanied the Explorer on his most recent voyage to the idyllic territory, free of disease and discord of any kind, which St Odhran had named QUASI-AFRICA. The drawings in the Figures were the work of the Ritter’s own hand and displayed the wonderful Tropical world, its riches and its fruits, together with its natives who were gentle and friendly and whose simple costume included headdress and harness of emeralds, sapphires and diamonds, which they dug from the floor of a certain valley not two miles from their Capital Town. As for vegetation and beasts, these consisted of many edible fruits and vegetables and varieties of animals, most of which were not dangerous. The largest was a kind of Ostrich, with multicoloured plumage, used for ploughing and for pulling carriages by the natives, as well as a kind of Ocelot, whose coat resembled that of an Ermine, though was of a pinker cast.

  In danger of carrying myself away by these flights of fancy, I forced myself to stop and, hearing the Cathedral clock strike ten, rolled up my best copies, tied them with a ribbon, drew on my topcoat and was off to the Lawyers, via Radoskya Avenue, where I made enquiries at a Tailor’s after a new suit of clothes, so impressed had I become by the promises of my own Prospectus.

  Early at Messrs Hoehenheim, Plessner and Palaski, I was shown into a Waiting Room lit by a large bay window with a view of the Falfnersallee, busy and wide: below and beyond it the river was so crammed with the morning’s traffic, the water was hardly visible. The room was sparsely furnished, containing a set of high-backed uncomfortable chairs, a map of Mirenburg on the wall, a long, brightly polished bench, an ornamental stove in black and blue tiles, giving off a parsimonious warmth, and a framed testimonial that in the year 1732 Isaac Hoehenheim passed with honours the High Examination of the Royal Wäldenstein Legal Council. The room smelled of beeswax and old parchment. The firm was a rich one, doubtless with aristocratic clients. There was a Turkish carpet on the floor. The uniformed Beadle asked if there was anything I required while I waited. I told him there was nothing. I was content to breathe this wealthy dust for a while.

  Soon the Beadle was back, ushering my partner into the room. St Odhran was very much the busy owner of estates come reluctantly into town on business. He displayed the suggestion of a wink to me as he handed his outer garments to the servant hovering in the shadow of the Beadle’s worsted and braid. Another minute while he went through my handiwork, praising, grunting, considering a phrase, then the Beadle was back and we were on the move again, through panelled passages, past libraries of mysterious books and offices where perched Clerks at high stools and desks, like so many captive flamingoes, quills squeaking on vellum, until we came to a great cabin, a Throne Room of a Prince of Law, which had a circular window set near the roof. Through this window a massive sunbeam entered, piercing the ever-present dust and falling at last upon a bust of some seventeenth-century Lawmaker in a fluted wig and a gown so trimmed with stonework-lace I thought it must surely crack at a touch. His white, unsmiling face was at odds with all this frippery, making it seem someone had played a practical joke upon him and dressed him in his costume while he slept. He seemed, however, sublimely unconscious of the deception.

  From the room’s far shadows now stalked a figure whose face not only bore a striking resemblance to the elaborate bust, but was almost as pale. He was in cream-coloured silk. Only the bright eyes, clear and without expression, had colour. The thick lips moved ponderously to utter a ‘Good morning, gentlemen’, then to introduce himself as Herr Doctor-Lawyer Hoehenheim-Plessner, the Junior Partner (sixty if a
day!) and to ask our names. We bowed, announced our titles, and took his proffered chairs in front of his desk as he moved to a seat which had doubtless shaped his body over most of his life.

  ‘I am, gentlemen, representing a Client and the matter requires your assurance of complete discretion before we continue.’ He fluffed and patted at his cravat while he spoke, but when he folded his hands to listen, he fixed the speaker with unblinking turquoise eyes which, on their own merit, must have won him the majority of his cases.

  We gave him our word on our silence. Satisfied, he picked up a folder to consult while he continued his deliberate discourse. ‘My Client’s a person of quality, a resident of this city. For reasons which cannot as yet be divulged my Client wishes to commission your aerial ship.’

  ‘Wholly commission her, do you mean, Sir?’ St Odhran spoke in some surprise. ‘The existing ship?’