Euridyce's Lament

by Brian Stableford

  I still didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, but I was certain, now, that something was, and that it was something bigger and broader than I’d initially been able to suspect. There were far too many coincidences for there not to be a hidden pattern, and somehow, somewhere at the heart of that pattern, was Orpheus… or Eurydice.

  Mesmay, when his contemplation of the parchment was finally concluded, didn’t return to the armchair by the fire. Instead, he went back to the unfinished triptych. This time, however, he wasn’t studying the middle panel, to which I was slowly applying paint. He was looking at the third panel, which was only a charcoal sketch as yet: the image of the severed head of Orpheus, floating downriver, still singing, and still charming, issuing its own lament for the terrible fate of his hopes, his dreams and his music.

  He studied it for as long as he had studied the parchment, and then he turned back to me.

  “What happened to him, in the version of the myth you had in mind when you sketched it?”

  “He was murdered by maenads,” I answered, although I knew that wasn’t what he meant.

  “Yes,” he said, “but why?”

  He actually wanted an answer. He thought that in order to paint the picture, in order to exert the full force of my artistry, I needed to insert myself into the myth, to intuit the hidden rationale behind its symbolism. And he wasn’t entirely wrong—but I couldn’t give him the kind of neat clarification for which he was asking. Not yet, at any rate.

  “The conventional explanation,” I said, “which is said to be the opinion of the Orphic cult, is that Dionysus ordered the maenads to kill him, because of some real or imagined betrayal. Dionysus is said to have regarded him as a pupil or protégé who had overstepped his bounds—but I’ve never believed that. In my conception of the myth, which I’m trying to incarnate in the triptych, Dionysus has nothing to do with it. The maenads weren’t acting on his orders—if, indeed, they were maenads that killed him, rather than someone who merely put the blame on maenads in order to implicate the followers of Dionysus.”

  “Why, then, was he murdered?” Mesmay persisted.

  I had no alternative but honesty. “I don’t know,” I said. “Not yet—and perhaps I’ll never figure it out, although something might well occur to me, as it often does while a work of art is in progress. I hope it will—but whether it does or not, I’ll finish the painting, and you won’t have any reason to find fault with it. Some things benefit from remaining mysterious and insoluble, and some things just are, whether we like it or not. Art is as much a matter of working around uncertainty as it is of penetrating it.”

  Mesmay was no fool. He understood what I was saying, and he believed me, as he had every reason to do.

  “The other explanation that is sometimes offered in the literature,” he said, speculatively, “is that the maenads were avenging Eurydice—that they blamed him for his failure to be reunited with her, either because he was too cowardly to rejoin her by dying himself, or because he didn’t follow through with his effort to bring her out of the Underworld.”

  “I’m familiar with the hypothesis,” I confirmed.

  “But you don’t believe that one either?”

  “I’m not sure that it’s completely wrong, but no—in the way that you’ve just phrased the two alternatives, I don’t believe either of them. I’m still looking for something else, just as…,” I stopped, fearing a breach of confidentiality—but there was no need; he knew what I meant.

  “Just as your friend Hecate Rain is searching, in composing her poem,” Mesmay completed for me.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  Then he said something rather remarkable: “Do you think she might be able to finish it in time to perform it, when I host a reception for Charles Parenot and his Eurydice?”

  I hesitated, but told the truth. “I doubt it,” I said. “From what I’ve seen, it still needs a lot of work, and Hecate doesn’t like to hurry her work. I don’t think she’s planning on any kind of public reading before the spring, when the season starts again.”

  Mesmay nodded his head. “Well,” he said, “we can hope. Sometimes, inspiration hurries things along.”

  It seemed that he wanted to hurry a lot of things along. I wondered exactly what kind of reception he had in mind.

  “I’ll work on the paintings as hard as I can,” I assured him. “Sometimes, as you say, inspiration permits an acceleration—but sometimes, it takes its time. I’m sure you want my best work, not my fastest.”

  “I do,” he said. “And I leave the matter entirely in your hands. I trust your artistry… your genius. When the time comes, I’m sure that you’ll understand what happened to Orpheus, and that your understanding will work wonders.”

  By this time, I was fully convinced that he really was a member of the Cult of Orpheus, and not merely in the sense that he was part of some secret cabal of plotters hoping to gain political control of the provincial capital. He too was searching for something beyond the conventional, and the reason that he had commissioned me to paint the triptych was because he thought I might be able to help him, without even being aware of it…and not only me. I even wondered, crazy as it seemed, whether he had hung the picture of Eurydice in his small drawing room in order that Vashti Savage might see it while trying to channel his wife’s dead mother.

  “I’ll do my very best,” I assured him.

  “As always,” he said. “Madame Mavor has convinced me of that. She exaggerates, as you say, but she’s very knowledgeable, and when she tells me that you’re a veritable sorcerer, who can work wonders, I believe her. I believe in you, Master Rathenius.”

  It was, I suppose very kind of him, and a true testament to my genius. I only hoped—and it was a hope that I had rarely entertained before—that he wasn’t overestimating me.

  VIII. Historical Expertise

  By the time the Marquis de Mesmay had gone, my head was so full of potential raw material for meditation that I needed distraction and absorption, so I ate a hasty lunch, prepared by my own hands, and returned to the studio to take up my paints for a while. I was also feeling a trifle guilty at the slowness of my endeavor, to which the Marquis had made every attempt to apply a spur. I launched myself into work on the middle panel, on the host of shades charmed by Orpheus, visible only from behind as a silhouette, although a part of his lyre could be glimpsed and his stance left no doubt that he was playing.

  The absorption worked, and I was soon in a near trance, losing track of time completely once I had lit a lamp to assist the dim gray daylight that seemed to be crawling rather than flooding through the windows. When the doorbell rang I naturally ignored it, and it was not until it rang for a second time that it occurred to me that there was no one to answer it, because Jean-Jacques was still at the old Toustain house.

  I cursed, and blinked, and realized, too, that the light had become positively sepulchral, perhaps more suited to the painting of an Underworld scene than bright and cheerful sunlight, but so gloomy nevertheless that it was not providing adequate assistance to my vision, even with the aid of the lamp. Night had not yet fallen, though; behind the masses of gray cloud, the sun was still above the horizon.

  It was snowing again, and this time, the snow was swirling in a capricious wind.

  When the doorbell rang for the third time, I could not ignore it any longer. Cursing even more volubly, I went to open the door.

  It was a woman I had never seen before, short and a trifle stout, although it was difficult to estimate her age because her features were partly hidden by the voluminous hood of a black cloak, which she had pulled up to protect her from the wind and snow. Because the garment was black, it was impossible to tell at a glimpse whether or not the snow was still polluted by soot from the alleged pillar of fire jetting from the Ocean.

  “Please tell your Master that Sister Ursule wishes to see him—Sister Ursule from the Covent of Shalimar,” the visitor said, not really looking at me because she was hunching her should
ers and bowing her head to shield herself from the elements, but obviously assuming that I was a servant.

  There was no carriage in the road. The sister had evidently walked. I hastened to usher her inside and took her into the studio, sitting her down in the chair by the fire and stoking it up yet again before even introducing myself.

  “I’m truly sorry for making you wait, Sister,” I said. “It had slipped my mind that my manservant is not here to answer the door, so I did not respond immediately.”

  “There’s no need to apologize,” the sister replied, pushing back her hood to reveal the cream head-dress of the Sisters of Shalimar. I hastened to take her cloak, and found the remainder of the costume underneath, unstained by the snow because of the protective cloak, which I carefully hung on a peg in the hallways before returning to my unexpected visitor. A few wisps of silvery hair were protruding from the severe head-dress, and a slightly wizened face that must have been regally handsome a long time ago, revealed her age; they gave their owner a commanding presence in spite of her short stature: antiquity and desiccation had weathered the features into a quiet but firm authority.

  While she was realizing that I was, in fact, Axel Rathenius, I realized in my turn that she was not simply a sister bringing me a message from the Mother Superior of the convent, but the Mother Superior herself.

  We looked at one another for a few more seconds, in rapid appraisal, and then her gaze strayed, to take in the studio, and all its clutter. I could see how she had impressed Hecate and convinced her that she possessed a wisdom beyond the usual. I sensed that her glance really was taking the measure of me, as an artist rather than merely a person who could not quite keep his art in order.

  All I could think of to say was: “You really shouldn’t have walked all the way out to the headland in weather like this, Sister Ursule.”

  “I walk everywhere,” she said. “I’ve been up Snowspur in worse. I’m getting old, but I’m not helpless.”

  I sat down in the other chair, not yet fully recovered from the broken concentration, and still not knowing what to say. Somehow, even though I’d been told that she sometimes went out, the fact that the Mother Superior of the Convent had come to call on me seemed more prodigious than any mere blizzard of black snow or pillar of fire.

  “I felt that I ought to come in person,” she said, once she had realized that I wasn’t going to say anything more for the moment. “And I confess, in fact, that I was curious to meet you. One way and another, I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

  “From poor Eirene,” I said, “and Hecate Rain.”

  “Mostly,” she agreed.

  Who else, then? I wondered.

  “You have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid,” I said, as my mind finally clicked into gear, like a well-oiled press. “I’ve hardly heard a single word about you, in more than twenty years, from Eirene Magdelana, Hecate or anyone else. I can’t even console myself with the thought that what you’ve heard about me might be misleading, for no one knows me better than Hecate... although no one could see quite as far into my soul as Eirene.”

  “Their accounts did seem more reliable than others I’ve heard,” she said, without naming the others in question. “I fear, Master Rathenius, that I’ve come to bring you a warning: the parchment you’ve discovered is something that certain people might be prepared to kill to obtain. I understand that you’ve made other copies than the one you sent to me. Do you mind my asking who has seen them?”

  “I sent one to the Capital,” I told her, “and gave another to Niklaus Hylne—and the Marquis of Mesmay has seen the original. I was alone with him at the time, but he didn’t make any attempt to kill me.” I was trying to lighten the tone, but I wasn’t entirely sure that it warranted lightening.

  “Oh, Antoine won’t try to kill you,” she said. “In fact, it might be as well that he’s seen it—he might be able to defend you more effectively than you could yourself.”

  The most surprising thing about that remark was her use of what I assumed to be the Marquis of Mesmay’s first name. I had never heard anyone refer to him in any other way than by his surname or title. I had assumed that his first name was only employed by his wife, and probably only in the privacy of their bedroom.

  “Who might try to kill me to take possession of it, then?” I asked.

  “If my understanding to the situation is correct, the Dionysians,” she replied, forthrightly.

  “You can read it, then?” I queried.

  “I can’t read it,” she replied, “but I believe that I know what it is—or, to be strictly accurate, what the late Monsieur de Toustain believed it to be.”

  Naturally, she stopped there. She was not without a sense of theater. She was, after all, consciously acting out a melodrama of her own, and seemingly taking some pleasure in it.

  She stood up, and walked over to the table. It was only then that I realized that I had not taken the parchment back to the wine-cellar after showing it to Mesmay. If anyone had turned up who was intent on stealing it, they would not have had to go to a great deal of trouble to find it, once they had shot me.

  Sister Ursule peered at the parchment as intensely as Mesmay had done, for what must have been almost exactly the same lapse of time.

  “Interesting,” was her verdict. “How did you send the copy to the Capital?”

  “Discreetly,” I said, and left it at that.

  She nodded her head, apparently willing to take my word for it. “It was probably a wise move,” she said. “The parchment itself is a copy, of course, albeit an old one; the original, if there ever was one, was destroyed a long time ago. Your copies are very artful, and you might well have disseminated them too widely for anyone to think it practicable to seize and destroy them all without attracting far too much unwelcome attention. Did you do that deliberately?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So you knew that there was danger—and yet you gave a copy to Hecate?” She might have added “to give to me,” but she didn’t.

  “I didn’t have any other way of getting the document to you,” I said, “and I thought, given what Hecate had told me about your library and knowledge of the myth of Orpheus, that you were probably the one person on the island who might be able to cast light on the matter. I didn’t think that you’d be in danger. If the Dionysians, or anyone else with an interest in acquiring the parchment, don’t want to attract attention, they’re hardly likely to invade the Convent of the Sisters of Shalimar and murder the Mother Superior.”

  “It had occurred to me,” she said, “that that might have been your principal reason for sending it to me.”

  I shook my head. “Hecate really did speak highly of your scholarly credentials,” I said. “Evidently, she wasn’t wrong. Will Niklaus Hylne be able to discover what the document is, do you think?”

  Sister Ursule pursed her lips slightly. “I doubt it,” she said. “The legend is sufficiently well documented, but in order to connect the document with the legend, he would have to be able to recognize the symbols in which it’s inscribed. That’s a more esoteric matter.”

  “And what are the symbols?” I asked. “Or is that a secret between you and the esoteric Bardic scriptures?”

  She came back to the armchair and sat down. “Of course it’s a secret,” she said. “Somewhat less so now, thanks to you… or Monsieur de Toustain. But the legend, as I say, is documented, accessible to any dedicated antiquarian. If Monsieur Hylne is clever enough, or sufficiently inspired, he might be able to guess that the symbols are a fragment of the suspiric language.”

  “The language of sighs?” I queried.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “No—but I have some Latin.”

  “Of course. And you’re acquainted with Madame Savage, are you not?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “But I don’t believe she’s ever mentioned the language of sighs to me.”

  “It’s one of the arcana of her discipline; she probably wouldn’t have ment
ioned it to you even if she didn’t think of you as an unsympathetic skeptic.”

  Hecate had obviously told her more about me, and other things, than she had implied. “I’m not quite following this,” I said. “To be best of my knowledge, Shalimar was a visionary Bard, and your Order is a Druidic one. Vashti Savage is a spiritist medium. I thought they were two very different faiths.”

  “There is a philosophy that holds that there are no different faiths, but that all are one, cloaked in various symbolic languages—but in any case, spiritism is a method rather than a faith; it’s not incompatible with any religion, including Druidism and Christianity, although neither faith really approves of it. On the other hand, the mystery religions are quite hospitable to necromancy of all kinds, perfectly willing to employ it on occasion.”

  Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The Marquise de Mesmay was a spiritist, but that apparently didn’t mean that she couldn’t be a member of the Cult of Orpheus too—or, at least, married to one.” But it still didn’t explain how the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Shalimar knew the Marquise de Mesmay—although, admittedly, she seemed to know a great many things that one wouldn’t have expected her to know.

  The simplest way is sometimes the best. “Do you know the Marquis de Mesmay well?” I asked, bluntly.

  “I’ve never met him,” she replied, equally bluntly, but added: “I don’t really have much opportunity to enjoy the company of men; this is a rare privilege for me—but to answer the question more fully, I do know a good deal more about Antoine than most men, because he’s married to my niece.”

  I must have looked more surprised than the revelation warranted, because she continued: “Even Sisters of Shalimar have actual sisters. Mine was Aethne’s mother. Aethne and I aren’t close nowadays, but we are still in touch. She used to seek my counsel quite often; it’s less frequent now, but communication hasn’t entirely ceased.”