The Malacia Tapestry (2 page)

‘A day's work in itself,' de Lambant said, as we munched. ‘Why bother to go to Kemperer's? He has nothing for us. Let's make for Truna's and drink. Portinari will probably be there.'

‘Oh, let's go and see the old boy anyway, show him we're alive and thin for want of parts.'

He struck me in the chest. ‘I don't want for parts. Speak for yourself.'

‘I certainly wouldn't want to speak for what is doubtless unspeakable. How the women put up with those disgusting parts of yours is beyond credit.'

At the corner of a certain scrivener's stair stood an ancient magician called All-People. All-People stood at the scrivener's stair whenever the omens were propitious, and had done so since the days when I was taken to market on piggy-back. His face was as caprine as that of the billy goat tethered to the post beside him, his eyes as yellow, his chin as hairy. On his iron altar a dried snake burned, the elements sprinkled on it giving off that typical whiff of the Natural Religion which my priest, Mandaro, referred to contemptuously as ‘the stench of Malacia'.

Standing in the shade of the scrivener's porch consulting All-People was a stooped man in a fur jacket. Something in his stance, or the emphatic way he clutched a box under his arm, caught my attention. He looked as if he was about to make off faster than his legs could carry him. Always watching for gestures to copy, I recognized him immediately as the man who had come smartly off the trireme.

Several people stood about waiting to consult All-People. As we were passing them, the magician threw something into the hot ash of his altar, so that it momentarily burnt bright yellow. My attention caught by the flame, I was trapped also by All-People's amber gaze. He raised an arm and beckoned me with a finger, red and twisted as an entrail.

I nudged de Lambant. ‘He wants you.'

He nudged me harder. ‘It's you, young hero. Forward for your fate!'

As I stepped towards the altar, its pungent perfumes caught me in the throat, so that I coughed and scarcely heard All-People's single declaration to me: ‘If you stand still enough, you can act effectively.'

‘Thanks, sire,' I said, and turned after de Lambant, who was already hurrying on. I had not a denario to give, though advice carries a high value in Malacia.

‘Guy, what do you think that means, if anything, “Stand still, act effectively”? Typical warning against change, I suppose. How I do hate both religions.'

He bit deeply into his peach, letting it slobber luxuriously down his chin, and said in an affected scholarly voice, ‘Highly typical of the misoneism of our age, my dear de Chirolo – one of the perils of living in a gerontocracy, to my mind … No, you turnip, you know well what the old goat's on about. He's a better critic of the drama than you suspect, and hopes by his advice to cure you of your habit of prancing about the stage stealing the limelight.'

We were falling into a scuffle when my sleeve was clutched. I turned, ready for pickpockets, and there stood the old man with the fur jacket and the box. He was panting, his mouth open, so that I had a view of his broken teeth and chops; yet his general expression was alert and helped by blue eyes, which is a colour rarely met with in Malacia.

‘Forgive me, gentlemen, for the intrusion. You are young Perian de Chirolo, I believe?'

He spoke with an accent of some sort. I admitted my identity and presumed that he had possibly derived some enjoyment from my performances.

‘I'm not, young sir, a giant one for performances, although it occurs I have myself written a play, which –'

‘In that case, sir, whatever your name is, I can be of no help. I'm a player, not an impresario, so –'

‘Excuse me, I was not about to ask for favours but to offer one.' He pulled the jacket about him with dignity, cuddling his box for greater comfort. ‘My name, young sir, is called Otto Bengtsohn. I am not from Malacia but from Tolkhorm at the north, from which particular adversities what afflict the poor and make their lives a curse have drove me since some years. My belief is that only the poor will help the poor. Accordingly, I wish for to offer you work, if you are free.'

‘Work? What kind of work?'

His expression became very severe; he was suddenly a different man. He regarded me as if he believed himself to have made a mistake.

‘
Your
kind of work, of course. Playing.' His lips came together as if stitched. ‘If you are free, I offer you work with my zahnoscope.'

Looking down on him, I formulated the resolve, not for the first time, never to become old.

‘Have you work also for my good friend here, Guy de Lambant, almost as famous, almost as young, almost as poor, almost as skilful as I, old Bengtsohn from Tolkhorm?'

And de Lambant asked, ‘Do the poor help only one poor or two poor?'

To him the old man said, ‘I can afford only one poor for my modest design. All-People, as well as my personal astrologer, indicated that the one should be Master Perian de Chirolo, according to the presentiments.'

I asked what on earth his zahnoscope was. Was it a theatre?

‘I have no theatre, Master.' His voice became confidential. Picking at one of my buttons for security, he edged his way between de Lambant and me. ‘I do not wish talking in the street. I have enemies and the State has eyes. Come at my miserable place and see for yourself what thing I am offering. It is something more than of the moment passing, that I will say. I stay not far from here, on the other side of St Marco's, into a court off Exhibition Street, at the Sign of the Dark Eye. Come and see, conform to the forecasts.'

A gilded berlin, lumbering too close, gave me the chance to move away from him without forfeiting my button.

‘Go back to your dark eye and your dark court, my venerable friend. We have other business, nothing to do with you or the stars.'

He stood there with his box gripped firmly under his arm, his mouth stitched again, his face blank. No disappointment or anger. Just a disconcerting look as if he had me summed in a neat ledger kept in his head. He was indifferent to the people who jostled past him, going this way and that.

‘You ought to see what he has to offer. Never miss a chance for advancement, de Chirolo,' said de Lambant, as we went on our way. ‘He's bedraggled enough to be a wealthy miser. Perhaps he came away from Tolkhorm with the city treasure.'

I imitated the old man's Northern accent. ‘“I have enemies and the State has eyes …” He's probably a Progressive or something equally shady. I'm a fair judge of character, Guy. Take it from me that that old eccentric has nothing to offer except a certain scarcity value.'

‘You could be right.'

‘I've never heard you concede that before.'

He spat a peach-stone into the gutter. ‘I'm a pretty fair judge of character too, and my judgment is that Pozzi Kemperer will offer us nothing but the point of his buckskin boots if we manifest our faces at his house this morning. I'll keep to my original intention and go to Truna's. Portinari should be there, if his father spares him. And Caylus, if the bulls have spared him. I grow increasingly friendly with Caylus, bless me. Come with me.'

‘You agreed to come to Kemperer's.'

He pulled an impudent face. ‘Now I
dis
agree. I know you only want to see Kemperer's little wife. She favours you more than me, being a myopic little hussy. We'll see each other at Truna's this evening probably.'

‘What has Caylus to offer so suddenly?' Caylus Nortolini was a lordly young man with numerous sword-wounds and maidenheads to his credit; his scornful airs were not to everyone's taste.

Assuming a cringing air, holding out one paw like a beggar, de Lambant said, ‘Caylus is always in funds and generous with them. He likes to impress, and I'm very impressionable …' The paw turned to a claw and the voice altered. ‘My impression is that his sister, Bedalar, is extremely beautiful and generous. I met her with Caylus at the Arena, where the appearance of the lady inflamed my heart and much else besides.'

Then he was off, assuming what was intended for a lecherous gait.

He cut through the cloisters of the Visitors' Palace while I made for the Fragrant Quarter, where our worthy impresario lived. Here, throughout the palmier centuries of Byzantium, spice ships had sailed in to the end of the Vamonal Canal and off-loaded their aromatic goods into tall warehouses. The trade was less brisk nowadays, and several warehouses had been converted into dwelling-houses. The street was quiet. Two flighted people swooped overhead playing flutes.

A faint aroma of cardamom and cloves lingered in the air like memory as I presented myself at Pozzi Kemperer's courtyard gate. There was always some difficulty about gaining entrance. I was admitted past snarling dogs, broken carriages, and bits of statuary. In a cage in almost permanent shadow sat Albert, a melancholy ape-sloth brought long ago from the New World. Albert had once been a favoured household pet but was sentenced to this shady exile – so the players said – on the day that, surprising Pozzi naked in the arms of a Junoesque prima donna, he had sunk his teeth into his master's buttocks in irrepressible expression of animal envy. Now he ate with the dogs. The titbits of the table were gone for ever. Kemperer was not a forgiving man. Nor were his buttocks quick to heal.

My timing was faultless. Coffee still steamed on the breakfast table. The chairs had been pushed back and Kemperer and his wife were through the curtains on the far side of the room, taking a snatch of rehearsal. For a moment I stood in the gloom, while their figures were outlined sharply by sun shining through tall windows at the other end of the apartment – a light that in its clarity matched La Singla's beautiful voice.

Neither saw me, so preoccupied were they. She was in another world, his eyes were on her. As I moved towards them I gathered from the table thin slices of cheese and smoked ham where they lay curled on patterned plates, cradling them into a still-warm bread roll garnered from its nest in a wicker basket. I tucked this snack inside my shirt for safety.

La Singla began to expand her voice. She looked every inch a queen, she was a queen, as Kemperer conducted with prompt book in hand. He was a thin man, often gawky in his movements, yet in rapport with his wife so graceful and involved that it would be difficult to determine which inspired the other.

Now her regal mouth cried of damnation. She was dressed still in deshabillé, with flimsy slippers on her feet and her golden hair trailing about her neck, knotted carelessly with a white ribbon. Good and ample though her figure was, it held something of the stockiness of the generations of Malacian peasants from which she had sprung (at least according to one account of her origins). Yet it also radiated majesty as she ranted to a dying lover on a battlefield long ago.

‘“Oh, I will be revenged for your lost life, Padraic, never fear! Far worse than enemies, friends it was who brought your downfall. This is not war but treachery, and I will root it out – for am I not come of a great line of warriors, of generals, admirals, high-mettled princes? My remotest forebears lived in the old stone towns of Sasqui-Halaa, and from them rode out to vanquish those half-human armies of Shain and Thraist, a million years ago –”'

‘No, my thrush. “A
million
years ago …”'

‘That's what I said. “A million
years
ago, from out –”'

‘No, no, my dear, confound it, listen: “a
mill-i-on
years ago …”, or else you break the rhythm.' He offered her some yellow teeth which achieved at one glint both wolfishness and supplication.

‘“A
million
years ago, from out the tepid prehistoric jungles swarming. So shall the armies of my hate –”'

She noticed me by the curtain and became La Singla again. The transformation was sudden. Her face broadened as she smiled in sheer good nature. Maria, La Singla, was about my age. She had good teeth, good eyes, and a good brow; but it was her good nature I most loved. Kemperer, furious at the interruption, snarled at me.

‘How dare you sneak into a gentleman's house, you puppy, without being announced? Why is my privacy always invaded by rogues, relations, and renegade mummers? I've but to call one of my men –'

‘Darling Pozzi-wozzy,' remonstrated La Singla.

‘Hold your tongue, you minx, or you'll get a cudgelling too!' Such abrupt turns of mood caused us to fear him and ape him behind his back.

‘How could I not be drawn in at the sound of that divine tragedy of Padraic and Heda?' I asked, assuming the role of diplomat.

‘There's no work for you today, as you well know. You flounce in here –'

‘I don't flounce. You mistake me for Gersaint.'

‘You sneak in here –'

‘Maestro, allow me to hear more of the Padraic tragedy. I never weary of it.'

‘I weary of you. My little thrush Maria is to give a recitation before the joust at the Festival of the Buglewing, that's all. I merely coax her, coax, as fox coaxes fowl, to smooth the ragged edges of her diction.'

‘I'd never dare to make an appearance without your coaxing, my good spouse,' piped the fox's wife, coming so near the fox that she could peep over his dandruffy shoulder at me.

Mollified, he tickled her chin.

‘Well, well, well, I must powder my wig and get down to the jousting field to see that our box is properly constructed. Do it yourself or it'll never get done … Attention to detail, the mark of a man of genius … True artist never spurns the practical … Reality the common clay of fantasy … “A
million
years ago, from the tepid prehistoric jungles swarming …” A bold line, if not mouthed to death.'

As he chattered in a way I knew well, Kemperer was whisking about the room with La Singla and a manservant in pursuit, preparing to venture out. I took the opportunity to pull my provisions from their hiding-place and have a bite.