By this time it was clear to both Rodvard and Lalette that as the boy
had said, they were certainly in the house of a follower of the Prophet
of Mancherei. Though they did not speak of it, the thought gave them
both an inner qualm, not over being found there, but at the thought of
what might be done to their inner selves by one of these insidious
probers in secret thoughts, who had so misused their own Prophet. But a
mouse cannot choose the smell of the hole he hides in; they glanced at
each other, and gave the widow their word, as she had asked. The boy
Laduis returned. It was thought better that the pair be somewhat
disguised again, in case of visitors. Lalette kept the Kjermanash furs;
Rodvard at first donned the garb of an executioner, but the girl not
liking him in that, took the gear of a hunter-guide from the Ragged
Mountains instead.
It was a morning of nervous attent, through which they heard feet come
and go in the apartment overhead. Between the promise to the widow and
their own feelings, there was hardly anything that could be said of what
they wished to say, so they spent the time listening to the lad, who
told them tales of his imagined people behind the masks. It would be
about the noon-glass when a man knocked, who said he was the butler of
the Baroness Stampalia to look at a costume; coming so quickly to the
door that Rodvard and Lalette were without time to don head-masks, and
sought refuge in the bedroom. This was as well; the butler examined
attentively everything in the outer room.
Not long later the widow returned, narrowing her eyes over the tale of
the Stampalia butler. “She has her own dressmaker. Could he have been a
spy?” Then to the couple; “You see, you obeyed my injunction as to
thought, and were protected.”
Rodvard would have made a point of this, but Dame Domijaiek gave him no
time, turning to Lalette, with; “Touching your mother, my dear, I think
you have not to be troubled. I have not seen her myself, but the gossip
is that Count Cleudi has most generously sent her a present of money,
which is an evidence of the working of the God of love, though the
instrument may not be what we would desire.”
Rodvard, whom this style of discourse filled with a discomfort he could
not readily assay, asked about Remigorius. The dame had visited his
shop; she produced a chit from the doctor which confirmed all Rodvard’s
discomforts on the matter of Lalette, for it commanded him in guarded
words to come at once, and without her. Lalette did not understand when
he showed her the paper, but she said he must clearly go. Dame Domijaiek
added her voice to the same purport, saying that if Rodvard were needed
to go elsewhere, Lalette would be the safer there for hiding alone.
From a cabinet she brought some of the false hair used on masks and
skillfully affixed a fur of it to Rodvard’s face, while Lalette,
suddenly gay, changed the dress of his head and added a ribbon that make
him quite a different person. He kissed her farewell; the widow simpered
as though it were she who had been saluted, and said she would offer an
answerable prayer to the God of love for the success of his going.
7
SEDAD VIX: A NEW LIFE
The doorman did not glance from his cachet—a lazy doorman—and the
provost on guard at the street entrance was equally indifferent as
Rodvard went past, feeling a trifle unreal after so long close indoors.
Remigorius was compounding a philter with mortar and pestle; he hailed
Rodvard almost boisterously, laughing over the figure he made in his
false facial hair. “What! Will you have a career as a ladies’ lap-cat,
now that you’ve turned seducer by profession? Well, I have summoned you
here because things mount to a crisis. The court’s finance is utterly
broke, and the High Center holds that we must move fast, for though
there are stirrings in the west, it seems they move in the direction of
Pavinius.”
Said Rodvard; “We are likely to be broke ourselves. Mme. Kaja’s a
traitor.”
Pestle stopped in mortar; the doctor’s face seemed to narrow over the
midnight thicket of his beard and a soft pink tongue came out to run a
circlet round his lips. “I’ll mix that bitch a draft will burn her guts
out. Give me the tale.”
Rodvard told it all plainly, with the hiding on the rooftop and the
household of the Amorosian woman, over which last Remigorius’ eye held
some anxiety. “The one who came here? You did not tell her of our
fellowship? These people of the Prophet’s rule lie as close together as
so many snowflakes, and though they’re as deep against the court as we,
I would not trust them. But touching your affair of the old singer—” he
placed one finger to his cheek and held his eyes averted, so that
Rodvard could not see where his true thought lay “—you’re too
censorious. I see no real treason there; she’s deep in double intrigues
and must keep up an appearance, beside which, no doubt, there is
something of an old woman’s green-sickness for a younger man. It may all
have been by order of the High Center, indeed; you’d certainly have been
saved yourself by some tale, for you are now too valuable. Now for our
affair; you are to take the stage at dawning for Sedad Vix, where you
are to be writer for Count Cleudi at the conference of court.”
Rodvard’s eyes sprang open wide. “The court? Will I not be known?”
“Ah, nya, you’re not involved now in this pursuit of the provosts. The
only one that could establish your communion with the witch is cared
for.”
“What—who would that be?”
“Your pensionnario doorman. An accident happened to him last night but
one; was found in the river this morning, thoroughly dead and green as a
smelt.” Remigorius waved a hand goodbye to Udo the Crab and whipped to
his main theme, the conference of court. Florestan the Chancellor, the
army restive for want of pay, the revenues hypothecated, the question of
a great assembly, Cleudi intriguing, the time come for all terrible
measures.
“But Mathurin can discover all this as clearly as I,” said Rodvard (a
little quickfire of suspicion running through him).
“Better in the open, but we’d know the secret purposes, and whom to
trust. Mathurin takes Cleudi to be a spy for the regent of Tritulacca,
despite his ejection from the councils there. Is it true? You’ll find
the hiding place of his mind. Then there’s Baron Brunivar, the peoples’
friend, as they call him. A reputation too exalted for credit. He’s from
the West—is he not by chance in Prince Pavinius’ service, seeking to
place that worm-bitten saint on the throne, as prince and Prophet, both
together? A thousand such questions; you’ll play in high politics, young
man, and earn yourself a name.”
Rodvard (heart beating) said; “Well—”
“Well, what do you ask more?”
(His mind made up with a snap, and as though the words came from someone
else;) “Two things. To write a letter to Demoiselle Asterhax, who will
be expecting my return, and to know how I am to reach Sedad Vix without
a spada.”
Remigorius shot him a glance, hit and past (in which there was annoyance
and something like a drop of ink about Lalette). “What, you grasshopper?
Always without money. To Sedad Vix is a spada and two coppers.” He drew
from his pouch this exact amount. “As for the letter, write. Here’s
paper, I’ll charge myself with the delivery.”
Rodvard wrote his letter; discussed through a falling light what persons
might be watched at the villa by the sea, and how to give the news to
Mathurin; dined miserably with the doctor on a stew that had the sharp
taste of meat kept beyond its time, and lay down exhausted on the floor,
with a couple of cushions and his cloak.
Sleep withheld its hand; his mind kept running in a circle round the
thought of being a controller of destinies, until he made up a land of
play-show in his head, of being accuser before a court of the people,
with some man who bore a great name as the accused, and himself making a
speech—“But you, your lordship, are a liar and a traitor. What of your
secret adhesion to the Prophet? . . .” The scene he could fix clearly,
with the accused’s face, and the members of the court looking grim as
the accusation was driven home, but somehow the people of his drama
would not move around or change expression beyond this one point, and
each time he reached it, the whole thing ended in a white flash, and he
drifted for a while between sleeping and waking, wondering whether his
Blue Star might not be driving him foolish, until the imagined play
began again, without any will of his own. Toward day, he must have slept
a little, for Remigorius was laying a cold hand on his face, and it was
time to look toward the new day and new life.