The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W Aldiss
She rose and came into my arms, that willowy girl, turning her face all golden up to mine, and we began a kind of impromptu gavotte. Her movements were so light, so taunting and in tune, that a special spring primed my step, powered by more than music. My spirits rose up like smoke.
Bedalar took the dish at our feet and swung it before her, so that a shower of rice, all that we had not bothered to eat, flew over the ledge and down the mountainside. Then she took de Lambant's hand. They also began to dance.
Another moment and the musician himself came in sight. We scarcely heeded him when he rounded the rock. It was as though he was already part of our company. I noticed that he was old, small of stature and stockily built, and that he had a man-lizard accompanying him. He played a hurdy-gurdy; that cardinal fact we knew already.
As long as the music went, so went we. It seemed we could not stop, or had no need of stopping, until the afternoon itself clouded over. It was more than a dance; it was a courtship, as the music told us — as our own closeness, our own movements, our own glances, told us. We finally bowed, laughing and gasping, and the music died.
We took up the bottles of wine and passed one to the musician and his companion. The hurdy-gurdy player was so small and densely built as to appear in his fustian clothes as thick as a city wall. His complexion was swarthy and we saw how aged he was, with eyes sunken and mouth receding, though there were black locks yet on the fringes of his white head. Guy and I recognized him. As it happened, we had seen his likeness that very day.
'Do you not live by the flea-market, O tuneful one?' asked de Lambant.
The musician did not answer. His throat was too busy encompassing as much wine as possible before de Lambant took the bottle back.
'It's undeniable, sir.' His thin, used voice had none of the brilliance of his music — or of the wine. 'I have a shack by the market, if it's all the same to you, sir. Though I've played to courtiers in my time, and made bears dance as nimbly as butterflies.'
'We saw your living likeness on one of Master Bledlore's glasses.'
The old musician nodded and a smile spread across the ruin of his countenance. The lizard-man behind him jumped up and down, spilling wine into the dust, where it rolled itself into globules.
'Ah, Giovanni Bledlore, the greatest artist of our city. He cares for the downtrodden. Have a look at this, gentlemen.' The old fellow came forward, offering us his musical instrument. It was heart-shaped and a pale yellow. Below the finger-keys, a picture had been painted, a little miniature depicting two children.
The pose of the children was lifelike. They were chasing each other, the boy running after the girl, each with arms outstretched. They were laughing as they ran. An imitation sun shone.
De Lambant and I recognized the workmanship at once — and the infants.
'Master Bledlore's art! Who else could get so much into so small a compass? And these little scamps — they're the pair we noted on the azure vase in his workshop!'
'As you so rightly say, sirs,' agreed the musician, retrieving his instrument and tucking it lovingly under his arm. 'The very same little scamps, bless their lovely hearts. Giovanni used them for models more than once. Since he could not afford payment, owing to the dereliction of his rich patrons, he did this miniature for me to enjoy as I played. These two darlings are my own grandchildren — or were, I am forced to say, were my own grandchildren, and the apple of my eye moreover, until the accursed east winds of last winter carried them both off to the shades. Yes, a bad day, that…'
He sighed, and then said, 'They would dance all day to my music if you let them, pretty little sprites. They had few toys. They never quarrelled. But the magicians at Bishops Bridge set a spell on them and they shrivelled up and died when the wind came from Byzantium. Now they are no more. No more.' He began to weep; the lizard-man put a scaly hand on his shoulder. 'There's nothing left of them, only this little picture of Giovanni's here.'
As he cuddled his hurdy-gurdy to one cadaverous cheek, Armida said pertly, 'How fortunate you are to have that consolation. Now we've heard your sad story, you must play us another tune. We can't dance as nimbly to your tears as to your music'
He shook his head. 'I must continue for Heyst, my lady, and earn a little money by playing at a wedding. In a few weeks it will be winter, however hard you young people dance.'
He saluted and shuffled on. The lizard-man followed, upright and giving us in passing the tight-lipped smile of his kind. As for de Lambant and I, we started kissing and petting our pretty dears before the two travellers were out of sight.
'Poor old man, his music lit us but could not fire him,' said Armida's beautiful lips, close to mine.
I laughed. 'The object of art is not always consolation!' I pulled her dark hair about my face, till our eyes were in a tent.
'I don't know what the object of art is — but then, I don't know what the object of life is. Sometimes I'm scared. Fancy, Perian, those children dead, and yet their images living on after them, painted on wood or engraved on glass!' She sighed. 'The shadow so eclipsing the substance…'
'Well, art should be enduring, shouldn't it?'
'You might say the same about life.'
'You dare be sad when what you are enduring is only my hand groping up your silken underclothes… Ah, you delightful creature! Oh, Armida, there's no one like you…'
'Oh, dearest Perian, when you do that… If my family… No art can ever…'
'Ah, sweet bird, now if only… yes…'
'Oh, my lovekin, that's so…'
There is little merit in reporting a conversation as incoherent as ours became. Of all the arts, none translates into words less readily than the one we pursued. Suffice it to say that I — in the words of a favourite poet —'twixt solemn and joke, enjoyed the lady'.
Her lips, her legs, opened on a paradise to which I flew. A few metres away, screened by bushes, de Lambant and Bedalar imitated us.
So much for our fluttering selves. As for the meteorological phenomena, the settled weather brought a sunset of ancient armorial gold, under which the whole landscape glowed like a shield before being quenched by night. Scarcely a zephyr stirred, leaving the atmosphere as untroubled as our joy.
With evening, we lay folded together like old flying carpets whose magic has run out, limp and incapable of further transports. De Lambant and I were relaxed upon the bosoms of our still-loving ladies.
We slept in a huddle, with the lamps of the distant fair our nightlights, and kisses for prayers.
Cold pre-dawn stirrings woke us. Heavy twilight still reigned. All was peace. One by one, we sat up and cuddled each other, scarcely speaking. The girls attended to their hair. In one quarter of the sky, the cloud cover opened like a jaw, showing light in its gullet; but the light was as chill as the breeze moving about our shoulders. We stood and looked about. We jumped up and down to see if our blood would move again.
Holding hands, we started down the mountainside. We found a path among the goosefoot, amaranthus and gaudy spikes of broom, and followed it. No movement or illumination showed from the city which lay among its mists. Only by the grey walls of Heyst, dull-gleaming lanterns showed; the peasants were already astir, going to the well or making for their fields, breakfast bread in hand. Birds began to call without breaking the mountain hush as we walked through an oak thicket. There we came on the hunter we had glimpsed the day before, standing silent in buckskin on the path. He had killed his hauberk. It was slung about his shoulders. Its head hung limp on his chest, an early bluebottle already sipping at its moist eye.
We reached the first vineyards and headed for a wooden bridge across the brook. An oaken satyr stood guarding the spot, as well-weathered as an ancient shaggy-tusk. Flowers had been laid freshly in his wormy hand, even this early in the day. The sound of the brook was clear and refreshing.
A grave happiness moved in my breast.
Taking Armida about the waist, I said, 'However early you wake, someone is awake before you. Howeve
De Lambant took it up, and then the dear girls, improvising, starting to chant and sing their words as we crossed over the creaking slats of the bridge.
'However light your sleep, the day is lighter. However bright your smile, the sun is brighter.' De Lambant.
'However overdue the dawn, no dues delay it… And what it owes the morn, in dew 'twill pay it.' That was my clever little puss!
So the unspoken rules of the game were set: rhymes were required.
'However frail the blossoms that you bring, year after year, they still go blossoming.' Bedalar, her eyelids heavy from the night.
'The water runs below our feet, ever-changing, ever-sweet, the birdlings burble and the brittle beetles beat!' I again.
'However long night breezes last, day overthrows them, though day's overcast.' De Lambant, a little too clever.
'And what a world of never-never lies in that little word, "However"…' Armida again.
We skirted the closed fair-booths, tawdry in the new light, and moved towards Bishops Bridge. Sentries were posted there, but they let us cross the Toi without a word.
A watery ray of sun, piercing over the leaden stream, lit the huddle of buildings along the waterfront. Its beam was reflected back by one cracked window. I noticed that it was Master Bledlore's casement, tightly closed. He would be dozing yet, obsessed and stuffy, his lungs hardly moving for fear of stirring the dust in his studio. His old wife stifling a cough. His bluebottles starting to buzz.
As we breathed deep of the outside air, an ancient musty odour came to our noses, the stink of something being singed. Armida clutched my arm tighter and Bedalar moved nearer to de Lambant. We were coming up to two magicians, and would have to pass them to enter the old portal of Bishopsgate.
The day favoured them in their cloaks and tall hats, directing one of its bright rays so that they were lit like characters in a painting, dramatically appearing from the bitumen of sleep. On two blocks of stone, fallen from some long-forgotten variant of the city's geometry, the magicians had built a smouldering fire; beside it, they proceeded on their arcana, eyes askance as cats', faces square and malign. As we went by, I turned my head to observe the serpents burning on their altar. They symbolized, among other things, the male generative power needed in a new day.
They gave off a blue smoke which hung at heart level. None of us said a word. The ceremony was older even than words.
The magicians moved their archaic bodies stiffly, lifted their withered arms in incantation. Beyond the old tower and the first arcades, daylight was still scarce. But we could see merchants moving through shadows. We passed in under the gate, the four of us, where torchlight was.
Woman with Mandoline in Sunlight
Women have to tolerate much which a man of spirit would never endure. Armida was in immediate trouble with her family when she returned home from our night in the mountain. Her chaperon had discovered her absence: her father was waiting for her in the hall.
Yolaria, according to everyone's calculations, was to have been solaced all night by an ambitious gardener's lad called Hautebouy, but the Powers of Darkness were at their intricate work.
Our plans had been upturned by a favouring wind from the Orient. The busy-body wind brought with it a trading ship belonging to the Renardos. This carrack was loaded with exotic trees and plants for the duke's gardens, peach trees, cherry, and asparagus among them. It happened that the old duke had lost a valued gardener to the plague, and Hoytola, eager to further his friendship with the nobility, had sent along two of his gardeners, Hautebouy being one of them, to assist with the disposition of these rare species. The lad was unable to attend his assignation.
So it was that a fair wind from Cathay caused Armida's chaperon to put in an unexpected appearance, and my Armida to fall sufficiently into disgrace to be banished to her father's country estate for the rest of the festival period. She managed to write a note saying that she was being sent to Juracia, which was smuggled to me by Bedalar.
I was scrupulous in thanking Bedalar warmly for this kindness. To my surprise, she kissed me on leaving and said, 'I know that you expect further kindness from me, now that you won't see Armida for a few days. I find you a very presentable fellow, Perian, make no mistake. Seeing you ride into the sky on that black horse quite turned my head.'
'Did it, indeed?' My wits deserted me. Her kisses were of the sort that would annihilate wit entirely. 'I can't imagine a prettier head to turn. But I must warn you that the ride on the black horse is held by my oracle, Seemly Moleskin, to portend unfavourably. So I'm on best behaviour and keeping my amulet polished.'
She hugged me hard, her eyelashes fluttering. 'Guy says you have a terrible reputation. I must warn you that what you are chiefly after is my own possession, and is not for any man who feels inclined to it.'
'I'm not after anything, dear lady.'
But her specific reference to this charming possession, as she called it, threw me into a fit of desire, although I had not thought of it until that moment. Besides, she was at my door, about to go. I told her what I could imagine doing with such a possession — something beyond where I imagined de Lambant had gone. Her response was a flush that seemed to fill her eyes and mouth as well as her cheeks. It haunted me long after she had closed the door and stolen downstairs.
I stood alone in my room, in its dead centre. When I took up the lines of explanation Armida had written, they meant nothing, so formal were they. I dropped the letter to the floor.
Smells of cooking came to my nostrils. Smart sounds of horses' hooves on cobbles reached my ears. Going to the window, I saw a file of Tuscady Heavy Cavalry pass by, looking immensely important. Between the huddled roofs, I caught a glimpse of the fighting tops and furled topsails of a vessel moored along the Satsuma — probably the very vessel which, by its prompt arrival, had freed Yolaria to discover Armida's absence from her bed.
Everything has its place. But what was my place? If a favouring wind from the Orient could affect me in Malacia, what other winds were influencing my fortunes, unbeknownst to me? To become involved with Bedalar would surely provoke a storm in some murky corner of the heavens of which I had never heard.
Seizing up my guitar, setting one foot on my chair, I began to play. I wanted a song that would connect all things, the large with the small, the real with the ideal. All that came was something of Cosin's:
Among the graves each winter's day
There echoing sounds the woodman's blade.
You're far away:
The birds sing not, the spring's delayed.
No, something more was needed. I required company. Pozzi had taken La Singla to Vamonal until the forces of Stefan Tvrtko were vanquished, or I would have gone to talk with her. Instead, I walked in the streets and began thinking again of Bedalar with her lazy eyes.
By a natural association of ideas I came to recall the gardens of the Renardos. If I could not visit Bedalar, I might go to see her brother Caylus, the thought of whom now became more tolerable than previously.
Nothing in Malacia was more gracious than the gardens of the Renardo palace. The grounds represented a unique combination of nature and fancy. Near the great house were formal gardens, laid out in the classical manner, together with mazes and herbal gardens. Beyond these lay arboretums, zoological gardens housing ancestral and wild animals, and many hectares of manicured wilderness. Everywhere flowers abounded, while the whole was decorated with plants collected by agents of the duke from all corners of the known globe. The grounds were further adorned with streams and pleasant pavilions designed in a variety of architectural styles.
Towards one of these pavilions, Caylus Nortolini and I made our way. We followed a path that led among glades of ginkgo and fern and ancient cycads; these glades were the haunt of slobbergobs — qutun-firs, to give them their proper name — the large, shaggy sloths which once abounded near Malacia.<
Since the Nortolinis claimed a distant blood-relationship with the dukes of Renardo, Caylus and I were welcome in the grounds of the palace.
Caylus could be amusing when it pleased him. His face was distinguished but well-equipped for sneering, since his chin was small and the tip of his elegant nose slightly overhung his mouth. His chin was camouflaged by a small beard. He had unexpected grey eyes which could be turned on people with destructive effect; today I saw that they were not unlike Bedalar's. His talk was generally of sport, particularly of bull-fighting, or of his amours.
Statues of goddesses and vanished or imaginary animals peered from the foliage about us. Or we came on a live creature chained and lolling in the sunshine. The slobbergobs were not to be seen, but we passed a mandrill imported from Africa, which drew its brows together and squinted at us down its gaudily striped cheeks.
'Since it insists on wearing its fantastic mask at all times,' said Caylus, 'we cannot tell what sort of face lies beneath it, a savage's or a savant's.'
'In such a mask I would visit Africa and be bombarded by parakeets.'
A mating pair of military macaws flew over as I spoke, flashing blue and sea-green and orange as they alighted in a palm tree.
'There may be savage savants. Sometimes I believe our fighting bulls are enormously wise, sometimes simply ferocious… They say that those hunters who have slain the really formidable ancestrals such as the tyrant-greave or the devil-jaw believe at the moment of the kill that they confront beings of infinite wisdom.'
'I'd better go and see my old savant father. He's not far from here. He knows so much, yet he's never stirred from Malacia.' The mandrill shook his silver chain as we moved away.
'To kill a devil-jaw — that must be the ultimate thrill, to bathe in its blood. When devil-jaws mate, since their forearms are so puny, the male wraps his great, scaled tail about the throat of the female to ensure compliance. Sometimes she is strangled in the act.'