The Malacia Tapestry. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ curtain. She says in a distant voice that he may repent as much as he likes but it has come too late. She does not intend to discontinue her affair with Gerald – she is enjoying it too much.

      At these words, the prince clutches his heart. With dry throat, he forces himself to ask – are she and Gerald then lovers?

      ‘Of course we are! What else do you think we shall have been doing?’

      Mendicula falls back, ashen of face, unable to speak, looking silly.

      She turns on him. ‘You have your affair, I have mine.’

      He can only shake his head.

      ‘And you knew Gerald and I were lovers,’ she cries, very haughty.

      ‘No, no, I trusted you both.’

      ‘You knew and you encouraged. The other day only you spoke with him privily and commended him, commended him for what he was doing. You told him at his face that he was good for me. That happens to be true! He took your meaning and praised your enlightened attitude. Why, you told him even you had a woman – oh, yes, he informed what you said! And you told me that you tolerated our fondness. You knew what was happening.’

      ‘If you believed really that you were not deceiving me, then why did you so falter from revealing the truth to me now?’

      She merely rages at him and throws a hairbrush or something.

      All the prince’s ideals fall like rags from his eyes. He does not even then beat her or berate. Instead, he tries to explain that when he found them both innocent of vice after the first night he spent away from Gorica, he accepted the virtue in them both, thinking them honourable people who could hold their lusts in check for the greater interests of friendship and policy. From then on, he quelled unworthy doubts what arose and trusted them to sustain a proper friendship. That he had encouraged, and he did not deny. She needed a good friend in a strange city and, since Gerald was his sworn friend, owing him many debts of favour, he banished entirely any suspicions of dishonour as dishonouring them. Was his code of behaviour so unworldly? What sort of man would he be if, as she pretended, he had acted as pander to his own wife with a friend as gigolo?

      To these questions, she had no answer. Hers is the way of scorn.

      ‘I thought your behaviour generous and wise. So Gerald did. We honoured you then.’

      ‘In bed you honoured me?’

      ‘Now I merely scorn you. So he will.’

      Far from being penitent, she is unmoved alike by his anger or his misery. She says that she and Gerald simply amused themselves. She has no intention of now relinquishing Gerald, when they are enjoying both the affair.

      ‘I tried to be all in all to you. Why are you so cold and hard now?’

      ‘You were never enough frivolous for my taste.’

      ‘But he … he … has someone else …’

      ‘He can have many women, so long as I am one of them …’

      ‘Patricia, my love, do not degrade yourself! He has debased you …’

      Something of that sort. The prince is gentle in his despair, but at that moment, General Gerald himself enters the room, very light and airy – as you do so well, de Chirolo.

      In rage, the prince charges him with vile deception in seducing the wife from a man he has called his closest friend, and in betraying totally the trust laid upon him. Gerald uneasily laughs. He adopts a superior attitude and says that the prince has been trifling also. The two wrongs make a right: it is after all the way of the world, and Mendicula would do best to keep quiet. He suspects that if Patricia cares to investigate the matter, she shall discover that the prince has seduced several of her maidservants.

      ‘You smooth villain, you lie to save your face!’

      Gerald takes Patricia’s arm. She clings to him.

      ‘Besides, admit, my spoilt prince, you encouraged me. By keeping Patricia happy, I merely was trying to improve your highness’s marriage.’

      This is more than the prince can tolerate.

      ‘You will make a fool of me no longer!’ he cries, drawing his sword. Gerald draws also. They fight. Patricia looks on, pale and unmoving. Well, of course unmoving on the slide.

      After many a desperate parry, Gerald draws back, his sword arm pinked. He trips on a rug, sprawling against the princess’s bed. He is open utterly to a mortal wound.

      As Mendicula hesitates, an army messenger hurries in and announces that the Lady Jemima has been found dead in her room by a maid, dressed in full bridal array. A note by her head declares that she felt herself too much dishonoured to marry such a man of honour as the General Gerald.

      At this news, it is the prince who falls back in grief. Seizing his chance, Gerald snatches up his sword and runs it through Mendicula’s side. With a last glance at Patricia, the prince dies upon her bed.

      Sad fanfares herald the end of our drama of the Prince Mendicula.

      Promptly at siesta hour, the Hoytola carriage arrived at the Chabrizzi Palace, with Armida’s chaperon, Yolaria, sitting rigid inside. Armida made her farewells and was whisked away.

      Next day, the same procedure was followed. I was not to see as much of her as I had hoped. Bengtsohn was secretive about the mercurisation and would let nobody view the results. But all appeared to be well because we continued to work slowly through the tableaux. With Armida, it seemed as if mercurisation had not taken place between us. I wondered how I could change matters. Accordingly, I walked through the thick afternoon heat to speak to All-People. De Lambant came with me for support.

      All-People stood stooped in his whiskery nook by the bottom of the scrivener’s stair. His antiquity, his frailty, made it appear that his stiff raiment supported him. His goat was tethered nearby; bluebottles investigated its beard. Neither man nor animal moved. Slow smoke trailed off the iron altar and slipped round the corner about its own business. Because of the hour, nobody was waiting to consult him.

      I put down a few paras, all I could spare from the money Bengtsohn had paid me.

      ‘You were correct in what you said, All-People.’

      ‘I see the truth is worth little.’

      ‘Alas, so am I. You said, “If you stand still enough, you will act effectively”. You referred to old Otto Bengtsohn’s zahnoscope, didn’t you? Why was I chosen?’

      He threw a crumb of powder on his ashes. They gleamed dully. The stench of Malacia was in my nostrils.

      ‘The Earth lies in an everlasting penumbra some mistake for light. The Powers of Darkness created all. One shadow merges with another.’

      ‘There is a girl, All-People, also involved in Bengtsohn’s affairs. How can I make sure that my shadow crosses hers?’

      ‘I am not the one who blesses your amulet. Go ask of him.’

      ‘I will consult Seemly Moleskin, of course. But you already have a hand in my affairs. I am СКАЧАТЬ