Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

At the hill’s summit glittered the House High Brazil, myriad globes and candles strung about its eaves, prismatic reflections shimmering across the famed Hagioscopic Embrasures. Numerous palanquins littered the oval drive, the elders who had drawn them now dozing or playing go. Their soft voices and the click of stones moving upon the wooden boards made my head swim with nostalgia. I hesitated. Only the gentle press of Anku’s muzzle against my thigh stirred me to walk from the half-lit road into the drive.

A louder click as all the stones fell at once and a dozen pale faces turned to gaze at me. I swallowed, then tossing back my hair I touched three fingers to my lips in the Paphian’s beck. The elder nearest me regarded me shrewdly, kohl and the heightened shimmer of octine giving a faint cast of ardor to the ruins of a lovely face.

“You have traveled far to join us, cousin,” he said.

Another elder rose to greet me, a woman with faded yellow hair and a tooth missing from her quick smile. “Pass slowly among us,” she said, laughing, and stroked my arm as I entered their circle. Other hands reached for me. I tried not to shudder at their limp touch, the awareness that the sight of me candled a faint flame within their sunken faces and caused their hands to linger upon my waist.

“Not so far,” I replied. The woman gave a little gasp. Glancing back, I saw that Anku trotted a few meters behind me. “We walked from Miramar. The animal is tamed—”

“I remember Gower Miramar’s dog,” said another voice. I turned to see Delfine Persia rising to greet me with a crippled bow. “As I remember you, Raphael.”

“Delfine?” I forced myself to smile and extended my hand, letting three fingers brush her lower lip. As a child I had been Delfine’s favorite. She had been old then, perhaps thirty, but with skin still glowing and firm and soft brown eyes that followed me hungrily as I pranced about her seraglio. I had not seen her in many years. Her face had grown bloated, her dark hair streaked as with cobwebs; the gentle eyes betrayed by kohl that caked in sagging creases beneath brows plucked in two fine arches. The soft arms were now muscled from bearing palanquins and her bare shoulders showed the marks of much labor.

“Sweet child, to remember my name.” She laughed. Cupping my chin, she tilted my face toward her own. “But how you’ve changed!” For an instant an expression flickered across her face, something between dismay and triumph. She touched my hair, grimacing as she tugged a dead leaf from my brow.

“An unusual costume,” remarked a man whose pocked face was not much older than my own. His eyes glinted raw malice. “Whose guest are you?”

“Roland Nopcsa’s.” I heard several of the others whispering among themselves before the elder who had first greeted me turned to speak.

“Roland Nopcsa arrived this afternoon and engaged Whitlock High Brazil for the evening. I am of High Brazil and bore them here after their matinee castigations at Illyria.” He stared at me with some sympathy. “Perhaps another will vouch for you—”

“I’ll vouch for myself, then,” I said.

The youngest elder laughed. “Not here, Miramar! Look at him—” He flicked disdainfully at my torn robe. “He’s been dismantled in favor of Whitlock. I heard Godiva Persia say so at balneal this morning.”

A murmur passed through the group. I glanced at Anku resting in the shadows. I drew myself up and turned to Delfine.

“I bring this dog to Nopcsa as a gift to win back my favor.”

Delfine laughed. “So Gower Miramar won Jellica Persia at Semhane that year with a spotted eyra!”

An effete man with the Illyrian calyx tattooed upon his palm giggled, peering into the shadows where Anku’s eyes glowed carmine. “Another albino! Whitlock will be furious—”

I laughed suddenly at the thought of Whitlock’s discomfiture (although I had been fond enough of him when we were paired at Winterlong). The elders too seemed delighted at this unexpected entertainment. I wondered how long it had been since any of them had been allowed to attend a masque as anything but servitors. Not long enough for the pocked Persian to grow accustomed to being a slave: that I gathered from the venomous looks he continued to shoot at me.

“But this is Whitlock’s House nonetheless, and not Miramar’s,” he hissed, tugging at a plait of jet-black hair that remained the single aureole of his beauty. “And look how he is dressed! Poor auspice, to mock the Gaping One on Her Hill.”

“Oh, Balfour is just jealous, Raphael,” said Delfine. She let her hand slip between my legs in the caress called carnassial, for which she had been noted in her youth. “‘Whitlock is his cousin-german. I think it’s a wonderful idea, and so original—an albino jackal! Wherever did you find it?”

“I captured it beneath the Obelisk.”

“Escaped from the Zoologists, I imagine. I never realized you were accomplished with animals, too,” said the Illyrian admiringly.

“He was a gifted child,” said Delfine with pride. As her face drew nearer to mine I could smell the sickly odor of gingko negus upon her breath.

“Do you remember me from Winterlong, Raphael?” a new voice piped. Clammy hands clutched at my shoulders.

“And me?” said another as she stroked my cheek.

“You never forgot dear Delfine, did you, my cherub?” Her rough hands scuttled across my thighs.

“Of course not,” I said. Carefully I disentangled myself. I wobbled a few paces to where Anku lay and leaned against a lamp post. I stared into a globe of glowing orchids as I tried to steady my trembling hands. I drew a deep breath.

“You are all too much of a temptation for me, friends!” I raised my head to look at them. Delfine with one arm draped about the Illyrian’s shoulder. A trio of gouty paillards ogling me from behind the Illyrian. Balfour glaring as he twisted his braid about his scarred hands. And behind them others shambling toward the light, their leering faces stripped of all beauty and warmth to betray the harsh ligaments of a lifetime of unslaked desire. I felt my knees buckle beneath me, but before I could falter Anku leaped to his feet and let forth that weird yodeling cry.

A reluctant sigh from the elders. One by one they settled back onto the drive. Delfine stooped to retrieve the scattered ovals of her game and cast me a final longing glance. Only Balfour remained standing, staring at me defiantly.

“I hope you are banished for interjacence,” he said. Low peals of laughter greeted this, and he turned and stalked into the shadows.

“Forgive our hasty departure.” I bowed. “But I must try to mend this breach between my mentor and myself—”

“Fare well, Raphael,” said Delfine, touching her lips. “Remember me at the Butterfly Ball!”

“Remember me! Remember me!” the others joined in with soft voices. The dust beneath them stirred as their fingers fluttered to mark the Paphian’s beck.

“I will,” I called back haltingly; “I will—” And with head bowed I hurried toward the marble steps of High Brazil.

ONCE IT HAD BEEN the Antipodal Embassy. Elaborate carvings in the marble facade still displayed the writhing faces of capuchins and marmosets and uakaris. The main doorway’s lintel was the painted effigy of a serpent whose opal eyes each year were wrested from their sockets to glitter for this one evening upon the brow of the Butterfly Ball’s cacique, chosen at midnight by the masquers. But it was early yet. The fiery stones still gleamed in their sockets and the torchieres burned brightly—although the elders guarding the door were already drunk, and demanded the right to fondle each costumed reveler before granting entry. For a moment I paused in the shadows. Anku whined softly at my feet as he watched the steady passage of glittering figures, boys and girls stumbling beneath the weight of jeweled and’ feathered headdresses and flowing silken wings.