Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

I ignored her, drumming my fingers on the windowsill. Outside, the earth was gray and brown. The Librarians’ sheep grazed upon an untidy pile of straw dumped on the lawn, their shepherd shivering in his homespun jacket. It would be Benedick tonight for the Historians (they loved battles; battling lovers would do if necessary); then tomorrow a smaller role in Watt the Butler, and the following week Titus Andronicus, and Juliet after that; then A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Zoologists, hosting a Masque of Owls for the Illyrians. Finally a brief hiatus while the Paphians readied themselves for the great feast of Winterlong, twelve days and nights of merrymaking that would culminate on the eve of Winterlong itself, shortest day of the year, when we would perform—Toby was beside himself to think of it— The Spectres’ Harlequinade for the masque of Winterlong at Saint-Alaban.

“Never before have the Paphians requested that we play for them at Winterlong! Never!” he had gloated. Already he could see the bartered riches that would come of it, plastics and woolen cloth and the intricate bits of hardware that the Paphians used as ornaments but which I knew were the remains of archaic computers. But looking out at the bleak lawn this wintry afternoon I wondered about Toby’s optimism; about the wisdom of people who could continue their meaningless research and revels while rumors of human sacrifices and hidden weapons brought to light fled across the Hill Magdalena Ardent.

Terrible things had befallen the City in the past weeks. The bizarre murder of a young girl in the Museum of Natural History; its Regent slain at the massacre at the Butterfly Ball when the House High Brazil burned to the ground. A figure seen at the ball, a beautiful boy clad in torn red tunic and with a vine draped about his neck, he who the Saint-Alabans name the Gaping One or Naked Lord. A burning star in the northern sky that heralded the Final Ascension. But still the round of masques and balls did not cease, only proceeded to a more somber music, dark pavane rather than sprightly reel.

“Fancy: gone,” Justice murmured after I had told him Fabian’s news. He buried his face in his hands. “And your brother—I met an Illyrian spado who claimed to have seen him at the Butterfly Ball. He is dead now; so many of us are dead.”

A mist crept over me when he said this. I closed my eyes, tried to plumb the darkness inside me, find something that would give the truth or lie to his words. Nothing; but I could not believe it was so.

At last I said, “He isn’t dead.”

Justice raised his eyes. “How do you know?”

“I don’t know. But—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Justice said bleakly. “So many are dead now, how could it matter?”

And mere days after that a viral strike: and then another.

“They are searching for someone,” Justice had muttered. We stood in the theater’s upper story, watching the fougas’ searchlights slash through the dusk.

“The Aviator,” I whispered. From the Deeping Avenue echoed screams; a party of masquers had been caught in the rain of roses. I shuddered. Justice put his arm around me. From his grim face I knew he was not thinking of the Aviator but of me, wondering if they still might search for an escaped empath whose dreams could kill.

But the fougas had withdrawn after these two strikes; although many died in the streets, and the lazars’ gleeful wailing kept us all from sleep for several hours. Since then more rumors raged through the City of Trees. Everyday life took on the shocking and explosive nuances of the tales we enacted.

The morbidly superstitious House Saint-Alaban enjoyed an unprecedented wave of popularity in light of the City’s recent misfortunes. Death became the fashionable theme at masquerades. Red, the Paphian hue of mourning, colored everything from hair to dominatrice’s hoods. The Botanists were unable to meet the demand for a particular shade of crimson henna. Scarlet love apples adorned every dish we ate for two solid weeks, and every invitation to a ball was writ in sanguine ink. An Illyrian eunuch inspired his Librarian Patron to compose a long poem entitled “The Coming of the Gaping One.” When recited at the Illyrians’ Semhane Masque, three Saint-Alabans fainted. A fourth was found dead afterward, hanging from an apple tree.

Fashion began to reflect these macabre preoccupations. Paphians my own age or younger emulated the startling deshabille of the ill-fated Raphael Miramar as he had last been seen at the Butterfly Ball: deathly pallor enhanced by powder of lead, crimson tunics carefully torn; fillets of twigs and vine woven upon their brows and hempen ropes worn about the neck in lieu of the customary wreaths of blossoms or bijoux. Raphael Miramar himself had become a sort of romantic figure in death, mourned by his many friends and lovers. An ardent cult sprang up around his memory; a violent tango was named after him, and a dangerous means of achieving sexual gratification by use of a rope.

Fin-de-sècle thinking, a renowned Librarian christened it all. The phrase was enthusiastically parroted by the Paphians, although few of them recognized the language it came from; and no one could have guessed what century this was, or whether or not we approached its end.

My star continued to rise amidst all this confused speculation. My amazing resemblance to Raphael Miramar had of course already been remarked upon. Now it became our stock-in-trade. Paphians from the remaining Houses flocked to each performance at our theater. A masque was no longer considered proper entertainment unless we were there in attendance, and we turned down countless invitations to perform.

Throughout I enjoyed the attention of myriad admirers. I eschewed Raphaelesque garb save onstage, as when I played Lear’s Fool. I preferred my own restrained taste in clothing, although I did indulge in accepting gifts of feathered caps and bandeaux from the Zoologists, once they learned my fondness for these. The mode Raphael was risky for me, since it involved a certain amount of exposed flesh.

“You should be more careful, Wendy,” Justice scolded late that night. Our performance for the Historians had been an enormous success, but afterward I had grown cocky waiting for my curtain call. Inspired by his recent triumph, Fabian and I staged a mock duel backstage. He had playfully torn my blouse with his sword. I took my bow with the ripped cloth flapping, my hair tangled, flushed and grinning from our game. The Paphians in the audience had cheered madly. Some even rushed the stage. I made a scarce retreat down the trapdoor before they could capture me and adapt my wardrobe further. Miss Scarlet had been aghast at this unprofessional behavior—“ Quite unlike you, Aidan,” she had remarked sternly—but Fabian and the rest of the troupe seemed pleased that Aidan had dropped his prim hauteur for a few minutes.

Justice of course sided with Miss Scarlet. “What if they had caught you?” he demanded.

He and I had taken to sharing a room, twin sleigh beds drawn up against opposite walls beneath curled photographs of unconvincingly histrionic thespians. This arrangement kept me from being bothered by my admirers. It also put off the questions of others in the troupe regarding my amorous tastes. Since our visit to the House Miramar, Toby Rhymer had regarded me suspiciously: with more respect, perhaps, but also with skepticism, fueled by envy of my success.

“Our dear Aidan is more than what he seems to be,” he often said, affection vying with malice in his tone.

But as a roommate Justice, like Miss Scarlet, was above reproach. He wanted only to act as my friend and conscience (but still hoped to take me as his lover). I found that I liked his company: sober and intelligent for a Paphian, and relatively chaste. After that evening at the House Miramar he had made no more overtures toward me. His intrigues tended to be brief: a very young sloe-eyed refugee from Miramar; an Illyrian gynander with a jealous Naturalist Patron; this continuing flirtation with Mehitabel, under Gitana’s reproving gaze.