Jack Vance: MADOUC

Casmir slowly drew back. He looked down at Madouc. "Why did you throw fruit at Lady Desdea?"

Madouc said artlessly: "It was because Lady Desdea came past first, before Lady Marmone."

"That is not relevant to the issue!" snapped King Casmir. "At this moment Lady Desdea believes that I pelted her with bad fruit."

Madouc nodded soberly. "It may be all for the best. She will take the reprimand more seriously than if it came mysteriously, as if from nowhere."

"Indeed? And what are her faults, that she deserves such a bitter reproach?"

Madouc looked up in wonder, her eyes wide and blue. "In the main, Sire, she is tiresome beyond endurance and drones on forever. At the same time, she is sharp as a fox, and sees around corners. Also, if you can believe it, she insists that I learn to sew a fine seam!"

"Bah!" muttered Casmir, already bored with the subject. "Your conduct is in clear need of correction. You must throw no more fruit!"

Madouc scowled and shrugged. "Fruit is nicer than other stuffs. I well believe that Lady Desdea would prefer fruit."

"Throw no other stuffs either. A royal princess expresses displeasure more graciously."

Madouc considered a moment. "What if these stuffs should fall of their own weight?"

"You must allow no substances, either vile, or hurtful, or noxious, or of any sort whatever, to fall, or depart from your control, toward Lady Desdea. In short, desist from these activ ities!"

Madouc pursed her mouth in dissatisfaction; it seemed as if King Casmir would yield neither to logic nor persuasion. Madouc wasted no more words. "Just so, Your Majesty."

King Casmir surveyed the service yard once again, then continued on his way. Madouc lingered a moment, then followed the king along the passage.

Madouc's assumptions were incorrect. The event in the service yard had strongly affected Lady Desdea, but not instantly was she prompted to alter her philosophical bent, nor, by extension, her methods for teaching Madouc. As Lady Desdea hurried along the dim corridors of Castle Haidion, she felt only a great be wilderment. She asked herself: "How have I erred? What was my fault, that I have so incited His Majesty? Above all, why should he signal his disfavor in such an extraordinary manner? Is there some symbolism here which evades me? Surely he has recognized the diligent and selfless work I have done with the princess! It is truly most odd!"

Lady Desdea came into the Great Hall, and a new suspicion entered her mind. She stopped short. "Does the matter conceivably go deeper? Am I perhaps the victim of intrigue? What other explanation is possible. Or-to think the unthinkable- does His Majesty find me personally repugnant? True enough, my semblance is one of stateliness and refinement, rather than a simpering teasing coquetry, as might be practiced by some paltry little frippet, all paste and perfume and amorous contortion. But surely any gentleman of discernment must notice my inner beauty, which derives from maturity and nobility of spirit!"

For a fact, Lady Desdea's semblance, as she herself suspected, was not instantly compelling. She was large of bone, long of shank, flat of chest and elsewhere somewhat gaunt, with a long equine face and pad of straw-colored ringlets hanging down the sides of her face. Despite all else, Lady Desdea was expert in every phase of propriety, and understood the most delicate nuances of court etiquette. ("When a lady receives the duty of a gentleman, she neither stands staring like a heron which has just swallowed a fish, nor yet will she wreathe her face in a fatuous simper. Rather, she murmurs a pleasantry and shows a smile of perceptible but not immoderate warmth. Her posture is erect; she neither sidles nor hops; she wriggles neither shoulders nor hips. Her elbows remain in contact with her body. As she inclines her head, her hands may go behind her back, should she deem the gesture graceful. At no time should she look vacantly elsewhere, call or signal to friends, spit upon the floor, nor embarrass the gentleman with impertinent comments.")

In all Lady Desdea's experience, nothing had occurred to parallel the event in the service yard. As she marched along the corridor her perplexity remained as carking as ever. She arrived at the private chambers of Queen Sollace, and was admitted into the queen's parlour, to find Sollace reclining among green velvet cushions on a large sofa. Behind stood her maid Ermelgart, grooming Sollace's great masses of fine pale hair. Ermelgart had already combed out the heavy strands, using a nutritive dust of ground almonds, calomel and powdered calcine of peacock bone. She brushed the hair until it shone like pale yellow silk; then rolled it into a pair of bundles, which would at last be secured under nets studded with sapphire cabochons.

To the annoyance of Lady Desdea, there were three other persons in the chamber. At the window the Ladies Bortrude and Parthenope worked at embroidery; at Sollace's elbow, perched modestly on a stool, sat Father Umphred, his buttocks overflowing the seat. Today he wore a cassock of brown fustian, the hood thrown back. His tonsure revealed a pale flat scalp fringed with mouse-brown hair; below were soft white cheeks, a snub nose, protuberant dark eyes, a small pink mouth. Father Umphred's post was spiritual adviser to the queen; today in one plump hand he held a sheaf of drawings depicting aspects of the new basilica, now in construction near the north end of the harbour.

Lady Desdea came forward and started to speak, only to be cut short by a flutter of Queen Sollace's fingers. "One moment, Ottile! As you see, I am occupied with important matters."

Lady Desdea stood back, chewing her lip, while Father Umphred displayed the drawings, one after the other, eliciting small cries of enthusiasm from Sollace. She voiced only a single reproach: "If only we could build an edifice of truly magnificent proportions, to put all others, the world over, to shame!"

Father Umphred smilingly shook his head. "My dear queen, be reassured! The Basilica of Sanctissima Sollace, Beloved of the Angels, will lack for naught in the holy afflatus which it wafts on high!"

"Oh truly, will it be so?"

"Beyond all doubt! Devotion is never measured in terms of gross magnitude! Were it so, a brute beast of the wild would exert more notice in the halls of Heaven than some tiny babe being blessed with the sacrament of baptism!"

"As always, you place all our little problems in proper perspective!"

Lady Desdea could no longer contain herself. She crossed the chamber and bent to murmur into Queen Sollace's ear: "I must have private words with Your Majesty, at once."

Sollace, absorbed in the drawings, made an absent-minded gesture. "Patience, if you please! These are discussions of serious moment!" She touched her finger to a place on the drawing. "Despite all, if we could add an atrium here, with the toil rooms to either side, rather than across the transept, then the space would serve for a pair of lesser apses, each with its shrine."

"My dear queen, we could follow this plan were we to shorten the nave by the requisite amount."

Queen Sollace made a petulant sound. "But I do not care to do this! In fact, I would wish to add another five yards to its length, and also augment the curve here, at the back of the apse! We would gain scope for a truly splendid reredos!"

"The concept is undeniably excellent," declared Father Umphred. "Still, it must be remembered that the foundations are already laid and in place. They control the present dimensions."

"Cannot they be extended by just a bit?"

Father Umphred gave his head a sad shake. "We are limited, sadly enough, by a paucity of funds! Were there an unstinting amplitude, anything might be possible."

"Always, always the same dreary tale!" gloomed Queen Sollace. "Are these masons and laborers and stonecutters so greedy for gold that they will not work for the glory of the church?"