Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

“ Magus …” she whispered. A girl sat on a low stool next to the table, the same servant maid he had seen when he first saw Cornelia, the day of the manticores. For a moment, as Cornelia saw him, as she saw the girl who now entered behind him, it seemed that she — the seated one — would exclaim a word or two. But, quick as he observed this, much as he had startled and shaken Cornelia, Cornelia was quicker; quick to recover self-possession sufficient to place her hand on the shoulder of the seated girl… whose face set in composure… but whose eyes fell.

Now Cornelia arose and faced Vergil and his companion. One brief moment her eyes, filled with joy and triumph and malice and passion and awe, met his. Then she embraced the girl he had brought and, closing her eyes, rocked to and fro. Then she released her. The girl had yielded to the embrace, returned it passively.

“I won’t ask now what has happened, or where you have been. I am too full of emotion. Besides, it is of no importance compared to your return. What a welcome we shall prepare for you, daughter! But — now — oh, let us be alone together!”

She put her arm around the girl and started to lead her away. The other girl had already turned her back and now made as though to precede them.

“Madam — ”

“Only a few moments together, Magus. You can understand, and then — ”

“Madam — ”

She sighed, and turned around. “I can refuse you nothing,” she said.

“It is of my reward, indeed, madam, that I wished to speak.”

He felt he had no reason to doubt her sincerity when she said, “It may be anything you ask, any price you choose to set. Money, jewels, in any amount. This villa, if you like, or my dowerlands in Carsus — even the estates which are my patrimony from my great-grandfather the August Caesar — anything… anything at all…”

He bowed his head. Then: “These are noble offers, madam, but my heart desires none of them. May I tell you what it does want?” Cornelia nodded. Vergil said, “Nothing but the gift of that servant maid.” He held out his hand toward her.

Cornelia’s face went pale. Then it blazed ruddy. She lifted her hand as though to strike. Then she regained control of herself. “I ask your pardon,” she said, with an effort. “You have done me… done us… a service which is almost beyond price. But, I must repeat, only almost. The… servant girl… her name is Phyllis… has been with us since she was born. She is like one of our family. In fact… I need not lie to you, you have eyes to see that she is of our very blood. It would be impossible to dispose of her as if she were a common servant, or slave.”

“I understand and I respect your reasons. Then I urge you to send for the lictors without delay and let the Phrygian cap be placed on Phyllis’ head, and when she is freed, my word upon it, I shall marry her. Am I unworthy to wed a freed woman?”

Cornelia was now fully composed. “Far from it, Magus,” she said. “It would be a condescension on your part. Child,” she asked, “do you wish to accept the honor which Dr. Vergil offers you?”

The girl said, in a low voice, “No… I do not wish it.”

Cornelia shrugged slightly and spread her hands a bit. “You see. There is too much devotion. What would you? Surely not to force her.”

His head sank upon his chest. Then, after a moment, he said, “As I cannot look down, then I must look up. Lady” — he addressed the girl beside him — “would you, despite the differences in our stations, would you be averse to considering me as a suitor?”

The Queen raised her eyebrows at this, but no more, and looked at the other girl as if awaiting an answer which could only be a negative one. And when the other girl said, “I? Oh! No…” The Queen began to nod her approval, only to stare in incredulity as the girl went on to say, “No, I would not… be averse to considering it.”

Having had (it seemed so long ago) example of, and experiences with, Cornelia’s moods, he was aware that her emotions had barely begun to stir when she said, swiftly and confusedly, “You forget yourself, Wizard. Forgive me, there may be daughters of royal and Imperial lineage who would be permitted to wed you — though I doubt it — but mine is not one of them. Nor, if I could permit, never would my son, her brother the King of Carsus, permit it. Other arrangements are being made.” Once again she mastered her emotions, smoothly turned the apparent rebuff into something softer. “Arrangements involving — I cannot say more — someone of very high station. So my daughter’s guardian could hardly permit it to be said that we have broken our word. Great as your powers are, they are not great enough to persuade or force us into a breach of promise. You understand.”

Had she not by now smelt the fox? Suspected what this was all about? Very probably. For the moment, though, he was sure, she would go on playing the game, if only to see where it led. Indeed, she had little choice. Her eyes, now showing no confusion, glittered watchfully as he nodded, plucked at his lip, uttered the light exclamation which indicated an idea. “‘My powers,’ yes, madam. There we have, I think the answer.” Before Cornelia could interrupt or interfere, he reached out, pulled one girl toward him and pushed the other away from him. Then he raised his arms and began a counter-enchantation. It was not a long one.

“Henceforth,” he said, concluding the spell, “she who was known as Laura shall be known as Phyllis. She who was heretofore called Phyllis shall be called Laura. I adjure you to speak nothing but the truth. You ” — he pointed to the “serveant maid” — “who are you?”

“Laura,” she said, confused and a bit frightened.

“So. Laura. Not Phyllis. Then if you are Laura, she must be Phyllis. So. Hmm. Curious, is it not, madam, that all the while you and I and all of us were so engaged in fashioning a major speculum to locate Laura, Laura was here ? It is most curious. Indeed, I know not how to account for it at all… unless someone — I know not who for sure — had persuaded the true Laura to play a perjured part and had caused the true Phyllis to be so bewitched as to deceive both herself and others or had perhaps bewitched both.”

Cornelia stood as still and silent as one of the ancestral statues around about the room. Indeed, no one moved as Vergil spoke on. “Suppose this to be true,” he said. “In that case we must construct a hypothesis to account for it… and in order to do this it will be necessary to look back over the past. Forgive me — madam — and maidens — if I seem to look too closely for complete comfort.” Silent and still she watched him — watched past him.

Cornelia was the daughter of Amadeo, the late Doge of Naples, He’d had no sons, to his sorrow, on either side of the blanket. But it was known that he’d had another daughter, by a woman of the servants’ quarters, and she — Cornelia’s half sister — had gone off with the legitimate daughter in the entourage to Carsus. Where she had, inevitably, unfortunately attracted the attentions of that comely, weak, and amorous man, King Vindelician. To whom, nine months later, she bore a daughter of her own, named Phyllis.

Cornelia did not move.

The child Phyllis was therefore half sister to the child Laura, daughter of the same father; more, she was the daughter of Laura’s mother’s half sister, granddaughter of the same grandfathers, double cousins. It was no wonder that the girls so closely resembled one another, and more and more closely as they grew older. It was no wonder that, although Phyllis was supposed to be Laura’s servant, they had grown up as close friends, traded clothes and jewels… though of course Laura had so much more of each… perhaps this was why that one copper fibula in the form of a brooch came to be traded back and forth between the two on alternate days, like a game.