‘You agreed to come to Kemperer’s.’
He pulled an impudent face. ‘Now I disagree. I know you only want to see Kemperer’s little wife. She favours you more than me, being a myopic little hussy. We’ll see each other at Truna’s this evening probably.’
‘What has Caylus to offer so suddenly?’ Caylus Nortolini was a lordly young man with numerous sword-wounds and maidenheads to his credit; his scornful airs were not to everyone’s taste.
Assuming a cringing air, holding out one paw like a beggar, de Lambant said, ‘Caylus is always in funds and generous with them. He likes to impress, and I’m very impressionable …’ The paw turned to a claw and the voice altered. ‘My impression is that his sister, Bedalar, is extremely beautiful and generous. I met her with Caylus at the Arena, where the appearance of the lady inflamed my heart and much else besides.’
Then he was off, assuming what was intended for a lecherous gait.
He cut through the cloisters of the Visitors’ Palace while I made for the Fragrant Quarter, where our worthy impresario lived. Here, throughout the palmier centuries of Byzantium, spice ships had sailed in to the end of the Vamonal Canal and off-loaded their aromatic goods into tall warehouses. The trade was less brisk nowadays, and several warehouses had been converted into dwelling-houses. The street was quiet. Two flighted people swooped overhead playing flutes.
A faint aroma of cardamom and cloves lingered in the air like memory as I presented myself at Pozzi Kemperer’s courtyard gate. There was always some difficulty about gaining entrance. I was admitted past snarling dogs, broken carriages, and bits of statuary. In a cage in almost permanent shadow sat Albert, a melancholy ape-sloth brought long ago from the New World. Albert had once been a favoured household pet but was sentenced to this shady exile – so the players said – on the day that, surprising Pozzi naked in the arms of a Junoesque prima donna, he had sunk his teeth into his master’s buttocks in an irrepressible expression of animal envy. Now he ate with the dogs. The titbits of the table were gone for ever. Kemperer was not a forgiving man. Nor were his buttocks quick to heal.
My timing was faultless. Coffee still steamed on the breakfast table. The chairs had been pushed back and Kemperer and his wife were through the curtains on the far side of the room, taking a snatch of rehearsal. For a moment I stood in the gloom, while their figures were outlined sharply by sun shining through tall windows at the other end of the apartment – a light that in its clarity matched La Singla’s beautiful voice.
Neither saw me, so preoccupied were they. She was in another world, his eyes were on her. As I moved towards them I gathered from the table thin slices of cheese and smoked ham where they lay curled on patterned plates, cradling them into a still-warm bread roll garnered from its nest in a wicker basket. I tucked this snack inside my shirt for safety.
La Singla began to expand her voice. She looked every inch a queen, she was a queen, as Kemperer conducted with prompt book in hand. He was a thin man, often gawky in his movements, yet in rapport with his wife so graceful and involved that it would be difficult to determine which inspired the other.
Now her regal mouth cried of damnation. She was dressed still in deshabillé, with flimsy slippers on her feet and her golden hair trailing about her neck, knotted carelessly with a white ribbon. Good and ample though her figure was, it held something of the stockiness of the generations of Malacian peasants from which she had sprung (at least according to one account of her origins). Yet it also radiated majesty as she ranted to a dying lover on a battlefield long ago.
‘“Oh, I will be revenged for your lost life, Padraic, never fear! Far worse than enemies, friends it was who brought your downfall. This is not war but treachery, and I will root it out – for am I not come of a great line of warriors, of generals, admirals, high-mettled princes? My remotest forebears lived in the old stone towns of Sasqui-Halaa, and from them rode out to vanquish those half-human armies of Shain and Thraist, a million years ago –”’
‘No, my thrush. “A million years ago …”’
‘That’s what I said, “A million years ago, from out –”’
‘No, no my dear, confound it, listen “a mill-i-ion years ago …”, or else you break the rhythm.’ He offered her some yellow teeth which achieved at one glint both of wolfishness and supplication.
‘“A million years ago, from out the tepid prehistoric jungles swarming. So shall the armies of my hate –”’
She noticed me by the curtain and became La Singla again. The transformation was sudden. Her face broadened as she smiled in sheer good nature. Maria, La Singla, was about my age. She had good teeth, good eyes, and a good brow; but it was her good nature I most loved. Kemperer, furious at the interruption, snarled at me.
‘How dare you sneak into a gentleman’s house, you puppy, without being announced? Why is my privacy always invaded by rogues, relations, and renegade mummers? I’ve but to call one of my men –’
‘Darling Pozzi-wozzy,’ remonstrated La Singla.
‘Hold your tongue, you minx, or you’ll get a cudgelling too!’ Such abrupt turns of mood caused us to fear him and ape him behind his back.
‘How could I not be drawn in at the sound of that divine tragedy of Padraic and Heda?’ I asked, assuming the role of diplomat.
‘There’s no work for you today, as you well know. You flounce in here –’
‘I don’t flounce. You mistake me for Gersaint.’
‘You sneak in here –’
‘Maestro, allow me to hear more of the Padraic tragedy. I never weary of it.’
‘I weary of you. My little thrush Maria is to give a recitation before the joust at the Festival of the Buglewing, that’s all. I merely coax her, coax her, coax, as fox coaxes fowl, to smooth the ragged edges of her diction.’
‘I’d never dare to make an appearance without your coaxing, my good spouse,’ piped the fox’s wife, coming so near the fox that she could peep over his dandruffy shoulder at me.
Mollified, he tickled her chin.
‘Well, well, well, I must powder my wig and get down to the jousting field to see that our box is properly constructed. Do it yourself or it’ll never get done … Attention to detail, the mark of a man of genius … True artist never spurns the practical … Reality the common clay of fantasy … “A million years ago, from the tepid prehistoric jungles swarming …” A bold line, if not mouthed to death.’
As he chattered in a way I knew well, Kemperer was whisking about the room with La Singla and a man-servant in pursuit, preparing to venture out, I took the opportunity to pull my provisions from their hiding-place and have a bite.
When he had his wig in place and the servant was helping him struggle into his coat, Kemperer glanced suspiciously at me and said, ‘You understand what I say, de Chirolo? You shall play Albrizzi at the Lambant-Orini marriage ceremonies, but, while Byzantium is in such a bad way, engagements are few and far between, so it’s no good your hanging about my doors hoping for favours.’
‘Then I’ll stay and coax La Singla in her part as Heda,’ I said, taking up his prompt book where it lay open on a sofa.
He flew into a tiny rage, snatching the book from me. ‘You’ll coax her in none of her parts. Show her impeccable respect and that’s enough. You young nincompoops, think yourselves bucks, trying to spoil the peace of mind of my dear wife! You’ll come with me. I’m not leaving you loose in my house.’
Drawing myself