Part 23 (1/2)
”I am surprised to hear that. Unswerving devotion to purpose hath ever been a pillar of your character.”
”You flatter me, madame,” Prospero said, and bowed from the waist, not deeply but elegantly.
”You flatter me yourself, for I know you are not so easily flattered.”
Prospero laughed quietly. ”Alas, Countess, the courtier's arts are wasted here; sorcery discards them as a child's paper 208.
'EfizaBetfi dolls, vain trash. But, madame, I have a further doubt regarding my challenge now, one which you may allay.”
”What is that?”
”What will his father say to my prisoning the upstart? I am sure you understand me when I say I've no intention of avoiding one offense and committing another unwittingly.”
”Bring him here, and I shall deal with the ... ancillary issues,” Odile said.
”Ah,” said Prospero. ”Then there shall be difficulties.”
”I think not.”
”I prefer certainty to best approximation, madame. Let us inform his father of his son's activities.”
”No.”
”No?”
”No.”
”Plainly, no.”
”You have heard me correctly.”
”What will you, then, Odile? I have much afoot; I cannot go forth to this challenge without knowing I shall not lay myself open to a greater. I Bind the boy; I deliver him to you, his mother, for sorely-needed correction in certain grievous errors which appear to be ingrained in his thinking; and you promise me there will be no further consequences?”
”Not to you. To the boy, yes. He must learn the protocol of interaction and challenge.”
”I agree. He is about to learn something of it. But you do not concern yourself over his father's reaction, so long as his father is ignorant. I think you s.h.i.+eld the boy.”
Odile said nothing.
”You are too fond, Odile,” Prospero said. ”I fear you will scold him roundly and box his ears and send him abashed on his way.”
”That is nothing of your concern.”
”Very well,” Prospero said, ”I shall not concern myself about it further. Thank you, madame, for this interview. I shall see you next with this Dewar in hand.”
”I am looking forward to it,” Odile said.
He bowed, turned to go.
”You leave at once?”
Sorcerer and a QentCeman 209.
”It doth not do to let things hang too long,” Prospero said, pausing.
”Allow me to offer thee some refreshment ere thou goest.”
He hesitated, then nodded and turned back to face her fully. ”Thy courtesy is not amiss, Countess,” he said, ”to offer, but I fear delay.”
”The delay will be but a few hours in thy journey,” said she, ”but if it be so urgent-”
”Not so urgent as to offend thee by refusing, then,” Prospero said, and he smiled.
Odile rose to her feet. The birds, disturbed, fled in three different directions among the pillars to the sides and behind Prospero. Her veil-like robes swirled and settled around her foggily with the movement of her standing; Odile stood as still as she had sat for the time of one heartbeat and then, slowly, descended the dais. Prospero bowed deeply and offered her his arm; she took it and they stood another beat of Prospero's heart eye-to-eye (for she was tall). Then, at a stately pace as if they were leading a procession, they walked together around the dais, to the rear of the black-pillared temple.
The three white birds waited at the edge of the pillared darkness, heads bowed. Odile touched their heads negligently with a drifting finger as she pa.s.sed, not looking downward from Prospero's silvery gaze, and when she had pa.s.sed, three fair white-clad serving-maids, slender and soundless, hurried away to fetch refreshments for their mistress and her guest.
Dewar opened the bottle of wine and poured four gla.s.ses. He handed the first to Prince Gaston, the second to Baron Ottaviano, the third to Prince Golias, and the fourth he raised himself.
”To Prince Josquin,” he said. ”A generous man.” The wine was Madanese, from the new supplies.
Golias laughed and drank. Ottaviano snorted, grinned, and drank also. Gaston tasted the wine, then sipped. Dewar's smile was secret, mocking.
210.
T&zað 'Wittey ”So he's almost here? Or what?” Golias said, wiping his mouth.
”He is where he should be, and on the morrow shall we confer all together to plan our next attack,” Gaston said. ”Lord Dewar hath provided such knowledge as he may safely gather about the enemy's disposition; to wait longer would be needless delay, for what we know now is adequate.”
”It's about time,” Golias said. ”All the time we've been waiting for his dandified highness, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been building up forces and spying on us.”
”With Josquin,” Ottaviano said, ”the numbers are ours.”
The sorceress Odile rose noiseless, naked, from her silk-draped couch and stood at its foot. Behind her, through an arched doorway, the moon hung between two pillars of the temple of Aie, and its light was but little, for it was a pared old moon. Yet the little light cast a shadow, Odile's shadow, before her, cold and black-edged, a shadow cut from the moon-stream; and another, deeper, more perilous and potent stream came in with the moon, that cast a shadow also: unfathomably deep, and darker still. Odile looked into her shadow, where her visitor lay, his eyes closed, asleep for an instant: long enough.
”Nay, Prospero, I'll not delay thee,” whispered Odile, as thin as the moon's edge. ”Haste from here: haste to thy wars and workings, and haste thereby to thy end.” Odile's hands moved, cupping the darkness, and it grew more dark, all light seeping from it. ”Seek thy own blood, and find defeat and destruction.”
The darkness seeped from her hands, a silent trickle onto Prospero, who slept in her shadow.
When Odile's white hands were empty, she lay again, a soft and silent movement, beside Prospero, and touched him lightly, and his eyes opened.
”Madame,” Prospero said to her, ”dear though dalliance be, I may not tarry; I may not linger another minute here.”
”That I wit well,” said she, ”for hast thou not said it afore the sunset? and in the dusk? and now as the moon doth rise Sorcerer and a Qentkman 211.
and open thy Road to thee, will I believe thee. Lo, I did not hinder thee; 'twas the Stone and the moon.”
”True enough, madame. If I rest another instant, sleep would claim me, nor would it be thy doing that it keep me from motion.”
”Hast never been a restful man,” she said, and drew dark draperies around her, veiling her body. He rose then, and clothed himself alone, for she left through the moon-limned archway, and when Prospero had dressed he followed her and took leave of her at the dais, bending over her hand in the light of the four tall torcheres, turning and leaving her motionless there.