A little later she returned to the party.
“Your grandfather was a truly great man, my lady. The great are always seen as a threat by the lesser; they can’t help it. It’s not just jealousy, though there was much of that in your grandfather’s case. It is an instinctive reaction; they know (without knowing that they know) that there is something awesome in their midst, and they must make way for it. That is cause for resentment; an ignoble and small-minded emotion, like jealousy, and just as endemic. Your grandfather was brought down by a great mass of small people, dear lady. They were worms; he was a raptor. He had the vision to look out of our furrow, and the courage to do what had to be done, but the worms fear change; they think worm thoughts, ever burrowing and recycling, never raising their heads from the loam. You know, your grandfather could have lived the life of a great duke; he could have maintained the worth of the house and made it gradually greater still, he could have encouraged science, the arts, built great buildings, endowed foundations, become a World Counsellor, helped control the Court; and no doubt have enjoyed what personal happiness was ever to be his. Instead he gambled it all; the way the truly great must if they are not to lie on their deathbed and know that they have wasted their talents, that the life they have lived has been one many a lesser man could have lived. We call what transpired fail-ure, but I tell you it cannot fail to inspire those of us who keep his memory. He lives on, in our hearts, and he will receive the respect he deserves one day, when the world and the system have changed to become a temple fit for his memory to be venerated within.”
Sharrow stood before the giant portrait of her grandfather in a private room of the overhang house. Bencil Dornay had offered to show her his personal shrine while a group of mime artists were performing in the reception room.
Gorko was depicted in the painting as a giant of a man with a huge, carved face and great bristling whiskers; his body looked exaggeratedly muscled under a tight riding tunic and the bandamyion mount beside him looked out of scale. Something like fire shone from Gorko’s staring eyes. The portrait was at one end of the narrow room, draped in plush hangings. Apart from the painting, the room was empty.
“Hmm,” Sharrow said. “Fate preserve us from greatness.”
Dornay shook his head. “Dear lady, don’t let the mean-of-spirit infect you.” He glanced at the tall portrait. “Greatness is his legacy, and our hope.”
“Do we really need greatness, Mister Dornay?” she asked him. He turned slowly and walked towards the doors at the far end of the room, and she followed him. “We must need it, my lady. It is all that leads us onward. With it we may dream. Without it, we merely subsist.”
“But so often,” she said, “the people we call great seem to lead us to destruction.”
“Their own, indeed,” Dornay said, opening the doors and ushering her into a small hallway. “And those around them, I dare say. But destruction can be a positive act, too; the clearing out of rot, the excising of diseased tissue, the brushing away of the old to make room for the new. We are all so loath to offend, to cause any pain. The great have the vision to see beyond such pettiness; do we curse the doctor for some small pain when it saves us a greater one? Does any worthwhile adult blame his parents for the occasional slap as a child?”
They descended by elevator to the party. “Your rhetorical questions disarm me,” Sharrow told him.
“You were to ask me something, I believe, good lady,” Dornay said, as they walked into the dimly lit rear of the hall. In the centre, a complicated formal dance was in progress; people walked and skipped in knots that tied and untied across the floor. Sharrow thought the band looked bored.
“Yes,” she said. She stopped and looked at him. His eyes twinkled and he blinked rapidly. There was nobody nearby. She took a breath. “My grandfather left some information with your father; he passed it on to you.”
Dornay looked uncertain. “To me?” he asked.
“By blood-fealty,” she said.
He was silent for a few moments. Then his eyes widened. He took a deep breath. “In me!” he gasped. “In me, dear lady!” His eyes stared into hers. “How? What do I-? But, dear lady; this is a privilege! A singular honour! Tell me; tell me what I have to do!”
She looked down for a second, wondering how to put it. All the lines she’d rehearsed for this moment sounded wrong.
Then Dornay made a gulping noise. “Of course! Dear lady…“
She looked up to see him biting his lower lip. Blood welled. He drew a white handkerchief from his robe, offered it to her. “If you will, my lady,” he nodded delicately, looking at her lips.
She understood, and put the handkerchief in her mouth, wetting the end. When the end of the handkerchief was heavy with her saliva, she handed it back to him. He put it quickly to the cut. She wanted to look away, but found herself gritting her teeth instead. Dornay sucked on the handkerchief for a while, then dabbed at his lip with it until the blood stopped flowing.
“Whatever I have to tell, I shall tell only you, dear lady,” he told her. He took a few deep breaths. “Now, shall we…?”
The guests were stretched round the circular dance floor like the membrane of a bubble; she and Dornay were motioned forward so that they could see the dancers clearly.
They watched the dance develop for a minute or so. Dornay looked around as though searching for something, seeming to grow increasingly agitated. Finally he said, “Dear lady, shall we dance?” and took her hand.
“What?” she said. “But-”
He pulled her out from the line of people facing the groups of dancers; he drew her to him, taking hold of her waist. She put her hands to his neck almost automatically. There was a strange sheen about his face, and a look of emptiness in his eyes. She felt herself shudder.
He stepped back, and began to move into and through the formal dancing groups; bumping into people, oblivious, drawing the start of protests from dancers whose backs he connected with, until they realised it was their host they were about to berate.
He moved on, pulling and pushing and manoeuvring her with him while she did her best to follow with her flawed, limp-hesitant step; they swept away across the wide floor, disrupting and destroying the carefully worked-out patterns of the ancient dance they had invaded.
Pushed and pulled, twirled and swayed this way and that, and trying to keep her feet out from under his, Sharrow had little chance to notice anybody else’s reactions as together she and Dornay brought the rest of the dancers to a staring, bewildered, incredulous halt. The band faltered, the tune stopped. Bencil Dornay danced on, round this way; back that. The band leader watched them, trying to nod in time somehow, then she had the band attempt some suitable tune. A few of the watching people started to form pairs and began to dance as well.
Sharrow looked into Bencil Dornay’s sweating, blank-eyed face, and felt a wave of revulsion course through her that almost made her gag.
Their course became a spiral, tightening gradually as Dornay turned and turned and turned in a closing, whorling twist of motion. They reached the coiled centre of their figure, and stopped. Then suddenly Dornay let go of her, spun round once, his white robe belling out, and dropped to the floor as though felled with an axe. His head hit the hardwood with a crack; she felt the impact through her feet and the bones of her legs. Somebody screamed.
She stood there open-mouthed, pushed back as people flooded forward to the white body lying under the dance floor lights. She stared, shaking her head.
“Excuse me-” Doctor Clave said, threading between the people.
Sharrow looked at her hands.
Miz came up to her, pulled her away. “Sharrow, are you all right? Sharrow?”
The guests continued to rush in from every side, packing and swirling round the huddle of people as though caught in a vortex.