“I’ve dwelled among the sinful all my life,” the cardinal said pompously, as if this were a unique accomplishment. “Nothing that occurs here will have the slightest effect upon me.”
We’ll have to see about that, Rosacher said to himself. He went to the wall and pulled on a bell rope. Momentarily another office worker appeared and Rosacher instructed him to ready two rooms, and to make certain anything that the cardinal might find offensive was removed.
“No, no! I am here to observe the normal functioning of your establishment. Leave everything in place.” The cardinal spotted a wooden chair in the corner, went to it and settled himself, spreading his robes beneath him as might a woman. “I wish you to convey a message to your Mister Mountroyal,” he said, addressing himself to Rosacher. “Tell him Cardinal Chiano has come from Mospiel to question him about the objectionable tone of his business. I will not leave until I have met with him. Can you manage that?”
“I can.” Rosacher walked to the door, but paused with his hand on the knob. “Would Your Eminence mind if I asked a question?”
Chiano gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
“What did you mean by ‘objectionable tone’?”
“Surely it’s obvious. In every aspect of your business, you appear to be mocking the Church.”
Rosacher feigned amazement. “Why, that’s not so. If anything, we’re mocking the folks who think Griaule is divine.”
“Griaule may well be divine. The council appointed by the Church has not yet made its determination.”
“Well sir, I’m sure there are wiser heads on your council than me, but I’ve lived close by Griaule my entire life and I’m here to tell you, that pile of stink behind us ain’t nothing more than a half-dead lizard. A whopping big lizard, but a lizard all the same.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“If Griaule was a god, you think he would have let us drill into his hide so as to stabilize the biggest whorehouse in the country?”
“You actually drilled into the beast?”
“Mister Mountroyal figured what with the size of the place, we couldn’t rely on cables like the old hotel that stood here did.”
Chiano pursed his lips. “You may have a point.”
“People in these parts are crazy for religion. We didn’t have the Church until recently, so folks worshipped what there was to worship. If Griaule wasn’t around, you could stick an empty wine bottle up on a rock and someone would say a prayer to it. When you get right down to it, the House is doing the Church’s work by associating the lizard with, if you’ll pardon my language, a nice piece of fish. It causes folks to see their superstitious nonsense in a new light.”
“It’s an interesting point of view, I’ll hand you that,” said Chiano. “What’s your name?”
“Myree,” said Rosacher, suspecting that he had said too much and thus sparked the prelate’s interest in him. “Arthur Myree.”
“Well, Arthur, perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to chat again.”
As Rosacher made to leave, the cardinal waved at the countertops and asked what was the purpose of all this equipment.
“It’s Mister Mountroyal’s hobby. Ever fooling around with chemicals, he is. He taught me a few tricks and when I have a spare minute or two, I like to come in here and fiddle.”
Rosacher excused himself and, once alone in his office, seated at his desk, he pondered the problem that the cardinal presented. Not that the problem was severe. Over the years he had discovered that the Church’s state of decay was greater than he had assumed and he doubted they had a taste for a military engagement with a militia very nearly the equivalent of their own—there were other areas into which they could expand with little or no resistance. They might make a show of force and send more fat-assed emissaries to admonish and threaten, but as Rosacher read the situation, that was all they would do. Still, the cardinal’s presence posed an opportunity for Rosacher to strengthen his position. It would take less than a day to prepare the actor who played the fictitious Mr. Mountroyal to deal with Chiano, but Rosacher intended to delay the cardinal’s departure as long as he reasonably could, the better to explore the possibilities. After thinking the matter through, he summoned the office worker who had shown the cardinal into his laboratory.
“I believe Mister Mountroyal told you never to bring visitors to me,” Rosacher said. “Some people find my disfigurement off-putting.”
“Sorry, sir,” said the office worker, who was still in his twenties and already bald on top except for a smattering of pale red strands combed across his scalp. “I was flustered. I’ve never been so close to a cardinal before.”
“And how did you find it?”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Being so close to him. Was it thrilling? Did it cause you to feel faint? Did it have a transfiguring effect? Has your faith in the Church been restored?”
“Oh…no, sir.”
“Something must have triggered your reaction.”
“I suppose…”
“Yes?”
“The size of his ring, sir. The stone. I suppose that was what did it.”
“Nothing else influenced you. No other impressions?”
“Well, sir, the main thing I noticed he breathed heavy when he walked…and he had a most peculiar body odor.”
“The odor of saintliness, no doubt,” said Rosacher. He slapped his desk, a decisive gesture. “All right. Try not to let it happen again. Now…” He leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. “I want you to see to Cardinal Chiano’s needs. Keep a record of everything he orders from the kitchen, what he drinks, and how he passes his time. If you do a good job, I won’t report your error in protocol to Mister Mountroyal.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.”
“One thing more. I want you to assign our most attractive available male escort to be the cardinal’s personal servant for the duration of his stay.”
“A man, sir?”
“It’s just a feeling I have,” Rosacher said.
+
During the construction of the House and for several years thereafter, a period in which the business of the place began the transition from prostitution to actual religion, Rosacher maintained his living arrangement in Hangtown with Martita; but as time passed he spent more and more time away from home. Though he still found Martita attractive—and how could he not?—he did not love her, nor she him. While mab was a great leveler, all but eliminating jealousy among its users (why should one covet another woman, a bigger house, finer clothes, when one already possessed perfection?), it could not counterfeit or induce strong emotion. And thus, the bonds of infatuation having weakened, Rosacher and Martita took other lovers, yet continued to cohabit on an intermittent basis and remained great friends.
One morning, as Rosacher prepared to walk out to the ledge to contemplate and perhaps find a solution to a pressing problem, he stood before the mirror, adjusting his hat so that it shadowed his ravaged face, a habit he rarely shirked, even in Hangtown where such injuries were common…on that morning, then, Martita came to stand at his shoulder and said in a glum voice, “You know, you haven’t changed a bit since you got here.”
He laughed, gesturing at his scarred cheek and neck. “You’re not serious?”
“Aside from that, you look the same as you did the day you walked in. What’s it been? Nearly ten years? And here’s me, turning into an old woman.”
He offered reassurances about her looks and, after she had gone off to pack him a lunch, he examined himself in the mirror. The scars made it difficult to judge, but it seemed to him that the unaffected area of his face was relatively unlined and his hair did not appear to be appreciably greyer. Odd. He imagined that the lack of stress had much to do with it. The drug business had been nerve-wracking, whereas the construction and organization of the House was something he looked forward to each and every day, difficult, but a joyful challenge, and not in the least stressful. At the end of a working day he would be tired, but not on edge, unable to sleep, his mind occupied with paranoid fantasies, some of which proved not to be fantasies.