“Wait, sweetheart. You go too fast. I’m staggered as an old hag on her last legs.”
Leopard gripped his hand. Glowing with pride, he detailed every contest he had entered, and passed, always well, and often with the brilliant coloured inks of his competency and genius marked on the scroll. There had been reading and writing, in which, though village taught, he had had the luck of erudite masters, and the added learning Copper had later bought for him. There had been philosophy and debating too, humour and drama. There had been the art of painting, and the arts of war—cross-bow, staff, moon-sword and bare fist. Finally he had had to compose a love poem of four lines only, each line containing only four words. Leopard modestly said he did not believe his own work one twelfth as good as others he had seen inscribed on the judges’ parchment, but by then he had also been physically examined by physicians and dentists, some of his skin and hair, his urine, blood and saliva scientifically evaluated. Lastly his semen was checked, having been gathered after the use of a certain drug and a dream, as he had thought, of The Woman herself. Only the finalists of the examinations were ever given this hallucinogen, but after it he could not recall what she had been like, the goddess of his orgasm. Now, naturally, he need not wonder for today he had seen her in person. Her eyes had—surely? unbelievably?—rested on him in turn.
In a restrained tone Copper observed, “And they allowed you to stand close to the road where she travels by in her chair. Only finalists may stand so near. Or the most wealthy, they say, who can afford to buy places. But, Leopard, my sweet one—these contests concerning The Woman occur only once every year—”
“I know. And now you know why I’ve lived in this city for a year, the parasite beneficiary of your bounty, and never a hard word from you though I earned myself not even a single bit of lead.”
“I’ve plenty,” said Copper, “why should I mind—yet Leopard—Leopard—”
Leopard raised his proud young head. “Say nothing to bring down my mood. Nothing. Don’t tell me how many others have almost won her, yet failed the Ultimate Test. Say nothing of that.”
Copper lowered his eyes. The kohl on his long lashes glistened. They might have been wet with tears. “I say only this. One hundred men have died, in only the brief years I was here in the Crimson City, because of The Woman, and the Ultimate Test.”
“I love her,” said Leopard.
When he spoke of love, which was a common enough word and a concept often enough employed, love’s very soul seemed to brush across Copper’s elegant reception chamber.
Copper Coin had been named, at birth, for the copper coin their mother had bribed an itinerant hag to fix in the neck of her womb and stopper her, following the previous birth of Leopard. It was rumoured their mother had told the hag, “I can endure no more. I can bear no more.” But the hag, though a villainess, had nevertheless been also either inept or cunning, and the coin had not saved Mother from conceiving, carrying and ejecting her last son, even if his advent killed her.
Copper had always, though glad to have been given life, felt very sorry for their mother.
Not himself desiring women, which he found a blessing, Copper had space to respect and pity them. Even the old ones—especially they perhaps. And even The Woman, maybe, the demon-goddess, cold and distant as some far off planet, whose surface, if ever one did reach her, smashed men like brittle dragonflies on her rocks of razor and adamant.
The sky was green as young-grape wine.
Alone, Leopard stood on the roof of his lodging. Below, his city room, a cell equipped with a pillow, a writing-stand, and the fixtures for elimination and ablution in one corner, had also a ladder which had often led him up here.
He watched evening stars like molten silver burst from the greenness. So love was. So it seared forth from the dusk of life.
Leopard had dimly heard of The Woman in the Crimson City since the age of six. But, at sixteen he heard with more than his ears. Thereafter he had had only one goal, which he kept secret from all who knew him closely, until this day.
Now Copper had been informed. And now Leopard had beheld, in flesh, not two arm’s length away in front of him, The Woman.
Oh, to win her, to retain her—which must be impossible.
Yet to see, to have, and then to lose her—also impossible.
In the balance of the gods of balances, his weighted hopes and dreads must lie level tonight.
He had visited various temples about the city, sometimes passing other finalists he recognized, or they him, each man nodding politely, heart hidden yet well understood. He had travelled the white streets for miles, and made his offerings lavish, financed by Copper’s generosity. And Copper had said nothing more. And yet, at their parting, Copper’s perfect eyes truly had been full of tears, like diamond pearls. Such beauty.
If only Leopard had loved men, as Copper did.
But no. Leopard loved women—loved The Woman.
Nothing else would do.
Even if so many other hundred thousand men had perished, Leopard believed he alone would prevail. He would pass the Ultimate Test, have her and keep her. Him she would love. But too, of course, he knew such a thing could never be. He could only become one more shell smashed upon her steely beach. One more dead, useless man.
2. The Lover
Unlike the dusk, the dawn was a peach. The moisture of it put out the blazing stars yet lit the lioness of the sun, who leapt up high above the city.
“Oh, Sun Lady, give me my dream….”
Leopard climbed the three hundred marble steps to the Palace. He did this alone. For no finalist of the examinations ever made his final journey in company with any others.
Leopard noticed, despite the haze which seemed to envelope him, and the burning turmoil inside him, how the huge vistas of the city fell away and away. Long avenues and dwellings with roofs of carmine, purple or jade-green tiles; squares where fountains restfully played and gold and amber fish swam in pools among the lotuses; gardens of scent trees or sculpted pines and cedars… the world of the city, flawless and mathematical, grew less significant, nearly of no importance. So death must be, decided Leopard, strong enough he did not need to pause on the great stair for breath, only now and then to glance back and downward. For death too would be to leave the colourful world of life, ascending to some heavenly plain—or otherwise falling, of course, into some abysmal hell.
His reflections then were quite appropriate.
Who climbed this stair to the Palace of The Woman would indeed afterwards enter a heaven, or a hell.
At the vast doors guards were absent. Servants drew him in like a welcome guest.
For many hours he was prepared, bathed and massaged, dressed in costly robes, given to eat and drink light and ethereal foods of great nourishment and strange pale wines.
Leopard grew calm through these ministrations, but in the way of one deeply shocked by some colossal calamity or happiness. Even though such an event still lay before him.
Of the other finalists there was never any sign, and no mention. This day, this night, were unique to Leopard, as to each finalist there was given always one such passage of hours in light and darkness.
During which he would undergo the Ultimate Test, and win or lose The Woman, and his life.
In the last recent years, a hundred dead, Copper had told him. Leopard had been amazed there were so few. None had ever won her. None.
In the afternoon, flocks of pink birds flew round and round the upper arches of the Palace where Leopard was now standing. He did not see them.