Beardo had selected clothes to replace his ruined ones and had not spared the finery. Frank donned a pair of purple silk trousers, red leather shoes, and a black shirt with pearl buttons. Over all went a white quilled smoking jacket with tassels and embroidered dragons.
“How do I look?” Frank asked.
“Like a prince. Come on, down this coffee and we’ll be off to visit Mr. Orcrist.”
SAM ORCRIST liked to think of himself as a ruler-in-the-shadows, a confidant of kings, a prompter behind the scenes. He was privy to the secrets of almost everyone, and his unstable fortune was spread about in hundreds of obscure and fabulous investments. Pages in the Ducal Palace left reports for him in certain unused sewer grates; ladies at court passed on to him incriminating letters through waiters and footmen; and children, above and below the streets, were sent by his agents on all sorts of furtive tracking-and-finding missions.
Orcrist entertained often, but selectively. The doors of his understreet apartment were closed to some of the most influential citizens on the planet, and warmly open to a few of the most unsavory.
“Mr. Beardo Jackson and a young man wish to see you, sir,” said Orcrist’s doorman, standing beside the chair in which Orcrist sat reading a book of Keats.
“Well don’t leave them standing out there for the footpads, Pons. Show them in.” He closed his book and took a bottle and three glasses out of a cabinet. He was pouring the liquor when Beardo and Frank entered.
“Beardo!” he said. “Good to see you again. What have you been doing to throw Morgan into a hysterical fright?”
“Good evening, Sam,” Beardo replied. “Poor old Morgan mistook my young friend here for an archfiend.”
“I see. Who is your young friend?”
“He’s Frank Rovzar, the son of Claude Rovzar the painter. And he has an interesting and timely story to tell you. Frank, sit down and tell Sam what happened yesterday.”
Comfortable in his new clothes and warmed by Orcrist’s brandy, Frank told him about the rebellion at the palace and the deaths of his father and Duke Topo.
“Holy smokes,” said Orcrist when Frank finished. “And you’re sure it was Transport troops that took the palace?”
“Yes,” Frank answered. “Led by Prince Costa.”
“I wondered why there’s been no news from the palace in the last twenty-four hours. They’re certainly keeping the lid on this.” He stood up. “Pons!”
“Yes sir?” answered the doorman.
“Get up to the land office fast, and sell all my holdings in the Goriot Valley. Don’t start a run on it, but be willing to take a loss. And for God’s sake get there before the office closes. Go!” Pons dashed from the room. “Don’t come back until I no longer own one square foot of farmland!” Orcrist called after him.
He strode to the table and drummed his fingers on its polished surface. “How old is this news, Beardo?” he asked.
“I pulled Frank out of the water less than an hour ago.”
“Excellent. To show my gratitude for your prompt action, Beardo, I insist that Mr. Rovzar and yourself consent to be my guests for dinner. You'll sleep here, of course; I’ll have Pons show you your rooms when he returns.”
Frank was beginning to feel dizzy, and doubtful of his own perceptions. Whatever response he had expected Orcrist to have to his story, this had not been it.
“What’s the connection,” Frank asked, “between a rebellion at the palace and farmland in the Goriot Valley?”
Orcrist smiled, not unkindly. “I’m sorry if I seem callous about all this,” he said. “I’m an investor, you see. About ten years ago Duke Topo, in an attempt to make Octavio an autonomous—that is, self-sufficient—planet, planted and irrigated the entire length of the Goriot Valley. That way we didn’t have to import produce. It was a flourishing undertaking, and I am at this moment the owner of much of that farmland. But if the Transport has taken control of us, I don’t want any part of that damned valley. The Transport doesn’t approve of independent planets, and I don’t see a bright future for agriculture on Octavio.” He tossed off the last of his drink. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few other little matters to take care of.”
With a stately bow, Orcrist left the room. Beardo crossed to the table and refilled his glass. “A real gentleman!” he smiled, luxuriously sniffing his brandy.
“He certainly is,” agreed Frank, to whom, right now, the word “dinner” was like a loved one’s name. “It was nice of him to ask us to stay the night here,” he added, wondering where he would have slept in Beardo’s odd dwelling.
“Ah, well that wasn’t so much good manners as caution, you see,” Beardo said. “Any time someone brings him really hot news he insists that they remain here until the news isn’t hot anymore. He doesn’t want us telling your story to anyone else.” The old fellow sipped the brandy and pulled out his pipe. “And his hospitality, Frankie, is such that no one has ever been known to object to the temporary captivity.”
The dinner, which was served an hour later in Orcrist’s high-ceilinged dining room, was lavish. A dozen stuffed game hens were piled on a platter in the center of the table, and salads, baked potatoes, toast, cold meats and steaming sauces flanked them. Carafes of chilled wines stood next to the roasted hens; Frank was amazed to find out that the whole production was intended only for himself, Beardo, Orcrist, and one other house-bound guest.
“Frank Rovzar, Beardo Jackson, this is George Tyler,” said Orcrist as the four of them sat down at the table. “George, Frank and Beardo.”
Frank looked across a dish of mustard sauce at George Tyler. He looks like he drinks more than he ought to, Frank thought, though he’s still too young for it to really show. Oblivious to Frank’s scrutiny,. Tyler brushed a lock of blond hair out of his face and speared a baked potato.
“I must request, friends, that you do not discuss the respective businesses that have brought you here,” said Orcrist. “Not that any of it would provide suitable dinner conversation anyway.”
He took a long sip of wine, holding it in his mouth to warm it and taste it before he swallowed. “Not bad,” he decided. “You and Frank should get along well, George,” he said. “You have the artistic temperament in common. Frank is a painter, and George,” he added, turning to Frank, “is a poet.” The two young men smiled at each other embarrassedly.
“To hell with the talk, I say,” put in Beardo, gnawing a greasy hen from whose open abdomen pearl onions cascaded onto his plate. “Mother of God!” he exclaimed, observing the phenomenon.
The dinner progressed with considerable gusto, and by ten o’clock most of the wine and food had disappeared. Frank was feeling powerfully sleepy, though the others seemed to be just blooming, and Beardo had begun singing vulgar songs.
Tyler tossed a clean-picked bone onto his plate. “Not bad fare, Sam,” he said. “Nearly as good as what they used to serve at the palace.”
“At the palace?” inquired Frank politely.
“Oh, yes,” Tyler nodded, a little clumsily. “Didn’t old Sam tell you? I’m the eldest son of Topo.” Orcrist caught Frank’s eye and frowned warningly. Don’t worry, Frank thought, I won’t say anything.
“Oh, hell yes,” Tyler went on. “Many’s the morning Dad and I would go hunting deer with the game wardens. I had my own horse, naturally, a speckled roan named ... uh ... Lighthoof.” He drank the last of his wine and refilled his glass. “Oh, and the long evenings on the seaside terrace, the sunset light reflecting in our drinking cups carved of single emeralds! Sitting in our adjustable recliners, fanned by tall, silent slaves from the lands where the bong trees grow!”