The weight of the curious crowd began to tilt the raft dramatically. The shanty dwellers were set upon by the blankeys, led by a plague-pocked overseer, and beaten back into order. To add to their humiliation they were forced into their windowless dwellings, denied any further part of the miracle.
‘Mr Minct is one of our passengers,’ agreed Roy Ornate, his own curiosity undisguised. ‘What’s the nature of your goods, ma’am?’
Before the rower could answer, Paul Minct, massively fat, his body wrapped in lengths of multicoloured velvet, rolled up to Captain Ornate’s side to stand stroking his beaded veil as another might stroke a beard. He took the megaphone from the grateful master and spoke in a wet, amplified soprano. ‘So you found me at last. Is that my M&E come up from Mexico, dear?’
Mr Oakenhurst began to imagine himself back in time, taking part in one of the interactive adventure ads of his childhood. Was this, after all, no more than some misremembered bite?
Any answer Mrs von Bek might have made was drowned by six bellowing engines as the flying boat began to taxi out over the endless grey lake and, with a parting shriek, vanished into the air.
The inflatable came up against embarking-steps thick with mould. A slim, athletic woman stepped aboard, her features disguised by a cowl on her cape which fell in blue-green folds almost to the deck. Maybe a white woman. She had a small oilskin package in her left hand.
By now Mr Oakenhurst and Mrs O’Dowd, fully dressed, stood on the landing listening to the silence returning.
‘I’m much obliged, ma’am.’ Paul Minct reached for his package. ‘One would have to be Scrooge himself to begrudge that extra little bit it takes to get your M&E delivered.’ He turned, his mask on one side, as if in apology to Sam Oakenhurst. ‘I’ll admit it’s a terrible extravagance of mine. You should hear my wife on the subject.’
Had he arranged this whole charade merely to demonstrate his power and wealth?
The woman pushed her cowl back to reveal a most wonderful dark golden pink skin, washed with the faintest browns and greens, some kind of sensitive North African features, reminding Mr Oakenhurst of those aquiline Berbers from the deep Maghribi desert. Her auburn hair reflected the colour of her cloak and her lips were a startling scarlet, as if they bled. She was as tall as Sam Oakenhurst. Her extraordinary grace fascinated him. He had never seen movement like it. He found himself staring at her, even as she took Paul Minct’s arm and made her way to the main saloon.
‘What would you call that colour skin?’ murmured Carly O’Dowd.
10. LOS BELLES DU CANADA
‘I TASTED A thousand scales to reach this place.’ Mrs von Bek had been joined at her table by Sister Honesty Marvell, Mrs O’Dowd and Rodrigo Heat, but she kept a seat beside her empty and this she now offered to Mr Oakenhurst who bowed, brushed back his tails and wished her good morning as he sat down beside her. He wondered why she seemed familiar. At close quarters the greenish blush of her hands, the pink-gold of her cheeks had a quality which made all other flesh seem unnatural. He had never before felt such strong emotion in the presence of beauty.
In amused recognition of his admiration, she smiled. Clearly, she was also curious about him. ‘You are of the jugadiste persuasion, Mr Oakenhurst?’
‘I make a small living from my good fortune, ma’am.’ Had he ever felt as he did now, at the centre of a concert while the music achieved some ecstatic moment? Was he looking on the true face of his lady, his luck? Where would she take him? Home?
He realized to his alarm that he was on the verge of weeping.
‘Well, Mr Oakenhurst,’ Mrs von Bek continued, ‘you would know a flat game, I hope, if one turned up for you. And Granny’s Claw? Is that still played in these parts?’
‘Not to my knowledge, ma’am.’
I need an ally, she said in an urgent signal, which marked her as his peer. Paul Minct is my mortal enemy and will destroy me if he recognizes me. Will you help?
He returned her signal. At your service, Mrs von Bek.
No sworn jugador could have refused her. Their mutual code demanded instant compliance. Only in extreme need did one of his kind thus address a peer. But he would have helped her anyway. He was entirely infatuated with her. He began to wonder what other allies, and of what calibre, he might find here. Did fear or some profound sense of loyalty bind Rodrigo Heat to Paul Minct? Carly O’Dowd, given to sudden swings of affection, would be unreliable at best. Roy Ornate was also Paul Minct’s man. Sister Honesty Marvell might side with them, if only out of an habitual need to destroy potential rivals. Meanwhile, Mr Oakenhurst would have to follow Mrs von Bek’s lead until she told him to do otherwise.
Her fingers dropped from the grey-green pearls and coral at her throat while his own hands lost interest in his links. Their secret exchange was for a moment at an end.
It had been seven years - twenty-eight seasons by current reckoning - since Mr Oakenhurst had been in a similar situation and that had been the start of his friendship with Jack Karaquazian. On this occasion, however, the intellectual thrill, the thrill of the big risk, was coupled with his overwhelming desire for her given extra edge by his own anxious guess that perhaps she was at least a little attracted to him. Even the chemistry with Serdia had not been so strong. The sensation attacked his mind as well as his flesh while the cool part of him, the trained jugador, was taking account of this wonderful return of feelings he had thought lost for ever, and considering new odds.
‘Do you think it will be long before we reach the Frees, Mr Ornate?’ She looked up as the skipper returned with a tray on which stood an oak cafetière and some delicate rosewood cups. ‘Here you go, ma’am, here you go. I fixed it myself. You can’t trust these blankeys to fix good coffee.’ The man was blushing like a rat on a hot spot, oblivious of the open derision on Rodrigo Heat’s old-fashioned head.
Mr Oakenhurst relaxed his body and settled into his chair. Paul Minct would make his entrance at any moment.
11. LAS BON TEMPS ARRIVÉE
‘MR OAKENHURST INFORMS me that you might be willing to come in on our special play, Mrs von Bek.’ Paul Minct brushed dust from his mask. One of his pale eyes peered from the ragged hole in the Rocky Mountains where Quaker marked Colorado. It was as if he brushed a tear.
After an exhausting week-long game in which the three of them had emerged equals in all but specific skills and appetites, Paul Minct, Rose von Bek and Sam Oakenhurst believed they had learned almost everything they would ever know about one another. All were prepared, in appropriate circumstances, to risk everything on the flick of a sensor, the turn of a card, an instinctive snap judgement.
Paul Minct’s topical half-face glittered in the flamelight and behind his whispering curtain of beads his ruined lips twisted in an involuntary grin, as if flesh remembered pain his mind refused.
Sam Oakenhurst cursed his own quickened blood, the vast emotions he seemed to be riding like a vaquero on a runaway bronc, barely able to haul hard enough on the reins to avoid the worst disasters as they approached.
‘I take it you are considering some unusually high stakes, Mr Minct.’ Her voice had grown warmer, more musical, like a well practised instrument. She was all of a piece, thought Sam Oakenhurst admiringly, a perfect disguise. There was, however, no evidence that Paul Minct had been deceived by either of them.
The week’s play had left the Rose and Sam Oakenhurst uncertain lovers, but it was of no interest to Paul Minct how they celebrated their alliance. He appeared to be under the impression that a more reckless Rose von Bek had persuaded Mr Oakenhurst to let her join him.