Right now he's smiling, a pensive smile: he's considering his latest amour, with the plump wife of a minor civil servant. She's stupid as athulk, but she has a soft dense mouth like a waterlogged velvet cushion and tapered fingers deft as fish, and sly narrow eyes, and an educated knack. However, she's becoming too demanding, and also indiscreet. She's been nagging at him to compose a poem to the nape of her neck, or to some other part of her anatomy, as is the practice among the more foppish of the court lovers, but his talents do not lie in that direction. Why are women such trophy-hunters, why do they want mementoes? Or does she wish him to make a fool of himself, as a demonstration of her power?
A shame, but he'll have to get rid of her. He'll ruin her husband financially-do him the honour of dining at his house, with all of his most trusted courtiers, until the poor idiot's resources are exhausted.
Then the woman will be sold into slavery to pay the debt. It might even do her good-firm up her muscles. It's a definite pleasure to imagine her minus her veil, her face bared to every passing stare, toting her new mistress's footstool or pet blue-billedwibular and scowling all the way. He could always have her assassinated, but that seems a little harsh: all she's really guilty of is a lust for bad poetry. He's not a tyrant.
A disembowelledoorm lies before him. Idly he pokes at the feathers. He doesn't care about the stars-he no longer believes all that gibberish-but he will have to squint at them for a while anyway and come up with some pronouncement. The multiplying of wealth and a bountiful harvest should do the trick in the short run, and people always forget about prophecies unless they come true.
He wonders whether there's any validity to the information he's received, from a reliable private source -his barber-that there is yet another plot being hatched against him. Will he have to make arrests again, resort to torture and executions? No doubt. Perceived softness is as bad for public order as actual softness. A tight grip on the reins is desirable. If heads must roll, his will not be among them. He will be forced to act, to protect himself; yet he feels a strange inertia. Running a kingdom is a constant strain: if he relaxes his guard, even for a moment, they'll be on him, whoever they are.
Off to the north he thinks he sees a flickering, as if something is on fire there, but then it's gone. Lightning, perhaps. He passes his hand over his eyes.
I feel sorry for him. I think he's only doing the best he can.
I think we need another drink. How about it?
I bet you're going to kill him off. You have that glint.
In all justice he'd deserve it. I think he's a bastard, myself. But kings have to be, don't they? Survival of the fittest and so forth. Weak to the wall.
You don't really believe that.
Is there another? Squeeze the bottle, will you? Because really I'm very thirsty.
I'll see. She gets up, trailing the sheet. The bottle is on the desk. No need to wrap up, he says. I enjoy the view.
She looks back at him over her shoulder. She says: It adds mystery. Toss over your glass. I wish you'd stop buying this rotgut.
It's all I can afford. Anyway I've got no taste. It's because I'm an orphan. The Presbyterians ruined me, in the orphanage. It's why I'm so gloomy and dismal.
Don't play that grubby old orphan card. My heart does not bleed.
It does, though, he says. I count on it. Apart from your legs and your very fine ass, that's what I admire most about you-the bloodiness of your heart.
It's not my heart that's bloody, it's my mind. I'm bloody-minded. Or so I've been told.
He laughs. Here's to your bloody mind then. Down the hatch.
She drinks, makes a face.
Comes out the same as it goes in, he says cheerfully. Speaking of which, I have to see a man about a dog. He gets up, goes to the window, raises the sash a little.
You can't do that!
It's a side driveway. I won't hit anyone.
At least keep behind the curtain! What about me?
What about you? You've seen a naked man before. You don't always close your eyes.
I don't mean that, I mean I can't pee out a window. I'll burst.
My pal's dressing gown, he says. See it? That plaid thing on the stand. Just check to make sure the hall's clear. The landlady's a nosy old bitch, but as long as you're wearing plaid she won't see you. You'll blend in-this dump is plaid to the core.
Well then, he says. Where was I?
It's midnight, she says. A single bronze bell tolls.
Oh yes. It's midnight. A single bronze bell tolls. As the sound dies away, the blind assassin turns the key in the door. His heart is beating hard, as it always does at such moments: moments of considerable danger to himself. If he is caught, the death that will be prepared for him will be prolonged and painful, He feels nothing about the death he is about to inflict, nor does he care to know the reasons for it. Who is to be assassinated and why is the business of the rich and powerful, and he hates them all equally.
They are the ones who took away his eyesight and forced themselves into his body by the dozens when he was too young to do anything about it, and he would welcome the chance to butcher every single one of them-them, and anyone involved in their doings, as this girl is. It means nothing to him that she's little more than a decorated and bejewelled prisoner. It means nothing to him that the same people who have made him blind have made her mute. He'll do his job and take his pay and that will be the end of it.
In any case she'll be killed tomorrow if he doesn't kill her himself tonight, and he'll be quicker and not nearly so clumsy. He's doing her a favour. There have been too many blundered sacrifices. None of these kings is any good with a knife.
He hopes she won't make too much fuss. He's been told she can't scream: about the loudest sound she can make, with her tongueless, wounded mouth, is a high, stifled mewing, like a cat in a sack. That's fine. Nevertheless he'll take precautions.
He drags the corpse of the sentry inside the room so no one will stumble across it in the corridor. Then he moves inside as well, soundless in his bare feet, and locks the door.
Five
The fur coat
This morning the tornado warnings were out, on the weather channel, and by mid-afternoon the sky had turned a baleful shade of green and the branches of the trees had begun to thrash around as if some huge, enraged animal was fighting its way through. The storm passed directly overhead: flicked snakes' tongues of white light, stacks of tin pie plates tumbling. Count a thousand and one, Reenie used to tell us. If you can say that, it's a mile away. She said never to use the telephone during a thunderstorm or the lightning would come right through into your ear and then you'd be deaf. She said never to take a bath then either, because the lightning could run out of the tap like water. She said if the hair stood up on the back of your neck you should jump into the air, because that was the only thing that could save you.
The storm was gone by nightfall, but it was still dank as a drain. I roiled around in the muddle of my bed, listening to my heart limping against the bedsprings, trying to get comfortable. Finally I gave up on sleep and pulled a long sweater on over my nightgown, and negotiated the stairs. Then I put on my plastic raincoat with the hood and slipped my feet into my rubber boots, and went outside. The damp wood of the porch steps was treacherous. The paint's worn off them, they may be rotting.
In the faint light all was monochrome. The air was moist and still. The chrysanthemums on the front lawn sparkled with shining drops; a battalion of slugs was no doubt munching away at the few remaining leaves of the lupins. Slugs are said to like beer; I keep thinking I should put some out for them. Better them than me: it was never the form of alcohol I preferred. I wanted nervelessness quicker.