“I am in no doubt that her deployment will produce a deeply unpleasant surprise or two.”
Madame d’Ortolan still doesn’t look at him, still keeps her attention focused on the distant white figure. “Possibly on our own side as well, you mean.”
“That was what I wished to imply.”
“Message received, Mr Kleist.” Madame d’Ortolan squints, tips her head fractionally. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve seen her in sunlight before,” she says, so quietly that Mr Kleist is not certain that she even means him to hear.
He supposes that what she says it true. They have seen the creature in laboratories, strapped to things like dentists’ chairs, confined in small rubberised cages or tied to hospital beds, sometimes weeping, sometimes hysterical, more lately in states of humming, unconcerned calm, or babbling nonsense, but always surrounded by muttering technicians wielding clipboards, electrodes and meters, and rarely with a window even in sight, always in artificial light. And always, until now, physically restrained.
It has not always been pleasant to watch, but the girl’s powers – evident from birth but beyond control – have been heightened and honed over time. Weaponised, you might say. Personally he thinks a little less time might have been devoted to raising those abilities to their present admittedly formidable heights and a little more to making them easier to predict and control, but Bisquitine, in her present form, is very much Madame d’Ortolan’s creation, and such timidity – as she would see it – is not Madame d’Ortolan’s way.
“Hmm,” Madame d’Ortolan says. “She looks as though she has a touch of the mongrel about her, in this light.” She looks at Mr Kleist. “Don’t you think?”
Mr Kleist makes the motion of looking. “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”
Madame d’Ortolan turns to look at the distant group again. She nods, shallowly. “An octoroon, or thereabouts, I’d say.”
There is a pause, then a sigh before Mr Kleist says, “Well, in any event, ma’am, if you truly are decided on this course, we should waste no further time.”
Madame d’Ortolan flashes him a look, then relents, shoulders falling. “You’re right. I’m procrastinating.” She nods at the steps leading down from the terrace. “We must seize the day,” she observes, patting her blouse frills flat against her jacket lapels. A flower, gelded by Mr Kleist, lies limp upon her jacket breast. “And the nettle.”
As Kleist and Madame d’Ortolan approach, it becomes clear that the Lady Bisquitine has been collecting insects, snails and little lumps of soil from the flower beds, and eating some of them. The rest she deposits in a drawstring posy purse hanging from her waist. Her pretty little face, surrounded by a nimbus of bouncily blonde curls and kept clean and minimally made-up by her forever fussing lady-in-waiting, sports brown streaks at the corners of her mouth until the lady-in-waiting – a thin, black-dressed figure who moves like a stalking bird – wets a handkerchief with her mouth and, tutting, cleans the lips of her charge.
Bisquitine stands still, staring at Madame d’Ortolan open-mouthed. Her face looks provisionally blank, as though she is a young child confronted with something new and surprising and is trying to decide whether to put back her head and laugh, or burst out crying. Two of her attendants, robust young men in a special uniform of dark grey and maroon, armed with automatic pistols and electric shock guns, touch their caps to acknowledge the approach of the older and more senior woman. The other two are more slight in comparison, informally dressed, and look bored. Both nod, all the same. The lady-in-waiting curtsies.
“Bisquitine, my dear,” Madame d’Ortolan says, stopping a couple of metres away and smiling at her. She never knows quite what to do with her hands when she meets Bisquitine. To touch her, of course, could be dangerous. “How are you? You look well!”
The Lady Bisquitine continues to stare at Madame d’Ortolan. Then she looks absolutely delighted, her already pretty face splits in a guileless smile and in a clear, bell-like, childish voice she sings:
“Ugby Dugby bought a new ball, Ugby Dugby played not at all. Ugby Dugby went for a spin, Ugby Dugby couldn’t get in!” She nods proudly, once, for emphasis and then sits down where she stands, the skirts of her white brocade gown pooling around her like spilled milk. With her tongue out of the side of her mouth, she takes a beetle out of her posy bag and starts to pull its wing casings open, letting them click back while the protesting insect buzzes and jerks in her chubby, grubby fingers.
One of the bored, skinny attendants looks at Madame d’Ortolan and sighs. “Sorry, ma’am. Bit worse than usual recently.” He shrugs, gazes down at Bisquitine, who has pulled one of the wing casings off entirely and is studying the wing inside, cross-eyed with concentration. The young man smiles uncertainly at Madame d’Ortolan. He appears to be vicariously embarrassed.
“But still,” Madame d’Ortolan says, “potent, yes? Proficient. Capable.”
The other skinny young man blows out his cheeks and shakes his head. “Oh, be under no illusions, ma’am,” he says, “the lady’s skills remain undiminished, oh yes.” He is squinting in the sunlight, rather as Mr Kleist is doing.
The first young man rolls his eyes. “We’ve had to stop her flitting half a dozen times since breakfast, ma’am.” He shakes his head.
Bisquitine pulls the beetle’s other wing casing off and puts it between her teeth, tasting it. She makes a sour face and spits the wing casing out onto the path, then leans over to let some spit dribble from her hanging-open lips. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve, grunting.
Madame d’Ortolan looks measuredly at the lady-in-waiting. “Mrs Siankung, isn’t it?”
“Ma’am.” She curtsies again.
“We have need of the Lady Bisquitine’s services and unique talents.”
Mrs Siankung swallows. “Now, ma’am?”
“Now.”
“This is… more training, evaluation, yes?”
“No, it is profoundly not.”
“I see, ma’am.”
The lady-in-waiting, Kleist thinks, looks surprised. One might even say startled. And possibly also more than a little afraid.
The beetle is vibrating its wings noisily in a vain attempt to escape. Its large hornlike mouth parts, spasming in frantic pincering movements, connect with one of Bisquitine’s fingers and nip. Bisquitine winces, frowns severely at the creature and then pops it whole into her mouth and starts to eat, grimacing only a little. There are crunching noises.
Something very fucking weird happens as I sit there in the main kitchen of the Palazzo Chirezzia, the spoonful of peas poised in front of my mouth. I get the most transitory glimpse of something like a vast explosion – it looks frozen at first, then I plunge into it or it whirls out to meet me and I can see its surface is a boiling mass – then I’m like some particle in a cloud chamber battered by Brownian motion, trilling down through an infinitude of worlds all riffling past too fast to see properly or count and then wham, I’m here, except I seem to have bounced part-way back out of where I really am, because I swear I can see myself sitting there in the kitchen.
And I can see the whole palace. In three dimensions. It’s like the entire building is made of glass: roof tiles, stones, beams and floorboards, carpets, wall coverings, furniture and even the piles that the whole place rests on – ancient warped tree trunks, densely packed, twisted into the mud metres and metres beneath. I’m aware that all the components are there and I can still tell what colour each is and see the patterns on things like the Persian rugs scattered through the building, but at the same time I can see through everything. I can see the immediate surroundings, too: the buildings flanking the palazzo, also facing the Grand Canal, the small canal to one side, the calles on the two other sides, plus I have a vague impression of the rest of the city, but the fabric of the palace itself is patently where all my attention is focused.