“Aren’t you afraid you’ll wake them?” I asked, slipping down the aisle to stand behind her.
“Not me!” She swung around to face me, bumping against a heavy pedestal. I caught her elbow as she steadied herself.
“Is it true what they say?” she demanded. I let my hand rest on her elbow and, when she did not pull away, stroked her arm.
“What’s that?” I asked softly.
She tilted her head. For an instant the sunlight made a bright halo of her tousled hair. “That you’ve had a thousand lovers.”
“At least.” I let my fingers drift to the small of her back. She stared at me suspiciously. When I did not smile she nodded.
“They said your master wanted you to be the next ruler of your House.” I shrugged modestly. “Why would you come here, where you’ll never be welcome?”
I looked up, surprised at her bluntness. “I did not know I would never be welcome,” I said bitterly. “I—I had hoped to learn great things here, and someday share my knowledge with my people …”
She shook her head. “But we would never share our secrets with a whore,” she said. There was no malice in her voice. “You have nothing to give us in return.”
“Nothing?” I drew her close to me. “Your people take everything we value—our youth and our beauty and our love—and disdain it!” She grew pale and tried to draw away from me, but I took her chin in my hand and twisted her face toward me to kiss her. Her lips were chapped, her mouth tasting of that morning’s apples and oatmeal. When I released her she did not move away. “What’s all your learning worth to a girl who’s never kissed a man?” I said more gently, and reached to take her hands.
Flushing, she tossed her head, looked away only to meet her face in the mirror and quickly turned back to me. “I—well, now I have,” she said, staring at her feet.
“Not really,” I murmured, and this time she moved against me and her hands roamed awkwardly down my back.
I slipped off her tunic and found a sweet young boy’s body beneath, long-legged and starred with moles, only with small round breasts and the slightest swell of hips and stomach. I went slowly, so as not to frighten her. I kissed her and was surprised at her innocent response, surprised and excited, too. Occasionally I glanced aside at our reflections, watching her unravel my braid so that my hair fell about us in auburn waves. And my own response excited me, that I could be so aroused by a Curator …
I held her more tightly, started to remove my trousers. She tried to pull away then. “No—what are you doing?” she said.
“Just wait,” I urged her, and tried to pull her to the floor. She pushed at me, then struggled to get away. “No, Raphael—stop, I’m afraid here—”
“What?” I shook my head in disbelief. Then I remembered Iris Bergenia, playing at fighting me in our chamber. I grabbed Franca’s hair and yanked her to the floor beside me. “I’ll teach you what you need to know about the Paphians,” I whispered, holding her beneath me.
“No!” She kicked at me and I fell back, then turned and grabbed her before she could run away. Panting, I held her, furious and scarcely able to keep hold of her, I was trembling so from excitement and rage. She stared at me wild-eyed, not angry but terrified. I desired her more than I had ever wanted anyone.
“Now,” I whispered. As I pulled her face to mine she kicked at me again. Without thinking I struck her, saw a flash of violet at her neck. She shuddered, and I was stung by sudden remorse. Her mouth opened.
“Raphael,” she said thickly. As I stared her eyes widened. The pupils bloated suddenly, then contracted to specks like poppyseeds.
“Franca,” I said, alarmed. Her head lolled onto her shoulder. As I started to draw my hand back I felt a small tug at my wrist. I glanced down.
Against the taut skin of her neck my sagittal clung like a leech. I yanked my hand away and raised my fist, incredulous. For an instant I glimpsed the ebony spine retracting, felt the tiny shift of weight as the propodium curled back into its shell. I dropped my arm.
“Franca,” I repeated, raising my voice. “Franca. Wake up.”
Her mouth tightened. Saliva pearled on her lower lip and began to trace a silvery snail’s path down her chin. Where the sagittal had clung a small purplish star radiated upon her flesh as capillaries burst and feathers of blood unfurled beneath the skin. From a vein that only moments before had pulsed visibly a violet thread unraveled, a corrosive needle’s flourish to her heart. Heedless of whatever poison raced through her, I rested my cheek against her lips.
She was dead. As if dreaming, I let her corpse slip back to the floor and knelt beside it. “Franca,” I whispered over and over, staring wildly about the vast gallery, the silent figures and glowing catafalques now washed in amber light. “Franca …”
In the next few minutes her entire body began to flower with faint mauve petals. From neck to chest the tracery crept, her breasts blushing as from unseen kisses, her hands turning dusky blue as blood pooled in her fingertips. Rosy blossoms stained her thighs as though raining from the vault above us. Through my mind raced a song, nonsense we sang as children, the lazars’ song:
Bain the rain of roses
peonies and posies
Ashes, ashes
Now fall down …
Already the skull shone beneath her skin. I crooned her name, thinking How beautiful she is now, thinking how angry she would have been at this final betrayal of her flesh to loveliness, the septic garden that bloomed about her bones. Then I ravished her.
Quickly, because already her flesh stiffened about me, and her breasts tasted cold and faintly sweet. As my groans subsided I let her slip from my arms. Her head thudded against the floor. I staggered backward, wondering too late if the poison had now entered me as well. I grabbed a pedestal behind me and clung to it, weeping, embracing the cold stone until I could steady myself and turn to her again.
The canker had burst in her eyes. To my numb face she now returned a pansied stare. I kicked her tunic over her. face and stumbled to my feet, choking, even as I knew that I wanted her again, felt my heart tumbling at the sight of that stark white figure lying among all those calm and golden sleepers. But I forced myself to look away, to cast my gaze instead upon the wild figure that stared back from the ancient mirror: auburn hair disheveled, my face blotched with tears and dust. I almost laughed to see myself thus: the pride of the House Miramar weeping above the corpse of a scullion!
And then, echoing from the distant Main Hall came the praying notes of the call to the first dinner shift. Franca and I were on the third shift; but soon they would be missing us at supper. I turned back to her poor corpse, as if it might rise and give me solace. I bumped against a small catafalque atop a broken marble pillar, jarring its lid so that I had to catch it before it fell. And so jarred my own mind to wakefulness.
A full-size sarcophagus stood upright next to the broken column. I prized it open a crack, enough to glimpse inside the bound figure of its ancient king. I shoved the lid back and hurried to another. Its lid was sealed fast, as was the next one, and the next. But there were hundreds of cases here, and surely some of them had been robbed or disturbed over the aeons …
In a dark alcove I found it. No doubt it had once held the remains of some princeling: the lid showed a gilded face surmounted with enormous lapis eyes and a strangely calm mouth, slightly pursed as if dreaming fair dreams. Tentatively I rapped upon the lid. It returned a faint hollow sound. In a moment I had flung it open, to find only the yellow dust of its decayed wrappings and the curled remains of antlions and silverfish.
All about the inside of the sarcophagus were inscribed odd characters. I hesitated, gripped by a sudden cold fear of the coffin itself. But then I thought of how she loved birds, and here were painted birds to fly a soul to peace surely: eagles and gyrfalcons and ibises, kites and watchful owls. I blew the dust from the case, then stood to get Francesca.