A murmur passed through the group. I glanced at Anku resting in the shadows. I drew myself up and turned to Delfine.
“I bring this dog to Nopcsa as a gift to win back my favor.”
Delfine laughed. “So Gower Miramar won Jellica Persia at Semhane that year with a spotted eyra!”
An effete man with the Illyrian calyx tattooed upon his palm giggled, peering into the shadows where Anku’s eyes glowed carmine. “Another albino! Whitlock will be furious—”
I laughed suddenly at the thought of Whitlock’s discomfiture (although I had been fond enough of him when we were paired at Winterlong). The elders too seemed delighted at this unexpected entertainment. I wondered how long it had been since any of them had been allowed to attend a masque as anything but servitors. Not long enough for the pocked Persian to grow accustomed to being a slave: that I gathered from the venomous looks he continued to shoot at me.
“But this is Whitlock’s House nonetheless, and not Miramar’s,” he hissed, tugging at a plait of jet-black hair that remained the single aureole of his beauty. “And look how he is dressed! Poor auspice, to mock the Gaping One on Her Hill.”
“Oh, Balfour is just jealous, Raphael,” said Delfine. She let her hand slip between my legs in the caress called carnassial, for which she had been noted in her youth. “‘Whitlock is his cousin-german. I think it’s a wonderful idea, and so original—an albino jackal! Wherever did you find it?”
“I captured it beneath the Obelisk.”
“Escaped from the Zoologists, I imagine. I never realized you were accomplished with animals, too,” said the Illyrian admiringly.
“He was a gifted child,” said Delfine with pride. As her face drew nearer to mine I could smell the sickly odor of gingko negus upon her breath.
“Do you remember me from Winterlong, Raphael?” a new voice piped. Clammy hands clutched at my shoulders.
“And me?” said another as she stroked my cheek.
“You never forgot dear Delfine, did you, my cherub?” Her rough hands scuttled across my thighs.
“Of course not,” I said. Carefully I disentangled myself. I wobbled a few paces to where Anku lay and leaned against a lamp post. I stared into a globe of glowing orchids as I tried to steady my trembling hands. I drew a deep breath.
“You are all too much of a temptation for me, friends!” I raised my head to look at them. Delfine with one arm draped about the Illyrian’s shoulder. A trio of gouty paillards ogling me from behind the Illyrian. Balfour glaring as he twisted his braid about his scarred hands. And behind them others shambling toward the light, their leering faces stripped of all beauty and warmth to betray the harsh ligaments of a lifetime of unslaked desire. I felt my knees buckle beneath me, but before I could falter Anku leaped to his feet and let forth that weird yodeling cry.
A reluctant sigh from the elders. One by one they settled back onto the drive. Delfine stooped to retrieve the scattered ovals of her game and cast me a final longing glance. Only Balfour remained standing, staring at me defiantly.
“I hope you are banished for interjacence,” he said. Low peals of laughter greeted this, and he turned and stalked into the shadows.
“Forgive our hasty departure.” I bowed. “But I must try to mend this breach between my mentor and myself—”
“Fare well, Raphael,” said Delfine, touching her lips. “Remember me at the Butterfly Ball!”
“Remember me! Remember me!” the others joined in with soft voices. The dust beneath them stirred as their fingers fluttered to mark the Paphian’s beck.
“I will,” I called back haltingly; “I will—” And with head bowed I hurried toward the marble steps of High Brazil.
6. Primitive colors
ONCE IT HAD BEEN the Antipodal Embassy. Elaborate carvings in the marble facade still displayed the writhing faces of capuchins and marmosets and uakaris. The main doorway’s lintel was the painted effigy of a serpent whose opal eyes each year were wrested from their sockets to glitter for this one evening upon the brow of the Butterfly Ball’s cacique, chosen at midnight by the masquers. But it was early yet. The fiery stones still gleamed in their sockets and the torchieres burned brightly—although the elders guarding the door were already drunk, and demanded the right to fondle each costumed reveler before granting entry. For a moment I paused in the shadows. Anku whined softly at my feet as he watched the steady passage of glittering figures, boys and girls stumbling beneath the weight of jeweled and’ feathered headdresses and flowing silken wings.
“Hush,” I whispered. I nudged him with my foot. “Well, you’re a pretty prize, at least,” I added, and stooped to ruffle his white fur. His steady growl grew louder. When the two guards had turned their attention upon the willowy figure of Aspasia Helen, I walked into the brilliant light of the torchieres.
“… seven years old, and only this big!”
One of the elders whooped as Aspasia pinched him, a flurry of glitter powdering the air. At the sound of my tread upon the steps she looked back. For an instant puzzlement clouded her. impish features. Then she squealed and nearly tripped over the sinuous drapery of a pair of wing spurs made of pale green silk.
“Raphael!”
Her arms circled my neck and I buried my face in her shoulder, feeling faint at the scent of jacaranda and the clean soft pressure of her skin beneath my mouth. I whispered foolishly, overcome at finally being here once more; and clung to her so long that I heard the guards snickering.
“Raphael,” she murmured, and pulled away from me. Peering more closely at my face, she drew back, brushing at the threads of blue and lavender mille-fleurs woven across her breasts. “Is that your costume?”
I started to reply when she gave a little squeak and clutched my arm. “And what is that?”
“A jackal,” I explained. I grabbed Anku’s ruff and pulled him against my knees. “A favor for Roland Nopcsa.”
“Is he tame?”
“Perfectly.” I patted Anku’s head reassuringly.
“He doesn’t sound very tame,” said Aspasia. She stretched out a white beribboned hand. Anku sniffed her tentatively, then licked her wrist. “Oh! Tickles—” She glanced at me sideways. “What happened to you, Raphael? We heard you’d gone among the Curators—”
“I’ve come back.” I could see a crowd from Saint-Alaban starting up the drive, the elders groaning as they set down their palanquins. “Are you going in now?”
“Well—yes,” she replied, still doubtful. “That’s such an odd costume—”
“I’ll walk with you, then.” As I took her arm I turned so that the guards could not catch more than a glimpse of my face.
“Hey,” one of them began as Anku pattered past. But already the Saint-Alabans crowded the steps behind us in a roil of jasmine and crinoline. We slipped inside unchallenged.
A rush of scent—jasmine, ylang-ylang, carcasse d’amour; sandlewood and galingale; the heady reek of opiated cedar burning in copper braziers. We paused before a wide curving parapet overlooking the Great Hall. Aspasia detached herself from my embrace. Below us the marble floors flickered beneath seething waves of masquers in butterfly garb. Senators and Curators threaded their way cautiously through the room, holding the trailing sleeves of their sober habits above the ground. The black domino of a Persian malefeants with her whip pied the pastel train of a score of moth-winged children trying very hard to perform the steps of a salacious maxixe. High overhead the ceiling seemed to dance as well, as thousands of courting samburs wafted in the dim vault and macaws and brilliant finches chased the poor exhausted amorets above the ballroom floor.