Beautiful Blood Page 10

  Movement caught his eye—something crawling toward them about fifty feet below their perch. Not crawling, exactly. It appeared to be oozing toward them, inching along. He couldn’t make out the particulars of the shape, but it seemed quite large, seven or eight feet wide, and flattish, a motley green in color (or else it was covered in lichen). Every so often it lifted what Rosacher supposed to be its head, exposing a ridge of liverish flesh marked by dark round splotches. He thought about waking Jarvis, but no threat being imminent (the creature’s pace was glacial), he resolved to keep an eye on it and let the old man sleep. Two longish wires (feelers, he realized) poked up in the interstitial area between two scales adjoining his, distracting him. The insect or whatever-it-was never showed itself, however, and he fell into a drowsy reverie, making idle lists of things he would do if he intended to put his plan into action…and was jolted awake by a blow to his leg and Jarvis yelling at him to lend a hand.

  The creature had closed to within six feet, lifting itself off the scale, revealing more of its liverish underside, including a lipless slash that Rosacher assumed to be a mouth. It waggled and rippled like the tip of a dark tongue, and emitted glutinous grunts as if its mouth were full of mush. Jarvis fended it off with one of the poles, jabbing at the dark splotches with the hook—they weren’t discolorations, but furred bulges. Rosacher grabbed the second pole and began jabbing as well. The creature’s strength nearly knocked him down, but he persevered and, after several minutes of strenuous effort, they succeeded in diminishing the thing’s enthusiasm for the fight. It lowered its head and retreated, backing away, following the same track it had used in its approach.

  Jarvis, leaning on his pole, said between gasping breaths, “Haven’t seen one of them for ages. Thought they’d died out.”

  “What in the hell was it?”

  “Devil’s tongue. Amarga lengua. Folks had lots of names for them. They’ll sneak up on you and numb you with poison. Then they’ll ooze all on top of you, cover you like a shroud, and when they leave, won’t be nothing left of you, not even a stain.” Jarvis grinned and brandished his pole. “Told you these would come in handy.”

  “Is that why you brought them?” Rosacher asked, incredulous. “But how could you have known? You said you hadn’t seen a…a Devil’s tongue for years.”

  “No, that’s not why!” Jarvis pointed up at the wing. “I thought we might take down a few nests. The tourists loves them. They’ll pay right handsomely for the fancy ones.”

  11

  This incident marked for Rosacher the beginning of his conversion, although an observer might have said it had begun long before. It was a subtle process, a gradual ascension into a state of faith, of unquestioning belief. Over the next several years (years actually lived, not skipped over and half-remembered), as he constructed the foundations of his religion and the temple that would house it, he could not put from his mind the serenity of the view from Griaule’s eastern side. Time and again he visited the ledge where he and Jarvis had stationed themselves and let that serenity pervade and inspire him, filling his head with odd thoughts and insights that would drift about in his brain for days or weeks until it became clear how they applied to some issue at hand.

  The greater part of these insights consisted of refinements to the design of the religion and the temple…which was disguised as that most typical of Morningshade businesses: a brothel, one that opened its doors three years before the building had been completed. Rosacher saw no reason why fleshly pleasures could not be used to enhance the ecstasies of religion—it would, to his way of thinking, only create a stronger bond between celebrant and an objectified god. He recruited women (and a goodly number of men) not from Teocinte, but from towns along the coast, the only requisites being that they were beautiful and willing to learn the scripts he wrote for them. He didn’t worry whether or not they were dependable sorts, knowing that an addiction to mab would sublimate their wilder impulses and cause them to believe in the words they spoke to the patrons. Using the funds he had secreted, a massive sum, and operating through proxies, he bought the Hotel Sin Salida, then tore it down and initiated the construction of a much larger and more splendid establishment, the House of Griaule. When finished (the House, as it came to be known), resembled half an eleven-tiered wedding cake buttressed by the dragon’s ankle and foreleg, and topped by twin spires, its shape reminiscent of a gothic cathedral. Yet the building’s various conceits—ornate trims, Asiatic accents done in garish colors, a profusion of lanterns encased in ruby glass, hundreds of carved wooden dragons coated in gilt placed here and there about the façade—detracted considerably from this impression. Thus the immediate effect was of an immense bawdy house, while the subliminal effect was of a house of worship, which was precisely Rosacher’s intent.

  The four bottom floors were of granite block quarried in the hills surrounding the Carbonales Valley and contained offices, dressing rooms (patrons were required to wear robes of white linen), an extensive kitchen, banquet rooms, security rooms in which miscreants were dealt with by a highly efficient force, storerooms where stocks of wine, viands and mab were kept, etc…but the majority of the space was occupied by a vast amphitheater furnished with sofas and chaise lounges into which patrons were ushered and there welcomed by beautiful women in white silk robes and men in silk trousers, all emblazoned with the image of a golden dragon coiled around a miniature sun. The function of this space was to introduce patrons to the variety of pleasures and pleasure-givers available to them, but it was also here that their conversion began. At the bottom of the amphitheater lay a stage dominated by a marble-and-gold bas relief of Griaule beneath which dancers clad in gauzy costumes performed erotic ballets to the tune of a small orchestra (strings, flutes, French horns, and guitars), a soft music audible throughout the enclosure, yet due to the acoustic perfection of the space, this in no way impeded the conversations between patrons and the men and women of the House. These conversations were, of course, flirtations that led inevitably to sexual activity in one or another of the rooms above the fourth floor, but into each the ministrants injected portions of the homilies that Rosacher had written for them, ruminations on Griaule’s nature, paeans to his magnificence and so forth…and this stratagem (for such it was) continued to be used in the bedchambers, where every sexual act, however deviant, was preceded by a prayer to an image of Griaule mounted above the headboard.

  Rosacher’s idea was to create a fantasy religion that wedded the sybaritic to a faux-spirituality, one that skirted the edge of sacrilege and would eventually transition to the status of a “real” religion. Since the population of the Carbonales already half-believed in Griaule’s divinity, it took little persuasion to push them over the brink of faith—yet even tourists having no familiarity with Griaule or mab came away from the House wearing souvenir dragon necklaces or bracelets embedded with pieces of scale (sold in the gift shop) that they were prone to touch during stressful moments, and their speech was peppered with catchphrases and fragments of litany that had been whispered in their ears during their stay. Seeing how easily people surrendered their wills to the embrace of his scheme, Rosacher envisioned Teocinte as a mecca to which pilgrims from Houses of Griaule spread around the world would flock to celebrate their god; but that was a dream that would only come to fruition if he succeeded in negotiating the hazards that confronted him.

  Early in the proceedings, when the top three floors were still unfinished, but the House was already open for business, a functionary of the Church, a cardinal sent from Mospiel, visited the offices and asked to speak with the person in charge. Instead of steering him to one of Rosacher’s proxies, a young office worker, knowing no better, escorted him into the fourth floor laboratory, a windowless room whose walls of unfinished stone resembled those of a prison, where Rosacher (working in the House pseudonymously) was engaged in his study of Griaule’s blood. The cardinal was a fleshy man with an aquiline nose and thick gray hair and the beginnings of a double chin, wearing on h
is ring finger a huge gemstone of the sort set above the cathedral atop Haver’s Roost, and clad in a black robe trimmed with silver. He wandered about for a time without acknowledging Rosacher, his gaze lingering on the vials and alembics and other scientific apparatus that cluttered the several countertops. Only after completing his inspection did he address Rosacher, who had hovered all the while. He first surveyed Rosacher, taking in his shabby clothing, the scarring on his face and hands, and then with a haughty air, said, “I asked to speak with the person in charge.”

  “You’re after seeing Mister Mountroyal, I reckon,” said Rosacher, affecting a country accent. “He’s not here. You’ll have to speak to me or one of the other administrators.”

  “I’ll wait,” the cardinal said. “I would like to meet with him today, but tomorrow in the morning will do.”

  “I don’t suppose I made myself clear. Mister Mountroyal lives across the water on Saint Cecilia’s Isle. Take him the best part of a week for to get here. Longer if he’s occupied elsewhere.”

  The cardinal let out a petulant sigh. “If I must wait, I will wait. Prepare accommodations for me and my assistant.”

  “Perhaps…” Rosacher pretended to falter, to be ill at ease. “Perhaps Your Eminence should consider finding more suitable quarters. The rectory on Haver’s Roost, for instance.”

  “I’ve dwelled among the sinful all my life,” the cardinal said pompously, as if this were a unique accomplishment. “Nothing that occurs here will have the slightest effect upon me.”

  We’ll have to see about that, Rosacher said to himself. He went to the wall and pulled on a bell rope. Momentarily another office worker appeared and Rosacher instructed him to ready two rooms, and to make certain anything that the cardinal might find offensive was removed.

  “No, no! I am here to observe the normal functioning of your establishment. Leave everything in place.” The cardinal spotted a wooden chair in the corner, went to it and settled himself, spreading his robes beneath him as might a woman. “I wish you to convey a message to your Mister Mountroyal,” he said, addressing himself to Rosacher. “Tell him Cardinal Chiano has come from Mospiel to question him about the objectionable tone of his business. I will not leave until I have met with him. Can you manage that?”

  “I can.” Rosacher walked to the door, but paused with his hand on the knob. “Would Your Eminence mind if I asked a question?”

  Chiano gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  “What did you mean by ‘objectionable tone’?”

  “Surely it’s obvious. In every aspect of your business, you appear to be mocking the Church.”

  Rosacher feigned amazement. “Why, that’s not so. If anything, we’re mocking the folks who think Griaule is divine.”

  “Griaule may well be divine. The council appointed by the Church has not yet made its determination.”

  “Well sir, I’m sure there are wiser heads on your council than me, but I’ve lived close by Griaule my entire life and I’m here to tell you, that pile of stink behind us ain’t nothing more than a half-dead lizard. A whopping big lizard, but a lizard all the same.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “If Griaule was a god, you think he would have let us drill into his hide so as to stabilize the biggest whorehouse in the country?”

  “You actually drilled into the beast?”

  “Mister Mountroyal figured what with the size of the place, we couldn’t rely on cables like the old hotel that stood here did.”

  Chiano pursed his lips. “You may have a point.”

  “People in these parts are crazy for religion. We didn’t have the Church until recently, so folks worshipped what there was to worship. If Griaule wasn’t around, you could stick an empty wine bottle up on a rock and someone would say a prayer to it. When you get right down to it, the House is doing the Church’s work by associating the lizard with, if you’ll pardon my language, a nice piece of fish. It causes folks to see their superstitious nonsense in a new light.”

  “It’s an interesting point of view, I’ll hand you that,” said Chiano. “What’s your name?”

  “Myree,” said Rosacher, suspecting that he had said too much and thus sparked the prelate’s interest in him. “Arthur Myree.”

  “Well, Arthur, perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to chat again.”

  As Rosacher made to leave, the cardinal waved at the countertops and asked what was the purpose of all this equipment.

  “It’s Mister Mountroyal’s hobby. Ever fooling around with chemicals, he is. He taught me a few tricks and when I have a spare minute or two, I like to come in here and fiddle.”

  Rosacher excused himself and, once alone in his office, seated at his desk, he pondered the problem that the cardinal presented. Not that the problem was severe. Over the years he had discovered that the Church’s state of decay was greater than he had assumed and he doubted they had a taste for a military engagement with a militia very nearly the equivalent of their own—there were other areas into which they could expand with little or no resistance. They might make a show of force and send more fat-assed emissaries to admonish and threaten, but as Rosacher read the situation, that was all they would do. Still, the cardinal’s presence posed an opportunity for Rosacher to strengthen his position. It would take less than a day to prepare the actor who played the fictitious Mr. Mountroyal to deal with Chiano, but Rosacher intended to delay the cardinal’s departure as long as he reasonably could, the better to explore the possibilities. After thinking the matter through, he summoned the office worker who had shown the cardinal into his laboratory.

  “I believe Mister Mountroyal told you never to bring visitors to me,” Rosacher said. “Some people find my disfigurement off-putting.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said the office worker, who was still in his twenties and already bald on top except for a smattering of pale red strands combed across his scalp. “I was flustered. I’ve never been so close to a cardinal before.”

  “And how did you find it?”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Being so close to him. Was it thrilling? Did it cause you to feel faint? Did it have a transfiguring effect? Has your faith in the Church been restored?”

  “Oh…no, sir.”

  “Something must have triggered your reaction.”

  “I suppose…”

  “Yes?”

  “The size of his ring, sir. The stone. I suppose that was what did it.”

  “Nothing else influenced you. No other impressions?”

  “Well, sir, the main thing I noticed he breathed heavy when he walked…and he had a most peculiar body odor.”

  “The odor of saintliness, no doubt,” said Rosacher. He slapped his desk, a decisive gesture. “All right. Try not to let it happen again. Now…” He leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. “I want you to see to Cardinal Chiano’s needs. Keep a record of everything he orders from the kitchen, what he drinks, and how he passes his time. If you do a good job, I won’t report your error in protocol to Mister Mountroyal.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  “One thing more. I want you to assign our most attractive available male escort to be the cardinal’s personal servant for the duration of his stay.”

  “A man, sir?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have,” Rosacher said.

  +

  During the construction of the House and for several years thereafter, a period in which the business of the place began the transition from prostitution to actual religion, Rosacher maintained his living arrangement in Hangtown with Martita; but as time passed he spent more and more time away from home. Though he still found Martita attractive—and how could he not?—he did not love her, nor she him. While mab was a great leveler, all but eliminating jealousy among its users (why should one covet another woman, a bigger house, finer clothes, when one already possessed perfection?), it could not counterfeit or induce strong emotion. And thus, the bonds of infatuation having w
eakened, Rosacher and Martita took other lovers, yet continued to cohabit on an intermittent basis and remained great friends.

  One morning, as Rosacher prepared to walk out to the ledge to contemplate and perhaps find a solution to a pressing problem, he stood before the mirror, adjusting his hat so that it shadowed his ravaged face, a habit he rarely shirked, even in Hangtown where such injuries were common…on that morning, then, Martita came to stand at his shoulder and said in a glum voice, “You know, you haven’t changed a bit since you got here.”

  He laughed, gesturing at his scarred cheek and neck. “You’re not serious?”

  “Aside from that, you look the same as you did the day you walked in. What’s it been? Nearly ten years? And here’s me, turning into an old woman.”

  He offered reassurances about her looks and, after she had gone off to pack him a lunch, he examined himself in the mirror. The scars made it difficult to judge, but it seemed to him that the unaffected area of his face was relatively unlined and his hair did not appear to be appreciably greyer. Odd. He imagined that the lack of stress had much to do with it. The drug business had been nerve-wracking, whereas the construction and organization of the House was something he looked forward to each and every day, difficult, but a joyful challenge, and not in the least stressful. At the end of a working day he would be tired, but not on edge, unable to sleep, his mind occupied with paranoid fantasies, some of which proved not to be fantasies.

  He strode along Griaule’s western slope to reach the ledge and on glancing down he saw, stretching out from the southern perimeter of Morningshade, a plain upon which infantry and mounted troops rushed back and forth, raising clouds of whitish dust that curtained the air. The militia making ready for a sortie against the neighboring country of Temalagua (a dangerous course, in Rosacher’s view), a reprisal for what had been countenanced as “Temalaguan aggression.” The incident in question involved a hunting party from Teocinte that had strayed across the border and been slaughtered by the primitives who lived in the rain forest—it was generally viewed as an excuse for the council, now entirely controlled by Breque, to initiate a conflict that would result in the annexation of Temalagua’s northern province, long the subject of dispute between the two governments. The fact that the province was rich in minerals and had a thriving seaport with a much deeper draft than that of Port Chantay was, of course, merely a coincidence. He stood watching the ugly chaos of the scene for a moment, wondering if he would have to intervene and listening to the disharmonious noises issuing from below, faint hammerings and crashes, and then went on his way.