The Pool of Mnemosyne, page 22
“I believe so. Madame wanted me there in order to establish some kind of channel between her and your painting…the one that your late husband commissioned from me, before his tragic demise. Her purpose, so she said—and I believed her—was to try to establish a kind of spiritual communion between her rite and one that was being performed in your grand hall. It has long been her dreams to effect a reconciliation, perhaps even a fusion, between the Cult of Dionysus and the schismatic group known as the Cult of Orpheus, about which several people here undoubtedly know far more than I do.”
No one answered that invitation to confession. The Marquise, in particular had no interest in stating what everyone knew. She was still in quest of information.
“And how was this supposed…spiritual communion established?” she asked.
“All that I did, as part of my initiation into the cult, was to look into the device that she calls the Mirror of Dionysus—and actual mirror, although its function in the initiation and the rite was essentially symbolic. I experienced a remarkable vision when I did so, doubtless due to the power of suggestion, amplified by a drug that Madame called cyteon, which I was given before the rite, and whose formula I do not know. In that vision, I was able to see the ritual that was being carried out in this house. The one truly remarkable thing about the experience is that two of the people here seemed to be able to see me, if only for a fraction of a second. Both of them have since confirmed to me that they did, indeed, have a coincident vision.”
“Two people?” the Marquise queried.
“Yes Hecate and Tommaso Dellacrusca. Hecate, I believe, was still regretting the adieu that she had not been able to complete before my abduction, and Tommaso had seen me the night before in a dream.”
Several glances turned to Hecate.
“That’s correct,” she said. “I did sense Axel’s presence, although I naturally thought that it was a hallucination, generated by my anxiety in not knowing what had become of him.”
“Tommaso, too, might have had a prior sensitivity to whatever force it was that Madame was endeavoring to transmit through me,” I suggested, without venturing any hypothesis as to why that might have been. “Madame is, I believe, a remarkable magician—but she has been studying and experimenting for centuries, so that is perhaps to be expected. Speaking purely as an artist, which is all that I am, it was a remarkable experience. It really would have been interesting to stay on the island longer, and I might well go back some day.”
“Why did you come back at all?” asked Alectryon, a trifle bitterly, having been granted silent permission to rejoin the interrogation at last, while Madame presumably paused for thought. I felt certain that she, too, had been aware of my presence on the night in question, but that she was now no longer certain that the inferences she had initially drawn from that awareness were correct.
“Tommaso Dellacrusca asked me to accompany him, Milord, in the hope that I might be able to persuade you to join the pact that he has made with Madame. Again, I am merely a passive instrument, but at his request I have established a telegraph station in my house, with which I will hopefully be able to communicate with both Tommaso and Madame—with the inevitable delays, alas, as the messages are relayed from station to station along the route. You’re undoubtedly in communication with Lutèce already, but a third party is sometimes useful as an intermediary in delicate negotiations. My title as Hierophant is, I admit, purely for show, to grant me a certain quasi-official status. I am not really a priest.”
The fish course—locally caught sole—had come and gone and we were now on the main course, which was some kind of beef ragout. I was eating slowly, really only pecking at my food, in order that chewing not did interrupt my narrative too much, although it was sometimes useful for the purposes of dramatic punctuation. I estimated that I had given the Marquise more than sufficient food for thought to justify her pause, but I still had my pièce de resistance in reserve. It was not something I wanted to save for dessert, though, so I felt a slight twinge of relief when she returned to the fray.
“You say that this Madame of yours has known the meaning of the Toustain document for centuries?” she prompted.
“That is my understanding,” I agreed, not bothering to correct the implication that Madame as in any way mine. “She did not explain that meaning to me, however. I had no idea what it was until your aunt explained it to me two days ago. It was only then that I realized, belatedly, the significance of the apparatus that Madame had shown me in her laboratory, on the eve of my departure from the island.”
“What apparatus?” the Marquise asked, demonstrating that Alectryon was not the only person capable of responding to a cue.
“Her seismographs,” I said, with what seemed to me to be admirable panache. I let a full three seconds of pregnant silence elapse before adding: “Hecate tells me that you have one of your own, Milady. A wise precaution.”
Alectryon had obviously seen the Marquise’s seismograph, so he had no need to ask what the hell one was, but he did say: “A precaution against what?”
“Unlike Madame’s island,” I said, “Mnemosyne is not volcanic, and I’m unaware of any recent history of earthquakes in the region, but it is not immune, even so, to disturbances of the earth’s crust—as evidenced by the recent effects of Hekla’s eruption. The science of seismology is in its infancy, but it seems to be advancing all the time. Madame hopes that it might advance rapidly enough for her to be able to use her apparatus, in collaboration with the Orphean incantation, not only to be able to anticipate such events, but to suppress them.”
This time, it was Hecate who responded to the cue—but I had cheated in that regard and given her prior notice.
“But according to Ursule,” she said, “the formula is a spell for summoning destruction, not suppressing it.”
“But if you remember, my dear,” I said, “she also reminded us forcefully of the principle of reciprocity. Magical formulae, if they work at all, ought to be reversible, so a formula for summoning destruction must, ipso facto, also be a formula for inhibiting it, if the symbolism of its usage is suitably adapted. The seismograph is in its infancy, of course, so its effectiveness as a detection device is limited, as yet, but its role in any corollary magical operation is essentially symbolic. If the summoning formula works at all, it ought to work very well with Madame’s seismographs, which really are quite impressive. I’d be interested in seeing yours. Milady, for the purposes of comparison.”
The Marquise was in no hurry to assure me that she would be delighted to let me see it.
“So Madame’s island is well defended, even against volcanic interruptions and earthquakes?” Mariette put in, obligingly.
“Insofar as any defense is possible,” I confirmed, “it is very well defended indeed. Which is perhaps as well, as she told me that she has had a feeling for some time that some such defense would be necessary imminently. In two thousand years, she has learned to trust such feelings, and the Nymphs and the Sileni both have a special sensitivity to such subtle warnings, as well as being able to form a uniquely powerful magical nexus, especially in the context of a Bacchanal, with the aid of cyteon and the cycinnis—their ritual dance, that is. Primitive peoples often have such a sensitivity, of course, and the Sileni and the Nymphs are at least as ancient, and perhaps still as numerous, as the tribes of Asia and Africa reputed for their magical and shamanic skills.”
“You seem to have given this matter a good deal of thought, Master Rathenius,” said the Marquise, a trifle sourly.
“That’s true,” I said, “although I have only been able to put together the various pieces of the puzzle very recently. I’ve been painting intensely for the past three days, with a kind of quasi-automatic absorption that is conducive to letting one’s mind wander and mull over ideas of which it seems to catch hold at whim—whims that presumably have a cause deep in the unconscious part of the mind. You’ll be glad to know, Milady, that the painting is progressing rapidly. I might be able to begin work on your portrait sooner than I thought.”
“What portrait is that?” This time, the interjection came from Charles Parenot.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, apologetically, looking at the Marquise. “Should I not have mentioned it?”
That shot, at least, did not disturb her in the least. “We have no secrets here, Master Rathenius,” she assured me. “I should have told you, Charles, but one can’t think of everything. When I went to see Master Rathenius the other day, I asked him whether I might commission him to paint a portrait of me…I must plead guilty to excessive vanity, I fear. He told me that he was too fully occupied for the present, but would try to make time in the future.”
It did not require a gesture of any kind to make Parenot shut his mouth, after briefly opening it and then changing his mind. Alectryon’s jaw also twitched, perhaps shifted by a twinge of memory, but he said nothing either.
“You were right, Axel,” said Fion Commonal, with a slight sigh. “You haven’t changed. And this does put me in mind of some of the dinner parties were had back in the old days, when you used to hold forth at great length, and loved to demonstrate your cleverness.” He did not seem to intend the remark as a compliment.
“But you were right too, Fion,” I said, with a slightly heavier sigh. “Times have changed. I fear that my kind of shallow wit is going out of style, and I really must try to become more serious. I’ve outlived my era.”
“You seem to be remarkably adaptable, judging by what I saw on your wall the other day,” he retorted. “How is Looming Disaster coming along?”
“Please don’t title my works, Fion—especially when they have titles already. The work to which you’re referring is actually called Ananke in the Pool of Mnemosyne.”
Alectryon didn’t ask who the hell Ananke was. He probably knew, but if he didn’t, he didn’t want to admit it. Fion Commonal uttered a kind of suppressed grunt, which suggested very strongly that he still thought Looming Disaster a more appropriate title. He had only seen the black backcloth, not yet complete, with only the merest suggestion of the petals, but I knew that there wasn’t that much difference between his flippant title and my more earnest one. The disaster was, indeed, looming, I felt sure—and perhaps on a scale that would not allow for any possibility of prevention or inhibition. There was still a decision to be made, however, as to how to face it, practically and symbolically. I had made mine, and I was still hoping that the Marquise might still change the direction of her own.
Having completed my own agenda for the evening, I was prepared to relax, but the Marquise still had her agenda to complete, and if she thought that her guns had been spiked, she was certainly not about to give me any indication of it. When the dessert arrived she was quick to ask Elise whether she would play for us before we retired to the small drawing room for Vashti’s séance.
Elise still seemed to me to be putting a brave face on a nagging anxiety, but she replied affirmatively, with a decisiveness or a politeness that definitely had something of the Dellacrusca about it.
As her guardian, I felt entitled to be proud of her. Perhaps glimpsing that, Charles Parenot shot me a glance of pure hatred, but immediately resumed his mask of apparent impassivity. He was being patient. Evidently, he knew that the Marquise still had at least one shot in her locker that might be capable of upsetting my fragile nexus.
XV. Music and Spirits
Elise had, of course, come with the expectation that she would be asked to perform, knowing that she had been invited purely for that purpose. The Marquise wanted to measure her in the same way that she had wanted to measure me. Just as I had thought it a sensible move to allow her to obtain a more accurate estimation of me, I had thought it not unwise to enable her to judge Elise’s musical ability, although there was probably a bigger risk in that. We had brought both her viola da gamba and her cithara in the carriage, and when a chair and a music stand had been positioned for her by a footman, Elise asked, very politely, which instrument her hostess would like to hear, and whether “Madame la Marquise” had any preference as to what she ought to play.
“The choice of your repertoire is entirely up to you, my dear,” said the Marquise, “but I would like to make one small request. If I understood your guardian correctly”—Parenot winced visibly—“you played the music for a part of the Dionysian Bacchanal in which you took part. I believe he referred to a dance, the cycinnis. I would be very interested to hear a small sample of the music for that dance, if you can recall it.”
I could see no reason to raise any objection to her compliance with that request, which seemed innocuous, and when Elise shot me a swift glance, in search of reassurance, I replied with an encouraging smile. I knew that Elise would have no difficulty recalling the rhythm of the dance; it was a very simple and repetitive tune. She had no sheet music for it, of course, but she was perfectly capable of playing it by ear.
As she took her position, and picked up her cithara, the door to the corridor opened, and two newcomers slipped into the dining room, evidently in order to listen to the recital. They were two young negresses, not yet out of their teens, to judge by appearances, although those might have been deceptive. They were possessed of a spectacular beauty, which seemed further enhanced by its uncanny duplication. They were exotically but fully clad, in loose robes that descended from the neck to the floor, with no belt to tighten them at the waist, but which managed nevertheless to sketch their figures by means of ingenious pleats. They sat down silently on the carpeted floor, discreetly positioned in a corner of the room, behind the table where nothing any longer remained but liqueurs and bowls of candied fruits.
I studied them, swiftly. They did not look to me like murderous sorceress, and rather reminded me of the Dellacrusca twins in their mischievous heyday, but I had to assume that the appearance was deceptive, and that they too had been summoned in order to take stock of their potential opposition—or their possible targets.
Elise played.
The cycinnis was, in essence, a tedious piece of music, unimpressive without the stately accompaniment of the Sileni—which I could imagine, as Mariette and Elise probably could, but no one else. Elise was apparently sensitive to that tedium, because she had only been playing for two or three minutes before she seemed to become a trifle impatient. I gathered that she was not satisfied with her playing, because she glanced at me again, not in quest of some signal of reassurance, but as if to inform me that the problem she had felt while posing for me had not gone away: that she was still not at her best.
I glanced at the Marquise, but I could not believe that she and her twin sorceresses were trying to exert any disruptive influence on Elise’s playing; their interest surely lay in the opposite direction.
I had not discussed any kind of program with Elise, perfectly content to leave the decision as to what to play to her own discretion. I assumed, while she played the notes of the cycinnis, especially given her apparent dissatisfaction, that she would put the cithara aside in order to take up the instrument with which she was far more familiar—the viola da gamba that her grandfather had once given her mother, and by means of which he had initially recognized her—in order to play a piece that she had practiced frequently, and mastered completely: an example of what is known as “chamber music,” as polite, delicate and pleasant as an ideal dinner party.
She did not. When she felt that she had demonstrated the rhythm of the cycinnis sufficiently, she paused momentarily, shook her head slightly, and lifted the cithara a little higher, as if striking the pose that I had asked her to adopt in order to paint her. She did not look at me, however, or at anyone else.
When she began playing again, I thought for a moment that she had simply resumed the cycinnis, because the fundamental rhythm was so nearly identical, but within a matter of seconds she began to vary and complicate the pattern, without losing its basic cadence or theme.
The improvisation was ingenious, and I wished momentarily that there was a company of Sileni there, in order that I might see how they reacted to the variation, in terms of their own rhythmic movement—if, in fact they would have done that. The Nymphs, I was convinced, would certainly have responded, and provided some kind of kinetic translation of the notes. That hypothetical question vanished from my thoughts, however, as my mind was invaded by an anxiety. The impression grew that Elise was not merely weaving a musical scheme, but was extracting something more ambitious from her unconscious.
Did the music qualify as magical as well as artistic? The question was unanswerable, and I did not even try. A rapid glance told me that Alectryon was not appreciating it at all, and that Fion Commonal also seemed to find it rather alien to his taste, being insufficiently melodic. Hecate, on the other hand, was concentrating intently, and Vashti Savage also seemed fascinated by it, as well as puzzled. Parenot had tears in his eyes, but I didn’t think that they were due to any pathos inherent in the music. I looked at the Marquise, but found that she was already looking at me, questioningly, and I did not want to lock interrogative gazes with her. Instead, I deliberately turned my head, and glanced at the African twins again. I looked carefully, but I could not measure their reaction at all. They were looking at one another, as if in secret and silent conference.
After a few minutes, Elise stopped that exercise, and simply announced, without consulting anyone, that she was going to play something else. She did not switch instruments, however. Nor did she say that what she was about to play was her own composition, but when she began, I certainly didn’t recognize it. The music stand in front of her was still empty. Whatever music she had brought with her remained in the leather wallet beside the bulky case containing the viola da gamba. Whatever vague plans she had made in advance had been abandoned.
She was not simply playing music, and she knew it. She was endeavoring to make magic. Was that her own idea, or was she responding to some influence exerted by the Marquise or the twins? I had no idea. It was no part of my plan. Any illusion of control that I had had while holding forth in my customary glib fashion had vanished. From now on, others were in control: Elise first, then Vashti…but perhaps not only Vashti. I still thought I had a card up my sleeve in knowing that Mariette was a medium—something that she probably still did not know herself. But precisely because she probably did not know it herself, it was a highly unpredictable card, of unfathomable value.
