But no, she is still here.
“Come now, aren’t you going to ask me more about her?” Lady Izelle says. “About Nairis?”
He asks instead, “Where is that accursed merchant, the filth who brought this thing inside and then dared threaten me? Is he at least gone? What did he really want?”
Izelle shrugs. “Oh, he’s gone. And he wanted only one thing—to be paid. What else? And so I paid him, freeing her from his vulgar clutches. She is but some poor bones, now. But she also happens to be a deceased ancient beauty and heiress. Small wonder the merchant thought there was some worth to be gained. At first he was trying to have her revived, supposedly by means of your secret powers. Then he was willing to just sell her off in whatever condition.”
The Duke stares with incomprehension.
“Indeed,” she says. “How very odd of him—to think of secret powers, of all things.” And a smile engages the rosebud mouth, serving to irritate and yet somehow to beguile. “In any case, as you yourself surmised, m’Lord, she’s my means of blackmailing you. Not only have you proved how much the relic sickens you, but on my way in I happened to overhear your man Harmion speak of your peculiar and pronounced dislike—and I stress the word dislike—of dead things.”
“Why, my Lady, you really are despicable,” says the Duke, taking a step toward her. His stance is aggressive. He has been frozen all through their conversation, and suddenly he is on the move. The light from the window suffuses the fine edges of his hair with violet, while the line of his silhouette is drawn in gold.
“If you must, I don’t hate her half as much as you think,” he says softly. “I don’t dislike or fear death any more than does any man. What I do is exaggerate my distaste considerably for the sake of unwelcome visitors such as yourself. Don’t presume for a moment that your blackmail will succeed. Because I’m about to have you thrown out before you say another word.”
“You don’t hate her? Really?”
She snatches the box from its place on the cluttered table and thrusts it almost in his face.
Rossian gasps, quickly attempts to stand back, his expression filling with recoil.
“Don’t, please. . . .” He speaks in a faint voice, for in that moment it seems he is robbed of lung capacity by an ancient pneumonia. He raises one hand, as though to summon Harmion, anyone, then breathes in a deep shudder, and is miraculously once again composed.
“Why?” she persists, standing so close to him, holding the infernal box between them as a shield, or maybe a sword. “Is it because it has something to do with your sorcerous powers? Your secret? I knew it! Come, tell me—speak!”
“No,” he says, straightening. “Because it smells like old mold.”
And then a sad smile of resignation comes to his lips. “My Lady, would you join me for dinner?”
II: Things Somewhat More Serious
Early dinner is served in the great Hall of Violet. It is a cavernous place, beautiful as a thing of antiquity, for it too is crumbling, and repellent as a den of decay. Everything—from the great arched vault of the ceiling, the decorated frieze, the upswept pillars, and the decrepit linen tablecloth draping the long ancient table, down to the stones of the walls themselves—is in tones of purple, lavender, heliotrope, lilac, violet. Even the wine poured in their goblets by the liveried servants has a rich glint of plum and lilac when the candlelight falls on it. Candlelight is fierce and plentiful, for the Duke enjoys seeing his food and watching the play of fire upon glass and crystal surfaces, such as the chandelier that is suspended over the centerpoint of the long table in a cloud of radiance.
They dine alone. Rossian, having resigned himself to the intrusion, is now in a mood of apathy. It is his definitive condition, a state of suspended will, an abdication of being and strife. For the duration of the meal he will merely occupy his place in the room, nothing more.
He has changed into expensive near-black formal Ducal attire. If the Lady Izelle thinks he is formal and imposing in the tiny room earlier, she must now be overwhelmed by his glamour. Rings glitter on his fingers; each finger, an artwork of chiseled elegance. His throat is embraced by a cravat of lace. His cheeks, newly clean-shaven, reveal poetic hollows. His hair is smoothed into a faultless sheen, so that each strand lies next to the others blending in an illusion of a metal surface; the hair is gathered behind him into a queue, unpowdered and glinting burnished gold. His brows are almost straight and perfect, and as such lend his face an impassive authority, just as certain sounds in nature—the major C note—convey inviolate balance.
His eyes are averted as he focuses on the parade of succulent courses in front of him, and thus avoids interaction with her, for the most part. There is deliberate silence as he indulges in bites of pheasant soaked in a buttery wine sauce, followed by the tender breastmeat of another game infused with herbs and smothered in layers of quivering Gruyere and flaky pastry. Next comes duck drowned in its own juice amid mushroom splendor, dollops of cream sauce riding on a bed of aromatic grains, breads and puddings, and for dessert, glazed pears floating in shallow lagoons of raisin honey and rose-water.
Izelle has taken off her ugly pea-green cap with its cornucopia of useless embellishments. The cap now reposes on the table at her side, in a hideous parody of a served-up dish, and the decorous servants cast sidelong glances at it as they make their rounds. She has revealed short roughly trimmed dark hair, as though sheared off by a blunt implement in the hands of an unskilled child. Her hair glistens with deep plum highlights in the hall of Violet, for it cannot help but take on some of the predominant hue in this light. It lies in wisps and occasional curls, and gives her doll-face the charm of a much-handled beloved toy.
“Tell me,” the Duke opens his mouth at some point, making indifferent small-talk, “do you always wear—that? And what about your House colors?”
She counters him with a look of unpleasant familiarity, spearing a buttery chunk of pastry with a slim knife and twirling it in the air before finally capsizing it between the rosebud lips. Her lips glisten with oily juices and she licks them with the tip of the tongue in a delicate gesture, innocent despite potential implications.
“And what about yours? Why the black, are you in mourning?”
His left brow rises. There is a shadow of amusement. “Not at all, unless you consider mourning to imply my everpresent dreary existence . . . no. Look closer. Not black—it is the deepest violet, so rich that the color almost dissipates into night. I am attired in my Colors. I embrace them, indeed—look ’round you.”
“Ah, then. I am nearsighted somewhat. Forgive my blindness, my Lord. You are undeniable in your Violet.”
A pause as they simultaneously raise goblets to drink another fine aged vintage from the Duke’s cellars.
He waits while his glass is refilled, says, “What of the Duchess, what is she like? And does she always wear White?”
Izelle removes from her neck the bulky chain with the locket. He watches her child-sized fingers move, soft and slim, as she handles the pendant.
“Here, see for yourself. My Cousin is virginally White.”
She reaches forward, hands her treasure to a nearby servant, who takes it formally and delivers across the table.
The Duke opens the silver clasp. Inside, two great eyes greet him from a frill of white snow gauze and veils. “A remarkable resemblance,” he says, after a thoughtful moment. “If I didn’t know for a fact that she is imprisoned in her own home just as myself, I would say that she is you.”
Lady Izelle smiles. “Maybe I am she. Would that surprise you, my Lord? A mystery unfolds before you, suddenly. The Duchess has sprung her prison and is here in person, before you. In truth, miracles happen, as you know. What do you say to that?”
“Nothing, for I must first think upon it,” he says, raising the wine to his lips which are neither overly full nor austere. They are such that could sneer and smile in one movement, and which can appear cruel-set or warm and sensual depending on the expression of
the face, the grand whole. They are a perfect set of lips for a diplomat whose main advantage is the veneer of neutrality.
“So, tell me, Lady Izelle, are you, then, the Duchess of White? Come, admit it, and then explain,” he mocks. He has gone on the offensive, and now questions her with the intent to bait.
Izelle looks at the spot on the tablecloth where a dish of pastry has just been removed by a servant, and there is a moist circle and a spot with crumbs. She is waiting, being coy.
“I would never want to be in her place,” she says at last. “Besides, she is quite plain, isn’t she? Plain Jane. That’s her name, too.”
And with those words Izelle looks up, looking directly into his distant eyes.
The Duke examines the locket.
“Plain? Somewhat . . .” he says. “Except, her eyes are intense and astute. Which makes her interesting as opposed to merely ordinary—somewhat like you.”
“And is this where you decide to be kind to me, or are we still engaged in mockery, m’Lord? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the difference anymore,” she says softly; as if she ever did. “I don’t particularly like such comments. They are said for the wrong reasons, always.”
He laughs. It is a deep warm sound, yet complex like one of his wines.
“What, are you suggesting that I’m giving you a cheap indirect compliment? Rest assured, no. Besides, if you weren’t my guest, I’d tell you the truth—I find you quite unattractive.”
He speaks this suddenly in an icy tone, and his expression is hard, while he watches her closely. “But then, you really aren’t a guest, is it not so? I almost forgot. Our dinner was being so pleasant, as long as one didn’t . . . think too closely.”
The Lady Izelle stares at him as though he is drunk, which at this point in the dining journey he most commonly is. Though, is he, this time, tonight? It is something she will never know.
“Madam—Lady—whatever you are, cousin of my distant relation, or the blessed Duchess herself. You are forcefully making yourself into a guest when you’re not at all welcome. So I needn’t hold back at all. It’s in my power to insult you; indeed, it is my duty. There. . . . You, my dear, are quite ugly. And you can tell it to your Duchess too, if indeed the two of you comprise two separate individuals. She is just like you. Or you are just like her. Or whichever.”
Izelle’s eyes are a surprise. Honest for once, with a peculiar clarity. “Thank you,” she says. “For being so straightforward with me.” If such a thing were possible, she appears animated rather than perturbed by the put-down.
“Oh, with torpid pleasure.” He motions away tiredly with his hand as a servant offers yet another dessert. “I was even more charming with the Duchess of Red. I told her annoying chit of a second nephew’s sister that from the grotesque picture she presented to me, her complexion was quite befitting her House colors. In particular, Her Grace’s bulb nose.”
Izelle chokes, then raises her palm to cover her mouth. Even then, in that uttermost cliché of a gesture, she is not being coy, because she follows up with a nasal goose-honk.
The Duke’s left brow begins to rise.
“That’s what I thought too,” she explains. “Only I never told her minion that—after all, my Cousin, the Duchess, would not have approved.”
She pauses suddenly, growing serious; the winged messenger of the gods has nothing on her ability to shift moods. “You know, Your Grace, you truly are cruel. I don’t mean amusing rudeness and sarcasm, I mean—You speak the exact truth. It might be because you have been so innocent of human interaction for so long, locked up here among the stones and the arcane books, with only servants to keep you company. You are very much alone, am I wrong? Solitude can leech away all social subtleties and make one heartless. Maybe I shouldn’t blame you, really, but—no matter. At least I don’t think I am like that, thank heaven.”
In a sharp movement she jumps up, nearly upending her chair, startling the nearest servant into a wobbling hold on his laden tray. “You know what, Rossian?—”
“First of all, don’t call me that.”
“But your name is—”
“Don’t. It is vulgar. And it is not my proper name where you are concerned. I am Rossian, but you have not earned this familiarity.”
“Oh, poppycock! Well, then, my Lord, Your High and Mighty Grace who abhors vulgarity, let’s, out of nothing else to do, have a contest!”
“What? And who says I have nothing else to do?”
She stands at her place setting, then snatches up the monstrous cap and puts it back on her head again, askew, and her face is nearly obscured with the flamboyant rodent’s nest. As he watches from his seat, mildly amused at this sideshow and filled with an equal measure of annoyance, she leans forward, baring her pretty teeth in excitement, possibly in a kind of manic expression of anger.
“Let us,” she says, “have a little contest of power. Just a little tiny small one. And in lieu of the prize, the loser shall tell the other his or her secret, swearing to its truthfulness.”
“What?” His genuine annoyance and surprise grow, and he too is suffused with anger.
“I said, I challenge you to it. Or, more properly put, my Cousin challenges you by proxy. A game! What marvelous distraction and fun, my Lord. Think of it as something to take away your endless hours of tedium, something to occupy you, a game of sorcery and power!”
“Are you serious?” he says, beginning to rise out of his seat. “Are you versed in the arts enough to defy me? And what makes you think I’ll give away the secret even if I lose, or that I would trust you to give your Cousin’s?”
“We will swear . . . a great Oath.”
“Hah!” he says, settling back once more. “I don’t swear.”
“But we could!”
“Come now, don’t be a fool more than you already are. We are simply sitting here eating dinner. I’d like to have some peace. Besides, I don’t trust you. Why should I?”
“Why not? What’s there to lose? You are bored. You are dying. And maybe, here you have the chance to gain a secret for your arsenal.”
“I am . . . dying . . .” he whispers to himself, suddenly feeling his head go cold. While servants continue moving about the hall, while candlelight casts its warm even glow and the crystals on the chandelier sparkle as in moments before, he enters a strange detached semi-dream state from which he observes things through layers of cotton. He is swaddled by something in the air of the room, and it is stifling him.
The Duke speaks, finally. “Yes, how did you. . . ?”
“I knew it from the beginning. From the way your castle appears. At dinner, you never asked me for news of the outside world. You wear deep Violet, but not for the reasons that may be on the surface, not for your House. It is, in fact, an approximation of darkness, of mourning—for yourself.”
“I am dying . . .” he repeats.
“Yes, as Jane is . . . As all of them. The Dukes are dying, because their souls are caged. It’s eating away, like rust. Maybe it’s true that from the moment we come out of the womb we are all dying as mortals do, but with the Dukes, it’s a stagnant moldering death, a conscious one. A pool of water with no inflow, cut off from its original supply, begins to grow foul before it evaporates, breeding mosquitoes and disease. Long before the water is gone from the standing pool, it is not fit to drink.”
His eyes are dark with widened pupils, violet, black. He looks at her, then glances at a far window, where the multi-colored sky shows the sun beginning to set. “I envy you . . .” he whispers. “You, who are free and not one of us.”
“Then you must learn my Cousin’s secret. And then the others. So, swear!”
“The holiest Oath? No.”
“Yes . . . that one, why not. And I will also.”
“Oh. . . .”
The Duke feels something begin to move inside him, a familiar pull, the same restless urge that he has learned over the years to rein in, to stifle with complacency and the illusion of serene occupation. The c
all is like a fly caught in a jar; it beats against the glass, buzzing in fury, then settles for a moment in infinite stillness, then begins to struggle again. Such is rebellion—not a single act but a series of bursts and refractory periods that together comprise a pattern of directed change.
The Duke realizes that his own pattern is calling to him, calling him to initiate its making. Liberty is on the other side of the glass jar, and he merely needs to beat against the glass—relentlessly, periodically, occasionally, even just once—until he either comes forth in a paroxysm on the other side or dies.
The other side is so close. . . . If he stands at the castle courtyard, at the edges of the gates (he has done so, many times), he can breathe the air flavored by it, air that pours at him from the free outside, past the invisible enclosure.
With a wrench, the Duke takes his thoughts out of the stream of familiar longing and directs himself to stand up.
The servants attend him immediately, hurrying to open doors for his exit while others begin to clear the table. And yet, he merely stands, his gaze directed at the child-woman across from him, and they watch each other, already engaged in a contest of sorts.
“How shall we swear?” the Duke says.
And Izelle’s rosebud mouth warms into curvature, for she has already won.
She approaches him. The world is suddenly dreamlike in the way of the bizarre, with Izelle pulling out her long knife (it’s tucked at her belt, screaming of smoky kitchens with soot-covered walls and brick ovens). First she bares the wrist by pulling up her voluminous shirtsleeve and doublet below which her arms are skinny sticks. Then she uses the point of the knife to draw a bead of blood from her wrist. In the moment of piercing skin she is fearless. The blood wells immediately, an angry little poinsettia berry against the Dresden pale skin.