“And there I must stop.” The Artist stands and stretches his back.
“But...but what happened? Was it the horned monster in the picture that followed her?”
“I have not finished, I have merely halted for the day. Your mistress is expecting you to go back to work, Marje. I will continue the story when you return to me tomorrow.”
She hesitates, unwilling to let go of the morning’s novelty, of her happiness at being admired and spoken to as an equal. “May I see what you have drawn?”
“No.” His voice is perhaps harsher than he had wished. When he speaks again he uses a softer tone. “I will show you when I am finished, not before. Go along, you. Let an old man rest his fingers and his tongue.”
He does not look old. The gray morning light streams through the window behind him, gleaming at the edges of his curly hair. He seems very tall.
Marje curtseys and leaves him, pulling the door closed behind her as quietly as she can. All day, as she sweeps out the house’s dusty corners and hauls water from the well, she will think of the smell of spice trees and of a young man with cold, confident eyes.
Even on deck, wrapped in a heavy hooded cloak against the unseasonable squall, Father Joao is painfully aware of the dark, silent box in the hold. A present from King John to the newly elected Pope, it would be a valuable cargo simply as a significator of the deep, almost familial relationship between the Portuguese throne and the Holy See. But as a reminder of the wealth that Portugal can bring back to Mother Church from the New World and elsewhere (and as such to prompt the Holy Father toward favoring Portugal’s expanding interests) its worth is incalculable. In Anno Domini 1492, all of the world seems in reach of Christendom’s ships, and it is a world whose spoils the Pope will divide. The bishop who is the king’s ambassador (and Father Joao’s superior), the man who will present the pontiff with this splendid gift, is delighted with the honor bestowed upon him.
Thus, Father Joao is a soldier in a good cause, and with no greater responsibility than to make sure the Wonder arrives in good condition. Why then is he so unhappy?
It was the months spent with his family, he knows, after being so long abroad. Mother Church offers balm against the fear of age and death; seeing his parents so changed since he had last visited them, so feeble, was merely painful and did not remotely trouble his faith. But the spectacle of his brother Ruy as happy father, his laughing, tumbling brood about him, was for some reason more difficult to stomach. Father Joao has disputed with himself about this. His younger brother has children, and someday will have grandchildren to be the warmth of his old age, but Joao has dedicated his own life and chastity to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest and most sacred of callings. Surely the brotherhood of his fellow priests is family enough?
But most insidious of all the things that cause him doubt, something that still troubles him after a week at sea, despite all his prayers and sleepless nights searching for God’s peace, even despite the lashes of his own self-hatred, is the beauty of his brother’s wife, Maria.
The mere witnessing of such a creature troubled chastity, but to live in her company for weeks was an almost impossible trial. Maria was dark-eyed and slender of waist despite the roundness of her limbs. She had thick black curly hair which (mocking all pins and ribbons) constantly worked itself free to hang luxuriously down her back and sway as she walked, hiding and accentuating at the same moment, like the veils of Salome.
Joao is no stranger to temptation. In his travels he has seen nearly every sort of woman God has made, young and old, dark-skinned and light. But all of them, even the greatest beauties, have been merely shadows against the light of his belief. Joao has always reminded himself that he observed only the outer garments of life, that it was the souls within that mattered. Seeing after those souls is his sacred task, and his virginity has been a kind of armor, warding off the demands of the flesh. He has always managed to comfort himself with this thought.
But living in the same house with Ruy and his young wife was different. To see Maria’s slim fingers toying with his brother’s beard, stroking that face so much like his own, or to watch her clutch one of their children against her sloping hip, forced Joao to wonder what possible value there could be in chastity.
At first her earthiness repelled him, and he welcomed that repulsion. A glimpse of her bare feet or the cleavage of her full breasts, and his own corrupted urge to stare at such things, made him rage inwardly. She was a woman, the repository of sin, the Devil’s tool. She and each of her kind were at best happy destroyers of a man’s innocence, at worst deadly traps that yawned, waiting to draw God’s elect down into darkness.
But Joao lived with Ruy and Maria for too long, and began to lose his comprehension of evil. For his brother’s wife was not a wanton, not a temptress or whore. She was a wife and mother, an honorable, pious woman raising her children in the faith, good to her husband and kind to his aging parents. If she found pleasure in the flesh God had given her, if she enjoyed her man’s arms around her, or the sun on her ankles as she prepared her family’s dinner in the tiny courtyard, how was that a sin?
With this question, Joao’s armor had begun to come apart. If enjoyment of the body were not sinful, then how could denial of the body be somehow blessed? Could it be so much worse in God’s eyes, his brother Ruy’s life? If there were no sin in having a beautiful and loving wife to share your bed, in having children and a hearth, then why has Joao himself renounced these things? And if God made mankind fruitful, then commanded his most faithful servants not to partake of that fruitfulness, and in fact to despise it as a hindrance to holiness, then what kind of wise and loving God was He?
Father Joao has not slept well since leaving Lisbon, the ceaseless movement of the ocean mirroring his own unquiet soul. Everything seems in doubt here, everything suspended, the sea a place neither of God nor the Devil, but forever between the two. Even the sailors, who with their dangerous lives might seem most in need of God’s protection, mistrust priests.
In the night, in his tiny cabin, Joao can hear the ropes that bind the crate stretching and squeaking, as though something inside it stirs restlessly.
His superior the bishop has been no help, and Joao’s few attempts to seek the man’s counsel have yielded only uncomprehending homilies. Unlike Father Joao, he is long past the age when the fleshly sins are the most tempting. If His Excellency’s soul is in danger, Joao thinks with some irritation, it is from Pride: the bishop is puffed like a sleeping owl with the honor of his position—liaison between king and pope, bringer of a mighty gift, securer of the Church’s blessing on Portugal’s conquests across the heathen world.
If the bishop is the ambassador, Father Joao wonders, then what is he? An insomniac priest. A celibate tortured by his own flesh. A man who will accompany a great gift, but only as far as Italy’s shores before he turns to go home again.
Now the rain is thumping on the deck overhead, and he can no longer hear noises in the hold. His head hurts, he is cold beneath his thin blanket and he is tired of thinking.
He is only a porter bearing a box of dead Wonder, Joao decides with a kind of cold satisfaction—a Wonder of which he himself is not even to be vouchsafed a glimpse.
Marje has been looking at the Nosehorn so long that even when the Artist commands her to close her eyes she sees it still, printed against the darkness of her eyelids. She knows she will dream of it for months, the powerful body, the tiny, almost hidden eyes, the thrust of horn lifting from its snout.
“You said you would tell me more about the girl. The flower girl.”
“So I shall, Marje. Let me only light another candle. There is less light today. I am like one of those savage peoples who worship the sky, always turning in search of the sun.”
“Will it be finished soon?”
“Tale or picture?”
“Both.” She needs to know. Yesterday and today have been a magical time, but she remembers magic from other stories and knows it d
oes not last. She is sad her time at the center of the world is passing, but underneath everything she is a realistic girl. If it is to end today she can make her peace, but she needs to know.
“I do not think I will finish either this morning, unless I keep you long enough to make your mistress forget I am a guest and lose her temper. So we will have more work tomorrow. Now be quiet, girl. I am drawing your mouth.”
As she steps into the circle of moss-covered stones at the garden’s center, something moves in the darkness beneath the trees. Red Flower turns her face away from the moon.
“Who is there?” Her voice is a low whisper. Even though she is the king’s daughter, tonight she feels like a trespasser within her own gardens.
Thunder rumbles quietly in the distance. The monsoon is ended but the skies are still unsettled. He steps out of the trees, naked to the waist, moonlight gleaming on his muscle-knotted arms. “I am. And who is there? Ah, it’s the old dragon’s daughter.”
She feels her breath catch in her throat. She is alone, in the dark. There is danger here. But there is also something in Kaundinya’s gaze that keeps her fixed to the spot as he approaches.
“You should not be here,” she says at last.
“What is your name? You came to spy on me the other day, didn’t you?”
“I am...” She still finds it hard to speak. “I am Red Flower. My father will kill you if you do not go away.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Your father is afraid of me.”
Her strange lethargy is at last dispelled by anger. “That is a lie! He is afraid of no one! He is a great king, not a bandit like you with your ragged men!”
Kaundinya laughs, genuinely amused, and Red Flower is suddenly unsure again. “Your father is a king, little girl, but he will never be Ultimate Monarch, never the devaraja. I will be, though, and he knows it. He is no fool. He sees what is inside me.”
“You are mad.” She takes a few steps back. “My father will destroy you.”
“He would have done it when he first met me if he dared. But I have come to him in peace and am a guest in his house and he cannot touch me. Still, he will not give me his support. He thinks to send me away with empty hands while he considers how he might ruin me before my power grows too great.”
The stranger abruptly strides forward and catches her arm, pulling her close until she can smell the betel nut on his breath. His eyes, mirroring the moon, seem very bright. “But perhaps I will not go away with empty hands after all. It seems the gods have brought you to me, alone and unguarded. I have learned to trust the gods—it is they who have promised me that I shall be king over all of Kambuja-desa.”
Red Flower struggles, but he is very strong and she is only a slender young girl. Before she can call for her father’s soldiers, he covers her mouth with his own and pinions her with his strong arms. His deep, sharp smell surrounds her and she feels herself weakening. The moon seems to disappear, as though it has fallen into shadow. It is a little like drowning, this surrender. Kaundinya frees one hand to hold her face, then slides that hand down her neck, sending shivers through her like ripples across a pond. Then his hand moves again, and, as his other hand gathers up her sari, it pushes roughly between her legs. Red Flower gasps and kicks, smashing her heel down on his bare foot.
Laughing and cursing at the same time, he loosens his grip. She pulls free and runs across the garden, but she has gone only a few steps before he leaps into pursuit.
She should scream, but for some reason she cannot. The blind fear of the hunted is upon her: all she can do is run like a deer, run like a rabbit, hunting for a dark hole and escape. He has done something to her with his touch and his cold eyes. A spell has enwrapped her.
She finds a gate in the encircling garden wall. Beyond is the temple, and on a hill above it the great dark shadow of the Sivalingam, the holy pillar reaching toward heaven. Past that is only jungle on one side, on the other open country and the watchfires of Kaundinya’s army. Red Flower races toward the hill sacred to Siva, Lord of Lightnings.
The pillar is a finger pointing toward the moon. Thunder growls, closer now. She stumbles and falls to her knees, then begins crawling uphill, silently weeping. Something hisses like a serpent in the grass behind her, then a hand curls in her hair and yanks her back. She tumbles and lies at Kaundinya’s feet, staring up. His eyes are wild, his mouth twisted with fury, but his voice, when it comes, is terrifyingly calm.
“You are the first of your father’s possessions that I will take and use.”
“But you cannot stop there, Sir! That is terrible! What happened to the girl?”
The Artist is putting away his drawing materials, but without his usual care. He seems almost angry. Marje is afraid she has offended him in some way.
“I will finish the tale tomorrow. Only a little more work is needed on the drawing, but I am tired now.”
She gets up, tugging the sleeves of her dress back over her shoulders. He opens the door and stands beside it, as though impatient for her to leave.
“I will not sleep tonight for worrying about the flower girl,” she says, trying to make him smile. He closes his eyes for a moment, as though he too is thinking about Red Flower.
“I will miss you, Marje,” he says when she is outside. Then he shuts the door.
The storm-handled ship bobs on the water like a wooden cup. In his cabin, Father Joao glares into the darkness. Somewhere below, ropes creak like the damned distantly at play.
The thought of the box and its forbidden contents torments him. Coward, doubter, near-eunuch, false priest—with these names he also tortures himself. In the blackness before his eyes he sees visions of his brother’s wife Maria, smiling, clothes undone, warm and rounded and hateful. Would she touch him with the heedless fondness with which she rubs Ruy’s back, kisses his neck and ear? Could she understand that at this awful moment Joao would give his immortal soul for just such animal comfort? What would she think of him? What would any of those whose souls are in his care think of him?
He drags himself from the bed and stands on trembling legs, swaying as the ship sways. Far above, thunder fills the sky like the voices of God and Satan contesting. Joao pulls his cassock over his undershirt and fumbles for his flints. When the candle springs alight, the walls and roof of his small sanctuary press closer than he had remembered, threatening to squeeze him breathless.
Father Joao lurches toward the cargo hold, his head full of voices. As he climbs down a slippery ladder, he loses his footing and nearly falls. He waves his free arm for balance and the candle goes out. For a moment he struggles just to maintain his grip, wavering in empty darkness with unknown depths beneath him. At last he rights himself, but now he is without light. Somewhere above, the storm proclaims its power, mocking human enterprise. A part of him wonders what he is doing up, what he is doing in this of all places. Surely, that quiet voice suggests, he should at least go back to light his candle again. But that gentle voice is only one of many. Joao reaches down with his foot, finds the next rung, and continues his descent.
Even in utter blackness he knows his way. Every day of the voyage he has passed back and forth through this great empty space, like exiled Jonah. His hands encounter familiar things, his ears are full of the quiet complaining of the fettered crate. He knows his way.
He feels its presence even before his fingers touch it, and stops, blind and half-crazed. For a moment he is tempted to go down on his knees, but God can see even in darkness, and some last vestige of devout fear holds him back. Instead he lays his ear against the rough wood and listens, as a father might listen to the child growing in his wife’s belly. Something is inside. It is still and dead, but somehow in Father Joao’s mind it is full of terrible life.
He pulls at the box, desperate to open it, knowing even without sight that he is bloodying his fingers, but it is too well-constructed. He falls back at last, sobbing. The crate mocks him with its impenetrability. He lowers himself to the floor of the hold and crawls, searc
hing for something that will serve where flesh has failed. Each time he strikes his head on an unseen impediment the muffled thunder seems to grow louder, as though something huge and secret is laughing at him.
At last he finds an iron rod, then feels his way back to the waiting box. He finds a crack beneath the lid and pushes the bar in, then throws his weight on it, pulling downward. It gives, but only slightly. Mouthing a prayer whose words even he does not know, Joao heaves at the bar again, struggling until more tears come to his eyes. Then, with a screeching of nails ripped from their holes, the lid lifts away and Joao falls to the floor.
The ship’s hold suddenly fills with an odor he has never smelled, a strong scent of dry musk and mysterious spices. He staggers upright and leans over the box, drinking in this exhalation of pure Wonder. Slowly, half-reverent and half-terrified, he lowers his hands into the box.
A cloud of dense-packed straw is already rising from its confinement, crackling beneath his fingers, which feel acute as eyes. What waits for him? Punishment for his doubts? Or a shrouded Nothing, a final blow to shatter all faith?
For a moment he does not understand what he is feeling. It is so smooth and cold that for several heartbeats he is not certain he is touching anything at all. Then, as his hands slide down its gradually widening length, he knows it for what it is. A horn.
Swifter and swifter his fingers move, digging through the straw, following the horn’s curve down to the snout, then the wide rough brow, the glass-hard eyes, the ears. The Wonder inside the box has but a single horn. The thing beneath Joao’s fingers is dead, but there is no doubt that it once lived. It is real. Real! Father Joao hears a noise in the empty hold and realizes that he himself is making it. He is laughing.
God does not need to smite doubters, not when He can instead show them their folly with a loving jest. The Lord has proved to faithless Joao that divine love is no mere myth, and that He does not merely honor chastity, He defends it. All through this long nightmare voyage, Joao has been the unwitting guardian of Virtue’s greatest protector.