In the Garden of Iden (14 page)

“Ah.” Suddenly Nicholas was interested. “You mean he is an hermetic philosopher? He has studied Vitruvius?” What was I getting myself into? I did a fast access and discovered that he was talking about early, early science and technology, which only secret societies and clandestine brotherhoods were concerned with right now.

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

“Then I understand you.” His face brightened with speculation. “Why, all the several parts of your story now become a whole. His Greek physick, his sufferings at the hands of the Inquisition—and it’s evident he hath been at the Emperor’s court—and this careful model of the Ark of the—” His mouth dropped open. He closed it.

“Your father is a Jew,” he said quietly.

I remember thinking calmly, How silly, just before the shock wave hit. I saw the men and the glowing coals in the little room. I saw the bullying face of the priest. I saw, I saw,
I saw
—

Babbling frantic denials, I began tearing at my sleeve, I guess to show the blue veins that would prove I wasn’t a
chueta
. Wouldn’t you think a sophisticated creature like me would be able to handle a few bad memories? Except that this was the central trauma that Dr. Zeus had used to fix my indoctrination, to remind me always why I worked for them. They’d never meant to cure me of it. They’d tucked it deep down inside, the battery that powered my machine heart.

“Look, look—” With a great ripping of brocade my bare arm emerged. Nicholas seized it and held me still. His face was horrified. “Look!” I sobbed.

“Rose!”

“Look…” A yellow light stopped flashing, and a noise died away. Far off, Joseph was running back toward the house in a panic. He saw us at the window. He stopped. He watched us.

Nicholas had put both arms around me and embraced me, lifting me clear off the floor. He was so warm, and the gallery was freezing cold. I stopped shaking. Systems normalizing. “Your father was not alone in prison,” he guessed in a whisper, setting me down carefully. “They had you, also, and—” Something in my face must have told him to stop there. But I had control of myself now. Yes. I could speak.

“Have you any idea,” I enunciated, “what such a base and unfounded accusation means in Spain?”

He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from my face.

“You could be as pure of blood as the Emperor himself, but if you were ever even so much as accused,” I began to gasp again, “just
accused
—”

There were footsteps approaching the bottom of the stairs. Nicholas glanced down and drew me away with him, swiftly up the corridor to a smaller stair. It ascended steep as a ladder. We climbed it in haste, I hitching up my skirts so I wouldn’t trip.

Through a little cut-corner door at the top was his room. It was Spartan and small, its slanting ceiling high and sharply angled.

The bed had been extended for his great length by having a chest put at the foot of it. There were books piled and tumbled on every flat surface. There was a chair by the window. There was a candle, upright amid drips of cold tallow from hours of reading.

He led me to the bed and sat me down on it, then wrapped my torn sleeve back about my arm. He put his blanket over my shoulders for good measure, then looked around his room in a helpless way. “Wait,” he said at last. “I’ll come anon.”

He hastened down the stairs again. Clunk, clunk, clunk, I heard his footsteps descending.

I sat there on his bed. I could pick him up descending through the house in great agitation, with bursts of interference when someone else spoke to him. Nefer’s radio was broadcasting a pavane now; nothing much must be happening with the royal wedding. Joseph had moved about thirty meters from his previous position and was reading me.

Mendoza?

Go to hell
.

No, seriously. Are you
—

I’m just embarrassed. Horribly embarrassed. Now get out
.

He politely withdrew. How could I face Nicholas again?

It was calming to try to read his books’ titles, all scattered as they were. Let’s see, this one was the
Enchiridion Militis Christiani
. Predictable.
De Servo Arbitrario
, also predictable.
The Wicked Mammon
, this one was supposed to be out of print, wonder how he’d got a copy?
The Prologue to the Romans
, in English.
A Preservative against the Poison of Pelagius
, wow. I had begun to cry, little snively tears. I wiped them away angrily.

Clunk clunk clunk, there was Nicholas shouldering through the doorway. He was carrying a pint of something that steamed, and a ball of thread with a needle stuck in it.

“I must go,” I said, mustering all the Hispanic dignity I had available. “This is not seemly, señor.”

“Your sleeve must be mended first, lest it be remarked upon,” he said. “And I think you will not want your duenna to do it, involved as she is in her devotions.”

“She is a good woman and greatly stupid,” I covered. “She truly believes that thing is a holy relic, and my father hath not seen fit to enlighten her. Nor doth she know of his private studies. I trust, sir, you will not tell her.”

“Not I.” He sat down beside me and put the pint pot in my hand. “Now, drink that off straight. It will calm thee.” Awkwardly he threaded the needle.

“What is this?” I peered into the drink.

“Burnt sack and eggs.”

Oh, no. But scanning revealed no pathogens, and it smelled all right, so I tasted it cautiously. Not so bad; something like eggnog. I sipped at it and watched him mend my sleeve with big clumsy stitches.

“Now, God He knows I am no tailor, Rose, but this will hold thee until thou canst better mend it thyself. Thou hast learned to use a needle?” he asked dryly.

“Yes.”

“It is well. I am glad that thou, knowing so much Greek, hast a plain skill or two.”

“You are too kind,” I said, cold.

“Kindness is the duty of any Christian, Lady, is it not so?” He switched to Greek. “Hear me. What I have been told today, I will tell to no one. But, having said this, I must caution you again to hide your past. Better you had let me think your father a papist knave than to tell me such secrets. I believe you are innocent and pity your sufferings, yet there are those who would gladly see you burn even here in England. Though, God willing, this shall not become so fearful a place as Spain.”

“Spain.” I laughed and took a gulp of my drink. “I’ll tell you what the trouble with Spain is, señor. We
read
our Scripture. We discovered therein, long before the rest of you, that this God we all serve is cruel and irrational. We are made in His image, are we not? In Spain, we derive grim pleasure from dragging ourselves across the coals of His will.”

“No!” He took my hand. “Never believe such a thing! You must understand that God is Love.”

“Must I?” I had another drink. “That same God who sent bears to kill the little children that mocked His prophet’s baldness? That same God that slaughtered His own worshipers for trying to prevent the defilement of His carrying box? Love, you said?”

Wind buffeted the eaves, and a fresh torrent of rain streamed down the window. We sat looking at it.

Nicholas’s voice was quiet. “This is truly the Devil’s work: not women rolling on the floor and spitting toads, but this, the despair that you wake and sleep with.”

I shrugged.

“
How shall I save you
?” But there, look, he actually had tears in his eyes. I felt a sudden rush of affection and wished I could console him. I wished I could tell him the truth. He didn’t have to worry: I was saved, I was one of the lucky few who really would inherit the World to Come, in that wonderful faraway future where every toilet shall flush and there are cinema palaces on the moon. I was immortal, enlightened, and perfect, wasn’t I? But not Jewish. No, no, absolutely not, never, not me.

“Don’t fear for me,” I told him. “If your God is truly what you say He is, He must forgive me. I came alive out of the Inquisition’s hand; have I not spent my time in Hell?”

“I cannot judge you, certainly,” he replied, folding his arms. “I have never suffered as you have. I hope my soul should fare no worse, if God so chose to test me. And who can see what is to come?”

How cold it was, the storm beating at the window.

Nicholas went down the stairs first to make sure that no one would see me leaving his room, beckoning me down when he saw the coast was clear. He bowed to me, I curtseyed to him, and we parted.

When I entered our room, Nefer was staring intently at the radio, which was broadcasting liturgical music. “You missed it,” she told me. “They just got married.”

“Who?”

“Philip and Mary.”

“Some duenna you are.” I reached around to unlace my bodice.

“Huh?”

“Here I’ve been alone with a man in his room, and you didn’t even notice,” I giggled, just a bit shrilly. “Help me out of this, will you? My sleeve got torn and I—”

“Torn?” She sat upright. “Did you—I thought I heard—”

“Boy, who writes your dialogue?” My Shrill went up a notch toward Hysterical. “Yes! See? Mad with passion, he rent my sleeve. Turns out he’s an elbow man.”

“Oh, shut up.” She came and helped me with the laces. “Here I am, bored out of my mind for three days, and the minute I have something interesting to listen to …”

“Knock, knock,” said a voice outside our door. “Whisk those frilly underthings out of sight, girls, I’m coming in.”

Enter Joseph, smiling and shaking rain out of the crown of his hat.

“Quite a little tempest we had there.” He looked me in the eye. The sound of the choir stopped, and a voice announced,
That was the Agnus Dei as performed by the choir of Winchester Cathedral. Things look pretty quiet down there by the altar right now; Their Majesties have received the Sacrament and appear to be praying. You’ll recall there was quite a stir earlier when the Prince’s new titles were announced. Supposedly they’re a wedding gift from the Emperor, though it’s popularly speculated that they are in fact a bribe to get the Prince to go through with the wedding
.

“Yes, sir, quite a little electrical disturbance,” continued Joseph. Nefer yanked off my bodice and handed it to me. I clutched it to myself in dismay.

“I’m
trying
to listen to the broadcast!” she hissed at him. He raised his eyebrows at her and opened the door to his room.

“Mendoza?” He gestured. I followed him in, hastily shrugging back into the bodice.

“Have a seat. Have a glass of muscadel. On second thought, don’t have a glass of muscadel; you’ve been drinking burnt sack.
I’ll
have the glass of muscadel, and you can tell me why you’re metabolizing burnt sack in a torn bodice.” He went to a sideboard and poured from a decanter.

“Where’d you get the muscadel?” I asked very calmly, sitting down and folding my hands. Yes, I was completely in control.

“Master Ffrawney found it. He’s been bringing me all kinds of useful stuff to prove he’s a good Catholic. Wine. Sweetmeats. Gossip. On the subject of gossip, you want to tell Papa all about it?” He settled across from me, tasted his wine, and set it down.

“You’re really good in this role, aren’t you?” I said, not without admiration. “You’ve really become the Spanish Intriguer. But what possible use could you have for local gossip in a place like this?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” He stroked his beard. “Lots of strange stuff goes on, and it’s all interconnected, and you never know when you’ll discover something that may be useful later. Works for Miss Marple every time. Mostly, though, I get into the habit of being nosy about everything because the character I’m playing is supposed to be nosy. If I’m true to all Doctor Ruy’s mannerisms, I
believe
in him, and all the mortals I encounter believe in him too. Characterization is very important in the field. I don’t think you’ve exactly got a handle on that, yet.”

“I have too,” I said hotly. “I think I’m portraying a late medieval Spanish adolescent very well.”

“No. You
are
a late medieval Spanish adolescent. It’s not a role for you, not yet. You need to develop that little bit of emotional distance between yourself and the person you want mortals to see. That person is your mask; that person is the one who reacts to the things you encounter. You, yourself, don’t get emotionally involved; you let your character do all the reacting so that you, personally, never lose control. As so lamentably happened just now.”

I fumed. He had another sip of wine.

“So. Just what happened up there in the gallery with Master Harpole?”

“It was your stupid explanation of the radio. Why’d you have to say it had a holy relic in it? You know how Protestants feel about stuff like that! So I was explaining how it was really something connected with your scientific research and, you know what, Mr. Smart Guy? He leaped to the conclusion that you’re a secret J-J-Jew.”

Silence, but for some distant bishop droning out a blessing on Philip and Mary.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” said Joseph at last. “This was obviously where little Mendoza got excited. Dear me. And what a clever guy this Harpole is, isn’t he? Awfully good at noticing all kinds of little unusual things about people and keeping them on file in his head. So he’s built a theory around us, has he? He added two and two and came up with five, but nobody else in the house was aware there was anything to count. This is just the sort of mortal that puts a mission in jeopardy. What can we do about Master Harpole, Mendoza?”

“I don’t know!” I snarled. “Is the Spanish Intriguer going to put poison in his ale?”

“Nothing so crude. Speaking of drinks, who gave you the burnt sack?”

“
He
got it for me,” I muttered. “And he mended my sleeve.”

“All right, this is a good sign. And did he recoil in horror at your supposed ethnic origin? No, he obviously didn’t. What does this tell us, Mendoza? Think.”

“He’s brilliant and tolerant and humane and ahead of his time. He’s like one of us.”

“Well, now we know how you feel about him. And he feels—?”