Three Princes (11 page)

Oken raised his glass to him in salute.

ON THE
return to their suite at the top level of the embassy hotel, Oken braced himself inwardly for the inevitable melancholy that overtook Mabruke after an evening of such apparent frivolity. Oken knew why Mabruke so often cocooned himself behind the walls of Thoth’s Manor, why he wanted loved ones close by.

Mabruke sat down at the dressing table, removing his jewelry and packing it into the case with mechanical gestures. He stared into his own eyes in the mirror and absently ran a hand across the eve ning stubble on his cheek.

Oken strode across the suite to his own room and changed into a silver-embroidered silk robe and slippers. He returned to the bar in the sitting room, poured two glasses of brandy, and went back to Mabruke’s room. He put a glass on the dressing table and settled into a leather chair close by, to sip at his drink, waiting.

Once Mabruke finished removing his makeup, Oken said, as casually as he could, “Nice-looking lad. All I got was a tango.”

“Aziel, you mean?” Mabruke said. “Zaydane sent him here in case we need to send for help.”

“Are we in trouble?”

“Not yet.”

“Tell Aziel to steer clear of ladies with orchids in their hair,” Oken said.

“You saw them, too?”

“Four of them. One from Andalusia.”

“The Campus News reported that we were headed that way.”

Oken stared into the golden liquid in his glass and thought about Glorianna’s frightened look, and timid voice.

“Ladies with orchids in their hair.” He sat forward, his face serious. “Marques Glorianna was afraid of someone. She mentioned Marietta’s traveling companion, Simone. Perhaps Aziel can find out why she had to be seen with someone Mademoiselle Marietta knew?”

“You didn’t ask?”

“A gentleman never asks.”

“He just makes discreet inquiries elsewhere.”

“He also pays handsomely for it.”

“Aziel should not be working in public,” Mabruke said, much too evenly, as though he expected no one to hear. “He should still be in training.” He at last noticed the brandy glass and picked it up, making an elaborate show of swirling, viewing, sniffing, and tasting. Then he drained the glass in a single swallow. He held it out to Oken without looking at him and went back to staring at himself in the mirror. The expression on his dark face was unreadable. Oken had seen it before. He went back to the side bar, and refilled the glass.

Mabruke followed him and sprawled across the daybed, drawing his silk lounging coat tightly around him. Oken handed him the glass and sat down on the chair beside. He observed his friend’s face carefully as they both sipped the brandy. Mabruke drank his more slowly this time.

“Nearly four hundred students go through my classes each year, Scott. Every day I look at their faces and I ask myself, who among them will be killed in their first year of service to the Pharaoh?”

Oken knew how many of his schoolmates were gone, simply missing in action or returned home in a jar with no explanation. “I’m still here.” He knew at once it was the wrong thing to say, yet he refused to regret the impulse to say it. Mabruke’s stricken look was a clear mixture of guilty relief and profound sadness.

“So far, so good, anyway,” Oken added with a shrug, looking away. “It is a proper alternative to war—isn’t that your first lecture? We do what Egyptians do. We share information. We answer questions. We are the talk-to-me nation.”

“Knowledge is power,” Mabruke quoted in his professorial voice.

“Always has been.”

“Always will be. What power does that give me—the knowledge that forty of my students will die because of something I failed to teach them?”

“The rest survive because of what you did teach them.” Oken gestured to Mabruke with his glass. “Other professors lose more of us. You’re the best the academy has. Do you have to be perfect?”

Mabruke drained his glass. “Forty families wish I were perfect.”

“You’re tired—you need another drink.”

“I’ll take your word on that.”

MABRUKE WAS
always up hours before Oken. Oken had found his way to the coffee and the bath by the time Mabruke returned.

“We’re going to the opera tonight,” Mabruke said in grand announcement as he strolled in. “The manager himself, Signore Alberto Burrococcio, will lend us his private viewing box for the occasion.”

Oken had decided, the night before, not to speak to Mabruke about the photograph and the name on the opera poster until both of them had a good night’s sleep. He told Mabruke to sit down.

Mabruke sat down to listen, resting both hands across the knob of his walking stick. When Oken finished, Mabrukelooked at him, calculation in his eyes. “You’re certain she’s Natyra, your Natyra?”

“They even spelled her name correctly.” Oken recalled the sensation as she had spelled her name on his bare skin with her fingertip, from his shoulder to his thigh. She knew he would remember. Natyra found his “talent” amusing, and played memory games to tease him. “This opera suits her style,” he said.

“Verdi is a superb artist,” Mabruke said, “at the peak of his style by now, I should say. I wonder why he would cast a dancer in the lead?”

Oken shrugged. “I assume he’s in love with her. All artists are in love with her.”

Mabruke leaned back and crossed his legs. He sipped his coffee, his attention turned inward.

Oken continued with his morning routine.

A PERFUMED
note from Mademoiselle Glorianna’s arrived with Oken’s breakfast tray. There was a single yellow orchid in a crystal vase beside the covered dishes. The blossom was a match to the ones she had worn in her hair, and the vase was engraved with her family crest.

Mabruke selected a pastry from the tray and said, “She is inviting us to share her private viewing booth for the premiere tonight.”

Oken glanced up at his friend, then back to Glorianna’s trim handwriting. “And dinner before, if we would care to join her. She will bring Marietta with her, for my entertainment.”

“Mademoiselle Marietta is a lovely dancer.” Mabruke put a pastry on his plate and cut it into quarters.

Oken pointed to the flower vase on his tray. “Orchids? Focus.”

Mabruke smiled at Oken with half-closed eyes as he recited: “ ‘Lord Oken and Professor-Prince Mabruke regret that they will be engaged on embassy business until well after the dinner hour. We send our fond hopes that we will see the ladies Glorianna and Marietta in the lobby of the opera during intermission.’ The note was accompanied by a bouquet of tulips.”

“You had a busy morning, old man.”

“I also got the name of the garden shop that provided your breakfast orchid.”

“We have a lead?”

“With time to see the opera.”

Oken checked his face in the mirror, noting again the new scar on his cheek.

“Shall I inquire?” Mabruke was also looking at Oken’s face in the mirror.

Oken considered. A woman like Natyra rarely traveled alone, if for no other reason than needing an army of porters for her wardrobe and guards for her jewelry—she wore nets of pearls the way other women wore lace.

“Only about that Blestyak bloke,” he said.

“What do you plan for today?”

“You said we would be at the embassy. I think I will have a look at their library.”

“I suppose I should have another chat with Aziel. Warn him about the orchid ladies.”

“Warn him about Blestyak, too.” Oken smiled at Mabruke in the mirror and stood up to finish dressing.

OKEN’S SOJOURN
in the library was informative. Under the guise of a bored nobleman perusing various newspapers in the comfort of the private reading lounge, he used the society columns to trace the Marques Glorianna’s travels over the last six months from social event to social event around Europe and in Oesterreich in particular. Mademoiselle Marietta was mentioned alongside Glorianna, as well as their mysterious companion, “Simone.”

Even knowing how to read between the lines of the familiar code of society-column writing, Oken found that Simone was little more than a famous name. Always referred to as “Simone,” never in the third person, Simone’s gender was obscure. The single photograph in the London Discriminator showed a tall figure in tight trousers and a well-cut jacket, with a hat brim tipped across the eyes. It was taken with Marietta and Glorianna in front of the Paris Majestic Theater.

Oken wondered if the photographer had caught the grace of Simone as effectively as the one who created the poster for Verdi’s new opera, Desert Voices. Those long legs.

He remained in that comfortable chair in the library, watching afternoon light color Marrakech blue and golden, while he worked out in his mind Simone’s travel itinerary as sketched out in the society news. Marietta and Glorianna traveled without Simone during the winter months, preferring the sunnier climate of Andalusia. Simone apparently dropped out of the social circuit from time to time, appearing nowhere in the columns except in the occasional remark of Simone’s mysterious absence.

OKEN AND
Mabruke dined in the privacy of their suite, taking time between courses to dress for the opera.

Mabruke hummed to himself, enthusiastic about the anticipated performance.

“You had a good day,” Oken said as he spread honey on another piece of spiced bread.

“I did. I have the locations of four orchid farms in Tawantinsuyu that have ties to the families you listed for Zaydane. I also wrote a long missive to Yadir, telling him of our travels. He enjoys reading about the meals others have eaten.”

“Did Aziel find anything on Blestyak?”

“The lady of the opera has her own bodyguard. Everyone is afraid of him, including her personal maid.”

“That sounds like Blestyak.”

“Aziel will report this to Zaydane. He will set someone to watch them.”

“Is this a coincidence?”

Mabruke shrugged without meeting Oken’s eyes. “Burrococcio allowed as how the cast for this opera were hired more than a year ago. They have been rehearsing in secret, in various places around Europe.”

Oken raised an eyebrow at that. “Perhaps she is wondering if it is a coincidence that we are here —is it?”

“Zaydane did say something about the opera, that we might enjoy seeing it, since we are on our way to the heart of that civilization.”

Oken frowned. “You never mentioned that.”

“He said nothing about the cast. Only that it was a new Verdi. He and I attended the premiere of Aida in Memphis a few years ago. He knows I enjoy Verdi’s work. If he had mentioned Natyra, I would have told you instantly.”

“We’re back to coincidence.”

“I have never believed in coincidence.”

Their eyes met, both men remembering that desperate night in Memphis. Mabruke turned away abruptly, taking up the condiments stand to spoon spicy red sauce over the slice of roast on his plate.

AT THE
entry to the opera hall lobby, they were given copies of the souvenir program, elegantly bound in stretched ostrich hide, with gilded letters in Sacred and in Trade:
desertvoices
, by master giuseppe verdi. Under the title was a quote from the opera, also in gilt letters: beauty before me. beauty behind me. beauty to the right of me. beauty to the left of me. beauty above me. beauty below me. i walk the pollen path, and beauty is all around me.

These souvenir programs were handed out by young lads in the costume of the Anasazi, loosely fitting white tunic and trousers, with woven leather belts and sandals. Their braids were adorned with feathers and thick silver bands. Aziel was among them, looking most natural in this different costume. He and Mabruke exchanged quick glances, otherwise ignoring each other so gracefully that only Oken noticed.

Oken flipped through his program, noting with pleasure that there was a copy of the poster that caught his attention the day before, as well as photographs of Natyra, two of them, and one was a full page, standing in costume for the opera, unmistakably her. A souvenir of more than Marrakech.

Mabruke tapped the cover of his program book to get Oken’s attention. “You will enjoy the opera better if you do not read the translation until after you have seen and heard the opera performed.”

“Translation?” Oken opened to a page and focused on it more closely. Blocks of text were arranged on the gilt-edged pages with the native language and Trade side by side. The native was intricate, with odd vowel combinations scattered in lacy patterns amid guttural consonants.

“The performance will be in the Trade tongue of the Plainsmen of the Confederation of the Turtle,” Mabruke went on. “Not much different from watching a performance in Frankish or Latin. Opera expresses the emotions of a story.”

Oken lingered on the central page, then tucked the program under his arm, taking Mabruke’s advice about when to read it.

Signore Burrococcio, manager of the Grand Opera Hall of Marrakech, was visibly thrilled to be hosting Professor-Prince Mabruke and his guest, Lord Oken.

Oken was relieved to see that the private booth was just that, private. There was seating for only two, comfortable enough to accommodate more than just watching the opera. He smiled as he stood to the side, slowly removing his gloves while Mabruke dealt with the manager’s stuttering excitement.

Conveniently placed shelves held silver trays with crystal pitchers of ice water and crystal goblets. There were also dark brown bottles of the local wine, spicy and fragrant. Oken settled into a chair and poured himself a glass of water.

Mabruke stood leaning in the doorway, smiling down at the manager’s eager face. “I will, indeed, mention you to the Queen, Signore Burrococcio, be assured.”

With the door to the booth closed and firmly locked, Mabruke sank down beside Oken. “Lovely man. Lovelier if he could listen more while he talks.”

He picked up the bottle of wine, read the label carefully, nodded approval, and held it out to Oken. “Open this for me, would you?”

Oken took out his pocketknife. The handle was carved elk horn. His father had given it to him when he was a small boy. His father had also hunted down and killed the elk that provided the horn. Oken liked it anyway. It was useful, and brought his father vividly to mind, more than just a memory of an event, rather a sense of the man himself.

They had arrived early, in order to observe the patrons as they came in. The opera hall was grand, more than three stories tall at the apex of its domed ceiling. The dome was twilight blue glass, sprinkled with constellations in gold. The horizon around the base of the blue- glass sky was a wide band of gold, with the names of the people who had designed and built it engraved in sacred letters, tall and proud.

The proscenium was Egyptian haeka glass, in the shape of classic Egyptian temple pylons, to show that the stage behind it was sacred ground. At the moment, it was mirrored, reflecting the audience. The coliseum- style seating rose in tiers to the level just below the private viewing booths.

The orchestra were stationed in high balconies on either side of the stage. The musicians had come in, and were sitting or standing, depending on the instrument, tuning while reviewing the musical score on the scroll-reader stands in front of them. The orchestra in the balcony on stage right were the usual European grouping of strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion, tailcoats and silk shirts. On the left were musicians from Tawantinsuyu, in native dress, feathers, paint, and jade, with gaily decorated drums and rows of tall bamboo pipes.

Mabruke reviewed the audience through a pair of gilded operaeyes. There was a second pair on a stand at Oken’s side. He did not need the farscope view. “Simone” would not be in the audience. He was waiting for the velvet curtains to pull back.

A few minutes later, they were interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Oken set down his glass and went to open it. Signore Burrococcio stood there, beaming.

“Lord Oken, the Mademoiselle Marietta begs the honor of having you put your signature to her program, on the center page?” He held the program out to Oken, smiling broadly.

Oken took it with a smile. “Extend to the Mademoiselle Marietta my gratitude. I shall return this to her during intermission.”

The manager bowed his way out, nearly losing his top hat, reminding Oken of a similar moment in faraway Novgorod.

Oken went back to his seat. “Curious.” He turned the program over in his hands.

“Indeed,” Mabruke said. “Women have curious ways. Does Marietta want to dance with you?”

Oken opened the pages slowly. On the full-page illustration in the center, he found the message, marked with drops of green wax as a private seal:

You do not know me. We have never met. You have no interest in me. It was written in demotic.

He held it out for Mabruke to see.

Mabruke read it in a glance. He reached out to touch the wax with the tip of his finger, testing its surface. “Your dancer from Novgorod?”

“Yes.”

Mabruke regarded the wax droplet solemnly, analyzing its color and shine. Then he lifted the page to his nose and sniffed, very gently. He looked up at Oken, an eyebrow lifted in query. “Is this—?”

“Yes,” Oken said quickly.

Mabruke nodded. “She was sure you would get this.”

“Yes.” Oken’s voice was tenser this time, the syllable clipped.

Mabruke looked amused.

Oken tried to decide if he were angry or pleased, or perhaps both at once. The scents were hers, the green wax. The handwriting itself was the detail that troubled him, not the message. He had never seen Natyra’s handwriting. He had not seen Blestyak’s hand, either. Would she have told Blestyak the private meaning of green wax between her and Oken?

“This could have been sent by Blestyak,” he said reluctantly.

“You will know for certain if she storms up to your rooms tomorrow, scolding you for ignoring her after the performance.”

Oken could only agree. He put the program on the arm of the chair and took his pen from his pocket, considering his words. Then he opened his own program to the center page, and wrote:

A beautiful compass rose in the wilderness, my dear Mademoiselle Marietta—may you guide me once again to such pleasures as those encompassed in this volume, as our paths will surely meet again someday.

He signed it with all Five Names and used the seal on the top of the pen to mark his family crest as well.

Oken looked over at Mabruke. “You may dance better than I do, but she asked for my signature as a remembrance, as you may take note.”

Mabruke took the tease in good spirits. “She has asked if she could introduce me to her dear cousin Humberto, when we are next in her spate.” He tilted his head slightly to one side as he smiled at Oken. “Humberto has, according to Mademoiselle Marietta, a garden of orchids to rival the Inca himself.”

Oken laughed. “The world seems awash in orchids, Mik. We appear to have arrived on the eve of the orchid revolution!”

He had meant it as a joke. The solemn look his friend turned to him bespoke a seriousness to these events as nothing else yet had been able to do. Oken put the copy with Natyra’s note on the table beside the wine bottle. He put the one he had signed inside his jacket, so that there was no chance he would get them confused at the last moment.

Mabruke had nearly finished the bottle of wine before the house lights dimmed and the audience fell quiet.

The curtains drew back to show a single figure on the stage, kneeling and bent over, back to the audience and covered by folded wings. The colors were uncertain, sand and stone. There were hints of reflected sunlight. The backdrop showed the figure on a cliff overlooking a vast canyon, bathed in sunlight. The audience’s viewing angle in the magical backdrop was several cubits above the kneeling figure. The red sun was sinking to the horizon. Music swelled, reedy, low, and mournful. The sun’s red beams made the kneeling figure glow on fire. The sky around was also on fire, fading to deep blue that merged with the twilight blue ceiling of the opera house.

The figure stood, spreading arms wide to reveal green-feathered wings that made him larger than life. Outlined by the setting sun, he began to dance, slowly and gracefully, an interweaving of wings and limbs. Hypnotic drumbeats drove him, always so close to the edge of the cliff that the tension mounted along with the quickening beat of the orchestra and his dance. The glass projection shifted subtly until the audience was level with the figure.

The sun descended and stars came out, some just sparkles, some five-pointed Duat stars. Each Duat star’s appearance was marked with a different five-note theme that then joined the music. When the last of the sun disappeared, the horizon faded to dark blue and each star opened to reveal a glowing, golden face. These faces sang a chorus, all vowels and emotion, mournful and haunting. Clearly, this was not just sunset. This was the ending of a world. This chorus of doom mounted as darkness filled the hall. On the final crescendo, stage lights blazed on and the background changed instantly.

The scene was now perched precariously on a ledge halfway up a cliff face that met in a sharp line with a fiercely blue sky. Homes had been built on this ledge. Ladders went up and down the cliff. Figures climbing down seemed to descend from the sky. The orchestra was deep-voiced, breathy pipes, with a pattering of drums. Strings droned a somber background in cello and basso profundo. The voices were intricately interwoven, mostly women, with men chanting a mournful staccato in the background.

The villain of the story was Thunder, a powerful warlord who controlled the only valley with enough water left to grow maize. Thunder was the human villain. The true enemy was the dramatic change in weather that had been starving the Anasazi peoples for more than a decade. Thunder demanded Corn Maiden, the beloved of Long Walker, as payment for his grain, sustenance for the dwindling peoples of the cliffs. Long Walker and his beloved had been destined for each other, but the sacred powers of sky and earth, water and grain, had cast a demon in the path of their destiny. Love must be tested by another as powerful, lest it be undervalued.

MABRUKE REACHED
for his top hat. Oken debated remaining in the booth during intermission, but that was rude. House staff would be in to replace the glasses and replenish the wine. As expected, Mabruke slipped away to speak to Aziel, who was carrying a tray of wineglasses for the guests in the lobby. Zaydane needed to be told about Natyra’s note as soon as possible.

Oken drifted through the crowd, nodding at the people around him, slowly making his way over to Mademoiselle Marietta and the Marques Glorianna. They interrupted their conversation with quick, guilty glances at one another when he presented himself, holding out the program. “My ladies, I thank you for the honor. I hope you are enjoying the performance.”

Their nervous laughter and overly enthusiastic praise for the performance suggested that he had been the topic of their conversation. He smiled and said nothing more, letting them carry on.

Signore Burrococcio came to his rescue, with Mabruke in tow. “There are other royalty here, my lords, and I would be amiss if I did not take this opportunity to introduce you. This is permitted, yes?”

It was. Oken nodded farewell to the ladies and followed the men across the lobby to a group of people at the row of seats against the wall. The wall behind was mirrored and Oken watched himself as he approached them.

“Prince Mabruke, Lord Oken, I have the honor of introducing you to the inheritors of Chief Long Walker—Princess Martha Ravenwind and her brother, Prince Horus Greenspire.”

Oken had noticed the princess’s exotic face and intense gaze at the party the eve ning before. She and her brother were part of a group of people who had ignored him, laughing and talking together in the window seats overlooking the temple grounds. As a descendant of Long Walker, first of the living dynasty of the Cliff Dwellers kingdom, she was of an equivalent royal rank in her world as Oken was in Britannia’s.

Her high cheekbones were elegantly curved, her nose, also. Her hair was the rich black of the raven who had named her, carefully woven into braids on either side of her face and flowing over her bare shoulders to her waist, ornamented with silver beads. She wore a close-fitting, ankle-length gown in blue velvet that matched her wide and intelligent blue eyes. Her piercing gaze fixed Oken as surely as an arrow as she greeted him.

Prince Greenspire was her twin, although taller by a head. He wore his hair in the same braided style, with gold clasps. His suit was classic black Parisian silk, although the jacket was longer than the standard, almost to his knees, with a distinctive cut to the front. Oken had a suspicion that the design would be all the rage in Paris in another season. The prince’s voice was deep and melodious, with a lazy, relaxed manner.

Oken commented that the two seemed to speak with the distinctive accent of the southern part of his family’s kingdom, Kent or perhaps the melting-pot cultures of London Town?