Beautiful Blood (21 page)

Carlos leaned back, braced with both hands thrust into the dark green leaves. Rosacher was about to make an observation, a rather snide observation, when the king sat up straight and gave an exclamation of pain and shook his left hand—a banded snake no more than twenty inches long had sunk its fangs into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, dangling there like a primitive ornament, striped red, yellow and black. Carlos’ eyes locked onto Rosacher’s. He appeared eager to speak, to communicate some desperate intelligence, but all that issued from his mouth was a throaty exhalation. Then he fell back, his face buried in the vegetation, the snake yet attached to his hand. The body underwent a series of tremors and lay still. And Rosacher, who had scrambled to his feet, looked on in confusion and shock as the snake retracted its fangs and slithered away among the leaves, disappearing with a flick of its tail that he found almost insouciant.

Knowing the king to be dead, Rosacher nonetheless searched for a pulse. Finding none, he felt suddenly imperiled. The jungle shrank around him, the air darkened, and the sounds, the scritches and chirrs, the buzz of flies, the chips and chirps from thousands of throats, many heralding the revolting feast that the king would soon become, signaling a troop of tiny nightmare creatures to gather at the banquet table…the horror of the natural world assailed him and he backed away, casting his eyes about so as to apprehend the next terror, the next sinister shape. To have survived the night and now this! Had his failure to assassinate Carlos caused the snake to enact Griaule’s will? He forced himself to be calm and bent to the king. Turning the body, he removed the skinning knife from the sheath belted to his waist. Carlos’ eyes showed all white beneath his drooping lids. Froth had collected at the corners of his mouth. Rosacher had the thought that he would be blamed for the king’s demise. The idea was not entirely without justification. If he had not brought Frederick to Temalagua, the hunt would never have occurred…though he could scarcely be blamed for the snake, unless he was culpable on a cosmic level. He started to walk away and realized that Carlos had given no indication of which direction to take. He scanned the road in both directions, hoping to spot some clue or, barring that, to glean some intimation from the surround, some sense of human passage; but there was nothing other than the steady drip of the rain, the oppressive greenery, the phantasmagoric shapes made by the intersection of leaves, vines, stumps, mold and the shadows that defined them and the imagined beating of a predator’s thirsty heart. The king’s corpse seemed to have acquired a gravity that would not relax its grip, pulling at Rosacher. He covered Carlos’ face with a handkerchief found in the doublet’s pocket and the gravity dissolved. Since the king had been bitten on the left hand, he decided to go in that direction. He went a few steps, thinking how he should tell people what had happened—he had been on a hunt with Carlos, disaster struck and they had fled downstream, winding up near the road where Carlos had encountered the snake. But so much context was missing, it felt like a lie, and he supposed he felt that way because he had not been certain if his appreciation of the man was accurate. Carlos may have been a narcissist, yet perhaps his variety of narcissism was as close as humankind could aspire to producing a good man. He contemplated saying some words over the body, but couldn’t think to whom he should commend the king’s spirit, and so he set forth walking, heading for Chisec, for some fresh green hell, for whatever came next, focusing on the road ahead and trying not to let his mind linger over what might be following behind.

Rosacher remained in Temalagua for eight years. With more than a sufficiency of funds and cut loose from his responsibilities, he had no desire to return to his old life. He bought a house in a respectable quarter of Alta Miron and built up a business trading in exotic birds and animals, many of them sent to populate European zoos; but his chief preoccupation was with Frederick, who continued to terrorize the jungles east of the capital. The new king, yet another Carlos, possessed neither his father’s altruism nor his concern for the security of his people, and had not the slightest interest in hunting down Frederick. Alta Miron was a fabulous city, offering diverse pleasures, but Rosacher rarely left his residence, motivated by Frederick’s depredations to spend his days organizing hunts for the creature. He did not participate in these hunts; he had long since accepted the reality that he was not a courageous man. Sometimes, remembering Carlos, he doubted the existence of true courage, thinking that the king’s bravery was the product of a misguided sense of invulnerability, and that the common strain of courage was a matter of venality; but he wasn’t sure he believed this—the men he sent after Frederick had mastered their fears to an extent of which he was incapable and if courage was dependent on a profit motive, it was courage nevertheless. He paid the men well and made certain that they were conversant with the nature of the beast and the dangers involved. Some men were killed, but this failed to dissuade others from taking their place and, though they did not manage to kill Frederick, they succeeded over the years in harassing him, driving him south into the region known as the Fever Coast, a sparsely populated area, home mainly to smugglers and brigands—at this point, Rosacher decided that his responsibility was at an end and called off the hunts, leaving the human wreckage on the coast to fend for themselves and figuring that Frederick would go deeper into the jungle, away from the haunts of men, where animal life abounded.

News reached Rosacher from Teocinte. Makdessi’s campaign against Mospiel had been successful, though Makdessi himself had not survived, and the rule of the prelates was no more. Many of them had been hanged in the square facing the palace. On hearing this, Rosacher thought of Arthur and how he would have loved to preside over the festivities. As for Teocinte’s economy, Carlos’ prediction did not pan out. The infusion of Mospiel’s wealth into Teocinte’s coffers staved off financial collapse and might have stabilized the economy, but Breque’s continued expenditures kept the nation in a state of perpetual crisis, never able to catch up on their debts. Rosacher reacted to these reports with diminishing interest and it was not until eight years had passed, when the news that Griaule had wakened from his millennia-long slumbers and destroyed most of the city before giving up the ghost, thereby ending the production of mab…not until this came to his attention was he moved to visit the country he had once called home.

The establishment of a ferry between Temalagua and Port Chantay had cut the duration of the trip in half and, availing himself of this improvement in transportation, Rosacher arrived in Teocinte less than two weeks after the dragon’s death. What he saw appalled him. The House of Griaule and, indeed, all of Morningshade, had been obliterated, either crushed beneath the dragon’s body, which lay athwart the ruined city, or burnt to cinders by the fire he had vomited in his final assault on the world of men. Fire had destroyed the bulk of the city beyond Morningshade—the buildings atop Haver’s Roost had survived, though not unscathed. The rear of the cathedral, now utilized as an orphanage, had been left in ruins and the government buildings had sustained minor damage. A vast tent city had sprung up among the charred ruins and there lived a population composed of survivors and émigrés, the latter mainly people who had come to scavenge the treasure hoard of Griaule’s corpse. Cutthroats and pistoleros and scoundrels of every stamp ruled the place and you took your life in your hands by walking through its crooked byways. At every hour of the day and night, gunshots could be heard, bespeaking the minor wars fought between the embattled remnants of Teocinte’s army, who strove to protect the rights of those who had made pre-mortem arrangements regarding the ownership of Griaule’s scales, bones, organs, and so forth, and those who sought to possess these things extra-legally. Thousands of people swarmed over the carcass, hacking and slicing and prying. They had laid bare one of the dragon’s ribs, the curve of bloodstained bone arching above the host of two-legged flies that milled beneath like the rib of an enormous unfinished ark, and gunfire also issued from dark crimson recesses of the body. Winches had been maneuvered into place and were engaged in removing the teeth and fangs. Men in butcher’s aprons carted away huge slabs of meat. So many people were engaged in picking over the corpse, sawing at bones and scales, sampling fluids, even preying on the dragon’s parasites, the gigantic worms that infested the dragon’s bowels, Rosacher entertained the notion that he was observing the annihilation of a normal-sized lizard by a Lilliputian race of hominids who performed the functions of ants and beetles, and dwelled in a settlement of dirty gray canvas that hid the bulk of their repulsive habits from view. It was both an epic and dismaying sight, one that called to mind the majesty of nature and at the same time posed an inescapable comment on the vile nature of mankind. Rosacher was grateful that Griaule’s flesh seemed to be rotting at a rate commensurate with the pace of his metabolic processes when alive—there was as yet only a hint of the stench that would saturate the atmosphere before too long.

On the morning following his arrival, Rosacher visited Breque in his home, a white-washed colonial-style mansion with a red tile roof, surrounded by palms and enclosed within high stone walls patrolled by armed guards. Due to its location behind Haver’s Roost, the house and grounds had been shielded from destruction and appeared to exist in a tranquil country at a significant remove from the land on the dragon’s side of the hill. A servant led Rosacher up a curving stair and along a corridor with mahogany panels carved into scenes of Teocinte’s recent history—the fall of Mospiel, Breque’s signature triumph, predominating—and at last into a gloomy, spacious bedroom where he found Breque’s family gathered about a bed the size of a banquet table, canopied in green satin, where lay an unrecognizable shrunken personage whom he identified by process of deduction as Breque. A pale dust-hung shaft of light penetrated from a curtained window, painting a thin stripe up the center of the bed, and medicinal smells, particularly that of camphor, hung in the air. Word of the councilman’s illness had been conveyed to Rosacher, but he had not expected this: Wisps of white hair floated above Breque’s mottled scalp; his face was caved-in, blotched with liver spots, and his bony hands twitched atop the bedclothes like some kind of sea life that had been exposed by low tide and was being killed by the sun. Upon Breque’s instruction, his wife, once a beauty, now reduced to a dry stick of a woman, ushered their two grown sons from the room and in a whispery voice Breque summoned Rosacher to come near. The reek of camphor was stronger close to the bed. Two dark, massive wardrobes hulked along the walls, looking in the shadows like silent, cowled witnesses.

“You haven’t changed a bit, my friend.” Breque’s voice was stronger, as if enlivened by Rosacher’s propinquity; but he drew a deep breath between sentences. “I marvel at your good health.”

“I didn’t realize you were so ill,” said Rosacher.

“All life is an illness, whether of the flesh or of the spirit. I’ve grown accustomed to such frailties. This…” Breque’s right hand made a palsied movement, a mere echo of what would have been a sweeping gesture in his prime. “Death is simply a shabby theatricality at life’s end, one to which we all have been given tickets…with the possible exception of you.”

It had been Rosacher’s intention to seek redress for Breque’s betrayal, but seeing him so debilitated, his resolve was blunted. “Oh, I’m not the man I was,” he said. “I may not look my age, but I feel every year, believe me.”

A chair stood against the wall and Rosacher pulled it around so that he could sit facing Breque. He was at a loss for something to say and he related the details of his meeting with Carlos and, given that Carlos’ assertions were true, those concerning his lack of ambitions in Teocinte, he asked what Breque had hoped to gain by sending him on such an irrelevant mission.

“I wanted you out of the way when I attacked Mospiel. Your presence here might have had a deleterious effect in some way. If you succeeded in killing the king, I assumed the power of the Onyx Throne would be undermined, and that is never a bad thing. One of my many errors. This latest Carlos seems more likely to expand the borders of Temalagua than did his father.”

The councilman’s eyes seemed to have grown brighter as he spoke and he stared at Rosacher with a discomforting steadiness and avidity. Rosacher began to describe how he had spent the past eight years, but Breque interrupted him, saying, “I’ve kept my eye on you. As a matter of fact, I’ve purchased a number of birds from your company during that time…for my children’s pleasure. And of course I’ve heard all about your efforts regarding Frederick. He’s been chivvied down onto the Fever Coast, has he not?”

“According to reports, he has taken to hunting in the jungles across from Corn Island. A mangrove shore will prevent anyone from settling there and the jungle abounds with tapir and wild boar. I think we have heard the last of him.”

“I should have liked to see him once.”

“To see him as I did, that time on the Rio Coco…It is not a pleasant memory.”

“Still…” said Breque, and fell silent.

Rosacher considered how to make a graceful exit—it seemed that he and Breque had little to tell each other, despite their long history together and, though Rosacher understood that his company pleased the councilman, he felt that if he prolonged his visit, things would become awkward. The minutes slipped away and Breque’s ragged breathing became regular. Thinking him asleep, Rosacher made to stand, but Breque’s arm shot out, his hand clutching Rosacher’s wrist.

“Stay!” he said. “Just a little longer.”

The sudden effort appeared to have sapped Breque’s energies—his chest heaved, his breath wheezed, his eyes fixed on a spot in the satin canopy, and yet his grip on Rosacher’s wrist grew no weaker. At length he turned his head, locking stares with Rosacher and, his voice straining with intensity, said, “We were great men!”

Rosacher did not know how he should respond, for Breque’s words seemed at once a proclamation and a seeking of validation.

“You will deny it, I realize,” Breque went on. “But we were great men. You moreso than I. I attempted great things and failed, but you achieved them.”

“What did I achieve?” Rosacher asked. “Wealth? Many men achieve wealth and few of them are great.”

“You killed Griaule! And in this, I was your accomplice. Together we destroyed a monster like none other the world has known.”

“Cattanay killed the dragon.”

“Cattanay was merely an instrument. It was your genius that enabled him, and it was mine to support you, to allow you to function. Yet I will be remembered only for my folly, and you may not be remembered at all. But we were…” His lips trembled. “We were…great men!”

His grip relaxed and then he let go of Rosacher’s wrist.

“You won’t accept what I’ve told you,” said Breque in a faltering voice. “I know this. You’ve had to maintain a distance from people, an inhuman distance, in order to complete your work. The sole personal desire you have satisfied is your desire to be unhappy. The one woman you loved was one with a bleaker outlook on life than you. But hearing this from me may stop you from making too harsh a self-judgment. That is my hope for you.”

Rosacher could not help being moved by these sentiments. His eyes watered and he wanted to offer a similar consolation to Breque, but he could not shape the words; they soured in his mouth and dissolved before he could speak them. The single comfort he could offer was to continue to sit with Breque, and this he did until the councilman asked for his family. Once they had entered the bedroom, Rosacher shut the door and sat down on a bench in the corridor to await the inevitable. His mind traveled back to the day he met Breque, waiting on a bench outside the council chamber, and he wondered briefly at this apparent circularity. He studied the carved mahogany panel across from him, warships approaching a coastal city, and realized that it was not a representation of the past, but depicted a future that would never occur—it had been commissioned in advance of Breque’s planned invasion of Temalagua. The recognition increased his sadness and he thought of Breque’s final message to him, not debating its truth or its purpose, but categorizing it, cataloguing it under the kindness of monsters, the charitable impulses of fiends, men responsible for thousands of deaths who at the end sought to bestow their blessing on the world.

He had been sitting in the corridor for fifteen or twenty minutes when he felt a wave ripple through his body and experienced a powerful shudder as of some vital passage. He went quietly to the bedroom door and cracked it, thinking that what he had felt was Breque’s soul taking flight; but Breque’s eldest son was bent over the councilman, his ear close to Breque’s mouth, and it was clear that he was whispering some instruction or wish. Rosacher shut the door and sat back down. He could still feel the aftershocks of that passage, faint tremors that came to him as might the inaudible reverberations of a gong, and he imagined that these heralded the passage of a soul of much greater profundity than Breque’s, and that some crucial cut, some last insult to the flesh, had loosed the dragon’s soul from his decaying body, freed him to fly out from his prison, casting a final shadow over the city upon which he had waited so long to avenge himself…or else it was a misperceived symptom of Rosacher’s own decay, a minor unsteadiness of the heart, a palpitation. From behind the bedroom door there arose a muted wail. Rosacher stood and adjusted the hang of his jacket. He was confidnt that he would make the right noises, say the right things, for though he found people unfathomable on an emotional level, in a formal situation he could always be counted upon to display appropriate behavior.