Sacrament (25 page)

Wait he thought. That isn't my memory.

-the birds dropping dead out of the sky

That's a piece of Steep's life, not mine.

-the river like a rock, and Eropkin -poor, doomed Eropkin -building his masterwork out of ice and light

He shook his head violently to dislodge these trespassers. But they wouldn't go. Frozen into immobility by the
icy water, all he could do was stand there while Steep's unwanted memories came flooding into hi- head.

He was standing in the crowded street in St Petersburg; and if the cold had not already snatched his breath, the
sight before him would have done so: Eropkin's palace, its walls raised forty feet high, and glittering in the light
of the torches and bonfires that were blazing on every side. They were warm, those fires, but the palace did not
shed a drop of water, for their heat could not compete with the frigid air.

He looked around at the throng who pressed at the barricades, daring the hussars who kept them in check with
boots and threats. By Christ, how they stank tonight! Foetid clothes on foetid bodies.

'Rabble...' he murmured.

To Steep's left, a beet-faced brat was shrieking on her father's shoulders, snot frozen at her nostrils. To his right
a drunkard with a grease-clogged beard reeled about, with a woman in an even more incapacitated state clinging
to his arm.

'I hate these people,' said a voice close to his ear. 'Let's come back later when it's quiet.'

He looked round at the speaker, and there was Rosa, her exquisite face, pink from the cold, framed by her
fur-lined hood. Oh but she was beautiful tonight, with the lantern flames flickering in her eyes.

'Please, Jacob,' she said, tugging on his sleeve in that little-girl-lost fashion which she knew worked so well.
'We could make a baby tonight, Jacob. Truly, I believe we could.' She was pressing close to him now, and he
caught the scent of her breath; a fragrance no Parisian perfumerie could ever hope to capture. Even here, in the
heart of an iron winter, she had the smell of spring about her. 'Put your hand on my belly, Jacob,' she said,
taking his hand in hers and placing it there. 'Isn't that warm?' It was. 'Don't you think we might make a life
tonight?'

'Maybe,' he said.

'So let's be away from these animals,' she said. 'Please, Jacob. Please.'

Oh, she could be persuasive when she was in this coquettish mood. And truth to tell he liked to play along.

'Animals, you say?'

'No better,' she replied, with a growl of contempt in her voice.

'Would you have them dead?' he asked her.

'Every one of them.'

'Every one?'

'But you and me. And from our love a new race of perfect people would come, to have the world the way God
intended it.'

Hearing this, he couldn't refrain from kissing her, though the streets of St Petersburg were not like those of Paris
or London, and any display of affection, especially one as passionate as theirs, would be bound to draw censure.
He didn't care. She was his other, his complement, his completion. Without her, he was nothing. Taking her
glorious face in his hands, he laid his lips on hers, her breath a fragrant phantom rising between their faces. The
words that breath carried still astonished him, though he had heard them innumerable times.

'I love you,' she told him. 'And I will love you as long as I have life.'

He kissed her again, harder, knowing there were envious eyes upon them, but caring not at all. Let the crowd
stare and cluck and shake their heads. They would never feel in all their dreary lives what he and Rosa felt now:
the supreme conjunction of soul and soul.

And then, in the midst of the kiss, the din of the crowd receded and completely disappeared. He opened his
eyes. They were no longer standing on the street-side of the barricades, but were at the very threshold of the
palace. The thoroughfare behind them was deserted. Half the night had passed in the time it took to draw breath.
It was now long after midnight.

'Nobody's going to spy on us?' Rosa was asking him.

'I've paid all the guards to go and drink themselves stupid,' he told her. 'We've got four hours before the morning
crowd starts to come and gawp. We can do what we like in here.'

She slipped the hood back off her head, and combed her hair out with her fingers so that it lay abundantly about
her shoulders. 'Is there a bedroom?' she said.

He smiled. 'Oh yes, there's a bedroom. And a big four-poster bed, all carved out of ice.'

'Take me to it,' she said, catching hold of his hand.

Into the palace they ventured, through the receiving room, which was handsomely appointed with mantelpiece
and furniture; through the vast ballroom with its glittering stalactite chandelier; through the dressing room,
where there was arranged a wardrobe of coats and hats and shoes, all perfectly carved out of ice.

'It's uncanny,' Jacob said, glancing back towards the front door, 'the way the light refracts.' Though they had
ventured deep into the heart of the structure, the glow from the torches set all around the palace was still bright,
flickering through the translucent walls. To other eyes it would surely have aroused only wonder; but Jacob was
discomfited. Something about the place awoke in him a memory he couldn't name.

'I've been somewhere like this before,' he said to Rosa.

'Another ice-palace?' she said.

'No. A place that's as bright inside as it is out.'

She ruminated on this for a moment. 'Yes. I've seen such a place,' she said. She wandered from his side and ran
her palm over the crystalline wall. 'But it wasn't made of ice,' she said. 'I'm sure not...'

'What then?'

She frowned. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Sometimes, when I try to remember things, I lose my way.'

'So do L'

'Why is that?'

'Consorting with Rukenau maybe.'

She spat on the floor at the sound of his name. 'Don't talk about him,' she said.

'But there's a connection, sweet,' Steep said. 'I swear there is.'

'I won't hear you talk about him, Jacob,' she said, and hurried away, her skirts hissing across the icy floor.

He followed her, telling her he'd say no more about Rukenau if it troubled her so much. She was angry now -
her rages were always sudden, and sometimes brutal - but he was determined to placate her, as much for his
own equilibrium as for hers. Once he had her on the bed, he'd kiss her rage away, easily; open her warm body to
the cold air and lick her flesh till she sobbed. Her flesh could stand to be naked here. She complained of the
cold, of course, and demanded he buy her furs to keep her from freezing, but it was all a sham. She'd heard
other women demand such things from their husbands, and was playing the same petulant game. And just as it
seemed to be her wifely duty to pout and stamp and flee him in some invented tantrum, so it was his to pursue
and coerce, and end up taking her body - forcibly, if necessary - until she confessed that his only errors were
errors of love, and she adored him for them. It was an absurd rigmarole, and they both knew it. But if they were
to be husband and wife, then they were to play out the rituals as though they came naturally. And in truth, some
portion of them did. This part, for instance; where he caught up to her and held her tight; told her not to be a
ninny, or he'd have to fuck her all the harder. She squirmed in his arms, but made no attempt to escape him.
Only told him to do his worst, his very worst.

'I'm not afraid of you, Jacob Steep,' she said. 'Nor your fucks.'

'Well, that's good,' he said, lifting her up and carrying her through to the bedroom. The bed itself was in every
way a perfect replica of the real thing, even to the dent in the pillow, as though some frigid sleeper had a
moment past risen from the spot. He gently laid her there, her hair spread upon the snowy linen, and began to
unbutton her. She had forgiven his talk of Rukenau already, it seemed. Forgotten it, perhaps, in her hunger to have Steep's flesh in her, a desire as sudden as her rages, and sometimes just as brutal.

He had bared her breasts, and put his mouth to her nipple, sucking it into the heat of his mouth. She shuddered
with pleasure, and pressed his head to the deed, reaching down to pull at his shirt. He was as hard as the bed on
which they lay. Eschewing all tenderness, he hoisted up her skirt, found the place beneath where his prick ached
to go, and slid his fingers there, whispering in her ear that she was the finest slut in all of Christendom, and
deserved to be treated accordingly. She caught his face in her hands and told him to do his worst, at which
invitation he removed his fingers and pressed his prick to service, so suddenly her cry of complaint echoed
through the glacial halls.

He took his time, as she demanded he did, laying his full weight upon her as he climbed to his discharge. And
as he climbed, and her shouts of pleasure came back to him off the ceiling and walls, the feeling that had caught
him in the passageway came again: that he had been in a place which this palace, for all its glories, could not
approach in splendour.

'So bright- he said, seeing its luminescence in his head.

'What's bright?' Rosa gasped.

'The deeper we go ...' he said '... the brighter it gets ...'

'Look at me!' she demanded. 'Jacob! Look at me!'

He thrust on mechanically, his arousal no longer in service of her pleasure, or even his own, but fuelling the
vision. The higher he climbed, the brighter it became; as though the spilling of his seed would bring him into
the heart of this glory. The woman was writhing under his ass. cult, but he paid her no mind; just pressed on,
and on, as the brightness grew, and with it his hope that he would know this place by and by; name it,
comprehend it.

The moment was almost upon him; the blaze of recognition certain. A few more seconds, a few more thrusts
into her void, and he'd have his revelation.

Then she was pushing him away from her, pushing his body with all her strength. He held on, determined not to
be denied his vision, but she was not going to indulge him. For all her squealing and sobbing, she only ever
played at subjugation - the way she played at the lost girl, or the needy wife - and now, wanting him away from
her, she had only to use her strength. Almost casually, she threw him out and off her, across the gelid bed.
Instead of spilling his seed in the midst of revelation, he discharged meekly, in half-finished spurts, too
distracted by her violence to catch the vision that had been upon him.

'You were thinking of Rukenau again!' she yelled, sliding off the bed and tucking her breasts from view. 'I
warned you, didn't I? I warned you I'd have no part of it!'

Jacob sealed his eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of what had just escaped him. He'd been so close, so very close. But it had gone, like a firework dying in the heavens.

And in the dark, the sound of water, splashing down over him. He opened his eyes - and found that he'd
slumped down in the shower, while the icy water continued to berate his skull.

'Christ...' he murmured, reaching up feebly and shutting off the flow. Then he lay gasping and shuddering in
the draining water. What the hell was happening to him? First dreams within dreams. Now visions within
visions? He was either having the mother of all nervous breakdowns, which was an unpalatable thought to say
the least, or else - or else what? That Lord Fox was right? Was that even an option? Was it remotely possible
that whatever the animal was -symptom or spirit - it was telling him some kind of metaphysical truth, and all
that his skull contained was, like a Russian doll, itself contained? Or rather, that his mind's contents, which
included his memories of Steep and a bloodysnouted fox, were paradoxically enveloped by some portion of
those contents; Steep indoctrinating him with his own mythology, in which that same bloodysnouted fox had
been raised to lordship?

'All right,' he said to the animal, too exhausted to argue with it any longer. 'Suppose for the sake of some peace
and quiet I go along with what you're telling me? Does that mean I don't have to think about fucking Rosa any
more? Because I'm sorry, that's just not my idea of a fun night on the town. Are you listening to me?'

There was no reply forthcoming from the fox. He hauled himself to his feet, grabbed a towel to wrap around his
trembling body, and staggered, still dripping, out onto the landing. It was deserted. He went downstairs. The
fileroom, the darkroom, the kitchen were all deserted. The fox had gone.

He sat down at the kitchen table, where the carton of milk he'd been drinking from still stood, and was
suddenly, almost inexplicably, overtaken by a fit of gentle laughter. His situation was absurd: he'd spent the
night trading metaphysics with a fox, whose only purpose, it seemed, was to open Will's head up to a notion of
its own reality. Well, it had succeeded. Whether he was dreaming or being dreamt, whether Steep was in his
head, or he in Steep's, whether the fox was myth, mischief or fleabitten proof of his lunacy, it was all part of a
journey he had no choice but to take. His recognition of that fact, and his acceptance of it, were curiously
comforting. He'd trekked to so many wild places in his life and finally run out of faith with such journeys. But
perhaps they had all been taken in order to bring him back home, and set him on a journey he could not have
found until he despaired of every other.

He emptied the carton of milk and - still smiling to himself at the absurdity and simplicity of this - went to bed. His sheets were a luxury after the cold bed in Eropkin's palace, and drawing the quilt up around him, he fell into a contented sleep.

From the verandah of what had once been the Portuguese commander's residence in Suhar, in Oman, Jacob had
a magnificent view across the Gulf to Jask, and up the coast to the Strait of Hormuz. It was many centuries
since the occupiers had vacated the country, and the modest mansion had fallen into grievous decay.
Nevertheless, he and Rosa had been very comfortable here for the last twenty-two days. Though the town had
dwindled into dusty obscurity since imperialist days, it was notable for one peculiarity. There wandered its
streets a band of transvestites, locally known as Xanith, who claimed to be possessed by the spirits of minor
female divinities. As ever, Rosa was happiest in the presence of men who pretended her sex, and hearing of this
extraordinary tribe had demanded Steep accompany her in search of them, given that she'd been at his side on a
number of successful killing sprees of late. He had plenty of work to do on his journals, transposing the notes
he'd taken at the extinction sites into a final form, so he agreed to go along with her, though he emphasized that
when his work resumed he would be stepping up the scale of his endeavours and would expect her full
cooperation. Things had gone well for him of late. A dozen near-certain extinctions in the last seven months,
eight of them, it was true, minor forms of South American insect life, but all grist to the fatal mill. And now, all
guided into legend by his careful hand.

Today, however, those triumphs seemed very remote. Today his ink and pen lay untouched, because his hands
trembled too much. Today all he could do was think about Will Rabjohns.

'What on earth are you obsessing on him for?' Rosa wanted to know when she came upon Jacob, sitting
mournfully on the verandah.

'It was the other way about,' he said. 'I hadn't given a thought to him in a very long time. But he's been giving
some thoughts to me, apparently.'

'I thought you read me something about him being murdered?' she said, picking up a sliver of tangerine from his
abandoned plate and chewing on the bitter rind.

'No, not murdered. Attacked. By a bear.'

'Oh, that's right,' she said. 'He takes pictures of dead animals. You had that book of his-'she tossed the nibbled rind aside and selected a fresh one -that's your influence, I daresay.'

'I'm sure,' Jacob said. Clearly the thought gave him no pleasure. 'The trouble is, influence works both ways.'

'Oh, so you're thinking of becoming a photographer?' Rosa said with a chuckle.

The look Jacob gave her made the rind seem sweet. 'I don't want him in my thoughts,' he said. 'And he's there.
Believe me.'

'I believe you,' she said. Then, after a pause: 'May I ... ask how he got there?'

'There are things between him and me I never told you,' Steep replied.

'The night on the hill,' she said flatly.

'Yes.'

'What did you do to him?'

'It's what he did to me-'

'And what was that? Do tell.'

'He's a psychic, Rosa. He saw deep into me. Deeper than I care to look myself. He took me to Thomas...'

'Oh Lord,' said Rosa wearily.

'Don't roll your fucking eyes at me!'

'All right, all right, calm down. We can deal with the kid very easily-'

'He's not a kid any more.'

'In our scale of things, he's an infant,' Rosa said, putting on her best placating tone. She crossed to Jacob's chair,
gently parted his knees and went down on her haunches between them, looking up at him fondly. 'Sometimes
you let things get out of all proportion,' she said. 'So he's been rummaging around in your head-'

'St Petersburg,' Jacob said. 'He was remembering St Petersburg. Us in the palace. And it was more than just
memory. It was as though he was looking for some weakness in me.'

'I don't remember your being weak that night,' Rosa cooed.

Jacob didn't warm to her flattery. 'I don't want him prying any more,' he said.

'So we'll kill him,' Rosa replied. 'Do you know where he is right now?' Jacob shook his head, his expression
almost superstitious. 'Well, he shouldn't be hard to find, for God's sake. We should simply go back to England,
and start looking where we first found him. What was that little shithole called?'

'Burnt Yarley.'

'Oh, of course. That's where Bartholomeus built that ridiculous Courthouse of his.' She gazed off into middle
distance, glassy-eyed. 'That hawk of a nose he had. Oh my Lord.'

'It was grotesque,' Jacob said.

'But he was so tender about living things. Like the boy.'

'There's nothing tender about Will Rabjohns,' Steep muttered.

'Really? What about the pictures in his book?'

'That's not tenderness, it's guilt. And a touch of morbidity. There's a hard heart in that man. And I want it
stilled.'

'I'll do it myself,' Rosa said. 'Gladly.'

'No. It falls to me.'

'Whatever you want, love. Let's just do it and forget him. You can put him in one of your little books when he's
dead and gone.' She picked up the most recent journal, and flipped through it until she reached a blank page.
'Right here,' she said. 'Will Rabjohns. Extinct.'

'Extinct,' Steep murmured. 'Yes.' He smiled. 'Extinct, extinct, extinct.' It was like a mantra: a void where thought
would go, where life would go.

'I'd better make my farewells,' Rosa said, and leaving him on the verandah, went back down into the town for a
last hour in the company of the Xanith.

She arrived back at the mansion, fully expecting to find that Jacob was still sitting in his chair, brooding. But
not so. In her absence, he had not only packed all their belongings, but had a vehicle waiting at the front gate, to
carry them down the coast to Masquat on the first leg of their trek back to Burnt Parley.