Constanzia’s reading was interrupted frequently by the need to look up words with which she was unfamiliar. I went to and fro with her as she searched for references in various volumes written in a multitude of tongues, a process which ate up the hours. She had managed to get only to page one hundred forty-two of The Diaries, and she muttered to herself that it had taken the better part of three rainy seasons to read that far. A sense of fiery purpose emanated from her, like heat from the sun.
When I grew weary of reading, I explored the castle, finding the Viceroy soaking in his tub, a steaming towel wound around his head, leaving only his nose to quest for air, like a tapir’s snout, while an intermittent procession of water carriers dipped out portions of the cooling water and poured in equivalent ewers of hot from the boilers in the kitchens below. Obviously, the plumbing no longer functioned, and certain smells wafting from lower regions indicated the drains, too, might be endangered.
Captain Jemez sat on a chair by the window, reading the Nacifia Noticias, remarking occasionally upon its contents, while the Viceroy muttered comments from under the towel. After a time, the Viceroy seemed to fall asleep, and Captain Jemez went to the window.
I peered over his shoulder. In the marketplace the fruit stalls were bright with mangos and pollarels, bananas and cuscumbres and chinangarees. On the hills behind the town the goatherds played their pipes, the sound coming faintly over the bleating of their flocks, borne by the soft warm winds down from Baskarone.
“Ah, Baskarone. Sun-kissed Baskarone of the thousand delights,” the captain murmured, beginning to sing in a strong tenor voice, “I found my love in lovely Baskarone.”
He crossed to the other side of the room to look out across the river, far among the drowned trees where the land sloped up to the range of jungle hills. After the rains, the river would fall, I had been told, into its narrower channel, leaving behind ten thousand little lakes and pools to reflect the blossoms and give a homeland to the frogs.
The captain had similar thoughts. “Bless all frogs and other helpful amphibians,” he intoned in plain-song, switching to his baritone register.
“Captain,” said a firm voice behind us.
“Madam,” he bowed, flushing. I slipped to one side, not to be trampled by the visitor. Flatulina had come into the bathroom and stood considering her husband’s recumbent figure as the steam rose gently about him.
“How long has he been in there?” she asked, arms akimbo, massive shoulders raised in inquiry, huge head cocked, its generous features dwarfed by the mane of black hair which boiled from her skull in an uncontrollable torrent.
“Most of the morning, madam.”
“Get him out. He’ll be all wrinkled.” Flatulina’s full lips twisted in distaste.
“Madam …”
“Get him out. There’s an ambassador come. Ambassador Israfel from Baskarone. Tell him I said.” And she was gone, leaving the captain to consider how he might best disturb the Viceroy without running the risk of that gentleman’s wrath. I followed the woman, much desiring to see Ambassador Israfel from Baskarone.
And he was there. Though I was wrapped tightly in my cloak, he looked up and smiled at me as I came into the room. He was only slightly more marvelous than I supposed any other man might be, anywhere. Looking at him, I felt that I had been changed forever. The thing that burned at the center of me came alight, a fine white flame.
And he went on smiling at me, seeing me though the cloak was tight around me, seeing and approving that flame before he turned away and greeted the Viceroy. I leaned against a pillar in utter confusion. As soon as I could move, I returned to the Stugos Queen.
* * *
I lay upon my bed, wondering what I had seen, what I had felt. I had loved, still love Giles. That is a human affection, a love that desires, at least partly, some physical consumation: a touch, a glance, something that speaks from one body to another, one heart to another. Even if we were very old, Giles and I, we would want that. We would want to lean together in the gloaming, our cheeks next to one another, our hands clasped, letting our selves say to one another that we loved. I think that would be true. Remembering him now, I think that would be true.
This thing I feel in the presence of the ambassador is something else. This is what I sometimes felt in Westfaire, at certain times when the light fell beneath hovering clouds onto the windows and the grass, lighting them with a mysterious and marvelous effulgence, colors so pure that they made one’s eyes ache, or at certain times when the rain dropped in gauzy curtains of mist to half-hide, half-disclose the fine, soaring lines of the castle. It is a longing so deep, an appreciation so rare …
In the twentieth I felt it a few times. I went to an opera and heard a woman’s voice, like a stream of falling water, the orchestra behind her in a cataract of sound, and I felt it then. I felt it a little when I set my eyes on the jungles of Chinanga for the first time, a kind of perfection that sings inside.
They are both love. If Father Raymond were here, perhaps he would say this other thing is the love of God. But I was not thinking of God when I felt it at Westfaire, and when the woman sang, and when I saw Israfel. I don’t think I was.
Night came to Nacifia. The riverbank bloomed bright with torches. The
