“No.”
She leaned against the wall, hands behind her back. “They’ll
brood and plot and attempt to devise some ingenious trap, but in the
end, if they do anything, which is not a certainty, they’ll
lose their tempers and charge. That’s their way. They’re
incapable of subtle maneuvers.”
“Which
makes them excellent suspects.”
“In the
matter of the Golden?” She shook her head. “I don’t
believe it. Not that they wouldn’t be capable of the violence.
But this particular murder doesn’t seem the sort of outrage
they would commit. It would take some planning at least. And as I
said, they tend to act on the spur of the moment.”
Beheim examined
the sheet beneath him; it bore a delicate raised pattern, white on
white, of thorns and roses.
“I’ve
been thinking,” he said. “I’m not making any
progress like this. I’m going to do as you suggested. The
bottle cap is the one consequential piece of evidence I have. You
were right. I really don’t have a choice.”
“I thought
you’d see that.” Her voice was subdued.
“Will you
go with me to Felipe’s apartments?”
“I can’t,”
she said. “I can’t risk it. If Felipe caught me there, if
he discovered I was plotting against him, it would ruin everything.
You’ll need someone to keep watch, though. Your servant,
Giselle. Take her.”
Here we are, he
thought, here’s the part you have to shine a light on. Here’s
the fundamental discourse upon which all your decisions regarding her
must be based. “What exactly would it ruin?” he asked.
A petulant
expression came fleetingly to her face. “Everything I want.”
“Power?”
A hesitation.
“Yes, power.”
“But
there’s more.”
She nodded.
“You’re
not going to tell me, are you?”
“It’s
nothing important. Just some things I want.”
“How do
you know you’ll get them? Are you certain I’ll find
evidence implicating Felipe?”
“How
could
I be certain?” Anger made her voice shrill, stiffened her
shoulders as she paced across the room and stood by the opposite
wall. With her back to the whitewashed surface, the red tints in her
hair and the blue of her silk nightdress and the vivid coloration of
her eyes were all enhanced; it looked as if she were a goddess
emerging from a dimension of whiteness, from a featureless white sky.
“You’re
only hoping that Felipe’s involved, then?” Beheim said.
Another nod.
Beheim sat up
straight, his back against the frieze of faces. “These things
that you want, could one of them be the Lady Dolores?”
Hectic spots of
red burned in her cheek. “No!”
“It’s
said the two of you have become close.”
“Close!”
She spat out a laugh. “That’s hardly the term I’d
choose.”
“Which
term would you choose?”
Her flushed
cheeks reddened further, and he thought she was going to shout at
him; but she said nothing.
“My
questions seem to be upsetting you.”
“It upsets
me that you’re treating me like a suspect.”
“How else
should I treat you? You won’t volunteer anything.”
She appeared to
be giving this question more attention than she had the others. After
a considerable pause she crossed to the bed, sat on the edge, and
trailed her fingers across the sheet.
“Felipe
asked me to help him find out what Dolores wanted from him,”
she said. “He was suspicious of her. He had been ever since
they became lovers.”
“Why would
he ask for your help? You two have been quits for some time, haven’t
you?”
She shook back a
curl from her cheek and gazed up to one of the plaster angels, as if
receiving instruction. Beheim’s eyes went to her graceful neck,
the blue vein that figured it, barely visible beneath the white skin,
vanishing in the hollow of her throat.
“I don’t
know if I could ever explain how it is between the two of us,”
she said. “There’ve been times aplenty when he’s
used me badly, times when I have used him. It’s always a
struggle with me and Felipe. Always. He’s a cruel, perverted
bastard. I would not grieve to see him undergo an Illumination, yet
at times I feel something akin to love for him. There is something
that binds us. Something of the blood, I imagine. Whatever we feel
toward one another, it’s strong.”
“I’ve
been laboring under the impression that you have designs on usurping
his power. In assuming the leadership of the Valeas.”
“That’s
no secret. Felipe and I agree on many things, but he’s not
aggressive enough. He’s too involved with his pleasures to be a
competent steward of our interests.”
“In what
way,” Beheim asked, “do you believe that he’s
insufficiently aggressive?”
“In every
way. He’s let our differences with the de Czeges get out of
hand, for instance. There was no need for a feud. He simply didn’t
exert himself in smoothing things over. And lately, this whole
business about the Family moving out of Europe. Ostensibly he sides
with Agenor. But he won’t commit. Not entirely. He keeps
hedging his bets, not because he’s having doubts, but because
he really hasn’t studied the matter.”
“How do
you stand on the question?”
“I could
not support a migration at this juncture,” she said. “But
I believe a group should be sent to investigate the possibility at
once. And if things are as open and unthreatening as Agenor states,
we would be fools not to establish a colony. At the very least, a
colony.”
Her opinion had
been delivered with firmness, confidence, and did not seem at all
facile. Beheim could detect no trace of duplicity in her speech or
manner.
“Does that
surprise you?” she asked.
“Given
your reputed friendship with Dolores, yes, it does. But you haven’t
told me about that yet.”
The stiffness
returned to her shoulders. “Dolores has published the rumor
that we are friends, but it’s not so.” She let out a sigh
and leaned against the post at the foot of the bed. “After
Felipe asked me for help, I pretended to become her friend. Perhaps
she saw through my pretense. Or perhaps friendship has a different
value for her than that I place upon it. One evening when I came to
visit her, she seduced me. I have been with women before, but always
of my own choice. Dolores used her power to enforce my submission.
She was too strong for me. She coerced me, she made me do things
against my will. It was every bit as much a violation as the most
violent of rapes. I hated her for that. I hate her still. I cannot
begin to tell you how much. For Felipe’s sake, I’ve
continued to play at being her friend, hoping to learn something that
would turn him against her, that would drive him to kill her.”
“And have
you learned anything?”
She plucked at a
fold of blue silk, rolled it between her fingers. “I don’t
know. They’re both so damned elusive. I’ve had hints, but
nothing incontrovertible. Lately I’ve come to believe that
although Felipe wanted me to spy on Dolores, he had something else in
mind as well. I think he was playing a double game, using me against
Dolores and using Dolores against me, informing her that he would set
me to spy on her, as if it were not the truth, and pretending that he
was doing this in order to let her make me her lover, something she
has always desired. But I can’t be sure. I have no means of
discriminating between what he truly intended and what I fear may be
his intent. And as to Dolores’s motives . . .”
She gave a dismayed laugh. “Everywhere I turn I find evidence
of some sly possibility. I’ve begun to fear for my life. If
Dolores seeks to control Felipe, mustn’t she then view me as an
impediment? Or could all this merely be theatrics, a horrible joke?
I’m not sure even they know at this point.” She put a
hand on Beheim’s knee. “That is why I involved you. I was
afraid. I saw an opportunity to use you against them.” Her
voice faltered. “I wish now that I—”
“You wish
that someone else, not I, had been charged with this weighty
responsibility. In the few hours we have been together, it has grown
clear that there is a great natural affinity between us, a connection
that you value and would not want to risk. But I
have
been
charged with this responsibility, and you must let me go forward,
hoping that the assistance you have lent will not only serve your
ends, but will enable me to bring the matter to a quick and
successful resolution so that we may then employ our affection to the
fullest and so all our pleasures prove.”
He said this in
a flat, deferential manner, ending with sheer sarcasm, as if his
words were a summation of an obvious and rather dubious state of
affairs; he kept his face empty and watched for her reaction. Anger,
he had thought, would be the most difficult reaction to interpret,
but while a trace of anger—or perhaps, defiance—did show
itself in her face, it was swept immediately aside by a dawning look
of confusion and alarm, and when he had finished speaking, she turned
away, downcast, and said, “Why are you trying to degrade the
very feelings you sought to have me confess not an hour ago?”
He could not
believe that the injury in her voice was false, but he refrained from
answering her, wanting to accumulate more evidence before he arrived
at even a partial conclusion.
Alexandra looked
at him over her shoulder, her expression as grave and sweetly
concerned as the faces of the angels that guarded the corners of the
room. “I cannot ease your suspicions. Not completely. Suspicion
is in the air of this place, especially now, especially considering
the task before you.” She lowered her eyes. “But I will
do what I can.”
She stood,
crossed to one of the hanging lamps, and reduced its flame to a tiny
white spear point.
“What are
you doing?” Beheim asked.
“As I told
you,” she said. “What I can.”
She turned down
the second lamp, creating a lovely dusk in the room. Then she slipped
one of the straps of her nightdress from her shoulder. The newly
exposed flesh glowed in the half-light.
“This is
scarcely original of you,” he said, feeling a mixture of
longing and anxiety. “I’m not a fool. Do you expect this
to prove anything?”
“Proof is
not what I have to give you.” She moved close to the bed and
stood with her right hand on the remaining strap. “Well,
Michel? Tell me what I should do.”
His tongue was
thick, his mouth dry.
“Can you
deny that you want me?”
“No,”
he said. “I cannot.”
“Forget
the murder for a while, Michel. Forget who we are. And where. We may
not win at this. It often happens that what one thinks one feels
suffers in the consummation. But if we are to lose, let us do so as
man and woman, not because we have let suspicion cloud the issue.”
She settled on the bed beside him. “I want to make love,
Michel. Not sex. Sex is always available. I don’t care about
it. It’s never very good. But making love, that’s
different. It’s been years since I’ve made love. So many,
I can’t remember what it’s like. With you . . .”
She took his hand, ran her thumb across his knuckles. “With
you, I have the feeling it will happen. What do you think? Is it
possible for us?”
He started to
respond, to murmur something, more an encouragement than an answer,
but she put a finger to his lips, stopping him.
“I know,”
she said, her voice falling to a whisper. “I know.”
Chapter
Ten
I
n the false dusk a light seemed to accumulate around Alexandra’s
body, pale and moon-colored against the sheet. There was so much of
her, such incredibly long legs, such an extreme flow of line and
volume, Beheim became entranced by the exaggerated perspectives
available, gazing up at the equatorial swell of her belly toward the
flattened mounds of her breasts with their dark oases of areola and
turreted nipples, or down from her breasts toward the unruly pubic
tuft between her thighs, in all reminding him by its smoothness of
the sand sculpture of a sleeping giantess he had seen years before on
a beach in Spain. When he kissed her, minute-long explorations of
kisses, his erection trapped between their bellies, she trembled,
trembled in her core, in some unprospected secret adit, and those
elusive tremors, their seismic delicacy, made him feel huge and
potent. He wanted to braid them together into a glorious upheaval
that would send comets streaking across her mental sky and set all
her flesh to quaking. He began to kiss his way down her body, past
her rib cage, making glistening snail tracks with his tongue. “No,”
she said weakly, clutching at his head, trying to pull him back. But
he was determined, unstoppable. He positioned himself between her
legs, his own legs sticking off the end of the bed, and penetrated
her with two fingers, working them deep. As he licked and touched,
his hands making an erratic round of her breasts, it seemed that in
the rich tartness of her taste he detected subtle accents of dismay,
of anxiety, and he knew that he should crawl back up, kiss her mouth,
reassure her, because she felt alone and lost, uncertain in her
responses, of how he wanted her to respond. Then she began to find a
rhythm, and not just in her movements, but an internal rhythm, a sly,
uncoiling beat that cued the exercise of his lips and tongue. Her
hips rocked, shuddered. She caressed his hair, a tacit permission.
Her legs angled wider. He was, he thought, plunging through a stratum
of pent-up emotions toward that gray place he had sensed within her,
threatening to revitalize its deadness. He slipped his hands beneath
her buttocks, lifted her, his mouth barnacled to her, like a man
drinking from a tureen. A fierce groan shook her, a birth groan,
something ripping from her side. Her slicked thighs clamped to his
head. Blood sang in his ears. He could hear her babbling.
Unintelligible words, skewed whistles of breath, frills of pretty
noise, keenings cut short by gasps. He felt the stew of her
responses, fragmentary until that moment, a moil of disparate
elements, starting to bubble and mix, pervaded by the heat he had
kindled. He loved the violence of the release that was building in
her, loved creating it. Like a caveman grunting in delight over his
flint-struck flame. But then she was plucking at him, saying,
“Michel! Michel, please!” hauling him up, leaving him
crouched beside her, sticky-faced and confused, his erection waggling
and waning in the suddenly chill air.