The Complete Margaret of Urbs Page 13

  He stared across at the glory of her face, now subdued to sadness as she gazed out at a million lighted windows. Then a flicker of motion caught his eye, far, far beneath him in the well of shadows in the Inner Gardens.

  “Someone’s in the Gardens,” he observed absently.

  “Oh,” said the Princess listlessly, “it must be an Antarctic Immortal, enjoying a garden under the sky.” She clicked the vision screen. “Garden,” she ordered dully. “North bank of the pool.”

  A burst of choked laughter startled him. He swung about. There, shown on the screen before his eyes, was Evanie, seated on a garden bench, her head on the shoulder of Jan Orm, his arm about her waist!

  “A waiter!” the Black Flame said scornfully. “A Palace waiter!”

  But despite her laughter and his own confusion, Connor did not fail to notice that there were still tears in her eyes.

  CHAPTER XXI

  The Dinner at the Sleeper’s

  CONNOR awoke late next morning, and to an instant memory of the shock he had experienced at the sight of Evanie and Jan Orm. Most of the night he had spent in improvising possible excuses for the girl. Perhaps it was an innocent scene he had witnessed.

  After all, she and Jan were lifelong friends, born and raised in Ormon and it might be that Evanie had turned to him in loneliness, even in pique at his,

  Tom Connor’s own involuntary attendance on Margaret of Urbs. But the mocking suggestions of the Princess, and the memory of Evanie’s contented face in the vision screen—those troubled him. And he remembered, too, Jan’s confession that he loved Evanie.

  Dressing, he glimpsed her far below in the Inner Gardens, with her bronze hair glinting. She was lying at full length on the grass. He forgot breakfast and hurried into the corridor, where the guard, remembering the medallion of the Princess, merely saluted respectfully, unaware that Connor no longer possessed the disc of gold.

  He descended at once to the ground level, followed an interminable passage toward the Palace’s center, and flung open a door at its end. Instead of daylight, a dim-lit chamber with glowing walls lay beyond, wherein, after a moment of blinking, he descried a row of perhaps twenty men. Some stared at him, surprised, but most kept their eyes fixed steadily on the shining wall.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the nearest man. “I was looking for the Gardens.”

  Unexpectedly, a voice spoke beside him.

  “The Gardens are two stories above us, Thomas. And I see you still wander.”

  It was the tall, ebony-haired Master. Beside him was another Immortal, grave-eyed and sandy-haired.

  “This is Thomas Connor,” said the Master, “our storehouse of ancient knowledge. Thomas, this is Martin Sair, here from Austropolis.” He added, “Thomas is one of those who affect not to kneel in our presence. I indulge him.”

  “Indulgence is a habit of yours, Urbanus,” rumbled the sandy-haired man. “Does the Princess also—indulge?”

  “Not willingly. Margaret is having one of her restless years, I’m afraid.” He frowned. “But they pass—they pass. Look there, Thomas.” He gestured toward the wall. “This is our seeing room. Here is focused every scanner in Urbs—in any of my cities, if I wish. If the Palace is the world’s brain, this room is the visual center.”

  Connor took his eyes from a fascinated scrutiny of the legendary Martin Sair, the Giver of Life, and glanced at the walls. Millions of tiny pictures covered them, each small as a thumbnail, glowing some in colors, and some, when the distant origin was in darkness, in the dull blue-gray of the short waves. He saw flickers of movement as the pictured men and women went about their daily business.

  “We can enlarge any scene there,” said the Master, pointing at a row of wider screens, some even now illumined. “In this room I can follow a man’s life from birth to death, so long as he remains in one of my cities.” He paused musingly, then shrugged. “The Gardens are two floors above us, Thomas.”

  IT was dismissal. Connor cast a last glance at Martin Sair, feeling as if he were gazing on a demigod. Martin Sair, the Giver of Life, greatest except the Master among all the heroic figures in the dazzling age of the Enlightenment. Then he backed away from the great Immortal and betook himself to the Gardens.

  Evanie was there, lovely as a bit of the ancient statuary that dotted the square, as she lay in the barbaric costume of Urbs watching a twenty-inch column of water slip smoothly from the mouth of a giant stone lion. She gave Connor a cool glance as he approached.

  “Evanie!” he said unhappily. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

  “Why?” she asked indifferently. “To be with you, of course. You know that.”

  “I don’t know it. Or has the Flame burned you at last?”

  Her coolness baffled him.

  “Evanie,” he pleaded, “why are you so offended?”

  Her mouth hardened. You’ve deserted the Weeds, Tom. Do you think I could ever forgive that?”

  “See here, Evanie,” he said hastily. “There’s one thing you seem to have forgotten. I was thrust in among the Weeds of Ormon without choice. Does that mean I have to accept your social theories blindly? Perhaps I’m too primitive for anarchy—but I think you are too!” He went on defiantly. “I don’t think your theories will work, and I do think the Master’s government is what this world needs. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the Weeds offer—and even for you, Evanie, I won’t give up freedom of thought.”

  “You mean you won’t think!” she blazed. “You’re not fooling me, Tom! I know the way the Black Flame poisons men, and you’ve been with her too often! You’ve been burned and—” Her anger mounted. “Oh, go away!”

  “Evanie,” he began earnestly, and paused. Was he untouched by the devastating charm of the Princess? The dizzying warmth of her lips, his reeling brain in the hour on the Pacific—“She’s the daughter of Hell!” he muttered.

  “Go away!” flared Evanie. “Quitter!”

  Hot words rose to his lips. But he suppressed his anger, even as the picture he had seen of Jan and Evanie flashed on his mental screen, and turned away into the Palace.

  For an hour he stamped through the endless halls now crowded with arriving Immortals from Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America. Now and again one turned cool eyes on his forbidding countenance or smiled gravely after him. None stopped or addressed him.

  He must have completed the somewhat less than a mile of circuit several times when a guard approached him. He turned a furious scowl on the fellow, but he had only a tiny black envelope inscribed in white in the precise script of the Princess. Connor ripped the missive open. A short note was inside. It read:

  Come to my chambers at half after the seventh hour to escort me to dinner. Wear the black costume in your quarters, and the black cape.

  MARGARET OF URBS.

  Merely an invitation—but a royal invitation is a command. He laughed bitterly. Why not? The Black Flame could burn no more painfully than she had already, and at least he could vent his anger on her.

  ALTHOUGH hours remained before the appointed dinner hour, he went back to his quarters, glancing indifferently at the Urban formal dress laid carefully on his bed. It was exactly like his present garb save that it shimmered black with metallic scales, and was edged with silver. Crossing to the window he sat staring down at Evanie in the Gardens, bathing her rounded limbs in sunlight, until a man in Urban dress who could only be Jan Orm joined her. He turned angrily away then, fuming.

  With no breakfast or lunch, he was both short-tempered and ravenous. So when the hours had dragged by, and he finally located the Chambers on the hundred and seventh level of the South Tower, he was in no pleasant mood. Two armed guards stepped aside, and the serving woman, Sora, admitted him with a clumsy curtsy.

  He passed into the anteroom, furnished, as was the Black Flame’s laboratory behind the Throne Room and her place at the summit of the Tower, lavishly and ornately. But surprise leaped to his eyes as he saw the gigantic black Persian cat th
at gazed steadily at him, with green eyes that seemed almost a replica of those of the Princess.

  “A cat!” he exclaimed. “I thought they were extinct.”

  “Satan is immortal,” said the soft voice of Margaret of Urbs.

  He whirled and faced her as she emerged from the inner chamber, and hunger and anger alike drained out of him as he stared.

  She was magnificent! Garbed in a jet-black cape that dropped to her green-crystaled sandals, she seemed taller as she advanced into the room. A circlet of green gems—emeralds, he thought—bound her ebony hair, and beneath it her eyes were smoldering sea-green fire.

  But he felt the thrill of surprised shock as she threw open the cape. Her brief kirtle and corselet glittered in a solid surface of green gems, and at her waist sparkled that mystic crystalline flower of many colors, glistening from red to violet, blue, and purest emerald. Then she moved toward the lamp, and in its yellow radiance her whole costume was green no longer, but the deep lavender of wine.

  “Alexandrites,” she laughed, answering his unspoken question. “Green by day, lavender by artificial light. Synthetic, of course. There aren’t this many natural stones in the world.” She turned. “Like it?”

  “Exquisite!” he whispered. “You daughter of Lucifer!”

  He followed her in rebellious fascination as they progressed unattended to the ground floor and into a long Palace car with stiff-backed driver and footman.

  “Merimee’s,” she said, and the car spun silently away, mounting to the upper tier of Palace Avenue.

  It was dusk, but now and then, when traffic slowed their motion, cheers sounded, and many a glance was cast at them. Margaret of Urbs ignored the glances, but smiled at the cheers. “Who’s Merimee?” Connor asked. “A rich Sleeper in Kaatskill. Society here is largely Sleepers.”

  “No nobility?”

  “The Immortals seldom entertain. We’re a serious lot.”

  Kaatskill appeared, and they glided into the grounds of an imposing Grecian mansion. Lights were glowing, gay voices sounded as they entered.

  There was a sudden silence as the whole assemblage knelt. Margaret of Urbs gestured and the guests arose. Merimee himself, paunchy, bald, came babbling his appreciation, his gratitude for the honor to his house.

  “But the entertainment, Your Highness! On such short notice, you see—best the bureau could furnish—I know you’ll forgive—”

  CHAPTER XXII

  Declaration

  THE dinner was lavish. Connor sat at the left of the Princess. Lines of servitors passed in a steady stream, bearing soups, then fish—

  Bombay ducks, pompano, a dozen unknown viands—and fowl—ortolan, ptarmigan, pheasant, and nameless others.

  Connor was ravenous. He sampled everything, and it was the middle of the meal before he noticed the aghast looks of the crowd, and that he was almost the only one who was eating.

  “Have I violated the proprieties?” he asked the Princess.

  “You’re supposed to eat only of the dishes I taste,” she informed coolly.

  “But I’m hungry. And you’ve eaten practically nothing.”

  It was true. Margaret of Urbs had taken only a little salad, though she had sipped glass after glass of wine.

  “I like to tantalize these hogs,” she replied in low but audible tones. “This bores me.”

  “Then why come?”

  “A whim.”

  He chuckled, turning his attention to the entertainment. This, he thought, was excellent. An incredibly skilful juggler succeeded a talented magician; a low-voiced woman sang sweet and ancient tunes; a trio played tinkling melodies. A graceful pair of adagio dancers performed breathtakingly in the square surrounded by the tables, and a contortionist managed unbelievable bodily tangles. The performers came and went in silence. Not one burst of applause rewarded them.

  “Unappreciative audience!” Connor growled.

  “Is it?” the Princess drawled. “Watch.”

  The following number, he thought, was the worst of the lot. A frightened, dingy man with a half-trained dancing monkey that chattered and grimaced, but made a sad failure of the dancing. Yet at the conclusion Margaret of Urbs raised her dainty hands and applauded.

  Instantly bedlam broke loose. Applause crashed through the hall; encores were shouted, and the astonished player stumbled once more through the ludicrous performance.

  “Well, his fortune’s made,” observed the Princess. “N’York will want him, and Chicago and Singapore as well.”

  The master of ceremonies was presenting “Homero, the Poet of Personalities,” a thin-faced Urban crowned with laurel leaves and bearing a classical harp.

  He bowed and smiled.

  “And who, Ladies and Lords, shall it be? Of whom do I sing?”

  “Her Highness!” roared the crowd. “The Princess of Urbs!”

  Homero strummed his harp, and began chanting minstrel-like:

  The Princess? Adjective and verb

  Turn feeble! Glorious? Superb?

  Exquisite? None of these can name

  The splendor of the Urban Flame.

  Our Princess! Stars are loath to rise

  Lest they be faded by her eyes,

  Yet once they’ve risen, they will not set,

  But gaze entranced on Margaret.

  The continents and oceans seven

  Revolve beneath the laws of Heaven;

  What limit, law, or cannon curbs

  The tongue that speaks the Flame of Urbs?

  APPLAUSE, violent and enthusiastic, greeted the doggerel. Margaret of Urbs lowered her eyes and smiled.

  “Who now?” Homero called. “Of whom do I sing?”

  Unexpectedly, Merimee spoke. “Tom Connor!” he cried. “Tom Connor, the Ancient!”

  Homero strummed his harp and sang:

  Ladies and Lords, you do me honor,

  Giving the name of Thomas Connor,

  That Ancient, phoenixlike arisen

  Out of his cold, sepulchral prison,

  Thrust into life—a comet hurled

  From the dead past into the world.

  What poet great enough to sing

  The wonderful awakening?

  Let golden Science try explain

  That miracle—and try in vain;

  For only Art, by Heaven inflamed,

  Can dream how Death itself was tamed!”

  “He’ll turn this into some insipid compliment to me,” whispered Margaret of Urbs. The Poet of Personalities sang on.

  Year after year the strong flesh mouldered,

  Dim was the spark of life that smouldered—

  Until the Princess glanced that way,

  And lo! The cold and lifeless clay,

  To Death and Time no longer slave,

  Burst out triumphant from the grave!

  In the roar of applause Connor sat amazed at the reference to his own experience. How did Homero know? He turned to question the Princess.

  “I’m tired of this,” she said, and rose to depart.

  The whole body of guests rose with her. She drew her cape around her and strode to the car.

  “Slowly,” she ordered the driver, then leaned back gazing at Connor. “Well?” she murmured.

  “Interesting. That Homero—he’s clever.”

  “Bah! Stock verses composed beforehand.”

  “But—about me?”

  “Don’t you know you’ve been a newspaper and vision sensation?”

  “The devil!” Connor was shocked.

  “This Homero,” she went on musingly. “Once, long ago, I knew Sovern, the only great poet of the Enlightenment, he who half seriously, half contemptuously, named me the Black Flame, and the only man—save you, Tom Connor, who ever flaunted me to my face. And one evening he angered me, and I exiled him from Urbs, Urbs that he loved—and too late I found that his bitterness grew out of a love for me.

  “So I called him back in time to die, when not even Martin Sair could save him. And dying he said to me—I recal
l it—I take my revenge in remembering that you are human, and to be human is to love and suffer. Do not forget it.” She paused. “Nor have I.”

  “And was it true?” asked Connor, struck suddenly by this revelation of the fiery, imperious, untameable character beside him.

  “I think, lately, that it is true,” she murmured, and drew a long breath. “I have slain, I have tortured, for less violence than you have committed against me.”

  She flung open her cape, baring the marks of his fingers still on the exquisite curve of her throat.

  “I cannot—suffer the touch of violence, and yet you have struck me twice and still live. There is a magic about you, Thomas Connor, some laughing ancient strength that has died out of the world. I have never feared anything in my life, I have never begged anyone—but I fear you and I plead with you.” She swayed against him. “Kiss me!” she whispered.

  HE stared down at the unearthly beauty of her face, but there was a green light in her eyes that puzzled him. Coolly he fought the fascination that was cast netlike about him. This was but another taste of the torment she had promised. He was sure of it.

  “I will not,” he said. “Each time I have kissed you, you have laughed at me.”

  “But I will not laugh now.”

  “You’ll not trap me again by the same trick,” he said. “Find another way for the torment you threatened. And when you’re ready to kill me for the violence I did you, I’ll die laughing at you.”

  “I have forgiven that,” she said softly.

  “Then,” he said mockingly. “Here’s more to forgive.”

  He lifted her slender wrist in his mighty hand, circled it with his powerful fingers, and crushed it in a grasp like contracting steel. It gave him a grim pleasure to thus vent his turbulent emotions on her, and to see her face whiten under pain that must have been excruciating. But save for her pallor she gave no sign of agony.

  He dropped her hand, ashamed of his cruelty, though it was not as if he had used his strength against a mortal woman. Margaret of Urbs seemed to him more of a female demon.