The Masters The Stone Dance of the

Chameleon Volume 1 Second Edition

Ricardo Pinto
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-masters-the-stone-dance-of-the-chameleon-volum
e-1-second-edition-ricardo-pinto/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Stone of Knowing The Stone Cycle 1 1st Edition

Allan Packer

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-stone-of-knowing-the-stone-
cycle-1-1st-edition-allan-packer/

Simple : the inner game of ophthalmic practice success

Second Edition John Brigham Pinto

https://ebookmeta.com/product/simple-the-inner-game-of-
ophthalmic-practice-success-second-edition-john-brigham-pinto/

Praxeology, Volume 1: Frame: On Self Actualization for

the Modern Man Rian Stone

https://ebookmeta.com/product/praxeology-volume-1-frame-on-self-
actualization-for-the-modern-man-rian-stone/

The Dance of the Violin Kathy Stinson

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-dance-of-the-violin-kathy-
stinson/
The Stone of Vitality The Stone Cycle 5 1st Edition
Allan Packer

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-stone-of-vitality-the-stone-
cycle-5-1st-edition-allan-packer/

Dance Psychology The Science of Dance and Dancers 1st

Edition Peter Lovatt

https://ebookmeta.com/product/dance-psychology-the-science-of-
dance-and-dancers-1st-edition-peter-lovatt/

Life s Second Chances Show Me 1 1st Edition Anne Stone

https://ebookmeta.com/product/life-s-second-chances-show-
me-1-1st-edition-anne-stone/

The Sermons of John Donne: Volume 1

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-sermons-of-john-donne-volume-1/

The Chameleon Effect Architecture s Role in Film 1st

Edition Dietmar Froehlich

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-chameleon-effect-architecture-
s-role-in-film-1st-edition-dietmar-froehlich/
 Contents
1. Title
2. Copyright
3. Preface
4. The Second Edition
5. Dedication
6. Song to the Earth in Quya
7. Song to the Earth in English
8. Map of the Three Lands
9. Map of Thuyakalrul
10. Visitors
11. The Conclave
12. Pillage
13. The Blood-Ring
14. The Black Ship
15. Dreaming
16. Storms at Sea
17. Trapped in Amber
18. The Tower in the Sea
19. Ranga Shoes
20. The Purple Factory
21. The Great Sea Road
22. Windspeed
23. Plague Sign
24. Crossing the Wheel
25. The Three Gates
26. Thank You
27. Publisher
28. Acknowledgements
29. First Edition Acknowledgements
 THE
MASTERS

BOOK ONE
of
THE STONE DANCE
OF THE
CHAMELEON

RICARDO PINTO
 This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied,
reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly
performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in
writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions
under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable
copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may
be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and
those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 2.0e
ISBN 978-1-9160741-0-1

ivorytower.co.uk
cover design and artwork © Ricardo Pinto 2020
 PREFACE
I wrote a version of the Stone Dance when I was at university,
in the summer holidays—it was pulp. The story grew within me over
the years and, eventually, I sat down to write it. I believed Tolkien to
be the primary inspiration—certainly, applying his exhaustive
methods contributed to the years it took to write—but I
now understand that the Stone Dance was influenced by the writers
whose work I fed on as a teenager: Michael Moorcock, Frank
Herbert, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Gene Wolfe,
Isaac Asimov and many others. This pattern, of uncovering hidden
meanings and influences, continues to this day. That a first novel
should be autobiographical is to be expected—but that it
mythologizes my childhood was a surprise. What shocked me more
was the discovery that it was an exorcism.

R. P.
East Lothian, Scotland

24th September 2019

 THE SECOND EDITION
The First Edition of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon was
published between 1999 and 2009. This edition is a thorough
reworking of that original. I embarked on it in response to criticisms
that it was overwritten to the detriment of clarity and pace: this
edition is about a quarter to a third shorter. Beyond and above
making the story leaner, I have corrected many infelicities and
errors, restored intuitions I had shied away from and have added
new material.
I divided the First Edition into three volumes, but the Second
has seven volumes. If the number three is a core theme in the Stone
Dance, so is the number two; so, the number seven was always
implicit in the sequence 2 : 2 : 3. Other major leitmotifs are the
colours green, black and red; it was some time after the First Edition
was published that I realized blue is the colour that resolves the
others—it is the colour of freedom.
This Second Edition is a maturing of the First; essentially the
same story, but regarded with a cooler eye and with, I hope, a
deeper understanding.

(Information supporting and

illuminating the Stone Dance can be
found in the ‘SDC Bible’ on my
website at
www.ricardopinto.com/stone-
dance/.
The specific entry point for this
book is at
www.ricardopinto.com/stone-
dance/masters/)
to my father
 kuxeqárós-xu txáguda uthe
knákuxeós tsur kókátha tsurán
ksárathas tyeyehue umyártahe xexeles
xáh mánya xáh mumuya
txiyáqeyeke-xu yárex keru
yárexira txiyaqeyenxa-xu qányaye
knátiyeinxa-hue tungóqerónxa
xánguós-xu osráhrata lyeyetxa huágata
kuyuximuntheónxa-xu lyeyexi
txurutniryinxa-xu txuyiruthniryike-xu
lyeyehax ksiruxhua keru
knáksyekxákeamha ksóxeáthase
ruyutxádayetnirónxa-xu xile
ruyutxádasetnirónxa-kxu tyeyehue
ksuyiruyitha-xu txarata thumya
juyireithata tyeyerea
qayakáyas-kye tyeyere txáguda
 knarenál tyeyehue dájaqea
kxiruis-txe xayaguyas-txe

kureóke-xu káreónxa-xu
tyeyexile tuya kxiranxa
knátsáyanxa miruthe suxeóke-xu
sáxeónxa-xu kxán xile
knápóyánxa káradahua
huáyetxádeqeranxa-hue jirixán
tyeyenán nunyána nangáqeránxa-hue
uthe txyeqetheleqeranxa-hue uthe
lyeyehuea qányátla kise
 Flesh, knit bone to bone
Your withered earth
Ancient Mother
Scorched tearless You await
The Sky Lord come to thunder
Rumbling His stormy belly
Withholding His urgent seed
Till He shall pierce You with His shafts
Quench the burning air
Rill and pool Your dusts
Fill Your wombs with spiralling jades
Till Your flesh swells up
In the midst of breaking waters
Clenching for release

Thrust forth the Green Child

Ten thousand times reborn
 Squeeze Him into the air
Enjewelled by the morning
To take sweet nurture
At Your breasts
That He might dance again
And once more blow His scents
Beneath the skies.
Part of the ‘Song to the Earth’ from the Book of the Sorcerers,
shown in the original Quya and accompanied by its translated
into English.
 VISITORS
Ice winds strike a flint-edged sea
And splinter flakes that scatter like birds
Trees turn to gold and die
As does all born of the sun.

(origin unknown)

THE GALE RATTLED THE SHUTTERS and slanted the sky with snow,
but in the warm heart of the Hold, Carnelian sat with some of his
people around a fire. Those who could still remember told of their
lives before the childgatherers came for them. Their stories bleached
his mind with the light of summers far away. He narrowed his eyes
against the leaping dazzle of the flames, and the tale rumbled on
amid the whisper of women weaving, the remote clink and clatter
from the kitchens, someone humming a song. When the wind
keened, he shivered and sank deeper into the comfort of his chair.
A child’s voice cried out, muffled, outside somewhere. The spell
broke. Reddened faces turned from the fire. A gust of snow-spotted
air lifted a tapestry as a girl entered through the great door.
Carnelian rose with the others and drew his blanket round him. She
ran towards them, all eyes and breathless. ‘A boat.’ Her lips shaped
the word with exaggerated care as she took delight in their looks of
disbelief.
He frowned. ‘A ship?’
The girl jerked a nod. ‘A ship, Carnie, I swear, a ship! It’s there
on the sea. I saw it.’
He gave his blanket to someone, threw on his cloak and offered
her his hand. ‘Show me.’
She reached up, sank her chin into her chest and blushed. In
Carnelian’s white hand her fingers were small and dark. They led a
procession out from the hall. As the cold struck them, he sent the
old back into the warmth. ‘If it’s true, I’ll send word.’
He let the girl pull him off across the slushy courtyard.
Youngsters followed. They huddled against the wind that ballooned
their blankets and ruffled the feathers on Carnelian’s cloak. They
crossed two courtyards to reach the halls that looked east over the
sea. Pavilions, slender-columned, in summer cooled by tiles and
water and filled with sun and laughter, but now abandoned to the
frost.
When they reached the door to the tower, their ear tips burned.
Up steps treacherous with ice, they fought against a screaming
wind. At the top, they girded themselves and staggered out into a
raging roar.
Snow flurries furred their eyes. Carnelian leaned into the gale
and pulled the girl after him. They clung to the parapet with
numbing fingers. He held her as they squinted. The sea rolled its
glass towards them scratched with white. They felt each wave
detonate on the shore. The girl grimaced up at him and shouted
something. Her hand shook as she pointed. He saw only the
mounding terror of the sea. The disappointment was crushing. His
heart quickened. He saw a sliver, a ship with sails stretched open like
fingered wings, flying towards them on the wrath of the storm.

•
He leapt down the steps, fell, scraped his elbow but was up again
into a run. At the door of the hall, he paused, breathing like a
dragon, indecisive. He heard the chatter and turned aside. Let the
others spread the news.
Another, smaller, door gave into storerooms and a corridor that
flickered with doorways. It smelled of spiced stew. People worked in
the kitchens in clouds of steam. He reached the covered alleyway
that snaked off towards the Holdgate and headed the other way. He
ran up steps two at a time. The guardsmen of the tyadra were up
there, muffled in blankets as they played dice around a brazier. Their
faces came up, each marked with his House tattoo. The chameleon,
its goggle-eyes at the centre of their foreheads, its back swelled
down their noses, its tail curled on their chins. A leg splayed out
over each brow, each cheek. When they smiled, the chameleons
danced. They made space for him. ‘Have you come to share our
watch, Carnie?’
‘It’s not you lot I’ve come to see, Naith—I’ve news for the
Master. Please announce me.’
The man grimaced. ‘The Master said—’
‘I’ll take full responsibility.’
Naith shrugged and walked to a pair of sea-ivory doors, hid his
eyes in the crook of his arm and thumped the ivory with the heel of
his hand. His shadow shifted on the door as it opened a crack. A
mutter. The door closed. Naith came back, stiff-faced. ‘I hope you
know what you’re doing.’
Carnelian squeezed Naith’s arm as he passed him. The door
jambs were painted with the warding eye. A warning that none must
enter save at the express invitation of the Master. He ran his finger
around the lips of a face that leered out of the sea-ivory. Only a year
back, he could not reach so high. The door opened. Beyond the fire
in the middle of the hall, in the half-light, loomed the Master of the
Hold, the Ruling Lord Suth, his father.

•
His father’s beautiful face hung above him. ‘You disturb my
meditations.’
‘I have seen a ship coming here,’ said Carnelian, in the same
tongue, court Quya.
His father’s eyes narrowed. ‘A dream?’
‘No, Father, I saw a ship from the East Tower.’
Suth noticed the water that beaded the feathers of his son’s
cloak. ‘A ship?’ He failed to suppress a smile.
‘Black and in size and shape like my finger, with sails set to
catch the gale.’
His father frowned. ‘A long, black ship, in this storm?’
‘Upon my blood, Lord.’
‘A baran,’ his father muttered, looking severe. Opals woven into
his robe blinked like the eyes of birds. ‘Go to your chamber and
make ready to receive visitors. You will not leave it until I summon
you, and only to come directly here.’
His father gripped his shoulder, but it was more his grey eyes
that held Carnelian fast. ‘You understand me?’
‘I do, my Lord.’
‘Does Naith command without?’
‘He does, my Lord.’
‘Please send him in.’

•
As Carnelian strode along the alleyway, the memory of his father’s
expression nagged him. He turned his thoughts to the visitors. What
kind of people were brave enough or—he corrected himself—
foolhardy enough to risk the sea in winter?
He reached the arcade that bordered the Long Court. Snow
feathered the air and drifted down dulling familiar detail. Orange
light chinked through the closed doors and shutters in the opposite
wall. The sky had an angry look.
 He fumbled for the ring that opened another door into the Great
Hall and slipped into the warmth with its smell of spice and bodies
and burning wood.
‘Carnie,’ cried many voices, and people rushed up to him. ‘Is
there really a ship?’
‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
They burst into a clamour. He raised his hands, and they
quietened. ‘I’ve no time to talk. The Master will send you commands
soon enough. We must make ready for visitors.’ He drew up the
edge of his cloak. ‘Even I’m to be made ready.’ People grinned.
‘Please find Tain and ask him to come to my room.’
He went back out into the cold and continued along the
alleyway into a tunnel. Before the final arch that opened into the
Sword Court, he turned left onto a stairway and climbed into the
noisy warren of the barracks. He had slept here since he was five.
The familiar musky odour of men was reassuring.
When he reached his room, he lifted the catch on the shutters,
yanked them back, opened the parchment pane and craned out. A
churn and roar of sea and wind. Snow flocked in the air. His hair
whipped his face. The shoreline faded away to the western tip of the
island. The road curved down from the Holdgate onto the quay, a
long rectangle of stillness by the undulating sea. Along the rocky
edge of the Hold, the cliff rose to the bone-smooth masonry of his
father’s hall on its southern promontory. Beyond the shelter of the
cliff, the sea lifted in a mountain and avalanched, foaming, into the
bay. There was no sign of the ship.
He closed the window and shutters. It was a relief to shut out
the storm. In the relative quiet, he unfastened his cloak and hung it
up. He stooped to the firepit, raked away a crust of ash and wiggled
sticks into the embers.

•
By the time Tain arrived, flames quivered shadows up the walls.
Carnelian jumped up. ‘Gods’ blood! I thought you’d never come.’
 ‘I didn’t know you were in such a hurry, Carnie, it’s just—’
‘Never mind the justs, get me dressed.’
Tain peeled off the sodden layers and revealed Carnelian’s body,
dull white, lean, shivering. He touched his skin. ‘You should’ve
stripped, Carnie, you’re corpse-cold.’ He coaxed him closer to the fire
and went into a corner of the room. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’
‘You don’t know about the ship?’
His brother returned with a stone flask, a bowl and a handful of
pads. He made a face. ‘Of course I do. I meant with the tyadra.’
‘The tyadra?’
Tain poured smoking liquid from the flask into the bowl and
looked up. He was still too young to have their House tattoo.
‘They’re arming and the Master just swept past. He had Grane with
him and Keal, and several of the other commanders.’
Carnelian frowned. Their father rarely left his hall. He had been
known to go to the Sword Court to supervise the training of the
tyadra. When spring came, he took them hunting outside the Hold.
On such occasions they bore weapons, but otherwise only those who
guarded his father were armed, and even that was ceremonial. What
threat could there be on their remote island?
Carnelian had a hunch. ‘Hold on.’ He opened the door. There
were guardsmen in the corridor. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘The Master sent us to protect you, Carnie.’
‘From what, Krib?’
The man shrugged.
‘What’s up with the tyadra?’
‘I think we’re being readied for a fight, Carnie.’ Krib glanced at
the other guardsmen and they nodded.
‘What’s with the long faces? You’re stuck here to look after me,
is that it?’
They looked at their feet.
 Carnelian closed the door and returned to the fire, ignoring the
question on Tain’s face. The bowl was on the floor between them.
He recalled his father’s pale expression.
Tain dipped a pad in the bowl and, from habit, Carnelian
lowered his head. Tain stretched up to swab his forehead, and the
dullness came away to reveal a white gleam of skin.
Carnelian was barely aware of the cold camphor burn as Tain
wiped off his body-paint. When the pad stung his grazed elbow, he
grunted.
‘It’s your own fault, Carnie. Why did you need paint today?’
Tain insisted on combing the tangle of Carnelian’s black hair,
and he bore each yank in silence. Tain brought the best robes and
dressed him. He offered him an open casket. ‘Jewels?’
Carnelian stirred the contents with a finger and fished out a
brooch of apple-jade and ivory and gave it to Tain. ‘Am I
presentable?’
Tain had heard the guardsmen discuss Carnie’s beauty. Towering
there, he looked as if he might be beaten snow. ‘The brooch
matches the colour of your eyes, and shows off the whiteness of
your skin.’
Carnelian threw a punch, and Tain ducked with a chuckle.
‘What happens now?’
‘Now I get to sit and wait.’
‘You mean we get to sit and wait.’ Tain did not hide his gloom.
‘Why don’t you find out what’s happening?’
‘I can’t very well desert you, can I?’ Tain brightened. ‘But we
can watch the ship come in from here.’
Carnelian leapt up. ‘You’re right!’
They sprang to the shutters. Tain caught Carnelian’s hand. ‘Let
me, Carnie. You might dirty your robes.’
Carnelian scowled. Tain released the catch and the parchment
window flew back. Snow gusted in and everything in the room
flapped. They peered out into the twilight. The blizzard had thinned.
‘Can you see anything?’ said Carnelian.
Tain tugged on his brother’s robe and pointed. ‘Look!’
Carnelian leaned over him. A huge shape crept towards the
quay. She rocked slow and heavy. Lights flickered here and there
across her deck. Her sails had been furled.
‘She’ll smash to pieces!’ cried Tain. Even over the wind they
heard a terrible grinding. Carnelian chewed his thumb, not sure he
wanted her safe. Flames flared and moved across the deck to collect
on her landward side. Torches sparked onto the quay. Most snuffed
out. Figures flung themselves over the side, trailing ropes. Some
landed on the quay—others fell short and dropped into the sea. He
watched with horror as the ship lunged away. Men on the quay
leaned back on their heels and strained against the ropes. When she
swung back with crushing force, more jumped off regardless.
Carnelian left Tain at the window and went to open the door
again. The guardsmen were still there. ‘No message for me?’
They grimaced and shook their heads.
He tried to send one to get news, but was refused with: ‘The
Master must be obeyed.’
He returned to Tain’s side. Lines now stitched the ship to the
quay. More were thrown over and secured. Men slid down them like
oil drops on a string. The milling on the deck ceased, and three
immense figures moved to the bow. Everything else was still, save
for the rise and fall of the ship. Even the wind had dropped.
‘Masters,’ said Tain and flickered uneasy eyes at Carnelian.
‘They can’t be,’ said Carnelian, without conviction.
‘Look, Carnie, at those around them. They’re doing the
prostration. Look how huge they are. Only Masters are so huge.’
Even in the twilight, at that distance the figures had a quality of
grace that suggested they were indeed Masters.

•
Carnelian and Tain watched the tall figures leave the ship and move
along the quay, towering amidst smaller men bearing torches. The
procession climbed the road to the Holdgate and out of sight.
The brothers returned to sit at their fire and gazed into its
flames.
When the door opened, they jumped up. Two guardsmen
carried in a white chest. Carnelian pointed to where they should put
it.
Another man came in behind them. His eyes were stitched
closed. ‘The Master bade me say to the Lord his son that he should
be attired as if he were in Osrakum.’
Tain made a face at the blindman’s accented Quya. To him, the
words were just sounds.
Carnelian spoke in Vulgate: ‘He said that . . . you’re sure he said
that?’
‘I’m sure, Master.’
Carnelian approached the chest. With customary unease, he
watched the eyeless man follow his movement. The creature opened
his hand to reveal two packets. ‘These the Master bade me give to
his son. I’m to say that once he’s properly dressed, his son should
attend the Master in his hall.’
Carnelian took the soft leather packets and unwound one.
Inside was a narrow piece of exquisitely worked jade pierced by
three finger holes. ‘A Great-Ring.’ He turned it so that its carving
caught the light. It had been his mother’s. The other packet held a
second ring. Worn together, they were a sign of his blood-rank. His
mother’s blood had been so pure that she had been entitled to wear
a third. He slipped on the rings, hooked his fingers, and raised his
hand to admire the effect.
Tain knelt before the chest and sighed his hands over its smooth
ivory. It was worked with writhing chameleons that had rivets of
copper for eyes.
‘We must hurry,’ said Carnelian.
 They pushed back the lid and gasped. Inside were wondrous
garments like butterflies in chrysalises of waxed parchment. As they
drew them out, the room filled with the scent of lilies. Tain stripped
Carnelian and put the garments on him one by one. The first few
were tissues so fine they floated on the air. Robes deeper in the
chest were heavier and interwoven with precious stones. The final
robe was of grey samite. Stiff silk, brocaded with coral pins. It hung
heavy as chains and was too long.
At the bottom of the chest was a box that held a circlet of black-
grained silver wreathed with turquoises and jades. Because Tain
could not reach, Carnelian put the circlet on his own head
Tain stepped back wide-eyed. ‘You’re transformed into a Master,
Carnie.’
‘I’ve always been a Master!’ snapped Carnelian. He felt silly,
weighed down, overdressed. ‘I suppose I should go.’
‘But you must see for yourself!’ As Tain struggled to set a
copper mirror up against the wall, it shot glimmers through the
rafters.
Carnelian’s head had drooped under the weight of the circlet.
He scowled and raised his chin. ‘By the Two!’
He moved from side to side to convince himself the strange
being in the copper was his own watery reflection. He recalled the
tall figures drifting along the quay. Masters. Chosen—he corrected
himself—the Quya name they called themselves. His stomach
churned. The world held only three kinds of men: the Chosen, half-
caste marumaga, and barbarians. His unease spread to his half-
brother’s marumaga face. He remembered who he was, and the
duty he had to the boy. ‘It’s time for me to go, Tain. Please fetch my
mask.’
Tain returned with the mask and offered it with both hands.
Carnelian took the hollow face. Flame light poured over the gold and
put life into its eyeslits. Its straps hung like tresses. It had a cold,
unhuman beauty. As he fitted it over his face, it chilled his cheeks
and forehead. He held it in place while Tain tied the straps, and
breathed slow and deep through the nostrils of the mask as his
father had taught him, to fight the familiar feeling of being trapped.
He hated wearing it. His father insisted even though Masking Law
required that only a Ruling Lord conceal his face from his household.
‘I will go now.’ His voice sounded flat and dead. ‘You may as
well join the rest of the Household, Tain.’
His brother looked at him sidelong, with a strange expression.
He bowed. ‘As you say . . . Master.’

•
That expression was on the faces of the guardsmen. Carnelian
disliked this new reverence and the way they called him Master, as if
they sought to set him up in his father’s place. This was not his only
source of unease as they walked through the barracks. His escort
sensed it too. Silence. The barracks were never silent. It was
unnatural.
He froze with his men when they saw the strangers ranged up
the steps. Their faces bore the tattoos of other Houses. Other than
his father’s, every adult face he knew had a chameleon. The
strangers’ faces were uncanny. Some were bisected, hairline to chin,
by a horned-ring staff. Others were crossed with dragonfly wings. A
third group wore the disc and crescent of the morning star like
manic smiles. Their faces differed in other ways. The bisected ones
were round and yellow. The dragonflied ones were oval with almond
eyes that peeped out from between the wings of their tattoos. Those
with painted smiles were swarthy. All were swathed in stained brown
travelling cloaks. While some had two-pronged spears, others rested
their hands on sheathed sickles or four-bladed cross-swords. With a
clatter, the strangers fell before him into the prostration.
The only men still on their feet had chameleoned faces. Two
were his brothers: Grane, grim commander of the tyadra, and
handsome Keal. They looked at him for guidance. All other eyes
were fixed on Grane, who gave a subtle nod. Carnelian raised his
hand and shaped the sign, Kneel. In twos and threes they sank.
Proud Grane, eldest of his brothers, last of all. He pressed his brown
hands together and pushed them out as the others did, to be tied up
as slaves. Carnelian disliked their abasement. His hand was before
him, with the sign locked into it. It seemed his father’s hand. He
dropped his arm and ascended the steps. The sea-ivory doors parted
before him and he passed between them into his father’s hall.

•
Four masks turned towards him. Carnelian faltered under their gaze,
awed by the serene and unearthly beauty of those faces of gold.
Four giants stood by the circular hearth. One was his father, in his
jewelled robe. Though much like him, the other three were
enveloped in great black hooded cloaks, greyed with brine. Carnelian
had seen no Master other than his father. Despite what he had been
told, he had believed his father a being without peer.
As the doors closed behind him, the giants dropped their masks
into the cradles of their hands and revealed white faces and eyes the
colours of winter. He remembered that the Law commanded he must
unmask when those higher than him did so. He fumbled the thing
off as he approached. Their skin was like light passing through ice.
His father bore a wary expression. ‘Great Lords, behold my son,
Suth Carnelian.’
‘This is the son you hid from us these long years.’ The voice
came as from a bronze throat. Its owner was even taller than his
father and much older, but unlike any old man Carnelian had seen.
His skin had not wrinkled but thinned to alabaster. His grey-blue
eyes searched Carnelian’s face. The voice sounded again. ‘He has
the jade-eyed beauty, this son of yours.’
Suth frowned. ‘You flatter him, Lord Aurum.’ Their eyes locked.
Though their lips did not move, nor their hands, Carnelian was sure
they spoke to each other. The other two Masters watched them.
Flames spluttered and hissed. Sparks seeded the air.
‘Perhaps I do,’ said the old Master, and broke off from the
contest. He smiled but only with his lips.
 Carnelian saw his father control anger. ‘My son, let me make
known to you our blood-pure visitors.’ His father opened a fist and
indicated the old Master. ‘Aurum, Ruling Lord of that House and your
uncle.’ Aurum nodded, but his glassy eyes never left Carnelian’s face.
Carnelian came back to the sound of his father’s voice. ‘. . .
Ruling Lord of House Vennel.’ The Master who bowed was more
slender than the others, younger, paler-eyed. His hand unsheathed
from a sleeve and melted into the sign, Charmed.
‘And this is your second cousin, Jaspar of House Imago, who
one day, if the Two will it, shall be its Ruling Lord.’
Jaspar smiled as serene as an idol. ‘As you say, cousin, if They
will it.’
Carnelian tried to return the smile.
‘Now that introductions have been made, my Lords, I might
suggest that we retire,’ said Vennel. He had a woman’s voice and
almost sang his Quya. ‘One must confess to a certain weariness.’
‘What meagre resources we have here are at your disposal, my
Lords,’ Suth said. ‘Apartments have been made ready. I hope my
Lords will forgive the little comfort we can provide. If we had been
advised that you were coming . . .’
‘We come in haste, my Lord,’ said Aurum. ‘There was neither
time nor opportunity to herald our arrival.’
Jaspar smiled again. ‘In comparison with our recent
accommodation, any comfort will be splendid.’
‘Shall we tomorrow meet in formal conclave?’ asked Vennel.
The others raised their hands in assent.
‘Until the morrow, then.’ Vennel moved towards the door. Aurum
did not move. Vennel turned. ‘You do not accompany us, my Lord?’
‘I shall reminisce with the Lord Suth. Nostalgic nothings can
resurrect the past.’
Jaspar raised an eyebrow and Vennel’s expression froze.
 Carnelian saw his father’s face sag and approached him. ‘You
are weary, my Lord.’
His father smiled a bleak smile. ‘Perhaps I will find refreshment
in reliving the past with the Lord Aurum. See that our guests are
looked after.’
Carnelian bowed and, under the pressure of Aurum’s gleaming
eyes, he blushed. He led Jaspar and Vennel to the sea-ivory doors,
and blinded slaves appeared. He held his mask before his face and a
blindman bound it on. As the doors opened, he glanced back. His
new uncle, Lord Aurum, stretched a long arm across his father’s
shoulders and drew him into the shadows.
 THE CONCLAVE
A child can oft more fates decide
Than can a meeting of kings.

(a vulgate proverb—origin unknown)

HE ROSE THROUGH MURKY DREAM, and the mist of memory

thinned into vague uneasy recollection and faded to nothing. It was
cold and dark, but Carnelian sensed it was not long until sunrise.
Volleys of sleet rattled the shutters. Had he dreamed the visitors
with their huge black ship? His heart beat hard. Was it worse that
they had come or that they might not have come at all? He fumbled
a blanket round him and swung back the shutters. The wind ran iced
fingers through his hair. Its kissing snow made him tremble. In the
morning twilight the waves swayed a sickening surge. There in the
anchorage was the ship black as a hole.

•
Tain’s breathing was fitful. Carnelian had found him asleep in his
room on a makeshift bed and had been glad of the company. He did
not want to wake him. He threw on an icy under-robe and enough
layers to feel warm. His gull-feather cloak went over everything. At
the door he stopped. ‘Gods’ blood,’ he hissed. He returned for his
mask and hitched it to his belt by its straps.
 He should have expected the guardsmen outside. ‘You know
you’re not supposed to leave your room, Carnie, not till the Master
sends for you,’ said one.
‘If there’s anything you want, we’ll fetch it,’ said another.
‘Who told you this?’
‘Grane.’
Carnelian glared, and the man flinched. He considered putting
on his mask and commanding them to let him pass, but Grane’s
granite face appeared in his mind. It was one thing to play the
Master for the visitors and quite another to do so with his people.
The guardsmen sighed with relief as he returned to his room.
He kneaded the door handle. The visitors had changed his life,
and not for the better. His father had warned him of the restrictions
in Osrakum, but he had never expected these to come to the island.
Still, he burned with questions that he wanted answered before the
conclave. He opened the shutters and let in the grey sky.
Tain squinted past his hand. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘I’ll find out what’s happening. If you can bear it, Tain, I’d
appreciate it if you’d hold the fort until I come back. Pretend I’m still
here.’
He climbed into the window space, braced himself against the
wind and gazed at the swelling sea as it foamed and mouthed the
rock below. He mastered his fear and found the ledge just below the
sill. It was slushy and slick with spume.
Tain tugged at his cloak. ‘By the horns! Are you trying to get
yourself killed?’
‘There’re guardsmen at the door.’
‘You’ll die!’
‘We’ve both done this a hundred times.’
‘When we were little, Carnie, and never in winter.’
‘Let go, Tain.’ Carnelian pulled away.
 Afraid he might lose his balance, Tain let go. ‘Yesterday, when
he wasn’t going out, he needed to be painted,’ he grumbled. ‘Today
he’s happy to prance about on ledges with naked skin.’
Carnelian ignored him, removed his shoes and tied them to his
belt beside the mask. He stepped on to the ledge, ground his heels
into the slush and bore the stab of cold that shot up his legs. He
walked his fingers over the outside wall until he found a familiar
handhold. Last time he had done this, he had needed to stretch—
now he had to bend his arm. Below him, the sea ravened at the cliff.
He shuffled along the ledge. When his foot slipped, his heart
thumped in his chest. He rattled the shutters of the next window
until the catch gave way and they snapped open. At their window,
Tain looked sick with fear. Carnelian winked and disappeared.

•
So as not to run into the Masters or their guardsmen, he used a
balcony that overlooked the Sword Court. A path had been cleared
through the snow. The training posts with their wooden arms and
heads were buried up to their waists in drifts and looked like
miserable old men. He grinned—there was nobody about.
He skirted the court and avoided the main corridors. On the
final stairway, he heard voices. When he was sure they were men of
his tyadra, he descended to the alleyway. Two guardsmen, one with
a brush and a cake of paint that oozed its indigo over his palm and
dribbled down his arm.
‘What’re you doing?’ said Carnelian.
‘Making wards, Master.’
‘Don’t you Master me, Poal.’
The man gave him a gap-toothed grin.
Carnelian looked towards the Holdgate and into the Sword
Court. There was no sound, no movement but for fluttering snow
flecks. He inspected their work. Because the paint had run, the eye
on the jamb seemed to weep. Below they daubed a crude
chameleon. The first sign warned against uninvited intrusion; the
second removed the restriction for those of the House Suth.
‘Where’s this being done, Poal?’
‘Everywhere, Carnie.’
‘Are the strangers wandering around?’
The man shook his head. ‘Not seen them today.’
‘Where’s Grane?’
Both shrugged.
‘Keal?’
‘In the kitchens?’ said the other man.
Carnelian thanked them, crossed to a door and opened it and
slipped into the warm gloom beyond.

•
Pungent smells. Steamy air. Enough smoke to sting his eyes. Fire
hissed and danced its gleam across walls panelled with platters of
precious brass. Endless clatter and clangs and the scolding of the
cooks. Stone slab tables stood on either side of the firepit, jammed
with condiment boxes and bottles of sauces. Around their edges,
people chopped with flint cleavers and sliced with obsidian knives.
Along one wall were cisterns with chipped-lipped spouts where
bowls were being scrubbed. Cracked flagged floor, tiled walls. The
whole room funnelled up, blackening into a chimney.
Carnelian entered this world with customary delight and, when
he saw they were cooking feast dishes, forgot why he was there.
The storerooms had yielded up their treasures. Dried fish wallowed
in pools of marinade. Air-mummified birds were being soaked in red,
honeyed oil while a boy bound their feathers into fans for garnish.
Just drawn from their tanks, shrimp blue as bruises still trembled
their combs of legs. Fruits like wizened jewels were being sorted into
their kinds. The seeds and bark of rare spices were pounded into
pastes with garlic and rounds sliced from the segmented giriju roots
whose juice burns skin.
 He wanted to sniff everything, and the cooks indulged him. An
older women slapped his hand away when he stole an apple. He
made a face at her and she waggled her cleaver at him and
everyone laughed. He bit into the fruit and grimaced at its
bitterness, and she told him it served him right.
At the firepit he peered into pots. Some had green sauces,
others yellow. In one, a pair of carp swam round in warming water.
He stirred another and scooped for morsels with a ladle, curious
about what might lurk in the depths.
The Hold’s spring poured its liquid ice into a pool from which
girls drew water with pitchers. When he asked for Keal, a girl
pointed. He did not notice her shy adoration or the way her fellows
exchanged meaningful looks. He approached his brother and slapped
his broad back. Keal cursed and spun round. Anger became surprise.
‘What’re you doing here? Grane’ll be furious—’
‘He’s always furious. Besides, his bird’ll be back in the cage
before he discovers it’s flown.’
‘The order to keep you there came from the Master himself.’
Keal’s eyes were storm-grey, and his skin a pale honey-brown.
He was only a head shorter than Carnelian. Of the children his father
had sired upon the women, Keal resembled him most. Those eyes
and that severe look were the Master’s. Not that Keal would ever see
that for himself. Few in the Household were old enough to have seen
the Master’s face.
‘You’d better get back there.’
‘Before I do, I want answers,’ said Carnelian. ‘What happened
last night? Why the warlike preparations—?’
Keal grabbed his arm and dragged him off into the intoxicating
stink of a storeroom that rustled with dried squid. He looked so
serious that Carnelian almost laughed. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, but
you must keep it to yourself, yes?’
Carnelian nodded.
‘Why am I doing this?’
 ‘Because we’re brothers?’
‘I’m just hoping you’ll make less trouble if your damned
curiosity’s satisfied.’
Carnelian grinned. ‘And because you’re no good at hiding things
from me.’
‘Do you want to know or not?’
Carnelian made his face serious and nodded again.
‘Listen then. The Master armed us and had us man the
Holdgate. He was with us as we watched the Masters come up the
road. He was as shocked as the rest of us.’
‘How can you know that?’
Keal shrugged. ‘I just do.’
Carnelian let that pass.
‘He put me in charge of the Holdgate and told me that when the
Masters demanded entry, I was to delay them and tell them we were
waiting for word to come back from him before we could let them in.
He told me I wasn’t on any account to open the Holdgate till he sent
word. Then he left with Grane and—’
‘They left you there to face the Masters on your own . . . to
disobey them?’
‘It wasn’t quite like that. It was their tyadra that demanded
entry. Mind you, even that wasn’t easy.’
‘Go on.’
Keal’s eyes blanked. ‘Though the Masters said nothing, I sensed
their anger rise as they loomed in the background. Terrifying—like
defying the Master himself.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘At last, one of the Master’s blindmen came. I can’t remember
all he said—you know how weirdly they speak when they relay his
commands—the gist of it was . . .’ He peered through the doorway
and leaned close. ‘The gist of it was that we were to let them in with
all proper respect and to escort them to him and leave none at the
Holdgate. We were to treat them as Masters but . . . we should
consider them raiders come to plunder the Hold.’
Carnelian stared at his brother. ‘He said that?’
Keal nodded, his eyes wide.
‘Was that it?’
Keal chewed his lip. ‘Not quite.’ He had lowered his voice. ‘The
blindman also said that, at the Master’s word, I was to be ready to
destroy them.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what the man said, and he brought the Master’s ring to
prove it.’
‘Is there more?’
‘I was to stay at the Holdgate and expect an attack from the
ship. If a Master returned through the Hold without an escort, we
were to destroy him.’
‘And later?’
‘Things changed. When you came from his hall with the two
Masters—you remember—I took them to the west rooms? That’s
where they are now . . . at least I hope so. When I got back, Grane
was there; and the other Master was still inside. The Master
emerged—’
‘Which Master?’
‘Our father.’ Keal blushed, perhaps at the use of that word. ‘He
had us stand down and said he wanted us rested and fresh for the
morning.’
‘And today?’
‘Today he’s told us to paint wards everywhere. Grane was to
protect you and stop you wandering about.’ He gave Carnelian the
severe look again.
Carnelian patted his shoulder. ‘It’ll be all right. Tell me about our
people. How’re they feeling?’
‘How do you think, Carnie? They’re dancing for joy!’
 ‘What’re they afraid of?’
‘The Masters of course. Do you blame them? They’re a scary
bunch. People fear something’s up but don’t know what.’
‘I fear it too,’ said Carnelian. When his brother tensed, he
gripped his shoulder. ‘We’ll be fine. My . . . our father won’t let them
harm us.’
‘But, Carnie, they’re taking so much, so much of everything.’
‘You mean food?’
‘That and other things. Their demands just don’t stop. We’re
already digging into our reserves. Even if they stay only a few days
more they’ll have seriously eaten into our stores, and you know as
well as I do that there’s nowhere to get more before the ships come.’
Carnelian brooded on that as they walked back into the kitchen.
‘There you are!’ a voice cried.
He groaned as he saw his Aunt Brin sweep towards them.
She jammed her hands on her hips. ‘You do know it was the
Master himself who ordered you to stay in your room?’ She turned
on Keal. ‘And I would’ve thought you at least would show more
sense.’
Keal flushed. Though she had no power over the tyadra, Brin
was not only the Master’s sister but she also controlled the
Household. That did not stop them fearing her tongue. The kitchen
clatter faded away as people stopped to listen.
Carnelian grew angry. ‘Don’t you dare take this out on him, Brin.
I was the one who forced him to talk to me. He was all for getting
me back to my room.’
Brin grunted and screwed up her eyes, and the legs of her
chameleon tattoo disappeared into the creases in her cheeks. ‘Look
how you’re dressed, Carnelian. Do you have any idea what would
happen if any of the strangers were to see your face?’
He drew his cloak back to reveal the mask at his hip.
 ‘A lot of use it is under your cloak! Besides, the Master’s
command is the Master’s command. Return to your room. And you,
Keal, since you’re so easily forced away from your tasks, maybe
you’d better stop what you’re doing and escort him. Make sure he
gets where he’s going, then tell Grane that I don’t want to see you
or any more of his boneheads in my kitchen for the rest of the day.’
Keal shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, Brin.’
Carnelian let his anger go. Brin was right and had plenty to do
without having to run around after him.
‘What are you lot gawping at?’ bellowed Keal.
Brin moved aside just enough to let them pass. The clatter
resumed as they fled her disapproval.

•
Carnelian fretted in his room. Tain went out several times but
returned with no news of the visitors. Both became sullen and
infected with the general foreboding.
When the summons arrived at last, Tain dressed him in the grey
robe and handed him the circlet and the Great-Rings. An escort
came from Grane, gleaming in polished leather cuirasses, hair oiled,
blades honed and waxed. Carnelian said he was proud of them and
they beamed. He marched with them through the Hold. A freshly
painted eye and Suth chameleon warded every door and arch. Only
the three doors standing on the final stretch of the alleyway were
any different. Beneath their warding eyes were the sigils of the
Masters who had taken possession of what lay beyond. As a child,
he and his gang had sneaked into those dismal halls with their views
of the anchorage and the bay. They had been a haunted, musty
hinterland of the Hold. He tried to imagine them transformed into
mysterious luxury by the households the visitors had brought with
them. It was easier to imagine the Masters laid out in dusty state,
like kings in their tombs.

•
It was a relief to find his father alone: a pillar of shadow against a
rectangle of glowering sky. The nearer he approached him, the
louder spoke the wind and waves.
‘I have come, my Lord, at your command.’
The apparition turned. The face that looked down at him was
like a lamp. Its eyes seemed of a piece with the sky.
‘I wished to speak to you before the conclave.’ His father
regarded the sea, a slate-green plain stretching away into the south.
‘It is likely that we shall return to Osrakum.’
That name reverberated through Carnelian. Visions flashed
through his mind with the quickening of his heart. A memory from
childhood of his father cupping his small hands in one of his. The
little bowl of fingers was Osrakum, a crater hidden within a mountain
wall. Circling the inner edge, his father’s finger had let him see and
feel the coombs that cut into the rim and where the Masters lived.
Tender pressure for their own coomb. A swirl showed where the sky
lake filled the bowl. A touch where the edges of his palms met was
the Isle with its Forbidden Garden within which lay the Pillar of
Heaven and the Labyrinth.
His father glanced at him. ‘Long have we been remote from the
turning of events across the sea, but now they reach out to us and
we can no longer remain untouched.’ His father’s face seemed
granite. ‘A time of peril comes for me . . . and for you, my son. In
the days to come we will have need of every resource.’
‘What danger do our guests bring?’
‘Amongst many, themselves.’
‘Lord Aurum?’
‘He most of all.’
‘Even though he is aligned to us by blood.’
‘Blood trade ensures neither amity nor alliance. My father gave
my sister to be Aurum’s second wife because he sought a son to
replace the one who died in infancy. She has borne his House three
daughters—a vast wealth should they live—but still he has no son.’
 ‘Are the children of the Chosen so frail?’
‘A curse of our race is that so few come of age. Though mortal
blood waters down the ichor of the Gods, human veins cannot easily
contain its fire.’
‘I suppose it is that fire that kills their mothers too.’
‘Your mother would have died a thousand times to give you life.’
They rarely spoke of her.
‘And if Aurum dies without a son?’
‘His second lineage would inherit its rule and House Aurum
would be diminished among the Great.’
‘Then he should get himself another wife.’
‘Do you forget that pure-blood brides are the rarest commodity?’
‘He has daughters he can trade.’
‘They are too young.’
‘Iron, then?’
His father’s eyes pierced him. ‘If he could have used such
wealth, he would have.’
‘And what of Imago Jaspar?’
‘His House once ranked among the highest of the Great. Over
two hundred years ago, it sold the Emperor Nuhqanya a wife from
whom today all of the House of the Masks descend. Yet, in the crisis
over the succession of Qusata, they lost their ruling lineage.’
‘Slaughtered at his Apotheosis?’
His father nodded. ‘Many Houses suffered.’
‘So, we are linked to House Imago’s second lineage?’
‘For more than a century it has been their first.’
‘What is the nature of the linkage?’
‘My grandmother was sister to his grandfather.’
‘But our blood is purer than his?’
‘Not so, even though your mother’s blood has gifted you a
blood-taint almost half of mine.’
 Irrespective of his mother’s august blood, Carnelian valued the
father he knew more than the mother he had never known.
‘Like all Chosen of blood-rank two, your taint has zeros in the
first two positions. The largest fraction of your blood that is tainted
is the eight-thousandth. In this third position, you and Aurum and
Jaspar have a one in contrast to my three. It is only in the fourth
position, or the sixteen-thousandth fraction, that your blood differs
from theirs. Whereas you have there nineteen, Jaspar has sixteen
and Aurum has fifteen.’
‘So their blood is purer than mine.’
‘Marginally, though neither can claim, as you can, to be a
nephew to the God Emperor.’
Carnelian nodded at that familiar evocation of blood pride. ‘And
Lord Vennel?’
His father seemed to bite into a lemon. ‘He is of inferior blood.
His father and his uncles—all of blood-rank one—conspired to buy
for themselves a bride of blood-rank two. Their House had no blood
to barter and little iron coinage and so paid her bride-price with
vulgar wealth.’
‘Nevertheless, Vennel is of blood-rank two?’
Just, his father signed with a flick of contempt. ‘He has the two
zeros but a nineteen in the third. His blood is over five times less
pure than mine and ten times less pure than yours.’
‘I like him as little as Aurum. Cousin Jaspar seems amiable
enough.’
Suth gripped his son’s shoulders. ‘If you think that, he is to you
a greater danger than the others. All who are Chosen are
dangerous. No beings in the Three Lands are as terrible. Few of us
know mercy; fewer still compassion. Inevitably, the greatest among
us are the most rapacious. This is a necessity forced on some by the
contest of the blood trade, on others by their nature. We hunt each
other. Our appetite for power cannot be sated. We would devour the
world, though the gluttony destroy us.’
 Suth saw he had frightened his boy more than he had intended.
‘Of course, you will think you know this; we have spoken of it many
times. But hear me when I say that you cannot truly understand, for
you have never walked in the crater of Osrakum. You have heard my
words?’
Carnelian swallowed and nodded.
‘Then believe them.’ His father’s hands dropped away and his
shoulders slumped.
‘What burden do you carry, Father?’
‘The greatest. Choice.’
It was as if a gate slammed shut. The green glass of the sea
swelled up and, from several points, shattered white from side to
side. Thoughts of the visitors worked their barbs into Carnelian. The
salt wind blew hard upon his face but could not lift his brocaded
robe.
‘Why have they come, my Lord?’
‘You will know that soon enough. Suffice to say that we will
return with them to Osrakum.’
Images, hopes, dreams once more spated through Carnelian’s
mind. Osrakum, the heart and wonder of the Three Lands. More a
yearning than a word. A bleak thought squeezed the vision still. ‘Can
their ship take us all?’
His father’s eyes were fathomless.
They gazed out and their faces stiffened. The ominous
movement of the sea seemed a mirror to their thoughts. Neither
noticed the storm brewing its violence along the southern margin of
the sky.

•
A rap on the doors called them back.
‘Your mask,’ said his father in a low voice and Carnelian held it
up before his face. His father’s hand on his shoulder was a heavy
comfort. The remote doors opened, and beings entered who
glimmered like dark water and had for faces flames.
Carnelian went with his father to greet them. With a clatter,
shutters choked out the day. They met the Masters by the fire in the
crowding gloom.
‘We trust you found sufficient comfort in your night’s repose?’
said Suth.
One of the apparitions raised a hand like a jewelled dove:
Sufficient.
The sign looked strange to Carnelian, made by that unfamiliar
hand. Their travelling cloaks discarded, the Masters were now clad in
splendour. Their haughty faces of gold seemed a gilded part of the
long marble swelling of their heads. Each was crowned with dull fire
and wore many-layered robes, plumaged, crusted with gems and
ivories.
‘We must be rid of uninvited eyes and ears,’ said Aurum with his
deep voice.
Suth gestured, and shadows flitted along the hem of the hall.
When the Masters unmasked, Carnelian felt something like surprise
that the masks had contained the radiance of their faces.
‘Your son is still here,’ sang Vennel.
‘Is he not at least as entitled to be here as are you, my Lord?’
Vennel’s head angled back and his eyes flashed. ‘He is a child.’
Carnelian glared at Vennel’s perfect face and was pleased to find
his neck too long.
‘In Osrakum he would already have been given his blood-ring by
the Wise,’ said his father.
The hands of the Masters were knuckled with rings like stars,
but on the least finger of each right hand there was a dull, narrow
band. A ring of sky-metal that grew bloody when not oiled. Iron,
most precious of substances save only the ichor of the Gods. It fell
from the sky in stones. A gift from the Twins to Their Chosen and
the sign of Their covenant.
 Jaspar smiled at Carnelian. ‘Whether he wears a ring or not, I
for one can see no reason to exclude him from our conclave.’
‘Nor I,’ said Aurum his eyes over-bright.
‘Then let us begin,’ said Suth.
With a hiss of silk, they sat upon chairs set in a half-circle round
the hearth. Their faces hung in the gloom like moons. They closed
their eyes. Gems in their robes trapped fire-flicker. Carnelian
wondered what was happening.
‘Even now, the Heart of the Commonwealth fails,’ Aurum
rumbled.
Carnelian suppressed a gasp: the God Emperor was dying. He
watched his father’s hand rise to make the sign for grief. The other
Masters followed him, and Carnelian copied them. When they
flattened their hands, his father kept his raised until he too let the
sign go.
‘This crisis imperils the Commonwealth as it has always done,’
said Vennel. ‘Her subjects must not know of it ere a new candidate is
made ready to receive the Dual Essence.’
‘And so we have come with great urgency,’ said Aurum, ‘to offer
the Ruling Lord of House Suth the ring of He-who-goes-before.’
Jaspar fixed unblinking eyes on Suth’s face. ‘Will you accept it,
Lord?’
‘Is this the will of the Great?’
‘The Clave in formal session elected you,’ said Aurum.
‘Why?’
‘We were in some disarray, my Lord,’ said Vennel.
‘More accurately, at each other’s throats,’ said Jaspar.
Suth smiled, though his eyes were flint. ‘That at least has not
changed.’
Vennel’s colourless eyes lingered on Jaspar who said: ‘We need
you, my Lord, to speak for the Great in the interregnum before the
election of the next Gods.’
 ‘The Great must be much diminished if they need to seek
leadership from one so long away,’ said Suth.
‘From being so long away, the Ruling Lord Suth might be
assumed untainted by narrow factional considerations,’ said Aurum.
‘From being so long away, the Ruling Lord Suth might be
assumed dismissive of all considerations,’ said Suth.
‘So it was said,’ said Vennel.
Suth looked across the fire at Aurum. ‘Was it indeed?’
‘The Commonwealth must have another God, and he who shall
be They must be rightly chosen,’ said Aurum.
‘There is, of course, a difference of opinion as to who should be
chosen,’ said Jaspar. ‘There are two candidates. The Jade Lord twins
Nepheron and Molochite.’
‘And three factions?’ asked Carnelian.
The three visitor Masters inclined their heads.
‘Of course, the matter had been decided,’ said Vennel.
‘But not to the general satisfaction,’ said Aurum.
‘Certainly not to your satisfaction, my Lord.’
‘I am one among many. Those whom I represent would feel
closer to being satisfied if the Lord Suth were to oversee the
election.’
‘All must bow to the will of the Clave,’ said Vennel, with a
sardonic tone.
Aurum angled his head in irritation.
‘My Lords,’ said Suth. All eyes turned to him. ‘No more words
are needed. I will wear the Pomegranate Ring.’
Jaspar hid his surprise under the smile of an idol. Vennel’s face
was as blank as a drift of snow but his eyes were sharp.
Aurum’s eyes blazed with triumph. ‘We must make preparations
to return.’
Carnelian watched his father nod slowly and stare into the
distance.
 ‘Perhaps we should wait for more clement seas,’ said Vennel.
‘My Lord knows our purpose can brook no delay, the weather
notwithstanding,’ said Aurum.
‘Still, the baran must be repaired and we require provisions.’
Carnelian’s guts wrenched. ‘Surely you have supplies upon your
ship, my Lords. Here we have barely enough to last the winter.’
Aurum fixed him with a glassy gaze. ‘You have enough, nephew,
for our needs.’
‘For two months, my Lord, we have been upon the sea,’ said
Jaspar. ‘The provisions the salt water did not spoil were consumed.
The baran’s holds are as empty as the stomachs of her crew.’
‘Carnelian,’ his father said, ‘we must fill her from our
storerooms.’
‘But our people—’
‘There is no other way, my son.’ His father’s eyes dulled.
‘Whether we stay or go, some will starve.’
Jaspar smirked. ‘My Lord, the Commonwealth will of course
compensate your House in full measure for any loss?’
‘Of course, my Lord,’ Suth said, and glanced at his son. The boy
held in his pain as he had taught him, but only just. ‘But let there be
no talk of compensation until the full cost is known.’
‘We will need wood, rope, sail parchment, tar,’ said Aurum.
‘I shall instruct my people to give you access to everything we
have, my Lord,’ said Suth and his eyes lingered on his son’s tight and
resolute face.

•
When his father departed with the other Masters, Carnelian stared
into the fire as he worked out what to say to Tain, to his other
brothers, to his people. No one must starve.
He rose. Nothing would happen till the morning. He would sleep
and rise early. He returned through eerie quiet, the only sounds the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 —Oh! dit Claude, vous êtes une Flamande, ma chère Isabelle,
bien que vous détestiez la Flandre et ses habitants. Les Rubens ont
bien leur charme!... J’ajoute, pour vous consoler, que vous n’avez
pas l’âme flamande, pas du tout. On voit que vous avez été élevée à
Paris.
M. di Toma demanda ce qu’était l’âme flamande en général et
celle de madame Van Coppenolle en particulier.
—L’âme flamande, dit Isabelle, c’est celle de ma belle-mère: un
petit lumignon dans une énorme lanterne en verre épais. La
mienne...
—C’est, repartit Claude, une bougie rose dans une lanterne en
papier, très jolie et qui flotte au vent.
On rit. Isabelle ne se fâcha pas.
—Sans plaisanterie, reprit-elle, l’âme flamande est bien engagée
dans la matière et elle est animée par l’amour du bien-être, l’amour
de l’argent et l’amour de soi. Les personnes qui possèdent cette
âme, quand elles sont du sexe féminin, s’enorgueillissent surtout de
leurs qualités ménagères, de leur fécondité et de leur vertu. L’âme
flamande loge dans le ventre, comme le voulaient les anciens, si j’en
crois mon oncle Wallers.
La bonne madame Wallers hocha sa tête placide à bandeaux
gris, et elle déclara ces plaisanteries fort inconvenantes.
—Pardon, ma tante! dit Isabelle. J’accorde qu’il y a deux
Flandres: la vôtre, qui est celle de Watteau, et l’autre, celle de
Teniers, qui est aussi celle de ma belle-mère.
—Et celle de ton mari!
—Et celle de mon mari!
M. Meurisse, à qui déplaisait cette ironie, dit gravement:
—Vous devriez mentionner, au moins, les vertus de notre race.
Flamands belges ou Flamands français, nous sommes cousins
sinon frères et nous avons bien des tendances communes... Il est
vrai que nous sommes lourds et positifs, un peu portés sur la...
bouche, et que notre rire est épais... Nous n’avons rien
d’aristocratique... Mais nous avons toujours défendu nos libertés;
notre histoire est glorieuse; nous sommes sérieux, actifs,
entreprenants. Notre département du Nord, à lui seul, paie le quart
des impôts qui constituent le budget annuel de la France...
Cette révélation n’émut pas madame Van Coppenolle.
M. Meurisse ajouta:
—Et c’est chez nous que l’on trouve encore des familles
chrétiennes et des femmes qui ont beaucoup d’enfants.
—Mais, chez nous aussi, dit Angelo, les femmes sont fécondes,
trop fécondes. Nous peuplons la Tunisie et l’Argentine... Mon père
était l’aîné de douze enfants.
—Je plains madame votre grand’mère, dit Isabelle, entre ses
dents.
—J’ai eu trois frères et une sœur qui sont morts en bas âge. Il ne
reste que Salvatore et moi.
M. Meurisse demanda qui était Salvatore.
—Mon frère... un sculpteur... un génie!
—Vraiment?
—Oui, un génie! répéta Angelo, avec emphase. Il a étudié avec
notre illustre Gemito qui est fou... Mon frère, seul, pouvait l’intéresser
à quelque chose de la sculpture... Dio mio!... cette folie, quel
malheur!...
M. Wallers rappela que Gemito était un grand artiste, le plus
original des sculpteurs italiens, et le plus sincère. Ses figurines,
d’après les types populaires de Naples, ont leurs ancêtres directs
dans les petits bronzes de Pompéi.
 —Salvatore n’imite pas Gemito, mais il s’inspire des mêmes
traditions, dit Angelo... C’est une grande misère pour nous qu’il n’ait
pas de santé... Mais c’est un génie!... Et un cœur!... Il m’aime!...
C’est terrible comme il m’aime!... Je suis son enfant...
—Vous demeurez ensemble? dit madame Wallers, émue par
cette explosion d’amour fraternel.
—Toujours ensemble, toujours... L’hiver, dans notre maison de
Naples, et l’été, dans notre villa de Ravello qui est un héritage de
famille, car nous ne sommes pas Napolitains d’origine; nous
sommes Amalfitains, des barons Atranelli...
Il ajouta, modestement:
—Noblesse déchue...
Wallers souriait:
—Le professeur Ercole di Toma ne m’avait pas révélé la haute
origine de votre famille. C’était un homme simple.
—Et un brave homme! fit Angelo avec chaleur... Disons la vérité:
il était honteux de notre décadence et n’en parlait jamais qu’entre
nous. Je le consolais: «Papa, l’art aussi est une noblesse!...»
—Vous avez raison.
—Mon père!... Ah! que de bien il voulait à monsieur Wallers!... Il
parlait de lui à tout le monde: «Le professeur Wallers! quelle science!
quel cœur! quelle génialité!... Dites, je vous prie, y a-t-il en Europe
un savant comparable au professeur Wallers, mon illustre
confrère?... Allons, osez le dire!...» Et tout le monde répondait:
«Vous êtes heureux, monsieur di Toma, d’être l’ami de Guillaume
Wallers, et il est heureux d’avoir en vous un ami si chaud...» Pauvre
homme! Il vous aimait d’une manière extraordinaire!
Angelo prononça cet adjectif en ajoutant plusieurs r et en fixant
sur son hôte un regard menaçant. Mais Guillaume Wallers
connaissait cette mimique napolitaine. Il répondit:
 —Moi aussi, cher monsieur, j’ai beaucoup estimé le professeur di
Toma qui était un galant homme et un vrai savant.
Ainsi, tous deux, chacun à sa façon, avaient exprimé exactement
la même pensée.
Angelo continua:
—Quand j’ai entrepris ce voyage, ma mère m’a dit: «Va porter au
professeur Wallers la dernière pensée de ton père.» Et je me suis
fait un devoir de m’arrêter à Pont-sur-Deule... On eût dit que je
sentais, à l’avance, votre bonté... Et, quand vous êtes venu devant
moi, dans la gare, je vous ai dit: «Ah! faites-moi cette faveur!... Que
je vous embrasse!...» Merci à Dieu! moi, pauvre étranger, j’avais
deviné en vous un second père...
La candeur de ce discours désarma l’ironie de Claude. Il pensa
que l’Amalfitain—des barons Atranelli—devait être vaniteux,
exubérant, mais bon diable. Évidemment, il n’avait aucun sentiment
du ridicule. Il étalait ses affections de famille sans fausse honte.
On passa dans la salle à manger. Madame Wallers prit le bras du
filateur et Marie celui d’Angelo.
A table, Claude dut s’asseoir près d’Isabelle, tandis que Marie
était à l’autre bout, entre Wallers et M. di Toma.

A peine assis, il regretta d’être venu, la gorge serrée, l’estomac

contracté, le cœur pesant et douloureux. Il n’avait pas faim. Tout et
tous lui étaient insupportables.
Il regarda Marie avec rancune... Elle répondait par des
monosyllabes aux phrases de son voisin; elle était pensive, triste,
pâlie par les nœuds roses de son corsage, et beaucoup moins belle
que sa triomphante cousine. Claude en fut un peu consolé. Il aurait
voulu que Marie devînt laide, pour que nul homme, excepté lui, ne la
désirât.
Le dîner fut copieux, délicat, servi lentement, selon les traditions
sacrées de la province. Wallers était orgueilleux de sa cave et disait
la provenance et l’âge des vins. On parla de cuisine. Angelo montra
une compétence singulière et donna la recette des anchois à la mie
de pain et des aubergines farcies...
Madame Wallers se récria:
—Vous savez faire la cuisine!
—Naturellement... Je sais faire un peu de tout... Je peins, je
gratte la mandoline, j’improvise des chansons, je mène un bateau,
j’encadre mes toiles, et je raccommode, au besoin, mes habits,
quand mon domestique me manque... Je sais aussi faire la femme
de chambre...
—Comment?
—Je boutonne les bottines et j’agrafe les corsages, sans me
tromper...
Marie et madame Wallers parurent embarrassées. Isabelle éclata
de rire. L’archéologue dit, avec bonhomie:
—Ce sont vos modèles qui vous ont enseigné cet art?
—Eh! certes...
Il riait franchement, de toutes ses dents solides, carrées,
brillantes. Madame Van Coppenolle observa qu’il avait une très belle
bouche, fine aux angles, ironique et voluptueuse. Les yeux
splendides n’étaient pas langoureux bêtement. Ils étaient tour à tour
rieurs et tendres, malicieux et ingénus. Ils exprimaient avec une
sincérité amusante le plaisir qu’avait Angelo à vivre une belle soirée
chez un homme illustre, auprès de jolies femmes.
Le naturel, qualité si rare et presque impossible dans les pays du
Nord, où la religion et les mœurs tendent à comprimer les instincts et
à restreindre leurs manifestations, le naturel était le plus grand
charme d’Angelo. Sans doute, comme tous les Italiens, il devait avoir
de la prudence, de la méfiance même et des arrière-pensées. Mais
personne, vraiment, ne s’en apercevait, et lui même n’en avait plus
conscience. Il vivait le présent avec une merveilleuse facilité. On eût
dit qu’il connaissait les Wallers depuis toujours, tant il leur ouvrait
aisément son âme. Pourtant, il ne disait rien qu’il pût regretter jamais
d’avoir dit.
Quand on revint dans la bibliothèque, Marie offrit le café. Tous les
hommes fumaient, avec la permission de madame Wallers... Le bel
Angelo roulait une cigarette pour madame Van Coppenolle, M.
Guillaume Wallers, à qui l’on permettait la pipe, s’était installé dans
un vaste fauteuil. Il appela Angelo pour l’interroger sur son voyage.
—Quelle impression vous a faite notre France?
—La France!... Oh! belle, belle, élégante, surtout sympathique...
Quelle finesse dans les nuages des paysages, dans les esprits,
dans la langue même...
On ne put tirer de lui aucune réflexion critique, mais sans doute, il
devait faire des réserves. Bien qu’il fût, chez les Wallers, comme un
familier, il appréhendait que sa franchise ne compromît une amitié
naissante. D’ailleurs cette franchise lui paraissait prématurée,
grossière, inutile. Est-ce que les Wallers, arrivant à Naples, ne
l’eussent pas accablé, lui, Napolitain, des compliments usités,
classiques, sur la beauté de la ville? Se fussent-ils plaints de la
saleté, de la mauvaise odeur, de la friponnerie du peuple?... Non. En
personnes bien élevées, ils eussent attendu que le miel des
douceurs fût épuisé, et que l’orgueil du fils de Naples eût été satisfait
par l’habituel hommage.
—Et le Nord? dit Marie. Il ne vous a pas déplu, avec ses plaines,
ses villes ouvrières, ses charbonnages?
—Oh! très intéressant... J’aime les beffrois et les carillons, si
poétiques! Et les hôtels de ville et les musées... Van Eyck...
Memling...
Il confondait la France et la Belgique, pour mieux louer. Et il dit
que Pont-sur-Deule était une cité charmante.
—Allons donc! fit madame Van Coppenolle, vous ne pouvez pas
aimer ces pays-là sincèrement. Vous faites un grand effort
d’imagination pour vous persuader qu’ils vous plaisent et que vous
les comprenez. Cher monsieur, je ne suis pas bien savante, mais j’ai
un peu voyagé, et je suis absolument sûre que, si le Midi fascine
souvent l’homme du Nord, le Nord n’attire guère l’homme du Midi. Il
faut être né en Hollande, en Allemagne ou en Angleterre pour y vivre
avec plaisir, tandis qu’on voit des gens de toutes races se fixer, par
choix, dans les pays méditerranéens.
Claude s’écria qu’il n’était pas un de ces hommes, et qu’il
n’éprouvait aucun besoin de vivre «sous un ciel toujours bleu» qui
incite à la jouissance et à la paresse. Et comme il était irrité et
agacé, et qu’il commençait à prendre en grippe le bel Angelo di
Toma, il ne mesura pas ses paroles en opposant l’activité disciplinée
des gens du Nord à la misère, à l’incurie, à l’immoralité méridionales.
Angelo ne répondit pas. Il souriait toujours, mais il regardait
Claude comme un gentilhomme peut regarder un rustre incivil,
intempestif, ennuyeux, un seccatore. Guillaume Wallers interrompit
Claude:
—Je ne suis pas suspect d’ingratitude filiale envers ma bonne
Flandre, dit-il, en secouant la cendre de sa pipe. Et j’ai presque tous
les défauts, sinon toutes les qualités de ma race. Mais j’ai vécu en
Italie... Or, pour tout homme qui a reçu la culture gréco-latine, pour
nous Français, surtout, cette terre est une seconde patrie. Vraiment,
je ne m’y suis pas senti étranger... C’est peut-être, mon cher Claude,
parce que je suis archéologue et non ingénieur, soit dit sans
t’offenser, et sans prétendre établir une hiérarchie professionnelle...
D’ailleurs, tu as le droit de penser que les ingénieurs rendent plus de
service à la société que les archéologues...
—Voyons! monsieur Wallers, vous vous moquez de moi!
—Ces comparaisons me semblent bien vaines. Chaque pays
apporte un élément nécessaire à la civilisation, mais qui nous a
donné la civilisation? Elle est née, comme Vénus, de la
Méditerranée, et c’est aux Grecs que tu dois les mathématiques. Les
ingénieurs même sont tributaires de Pythagore et d’Euclide. Rome et
l’Italie ont recueilli l’héritage grec, et la France après elles...
 —Je n’en disconviens pas, dit Claude, mais cet héritage est
dispersé maintenant dans tous les musées et dans toutes les
bibliothèques du monde. Tout homme en peut prendre sa part, sans
franchir les Alpes. Votre amour de l’Italie ne me surprend pas, parce
que vous vivez dans le passé, pour le passé, et que les traces du
passé, là-bas, vous fascinent... Vous ne regardez pas l’Italie de
1909! Elle ne vous intéresse pas...
—Pardon!... pardon!... Je ne suis pas uniquement attentif au
passé, puisque je peux vivre à Pont-sur-Deule et m’intéresser au
développement industriel de ma ville... J’insiste auprès du conseil
municipal pour qu’on ne démolisse pas les vieilles maisons, pour
qu’on ne débaptise point la rue au Chapel-de-roses, mais je ne suis
pas offusqué par les cheminées des fabriques et les murs—d’ailleurs
affreux—des ateliers. Notre petite ville est une bonne artisane, fière
et laborieuse, qui s’habille de grosse laine, mais qui a du linge dans
son armoire et de l’argent dans sa cassette... Si je vais en Italie, je
peux trouver aussi des villes artisanes, commerçantes,
industrieuses, dans la vallée du Pô... T’avouerai-je, mon cher
Claude, que je préfère leurs sœurs de Grande-Grèce ou de Sicile,
déesses mendiantes, princesses ruinées, ou belles filles toutes
nues; celles enfin qui ressemblent le moins possible à Pont-sur-
Deule? Elles me révèlent, ces païennes, ces voluptueuses, ce que
tu n’as jamais senti: la douceur de vivre.
Claude répondit en riant:
—Elles vous démoralisent!
—Peut-être...
—Mon oncle, dit Isabelle, arrêtez-vous. Je crains des révélations
qui troubleraient ma tante... Elle ne vous permettrait plus d’aller à
Naples, tout seul.
—J’aurai Marie pour me rappeler à la sagesse.
—Tant pis! Ce serait bien amusant que vous fissiez des folies!...
Emmenez-moi. Je vous jure que personne ne saura rien.
 Mais Wallers, avec une terreur comique, déclara qu’il ne se
chargerait pas d’Isabelle.

Vers onze heures, le vieux Meurisse dit à Claude qu’ils pourraient

bien reconduire M. di Toma jusqu’à son hôtel.
Le descendant des Atranelli n’avait aucune envie de se retirer. La
politesse l’obligea pourtant d’accepter la compagnie du filateur et de
Claude. Ce furent des adieux touchants. Angelo n’embrassa pas M.
Wallers, mais il lui répéta qu’il le considérait «comme un second
père». Il dit aussi à madame Wallers que la signora di Toma lui serait
à jamais reconnaissante d’avoir accueilli son enfant. Jamais
orphelin, quittant sa famille adoptive pour une expédition
dangereuse, ne fut plus ému qu’Angelo. Pourtant, il devait rester un
jour encore à Pont-sur-Deule afin de visiter Sainte-Ursule, l’hôtel de
ville et le petit musée municipal.
Il baisa la main de l’«Infante» qu’il avait fort peu regardée, et lui
exprima son immense plaisir de lui montrer bientôt la belle Naples.
Et il insinua que madame Van Coppenolle serait aussi la bienvenue.
—Ma mère vous recevra toutes deux comme ses propres filles et
vous aurez des chambres superbes, sur le golfe et sur le Vésuve. Je
vous promènerai partout, je vous ferai voir des choses
extraordinaires, la Naples que les étrangers ne connaissent pas. Et
nous irons à Pompéi, à Salerne, à Ravello... Ah! Ravello, quelle
beauté! Notre palais a encore un petit cloître plein de roses et de
citronniers dont le parfum seul est une sympathie!...
—Eh bien, dit Isabelle, avec un soupir, vous réserverez vos
chambres, votre palais et vos citronniers pour Marie. Moi, je rentre à
Courtrai et je vous souhaite un bon voyage, car je ne vous reverrai
plus.
Claude et Marie parlaient tout bas, au seuil de la porte, et l’on
entendait Meurisse et Wallers qui riaient dans le vestibule.
Angelo murmura:
 —Qu’est-ce qui vous rappelle à Courtrai?
—Mon mari, mes enfants, ma belle-mère. Je ne suis pas libre,
hélas!...
—N’importe! Je vous reverrai... et peut-être... oui, pourquoi pas...
en Italie?... Vous n’avez qu’à dire: «Je veux». Quel homme—même
votre mari que je ne connais pas!—résisterait à un ordre de cette
belle bouche?...
—Allons! ne me détournez pas de mes devoirs!
Elle riait, un peu gênée par le regard d’Angelo.
—Vous ferez la cour à ma cousine, sans succès possible, car elle
est vertueuse et elle n’aime que le bon Dieu!
—Est-ce que je pense à votre cousine? dit-il, avec une sorte de
brutalité qui flatta délicieusement Isabelle...
»Quand on vous a vue...
—Les Napolitains ont la mémoire courte et le cœur changeant.
—Je rêverai de vous... Ma pensée vous attirera. Vous serez
forcée de venir...
—C’est peu probable.
Il reprit le ton câlin:
—A quelle heure partez-vous?... Ne puis-je vous saluer à la
gare?
—J’ignore quel train je prendrai...
—J’irai à tous les trains.
—Et vos projets?... le musée, Sainte-Ursule...
—Au diable les vieilleries gothiques!...
—Et mon oncle Wallers?
 —Je lui ferai dire que je suis malade...
—C’est ça! vous lui conterez des blagues, à ce brave homme
que vous aimez comme un second père.
—Certes, je l’aime...
—Prenez garde! Voilà Marie...
Et, tout haut:
—Adieu, monsieur di Toma! Charmée de vous connaître.
 V
Le lendemain, sur le quai de la gare, pendant que Marie et
Claude choisissaient un compartiment, la bonne madame Wallers
employait les minutes d’attente à faire un petit discours qui résumait
bien ses sermons:
—Que ce soit ta dernière fugue, Isabelle! Nous t’avons toujours
accueillie et défendue, mais nous ne voulons pas t’encourager à la
révolte, et nous te blâmons...
—Je le sais, ma tante, dit Isabelle, qui regardait les «illustrés» de
la librairie.
Elle pensait:
«Devant elle, je n’oserai jamais acheter la Vie parisienne... Et il
n’y a que ça d’amusant!»
—Frédéric nous a écrit qu’il te recevrait sans rancune et qu’il
tâcherait d’être plus doux...
—Il dit ça!...
—Pourvu que tu montres de la bonne volonté et que tu cesses
de critiquer les idées et les façons de sa mère...
—Elle ne cesse de critiquer les miennes!
—Avec raison.
—Avec aigreur.
—Il faut reprendre le gouvernement du ménage que tu as
abandonné, par faiblesse et paresse, à madame Van Coppenolle.
Ne la supplante pas, tout d’un coup, mais, peu à peu, remplace-la.
Surveille les domestiques; mets les comptes en état; fais des
économies; occupe-toi des enfants, au lieu de passer des heures à
polir tes ongles, à essayer des robes, et à lire des romans ridicules
où des femmes ennuyées trompent leur mari...
Isabelle soupira. Jamais elle n’aurait le temps d’acheter la Vie
parisienne qui publiait un roman délicieux de Colette Willy et une
nouvelle dialoguée d’Abel Hermant... Résignée, elle promena un
regard distrait sur le quai sale et humide, sur les rames de wagons
au garage, sur les portes des salles d’attente qui battaient lorsqu’un
voyageur retardataire arrivait, chargé de valises.
Le reflet d’une pensée secrète passa dans ses yeux glauques.
Madame Wallers demanda:
—Tu cherches quelqu’un?
—Non, ma tante... Je vous écoute...
—Tu suivras mes conseils?
—Oui. Dès demain, je vérifierai le livre de la cuisinière, je
promènerai les enfants, je tricoterai des gilets pour les pauvres, et je
jouerai des valses, le soir, après dîner, pour distraire madame Van
Coppenolle et son fils... Après ça, si je ne suis pas heureuse, c’est
que votre recette ne convient pas à mon tempérament.
—Tu seras heureuse, dit avec candeur madame Wallers.
Placide et reposée, le menton gras bien au chaud dans les brides
de sa capote, elle vanta la félicité des ménages unis, loua son vieil
époux qu’elle adorait, et s’attrista en parlant de sa fille.
—Vois, Belle, notre pauvre Marie!... Sa vie est brisée... Et
pourtant elle a eu de la patience. Elle a pardonné une fois... Si elle
avait été mère, elle aurait pardonné toujours, même en sacrifiant sa
fierté de femme... Tu n’as pas connu ces humiliations. Frédéric est
incapable de te tromper...
Isabelle eut un sourire aigu.
—Incapable, certainement!
 Claude l’appelait. Elle embrassa madame Wallers et remonta
dans le wagon. La portière fermée, elle baissa la glace et pencha au
dehors son buste serré dans une jaquette de loutre, sa tête coiffée
d’une martre fauve comme ses cheveux.
Le train s’ébranla.
—Adieu!... Adieu!
Isabelle agita son mouchoir et madame Wallers répondit par de
petits signes. Soudain, la porte d’une salle d’attente s’ouvrit. Un
homme, essoufflé, parut, qui avait un pardessus clair, des souliers
jaunes, un feutre grisâtre. Il agitait un bouquet de violettes, avec un
geste de fureur et de désespoir, comme pour arrêter le train qui filait
et dont on ne voyait plus que le fourgon d’arrière...
Alors, Isabelle se rassit, contente...

Les villes se succédaient, pareilles, et continuées l’une par

l’autre: des murs gris après des murs gris, des toits de zinc, des toits
de verre, des toits de larges tuiles d’un vilain rouge. Le long de la
voie, il y avait des petites cours de maisons pauvres, des jardinets
où séchait du linge.
Et les murs, les toits, les jardins, le linge, étaient salis par la
poussière de charbon, par l’impondérable suie suspendue dans cet
air tout barbouillé de fumée.
La fumée qui sortait des mille cheminées industrielles ou
ménagères ne pouvait monter. Tout de suite rabattue par le ciel
lourd, elle s’étalait, stagnante et diffuse.
—Quel affreux pays! dit Isabelle. La laideur des choses s’accorde
avec la laideur des gens. Toutes ces figures lymphatiques et
blondasses me font penser à des lapins albinos roulés dans le
charbon.
Elle montrait les groupes d’ouvriers qui regardaient passer le
train.
 —Vraiment, la race n’est pas belle... Voyez, Claude, ces traits
grossiers, ces corps massifs.
—La race n’est pas fine, mais elle est puissante lorsqu’elle ne
dégénère pas par l’effet du travail prématuré ou de l’alcool.
Isabelle reprit:
—Il y a beaucoup d’alcooliques parmi nos ouvriers. Mon mari est
très dur pour eux. Moi, je les excuse. Ces gens trouvent à
l’estaminet ce que le pays ne leur offre pas: la chaleur, le bruit, la
gaieté... une bruyante et brutale gaieté...
—C’est vrai, dit Claude. Le Nord, triste, gris et mouillé, incite aux
réactions violentes, et la sensualité populaire, la fureur populaire,
sont plus animales ici que partout ailleurs. Le Flamand, lent à
s’émouvoir, est, quand il s’émeut, une brute redoutable! Livré à
l’instinct, c’est l’homme des kermesses de Teniers, c’est le gréviste
de Germinal... Il boit jusqu’au vomissement; il tape jusqu’à la mort de
l’adversaire... Et comme il est, au fond, un primitif, encore près du
barbare, il est sincère et point comédien. C’est pourquoi il manque
de finesse et d’élégance... Tandis que les gens du Midi, plus
civilisés, je vous l’accorde, mêlent du cabotinage à toutes leurs
émotions... Rappelez-vous le descendant des barons Atranelli qui
trouvait en mon oncle Wallers «un second père».
—Il est tout de même gentil, dit Isabelle. Et elle revoyait Angelo
haletant, désolé, brandissant ses violettes inutiles.
Marie fit observer que les mêmes causes peuvent produire des
effets contraires et que la Flandre des kermesses est aussi la
Flandre des béguinages. Les âmes qui ne s’épanchent pas au
dehors, qui trouvent autour d’elles la monotonie, la platitude, la
laideur utilitaire et la jouissance brutale, se réfugient dans la paix
domestique ou dans la mysticité. Et elle cita la vieille madame
Vervins qui édifiait par ses vertus les béguines de Courtrai et qui
écrivait ses rêveries et ses visions comme Lydwine ou Ruysbrœck
l’admirable.
Isabelle croyait madame Vervins un peu folle.
 —J’ai cessé d’aller la voir. Elle m’ennuie et je la scandalise.
Mais Marie et Claude vénéraient madame Vervins qui était une
amie des Wallers et une sainte. Ils se promettaient bien de lui rendre
visite le jour même.
Après le défilé dans les salles de la douane et le changement de
train à la frontière, Isabelle devint songeuse. Sa figure, toute riante
de jeunesse et de belle humeur, ressembla tout à coup à la figure
d’une enfant grondée.
Elle regardait d’un œil hostile le paysage qui continue le paysage
français et qui paraît différent, comme si la ligne de frontière séparait
vraiment deux morceaux du monde. De ce côté belge, un peu avant
Courtrai, il y a encore des cheminées, des usines et des hangars, et
des écriteaux bleus, et des «réclames», mais, par endroits, c’est tout
à fait la campagne, avec des fermes, des pâturages et la verte Lys
indolente parmi les bouquets de saules et les champs de lin. Des
canaux portent des péniches, gigognes dont la cotte rouge et noire
abrite un tas d’enfants barbouillés. Et, surplombant les canaux, des
chaussées emmènent vers l’horizon une double file inclinée de
peupliers grêles, tremblants, dorés et mêlés de ciel.
Le ciel de Flandre! Ce n’est pas l’écran bien tendu où les
rochers, les villes, les phares, les bateaux, se découpent en masses
ou en silhouettes, belles de leur propre beauté. C’est un fluide
vivant, une âme éthérée qui joue sur le pays sans relief, sans
couleur et sans caractère et lui fait, avec des ombres et des reflets,
un visage expressif et changeant comme les heures. Les vieux
peintres qui lui donnaient presque toute la place dans leurs tableaux,
qui le faisaient si vaste, si tourmenté, si tendre, au-dessus des
pâturages et des dunes grises, ces peintres savaient bien qu’on ne
regarde la terre mouillée, la mer livide, et l’arbre tordu, et le moulin,
qu’à cause de lui, le ciel!
Par ce jour d’automne, il semblait immense. Sa large courbure,
ne trouvant pas de colline où s’appuyer, tombait derrière l’horizon,
enveloppant toute la campagne et se confondant avec elle. A la
limite de son cercle, il absorbait les formes lointaines des cités,
beffrois, clochers, vaisseaux d’église, et les fûts des cheminées
colossales, et les croix tournantes des moulins. Parfois, une goutte
de bleu trouait sa blancheur uniforme et se diluait aussitôt dans
l’épaisseur vaporeuse. Et l’on sentait la présence du soleil
languissant à une espèce de clarté transfuse, à un insensible frisson
pâle qui se propageait avec lenteur dans les couches superposées
de la brume.
Et, passé midi, quand le train fut à Courtrai, le soleil, plus fort,
glissa un rayon amorti comme un sourire de religieuse. Claude,
voyant Isabelle inquiète, lui dit:
—Le soleil vous salue. C’est un bon présage.
Elle descendit la dernière, embarrassée de sa fourrure et de son
sac. Frédéric Van Coppenolle s’approcha d’elle.
Il était grand, non pas gros, mais empâté par la quarantaine. Ses
cheveux cendrés, ses yeux gris, son allure lourde, son apparence
lymphatique, lui donnaient, au premier examen, l’air bonhomme et
même bonasse... Dès qu’on lui parlait en face, le regard coupant, la
voix brève, déconcertaient l’interlocuteur... Et peu de personnes
s’avisaient de le contredire sans nécessité.
Une seule y trouvait quelquefois du plaisir: c’était Isabelle, dans
ses mauvais jours de rancune et de caprice.
Les deux époux se tendirent la main d’un geste simultané. Ils ne
s’embrassèrent pas. La curiosité de la foule était odieuse à M. Van
Coppenolle.
Il demanda:
—Tu vas bien?... Pas fatiguée?...
—Non, pas fatiguée du tout... Et toi?... les enfants?... ta mère?
Isabelle prononça ce dernier mot avec effort.
—Moi, je vais bien, comme toujours... Je n’ai pas le temps d’être
malade. Jacques est enrhumé... Ma mère le soigne...
 Isabelle rougit.
—Elle pourra se reposer, maintenant. Je me chargerai du petit...
C’est bien naturel.
—Très naturel, en effet.
Ensuite, M. Van Coppenolle remercia Claude et Marie d’être
venus. Il était poli, peut-être sincère, car la présence des deux
jeunes gens rendait plus facile la rentrée d’Isabelle au bercail. Les
explications délicates étaient retardées ou empêchées. Et cela valait
mieux pour tout le monde.

Les Van Coppenolle habitaient, rue des Grandes-Halles, un hôtel

tout neuf, en style moderne allemand qui était une chose hideuse.
M. Guillaume Wallers l’ayant visité, une seule fois, en conservait un
souvenir vivace comme d’une injure personnelle. Bien qu’il estimât
Van Coppenolle, il ne pouvait lui pardonner la façade boursouflée et
bariolée, la porte en «crapaud bâillant», la véranda ronde comme un
œil de cyclope et le dévergondage du toit qui mariait indécemment le
pignon gothique au dôme byzantin, et la mansarde française à des
ornements de faïence et de brique vernissée!
Frédéric Van Coppenolle, exprimant en pierre, en plâtre et en
stuc, sa théorie la plus chère, avait élevé ce monument à la
Modernité!
—C’est une infirmité spirituelle et un signe d’impuissance et de
vieillissement que de vouer aux reliques du passé une adoration
superstitieuse, disait-il. Je ne m’habille pas, je ne me nourris pas, je
ne me soigne pas, je ne pense pas comme mon grand-père.
Pourquoi me servirais-je de sa vieille maison et de ses vieux
meubles qui ne correspondent plus à mes goûts et à mes besoins?
Est-ce qu’il s’est gêné, lui, pour démolir la bicoque de son aïeul et
remplacer le mobilier du dix-septième siècle par un solide
palissandre dans le goût de la Restauration?... Mes petits-enfants
jetteront bas l’hôtel que je construis, et, d’avance, je les approuve...
 Cette doctrine audacieuse n’appartenait pas au seul Frédéric Van
Coppenolle. D’excellents artistes la proclamaient en France et en
Allemagne, et, quelquefois, leurs tentatives de rénovation artistique
prenaient un air de mystifications. Mais certains—non pas tous—
certains, parmi les Français, avaient un goût naturel, un sens
héréditaire de l’ordre et de l’élégance, une éducation esthétique qui
manquaient à M. Van Coppenolle. Ce filateur n’avait pas eu le loisir
de se cultiver. Il aimait les arts avec une ingénuité et une
intransigeance terribles.
Très germanophile, ayant le respect de la force matérielle et du
succès, ses préférences allaient aux décorateurs allemands. Il
acceptait, en bloc, le pire et le meilleur de cet art pénible, volontaire,
dont la richesse agressive flatte la vanité d’un peuple parvenu.
Cependant, il achetait des tableaux à Paris, au Salon d’automne.
Pour édifier l’hôtel et pour l’aménager, il n’avait pas tenu compte
du sentiment d’Isabelle, qui protestait comme femme et comme
Française. Elle avait aussi, à sa manière, et pour d’autres raisons, le
snobisme de la modernité et ne se souciait pas de ressembler
moralement à son arrière-grand-père, bien qu’elle n’hésitât point à
se meubler, à s’habiller et à se coiffer dans le style du premier
Empire, quand la mode souveraine l’ordonnait ainsi. Tandis que M.
Van Coppenolle, novateur passionné dans l’ordre industriel,
économique et artistique, conservait sur la femme, le mariage et
l’amour, des opinions énergiquement réactionnaires.
En rentrant dans sa maison, Isabelle, pour la centième fois, eut
l’impression qu’elle n’était pas chez elle, mais chez son mari, chez
l’homme qu’elle n’aimait pas, qu’elle raillait par bravade et qu’elle
craignait, sans avouer cette crainte. Elle reconnaissait en lui une
force—un maître!—le maître de ce logis fastueux et bourru,
confortable et triste. Rien ne révélait l’influence de la femme, rien ne
reflétait son âme souple et légère et tendrement sensuelle dans ces
salons bleu de nuit ou vert émeraude, dont les boiseries sombres et
luisantes rappelaient les fumoirs des paquebots. Par des couloirs
ripolinés, peints de nénuphars en frise, Isabelle s’en fut, avec sa
cousine, dans la chambre des enfants. Elle était bien émue, et Marie