“Should we stop them, Papa?” The Commissioner General’s men prepared to follow.
“No.” Papa frowned at still-smiling Julia. “Too late.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
Rose-Tinted Daydream
Sometimes Madame compares her revolution to the Renaissance. As she has made the Enlightenment her weapon today, so, starting in the Fourteenth Century, Italy, tired of the yoke of northern chivalry, dredged the legacies of Greece and Rome from the dust, and redefined art, learning, and nobility on their ‘classical’ model, half ancient, half invention, in which Italy was the automatic leader. Petrarch was their spearhead, whom you may know as the subject of the First Anonymous’s third essay, which argues that Petrarch’s scholarly group who planned to live and work together might have instituted the bash’ system eight centuries early if the Black Death had not claimed all but him. It also claimed Laura, the beauty whom Petrarch’s poems apotheosized into one of those immortal goddesses of Love, like Juliet, Helen, Cleopatra, Lesbia, Dante’s Beatrice, Abelard’s Helo?se, and perhaps now Seine Mardi, for the paintings, poems, plays, and films keep flowing, the world’s imagination hungry for portraits of this young Humanist who shone so brightly that the Prince of Utopians would give up bash’ and Hive and life for her. Will her cult endure the centuries, I wonder, as Laura’s has? It is Petrarch’s poem 205 that I remember best, where he sorrows for the men centuries later who will read his verses and curse Fortune that they were born too late to see Laura’s beauty while she lived. Laura had children, though, living shadows of her beauty, including one famous descendant, whose path you may curse or praise Fortune for not permitting you to cross: De Sade.
“Casimir, you must let me pour you a drink.” Felix Faust lifted a decanter from the sideboard, cut crystal of an expense to match the aged nectar within. “I never expected you to get this far. What a wonderful world we live in where even I can be surprised.”
“Thanks, Headmaster, that’s kind of you.” European Prime Minister Casimir Perry had stood timidly at the threshold of the Salon de Sade, as if afraid the ivory carpet would blacken under an outsider’s feet. “Where is everyone?” He scanned the oval ring of seats, all empty.
“Fair question. You’re the guest of honor tonight and should have arrived last so we could cheer you across the threshold.” Faust poured himself a glass as well. “In fact, the rest of us were asked to get here twenty minutes ago. It seems there’s crisis enough afoot to have all the other Hive heads running late.”
“But not you?” Perry fidgeted with his embroidered cuffs, fresh from Madame’s tailors.
“Unlike our colleagues, I delegate Gordian’s entire administrative burden, so, while I may be surprised by this delicious crisis, I’m not expected to do much about it. Shall we sit?”
Faust gestured to the window bench, so freshly brushed that not a speck of lint had had a chance to colonize the velvet. Madame and her servants had outdone themselves for this occasion, transforming the oval sanctum from an earthly to a celestial paradise. Fawn-thin tables stood against the walls, lush with sweetmeats and covered platters alluring as unopened presents. If roast beasts and flame-grilled hunks on spits are a man’s feast, this was a woman’s: intricate patisserie, ribbon candy delicate as jewelry, chocolate truffles, bite-sized cakes, and bouquets of fruit sliced so thin that the light shone through their juicy petals like stained glass. The benches had been restuffed, virgin sheepskins piled on the floor, while the tools of love in their glass cases, both the museum pieces and those ready for use, gleamed clean. Even the curtains over the grand window were new, night blue glittering with constellations, which made the masses in the Flesh Pit below seem as distant as mortals glimpsed by Zeus and Hera as they lie locked in love’s afterglow on steep and snowy Ida.
Perry stared into his glass. “I’d rather stand.”
“My dear Casimir, this bench has the most interesting view in the world. There’s a more telling cross-section of humanity down there than in the Censor’s database, plus porn. How can you possibly prefer to stand?” His eyes softened. “You’re nervous?”
“Of course.”
Faust smiled. “The entire European Parliament doesn’t make you nervous.”
The Prime Minister rubbed his temples, which had amassed more care lines in his five decades than Faust’s had in eight. “The European Parliament can’t deny me sexual satisfaction for the rest of my life. Aren’t you nervous around Madame?”
Faust laughed. “Only when I’m sober.”
“How did they do this to us, Felix? I was too young to understand when I got sucked in, but you’re a psychologist, you must have watched it closely. Here we are, the most influential people in the world, prancing around in frills because it’s the only way we can get turned on anymore.” Perry ran his thumb around his glass, coaxing a soft note from the crystal. “Madame lured us all into this long before we were important, but how did they know we’d become what we are now? Are they really able to spot the ones who’re ripe for this perversion when we’re young, and then make sure only we can get into office? Or is everybody this kind of pervert deep inside, and it’s just Madame that brings it out in us?”
Faust crossed his arms. “Don’t give Madame all the credit. Some of us cultivated excellent perversions on our own.”
Perry smiled. “I know you did, Felix, but Bryar Kosala? The Emperor? The King of Spain is the most morally upright person I’ve ever met, but even Spain—”
“That didn’t stop you hiring Ziven Racer to knock Spain out of the election,” Faust tested.
Perry went white. “I…”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t discussed it with the others, and I won’t without good cause.”
“How … how did you know?”
“I’m Brillist Headmaster, Casimir, how do I know anything? Don’t worry, I won’t blackmail you. I couldn’t really—body language isn’t proof enough for court.”
“I … thank you.”
“My point was, you took advantage of Spain’s honorability, knowing they’d resign if someone tried to fix the vote on their behalf. You know in Spain’s case conscience is a weakness.”
Again Perry’s eyes escaped into the amber ocean of his drink. “I never said I wasn’t the worst of us, Felix. I shudder to list the things I’ve done to get to this room today. I think I was a good person when I was young, I really do.”
Faust stretched back. “Think of our perversions as topiary. We all had the seeds in us, but it’s Madame who made them art. Now, shall I have Mycroft fetch you something to fuck while we wait? The others are so set in their configurations, the two threesomes and the pair, that usually our debauches aren’t very debauched, I’m afraid. I’ve been looking forward to you changing that.”
“Is that Mycroft Canner?” Perry spotted me now in Jehovah’s empty corner, my dull Franciscan habit anticamouflage against the sparkle of the house.
Faust’s eyes rarely grow wide. “You haven’t met?”
“I heard about Canner turning up as a Servicer a couple days ago, and stalking Tully Mardi. I guessed Madame must be connected to it somehow. That’s Mycroft Canner, isn’t it? I recognize the notch out of their ear.”
Faust summoned me with a flick of his fingers. “Poor Outsider, the only one who’s had to make do without Mycroft’s services all these years. To be strict, though, it isn’t through Madame’s good offices that we have Mycroft, it’s thanks to our excellent and unique Prince, Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason.” His eyes glittered. “Which name will you use for our dear scion now, Perry? As one of Madame’s elite, you’re entitled to use something more personal than ‘the Prince D’Arouet,’ but you must pick carefully—everyone is judged by which they use. Dibs on Donatien.”