Deo Erexit Deus
Chagatai was Carlyle’s excuse for treading again the garden path to the little chapel in Avignon. The valet, Carlyle reasoned, seemed to know Jehovah better than any other sane person, and sanity was never more precious than in catastrophe. Over her feed the Anonymous’s Proxy and Kosala continued to lash the airwaves with their rage, and news of the arrest of Ockham Saneer fed paranoia that the millions of cars would crash like meteors. Carlyle confessed to me, when I interviewed her to write this chapter, that she did not actually expect to find Chagatai alone in the kitchens. Rather, as the cross-less spire of the church loomed close, Carlyle felt not just hope but, as she described it, almost a premonition that the Master of the house, however rarely He might be at home in peaceful days, was near.
“Don’t move!” Guards too quick for Carlyle to count burst from the door and seized her before she had a chance to knock. They frisked her, practiced hands folding and squeezing every loose inch of her Cousin’s wrap, so not even a razor could have passed unnoticed.
“Consorbin inermis est, Caesar.” (The Cousin is unarmed, Caesar.—9A)
“Let them come in.”
Inside, a lone carved chair, severe enough for a monastery, broke the rows of icons and relic shelves that crammed Jehovah’s hall. There sat MASON, fidgeting with the black cuff of his left sleeve as scenes of the world’s degeneration sparkled across his lenses. “Have you been taking care of yourself since last night, Cousin Foster?”
Carlyle, like any sane woman, trembled. “MASON? Why are you…”
“I am waiting to see my son. You were seen with us at Madame’s. The press will be after you soon, if they are not already. I can chase them off, if you like. I am firmer with them than Kosala is. Or if you prefer shelter, my Sanctum Sanctorum in Alexandria is open to you.”
The sensayer floundered. In the madness at Madame’s, MASON had been one more of a bank of cardboard witnesses, while only Carlyle and her parents were true players. Only now, seeing the suit of imperial gray, the famous face without press light to hide the care lines, did it sink in that she had met the Emperor.
“I haven’t had any trouble so far, but I haven’t been home yet. Do you think … is…” Carlyle choked.
MASON is so accustomed to his presence striking others dumb that I think sometimes he is surprised to hear a stranger manage a complete sentence. “You are here to see Jehovah?” he asked gently.
“Yes. Are they…”
“Upstairs.” Between his spoken words, Caesar’s fingers fed others to the computer, which routed them across his Empire. “What do you think of the Prince of Asturias?”
Carlyle frowned. “You mean the Crown Prince of Spain?”
At such proximity Carlyle says she could see the gray in Caesar’s hair, not sophisticated frosting as photographs suggest, but streaks of real age, subtly heavier on the right side, spreading. “Their Majesty once told me that Crown Prince Leonor had done more good by being born than they have in their whole life since. The existence of a living heir stabilized Spain and Europe, promising a safe succession, and giving the Spanish strat the hope it needed to endure the queen’s suicide. Since then the Prince has run wild in bad company, aided their father’s political enemies, has probably literally slept with Casimir Perry, and has done far more to shame the royal house than even the public knows, but still the King is glad they have a son, however rotten. Would you call such a prince good because their existence aids the world, despite their deeds?”
“No.”
“Then you are not bad because of the evil which your birth has caused.”
Kind words. Carlyle had not had kind words since Julia’s, before she felt truth’s poison arrow fly. “I don’t … I don’t…” I doubt there was a real full sentence in her mind.
Chagatai poked her head around the corner now, friendly in her livery, like a mastiff trained as perfectly to charm children as to rip throats. “Carlyle Foster! Good of you to come again. Are you here for me or for TM?”
It took Carlyle a moment to recognize Jehovah’s Hiveless nickname. “I was hoping for the Tribune, yes,” she confessed.
The valet’s smile tried to ease the tremor in Carlyle’s voice. “No worries, you’re not intruding. TM said they hoped you’d come. I’ll show you upstairs now, if you’re ready.”
“Now?” Carlyle frowned confusion. “But … I’ll wait until the Emperor’s finished, obviously.”
Caesar shook his head. “I am the Emperor, Jehovah’s father, and ruler of one fifth of the world; I wait. You are a priest; you don’t.”
“This way,” Chagatai coaxed. “Unless you’d like a bite to eat first, or the bathroom.”
Carlyle’s feat dragged, leaden. “May … may I ask a question, MASON?”
“You may ask anything,” Caesar invited. “Asking does not guarantee an answer.”
“Why did you adopt Jehovah? Why let Madame’s son be so close to you?”
“Because Madame is that close to me.” Caesar’s eyelids sagged, as if he longed to close his eyes in brief retreat. “I need a companion in this world who is neither my subject nor my enemy. My bash’, what friends survive from childhood, are all Masons, my servants now, and all my colleagues are my rivals. Madame is not.”
“But Madame is horrible. Everything they do is totally manipulative and self-serving, surely somebody else—”
“All motives are self-serving,” Caesar interrupted, “and all people are manipulators around an Emperor. Selfish or no, Madame D’Arouet has done more for me and for the world’s stability over the years than anyone, even Kosala or O.S., but Madame wields sex and gender instead of socially acceptable tools of politics. I cannot free them from that stigma, nor give them the office or recognition they deserve. Their child I can.”
“Then you did it for Madame?”
“I cannot say power was not a factor. We all fought over Jehovah, hoping Madame’s resources would go to whoever was named father, or had most influence with the child. Until the influenced reversed.” MASON’s brows narrowed, subtly, a mild anger but chilling, like thunder whose softest rumble still threatens a storm. “Stop dawdling, Cousin. Your answers are upstairs, not here. You must finish with my son before I can begin with them, and today of all days my patience is finite.”
Fear more than Chagatai led Carlyle up the thin steps to the nave of the old church above. Its stone vault rose high, light and dim at once, like an overcast sky. Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason sat upon the front pew, facing the altarpiece where saints and angels crowded to watch as Christ in glory received His virgin Mother into Heaven with a crown of stars. Carlyle says that at first her eyes assumed Jehovah wore the same dark suit as always, but as she tiptoed along the center aisle she realized it was a bathrobe, black, barely enough to shield Jehovah’s body from the stone chill. Jehovah’s flesh was young, remember, just twenty-one, ten years younger even than young Carlyle, the structure of His face still smooth with childhood beneath His black hair—almost black, I should say, since it seemed as dull as graphite beside the true black of His eyes. Carlyle told me later of the thousand questions that schooled in her mind as she studied the impenetrable Figure who seemed more and more the center of this unraveling world, but somehow she could not fold her questions into words.
Jehovah broke the silence. “Have you come to help Me?”
The sensayer waited, uncertain whether the words were meant for her. “Help you how?” she asked.
The stone-still Speaker did not turn. “To understand the God Who made this portrait of Himself.”