The Veil Of Years - Isle Beyond Time Part 16

Yes, this was that kingdom she had antic.i.p.ated, that she had longed for. The clash with Hatiphas now forgotten, she pushed open the bronze door. The tinkle of water from bronze dolphins' mouths, falling into a stone basin, harmonized with the sweet tones of a lyre unseen. Gra.s.s like new-tied carpet cus.h.i.+oned her feet. She recognized this courtyard-and the door at its far end. Relief washed over her as she dismissed a fear she had not previously admitted to consciousness: that the real palace would not to be identical with the rooms, corridors, and courtyards of her dreams. But they were. Vindicated, she strode confidently ahead.

"Wait!" Hatiphas murmured, in the low tones of a servant. "My master is still below, awaiting you."

"I know the way to his chambers," Pierrette said with a bright, false, girlish smile. "I'll wait for him on the bench just inside the doorway, and when he removes his golden bulls-head helm, and seeks to set it in itsaccustomed place he'll discover . . . me." The artificial nature of her smile was easily explained:this Minho was not the man of her dreams. Her Minho would have known already that she was here, and would have been on hand to greet her-wouldn't he?

Hatiphas was also discomfited. He was perplexed. Being used to an environment where everything was predictable to a man of influence and stature, and was thus controllable, he was also angry-again. This pert, unpredictable sprig of a girl had upset his most careful plans, and continued to demonstrate that he could not fit her spontaneous flitting into any kind of sensible arrangement at all.

He did not follow her into Minho's private chambers-what harm could she do there?-because he wanted to find his master immediately, and to warn him that he must not take anything she uttered or did at face value. Her influence was disruptive of the peaceful fabric of their placid lives, and might, he feared, even be . . . dangerous.

Pierrette, had she been privy to his considerations, might have agreed with him. As soon as the door had shut behind her, a further reality struck her with almost physical force: there, when she raised her eyes, was the very spot where she had lit, where her seagull's webbed feet had spread on the blue cap tiles of the parapet wall. "Find the Isles and their king, and then . . . you must destroy his kingdom, and he must die."

She knewwhat could destroy the Fortunate Isles. As yet, she had no idea of just how to bring that destruction about. And, as yet, she intended as firmly as ever to find a different solution to her dilemma, one in which her visions-now demonstrated to have been accurate in the small details-would be entirely fulfilled, in which she would indeed marry Minho, and sit upon that gold-and-ivory throne that even now awaited, she was sure, where the last great black promontory projected into the endless western ocean.

But solutions and decisions must wait-she heard a clipping of leather soles on the tesselations of the corridor, and knew that her brief respite for musing was at an end. She composed herself gracefully on the bench, and shook her dress out so that it fell in soft folds from her knees to the floor, its wrinkles entirely gone now.

The door swung wide. The figure emergent in its marble frame was taller than a man should be, and its head was not human: great horns sprung from it. From its nostrils gouted puffs of white, herb-scented smoke. Then Minho, sorcerer-king of the Fortunate Isles, reached up with altogether human hands and lifted his heavy headpiece from his shoulders-and as he turned to set it in its accustomed place, he gasped. "I was sure you had come. I felt a tremor in the earth when your feet touched my sh.o.r.e. But then, when you did not arrive among the welcomers . . ."

Pierrette smiled. Minho's aquiline features, his coiled ringlets of dark hair, contrasted with his present expression of boyish petulance. "Should I apologize for upsetting your plans? I won't. You could have warned me, somehow. I was in no condition, after a long sail, for a ceremonial occasion."

Petulant became crestfallen. "If you knew how difficult it was even to send you that star-map, you wouldn't berate me. Events beyond my sh.o.r.es have become mysteries to me, and clouds of uncertainty obscured your pa.s.sage even along my own waterways. Why, even now . . ."

"We've only just met," Pierrette interrupted, "and we're bickering like my father and his wife." She imitated Gilles the fisherman: "Granna, my dear, I waited all morning in the olive grove!" And then: "Gilles, your memory's gone the way of your teeth. You were to meet me at my market stall." Minho laughed. "In truth," he mused, resting his bull's-head helm on the floor and slipping in the same motion onto the bench beside her, "we are just such an old couple, and have known each other far longer than those two." He put his hand on her knee.

She lifted it away. Hatiphas's revelation of Minho's vicarious lovemaking rankled. "You know me because you've hidden behind the eyes of others whom I've loved-but for me, you are a vision seen in the Otherworld, a child's dream. Give me the time I need to know you in this world." She had not been offended by his touch, but she was confused by her own reaction to it. "Where were you when I was trudging the waste and forests of Armorica?" she asked silently. She had labored, struggled, and risked everything at the hands of Vikings and theGallicenae, and had spent months on the rivers Rhoda.n.u.s and Liger to get here. His casual possessiveness rankled. Where, indeed, had he been, and what travails had he endured, for this moment to come about?

He smiled broadly. "You are indeed a fresh breeze in this, my ancient land. It's hard to remember that once I did not get anything I wanted merely by lifting an eyebrow. But now, come-there is fresh fruit laid out on the terrace above."

Following him, she noted his easy grace, his broad shoulders, and wasp-fine dancer's waist, and imagined him vaulting over the horns of a bull-but she did not imagine herself held in his arms, her hands on that waist. Why? What was so different, now, from when she had been here in the Otherworld?

Just as she saw details of architecture and design that she had not remarkedthen , there was complexity in a real relations.h.i.+p that eluded a dreamer. She now perceived Minho not as a misty ideal, but as a person who, like all persons, had flaws. He had admitted one. What others were there? Those other times, she feared reality had adjusted itself to the needs of her vision. Her own memories of Anselm's keep, a lesser replica of this palace, had perhaps supplied her mind with what detail she thought she had observed in fact. When a moment became more intense than she could bear-as when Minho had kissed her-she had fled in a flutter of feathers on magpie's wings. Now, having stepped ash.o.r.e on solid stone without dreamlike flexibility, she must deal with the equally indurate reality of Minho himself, with complexities unknown to her, as she would with any new-met stranger, because this was no dream, and she did not think she could flee in any form but her own, with all its limitations.

She was, she decided, not the callow child she had been when Minho courted her ephemeral Otherworld self with sweet words, meaningful gazes, and the promise of immortality. He would have to court her still.

"How lovely!" she exclaimed when she saw the silver, gold, and electrum platters laden with peeled, sliced fruit, many varieties entirely unknown to her. She chose a slice of apple-then hesitated, and murmured soft words.

Minho's brow wrinkled as if she had insulted him. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "You don't need such spells, here."

Caught-the spell she uttered was supposed to prevent a guest from incurring obligation to a host with each bite she took-Pierrette decided to brazen it out. She smiled mischievously. "Really? Then are all your promises as vapid? A girl might hope no detail would be too small to consider-if a man really wanted her . . ."

His smile took long, glacial moments to form. Then: "You warned me, once, didn't you? You said your presence here would upset every balance, would shake my palace . . ." She laughed. "Of course! And I am no liar. I will do that. Can you bear it?"

"For you . . . I could bear anything at all."

Could he? She kept smiling. What, she wondered, would he do if she required him to come with her into the world of mankind, forsaking this splendor? What if . . . she had to concentrate to maintain her smile . . . she asked him to let down the great spells that preserved his land in this eternal moment, and become . . . mortal?

He clapped his hands, and musicians emerged from an alcove with flutes, lyres, and tambours. They struck up an airy tune. Most of the entertainers were men, wearing only the Cretan kilt, but several were women . . . Pierrette blushed. All were bare-breasted. That, she reminded herself, was the Minoan style.

But though she knew that, and though the musicians were unembarra.s.sed by their exposure, Pierrette was not. One tambourist's mature b.r.e.a.s.t.s swayed heavily with the motion of her upraised arms; a lyrist's small, pointed adornments seemed almost to brush the strings of her instrument. A young flautist's chest, hardly swollen at all, inflated and deflated regularly with the trills and warbles she produced.

Pierrette pulled her eyes away, and focused on Minho. "I see no meat on your table, King of the Fortunate Isles. Have you no taste for it?"

"You're baiting me. Can meat be eaten without tasting the death throes of kine or fowl? Fresh, foamy milk I can furnish, or aged cheeses of every flavor. There are boiled eggs and pickled ones, if you crave animal food. Try one of those with a pinch of salt . . ."

She shook her head. "Yes, I was baiting you. I know you banished everything painful or ugly from your domain, long ago-and though I enjoy a well-roasted haunch, or a crispy pullet sprinkled with rosemary, I can forgo such treats, if I must."

What was the expression that pa.s.sed so quickly across his face? For a moment, had the sorcerer-king regretted the inclusiveness of his spells? Had he, just for the blink of an eye, remembered some favorite dish he had not tasted these two thousand years?

Quickly, she changed the subject. "In the keep of my master Anselm-once your student Ansulim-the sun always stands at high noon. Is it so here also?"

Minho laughed indulgently. "My erstwhile student's skills are rudimentary. How would olives know when to bloom, in eternal daylight? Wouldn't the pansies exhaust themselves? And the heliotropes? Would their stalks stiffen, if their flowers always faced zenith? No. Here, the sun traverses the sky, but like your master's little enclave, no time pa.s.ses in the world outside, unless I wish it to, and no one within ever ages a single day."

"Will you show me the spells that make it so?" she asked. "I've spent ages in Anselm's library, learning the nature of magics, and how spells mutate as the premises that underlay them are forgotten or reinterpreted. What a joy it would be to study yours-masterful spells uncorrupted by the flow of years, the rise and fall of peoples and their changing tongues . . ."

"With all my lovely land to explore, you want to bury your face in dusty archives instead? You'll have all eternity for that. Tomorrow I'll begin to show you . . ." She allowed him to describe the wonders of his island kingdom, but her mind strayed elsewhere. Did these apples really taste flat, those pears insipid, and that pomegranate sweet, but without savor? Indeed the sun moved across the sky, though not as quickly as she might have wished. At last, when its ruddy glow painted half the heavens with rich mauves and ochers, with incarnadine flames edged with lemony yellow, she rubbed her eyes. "I haven't slept the night through for ever so long," she said apologetically. "On a boat, one must always remain alert for a changing wind or a coming storm."

"Of course," said the king. "Tonight, you shall sleep on a bed of cloud, with a coverlet as light as a child's dream." Again he clapped. A lovely girl of indeterminate age responded to his summons. Despite her Cretan dress, which left her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bare, Pierrette could not decide if she were child or woman.

"I'll settle for a straw pallet that doesn't rock with the waves," Pierrette said to Minho, resisting the girl's delicate tugging, "and plain wool or feathers will suffice to cover me."

"Whatever you want," he replied offhandedly. "Neheresta will see that you have just the thing. Until morning, then-though I shan't sleep a wink, just knowing you are at last here, and so near my own bed . . ."

Pierrette yielded to the girl, Neheresta, and allowed herself to be led through several fine rooms of marble and polychrome stone, painted between their pilasters with brilliant scenes of fishermen at sea, of oliviers in their groves. Neheresta pushed open a door, then waited while Pierrette entered. She smiled when Pierrette exclaimed how amazing it was-to the last detail a replica of her chamber in Anselm's keep, even to the heavy curtains at the window, that at home would have kept the perpetual noonday sun at bay.

When Pierrette sniffed and crinkled her mattress, it gave off the sweet aroma of fresh, soft straw, and the coverlet was the same indigo wool as her own. A tray displayed vials of oils and unguents identical to the ones that occupied the little table against the wall of her own room. She found a bronze chamberpot in an alcove. It was s.h.i.+ny and unblemished, as if it had never been used. Oddly, though hours had pa.s.sed since she had used the wooden bucket aboard her boat, she felt no need at this time. Perhaps Neheresta's presence inhibited her.

When Pierrette loosened her cincture, Neheresta essayed to help her undress. "I don't need help,"

Pierrette said, not ungently. "You may go now." Neheresta's eyes abruptly filled with tears. "Must I?" she asked, her inflections only superficially childlike. "I wish to stay here, with you."

"There is only the one bed. Won't you need to sleep too?"

"I won't thrash about, or make noises in my sleep," she said. "Perhaps you'll allow me to rub the aches from your back and shoulders."

Pierrette had often shared a bed with far larger and more obtrusive companions, and this bed was-as she noticed now-considerably wider than her own narrow one. But when she was disrobed, Neheresta produced no s.h.i.+ft or other sleeping garment for her. She just turned back the coverlet, and waited expectantly for Pierrette to get in. Then she slipped out of her own kilt and sandals, and slid gracefully beneath the soft, light wool.

Pierrette was not accustomed to being taken care of by another person, let alone a naked one, but when Neheresta's small hands urged her to roll over onto her stomach, and began ma.s.saging her shoulders and upper arms, it was not difficult to succ.u.mb to the delight. Neheresta's skilful fingers found aches Pierrette had not known existed, and kneaded them away. Once Pierrette had relaxed under her ministrations, the girl smoothly swung one leg up over the small of her back, straddling her. The unfamiliar sensation of that small, smooth body intimately pressing against her created whole constellations of new tensions. Those in turn Neheresta labored to dispel. Soon enough, such was her fatigue, Pierrette began to doze.

She awakened abruptly to a different kind of sensation: a warm, rich, heady glow that radiated from the depths of her body. She gasped, and reached to pull away Neheresta's hand-but the arm she grasped was as rigid as iron, and would not be moved, and the fingers curved at her neck were no less unyielding.

"Be at ease," her companion's voice whispered, almost in her ear. "Thisache is greater than any other.

Soon, it will be gone, and you will sleep as never before." Neheresta continued her attentions, and despite herself, Pierrette succ.u.mbed as inevitably as the rocks of the sh.o.r.e succ.u.mb to the waves and the rising tide.

Later, pus.h.i.+ng aside the veils of sleep, Pierrette rose on one elbow and looked at her bedmate, sprawled innocently beside her. As if her gaze was as solid as a touch, Neheresta opened her eyes. "Is this what children learn, here, in the Fortunate Isles?" asked Pierrette.

"Does a child look out from your eyes, that spent a century poring over your master's ma.n.u.scripts, while your friends and your father aged not a day on the outside? I was a woman grown sixteen centuries before the apprentice Ansulim departed here on his ill-fated mission. In all those years, and in the centuries since, you are the first new person I have loved. Would you begrudge me that, because of my child's face and my girl's body?

Looking into her lovely eyes, as unworldly in their violet depths as those of a woodland nymph, Pierrette saw that her words were true. She saw also the vast desolation of all those years, in which the child Neheresta had never grown to the true adulthood she craved. But Neheresta saw more than pity in Pierrette's own eyes, and she smiled . . .

When morning sunlight sprawled across her coverlet, Pierrette awakened alone. She wondered how and where she would break her fast.

Neheresta had left no reminders of her presence, not even a scent on the bedding, and Pierrette was abruptly unsure that what she remembered had actually occurred, or if she had dreamed it-but when she saw Neheresta again, she decided she would know merely by looking in her eyes.

Neheresta had folded her blue dress and white wrap, and had laid out fresh clothing for her. Pierrette picked up the stiff, crisp black skirt, and held it against herself. When she matched its constricting waist against her own slenderness . . . she giggled uneasily, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. It was a Minoan dress, flared above the tightly tailored cincture, and then-then nothing. Even thinking about wearing that, Pierrette blushed. Her blush, had anyone been watching her, spread from her face downward, all the way to her feet.

No, she could not wear that. She laid it back down, but her eyes kept straying back to it. Wearing her own clothing, she would look conspicuous and foreign. Wearing the other, wouldn't she look . . . ordinary? Again, she giggled. She would certainly not feel ordinary. It would not hurt to try it on, she decided.

The garment could have been made to her exact measure. It fit smoothly around her waist and hugged her ribs. She felt less clothed than before she had put it on, now acutely aware of the soft air brus.h.i.+ng hernipples when she moved. Perhaps if she wore her sagus over it . . . But no, that would look incongruous.

Besides, she observed, an intricate gold necklace went with it, a confection with coral beads on long strings that dangled. It was designed to be worn against skin, not over a bulky garment.

Pierrette had almost decided to dare wearing the dress, just because the jewelry was so lovely. Would she ever again have the chance to wear anything so rich? Then she considered her pouch. She could not wear that around her neck with the gold and coral. Now that she had come so far in her determination, she did not want to be denied the chance. She tried slipping it beneath the tight cloth over her ribs, to no avail. It was a painful and conspicuous lump. There was no way to fasten it beneath the flared skirt, unless she could obtain pins. She looked around the room. Could she hide the pouch somewhere?

As she surveyed the room, she felt an odd sensation, a p.r.i.c.kling that centered in the palm of her hand: the pouch's mouth was agape, and the serpent's egg lay exposed against her skin. "What is this place?"

demanded a cold, harsh voice. Cunotar. His brief exposure had already allowed him to sense how different were the Fortunate Isles from any other milieu. What else had he sensed?

"You don't really want to know," replied Pierrette. "The sorcerer who rules this land owns skills that surpa.s.s your most grandiose dreams, and he tolerates no others. Go back to sleep, before he senses your trespa.s.s."

"Sleep? How can I sleep, when I am never truly awake, in this durance. This is a strange place, an unnatural place. I feel no strife; no one's blood surges or sings. It is a land of sheep, not men.

"Your perspectives are distorted. King Minho long ago banned war and strife-and warriors as well, whether or not they are masters of evil magic, like yours."

"Evil? What is that? Try to define it, and it slips away like an eel through the bullrushes of the Camargue."

"I know it when I smell it, and the air is ripe with that stink, right now."

"I am not its source. Release me, and together we can seek it out, and expunge it."

"Ha! No chance of that. Besides-have you forgotten?-your death-wound still awaits you."

"Some things are worse than death. The body may die, and thefantome that drives it, but the soul? The soul . . ."

"Have you become a Pythagorean philosopher, to speak of souls? Yours must remain pent within my egg. You must accept that."

"There will come a time when you'll regret your obstinance. Release me. We shall then see how powerful your sorcerer-king really is."

"I'm not that mad. I'll keep you where you are." She pushed the crystal egg back into the darkness and obscurity of the leather pouch and tightened the drawstring. Her hands trembled. The pouch felt greasy and foul, perhaps from her own sweat. Where could she put it?

Where had she hidden things at home? There was the replica of her bed, again looking no wider than the original. She lifted the straw tick and thrust her arm underneath, then withdrew it, empty now. No one would find the small sack there. Cunotar's words troubled her more than she had let on. Of course, his idea of Evil and hers were not the same, but he had seemed so confident. What, exactly, had he been able to sense about this place, from his brief exposure? His talk of souls also troubled her. The Gauls of Cunotar's day-and centuries thereafter-had a.s.sumed that man's nature was tripart.i.te: body, fantomeor ghost, and soul. Body was mortal, andfantome motivated it.Fantome was love and l.u.s.t, fear and pleasure, rage and joy, and it might survive Body a while after death, to haunt a murderer or follow yearningly after a beloved child now orphaned, but as Body decomposed, and rejoined the elements,fantome also dissipated. Soul alone remained, pa.s.sed on, and sought new embodiment in a babe not yet born.

Pierrette did not know how correct that view of things might be. Perhaps the Christians had the right of it, that good souls ascended to a sweet place without strife or pain. The Christian heaven, by its definition, seemed much like this place, this kingdom-though there seemed to be no G.o.ds at all here, let alone an omniscient and omnipotent One.

She reflected that the common thread among all the religions she was familiar with was the existence of soul, of some essence that survived death. Thus, according to an essential principle, Soul was an irreducible phenomenon and an axiom. By confining Cunotar so he did not die, had she denied his soul's natural progression? She sighed, and pushed her concerns aside. Cunotar was far too dangerous to be released, even here. Perhaps especially here. She had no idea what terrible things he might do, in the scant minutes before his lifeblood drained away, and his soul fled.

She lifted the heavy gold-and-coral ornament over her head, and let its heavy, intricately strung links settle on her shoulders. The strands poured liquidly over the tops of her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, parting like streams of water between and around them on either side. Abruptly, she felt more clothed than before.

Now, where would she find something to eat? She pushed open the door, and began to retrace her steps of the night before.

Hatiphas the vizier withdrew his eye from the peephole. What had that been about? Who had the interfering vixen been talking to? He had seen no one, only the orange glow that had, for a moment, lit her face. Where had it emanated from?

He scurried to the door of the hidden room he occupied, and peered into the hallway just as the girl turned the far corner. He slipped out, went directly to the bed, and groped under it. Then he stood and, loosening the drawstring of the worn leather pouch, reached inside with two fingers and withdrew a bauble of clear gla.s.s veined with red and blue like the breast of a fair-skinned maiden.

No vermilion light issued from Cunotar's prison, and no harsh, ugly voice, but Hatiphas was sure this object was what he sought. Enclosing it in his palm, he cast about the room. There. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a tiny round vial of scented oil from the tablette, and pushed it into the pouch, filling it with similar bulk and weight as before. Then he replaced it beneath the tick.

Cunotar remained silent. Had he a heart, it would have pounded in his chest-had he a chest. As it was, his eagerness had no outlet or expression at all. He did not dare speak, and risk frightening the one who clutched his gla.s.sy prison so hard he feared-and hoped-it might break. He must listen, and find out more about his new captor-find out just what words would convince him to free the druid at long last . . . and at just what crucial moment.

The terrace was much as it had been, the night before . . . She looked up as Hatiphas arrived. "Ah, there you are," he exclaimed. His tone was syrupy, and he seemed out of breath. "Hatiphas!" she exclaimed. "Is your master about?"

"Not any more. He waited for you, reading dispatches from his village chiefs and headmen, but when you did not awaken, he went down to the archives, where he must daily maintain the magics that preserve us." His tone was dismissive. The king had vital tasks, and had wasted enough time on her.

Who was she even to inquire? Hatiphas hated her. That was clear. Did he fear she would usurp his place in Minho's favor? But she had no political goals, no taste for palace intrigue. What she wanted most, right then, was breakfast.

The tables were well supplied with baskets of flat bread, fresh and stewed fruit, and a large pot of mixed-grain porridge that steamed on a brazier. Pierrette ate, at first enthusiastically, then desultorily, as resentment built up inside. Had she come all this way simply to be ignored? The food had little taste.

"When will I see him?" She straightened up from the table, and the movement made her aware of three things: the heavy gold that she wore, the tightness of the garment that constricted her ribs, and the cool air on her bare bosom.

"I couldn't say. I am a vizier, not a king." Then Hatiphas noticed her garb. "At least you look less the barbarian today," he said with a disdainful sniff. "When my master returns, I am sure he will approve."

Pierrette then realized that Minho's opinion had not factored into her choice of dress at all. It had been the challenge, no more. "I could not care less for his approval." Had Hatiphas himself not been so coldly a.n.a.lytical, she might not have spoken. Obviously, he did not find her b.r.e.a.s.t.s attractive. She did not know he had been a eunuch since boyhood, but even so, he might have been nicer about it.

Pierrette leaned forward and took a bite from a plump peach. "Where is Neheresta?" she asked Hatiphas, with her mouth full. His expression bordered on disgust as he watched her chew.

"Who?"

"The girl who . . . who waited upon me, last night."

"I didn't notice who it was. There are a hundred servants here. Do you think I know all their names?" Of course he did know, but he would not tell the interloper anything. Neheresta had not obeyed him precisely enough. She had seduced the girl (he knew, because he had watched everything) but she had entirely forgotten the drugged wine! The bullish male slave who had waited with him, rank with the scent of his own arousal, had to be sent back to his chamber unsated. Hatiphas had already had . . . words . . . with Neheresta. She now felt a proper regret for her oversight.

Pierrette strode angrily to the bal.u.s.trade, and stared outward. The view, she had to admit, was magnificent. Facing west, the successively lower roofs of the palace complex stepped down the steep slopes to the inland waterway-one of the circular ca.n.a.ls the Egyptians had described, that Plato had misunderstood, thinking them works of man, not of natural cataclysm. Beyond was a long, curved island covered in small fields in every color from raw soil to mature grain. A jagged ridge backed it, and beyond were other islands, even more steeply ridged to seaward, and a third rank whose tall peaks reached almost to the scattered clouds.

Some islands were linked by what appeared to be bridges or causeways. In a gap between two of the furthest ones, she glimpsed the open sea, dotted with white-spumed rocks and shoals. Beyond those lay nothing (according to the scholars of her age), or else lands perhaps more vast than all the known world(if the Irish and Viking tales were true).

Across one of the outermost islands sprawled a riot of colors, like gambler's dice painted every possible hue, strewn not quite randomly. Trickles of smoke rose here and there. It was a city. It was a grand city, with innumerable market squares and a thousand streets; its bright-painted tendrils stretched like cl.u.s.ters of beads up the mountain slopes and out of sight in the valleys. But it was a strange city, because no monumental works towered over the mult.i.tudes of flat-roofed houses. No pillared temples gleamed, no golden domes, no red-tiled basilicas.

Though it was too far away for details to stand out, Pierrette imagined a street scene identical to every other street, where what variety and pleasure met the eye were small and subtle: the curve of a garden wall, a gate festooned with bronze birds or dolphins, a cl.u.s.ter of tall flowers in a niche or in the angle of two walls, where no one trod.

For a moment, the lack of impressive vistas furnished for the denizens of those houses, those streets, troubled her. Then, pulling her eyes away from distant subjects, she looked around herself at the single magnificent focus of all eyes in this island kingdom: she walked from one side of the terrace to the other, and took in everything, from the outermost shoal to the very bal.u.s.trade she leaned her elbows on.

Everyone in the almost-circular archipelago could also see . . . this palace.