The Silver Metal Lover(67)

“Yes,” said Clovis.

“Yes,” I said.

“My rook tortures your rook to death,” said Jason across the room.

“The power,” said Egyptia, prowling like a leopardess between the candles, “may consume me. I don’t mind, I truly don’t mind if I die, if it kills me. So long as I can die with this task accomplished—Oh, Jane. You understand, don’t you?”

“Yes, Egyptia.”

Clovis yawned, hiding in his longer hair as he did so, and I thought of Silver. Not that I’d stopped thinking of Silver. When I was twelve, I had a psychosomatic toothache for months in one of my back teeth. I took painkillers every three hours, which dulled the pain but didn’t get rid of it. The nag of it went on and on, and so I got used to it, and only thought about it at the end of each three-hour unit when it would flare up to new violence. This was how I felt now. My awareness of danger and distress, my concern for Silver’s concern at my absence, the hopeless trap I was in and apparently couldn’t move out of—these were the dull pain. The wine, the familiarity, Egyptia’s fear were the painkillers. The pain was slight and bearable and I could almost put it from my mind. But then the light moved on Clovis’s hair—red—and the pain flared. I almost rushed, each time, from the apartment and away into the night. Clovis could surely contain the twins. But they would know they’d been right. And Clovis’s unspecified help would be lost to me.

He wore an embroidered shirt, too, under the silk and velour jacket. He was so rational about Silver, yet the copied influence was there. Could I trust Clovis? Well, I had trusted Clovis, if not with my address, with everything else.

“My queen buys her freedom by allowing your knight to cut off her left hand,” said Medea.

“I do hope,” said Clovis, “they’re not actually inflicting these injuries on your chess set, Egyptia.”

“The world’s a chess set,” said Egyptia. (A quote?) “Oh, bow your neck to the bloody dust. Kneel to the yoke, humiliated land. This is not the world. The gods are dead. Kneel, for you must. Relinquish pride, and kneel.”

“My knight castrates your knight.”

“He can’t. My knight’s in full armor.”

“Well. There’s a weak link.”

“The floor over there must be strewn with severed members,” said Clovis.

I couldn’t even call Silver. There was the phone in the foyer, which the caretaker might answer, but I couldn’t remember the number. And even if I did, to call would be, again, to reveal there was somebody at home I wanted to reach. Perhaps, if I excused myself to use the bathroom, I could call on one of Egyptia’s extensions upstairs, experimenting till I got the number right—no. A blue call-light came on in every other phone console when one was operational. Jason and Medea would see it. They’d be watching for it.

Chloe couldn’t be here tonight because Chloe had a virus. Why hadn’t I had a virus?

“Women of the palace,” said Egyptia, “my brother was a god to you. Yet to these beasts he is carrion. He is left for the kites to chew upon—”

“Oh my,” said Clovis, “now the play’s getting to sound like the chess game. Do you think my weak stomach is up to this drama?”

“Don’t mock me, Clovis,” shouted Egyptia in despair.

“It’s half past ten P.M.,” said Clovis. “I’m going to call the taxi.”

“Oh God,” cried Egyptia, “is it time to leave?”

“Getting that way. Jane, pour her another drink.”

I wasn’t sure about that, although she seemed incapable of drunkenness in her frenzy. She had dressed in her costume and put on her makeup here because of her emotional rift with the rest of the company. “They give me nothing!” she said. To Egyptia, of course, the rest of the cast were the support mechanism to carry her, and sadly they hadn’t realized it. Or else they had.

Now I fetched her grey-blue fur cape coat, on the inside of which some of the body makeup was sure to rub off. She’d bought that coat the day I took Silver with me to Chez Stratos.

“Oh, Jane. Oh—Jane—”

“I’m here.” I sounded mature and patient. Concerned, kind. Just a touch compassionately amused. I sounded like Silver.

“Ja-aaaa-nnne—”

She stared at me. The guillotine awaited her, and soon the tumbrel would be at the door.

“You are going to be so good,” I said to her. “So good, the Asteroid will probably fall on the Theatra Concordacis.”

Clovis came in again in a little while.

“Months to get through,” he said. “It’ll be by the pier in half an hour.” He looked at me, and added, sotto voce, “The cab rank was the second call.”

“Clovis—” I said, realizing he’d put his unspecified plan into action.

“Later.” He glanced at Jason and Medea, who were thoughtfully watching us. “Better kill everyone else on the board off quickly, pets, we leave in ten minutes.”

“Oh. The awful play,” said Jason.

“You don’t have to come,” Clovis said.

“We do,” said Medea. “We want to be with Jane. We haven’t seen her for so long.”

“Christ, what a strange night,” Clovis said to it, as we stepped out into the enclosure before the lift shaft.