MOTHER AEGYPT

Kage wrote this in a mood of high hilarity, just as surprised as any reader at what her impecunious anti-hero got up to in the course of the plot. On one level, it's a Company story of the evil Labienus and his Plague Cabal, and the Stupid Little People hybrids they use to plot their destruction of humanity. On another level, it's about the endless torment and grief of an immortal who longs to die —and cannot, ever. And on yet a third level, this is Zero Mostel in a Marx Brothers movie. Kage laughed out loud the whole time she was writing it. I hope you do to.

—K. B.

Speak sweetly to the Devil, until you’re both over the bridge.

Transylvanian proverb

In a country of mad forests and night, there was an open plain, and pitiless sunlight.

A man dressed as a clown was running for his life across the plain.

A baked-clay track, the only road for miles, reflected the sun’s heat and made the man sweat as he ran along it. He was staggering a little as he ran, for he had been running a long while and he was fat, and the silken drawers of his clown costume had begun to work their way down his thighs. It was a particularly humiliating costume, too. It made him look like a gigantic dairymaid.

His tears, of terror and despair, ran down with his sweat and streaked the clown-white, graying his big moustache; the lurid crimson circles on his cheeks had already run, trickling pink down his neck. His straw-stuffed bosom had begun to slip, too, working its way down his dirndl, and now it dropped from beneath his petticoat like a stillbirth. Gasping, he halted to snatch it up, and peered fearfully over his shoulder.

No sign of his pursuers yet; but they were mounted and must catch up with him soon, on this long straight empty plain. There was no cover anywhere, not so much as a single tree. He ran on, stuffing his bosom back in place, whimpering. Gnats whined in his ears.

Then, coming over a gentle swell of earth, he beheld a crossroads. There was his salvation!

A team of slow horses drew two wagons, like the vardas of the Romanies but higher, and narrower, nor were they gaily painted in any way. They were black as the robe of scythe-bearing Death. Only: low, small and ominous, in white paint in curious antiquated letters, they bore the words: MOTHER AEGYPT.

The man wouldn’t have cared if Death himself held the reins. He aimed himself at the hindmost wagon, drawing on all his remaining strength, and pelted on until he caught up with it.

For a moment he ran desperate alongside, until he was able to gain the front and haul himself up, over the hitch that joined the two wagons. A moment he poised there, ponderous, watching drops of his sweat fall on hot iron. Then he crawled up to the door of the rear wagon, unbolted it, and fell inside.

The driver of the wagons, hooded under that glaring sky, was absorbed in a waking dream of a place lost for millennia. Therefore she did not notice that she had taken on a passenger.

The man lay flat on his back, puffing and blowing, too exhausted to take much note of his surroundings. At last he levered himself up on his elbows, looking about. After a moment he scooted into a sitting position and pulled off the ridiculous lace milkmaid’s cap, with its braids of yellow yarn. Wiping his face with it, he muttered a curse.

In a perfect world, he reflected, there would have been a chest of clothing in this wagon, through which he might rummage to steal some less conspicuous apparel. There would, at least, have been a pantry with food and drink. But the fates had denied him yet again; this was nobody’s cozy living quarters on wheels. This wagon was clearly used for storage, holding nothing but boxes and bulky objects wrapped in sacking.

Disgusted, the man dug in the front of his dress and pulled out his bosom. He shook it by his ear and smiled as he heard the clink-clink. The gold rings were still there, some of the loot with which he’d been able to escape.

The heat within the closed black box was stifling, so he took off all his costume but for the silken drawers. Methodically he began to search through the wagon, opening the boxes and unwrapping the parcels. He began to chuckle.

He knew stolen goods when he saw them.

Some of it had clearly been lifted from Turkish merchants and bureaucrats: rolled and tied carpets, tea services edged in gold. But there were painted ikons here too, and family portraits of Russians on wooden panels. Austrian crystal bowls. Chased silver ewers and platters. Painted urns. A whole umbrella-stand of cavalry sabers, some with ornate decoration, some plain and ancient, evident heirlooms. Nothing was small enough to slip into a pocket, even if he had had one, and nothing convenient to convert into ready cash.

Muttering, he lifted out a saber and drew it from its scabbard.

As he did so, he heard the sound of galloping hooves. The saber dropped from his suddenly-nerveless fingers. He flattened himself against the door, pointlessly, as the hoofbeats drew near and passed. He heard the shouted questions. He almost—not quite—heard the reply, in a woman’s voice pitched very low. His eyes rolled, searching the room for any possible hiding place. None at all; unless he were to wrap his bulk in a carpet, like Cleopatra.

Yet the riders passed on, galloped ahead and away. When he realized that he was, for the moment, safe, he collapsed into a sitting position on the floor.

After a moment of listening to his heart thunder, he picked up the saber again.

It was night before the wagon halted at last, rumbling over rough ground as it left the road. He was still crouched within, cold and cramped now. Evidently the horses were unhitched, and led down to drink at a stream; he could hear splashing. Dry sticks were broken, a fire was lit. He thought of warmth and food. A light footfall approached, followed by the sound of someone climbing up on the hitch. The man tensed.

The door opened.

There, silhouetted against the light of the moon, was a small, pale, spindly looking person with a large head. A wizened child? It peered into the wagon, uncertainty in its big rabbitlike eyes. There was a roll of something—another carpet?—under its arm.

“Hah!” The man lunged, caught the other by the wrist, hauling him in across the wagon’s threshold. Promptly the other began to scream, and he screamed like a rabbit too, shrill and unhuman. He did not struggle, though; in fact, the man had the unsettling feeling he’d grabbed a ventriloquist’s dummy, limp and insubstantial within its mildewed clothes.

“Shut your mouth!” the man said, in the most terrifying voice he could muster. “I want two things!”

But his captive appeared to have fainted. As the man registered this, he also became aware that a woman was standing outside the wagon, seeming to have materialized from nowhere, and she was staring at him.

“Don’t kill him,” she said, in a flat quiet voice.

“Uh—I want two things!” the man repeated, holding the saber to his captive’s throat. “Or I’ll kill him, you understand?”

“Yes,” said the woman. “What do you want?”

The man blinked, licked his lips. Something about the woman’s matter-of-fact voice disturbed him.

“I want food, and a suit of clothes!”

The woman’s gaze did not shift. She was tall, and dark as a shadow, even standing in the full light of the moon, and simply dressed in black.

“I’ll give you food,” she replied. “But I haven’t any clothing that would fit you.”

“Then you’d better get me some, hadn’t you?” said the man. He made jabbing motions with the saber. “Or I’ll kill your little...your little...” He tried to imagine what possible relationship the creature under his arm might have with the woman. Husband? Child?

“Slave,” said the woman. “I can buy you a suit in the next village, but you’ll have to wait until morning. Don’t kill my slave, or I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” said the man, waving the saber again. “Do you think I believe in Gypsy spells? You’re not dealing with a village simpleton, here!”

“No,” said the woman, in the same quiet voice. “But I know the police are hunting you. Cut Emil’s throat, and you’ll see how quickly I can make them appear.”

The man realized it might be a good idea to change strategies. He put his head on one side, grinning at her in what he hoped was a charmingly roguish way.

“Now, now, no need for things to get nasty,” he said. “After all, we’re in the same trade, aren’t we? I had a good look around in here.” He indicated the interior of the wagon with a jerk of his head. “Nice racket you’ve got, fencing the big stuff. You don’t want me to tell the police about it, while I’m being led away, do you?”

“No,” said the woman.

“No, of course not. Let’s be friends!” The man edged forward, dragging his captive—Emil, had she called him?—along. “Barbu Golescu, at your service. And you’d be Madame...?”

“Amaunet,” she said.

“Charmed,” said Golescu. “Sure your husband hasn’t a spare pair of trousers he can loan me, Madame Amaunet?”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

“Astonishing!” Golescu said, smirking. “Well then, dear madame, what about loaning a blanket until we can find me a suit? I’d hate to offend your modesty.”

“I’ll get one,” she said, and walked away.

He stared after her, momentarily disconcerted, and then put down the saber and flexed his hand. Emil remained motionless under his other arm.

“Don’t you get any ideas, little turnip-head,” muttered Golescu. “Hey! Don’t get any ideas, I said. Are you deaf, eh?”

He hauled Emil up by his collar and looked at him critically. Emil whimpered and turned his face away. It was a weak face. His head had been shaved at one time, and the hair grown back in scanty and irregular clumps.

“Maybe you are deaf,” conceded Golescu. “But your black mummy loves you, eh? What a useful thing for me.” He groped about and found a piece of cord that had bound one of the carpets. “Hold still or I’ll wring your wry neck, understand?”

“You smell bad,” said Emil, in a tiny voice.

“Bah! You stink like carpet-mold, yourself,” said Golescu, looping the cord about Emil’s wrist. He looped the other end about his own wrist and pulled it snug. “There, so you can’t go running away. We’re going to be friends, you see? You’ll get used to me soon enough.”

He ventured out on the hitch and dropped to the ground. His legs were unsteady and he attempted to lean on Emil’s shoulder, but the little man collapsed under him like so much cardboard.

“She doesn’t use you for cutting wood or drawing water much, does she?” muttered Golescu, hitching at his drawers. Amaunet came around the side of the wagon and handed him the blanket, without comment.

“He’s a flimsy one, your slave,” Golescu told her. “What you need is a man to help with the business, if you’ll pardon my saying so.” He wrapped his vast nakedness in the blanket and grinned at her.

Amaunet turned and walked away from him.

“There’s bread and tomatoes by the fire,” she said, over her shoulder.

Clutching the blanket around him with one hand and dragging Emil with the other, Golescu made his way to the fire. Amaunet was sitting perfectly still, watching the flames dance, and only glanced up at them as they approached.

“That’s better,” said Golescu, settling himself down and reaching for the loaf of bread. He tore off a hunk, sopped it in the saucepan of stewed tomatoes and ate ravenously. Emil, still bound to his wrist and pulled back and forth when he moved, had gone as limp and unresponsive as a straw figure.

“So,” said Golescu, through a full mouth, “no husband. Are you sure you don’t need help? I’m not talking of bedroom matters, madame, you understand; perish the thought. I’m talking about security. So many thieves and murderers in this wicked old world! Now, by an astounding coincidence, I need a way to get as far as I can from the Danube, and you are headed north. Let’s be partners for the time being, what do you say?”

Amaunet’s lip curled. Contempt? But it might have been a smile.

“Since you mention it,” she said, “Emil’s no good at speaking to people. I don’t care to deal with them, much, myself. The police said you were with a circus; do you know how to get exhibition permits from petty clerks?”

“Of course I do,” said Golescu, with a dismissive gesture. “The term you’re looking for is advance man. Rely on me.”

“Good.” Amaunet turned her gaze back to the fire. “I can’t pay you, but I’ll lie for you. You’ll have room and board.”

“And a suit of clothes,” he reminded her.

She shrugged, in an affirmative kind of way.

“It’s settled, then,” said Golescu, leaning back. “What business are we in? Officially, I mean?”

“I tell people their futures,” said Amaunet.

“Ah! But you don’t look like a Gypsy.”

“I’m not a Gypsy,” she said, perhaps a little wearily. “I’m from Egypt.”

“Just so,” he said, laying his finger beside his nose. “The mystic wisdom of the mysterious east, eh? Handed down to you from the ancient pharaohs. Very good, madame, that’s the way to impress the peasants.”

“You know a lot of big words, for a clown,” said Amaunet. Golescu winced, and discreetly lifted a corner of the blanket to scrub at his greasepaint.

“I am obviously not a real clown, madame,” he protested. “I am a victim of circumstances, calumny and political intrigue. If I could tell you my full story, you’d weep for me.”

She grinned, a brief white grin so startling in her dark, still face that he nearly screamed.

“I doubt it,” was all she said.

He kept Emil bound to him that night, reasoning that he couldn’t completely trust Amaunet until he had a pair of trousers. Golescu made himself comfortable on the hard floor of the wagon by using the little man as a sort of bolster, and though Emil made plaintive noises now and then and did in fact smell quite a lot like moldy carpet, it was nothing that couldn’t be ignored by a determined sleeper.

Only once Golescu woke in the darkness. Someone was singing, out there in the night; a woman was singing, full-throated under the white moon. There was such throbbing melancholy in her voice Golescu felt tears stinging his eyes; yet there was an indefinable menace too, in the harsh and unknown syllables of her lament. It might have been a lioness out there, on the prowl. He thought briefly of opening the door to see if she wanted comforting, but the idea sent inexplicable chills down his spine. He snorted, rolled on his back and slept again.

Golescu woke when the wagons lurched back into motion, and stared around through the dissipating fog of vaguely lewd dreams. Sunlight was streaming in through cracks in the plank walls. Though his dreams receded, certain sensations remained. He sat upright with a grunt of outrage and looked over his own shoulder at Emil, who had plastered himself against Golescu’s backside.

“Hey!” Golescu hauled Emil out. “What are you, a filthy sodomite? You think because I wear silk, I’m some kind of Turkish fancy boy?”

Emil whimpered and hid his face in his hands. “The sun,” he whispered.

“Yes, it’s daylight! You’re scared of the sun?” demanded Golescu.

“Sun hurts,” said Emil.

“Don’t be stupid, it can’t hurt you,” said Golescu. “See?” He thrust Emil’s hand into the nearest wavering stripe of sunlight. Emil made rabbity noises again, turning his face away and squeezing his eyes shut, as though he expected his hand to blister and smoke.

“See?” Golescu repeated. But Emil refused to open his eyes, and Golescu released his hand in disgust. Taking up the saber, he sliced through the cord that bound them. Emil promptly curled into himself like an angleworm and lay still, covering his eyes once more. Golescu considered him, setting aside the saber and rubbing his own wrist.

“If you’re a vampyr, you’re the most pathetic one I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “What’s she keep you around for, eh?”

Emil did not reply.

Some time after midday, the wagons stopped; about an hour later, the door opened and Amaunet stood there with a bundle of clothing.

“Here,” she said, thrusting it at Golescu. Her dead stare fell on Emil, who cringed and shrank even further into himself from the flood of daylight. She removed one of her shawls and threw it over him, covering him completely. Golescu, pulling on the trousers, watched her in amusement.

“I was just wondering, madame, whether I should maybe get myself a crucifix to wear around our little friend, here,” he said. “Or some bulbs of garlic?”

“He likes the dark,” she replied. “You owe me three piastres for that suit.”

“It’s not what I’m accustomed to, you know,” he said, shrugging into the shirt. “Coarse-woven stuff. Where are we?”

“Twenty kilometers farther north than we were yesterday,” she replied.

Not nearly far enough, Golescu considered uneasily. Amaunet had turned her back on him while he dressed. He found himself studying her body as he buttoned himself up. With her grim face turned away, it was possible to concede that the rest of her was lovely. Only in the very young could bodily mass defy gravity in such a pert and springy-looking manner. How old was she?

When he had finished pulling on his boots, he stood straight, twirled the ends of his moustaches and sucked in his gut. He drew one of the gold rings from his former bosom.

“Here. Accept this, my flower of the Nile,” said Golescu, taking Amaunet’s hand and slipping the ring on her finger. She pulled her hand away at once and turned so swiftly the air seemed to blur. For a moment there was fire in her eyes, and if it was more loathing than passion, still, he had gotten a reaction out of her.

“Don’t touch me,” she said.

“I’m merely paying my debt!” Golescu protested, pleased with himself. “Charming lady, that ring’s worth far more than what you paid for the suit.”

“It stinks,” she said in disgust, snatching the ring off.

“Gold can afford to smell bad,” he replied. His spirits were rising like a balloon.

Uninvited, he climbed up on the driver’s seat beside her and the wagons rolled on, following a narrow river road through its winding gorge.

“You won’t regret your kindness to me, dear madame,” said Golescu. “A pillar of strength and a fountain of good advice, that’s me. I won’t ask about your other business in the wagon back there, as Discretion is my middle name, but tell me: what’s your fortunetelling racket like? Do you earn as much as you could wish?”

“I cover my operating expenses,” Amaunet replied.

“Pft!” Golescu waved his hand. “Then you’re clearly not making what you deserve to make. What do you do? Cards? Crystal ball? Love potions?”

“I read palms,” said Amaunet.

“Not much overhead in palm reading,” said Golescu, “But on the other hand, not much to impress the customers either. Unless you paint them scintillating word-pictures of scarlet and crimson tomorrows, or warn them of terrifying calamity only you can help them avoid, yes? And, you’ll excuse me, but you seem to be a woman of few words. Where’s your glitter? Where’s your flash?”

“I tell them the truth,” said Amaunet.

“Ha! The old, ‘I-am-under-an-ancient-curse-and-can-only-speakthe-truth’ line? No, no, dear madame, that’s been done to death. I propose a whole new approach!” said Golescu.

Amaunet just gave him a sidelong look, unreadable as a snake.

“Such as?”

“Such as I would need to observe your customary clientele before I could elaborate on,” said Golescu.

“I see,” she said.

“Though Mother Aegypt is a good name for your act,” Golescu conceded. “Has a certain majesty. But it implies warmth. You might work on that. Where’s your warmth, eh?”

“I haven’t got any,” said Amaunet. “And you’re annoying me, now.”

“Then, taceo, dear madame. That’s Latin for ‘I shall be quiet,’ you know.”

She curled her lip again.

Silent, he attempted to study her face, as they jolted along. She must be a young woman; her skin was smooth, there wasn’t a trace of gray in her hair or a whisker on her lip. One could say of any ugly woman, Her nose is hooked, or Her lips are thin, or Her eyes are too close together. None of this could be said of Amaunet. It was indeed impossible to say anything much; for when Golescu looked closely at her he saw only shadow, and a certain sense of discord.

They came, by night, to a dismal little town whose slumped and rounded houses huddled with backs to the river, facing the dark forest. After threading a maze of crooked streets, they found the temporary camp for market fair vendors: two bare acres of open ground that had been a cattle pen most recently. It was still redolent of manure. Here other wagons were drawn up, and fires burned in iron baskets. The people who made their livings offering rides on painted ponies or challenging all comers to games of skill stood about the fires, drinking from bottles, exchanging news in weary voices.

Yet when Amaunet’s wagons rolled by they looked up only briefly, and swiftly looked away. Some few made gestures to ward off evil.

“You’ve got quite a reputation, eh?” observed Golescu. Amaunet did not reply. She seemed to have barely noticed.

Golescu spent another chilly night on the floor in the rear wagon—alone this time, for Emil slept in a cupboard under Amaunet’s narrow bunk when he was not being held hostage, and Amaunet steadfastly ignored all Golescu’s hints and pleasantries about the value of shared body warmth. As a consequence, he was stiff and out of sorts by the time he emerged next morning.

Overnight, the fair had assumed half-existence. A blind man, muscled like a giant, cranked steadily at the carousel, and thin pale children rode round and round. A man with a barrel-organ cranked steadily too, and his little monkey sat on his shoulder and watched the children with a diffident eye. But many of the tents were still flat, in a welter of ropes and poles. A long line of bored vendors stood attendance before a town clerk, who had set up his permit office under a black parasol.

Golescu was staring at all this when Amaunet, who had come up behind him silent as a shadow, said:

“Here’s your chance to be useful. Get in line for me.”

“Holy Saints!” Golescu whirled around. “Do you want to frighten me into heart failure? Give a man some warning.”

She gave him a leather envelope and a small purse instead. “Here are my papers. Pay the bureaucrat and get my permit. You won’t eat tonight, otherwise.”

“You wouldn’t order me around like this if you knew my true identity,” Golescu grumbled, but he got into line obediently.

The town clerk was reasonably honest, so the line took no more than an hour to wind its way through. At last the man ahead of Golescu got his permit to sell little red-blue-and-yellow paper flags, and Golescu stepped up to the table.

“Papers,” said the clerk, yawning.

“Behold.” Golescu opened them with a flourish. The clerk squinted at them.

“Amaunet Kematef,” he recited. “Doing business as ‘Mother Aegypt.’ A Russian? And this says you’re a woman.”

“They’re not my papers, they’re—they’re my wife’s papers,” said Golescu, summoning an outraged expression. “And she isn’t Russian, my friend, she is a hot-blooded Egyptian, a former harem dancer if you must know, before an unfortunate accident that marred her exotic beauty. I found her starving in the gutters of Cairo, and succored her out of Christian charity. Shortly, however, I discovered her remarkable talent for predicting the future based on an ancient system of—”

“A fortune-teller? Two marks,” said the clerk. Golescu paid, and as the clerk wrote out the permit he went on:

“The truth of the matter is that she was the only daughter of a Coptic nobleman, kidnapped at an early age by ferocious—”

“Three marks extra if this story goes on any longer,” said the clerk, stamping the permit forcefully.

“You have my humble gratitude,” said Golescu, bowing deeply. Pleased with himself, he took the permit and strutted away.

“Behold,” he said, producing the permit for Amaunet with a flourish. She took it without comment and examined it. Seen in the strong morning light, the indefinable grimness of her features was much more pronounced. Golescu suppressed a shudder and inquired, “How else may a virile male be of use, my sweet?”

Amaunet turned her back on him, for which he was grateful. “Stay out of trouble until tonight. Then you can mind Emil. He wakes up after sundown.”

She returned to the foremost black wagon. Golescu watched as she climbed up, and was struck once more by the drastically different effect her backside produced on the interested spectator.

“Don’t you want me to beat a drum for you? Or rattle a tambourine or something? I can draw crowds for you like a sugarloaf draws flies!”

She looked at him, with her white grimace that might have been amusement. “I’m sure you can draw flies,” she said. “But I don’t need an advertiser for what I do.”

Muttering, Golescu wandered away through the fair. He cheered up no end, however, when he discovered that he still had Amaunet’s purse.

Tents were popping up now, bright banners were being unfurled, though they hung down spiritless in the heat and glare of the day. Golescu bought himself a cheap hat and stood around a while, squinting as he sized up the food vendors. Finally he bought a glass of tea and a fried pastry, stuffed with plums, cased in glazed sugar that tasted vaguely poisonous. He ate it contentedly and, licking the sugar off his fingers, wandered off the fairground to a clump of trees near the river’s edge. There he stretched out in the shade and, tilting his hat over his face, went to sleep. If one had to babysit a vampyr one needed to get plenty of rest by day.

By night the fair was a different place. The children were gone, home in their beds, and the carousel raced round nearly empty but for spectral riders; the young men had come out instead. They roared with laughter and shoved one another, or stood gaping before the little plank stages where the exhibitions were cried by mountebanks. Within this tent were remarkable freaks of nature; within this one, an exotic dancer plied her trade; within another was a man who could handle hot iron without gloves. The lights were bright and fought with shadows. The air was full of music and raucous cries.

Golescu was unimpressed.

“What do you mean, it’s too tough?” he demanded. “That cost fifteen groschen!”

“I can’t eat it,” whispered Emil, cringing away from the glare of the lanterns.

“Look.” Golescu grabbed up the ear of roasted corn and bit into it. “Mm! Tender! Eat it, you little whiner.”

“It has paprika on it. Too hot.” Emil wrung his hands.

“Ridiculous,” said Golescu through a full mouth, munching away. “It’s the food of the gods. What the hell will you eat, eh? I know! You’re a vampyr, so you want blood, right? Well, we’re in a slightly public place at the moment, so you’ll just have to make do with something else. Taffy apple, eh? Deep fried sarmale? Pierogi? Pommes Frites?”

Emil wept silently, tears coursing from his big rabbit-eyes, and Golescu sighed and tossed the corn cob away. “Come on,” he said, and dragged the little man off by one hand.

They made a circuit of all the booths serving food before Emil finally consented to try a Vienna sausage impaled on a stick, dipped in corn batter and deep-fried. To Golescu’s relief he seemed to like it, for he nibbled at it uncomplainingly as Golescu towed him along. Golescu glanced over at Amaunet’s wagon, and noted a customer emerging, pale and shaken.

“Look over there,” Golescu said in disgust. “One light. No banners, nobody calling attention to her, nobody enticing the crowds. And one miserable customer waiting, look! That’s what she gets. Where’s the sense of mystery? She’s Mother Aegypt! Her other line of work must pay pretty well, eh?”

Emil made no reply, deeply preoccupied by his sausage-on-a-spike.

“Or maybe it doesn’t, if she can’t do any better for a servant than you. Where’s all the money go?” Golescu wondered, pulling at his moustache. “Why’s she so sour, your mistress? A broken heart or something?”

Emil gave a tiny shrug and kept eating.

“I could make her forget whoever it was in ten minutes, if I could just get her to take me seriously,” said Golescu, gazing across at the wagon. “And the best way to do that, of course, is to impress her with money. We need a scheme, turnip-head.”

“Four thousand and seventeen,” said Emil.

“Huh?” Golescu turned to stare down at him. Emil said nothing else, but in his silence the cry of the nearest hawker came through loud and clear:

“Come on and take a chance, clever ones! Games of chance, guess the cards, throw the dice, spin the wheel! Or guess the number of millet-grains in the jar and win a cash prize! Only ten groschen a guess! You might be the winner! You, sir, with the little boy!”

Golescu realized the hawker was addressing him. He looked around indignantly.

“He is not my little boy!”

“So he’s your uncle, what does it matter? Take a guess, why don’t you?” bawled the hawker. “What have you got to lose?”

“Ten groschen,” retorted Golescu, and then reflected that it was Amaunet’s money. “What the hell.”

He approached the gaming booth, pulling Emil after him. “What’s the cash prize?”

“Twenty thousand lei,” said the hawker. Golescu rolled his eyes.

“Oh, yes, I’d be able to retire on that, all right,” he said, but dug in his pocket for ten groschen. He cast a grudging eye on the glass jar at the back of the counter, on its shelf festooned with the new national flag and swags of bunting. “You’ve undoubtedly got rocks hidden in there, to throw the volume off. Hm, hm, all right...how many grains of millet in there? I’d say...”

“Four thousand and seventeen,” Emil repeated. The hawker’s jaw dropped. Golescu looked from one to the other of them. His face lit up.

“That’s the right answer, isn’t it?” he said. “Holy saints and patriarchs!”

“No, it isn’t,” said the hawker, recovering himself with difficulty.

“It is so,” said Golescu. “I can see it in your eyes!”

“No, it isn’t,” the hawker insisted.

“It is so! Shall we tip out the jar and count what’s in there?”

“No, and anyway you hadn’t paid me yet—and anyway it was your little boy, not you, so it wouldn’t count anyway—and—”

“Cheat! Shall I scream it aloud? I’ve got very good lungs. Shall I tell the world how you’ve refused to give this poor child his prize, even when he guessed correctly? Do you really want—”

“Shut up! Shut up, I’ll pay the damned twenty thousand lei!” The hawker leaned forward and clapped his hand over Golescu’s mouth. Golescu smiled at him, the points of his moustaches rising like a cockroach’s antennae.

Wandering back to Amaunet’s wagon, Golescu jingled the purse at Emil.

“Not a bad night’s work, eh? I defy her to look at this and fail to be impressed.”

Emil did not respond, sucking meditatively on the stick, which was all that was left of his sausage.

“Of course, we’re going to downplay your role in the comedy, for strategic reasons,” Golescu continued, peering around a tent and scowling at the wagon. There was a line of customers waiting now, and while some were clearly lonely women who wanted their fortunes told, a few were rather nasty-looking men, in fact rather criminal-looking men, and Golescu had the uneasy feeling he might have met one or two of them in a professional context at some point in his past. As he was leaning back, he glanced down at Emil.

“I think we won’t interrupt her while she’s working just yet. Gives us more time to concoct a suitably heroic and clever origin for this fine fat purse, eh? Anyway, she’d never believe that you—” Golescu halted, staring at Emil. He slapped his forehead in a gesture of epiphany.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute! She knows about this talent of yours! That’s why she keeps you around, is it? Ha!”

He was silent for a moment, but the intensity of his regard was such that it penetrated even Emil’s self-absorption. Emil looked up timidly and beheld Golescu’s countenance twisted into a smile of such ferocious benignity that the little man screamed, dropped his stick and covered his head with both hands.

“My dear shrinking genius!” bellowed Golescu, seizing Emil up and clasping him in his arms. “Puny friend, petite brother, sweetest of vampyrs! Come, my darling, will you have another sausage? No? Polenta? Milk punch? Hot chocolate? Golescu will see you have anything you want, pretty one. Let us go through the fair together.”

The purse of twenty thousand lei was considerably lighter by the time Golescu retreated to the shadows under the rear wagon, pulling Emil after him. Emil was too stuffed with sausage and candy floss to be very alert, and he had a cheap doll and a pinwheel to occupy what could be mustered of his attention. Nonetheless, Golescu drew a new pack of cards from his pocket, broke the seal and shuffled them, looking at Emil with lovingly predatory eyes.

“I have heard of this, my limp miracle,” crooned Golescu, making the cards snap and riffle through his fat fingers. “Fellows quite giftless as regards social graces, oh yes, in some cases so unworldly they must be fed and diapered like babies. And yet, they have a brilliance! An unbelievable grasp of systems and details! Let us see if you are one such prodigy, eh?”

An hour’s worth of experimentation was enough to prove to Golescu’s satisfaction that Emil was more than able to count cards accurately; if a deck was even fanned before his face for a second, he could correctly identify all the cards he had glimpsed.

“And now, dear boy, only one question remains,” said Golescu, tossing the deck over his shoulder into the night. The cards scattered like dead leaves. “Why hasn’t Madame Amaunet taken advantage of your fantastic abilities to grow rich beyond the dreams of avarice?”

Emil did not reply.

“Such a perfect setup. I can’t understand it,” persisted Golescu, leaning down to peer at the line stretching to the door of the forward wagon. A woman had just emerged, wringing her hands and sobbing. Though the fairground had begun to empty out now, there were still a few distinct thugs waiting their turn to...have their fortunes told? It seemed unlikely. Three of them seemed to be concealing bulky parcels about their persons.

“With a lucky mannikin like you, she could queen it at gambling houses from Monte Carlo to St. Petersburg,” mused Golescu. “In fact, with a body like hers, she could be the richest whore in Rome, Vienna or Budapest. If she wore a mask, that is. Why, then, does she keep late hours fencing stolen spoons and watches for petty cutthroats? Where’s the money in that? What does she want, Emil, my friend?”

“The Black Cup,” said Emil.

When the last of the thugs had gone his way, Amaunet emerged from the wagon and looked straight at Golescu, where he lounged in the shadows. He had been intending to make an impressive entrance, but with the element of surprise gone he merely waved at her sheepishly.

“Where’s Emil?” demanded Amaunet.

“Safe and sound, my queen,” Golescu replied, producing Emil and holding him up by the scruff of his neck. Emil, startled by the light, yelled feebly and covered his eyes. “We had a lovely evening, thank you.”

“Get to bed,” Amaunet told Emil. He writhed from Golescu’s grip and darted into the wagon. “Did you feed him?” she asked Golescu.

“Royally,” said Golescu. “And how did I find the wherewithal to do that, you ask? Why, with this.” He held up the purse of somewhat less than twenty thousand lei and clinked it at her with his most seductive expression. To his intense annoyance, her eyes did not brighten in the least.

“Fetch the horses and hitch them in place. We’re moving on tonight,” she said.

Golescu was taken aback. “Don’t you want to know where I got all this lovely money?”

“You stole it?” said Amaunet, taking down the lantern from its hook by the door and extinguishing it.

“I never!” cried Golescu, genuinely indignant. “I won it for you, if you must know. Guessing how many grains of millet were in a jar.”

He had imagined her reaction to his gift several times that evening, with several variations on her range of emotion. He was nonetheless unprepared for her actual response of turning, swift as a snake, and grabbing him by the throat.

“How did you guess the right number?” she asked him, in a very low voice.

“I’m extraordinarily talented?” he croaked, his eyes standing out of his head.

Amaunet tightened her grip. “It was Emil’s guess, wasn’t it?”

Golescu merely nodded, unable to draw enough breath to speak.

“Were you enough of a fool to take him to the games of chance?”

Golescu shook his head. She pulled his face close to her own.

“If I ever catch you taking Emil to card-parlors or casinos, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

She released him, hurling him back against the side of the wagon. Golescu straightened, gasped in air, pushed his hat up from his face and said:

“All right, so I discovered his secret. Does Madame have any objections to my asking why the hell she isn’t using our little friend to grow stinking rich?”

“Because Emil doesn’t have a secret,” Amaunet hissed. “He is a secret.”

“Oh, that explains everything,” said Golescu, rubbing his throat.

“It had better,” said Amaunet. “Now, bring the horses.”

Golescu did as he was told, boiling with indignation and curiosity, and also with something he was barely able to admit to himself. It could not be said, by any stretch of the imagination, that Amaunet was beautiful in her wrath, and yet...

Something about the pressure of her fingers on his skin, and the amazing strength of her hands...and the scent of her breath up close like that, like some unnamable spice...

“What strange infatuation enslaves my foolish heart?” he inquired of the lead horse, as he hitched it to the wagon-tongue.

They traveled all the rest of the moonless night, along the dark river, and many times heard the howling of wolves, far off in the dark forest.

Golescu wove their cries into a fantasy of heroism, wherein he was possessed of an immense gun and discharged copious amounts of shot into a pack of ferocious wolves threatening Amaunet, who was so grateful for the timely rescue she...she threw off her disguise, and most of her clothing too, and it turned out that she’d been wearing a fearsome mask all along. She was actually beautiful, though he couldn’t quite see how beautiful, because every time he tried to fling himself into her arms he kept tangling his feet in something, which seemed to be pink candy-floss someone had dropped on the fairground...

And then the pink strands became a spiderweb and Emil was a fly caught there, screaming and screaming in his high voice, which seemed odd considering Emil was a vampyr. “Aren’t they usually the ones who do the biting?” he asked Amaunet, but she was sprinting away toward the dark river, which was the Nile, and he sprinted after her, pulling his clothing off as he went too, but the sun was rising behind the pyramids...

Golescu sat up with a snort, and shielded his eyes against the morning glare.

“We’ve stopped,” he announced.

“Yes,” said Amaunet, who was unhitching the horses. They seemed to have left the road in the night; they were now in a forest clearing, thickly screened on all sides by brush.

“You’re camping here,” Amaunet said. “I have an appointment to keep. You’ll stay with the lead wagon and watch Emil. I should be gone no more than three days.”

“But of course,” said Golescu, stupid with sleep. He sat there rubbing his unshaven chin, watching her lead the horses out of sight through the bushes. He could hear water trickling somewhere near at hand. Perhaps Amaunet was going to bathe in a picturesque forest pool, as well as water the horses?

He clambered down from the seat and hurried after her, moving as silently as he could, but all that rewarded his stealthy approach was the sight of Amaunet standing by the horses with her arms crossed, watching them drink from a stream. Golescu shuddered. Strong morning light was really not her friend.

Sauntering close, he said:

“So what does the little darling eat, other than sausages and candy?”

“Root vegetables,” said Amaunet, not bothering to look at him. “Potatoes and turnips, parsnips, carrots. He won’t eat them unless they’re boiled and mashed, no butter, no salt, no pepper. He’ll eat any kind of bread if the crusts are cut off. Polenta, but again, no butter, no salt. He’ll drink water.”

“How obliging of him,” said Golescu, making a face. “Where’d you find our tiny friend, anyway?”

Amaunet hesitated a moment before replying. “An asylum,” she said.

“Ah! And they had no idea what he was, did they?” said Golescu. She turned on him, with a look that nearly made him wet himself.

“And you know what he is?” she demanded.

“Just—just a little idiot savant, isn’t it so?” said Golescu. “Clever at doing sums. Why you’re not using his big white brain to get rich, I can’t imagine; but there it is. Is there anything else Nursie ought to know about his care and feeding?”

“Only that I’ll hunt you down and kill you if you kidnap him while I’m gone,” said Amaunet, without raising her voice in the slightest yet managing to convince Golescu that she was perfectly sincere. It gave him another vaguely disturbing thrill.

“I seek only to be worthy of your trust, my precious one,” he said. “Where are you going, anyway?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“To be sure,” he agreed, bowing and scraping. “And you’re taking the rear wagon, are you? One can’t help wondering, my black dove of the mysteries, whether this has anything to do with all the loot hidden back there. Perhaps you have a rendezvous with someone who’ll take it off your hands, eh?”

Her look of contempt went through him like a knife, but he knew he’d guessed correctly.

The first thing Golescu did, when he was alone, was to go into Amaunet’s wagon and explore.

Though his primary object was money, it has to be admitted he went first to what he supposed to be her underwear drawer. This disappointed him, for it contained instead what seemed to be alchemist’s equipment: jars of powdered minerals and metals, bowls, alembics and retorts. All was so spotlessly clean it might never have been used. When he found her underwear at last, in a trunk, he was further disappointed. It was plain utilitarian stuff; evidently Amaunet didn’t go in for frills. Nevertheless, he slipped a pair of her drawers into his breast pocket, like a handkerchief, and continued his search.

No money at all, nor any personal things that might give him any clue to her history. There were a few decorative items, obviously meant to give an Egyptian impression to her customers: a half-size mummy case of papier-mâché. A hanging scroll, hieroglyphs printed on cloth, of French manufacture.

No perfumes or cosmetics by the washbasin; merely a bar of yellow soap. Golescu sniffed it and recoiled; no fragrance but lye. Whence, then, that intoxicating whiff of not-quite-cinnamon on her skin?

No writing desk, no papers. There was something that might have been intended for writing, a polished box whose front opened out flat to reveal a dull mirror of green glass at its rear. It was empty. Golescu gave it no more than a cursory glance. After he’d closed it, he rubbed the fingertips of his hand together, for they tingled slightly.

Not much in the larder: dry bread, an onion, a few potatoes. Several cooking pots and a washing copper. Golescu looked at it thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

“But no money,” he said aloud.

He sat heavily on her bed, snorting in frustration. Hearing a faint squeak of protest, he rose to his feet again and looked down. “Yes, of course!” he said, and opened the drawer under the bed. Emil whimpered and rolled away from the light, covering his face with his hands.

“Hello, don’t mind me,” said Golescu, scooping him out. He got down on his hands and knees, ignoring Emil’s cries, and peered into the space. “Where does your mistress keep her gold, my darling? Not in here, eh? Hell and Damnation.”

He sat back. Emil attempted to scramble past him, back into the shadows, but he caught the little man by one leg.

“Emil, my jewel, you’ll never amount to much in this world if you can’t walk around in the daytime,” he said. “And you won’t be much use to me, either. What’s your quarrel with the sun, anyway?”

“It burns my eyes,” Emil wept.

“Does it?” Golescu dragged him close, prized down his hands and looked into his wet eyes. “Perhaps there’s something we can do about that, eh? And once we’ve solved that problem...” His voice trailed off, as he began to smile. Emil wriggled free and vanished back into the drawer. Golescu slid it shut with his foot.

“Sleep, potato-boy,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. “Don’t go anyplace, and dear Uncle Barbu will be back with presents this afternoon.”

Humming to himself, he mopped his face with Amaunet’s drawers, replaced them in his pocket, and left the wagon. Pausing only to lock its door, he set off for the nearest road.

It took him a while to find a town, however, and what with one thing and another it was nearly sundown before Golescu came back to the wagon.

He set down his burdens—one large box and a full sack—and unlocked the door.

“Come out, little Emil,” he said, and on receiving no reply he clambered in and pulled the drawer open. “Come out of there!”

“I’m hungry,” said Emil, sounding accusatory, but he did not move.

“Come out and I’ll boil you a nice potato, eh? It’s safe; the sun’s gone down. Don’t you want to see what I got you, ungrateful thing?”

Emil came unwillingly, as Golescu backed out before him. He stepped down from the door, looking around, his tiny weak mouth pursed in suspicion. Catching sight of the low red sun, he let out a shrill cry and clapped his hands over his eyes.

“Yes, I lied,” Golescu told him. “but just try these—” He drew from his pocket a pair of blue spectacles and, wrenching Emil’s hands away, settled them on the bridge of his nose. They promptly fell off, as Emil’s nose was far too small and thin to keep them up, and they only had one earpiece anyway.

Golescu dug hastily in the sack he had brought and drew out a long woolen scarf. He cut a pair of slits in it, as Emil wailed and jigged in front of him. Clapping the spectacles back on Emil’s face and holding them in place a moment with his thumb, he tied the scarf about his head like a blindfold and widened the slits so the glass optics poked through.

“Look! Goggles!” he said. “So you’re protected, see? Open your damned eyes, you baby!”

Emil must have obeyed, for he stood still suddenly, dropping his hands to his sides. His mouth hung open in an expression of feeble astonishment.

“But, wait!” said Golescu. “There’s more!” He reached into the sack again and brought out a canvas coachman’s duster, draping it around Emil’s shoulders. It had been made for someone twice Emil’s size, so it reached past his knees, indeed it trailed on the ground; and Golescu had a difficult three minutes’ labor working Emil’s limp arms through the sleeves and rolling the cuffs up. But, once it had been painstakingly buttoned, Emil stood as though in a tent.

“And the crowning touch—” Golescu brought from the sack a wide-brimmed felt hat and set it on Emil’s head. Golescu sat back to admire the result.

“Now, don’t you look nice?” he said. Emil in fact looked rather like a mushroom, but his mouth had closed. “You see? You’re protected from the sun. The vampyr may walk abroad by day. Thanks are in order to good old Uncle Barbu, eh?

“I want my potato,” said Emil.

“Pah! All right, let’s feast. We’ve got a lot of work to do tonight,” said Golescu, taking up the sack and shaking it meaningfully.

Fairly quickly he built a fire and set water to boil for Emil’s potato. He fried himself a feast indeed from what he had brought: rabbit, bacon and onions, and a jug of wine red as bull’s blood to wash it down. The wine outlasted the food by a comfortable margin. He set it aside and lit a fine big cigar as Emil dutifully carried the pans down to the stream to wash them.

“Good slave,” said Golescu happily, and blew a smoke ring. “A man could get used to this kind of life. When you’re done with those, bring out the laundry-copper. I’ll help you fill it. And get some more wood for the fire!”

When Emil brought the copper forth they took it to the stream and filled it; then carried it back to the fire, staggering and slopping, and set it to heat. Golescu drew from the sack another of his purchases, a three-kilo paper bag with a chemist’s seal on it. Emil had been gazing at the bright fire, his vacant face rendered more vacant by the goggles; but he turned his head to stare at the paper bag.

“Are we making the Black Cup?” he asked.

“No, my darling, we’re making a golden cup,” said Golescu. He opened the bag and dumped its contents into the copper, which had just begun to steam. “Good strong yellow dye, see? We’ll let it boil good, and when it’s mixed—” he reached behind him, dragging close the box he had brought. He opened it, and the firelight winked in the glass necks of one hundred and forty-four little bottles. “And when it’s cooled, we’ll funnel it into these. Then we’ll sell them to the poultry farmers in the valley down there.”

“Why?” said Emil.

“As medicine,” Golescu explained. “We’ll tell them it’ll grow giant chickens, eh? That’ll fill the purse of twenty thousand lei back up again in no time. This never fails, believe me. The dye makes the yolks more yellow, and the farmers think that means the eggs are richer. Ha! As long as you move on once you’ve sold all your bottles, you can pull this one anywhere.”

“Medicine,” said Emil.

“That’s right,” said Golescu. He took a final drag on his cigar, tossed it into the fire, and reached for the wine jug.

“What a lovely evening,” he said, taking a drink. “What stars, eh? They make a man reflect, indeed they do. At times like this, I look back on my career and ponder the ironies of fate. I was not always a vagabond, you see.

“No, in fact, I had a splendid start in life. Born to a fine aristocratic family, you know. We had a castle. Armorial devices on our stained-glass windows. Servants just to walk the dog. None of that came to me, of course; I was a younger son. But I went to University, graduated with full honors, was brilliant in finance.

“I quickly became Manager of a big important bank in Bucharest. I had a fine gold watch on a chain, and a desk three meters long, and it was kept well polished, too. Every morning when I arrived at the bank, all the clerks would line up and prostrate themselves as I walked by, swinging my cane. My cane had a diamond set in its end, a diamond that shone in glory like the rising sun.

“But they say that abundance, like poverty, wrecks you; and so it was with me. My nature was too trusting, too innocent. Alas, how swiftly my downfall came! Would you like to hear the circumstances that reduced me to the present pitiable state in which you see me?”

“...What?” said Emil. Golescu had another long drink of wine.

“Well,” he said, “My bank had a depositor named Ali Pasha. He had amassed a tremendous fortune. Millions. Millions in whatever kind of currency you could imagine. Pearls, rubies, emeralds too. You should have seen it just sitting there in the vault, winking like a dancing girl’s...winky parts. Just the biggest fortune a corrupt bureaucrat could put together.

“And then, quite suddenly, he had to go abroad to avoid a scandal. And, bam! He was killed in a tragic accident when his coal-black stallion, startled by a pie wagon, threw him from its back and trampled him under its hooves.

“Being an honest man, I of course began searching for his next of kin, as soon as I heard the news of his demise. And you would think, wouldn’t you, that he’d have a next of kin? The way those lustful fellows carry on with all their wives and concubines? But it was revealed that the late Ali Pasha had had an equally tragic accident in his youth, when he’d attracted the attention of the Grand Turk because of his sweet singing voice, and, well...he was enabled to keep that lovely soprano until the time of his completely unexpected death.

“So no wives, no children, a yawning void of interested posterity.

“And this meant, you see, that the millions that lay in our vault would, after the expiration of a certain date, become the property of the Ottoman Empire.

“What could I do? The more I reflected on the tyranny under which our great nation suffered for so long, the more my patriotic blood began to boil. I determined on a daring course of action.

“I consulted with my colleagues in the international banking community, and obtained the name of an investor who was known far and wide for his integrity. He was a Prussian, as it happened, with a handsome personal fortune. I contacted him, apologized for my presumption, explained the facts of the case, and laid before him a proposition. If he were willing to pose as the brother of the late Ali Pasha, I could facilitate his claim to the millions sitting there on deposit. He would receive forty per cent for his part in the ruse; the remaining sixty per cent I would, of course, donate to the Church.

“To make a long story short, he agreed to the plan. Indeed, he went so far as to express his enthusiastic and principled support for Romanian self-rule.

“Of course, it was a complicated matter. We had to bribe the law clerks and several petty officials, in order that they might vouch for Smedlitz (the Prussian) being a long-lost brother of Ali Pasha, his mother having been kidnapped by Barbary Coast pirates with her infant child and sold into a harem, though fortunately there had been a birthmark by which the unfortunate Ali Pasha could be posthumously identified by his sorrowing relation.

“And Smedlitz was obliged to provide a substantial deposit in order to open an account in a bank in Switzerland, into which the funds could be transferred once we had obtained their release. But he agreed to the expenditure readily—too readily, as I ought to have seen!” Golescu shook his head, drank again, wiped his moustache with the back of his hand and continued:

“How I trusted that Prussian! Alas, you stars, look down and see how an honest and credulous soul is victimized.”

He drank again and went on:

“The fortune was transferred, and when I went to claim the agreed-upon sixty per cent for charity—imagine my horror on discovering that Smedlitz had withdrawn the entire amount, closed the account, and absconded! As I sought him, it soon became apparent that Smedlitz was more than a thief—he was an impostor, a lackey of the international banking community, who now closed ranks against me.

“To make matters worse, who should step forward but a new claimant! It developed that Ali Pasha had, in fact, a real brother who had only just learned of his death, having been rescued from a remote island where he had been stranded for seven years, a victim of shipwreck.

“My ruin was complete. I was obliged to flee by night, shaming my illustrious family, doomed to the life of an unjustly persecuted fugitive.” Golescu wiped tears from his face and had another long drink. “Never again to sit behind a polished desk, like a gentleman! Never again to flourish my walking-stick over the heads of my clerks! And what has become of its diamond, that shone like the moon?” He sobbed for breath. “Adversity makes a man wise, not rich, as the saying goes; and wisdom is all I own now. Sometimes I think of self-destruction; but I have not yet sunk so low.”

He drank again, belched, and said, in a completely altered voice:

“Ah, now it’s beginning to boil! Fetch a long stick and give it a stir, Emil darling.”

Golescu woke in broad daylight, grimacing as he lifted his face from the depths of his hat. Emil was still sitting where he had been when Golescu had drifted off to sleep, after some hours of hazily remembered conversation. The empty jug sat where Golescu had left it; but the hundred and forty-four little glass bottles were now full.

“What’d you...” Golescu sat up, staring at them. He couldn’t recall filling the bottles with concentrated yellow dye, but there they were, all tidily sealed.

“The medicine is ready,” said Emil.

Golescu rose unsteadily. The empty copper gleamed, clean as though it were new.

“No wonder she keeps you around,” he remarked. “You must be part kitchen fairy, eh? Poke up the fire, then, and we’ll boil you another potato. Maybe a parsnip too, since you’ve been such a good boy. And then, we’ll have an adventure.”

He picked up the sack and trudged off to attend to his toilet.

Two hours later they were making their way slowly along a country lane, heading for a barred gate Golescu had spotted. He was sweating in the heat, dressed in the finest ensemble the rag shop had had to offer: a rusty black swallowtail coat, striped trousers, a black silk hat with a strong odor of corpse. On his left breast he had assembled an impressive-looking array of medals, mostly religious ones dressed up with bits of colored ribbon, and a couple of foil stickers off a packet of Genoa biscuits. In one hand he carried a heavy-looking satchel.

Emil wore his duster, goggles and hat, and was having to be led by the hand because he couldn’t see very well.

When they came within a hundred yards of the gate, two immense dogs charged and collided with it, barking at them through the bars.

“Take the bag,” said Golescu, handing it off to Emil

“It’s heavy,” Emil complained.

“Shut up. Good morning to you, my dear sir!” He raised his voice to address the farmer who came out to investigate the commotion.

“I’m too hot.”

“Shut up, I said. May I have a moment of your time, sir?”

“Who the hell are you?” asked the farmer, seizing the dogs by their collars.

Golescu tipped his hat and bowed. “Dr. Milon Cretulescu, Assistant Minister of Agriculture to Prince Alexandru, may all the holy saints and angels grant him long life. And you are?”

“Buzdugan, Iuliu,” muttered the farmer.

“Charmed. You no doubt have heard of the new edict?”

“Of course I have,” said Farmer Buzdugan, looking slightly uneasy. “Which one?”

Golescu smiled at him. “Why, the one about increasing poultry production on the farms in this region. His highness is very concerned that our nation become one of the foremost chicken-raising centers of the world! Perhaps you ought to chain up your dogs, dear sir.”

When the dogs had been confined and the gate unbarred, Golescu strode through, summoning Emil after him with a surreptitious shove as he passed. Emil paced forward blindly, with tiny careful steps, dragging the satchel. Golescu ignored him, putting a friendly hand on Buzdugan’s shoulder.

“First, I’ll need to inspect your poultry yard. I’m certain you passed the last inspection without any difficulties, but, you know, standards are being raised nowadays.”

“To be sure,” agreed Buzdugan, sweating slightly. In fact, there had never been any inspection of which he was aware. But he led Golescu back to the bare open poultry yard, an acre fenced around by high palings, visible through a wire-screen grate.

It was not a place that invited lingering. Poultry yards seldom are. The sun beat down on it mercilessly, so that Golescu felt the hard-packed earth burning through the thin soles of his shoes. A hundred chickens stood about listlessly, quite unbothered by the reek of their defecation or the smell of the predators impaled on the higher spikes of the fence: two foxes and something so shrunken and sun-dried its species was impossible to identify.

“Hmmm,” said Golescu, and drew from his pocket a small book and a pencil stub. He pretended to make notes, shaking his head.

“What’s the matter?” asked Buzdugan.

“Well, I don’t want to discourage you too much,” said Golescu, looking up with a comradely wink. “Good pest control, I’ll say that much for you. Make an example of them, eh? That’s the only way foxes will ever learn. But, my friend! How spiritless your birds are! Not exactly fighting cocks, are they? Why aren’t they strutting about and crowing? Clearly they are enervated and weak, the victims of diet.”

“They get nothing but the best feed!” protested Buzdugan. Smiling, Golescu waved a finger under his nose.

“I’m certain they do, but is that enough? Undernourished fowl produce inferior eggs, which produce feeble offspring. Not only that, vapid and tasteless eggs can ruin your reputation as a first-class market supplier. No, no; inattention to proper poultry nutrition has been your downfall.”

“But—”

“Fortunately, I can help you,” said Golescu, tucking away the book and pencil stub.

“How much will I have to pay?” asked Buzdugan, sagging.

“Sir! Are you implying that a representative of his highness the prince can be bribed? That may have been how things were done in the past, but we’re in a new age, after all! I was referring to Science,” Golescu admonished.

“Science?”

“Boy!” Golescu waved peremptorily at Emil, who had just caught up with them. “This loyal subject requires a bottle of Golden Formula Q.”

Emil did nothing, so Golescu grabbed the satchel from him. Opening it, he drew forth a bottle of the yellow dye. He held it up, cradling it between his two hands.

“This, dear sir, is a diet supplement produced by the Ministry of Agriculture. Our prince appointed none but university-trained men, ordering them to set their minds to the problem of improving poultry health. Utilizing the latest scientific discoveries, they have created a tonic of amazing efficacy! Golden Formula Q. Used regularly, it produces astonishing results.”

Buzdugan peered at the bottle. “What does it do?”

“Do? Why, it provides the missing nourishment your birds so desperately crave,” said Golescu. “Come, let me give you a demonstration. Have you a platter or dish?”

When a tin pan had been produced, Golescu adroitly let himself into the chicken yard, closely followed by Buzdugan. Within the yard it was, if possible, even hotter. “Now, observe the behavior of your birds, sir,” said Golescu, uncorking the bottle and pouring its contents into the pan. “The poor things perceive instantly the restorative nature of Golden Formula Q. They hunger for it! Behold.”

He set the pan down on the blistering earth. The nearest chicken to notice turned its head. Within its tiny brain flashed the concept: THIRST. It ran at once to the pan and drank greedily. One by one, other chickens had the same revelation, and came scrambling to partake of lukewarm yellow dye as though it were chilled champagne.

“You see?” said Golescu, shifting from one foot to the other. “Poor starved creatures. Within hours, you will begin to see the difference. No longer will your egg yolks be pallid and unwholesome, but rich and golden! All thanks to Golden Formula Q. Only two marks a bottle.”

“They are drinking it up,” said Buzdugan, watching in some surprise. “I suppose I could try a couple of bottles.”

“Ah! Well, my friend, I regret to say that Golden Formula Q is in such limited supply, and in such extreme demand, that I must limit you to one bottle only,” said Golescu.

“What? But you’ve got a whole satchel full,” said Buzdugan. “I saw, when you opened it.”

“That’s true, but we must give your competitors a chance, after all,” said Golescu. “It wouldn’t be fair if you were the only man in the region with prize-winning birds, would it?”

The farmer looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Two marks a bottle? I’ll give you twenty-five marks for the whole satchel full, what do you say to that?”

“Twenty-five marks?” Golescu stepped back, looking shocked. “But what will the other poultry producers do?”

Buzdugan told him what the other poultry producers could do, as he dug a greasy bag of coin from his waistband.

They trudged homeward that evening, having distributed several satchels’ worth of Golden Formula Q across the valley. Golescu had a pleasant sense of self-satisfaction and pockets heavy with wildly assorted currency.

“You see, dear little friend?” he said to Emil. “This is the way to make something of yourself. Human nature flows along like a river, never changes; a wise man builds his mill on the banks of that river, lets foibles and vanities drive his wheel. Fear, greed and envy have never failed me.”

Emil, panting with exhaustion, made what might have been a noise of agreement.

“Yes, and hasn’t it been a red-letter day for you? You’ve braved the sunlight at last, and it’s not so bad, is it? Mind the path,” Golescu added, as Emil walked into a tree. He collared Emil and set his feet back on the trail. “Not far now. Yes, Emil, how lucky it was for you that I came into your life. We will continue our journey of discovery tomorrow, will we not?”

And so they did, ranging over to the other side of the valley, where a strong ammoniac breeze suggested the presence of more chicken farms. They had just turned from the road down a short drive, and the furious assault of a mastiff on the carved gate had just drawn the attention of a scowling farmer, when Emil murmured: “Horse.”

“No, it’s just a big dog,” said Golescu, raising his hat to the farmer. “Good morning, dear sir! Allow me to introduce—”

That was when he heard the hoofbeats. He began to sweat, but merely smiled more widely and went on: “—myself. Dr. Milon Cretulescu, of the Ministry of Agriculture, and I—”

The hoofbeats came galloping up the road and past the drive, but just as Golescu’s heart had resumed its normal rhythm, they clattered to a halt and started back.

“—have been sent at the express wish of Prince Alexandru himself to—”

“Hey!”

“Excuse me a moment, won’t you?” said Golescu, turning to face the road. He beheld Farmer Buzdugan urging his horse forward, under the drooping branches that cast the drive into gloom.

“Dr. Cretulescu!” he said. “Do you have any more of that stuff?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know, the—” Buzdugan glanced over at the other farmer, lowered his voice. “That stuff that makes the golden eggs!”

“Ah!” Golescu half-turned, so the other farmer could see him, and raised his voice. “You mean, Golden Formula Q? The miracle elixir developed by his highness’s own Ministry of Agriculture, to promote better poultry production?”

“Shush! Yes, that! Look, I’ll pay—”

“Golden eggs, you say?” Golescu cried.

“What’s that?” The other farmer leaned over his gate.

“None of your damn business!” said Buzdugan.

“But, dear sir, Golden Formula Q was intended to benefit everyone,” said Golescu, uncertain just what had happened but determined to play his card. “If this good gentleman wishes to take advantage of its astonishing qualities, I cannot deny him—”

“A hundred marks for what you’ve got in that bag!” shouted Buzdugan.

“What’s he got in the bag?” demanded the other farmer, opening his gate and stepping through.

“Golden Formula Q!” said Golescu, grabbing the satchel from Emil’s nerveless hand and opening it. He drew out a bottle and thrust it up into the morning light. “Behold!”

“What was that about golden eggs?” said the other farmer, advancing on them.

“Nothing!” Buzdugan said. “Two hundred, Doctor. I’m not joking. Please.”

“The worthy sir was merely indulging in hyperbole,” said Golescu to the other farmer. “Golden eggs? Why, I would never make that claim for Golden Formula Q. You would take me for a mountebank! But it is, quite simply, the most amazing dietary supplement for poultry you will ever use.”

“Then, I want a bottle,” said the other farmer.

Buzdugan gnashed his teeth. “I’ll buy the rest,” he said, dismounting.

“Not so fast!” said the other farmer. “This must be pretty good medicine, eh? If you want it all to yourself? Maybe I’ll just buy two bottles.”

“Now, gentlemen, there’s no need to quarrel,” said Golescu. “I have plenty of Golden Formula Q here. Pray, good Farmer Buzdugan, as a satisfied customer, would you say that you observed instant and spectacular results with Golden Formula Q?”

“Yes,” said Buzdugan, with reluctance. “Huge eggs, yellow as gold. And all the roosters who drank it went mad with lust, and this morning all the hens are sitting on clutches like little mountains of gold. Two hundred and fifty for the bag, Doctor, what do you say, now?”

Golescu carried the satchel on the way back to the clearing, for it weighed more than it had when they had set out that morning. Heavy as it was, he walked with an unaccustomed speed, fairly dragging Emil after him. When they got to the wagon, he thrust Emil inside, climbed in himself and closed the door after them. Immediately he began to undress, pausing only to look once into the satchel, as though to reassure himself. The fact that it was filled to the top with bright coin somehow failed to bring a smile to his face.

“What’s going on, eh?” he demanded, shrugging out of his swallowtail coat. “I sold that man bottles of yellow dye and water. Not a real miracle elixir!”

Emil just stood there, blank behind his goggles, until Golescu leaned over and yanked them off.

“I said, we sold him fake medicine!” he said. “Didn’t we?”

Emil blinked at him. “No,” he said. “Medicine to make giant chickens.”

“No, you silly ass, that’s only what we told them it was!” said Golescu, pulling off his striped trousers. He wadded them up with the coat and set them aside. “We were lying, don’t you understand?”

“No,” said Emil.

Something in the toneless tone of his voice made Golescu, in the act of pulling up his plain trousers, freeze. He looked keenly at Emil.

“You don’t understand lying?” he said. “Maybe you don’t. And you’re a horrible genius, aren’t you? And I went to sleep while the stuff in the copper was cooking. Hmmm, hm hm.” He fastened his trousers and put on his other coat, saying nothing for a long moment, though his gaze never left Emil’s slack face.

“Tell me, my pretty child,” he said at last. “Did you put other things in the brew, after I was asleep?”

“Yes,” said Emil.

“What?”

In reply, Emil began to rattle off a string of names of ingredients, chemicals for the most part, or so Golescu assumed. He held up his hand at last.

“Enough, enough! The nearest chemist’s is three hours’ walk away. How’d you get all those things?”

“There,” said Emil, pointing at the papier-mâché mummy case. “And some I got from the dirt. And some came out of leaves.”

Golescu went at once to the mummy case and opened it. It appeared to be empty; but he detected the false bottom. Prizing back the lining he saw rows of compartments, packed with small jars and bags of various substances. A faint scent of spice rose from them.

“Aha,” he said, closing it up. He set it aside and looked at Emil with narrowed eyes. He paced back and forth a couple of times, finally sitting down on the bed.

“How did you know,” he said, in a voice some decibels below his customary bellow, “what goes into a medicine to make giant chickens?”

Emil looked back at him. Golescu beheld a strange expression in the rabbity eyes. Was that...scorn?

“I just know,” said Emil, and there might have been scorn in his flat voice too.

“Like you just know how many beans are in a jar?”

“Yes.”

Golescu rubbed his hands together, slowly. “Oh, my golden baby,” he said. “Oh, my pearl, my plum, my good-luck token.” A thought struck him. “Tell me something, precious,” he said. “On several occasions, now, you have mentioned a Black Cup. What would that be, can you tell your Uncle Barbu?”

“I make the Black Cup for her every month,” said Emil.

“You do, eh?” said Golescu. “Something to keep the babies away? But no, she’s not interested in love. Yet. What happens when she drinks from the Black Cup, darling?”

“She doesn’t die,” said Emil, with just a trace of sadness.

Golescu leaned back, as though physically pushed. “Holy saints and angels in Heaven,” he said. For a long moment ideas buzzed in his head like a hive of excited bees. At last he calmed himself to ask:

“How old is Madame Amaunet?”

“She is old,” said Emil.

“Very old?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.” Golescu did not move, staring at Emil. “So that’s why she doesn’t want any attention drawn to you. You’re her philosopher’s stone, her source of the water of life. Yes? But if that’s the case...” He shivered all over, drew himself up. “No, that’s crazy. You’ve been in show business too long, Golescu. She must be sick with something, that’s it, and she takes the medicine to preserve her health. Ugh! Let us hope she doesn’t have anything catching. Is she sick, little Emil?”

“No,” said Emil.

“No? Well. Golescu, my friend, don’t forget that you’re having a conversation with an idiot, here.”

His imagination raced, though all the while he was tidying away the evidence of the chicken game, and all that afternoon as the slow hours passed. Several times he heard the sound of hoofbeats on the road, someone riding fast—searching, perhaps, for Dr. Cretulescu?

As the first shades of night fell, Golescu crept out and lit a campfire. He was sitting beside it when he heard the approach of a wagon on the road, and a moment later the crashing of branches that meant the wagon had turned off toward the clearing. Golescu composed an expression that he hoped would convey innocence, doglike fidelity and patience, and gave a quick turn to the skillet of bread and sausages he was frying.

“Welcome back, my queen,” he called, as he caught sight of Amaunet. “You see? Not only have I not run off with Emil to a gambling den, I’ve fixed you a nice supper. Come and eat. I’ll see to the horses.”

Amaunet regarded him warily, but she climbed down from the wagon and approached the fire. “Where is Emil?”

“Why, safe in his little cupboard, just as he ought to be,” said Golescu, rising to offer his seat. Seeing her again up close, he felt a shiver of disappointment; Amaunet looked tired and bad-tempered, not at all like an immortal being who had supped of some arcane nectar. He left her by the fire as he led the horses off to drink. Not until he had come back and settled down across from her did he feel the stirring of mundane lust.

“I trust all that unsightly clutter in the wagon has been unloaded on some discreet fence?” he inquired pleasantly.

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Amaunet, with a humorless laugh. “You’ll have all the room you need back there, for a while.”

“And did we get a good price?”

Amaunet just shrugged.

Golescu smiled to himself, noting that she carried no purse. He kept up a disarming flow of small talk until Amaunet told him that she was retiring. Bidding her a cheery good night without so much as one suggestive remark, he watched as she climbed into the wagon—her back view was as enthralling as ever—and waited a few more minutes before lighting a candle-lantern and hurrying off to the other wagon.

On climbing inside, Golescu held the lamp high and looked around.

“Beautifully empty,” he remarked in satisfaction. Not a carpet, not a painting, not so much as a silver spoon anywhere to be seen. As it should be. But—

“Where is the money?” he wondered aloud. “Come out, little ironbound strongbox. Come out, little exceptionally heavy purse. She must have made a fortune from the fence. So...”

Golescu proceeded to rummage in the cupboards and cabinets, hastily at first and then with greater care, rapping for hollow panels, testing for hidden drawers. At the end of half an hour he was baffled, panting with exasperation.

“It must be here somewhere!” he declared. “Unless she made so little off the bargain she was able to hide her miserable share of the loot in her cleavage!”

Muttering to himself, he went out and banked the fire. Then he retrieved his satchel of money and the new clothes he had bought, including Emil’s daylight ensemble, from the bush where he had stashed them. Having re-secured them in a cupboard in the wagon, he stretched out on the floor and thought very hard.

“I’ve seen that dull and sullen look before,” he announced to the darkness. “Hopeless. Apathetic. Ill-used. She might be sick, but also that’s the way a whore looks, when she has a nasty brute of a pimp who works her hard and takes all her earnings away. I wonder...

“Perhaps she’s the hapless victim of some big operator? Say, a criminal mastermind, with a network of thieves and fences and middlemen all funneling profits toward him? So that he sits alone on a pyramid of gold, receiving tribute from petty crooks everywhere?

“What a lovely idea!” Golescu sat up and clasped his hands.

He was wakened again that night by her singing. Amaunet’s voice was like slow coals glowing in a dying fire, or like the undulation of smoke rising when the last glow has died. It was heartbreaking, but there was something horrible about it.

They rolled on. The mountains were always ahead of them, and to Golescu’s relief the valley of his labors was far behind them. No one was ever hanged for selling a weak solution of yellow dye, but people have been hanged for being too successful; and in any case he preferred to keep a good distance between himself and any outcomes he couldn’t predict.

The mountains came close at last and were easily crossed, by an obscure road Amaunet seemed to know well. Noon of the second day they came to a fair-sized city in the foothills, with grand houses and a domed church.

Here a fair was setting up, in a wide public square through which the wind gusted, driving yellow leaves before it over the cobbles. Golescu made his usual helpful suggestions for improving Amaunet’s business and was ignored. Resigned, he stood in the permit line with other fair vendors, whom he was beginning to know by sight. They also ignored his attempts at small talk. The permit clerk was rude and obtuse.

By the time evening fell, when the fair came to life in a blaze of gaslight and calliope music, Golescu was not in the best of moods.

“Come on, pallid one,” he said, dragging Emil forth from the wagon. “What are you shrinking from?”

“It’s too bright,” whimpered Emil, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to hide under Golescu’s coat.

“We’re in a big modern city, my boy,” said Golescu, striding through the crowd and towing him along relentless. “Gaslight, the wonder of the civilized world. Soon we won’t have Night at all, if we don’t want it. Imagine that, eh? You’d have to live in a cellar. You’d probably like that, I expect.”

“I want a sausage on a stick,” said Emil.

“Patience,” said Golescu, looking around for the food stalls. “Eating and scratching only want a beginning, eh? So scratch, and soon you’ll be eating too. Where the hell is the sausage booth?”

He spotted a vendor he recognized and pushed through the crowd to the counter.

“Hey! Vienna sausage, please.” He put down a coin.

“We’re out of Vienna sausage,” said the cashier. “We have sarmale on polenta, or tochitura on polenta. Take your pick.”

Golescu’s mouth watered. “The sarmale, and plenty of polenta.”

He carried the paper cone to a relatively quiet corner and seated himself on a hay bale. “Come and eat. Emil dear. Polenta for you and nice spicy sarmale for me, eh?”

Emil opened his eyes long enough to look at it.

“I can’t eat that. It has sauce on it.”

“Just a little!” Golescu dug his thumb in amongst the meatballs and pulled up a glob of polenta. “See? Nice!”

Emil began to sob. “I don’t want that. I want a sausage.”

“Well, this is like sausage, only it’s in grape leaves instead of pig guts, eh?” Golescu held up a nugget of sarmale. “Mmmm, tasty!”

But Emil wouldn’t touch it. Golescu sighed, wolfed down the sarmale and polenta, and wiped his fingers on Emil’s coat. He dragged Emil after him and searched the fairground from end to end, but nobody was selling Vienna sausage. The only thing he found that Emil would consent to eat was candy floss, so he bought him five big wads of it. Emil crouched furtively under a wagon and ate it all, as Golescu looked on and tried to slap some warmth into himself. The cold wind pierced straight through his coat, taking away all the nice residual warmth of the peppery sarmale.

“This is no life for a red-blooded man,” he grumbled. “Wine, women and dance are what I need, and am I getting any? It is to laugh. Wet-nursing a miserable picky dwarf while the temptress of my dreams barely knows I exist. If I had any self-respect, I’d burst into that wagon and show her what I’m made of.”

The last pink streamer of candy floss vanished into Emil’s mouth. He belched.

“Then, of course, she’d hurt me,” Golescu concluded. “Pretty badly, I think. Her fingers are like steel. And that excites me, Emil, isn’t that a terrible thing? Yet another step downward in my long debasement.”

Emil belched again.

The chilly hours passed. Emil rolled over on his side and began to wail to himself. As the fair grew quieter, as the lights went out one by one and the carousel slowed through its last revolution, Emil’s whining grew louder. Amaunet’s last customer departed; a moment later her door flew open and she emerged, turning her head this way and that, searching for the sound. Her gaze fell on Emil, prostrate under the wagon, and she bared her teeth at Golescu.

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” said Golescu, backing up a pace or two. “His highness the turnip wouldn’t eat anything but candy, and now he seems to be regretting it.”

“Fool,” said Amaunet. She pulled Emil out from the litter of paper cones and straw. He vomited pink syrup, and said, “I want a potato.”

Amaunet gave Golescu a look that made his heart skip a beat, but in a reasonable voice he said: “I could take us all to dinner. What about it? My treat.”

“It’s nearly midnight, you ass,” said Amaunet.

“That café is still open,” said Golescu, pointing to a garishly lit place at the edge of the square. Amaunet stared at it. Finally she shrugged. “Bring him,” she said.

Golescu picked up Emil by the scruff of his neck and stood him on his feet. “Your potato is calling, fastidious one. Let us answer it.” Emil took his hand and they trudged off together across the square, with Amaunet slinking after.

They got a table by the door. For all that the hour was late, the café was densely crowded with people in evening dress, quite glittering and cosmopolitan in appearance. The air was full of their chatter, oddly echoing, with a shrill metallic quality. Amaunet gave the crowd one surly look, and paid them no attention thereafter. But she took off her black shawl and dropped it over Emil’s head. He sat like an unprotesting ghost, shrouded in black, apparently quite content.

“And you’re veiling him because...?” said Golescu.

“Better if he isn’t seen,” said Amaunet.

“What may we get for the little family?” inquired a waiter, appearing at Golescu’s elbow with a speed and silence that suggested he had popped up through a trap door. Golescu started in his chair, unnerved. The waiter had wide glass-bright eyes, and a fixed smile under a straight bar of moustache like a strip of black fur.

“Are you still serving food?” Golescu asked. The waiter’s smile never faltered; he produced a menu from thin air and presented it with a flourish.

“Your carte de nuit. We particularly recommend the black puddings. Something to drink?”

“Bring us the best you have,” said Golescu grandly. The waiter bowed and vanished again.

“It says the Czernina Soup is divine,” announced Golescu, reading from the menu. “Hey, he thought we were a family. Charming, eh? You’re Mother Aegypt and I’m...”

“The Father of Lies,” said Amaunet, yawning.

“I shall take that as a compliment,” said Golescu. “Fancy French cuisine here, too: Boudin Noir. And, for the hearty diner, Blutwurst. So, who do you think will recognize our tiny prodigy, Madame? He wouldn’t happen to be a royal heir you stole in infancy, would he?”

Amaunet gave him a sharp look. Golescu sat up, startled.

“You can’t be serious!” he said. “Heaven knows, he’s inbred enough to have the very bluest blood—”

The waiter materialized beside them, deftly uncorking a dusty bottle. “This is very old wine,” he said, displaying the label.

“‘Egri Bikaver,’” read Golescu. “Yes, all right. Have you got any Vienna sausage? We have a little prince here who’ll hardly eat anything else.”

“I want a potato.” Emil’s voice floated from beneath the black drape.

“We will see what can be done,” said the waiter, unblinking, but his smile widened under his dreadful moustache. “And for Madame?”

Amaunet said something in a language with which Golescu was unfamiliar. The waiter chuckled, a disturbing sound, and jotted briefly on a notepad that appeared from nowhere in particular. “Very wise. And for Sir?”

“Blutwurst. I’m a hearty diner,” said Golescu.

“To be sure,” said the waiter, and vanished. Golescu leaned forward and hissed, “Hey, you can’t mean you actually stole him from some—”

“Look, it’s a gypsy!” cried a young woman, one of a pair of young lovers out for a late stroll. Her young man leaned in from the sidewalk and demanded, “What’s our fortune, eh, gypsy? Will we love each other the rest of our lives?”

“You’ll be dead in three days,” said Amaunet. The girl squeaked, the boy went pale and muttered a curse. They fled into the night.

“What did you go and tell them that for?” demanded Golescu. Amaunet shrugged and poured herself a glass of wine.

“Why should I lie? Three days, three hours, three decades. Death always comes, for them. It’s what I tell them all. Why not?”

“No wonder you don’t do better business!” said Golescu. “You’re supposed to tell them good fortunes!”

“Why should I lie?” repeated Amaunet.

Baffled, Golescu pulled at his moustaches. “What makes you say such things?” he said at last. “Why do you pretend to feel nothing? But you love little Emil, eh?”

She looked at him in flat astonishment. Then she smiled. It was a poisonous smile.

“Love Emil?” she said. “Who could love that thing? I could as soon love you.”

As though to underscore her contempt, a woman at the bar shrieked with laughter.

Golescu turned his face away. Immediately he set about soothing his lacerated ego, revising what she’d said, changing her expression and intonation, and he had nearly rewritten the scene into an almost-declaration of tender feeling for himself when the waiter reappeared, bearing a tray.

“See what we have for the little man?” he said, whisking the cover off a dish. “Viennese on a stake!”

The dish held an artful arrangement of Vienna sausages on wooden skewers, stuck upright in a mound of mashed potato.

“Well, isn’t that cute?” said Golescu. “Thank the nice man, Emil.”

Emil said nothing, but reached for the plate. “He says Thank You,” said Golescu, as smacking noises came from under the veil. The waiter set before Amaunet a dish containing skewered animal parts, flame-blackened to anonymity.

“Madame. And for Sir,” said the waiter, setting a platter before Golescu. Golescu blinked and shuddered; for a moment he had the strongest conviction that the Blutwurst was pulsing and shivering, on its bed of grilled onions and eggplant that seethed like maggots. Resolutely, he told himself it was a trick of the greenish light and the late hour.

“Be sure to save room for cake,” said the waiter.

“You’ll be dead in three days, too,” Amaunet told the waiter. The waiter laughed heartily.

They journeyed on to the next crossroads fair. Two days out they came to the outskirts of another town, where Amaunet pulled off the road onto waste ground. Drawing a small purse from her bosom, she handed it to Golescu.

“Go and buy groceries,” she said. “We’ll wait here.”

Golescu scowled at the pouch, clinked it beside his ear. “Not a lot of money,” he said. “But never mind, dearest. You have a man to provide for you now, you know.”

“Get potatoes,” Amaunet told him.

“Of course, my jewel,” he replied, smiling as he climbed down. He went dutifully off to the main street.

“She is not heartless,” he told himself. “She just needs to be wooed, that’s all. Who can ever have been kind to her? It’s time to drop the bucket into your well of charm, Golescu.”

The first thing he did was look for a bathhouse. Having located one and paid the morose Turk at the door, he went in, disrobed, and submitted to being plunged, steamed, scraped, pummeled, and finally shaved. He declined the offer of orange flower water, however, preferring to retain a certain manly musk, and merely asked to be directed to the market square.

When he left it, an hour later, he was indeed carrying a sack of potatoes. He had also onions, flour, oil, sausages, a bottle of champagne, a box of Austrian chocolates, and a bouquet of asters.

He had the satisfaction of seeing Amaunet’s eyes widen as he approached her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“For you,” he said, thrusting the flowers into her arms. Golescu had never seen her taken aback before. She held them out in a gingerly sort of way, with a queer look of embarrassment.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” she said.

“Put them in water?” he said, grinning at her as he hefted his other purchases.

That night, when they had made their camp in a clearing less cobwebbed and haunted than usual, when the white trail of stars made its way down the sky, Golescu went into the wagon to retrieve his treats. The asters had drooped to death, despite having been crammed in a jar of water; but the champagne and chocolates had survived being at the bottom of his sack. Humming to himself, he carried them, together with a pair of chipped enamel mugs, out to the fireside.

Amaunet was gazing into the flames, apparently lost in gloomy reverie. She ignored the popping of the champagne cork, though Emil, beside her, twitched and started. When Golescu opened the chocolates, however, she looked sharply round.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded.

“A little fairy brought it, flying on golden wings,” said Golescu. “Out of his purse of twenty thousand lei, I might add, so don’t scowl at me like that. Will you have a sweetmeat, my queen? A cherry cream? A bit of enrobed ginger peel?”

Amaunet stared fixedly at the box a long moment, and then reached for it. “What harm can it do?” she said, in a quiet voice. “Why not?”

“That’s the spirit,” said Golescu, pouring the champagne. “A little pleasure now and again is good for you, wouldn’t you agree? Especially when one has the money.”

Amaunet didn’t answer, busy with prizing open the box. When he handed her a mug full of champagne, she took it without looking up; drained it as though it were so much water, and handed it back.

“Well quaffed!” said Golescu, as a tiny flutter of hope woke in his flesh. He poured Amaunet another. She meanwhile had got the box open at last, and bowed her head over the chocolates, breathing in their scent as though they were the perfumes of Arabia.

“Oh,” she groaned, and groped in the box. Bringing out three chocolate creams, she held them up a moment in dim-eyed contemplation; then closed her fist on them, crushing them as though they were grapes. Closing her eyes, she licked the sweet mess from her hand, slowly, making ecstatic sounds.

Golescu stared, and in his inattention poured champagne in his lap. Amaunet did not notice.

“I had no idea you liked chocolates so much,” said Golescu.

“Why should you?” said Amaunet through a full mouth. She lifted the box and inhaled again, then dipped in with her tongue and scooped a nut cluster straight out of its little paper cup.

“Good point,” said Golescu. He edged a little closer on the fallen log that was their mutual seat, and offered her the champagne once more. She didn’t seem to notice, absorbed as she was in crunching nuts. “Come, drink up; this stuff won’t keep. Like youth and dreams, eh?”

To his astonishment, Amaunet threw back her head and laughed. It was not the dry and humorless syllable that had previously expressed her scorn. It was full-throated, rolling, deep, and so frightful a noise that Emil shrieked and put his hands over his head, and even the fire seemed to shrink down and cower. It echoed in the night forest, which suddenly was darker, more full of menace.

Golescu’s heart beat faster. When Amaunet seized the mug from him and gulped down its contents once more, he moistened his lips and ventured to say:

“Just let all those cares wash away in the sparkling tide, eh? Let’s be good to each other, dear lady. You need a man to lessen the burden on those poor frail shoulders. Golescu is here!”

That provoked another burst of laughter from Amaunet, ending in a growl as she threw down the mug, grabbed another handful of chocolates from the box and crammed them into her mouth, paper cups and all.

Scarcely able to believe his luck (one drink and she’s a shameless bacchante!) Golescu edged his bottom a little closer to Amaunet’s. “Come,” he said, breathing heavily, “tell me about yourself, my Nile lily.”

Amaunet just chuckled, looking at him sidelong as she munched chocolates. Her eyes had taken on a queer glow, more reflective of the flames perhaps than they had been. It terrified Golescu, and yet...

At last she swallowed, took the champagne bottle from his hand and had a drink.

“Hah!” She spat into the fire, which blazed up. “You want to hear my story? Listen, then, fat man.”

“A thousand thousand years ago, there was a narrow green land by a river. At our backs was the desert, full of jackals and demons. But the man and the woman always told me that if I stayed inside at night, like a good little girl, nothing could hurt me. And if I was a very good little girl always, I would never die. I’d go down to the river, and a man would come in a reed boat and take me away to the Sun, and I’d live forever.

“One day, the Lean People came out of the desert. They had starved in the desert so long, they thought that was what the gods meant for people to do. So, when they saw our green fields, they said we were Abomination. They rode in and killed as many as they could. We were stronger people and we killed them all, threw their bodies in the river—no boats came for them! And that was when I looked on Him, and was afraid.”

“Who was He, precious?” said Golescu.

“Death,” said Amaunet, as the firelight played on her face. “The great Lord with long rows of ivory teeth. His scales shone under the moon. He walked without a shadow. I had never seen any boat taking good children to Heaven; but I saw His power. So I took clay from the riverbank and I made a little Death, and I worshipped it, and fed it with mice, with birds, anything I could catch and kill. Take all these, I said, and not me; for You are very great.

“Next season, more riders came out of the desert. More war, more food for Him, and I knew He truly ruled the world.

“Our people said: We can’t stay here. Not safe to farm these fields. And many gave up and walked north. But the man and woman waited too long. They tried to take everything we owned, every bowl and dish in our house, and the woman found my little image of Him. She beat me and said I was wicked. She broke the image.

“And He punished her for it. As we ran along the path by the river, no Sun Lord came to our aid; only the desert people, and they rode down the man and the woman.

“I didn’t help them. I ran, and ran beside the river, and I prayed for Him to save me.” Amaunet’s voice had dropped to a whisper. She sounded young, nearly human.

Golescu was disconcerted. It wasn’t at all the mysterious past he had imagined for her; only sad. Some miserable tribal struggle, in some backwater village somewhere? No dusky princess, exiled daughter of pharaohs. Only a refugee, like any one of the hatchet-faced women he had seen along the roads, pushing barrows full of what they could salvage from the ashes of war.

“But at least, this was in Egypt, yes? How did you escape?” Golescu inquired, venturing to put his arm around her. His voice seemed to break some kind of spell; Amaunet turned to look at him, and smiled with all her teeth in black amusement. The smile made Golescu feel small and vulnerable.

“Why, a bright boat came up the river,” she said. “There was the Sun Lord, putting out his hand to take me to safety. He didn’t come for the man and woman, who had been good; He came for me, who had never believed in him. So I knew the world was all lies, even as I went with him and listened to his stories about how wonderful Heaven would be.

“And it turned out that I was right to suspect the Sun, fat man. The price I paid for eternal life was to become a slave in Heaven. For my cowardice in running from Death, they punished me by letting the sacred asps bite me. I was bitten every day, and by the end of fifteen years, I was so full of poison that nothing could ever hurt me. And by the end of a thousand years, I was so weary of my slavery that I prayed to Him again.

“I went out beside the river, under the light of the moon, and I tore my clothes and bared my breasts for Him, knelt down and begged Him to come for me. I wailed and pressed my lips to the mud. How I longed for His ivory teeth!

“But He will not come for me.

“And the Sun Lord has set me to traveling the world, doing business with thieves and murderers, telling foolish mortals their fortunes.” Amaunet had another drink of champagne. “Because the Sun, as it turns out, is actually the Devil. He hasn’t got horns or a tail, oh, no; he looks like a handsome priest. But he’s the master of all lies.

“And I am so tired, fat man, so tired of working for him. Nothing matters; nothing changes. The sun rises each day, and I open my eyes and hate the sun for rising, and hate the wheels that turn and the beasts that pull me on my way. And Him I hate most of all, who takes the whole world but withholds His embrace from me.”

She fell silent, looking beyond the fire into the night.

Golescu took a moment to register that her story was at an end, being still preoccupied with the mental image of Amaunet running bare-breasted beside the Nile. But he shook himself, now, and gathered his wits; filed the whole story under Elaborate Metaphor and sought to get back to business in the real world.

“About this Devil, my sweet,” he said, as she crammed another fistful of chocolates into her mouth. “and these thieves and murderers. The ones who bring you all the stolen goods. You take their loot to the Devil?”

Amaunet didn’t answer, chewing mechanically, watching the flames.

“What would happen if you didn’t take the loot to him?” Golescu persisted. “Suppose you just took it somewhere and sold it yourself?”

“Why should I do that?” said Amaunet.

“So as to be rich!” said Golescu, beginning to regret that he’d gotten her so intoxicated. “So as not to live in wretchedness and misery!”

Amaunet laughed again, with a noise like ice splintering.

“Money won’t change that,” she said. “For me or you!”

“Where’s he live, this metaphorical Devil of yours?” said Golescu. “Bucharest? Kronstadt? I could talk to him on your behalf, eh? Threaten him slightly? Renegotiate your contract? I’m good at that, my darling. Why don’t I talk to him, man to man?”

That sent her into such gales of ugly laughter she dropped the chocolate box.

“Or, what about getting some real use out of dear Emil?” said Golescu. “What about a mentalist act? And perhaps we could do a sideline in love philtres, cures for baldness. A little bird tells me we could make our fortunes,” he added craftily.

Amaunet’s laugh stopped. Her lip curled back from her teeth.

“I told you,” she said, “No. Emil’s a secret.”

“And from whom are we hiding him, madame?” Golescu inquired.

Amaunet just shook her head. She groped in the dust, found the chocolate box and picked out the last few cordials.

“He’d find out,” she murmured, as though to herself. “And then he’d take him away from me. Not fair. I found him. Pompous fool; looking under hills. Waiting by fairy rings. As though the folk tales were real! When all along, he should have been looking in the lunatic asylums. The ward keeper said: here, madame, we have a little genius who thinks he’s a vampyr. And I saw him and I knew, the big eyes, the big head, I knew what blood ran in his veins. Aegeus’s holy grail, but I found one. Why should I give him up? If anybody could find a way, he could...”

More damned metaphors, thought Golescu. “Who’s Aegeus?” he asked. “Is that the Devil’s real name?”

“Ha! He wishes he were. The lesser of two devils...” Amaunet’s voice trailed away into nonsense sounds. Or were they? Golescu, listening, made out syllables that slid and hissed, the pattern of words.

If I wait any longer, she’ll pass out, he realized.

“Come, my sweet, the hour is late,” he said, in the most seductive voice he could summon. “Why don’t we go to bed?” He reached out to pull her close, fumbling for a way through her clothes.

Abruptly he was lying flat on his back, staring up at an apparition. Eyes and teeth of flame, a black shadow like cloak or wings, claws raised to strike. He heard a high-pitched shriek before the blow came, and sparks flew up out of velvet blackness.

Golescu opened his eyes to the gloom before dawn, a neutral blue from which the stars had already fled. He sat up, squinting in pain. He was soaked with dew, his head pounded, and he couldn’t seem to focus his eyes.

Beside him, a thin plume of smoke streamed upward from the ashes of the fire. Across the firepit, Emil still sat where he had been the night before. He was watching the east with an expression of dread, whimpering faintly.

“God and all His little angels,” groaned Golescu, touching the lump on his forehead. “What happened last night, eh?”

Emil did not respond. Golescu sorted muzzily through his memory, which (given his concussion) was not at its best. He thought that the attempt at seduction had been going rather well. The goose egg above his eyes was clear indication something hadn’t gone as planned, and yet...

Emil began to weep, wringing his hands.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway?” said Golescu, rolling over to get to his hands and knees.

“The sun,” said Emil, not taking his eyes from the glow on the horizon.

“And you haven’t got your shade-suit on, have you?” Golescu retorted, rising ponderously to his feet. He grimaced and clutched at his head. “Tell me, petite undead creature, was I so fortunate as to get laid last night? Any idea where black madame has gotten to?”

Emil just sobbed and covered his eyes.

“Oh, all right, let’s get you back in your cozy warm coffin,” said Golescu, brushing dust from his clothing. “Come on!”

Emil scuttled to his side. He opened the wagon door and Emil vaulted in, vanishing into the cupboard under Amaunet’s bed. Emil pulled the cupboard door shut after himself with a bang. A bundle of rags on the bed stirred. Amaunet sat bolt upright, staring at Golescu.

Their eyes met. She doesn’t know what happened either! thought Golescu, with such a rush of glee, his brain throbbed like a heart.

“If you please, madame,” he said, just a shade reproachfully, “I was only putting poor Emil to bed. You left him out all night.”

He reached up to doff his hat, but it wasn’t on his head.

“Get out,” said Amaunet.

“At once, madame,” said Golescu, and backed away with all the dignity he could muster. He closed the door, spotting his hat in a thorn bush all of ten feet away from where he had been lying.

“What a time we must have had,” he said to himself, beginning to grin. “Barbu, you seductive devil!”

And though his head felt as though it were splitting, he smiled to himself all the while he gathered wood and rebuilt the fire.

On the feast days of certain saints and at crossroad harvest fairs, they lined up their black wagons beside the brightly painted ones. Amaunet told fortunes. The rear wagon began to fill once more with stolen things, so that Golescu slept on rolls of carpet and tapestry, and holy saints gazed down from their painted panels to watch him sleep. They looked horrified.

Amaunet did not speak of that night by the fire. Still, Golescu fancied there was a change in her demeanor toward him, which fueled his self-esteem: an oddly unsettled look in her eyes, a hesitance, what in anybody less dour would have been embarrassment.

“She’s dreaming of me,” he told Emil one night, as he poked the fire. “What do you want to bet? She desires me, and yet her pride won’t let her yield.”

Emil said nothing, vacantly watching the water boil for his evening potato.

Amaunet emerged from the wagon. She approached Golescu and thrust a scrap of paper at him.

“We’ll get to Kronstadt tomorrow,” she said. “You’ll go in. Buy what’s on this list.”

“Where am I to find this stuff?” Golescu complained, reading the list. “An alchemist’s? I don’t know what half of it is. Except for...” He looked up at her, trying not to smile. “Chocolate, eh? What’ll you have, cream bonbons? Caramels? Nuts?”

“No,” said Amaunet, turning her back. “I want a brick of the pure stuff. See if you can get a confectioner to sell you some of his stock.”

“Heh heh heh,” said Golescu meaningfully, but she ignored him.

Though Kronstadt was a big town, bursting its medieval walls, it took Golescu three trips, to three separate chemists’ shops, to obtain all the items on the list but the chocolate. It took him the best part of an hour to get the chocolate, too, using all his guile and patience to convince the confectioner’s assistant to sell him a block of raw material.

“You’d have thought I was trying to buy state secrets,” Golescu said to himself, trudging away with a scant half-pound block wrapped in waxed paper. “Pfui! Such drudge work, Golescu, is a waste of your talents. What are you, a mere donkey to send on errands?”

And when he returned to the camp outside town, he got nothing like the welcome he felt he deserved. Amaunet seized the carry-sack from him and went through it hurriedly, as he stood before her with aching feet. She pulled out the block of chocolate and stared at it. She trembled slightly, her nostrils flared. Golescu thought it made her look uncommonly like a horse.

“I don’t suppose you’ve cooked any supper for me?” he inquired.

Amaunet started, and turned to him as though he had just asked for a roasted baby in caper sauce.

“No! Go back into Kronstadt. Buy yourself something at a tavern. In fact, take a room. I don’t want to see you back here for two days, understand? Come back at dawn on the third day.”

“I see,” said Golescu, affronted. “In that case I’ll just go collect my purse and an overnight bag, shall I? Not that I don’t trust you, of course.”

Amaunet’s reply was to turn her back and vanish into the wagon, bearing the sack clutched to her bosom.

Carrying his satchel, Golescu cheered up a little as he walked away. Cash, a change of clothes, and no authorities in pursuit!

He was not especially concerned that Amaunet would use his absence to move on. The people of the road had a limited number of places they could ply their diverse trades, and he had been one of their number long enough to know the network of market fairs and circuses that made up their itinerary. He had only to follow the route of the vardas, and sooner or later he must find Amaunet again. Unless, of course, she left the road and settled down; then she would be harder to locate than an egg in a snowstorm. Or an ink bottle in a coal cellar. Or...he amused himself for at least a mile composing unlikely similes.

Having returned to Kronstadt just as dusk fell, Golescu paused outside a low, dark door. There was no sign to tell him a tavern lay within, but the fume of wine and brandy breathing out spoke eloquently to him. He went in, ducking his head, and as soon as his eyes had adjusted to the dark he made out the bar, the barrels, the tables in dark corners he had expected to see.

“A glass of schnapps, please,” he said to the sad-faced publican. There were silent drinkers at the tables, some watching him with a certain amount of suspicion, some ignoring him. One or two appeared to be dead, collapsed over their drinks. Only a pair of cattle-herders standing near the bar were engaged in conversation. Golescu smiled cheerily at one and all, slapped down his coin, and withdrew with his glass to an empty table.

“...Hunting for him everywhere,” one of the drovers was saying. “He was selling this stuff that was supposed to make chickens lay better eggs.”

“Has anybody been killed?” said the other drover.

“I didn’t hear enough to know, but they managed to shoot most of them—”

Golescu, quietly as he could, half-rose and turned his chair so he was facing away from the bar. Raising his glass to his lips, he looked over its rim and met the eyes of someone propped in a dark corner.

“To your very good health,” he said, and drank.

“What’s that you’ve got in the satchel?” said the person in the corner.

“Please, sir, my mummy sent me to the market to buy bread,” said Golescu, smirking. The stranger arose and came near. Golescu drew back involuntarily. The stranger ignored his reaction and sat down at Golescu’s table.

He was an old man in rusty black, thin to gauntness, his shabby coat buttoned high and tight. He was bald, with drawn and waxen features, and he smelled a bit; but the stare of his eyes was intimidating. They shone like pearls, milky as though he were blind.

“You travel with Mother Aegypt, eh?” said the old man.

“And who would that be?” inquired Golescu, setting his drink down. The old man looked scornful.

“I know her,” he said. “Madame Amaunet. I travel, too. I saw you at the market fair in Arges, loafing outside her wagon. You do the talking for her, don’t you, and run her errands? I’ve been following you.”

“You must have me confused with some other handsome fellow,” said Golescu.

“Pfft.” The old man waved his hand dismissively. “I used to work for her, too. She’s never without a slave to do her bidding.”

“Friend, I don’t do anyone’s bidding,” said Golescu, but he felt a curious pang of jealousy. “And she’s only a poor weak woman, isn’t she?

The old man laughed. He creaked when he laughed.

“Tell me, is she still collecting trash for the Devil?”

“What Devil is that?” said Golescu, leaning back and trying to look amused.

“Her master. I saw him, once.” The old man reached up absently and swatted a fly that had landed on his cheek. “Soldiers had looted a mosque, they stole a big golden lamp. She paid them cash for it. It wasn’t so heavy, but it was, you know, awkward. And when we drove up to the Teufelberg to unload all the goods, she made me help her bring out the lamp, so as not to break off the fancy work. I saw him there, the Devil. Waiting beside his long wagons. He looked like a prosperous Saxon.”

“Sorry, my friend, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Golescu. He drew a deep breath and plunged on: “Though I have heard of a lord of thieves who is, perhaps, known in certain circles as the Devil. Am I correct? Just the sort of powerful fellow who has but to pull a string and corrupt officials rush to do his bidding? And he accumulates riches without lifting a finger?”

The old man creaked again.

“You think you’ve figured it out,” he said. “And you think he has a place for a fast-talking fellow in his gang, don’t you?”

Taken aback, Golescu just stared at him. He raised his drink again.

“Mind reader, are you?”

“I was a fool, too,” said the old man, smacking the table for emphasis, though his hand made no more sound than an empty glove. “Thought I’d make a fortune. Use her to work my way up the ladder. I hadn’t the slightest idea what she really was.”

“What is she, grandfather?” said Golescu, winking broadly at the publican. The publican shuddered and looked away. The old man, ignoring or not noticing, leaned forward and said in a lowered voice:

“There are stregoi who walk this world. You don’t believe it, you laugh, but it’s true. They aren’t interested in your soul. They crave beautiful things. Whenever there is a war, they hover around its edges like flies, stealing what they can when the armies loot. If a house is going to catch fire and burn to the ground, they know; you can see them lurking in the street beforehand, and how their eyes gleam! They’re only waiting for night, when they can slip in and take away paintings, carvings, books, whatever is choice and rare, before the flames come. Sometimes they take children, too.

“She’s one of them. But she’s tired, she’s lazy. She buys from thieves, instead of doing the work herself. The Devil doesn’t care. He just takes what she brings him. Back she goes on her rounds, then, from fair to fair, and even the murderers cross themselves when her shadow falls on them, but still they bring her pretty things. Isn’t it so?”

“What do you want, grandfather?” said Golescu.

“I want her secret,” said the old man. “I’ll tell you about it, and then you can steal it and bring it back here, and we’ll share. How would you like eternal youth, eh?”

“I’d love it,” said Golescu patiently. “But there’s no such thing.”

“Then you don’t know Mother Aegypt very well!” said the old man, grinning like a skull. “I used to watch through the door when she’d mix her Black Cup. Does she still have the little mummy case, with the powders inside?”

“Yes,” said Golescu, startled into truthfulness.

“That’s how she does it!” said the old man. “She’d put in a little of this—little of that—she’d grind the powders together, and though I watched for years I could never see all that went in the cup, or what the right amounts were. Spirits of wine, yes, and some strange things—arsenic, and paint! And she’d drink it down, and weep, and scream as though she was dying. But instead, she’d live. My time slipped away, peering through that door, watching her live. I could have run away from her many times, but I stayed, I wasted my life, because I thought I could learn her secrets.

“And one night she caught me watching her, and she cursed me. I ran away. I hid for years. She’s forgotten me, now. But when I saw her at Arges, and you with her, I thought—he can help me.

“So! You find out what’s in that Black Cup of hers, and bring it back to me. I’ll share it with you. We’ll live forever and become rich as kings.”

“Will I betray the woman I love?” said Golescu. “And I should believe such a story, because—?”

The old man, who had worked himself into a dry trembling passion, took a moment to register what Golescu had said. He looked at him with contempt.

“Love? Mother Aegypt? I see I have been wasting my breath on an idiot.”

The old man rose to his feet. Golescu put out a conciliatory hand. “Now, now, grandfather, I didn’t say I didn’t believe you, but you’ll have to admit that’s quite a story. Where’s your proof?”

“Up your ass,” said the old man, sidling away from the table.

“How long were you with her?” said Golescu, half rising to follow him.

“She bought me from the orphan asylum in Timisoara,” said the old man, turning with a baleful smile. “I was ten years old.”

Golescu sat down abruptly, staring as the old man scuttled out into the night.

After a moment’s rapid thought, he gulped the rest of his schnapps and rose to follow. When he got out into the street, he stared in both directions. A round moon had just lifted above the housetops, and by its light the streets were as visible as by day, though the shadows were black and fathomless. Somewhere, far off, a dog howled. At least, it sounded like a dog. There was no sign of the old man, as far as Golescu could see.

Golescu shivered, and went in search of a cheap hotel.

Cheapness notwithstanding, it gave Golescu a pleasant sense of status to sleep once again in a bed. Lingering over coffee and sweet rolls the next morning, he pretended he was a millionaire on holiday. It had long been his habit not to dwell on life’s mysteries, even fairly big and ugly ones, and in broad daylight he found it easy to dismiss the old man as a raving lunatic. Amaunet clearly had a bad reputation amongst the people of the road, but why should he care?

He went forth from the hotel jingling coins in his pocket, and walked the streets of Kronstadt as though he owned it.

In the Council Square his attention was drawn by a platform that had been set up, crowded with racks, boxes and bins of the most unlikely looking objects. Some twenty citizens were pawing through them in a leisurely way. Several armed policemen stood guard over the lot, and over two miserable wretches in manacles.

Catching the not-unpleasant scent of somebody else’s disaster, Golescu hurried to investigate.

“Am I correct in assuming this is a debtors’ sale, sir?” he asked a police sergeant.

“That’s right,” said the sergeant. “A traveling opera company. These two bankrupts are the former managers. Isn’t that so?” He prodded one of them with his stick.

“Unfortunately so,” agreed the other gloomily. “Please go in, sir, and see if anything catches your fancy. Reduce our debt and be warned by our example. Remember, the Devil has a stake in Hell especially reserved for defaulting treasurers of touring companies.”

“I weep for you,” said Golescu, and stepped up on the platform with an eager expression.

The first thing he saw was a rack of costumes, bright with tinsel and marabou. He spent several minutes searching for anything elegant that might fit him, but the only ensemble in his size was a doublet and pair of trunk hose made of red velvet. Scowling, he pulled them out, and noticed the pointy-toed shoes of red leather, tied to the hanger by their laces. Here was a tag, on which was scrawled FAUST 1-2.

“The Devil, eh?” said Golescu. His eyes brightened as an idea began to come to him. He draped the red suit over his arm and looked further. This production of Faust had apparently employed a cast of lesser demons; there were three or four child-sized ensembles in black, leotards, tights and eared hoods. Golescu helped himself to the one least moth eaten.

In a bin he located the red tights and skullcap that went with the Mephistopheles costume. Groping through less savory articles and papier-mâché masks, he found a lyre strung with yarn. He added it to his pile. Finally, he spotted a stage coffin, propped on its side between two flats of scenery. Giggling to himself, he pulled it out, loaded his purchases into it, and shoved the whole thing across the platform to the cashier.

“I’ll take these, dear sir,” he said.

By the time Golescu had carried the coffin back to his hotel room, whistling a cheery tune as he went, the Act had begun to glow in his mind. He laid out his several purchases and studied them. He tried on the Mephistopheles costume (it fit admirably, except for the pointy shoes, which were a little tight) and preened before the room’s one shaving mirror, though he had to back all the way to the far wall to be able to see his full length in it.

“She can’t object to this,” he said aloud. “Such splendor! Such classical erudition! Why, it would play in Vienna! And even if she does object...you can persuade her, Golescu, you handsome fellow.”

Pleased with himself, he ordered extravagantly when he went down to dinner. Over cucumber salad, flekken and wine he composed speeches of such elegance that he was misty-eyed by the bottom of the second bottle. He rose at last, somewhat unsteady, and floated up the stairs from the dining room just as a party of men came in through the street door.

“In here! Sit down, poor fellow, you need a glass of brandy. Has the bleeding stopped?”

“Almost. Careful of my leg!”

“Did you kill them both?”

“We got one for certain. Three silver bullets, it took! The head’s in the back of the wagon. You should have seen...”

Golescu heard no more, rounding the first turn of the stair at that point, and too intent on visions of the Act to pay attention in any case.

So confident was Golescu in his dream that he visited a printer’s next day, and commissioned a stack of handbills. The results, cranked out while he loafed in a tavern across the street in the company of a bottle of slivovitz, were not as impressive as he’d hoped; but they were decorated with a great many exclamation points, and that cheered him.

The Act was all complete in his head by the time he left Kronstadt, just before dawn on the third day. Yawning mightily, he set down the coffin and his bag and pulled out his purse to settle with the tavern keeper.

“And a gratuity for your staff, kind sir,” said Golescu, tossing down a handful of mixed brass and copper in small denominations. “The service was superb.”

“May all the holy saints pray for you,” said the tavern keeper, without enthusiasm. “Any forwarding address in case of messages?”

“Why, yes; if my friend the Archduke stops in, let him know that I’ve gone on to Paris,” said Golescu. “I’m in show business, you know.”

“In that case, may I hire a carriage for you?” inquired the tavern keeper. “One with golden wheels, perhaps?”

“I think not,” Golescu replied. “I’m just walking on to Predeal. Meeting a friend with a private carriage, you know.”

“Walking, are you?” The tavern keeper’s sneer was replaced with a look of genuine interest. “You want to be careful, you know. They say there’s a new monster roaming the countryside!”

“A monster? Really, my friend,” Golescu waggled a reproving finger at him. “Would I ever have got where I am in life if I’d believed such stories?”

He shouldered the coffin once more, picked up his bag and walked out.

Though the morning was cool, he was sweating by the time he reached the outskirts of Kronstadt, and by the time he stepped off to the campsite track Golescu’s airy mood had descended a little. Nonetheless, he grinned to see the wagons still there, the horses cropping placidly where they were tethered. He bellowed heartily as he pounded on Amaunet’s door:

“Uncle Barbu’s home, darlings!”

Not a sound.

“Hello?”

Perhaps a high, thin whining noise?

“It’s meeee,” he said, trying the door. It wasn’t locked. Setting down the coffin, he opened the door cautiously.

A strong, strong smell: spice and sweetness, and blood perhaps. Golescu pulled out a handkerchief and clapped it over his nose. He leaned forward, peering into the gloom within the wagon.

Amaunet lay stretched out on her bed, fully dressed. Her arms were crossed on her bosom, like a corpse’s. Her skin was the color of ashes and her eyes were closed. She looked so radiantly happy that Golescu was unsure, at first, who lay there. He edged in sideways, bent to peer down at her.

“Madame?” He reached down to take her hand. It was ice-cold. “Oh!”

She just lay there, transfigured by her condition, beautiful at last.

Golescu staggered backward, and something fell from the bed. A cup rolled at his feet, a chalice cut of black stone. It appeared at first to be empty; but as it rolled, a slow black drop oozed forth to the lip.

“The Black Cup,” stated Golescu, feeling the impact of a metaphorical cream pie. He blinked rapidly, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. It was a moment before he was able to realize that the whining noise was coming from the cabinet under Amaunet’s bed. Sighing, he bent and hauled Emil forth.

“Come out, poor little maggot,” he said.

“I’m hungry,” said Emil.

“Is that all you have to say?” Golescu demanded. “The Queen of Sorrow is dead, and you’re concerned for a lousy potato?”

Emil said nothing in reply.

“Did she kill herself?”

“The cup killed her,” Emil said.

“Poison in the cup, yes, I can see that, you ninny! I meant—why?”

“She wanted to die,” said Emil. “She was too old, but she couldn’t die. She said, ‘Make me a poison to take my life away.’ I mixed the cup every month, but it never worked. Then she said, ‘What if you tried Theobromine?’ I tried it. It worked. She laughed.”

Golescu stood there staring down at him a long moment, and finally collapsed backward onto a stool.

“Holy God, Holy mother of God,” he murmured, with tears in his eyes. “It was true. She was an immortal thing.”

“I’m hungry,” Emil repeated.

“But how could anyone get tired of being alive? So many good things! Fresh bread with butter. Sleep. Making people believe you. Interesting possibilities,” said Golescu. “She had good luck handed to her, how could she want to throw it away?”

“They don’t have luck,” said Emil.

“And what are you, exactly?” said Golescu, staring at him. “You, with all your magic potions? Hey, can you make the one that gives eternal life, too?”

“No,” said Emil.

“You can’t? You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“But then, what do you know?” Golescu rubbed his chin. “You’re an idiot. But then again...” He looked at Amaunet, whose fixed smile seemed more unsettling every time he saw it. “Maybe she did cut a deal with the Devil after all. Maybe eternal life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, if she wanted so badly to be rid of it. What’s that in her hand?”

Leaning forward, he opened her closed fist. Something black protruded there: the snout of a tiny figure, crudely sculpted in clay. A crocodile.

“I want a potato,” said Emil.

Golescu shuddered.

“We have to dig a grave first,” he said.

In the end he dug it himself, because Emil, when goggled and swathed against daylight, was incapable of using a shovel.

“Rest in peace, my fair unknown,” grunted Golescu, crouching to lower Amaunet’s shrouded body into the grave. “I’d have given you the coffin, but I have other uses for it, and the winding sheet’s very flattering, really. Not that I suppose you care.”

He stood up and removed his hat. Raising his eyes to Heaven, he added: “Holy angels, if this poor creature really sold her soul to the Devil, then please pay no attention to my humble interruption. But if there were by chance any loopholes she might take advantage of to avoid damnation, I hope you guide her soul through them to eternal rest. And, by the way, I’m going to live a much more virtuous life from now on. Amen.”

He replaced his hat, picked up the shovel once more and filled in the grave.

That night Golescu wept a little for Amaunet, or at least for lost opportunity, and he dreamed of her when he slept. By the time the sun rose pale through the smoke of Kronstadt’s chimneys, though, he had begun to smile.

“I possess four fine horses and two wagons now,” he told Emil, as he poked up the fire under the potato-kettle. “Nothing to turn up one’s nose at, eh? And I have you, you poor child of misfortune. Too long has your light been hidden from the world.”

Emil just sat there, staring through his goggles at the kettle. Golescu smeared plum jam on a slab of bread and took an enormous bite.

“Bucharest,” he said explosively, through a full mouth. “Constantinople, Vienna, Prague, Berlin. We will walk down streets of gold in all the great cities of the world! All the potatoes your tiny heart could wish for, served up on nice restaurant china. And for me...” Golescu swallowed. “The life I was meant to live. Fame and universal respect. Beautiful women. Financial embarrassment only a memory!

“We’ll give the teeming masses what they desire, my friend. What scourges people through life, after all? Fear of old age. Fear of inadequacy. Loneliness and sterility, what terrible things! How well will people pay to be cured of them, eh? Ah, Emil, what a lot of work you have to do.”

Emil turned his blank face.

“Work,” he said.

“Yes,” said Golescu, grinning at him. “With your pots and pans and chemicals, you genius. Chickens be damned! We will accomplish great things, you and I. Future generations will regard us as heroes. Like, er, the fellow who stole fire from Heaven. Procrustes, that was his name.

“But I have every consideration for your modest and retiring nature. I will mercifully shield you from the limelight, and take the full force of public acclaim myself. For I shall now become...” Golescu dropped his voice an octave, “Professor Hades!”

It was on Market Day, a full week later, that the vardas rolled through Kronstadt. At the hour when the streets were most crowded, Golescu drove like a majestic snail. Those edged to the side of the road had plenty of time to regard the new paint job. The vardas were now decorated with suns, moons and stars, what perhaps might have been alchemical symbols, gold and scarlet on black, and the words:

PROFESSOR HADES

Master Of the Miseries

Some idle folk followed, and watched as Golescu drew the wagons up in a vacant field just outside the Merchants’ Gate. They stared, but did not offer to help, as Golescu unhitched the horses and bustled about with planks and barrels, setting up a stage. They watched with interest as a policeman advanced on Golescu, but were disappointed when Golescu presented him with all necessary permits and a handsome bribe. He left, tipping his helmet; Golescu climbed into the lead wagon and shut the door. Nothing else of interest happened, so the idlers wandered away after a while.

But when school let out, children came to stare. By that time, scarlet curtains had been set up, masking the stage itself on three sides, and handbills had been tacked along the edge of the stage planking. A shopkeeper’s son ventured close and bent to read.

“‘FREE ENTERTAINMENT,’” he recited aloud, for the benefit of his friends. “‘Health and Potency can be Yours!! Professor Hades Knows All!!! See the Myrmidion Genius!!!!’”

“‘Myrmidion?’” said the schoolmaster’s son.

“‘Amazing Feats of Instant Calculation,’” continued the shopkeeper’s son. “‘Whether Rice, Peas, Beans, Millet or Barley, The Myrmidion Genius will Instantly Name the CORRECT Number in YOUR JAR. A Grand Prize will be Presented to Any Person who can Baffle the Myrmidion Genius!’”

“What’s a Myrmidion?” wondered the blacksmith’s son.

“What’s a Feat of Instant Calculation?” wondered the barber’s son. “Guessing the number of beans in a jar?”

“That’s a cheat,” said the policeman’s son.

“No, it isn’t!” a disembodied voice boomed from behind the curtain. “You will see, little boys. Run home and tell your friends about the free show, here, tonight. You’ll see wonders, I promise you. Bring beans!”

The boys ran off, so eager to do the bidding of an unseen stranger that down in Hell the Devil smiled, and jotted down their names for future reference. Dutifully they spread the word. By the time they came trooping back at twilight, lugging jars and pots of beans, a great number of adults followed them. A crowd gathered before the wagons, expectant.

Torches were flaring at either side of the stage now, in a cold sweeping wind that made the stars flare too. The scarlet curtain flapped and swayed like the flames. As it moved, those closest to the stage glimpsed feet moving beneath, accompanied by a lot of grunting and thumping.

The barber cleared his throat and called, “Hey! We’re freezing to death out here!”

“Then you shall be warmed!” cried a great voice, and the front curtain was flung aside. The wind promptly blew it back, but not before the crowd had glimpsed Golescu resplendent in his Mephistopheles costume. He caught the curtain again and stepped out in front of it. “Good people of Kronstadt, how lucky you are!”

There was some murmuring from the crowd. Golescu had applied makeup to give himself a sinister and mysterious appearance, or at least that had been his intention, but the result was that he looked rather like a fat raccoon in a red suit. Nevertheless, it could not be denied that he was frightening to behold.

“Professor Hades, at your service,” he said, leering and twirling the ends of his moustache. “World traveler and delver-into of forbidden mysteries!”

“We brought the beans,” shouted the barber’s son.

“Good. Hear, now, the story of my remarkable—”

“What are you supposed to be, the Devil?” demanded someone in the audience.

“No indeed! Though you are surely wise enough to know that the Devil is not so black as he is painted, eh?” Golescu cried. “No, in fact I bring you happiness, my friends, and blessings for all mankind! Let me tell you how it was.”

From under his cloak he drew the lyre, and pretended to twang its strings.

“It is true that in the days of my youth I studied the Dark Arts, at a curious school run by the famed Master Paracelsus. Imagine my horror, however, when I discovered that every seven years he offered up one of his seven students as a sacrifice to Hell! And I, I myself was seventh in my class! I therefore fled, as you would surely do. I used my great wealth to buy a ship, wherewith I meant to escape to Egypt, home of all the mysteries.

“Long I sailed, by devious routes, for I lived in terror that Master Paracelsus would discover my presence by arcane means. And so it happened that I grew desperately short of water, and was obliged to thread dangerous reefs and rocks to land on an island with a fair spring.

“Now, this was no ordinary island, friends! For on it was the holy shrine of the great Egyptian god Osiris, once guarded by the fierce race of ant-men, the Myrmidions!”

“Don’t you mean the Myrmidons?” called the schoolmaster. “They were—”

“No, that was somebody else!” said Golescu. “These people I am talking about were terrors, understand? Giant, six-limbed men with fearsome jaws and superhuman strength, whom Osiris placed there to guard the secrets of his temple! Fangs dripping venom! Certain death for any who dared to set foot near the sacred precinct! All right?

“Fortunately for me, their race had almost completely died out over the thousands of years that had passed. In fact, as I approached the mysterious temple, who should feebly stagger forth to challenge me but the very last of the ant-men? And he himself such a degraded and degenerate specimen, that he was easily overcome by my least effort. In fact, as I stood there in the grandeur of the ancient moonlight, with my triumphant foot upon his neck, I found it in my heart to pity the poor defeated creature.”

“Where do the beans come in?” called the policeman’s son.

“I’m coming to that! Have patience, young sir. So I didn’t kill him, which I might easily have done. Instead, I stepped over his pathetic form and entered the forbidden shrine of Osiris.

“Holding my lantern high, what should I see but a towering image of the fearsome god himself, but this was not the greatest wonder! No, on the walls of the shrine, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, were inscribed words! Yes, words in Ancient Egyptian, queer little pictures of birds and snakes and things. Fortunately I, with my great knowledge, was able to read them. Were they prayers? No. Were they ancient spells? No, good people. They were nothing more nor less than recipes for medicine! For, as you may know, Osiris was the Egyptians’ principal god of healing. Here were the secret formulas to remedy every ill that might befall unhappy mankind!

“So, what did I do? I quickly pulled out my notebook and began to copy them down, intending to bring this blessing back for the good of all.

“Faster I wrote, and faster, but just as I had cast my eye on the last of the recipes—which, had I been able to copy it, would have banished the awful specter of Death himself—I heard an ominous rumbling. My lamp began to flicker. When I looked up, I beheld the idol of Osiris trembling on its very foundation. Unbeknownst to me, my unhallowed feet crossing the portal of the shrine had set off a dreadful curse. The shrine was about to destroy itself in a convulsive cataclysm!

“I fled, thoughtfully tucking my notebook into my pocket, and paused only to seize up the last of the Myrmidions where he lay groveling. With my great strength, I easily carried him to my ship, and cast off just before the shrine of Osiris collapsed upon itself, with a rumble like a hundred thousand milk wagons!

“And, not only that, the island itself broke into a hundred thousand pieces and sank forever beneath the engulfing waves!”

Golescu stepped back to gauge his effect on the audience. Satisfied that he had them enthralled, and delighted to see that more townfolk were hurrying to swell the crowd every minute, he twirled his moustache.

“And now, little children, you will find out about the beans. As we journeyed to a place of refuge, I turned my efforts to taming the last of the Myrmidions. With my superior education, it proved no difficulty. I discovered that, although he was weak and puny compared with his terrible ancestors, he nevertheless had kept some of the singular traits of the ant!

“Yes, especially their amazing ability to count beans and peas!”

“Wait a minute,” shouted the schoolmaster. “Ants can’t count.”

“Dear sir, you’re mistaken,” said Golescu. “Who doesn’t remember the story of Cupid and Psyche, eh? Any educated man would remember that the princess was punished for her nosiness by being locked in a room with a huge pile of beans and millet, and was supposed to count them all, right? And who came to her assistance? Why, the ants! Because she’d been thoughtful and avoided stepping on an anthill or something. So the little creatures sorted and tided the whole stack for her, and counted them too. And that’s in classical literature, my friend. Aristotle wrote about it, and who are we to dispute him?”

“But—” said the schoolmaster.

“And NOW,” said Golescu, hurrying to the back of the platform and pushing forward the coffin, which had been nailed into a frame that stood it nearly upright, “Here he is! Feast your astonished eyes on—the last of the Myrmidions!”

With a flourish, he threw back the lid.

Emil, dressed in the black imp costume that had been modified with an extra pair of straw-stuffed arms, and in a black hood to which two long antenna of wire had been attached, looked into the glare of the lights. He screamed in terror.

“Er—yes!” Golescu slammed the lid, in the process trapping one of the antennae outside. “Though you can only see him in his natural state in, er, the briefest of glimpses, because—because, even though weak, he still has the power of setting things on fire with the power of his gaze! Fortunately, I have devised a way to protect you all. One moment, please.”

As the crowd murmured, Golescu drew the curtain back across the stage. Those in the front row could see his feet moving to and fro for a moment. They heard a brief mysterious thumping and a faint cry. The curtain was opened again.

“Now,” said Golescu. “Behold the last of the Myrmidions!”

He opened the lid once more. Emil, safely goggled, did not scream. After a moment of silence, various members of the audience began to snicker.

“Ah, you think he’s weak? You think he looks harmless?” said Golescu, affecting an amused sneer. “Yet, consider his astonishing powers of calculation! You, boy, there.” He lunged forward and caught the nearest youngster who was clutching a jar, and lifted him bodily to the stage. “Yes, you! Do you know—don’t tell me, now!—do you know exactly how many beans are in your jar?”

“Yes,” said the boy, blinking in the torchlight.

“Ah! Now tell me, good people, is this child one of your own?”

“That’s my son!” cried the barber.

“Very good! Now, is there a policeman here?”

“I am,” said the Captain of Police, stepping forward and grinning at Golescu in a fairly unpleasant way.

“Wonderful! Now, dear child, will you be so kind as to whisper to the good constable—whisper, I say—the correct number of beans in this jar?”

Obediently, the barber’s son stepped to the edge of the planking and whispered into the Police Captain’s ear.

“Excellent! And now, brave Policeman, will you be so good as to write down the number you have just been given?” said Golescu, sweating slightly.

“Delighted to,” said the Police Captain, and pulling out a notebook he jotted it down. He winked at the audience, in a particularly cold and reptilian kind of way.

“Exquisite!” said Golescu. “And now, if you will permit—?” He took the jar of beans from the barber’s son and held it up in the torchlight. Then he held it before Emil’s face. “Oh, last of the Myrmidions! Behold this jar! How many beans?”

“Five hundred and six,” said Emil, faint but clear in the breathless silence.

“How many?”

“Five hundred and six.”

“And, sir, what is the figure you have written down?” demanded Golescu, whirling about to face the Police Captain.

“Five hundred and six,” the Police Captain responded, narrowing his eyes.

“And so it is!” said Golescu, thrusting the jar back into the hands of the barber’s son and more or less booting him off the stage. “Let’s have more proof! Who’s got another jar?”

Now a half-dozen jars were held up, and children cried shrilly to be the next on stage. Grunting with effort, Golescu hoisted another boy to the platform.

“And you are?” he said.

“That’s my son!” said the Police Captain.

“Good! How many beans? Tell your papa!” cried Golescu, and as the boy was whispering in his father’s ear, “Please write it down!”

He seized the jar from the boy and once more held it before Emil. “Oh last of the Myrmidions, how many beans?”

“Three hundred seventeen,” said Emil.

“Are you certain? It’s a much bigger jar!”

“Three hundred seventeen,” said Emil.

“And the number you just wrote down, dear sir?”

“Three hundred seventeen,” admitted the Police Captain.

“I hid an onion in the middle,” said his son proudly, and was promptly cuffed by the Police Captain when Golescu had dropped him back into the crowd.

Now grown men began to push through the crowd, waving jars of varied legumes as well as barley and millet. Emil guessed correctly on each try, even the jar of rice that contained a pair of wadded socks! At last Golescu, beaming, held up his hands.

“So, you have seen one proof of my adventure with your own eyes,” he cried. “But this has been a mere parlor entertainment, gentle audience. Now, you will be truly amazed! For we come to the true purpose of my visit here. Behold the Gifts of Osiris!”

He whisked a piece of sacking from the stacked boxes it had concealed. The necks of many medicine bottles winked in the torchlight.

“Yes! Compounded by me, according to the ancient secret formulas! Here, my friends, are remedies to cure human misery! A crown a bottle doesn’t even cover the cost of its rare ingredients—I’m offering them to you practically as a charity!”

A flat silence fell at that, and then the Police Captain could be heard distinctly saying, “I thought it would come to this.”

“A crown a bottle?” said somebody else, sounding outraged.

“You require persuasion,” said Golescu. “Free persuasion. Very good! You, sir, step up here into the light. Yes, you, the one who doesn’t want to part with his money.”

The man in question climbed up on the planks and stood there looking defiant, as Golescu addressed the audience.

“Human misery!” he shouted. “What causes it, good people? Age. Inadequacy. Inability. Loneliness. All that does not kill you, but makes life not worth living! Isn’t it so? Now you, good sir!” He turned to the man beside him. “Remove your hat, if you please. I see you suffer from baldness!”

The man turned red and looked as though he’d like to punch Golescu, but the audience laughed.

“Don’t be ashamed!” Golescu told him. “How’d you like a full growth of luxurious hair, eh?”

“Well—”

“Behold,” said Golescu, drawing a bottle from the stack. “The Potion of Ptolemy! See its amazing results.”

He uncorked the bottle and tilted it carefully, so as to spill only a few drops on the man’s scalp. Having done this, he grabbed the tail of his cloak and spread the potion around on the man’s scalp.

“What are you doing to me?” cried the man. “It burns like Hell!”

“Courage! Nothing is got without a little pain. Count to sixty, now!”

The audience obliged, but long before they had got to forty they broke off in exclamations: for thick black hair had begun to grow on the man’s scalp, everywhere the potion had been spread.

“Oh!” The man clutched his scalp, unbelieving.

“Yes!” said Golescu, turning to the audience. “You see? Immediately, this lucky fellow is restored to his previous appearance of youth and virility. And speaking of virility!” He smacked the man’s back hard enough to send him flying off the platform. “What greater source of misery can there be than disappointing the fair ones? Who among you lacks that certain something he had as a young buck, eh?

“Nobody here, I’m sure, but just think: someday, you may find yourself attempting to pick a lock with a dead fish. When that day comes, do you truly want to be caught without a bracing bottle of the Pharaoh’s Physic? One crown a bottle, gentlemen! I’m sure you can understand why no free demonstrations are available for this one.”

There was a silence of perhaps five seconds before a veritable tidal wave of men rushed forward, waving fistfuls of coin.

“Here! One to a customer, sirs, one only. That’s right! I only do this as a public service, you know, I love to make others happy. Drink it in good health, sir, but I’d suggest you eat your oysters first. Pray don’t trample the children, there, even if you can always make more. And speaking of making more!” Golescu stuffed the last clutch of coins down his tights and retreated from the front of the stage, for he had sold all his bottles of Pharaoh’s Physic and Potion of Ptolemy.

“What’s the use of magnificent potency when your maiden is cold as ice, I ask you? Disinterest! Disdain! Diffidence! Is there any more terrible source of misery than the unloving spouse? Now, you may have heard of love philtres; you may have bought charms and spells from mere gypsies. But what your little doves require, my friends, is none other than the Elixir of Isis! Guaranteed to turn those chilly frowns to smiles of welcome!”

A second surge made its way to the front of the platform, slightly less desperate than the first but moneyed withal. Golescu doled out bottles of Elixir of Isis, dropped coins down his tights, and calculated. He had one case of bottles left. Lifting it to the top of the stack, he faced his audience and smiled.

“And now, good people, ask yourselves a question: What is it that makes long life a curse? Why, the answer is transparent: it is pain. Rending, searing, horrible agony! Dull aches that never go away! The throb of a rotten tooth! Misery, misery, misery, God have mercy on us! But! With a liberal application of Balm Bast, you will gain instant relief from unspeakable torment.”

There was a general movement toward the stage, though not such a flood as Golescu had expected; some distraction was in the crowd, though he couldn’t tell what it was. Ah! Surely, this was it: an injured man, with bandaged head and eye, was being helped forward on his crutches.

“Give way! Let this poor devil through!”

“Here, Professor Hades, here’s one who could use your medicine!”

“What about a free sample for him?”

“What’s this, a veteran of the wars?” said Golescu, in his most jovial voice. “Certainly he’ll get a free sample! Here, for yo—” He ended on a high-pitched little squeak, for on leaning down he found himself gazing straight into Farmer Buzdugan’s single remaining eye. Mutual recognition flashed.

“Yo—” began Farmer Buzdugan, but Golescu had uncorked the bottle and shoved it into his mouth quick as thought. He held the bottle there, as Buzdugan choked on indignation and Balm Bast.

“AH, YES, I RECOGNIZE THIS POOR FELLOW!” said Golescu, struggling to keep the bottle in place. “He’s delusional as well! His family brought him to me to be cured of his madness, but unfortunately—”

Unfortunately the distraction in the crowd was on a larger scale than Golescu had supposed. It had started with a general restlessness, owing to the fact that all those who had purchased bottles of Pharaoh’s Physic had opened the bottles and gulped their contents straight down. This had produced general and widespread priapism, at about the time Golescu had begun his spiel on the Elixir of Isis.

This was as nothing, however, to what was experienced by those who had purchased the Potion of Ptolemy and, most unwisely, decided to try it out before waiting to get it home. Several horrified individuals were now finding luxuriant hair growing, not only on their scalps but everywhere the potion had splashed or trickled in the course of its application, such as ears, eyelids, noses and wives. More appalled still were those who had elected to rub the potion well in with their bare hands.

Their case was as nothing, however, compared to the unfortunate who had decided that all medicines worked better if taken internally. He was now prostrate and shrieking, if somewhat muffledly, as a crowd of horrified onlookers stood well back from him.

Buzdugan threw himself back and managed to spit out the bottle.

“Son of a whore!” he said. “This is him! This is the one who sold us the—”

“MAD, WHAT DID I TELL YOU?” said Golescu.

“He sold us the stuff that created those—” Buzdugan said, before the Balm Bast worked and he abruptly lost all feeling in his body. Nerveless he fell from his crutches into the dark forest of feet and legs.

But he was scarcely noticed in the excitement caused by the man who had purchased both Pharaoh’s Physic and Elixir of Isis, with the intention of maximizing domestic felicity, and in the darkness had opened and drunk off the contents of the wrong bottle. Overcome by a wave of heat, and then inexplicable and untoward passion, and then by a complete loss of higher cerebral function, he had dropped his trousers and was now offering himself to all comers, screaming like a chimpanzee. Several of those afflicted by the Pharaoh’s Potion, unable to resist, were on the very point of availing themselves of his charms when—

“Holy saints defend us!” cried someone on the edge of the crowd. “Run for your lives! It’s another demon cock!”

This confused all who heard it, understandably, but only until the demon in question strode into sight.

Golescu, who had been edging to the back of the platform with tiny little steps, smiling and sweating, saw it most clearly: a rooster, but no ordinary bird. Eight feet tall at the shoulder, tail like a fountain of fire, golden spurs, feathers like beaten gold, comb like blood-red coral, and a beak like a meat cleaver made of brass! Its eyes shone in the light of the torches with ferocious brilliance, but they were blank and mindless as any chicken’s. It beat its wings with a sound like thunder. People fled in all directions, save those who were so crazed with lust they could not be distracted from what they were doing.

“Oh why, oh why do these things happen?” Golescu implored no one in particular. “I have such good intentions.”

The great bird noticed the children crowded together at the front of the platform. Up until this point, they had been giggling at the behavior of their elders. Having caught sight of the monster, however, they dove under the platform and huddled there like so many mice. The bird saw them nonetheless, and advanced, turning its head to regard them with one eye and then the other. Terrified, they hurled jars of beans at it, which exploded like canisters of shot. Yet it came on, raking the ground as it came.

And Golescu became aware that there was another dreadful noise below the cries of the children, below Buzdugan’s frenzied cursing where he lay, below the ever-more-distant yells of the retreating audience. Below, for it was low-pitched, the sort of noise that makes the teeth vibrate, deep as an earthquake, no less frightening.

Something, somewhere, was growling. And it was getting louder.

Golescu raised his head, and in a moment that would return to him in nightmares the rest of his life saw a pair of glowing eyes advancing through the night, eyes like coals above white, white teeth. The nearer they came, floating through the darkness toward the wagon, the louder grew the sound of growling. Nearer now, into the light of the torches, and Golescu saw clearly the outstretched arms, the clawing fingers caked with earth, the murderous expression, the trailing shroud.

“Good heavens, it’s Amaunet,” he observed, before reality hit him and he wet himself. The Black Cup had failed her again after all, and so—

“rrrrrrrrkillYOU!” she roared, lunging for the platform. Golescu, sobbing, ran to and fro only a moment; then fear lent him wings and he made one heroic leap, launching himself from the platform to the back of the chicken of gold. Digging his knees in its fiery plumage, he smote it as though it were a horse.

With a squawk that shattered the night, his steed leaped in the air and came down running. Golescu clung for dear life, looking over his shoulder. He beheld Emil, antennae wobbling, scrambling frantically from the coffin.

“Uncle Barbu!” wailed Emil. But Amaunet had Emil by the ankle now. She pulled him close. He vanished into the folds of her shroud, still struggling. Golescu’s last glimpse was of Amaunet lifting Emil to her bosom, clutching him possessively, horrific Madonna and limp Child.

Golescu hugged the neck of his golden steed and urged it on, on through the night and the forest. He wept for lost love, wept for sour misfortune, wept for beauty, and so he rode in terrible glory through water and fire and pitiless starlight. When bright day came he was riding still. Who knows where he ended up?

Though there is a remote village beyond the forests, so mazed about with bogs and streams no roads lead there, and every man has been obliged to marry his cousin. They have a legend that the Devil once appeared to them, riding on a golden cock, a fearful apparition before which they threw themselves flat. They offered to make him their prince, if only he would spare their lives.

And they say that the Devil stayed with them a while, and made a tolerably good prince, as princes go in that part of the world. But he looked always over his shoulder, for fear that his wife might be pursuing him. He said she was the Mother of Darkness. His terror was so great that at last it got the better of him and he rode on, rather than let her catch him.

The men of the village found this comforting, in an obscure kind of way. Even the Devil fears his wife, they said to one another. They said it so often that a man came from the Ministry of Culture at last, and wrote it down in a book of proverbs.

But if you travel to that country and look in that great book, you will look in vain; for unfortunately some vandal has torn out the relevant page.