The Empress and the Three of Swords

Amber-Rose Reed

London welcomed me back like an old friend. Though the people I had met when last I was here were mostly still in attendance, I noticed straight away that whatever routine I had kept among my friends had not continued in my absence. Such a thing was of course expected. I arrived at a ghastly time, or so said Wilton, an unfortunate actor I had occasion to see on my second day back. He complained of a breach among those in his social circles, though he knew nothing of what had happened, and did not seem to care, except for the inconvenience it caused him. He glanced at his reflection in the window of my lodging, as though to make sure his expression matched his imperious statement. I imagine he lay on such a far edge of such a circle, the waves of the troubles to which he alluded barely wet his feet.

Through Wilton, of course, I had made the acquaintance of many of the people he spoke of so dismissively, people whose names are known to any who travel in artistic circles in London. I inquired about a few of them, but when hearing one woman in particular was still in residence, I insisted that he and I go that very instant to her home, which had been a haven of mine in times past. He agreed reluctantly, as it seemed she was in the middle of whatever split had so shaken Wilton’s social milieu.

It was well after supper when we arrived at the lady’s home in Chelsea. Lamps burned against the darkening sky, gray clouds like smudges hovering above us as we climbed the brick steps to the front door. I saw light flickering inside through the window facing the street, though the silver lamp I had admired when last I came was not in view. I straightened the lapels of my coat as I waited, and Wilton tossed the artful tumble of his thick black hair.

Gypsy opened the door. That was the name Wilton had given me when first I had met the lady. Since then, I had learned much and more about her, including her given name, but no one ever used it. She looked much as she had when I last saw her—ageless as ever, pixie smile in place, dark hair framing her face. The coat that cinched at her waist was gray, and the skirt that billowed below it was black. I was used to seeing her in color—oranges like the sunset, blues like the morning, not grays and blacks like the clouds and the sky at my back that night. There was a flush beneath her tawny skin.

If our presence was a surprise, she did not show it. “Come in, come in,” she said, ushering us through the door, her brusque welcome nonetheless warm, and yet I felt something was wrong, even though her smile and her voice were all I’d come to expect from this most unusual lady. “Not much of a group expected this evening, I’m afraid,” she said, leading us into her parlour. I inquired about her friends, a tiny couple whom everyone playfully called the Birds. Gypsy let out a huff of air, a scoff or a laugh, I could not tell. “Sad to say, one of the Birds flew south for the winter, and the other…” She trailed off as we entered the room.

A woman stood alone in the middle of the parlour. Glittering white beads danced down her pale blue dress, and a pink sash wound around her waist, tied and left to stream down her back. She wore a band around her head, but stopped short of the feather the ladies in France had so popularized over the last months. She flicked midnight eyes toward me, and then toward Wilton, and then focused back on Gypsy. Wilton drooped at the woman’s lack of recognition of his dapper suit or his thick, handsome hair, and followed Gypsy’s direction to her blue sofa. I believe she had intended on both of us sharing the seat, but Wilton flung himself upon it as a lady in swoon.

I perched on its arm. Gypsy offered no introductions. She settled herself on a plush cushion on the floor, as was her custom, and did Wilton the kindness of asking him about his recent play.

While he explained the travails of playing a madman on the London stage—a story which he’d told me at length the moment he stepped into my lodging earlier—I watched Gypsy’s other guest.

As we had entered, she retreated from the center. Shelves covered with books, statuettes, and various gimcracks stood against one wall, and the woman had made her way toward it. The woman seemed removed, somehow, from the conversation, from the room, even. A strange thing to think about a woman whose hands were flirting with the idea of touch, but her fingers barely brushed a single item. It seemed to me that I knew her, or should have known her. That not recognizing her was a mistake I was bound to pay for, and likely sooner rather than later. I looked away, unnerved, and concentrated on our hostess.

“And what of yourself?” I interjected when Wilton paused for longer than it took to suck in a quick breath. “What have your endeavors been lately?”

I’d hoped she would tell a story, or perform a song, but it did not seem as though those projects were the ones on her mind. “Just finished a job,” she said, and her forehead creased with a frown even though her lips barely twitched. “Very little money in it.”

Her very reticence piqued my curiosity. “What sort of job?”

Gypsy’s dark eyes left my face and went to the woman’s. They seemed to speak without saying a word, their eyes locked across the room. The silence hung in the air, much heavier than the orange blossom scent from the incense burner near the window.

“A deck of cards,” she said at last, returning her gaze to me.

“Playing cards?”

“Of a sort,” Gypsy said, and rose to her feet. She retreated to the shelves in the corner and retrieved a red box, one of its corners already splitting at the seam. “Have you heard of the Tarot?”

I had, though only vaguely. Gypsy ran in occult circles, I knew, and there was some crossover with the artists, actors, and writers I had met in her parlour a few years ago. I asked for an explanation, but it was not Gypsy who gave me one.

“Divination is a useful way to learn the truth of oneself and the Great Work,” the woman said calmly. “To find a path. Especially when we’ve lost ours.”

Our hostess offered nothing further. She returned to her cushion on the floor, and tapped the bottom of the box, until a hefty stack of cards fell into her left hand. She fanned out the cards in front of her, the back of the deck facing up, white roses and lilies checkered on across a sea of blue. “Game of whist?” she asked with a little laugh.

I descended from my perch to sit before her as she shuffled the cards. And then, to my surprise, so did the woman, sitting beside me without care for her shimmering dress against the floor. Gypsy flashed a smile at both of us, though I dare to believe even now that the smile leveled at me was a fair amount brighter than that given to the woman. She took the cards in her left hand and dealt them out in the shape of a cross.

“The central card represents the one who seeks answers,” the woman said.

“This is me, then,” Gypsy replied, and turned the card. A dark-haired woman sat on a throne in an autumnal field, garlands of roses surrounding her. I looked from the card to the lady, and felt warmth steal into my chest. She was a queen, of sorts, a queen of the cloudland she opened to all of us. And queen and creator of the vibrant goldenrod and maroon world of the card below.

“How beautiful,” I murmured.

“Great of spirit,” the woman said, her voice wry, as though quoting.

Gypsy’s brow arched, equally wry. “Or from your side, suspicion.” I nearly asked what she meant, but stopped short of doing so. Gypsy turned the card that had laid across the Queen. “This is my obstacle.” A red heart was emblazoned upon a tannish background, so bright I nearly expected it to beat. Three swords were plunged through the heart, silvery bright and familiar to me.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, leaning in to get a closer look. “Is that not the same sword you gave the Birds?” I had been in this very room when Gypsy had presented it for their use, pulled from the wall. I looked to where it had once hung, but there was nothing there, as though the Birds had never brought it back before mysteriously fleeing.

“The sword is the same.” I looked up at her as she spoke, and caught the end of the look she leveled at the woman sitting beside me. Reproach lay in that stare, but I knew nothing of what had transpired.

The next card, she said as she turned it up, crowned her. The best of her intentions, she clarified. A craftsman at work, as I knew she always had been. The next card she turned up was beneath the central card, a hooded figure standing between overturned cups and ones still standing upright—what was inside of her, she said.

“This is behind me,” she said, and turned the card up. A figure with a brightly colored cape walked away from a row of cups while a frowning moon looked on. The card gave me a feeling of inescapable sadness, more even than the one before, and I was glad it was behind her.

“This is before me,” she said, and flipped the sixth card. A specter of Death loomed above a field of the prostrate. Above him waved a flag adorned with a white poppy.

Ghastly, I wanted to say, but did not. Was it there on my face to see?

“It is not as terrible as it seems,” the artist herself said. “It is not Death itself that comes before me.”

“Then what is it?”

“Change,” the woman said, lashes sweeping her cheeks as she closed her eyes. “Necessary, for survival.”

“But change how?” Gypsy challenged. “Our interpretations guide us through the reading.”

The woman conceded that with a tip of her head. “‘When shall the stars be blown about the sky, like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?’” she quoted.

There were four more cards to turn. The first, on the bottom of the row, was the happy figure of an empress, bolstered upon pillows, in a field of gold and green. “Myself again,” she said, both queen and empress. Gypsy moved immediately to the next one, which was an old Roman, his staff crowned with laurels—her environment, she said.

“This one holds my hopes and fears,” Gypsy intoned, and turned the third card.

A man in a cap and trousers absconded with five swords, leaving two behind. It was brightly colored, cheering. “This symbolizes confidence and wishes. An attempt to create something new.” Gypsy turned her face down, a smile flitting across it. “A plan that may fail.”

This room had been full of life and light and color, but something recent had happened to dampen it all down, and I did not understand. Fingers had danced along ivory keys and voices had shook the tiny silver figurines all lined up atop the shelves, but now there was something blighted about this place. I felt, staring between the two women, that I would never know the answer, a thing I still believe to be true. What was it that had been left behind to blight that cheering face going forward?

“This last represents what is to come.” Gypsy reached her hand toward the card. The tips of her fingers toyed with the edge of the card, then pulled away. She tapped two fingers against roses and lilies, and then pulled her hand away.

“That’s not—” the woman began. She reached her own hand out, but stopped herself short of touching. Her body settled back and her eyes went back to Gypsy, eyes flashing an accusation.

“Perhaps I don’t want to know the future,” Gypsy said.

The woman stood abruptly. “You’ll see it soon enough.”

Gypsy made no comment on her exit. To my right, Wilton did not either. “Your friend has fallen asleep,” Gypsy said. A glance confirmed it. When I looked back at her, her eyes were focused downward on the checkered back of the last card.

“You don’t want to know?” I asked.

Gypsy looked up at me. Her eyes glittered in the warm yellow candlelight.

“I’ll see it soon enough,” she repeated, and swept the cards into a messy pile.