Page 33 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“Darling, you wrote an entire cantata about your people’s hostility to original thought.”
“That is precisely my objection to Farah’s tedious obsession with the Ilari.” He paused, coughing into a slightly bloodstained handkerchief. “There is neither originality nor value in devoting one’s life to fellating an extinct civilisation.”
The scholar sighed. “Oh, Vasile. It is comments like that which ensure your works will ever be the sensation of the moment; a child’stantrum that draws brief notice, fast grows wearisome, and is soon forgotten.”
To my relief our hostess chose this juncture to formally introduce Mr. Lutrell. Of our present company, I learned the following. The consumptive gentleman, Mr. Vasile Kovac, was a recent arrival from the Hagiocracy of Pesh, a composer of revolutionary bent and atheistic leanings. The academic I already knew by reputation; they went by the mononym Farah and were one of the foremost authorities on Ilari poetry. The second gentleman in the group, who had not thus far spoken, was Iacomo Van der Berg, an Athran poet of the jobbing sort, who had spent the last fifty years producing unexceptionable verses on such subjects as society weddings, military victories, significant deaths, and civic festivals.
This just left the masked lady and her companion. The former went by Ambrosia de Luca and, as I might easily have concluded from her attire and the peculiar lambency of her eyes, was of Carcosan stock. Apparently she was an up-and-coming playwright, whose works to date had focused primarily on adapting traditional Carcosan folk narratives such that they could be enjoyed by a Khelathran audience without too great a risk of the terrible truths contained within them, driving said audience irreversibly to madness. Her partner, who had apparently come to the salon out of duty and affection and did not appear to be enjoying a moment of it, was a Marvosi force captain by the name of Domitia.
For those who are unfamiliar with that people or their homeland, the world of Marvos is a vast red desert orbiting an unremarkable yellow star at the edge of a distant galaxy. The Marvosi themselves are tall, green skinned, and warlike, their conquests driven by an unending need for two resources: water and labour. They make fine soldiers but terrible dinner guests. At mention of my name, the force captain looked down at me with slightly more interest than she had hithertodisplayed. “John Wyndham? Captain John Wyndham who held the pass at the Senescent Void?”
Preferring not to discuss such matters, I replied only by a slight inclination of my head.
“Impressive.” She paused. “For a human.”
Miss de Luca batted playfully at her lover. “Try not to be such a stereotype, darling.”
“It was a compliment. Most humans are weak and cowardly.”
“You do remember that I’m a human, as is everyone else in this room.”
“Yes.” Force Captain Domitia blinked slowly. “And the majority of you are weak and cowardly. I fail to see how the comment was relevant.”
That Mr. Lutrell had remained silent until this point had engendered in me an overly optimistic complacency. He now entered the discussion. “We’re not all weak and cowardly,” he observed. “Some of us are arrogant and undisciplined.”
“That is worse.”
“I wonder”—Mrs. Benamara placed a hand gently on Mr. Lutrell’s shoulder, making a none-too-subtle attempt to steer the conversation in a more productive direction—“have you yet had the opportunity to attend Mr. Kovac’s latest opera?”
Mr. Lutrell started, an expression of visible horror on his face. “Gods, no. Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because,” I suggested, “you’re a literary critic, sir.”
“Oh, opera. I’m so sorry. I thought you said ritual disembowelling of a sacrificial heifer.”
There was a brief pause, and then Mr. Kovac said, “It is calledThe Pyres of Autumn.It takes its inspiration from the revolution in the Kingdom of Ey. A group of villagers become convinced that the spirit of the Witch King is influencing members of their community andturn upon one another in a futile outpouring of hostility and fear. It is a sad but necessary commentary on the corrosive effect of religious superstition on the minds of simple people.”
While I was aware that the regime in Ey was not without its failings, I was not wholly pleased with the way Mr. Kovac appeared to be representing my country. I cleared my throat. “Might I ask why you did not choose to locate this narrative in Pesh?”
Mr. Kovac crushed his handkerchief in his fist. “I am under no obligation to justify to a theocrat the manner in which I choose to write on the subject of theocracy.”
“With respect,” I demurred, “Ey is not a theocracy. It is a parliamentary republic.”
“A republic governed in accordance with the tenets of a cult that worships a deity who is nothing more than a mindless ball of degenerate nuclear matter.”
At this, Mr. Van der Berg broke his silence. “Come now, Vasile. Art’s all well and good, but the Creator is a god and worthy of respect.”
“Pay him no mind, Iacomo.” Our hostess shook her head indulgently. “You know what Vasile’s like.”
The unpleasantness might here have dissipated. I was no more content than I had been at the start of the exchange, but I would have let the matter go for the sake of civility, to say nothing of the mission from which it appeared we were becoming increasingly distracted.
Mr. Kovac, however, suffered no such scruples. He turned upon me, with a look of disquieting resentment. “Of course, the great irony is that you stand here piously bleating about the unforgivable slander my opera perpetuates against your people, when your people will be unable to view it because your own Lord Protector has banned all forms of theatrical performance. Thus those most in need of my insight are the ones least able to access it.”
“It was not my intent to make you angry, Mr. Kovac.” I did notappreciate his tone, but I felt it was important to moderate mine. “I simply wished to know why you would choose to set this story in my country, rather than in your own.”
He stifled a fresh bout of coughing. “I cannot write about Pesh without bringing with me the knowledge of the hundred years that my people have been ruled by the Assembly of Hagiarchs. There is too much history. Too much suffering. Too much everything. Writing about a distant land gives me the freedom to do what I otherwise could not.”
“That seems rather unfair on the Eyans,” remarked Mr. Lutrell, somewhat to my surprise.
