The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [74]
Hadulph shrugged—and I had already learned that this shrug, rippling down from his broad shoulders and across his colossal back, was his primary expression of any sort of emotion. “When you lived in your Konstantinii,” the lion habitually blundered the ending of Constantinople, “with all your domes and mackerels and crosses, did you think that if you took the wrong turn on the Bosphorus that there might be a place where sheep trees grow and lions talk? Well, that is how we stand to the cities of the banyan. We do not have the luxury of believing ourselves the only world in the world. Perhaps if you and your own had better senses of direction, we could wallow in solipsism as you do.”
“Do you not like me, Hadulph?”
“I neither like you nor dislike you, John. Fortunatus tells me your God says we live under your dominion already, by nature and fate, so it doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”
“Then why did you volunteer yourself? Surely you had better things to do.”
“I came for Hagia,” he growled simply, and I fell silent. I had not yet spoken to the monstrous woman, nor even, truly, glanced her way.
No, I should not lie. I glanced at her, and more, when she could not see my gaze drift. If she turned her back she could almost be human, her broad brown muscles working, her strong arms, her thick waist. If I did not look up to her shoulders—ah, but I always did, and always shuddered. If she turned toward me, the horror of her breasts and her belly hit me like a blow, and I could not bear it. She wore nothing above the waist, could wear nothing, or else be blinded, but still the indecency of it shocked me, how brazenly she wore her nakedness, the bigness of her—for she stood a head and a half taller than I, and no farm-horse could have been stronger. In all her body and soul dwelled not a drop of shame. I could not look on her; I could not look away. She wore a beautiful belt, dark goat-leather all studded with opaque gems: agate, carnelian, obsidian, malachite, in patterns like constellations, and from it hung an ornament like an orrery in miniature, turning and clicking as she walked. When—terrible moment!—she caught me staring at her, I took shelter in pretense, and studied her belt intently.
Did I want her then, already? No, of course not. I was still a priest. I was a good man.
I always wanted her. I was a fool.
While Qaspiel prepared us the promised roast salad of young asparagus, amla fruit, tulip bulbs, and salted yak we had brought from Nural’s endless stores, Hadulph settled down in the grass, like a gargantuan ruby statue, roots thatching and crossing behind him. We all ate; Hagia laughed and joked with Qaspiel, to whom it—ah, how difficult it was for me to use the neuter, as they all gently reminded me to do! I wanted to say him, when Qaspiel looked fierce and brutal, in the manner of angels, her when Qaspiel looked gentle and loving, as it did that night, singing a song to Hagia to make her smile, a song about fairies that plagued the vanilla harvest, stealing the beans to make their long lyres. I know Qaspiel said it was not an angel, did not even know the word. And yet I could help but tremble in my bones when it sang.
Night drew on, and I took comfort in knowing some few of the spangled stars overhead, the whole sky like a jewel-box spilled out on a black cloth. Qaspiel slept on the high roots, its wings closed over its face like a bat. Fortunatus slept close to the fire, snoring a strange hooting, chirping snore. Hajji, the panoti, kept her own counsel and put a peach to her lips, listening to some hymn I could not hear. Hagia concealed herself in the shadows and I knew not where she lay. But the red lion sat impassively where he had settled, and sleepless, restless, I turned toward him, only to see that his eyes remained open, glittering white as stones in the dark, though a deep, rumbling snore bubbled up from his chest, escaped, and boiled up again.
“Do you wake or do you sleep, lion?” I whispered, but he