To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [23]
‘With a fig-leaf,’ said Le Prieur briefly. ‘Both Adam and Eve are born with a fig-leaf. Excuse me.’ He stepped aside.
‘M. Le Prieur is Adam,’ said Ardent Désir mellifluously. ‘If, that is, we are to present The Creation, as planned. Since the death in Spain of the prince, roi monseigneur has asked us to consider instead the Mystère of St Vincent of Saragossa, the Catalonian martyr. It has caused certain problems. Come. Come to the workshop.’
‘Problems?’ Nicholas said. They began to cross over the square. The Jew followed.
‘Six months of preparation,’ said Ardent Désir. ‘Bestow a little thought on what must be arranged for these plays? For the Multiplication des Pains, six dozen loaves from some baker, to be replaced at starvation prices when eaten. For the Décollation of St Jehan Baptiste, a second head, with the best type of blood. Sodom and Gomorrah one could run for a month, except that more wish to take part than to watch. As for the Judas’s death! Yci creve Judas par le ventre et les trippes saillent dehors: it sounds simple. But the Superintendent must fashion the tripes, order the soul, commission the device for their ejection.’
‘And produce the rabbits for The Creation,’ Nicholas suggested helpfully.
‘You see the trouble?’ said Ardent Désir with exasperation. ‘No play demands so much as The Creation! You say it is easy: a snake, a cloud, a maisonette for Adam and Eve. But the doves, the coneys, the fish, what of these? Compared with which, St Vincent is simple – a mere engine of torture, and some blood.’
‘Heaven and Hell,’ said the Jew. They had come to a large shuttered warehouse.
‘One can hardly escape Heaven and Hell,’ said Ardent Désir, ‘in any play. It is my contention that the Creation should be abandoned. Let us have the noble St Vincent, whose instruments, if well greased, will suffer no harm however long the play is deferred.’ He began to declaim. ‘O l’aide Dieu, createur tout puissant; par le congé de vous, tresnoble roy; noble prince, nature cognoissant …’
‘You have a rôle in St Vincent?’ asked Nicholas.
‘I,’ said M. de Hurion, ‘am the Prologue,’ and, flinging open the doors, walked into the workshop.
Nicholas hesitated. ‘As you perceived,’ said the Jew at his ear. ‘The flaming city of Ai reflecting the infernal city of Dis. Each gentleman has a stake in one play, and each is reluctant to concede. But indeed, M. de Hurion is eloquent as the Prologue, just as M. Le Prieur is a magnificent Adam. Have you a minute?’
He held one in his hand: a thick wad of paper slipped from the sleeve of his robe.
‘The script?’ said Nicholas.
‘A summary of it. The blanks represent the comedy interludes, in the hands of Les Chinchins.’
‘It seems a very long play,’ Nicholas said. The floor of the warehouse was littered with half-made artefacts, some silent, some receiving the attention of groups of people employing saws, brushes or knives. Men argued with one another; greeted M. Pierre; smiled at Nicholas from a platform dominated by a great wheel. In a corner a towering object suddenly opened its jaws, revealing a flood of scarlet light and two dwarves.
‘Le Crapault d’Enfer,’ said M. Pierre. ‘It is a long play. Fifteen thousand verses, sixty actors and three days to perform it. Text in French, directions in cooking-Latin, comedy inadvertently in bas-auvergnat, but we needn’t go into that. I am told that you practise the art of divining.’
‘You are mistaken. What is the wheel?’
‘According to requirements, the Wheel of the Damned, or that which represents nine choirs of angels in nine circles of fire. Come down. It is not at all safe.’
There were platforms at the end of each spoke, some with dummies on them. Having climbed halfway up, Nicholas inserted himself beside a pliant angel with tall feather wings. He made no attempt to come down.
He had seen a lot of Mystery Plays. He had acted in some. Ardent Désir had reappeared and the other officer, Le Prieur, walked in and stood by the door, somewhat flushed. The doctor Pierre, standing still, had no expression on his upturned face at all.