"I AWOKE once during daylight. I lay on a soft bed on a terrace, and all around me were flowers. There were potted geraniums along the bal.u.s.trade, and beyond those were white-and-pink oleanders, and I thought in my dizziness and my madness that I could see a distant mountain to my right, which I knew certainly by its shape to be Vesuvius, and when I rose, sick and aching, I staggered to the edge of the oleanders and I looked down on the tile roofs of the town way far below me and saw that I couldn't escape in that way.

"Far to my left the road wound on with the cars like tiny beetles speeding along it. It was the coast of Italy in all its rugged glory, and beyond the road was the sizzling sea. The sun was high and blinding and it burnt down upon me, and there was no escape from it on this terrace.

"As for the house, it was locked against me. The dark green shuttered doors had nothing that I could even grasp. I fell back down on the bed and my eyes closed, though I willed them to stay open.

"My fevered mind said, You must escape here. You must go down the slope somehow. You have You must escape here. You must go down the slope somehow. You have to drop to the roofs below. to drop to the roofs below. That this creature, Petronia, meant to murder me, I had no doubt. That this creature, Petronia, meant to murder me, I had no doubt.

"I felt unconsciousness creep over me again, hot and dark and full of desperation. Some drug was working in me still that I couldn't fight.

"Then, against the blue sky I saw the shadowy outline of a woman and I heard her talking low and fast in Italian and I felt a sharp stab in my arm. I saw the outline of the syringe in her hand as she held it up with a dainty gesture, and I wanted to protest but I couldn't. And next I knew, she was shaving my face with a small electric razor that was like a noisy little animal running all over my upper lip and my chin.

"She was speaking to another woman in Italian, and though I spoke a little Italian I couldn't tell what it was she was saying, only that she complained. Finally she moved to one side, and I could see her, and she was young and brunette and with an upturn to her eyes.

" 'Why you, I would like to know,' she said to me with a thick accent. 'Why not me after all this time? I serve and I serve, and she brings you to me and says make him ready. I am nothing but a slave.'

" 'Help me to get out of here,' I said, 'and I'll make you rich.'

"She laughed. 'You don't even want it, and they're giving it to you!' she said scoffing. 'And why? Because she has a whim.' Her voice was soft but insistent. 'Everything is a whim with her. To come. To go. To live in this palazzo. To live in that palazzo.' She laid down the syringe. I heard the clink of metal. She lifted a long scissors. She cut a lock from my hair.

" 'What did you put into me?' I asked. 'Why did you shave my face? Where is Petronia?'

"She laughed, and so did another young woman who appeared on the left side of me, opposite. She was also slender, fashionable-looking and pretty of face, just like the one who was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g my hair. She stood with her back to the light, her shadow falling over me.

" 'We should kill you,' said the other woman, the new one, 'so that she can't do it. We could tell her that you died.'

"They both laughed at this joke uproariously.

" 'Why do you wish me harm?' I asked.

" 'Because she chose you instead of us!' said the one who had injected me. She was angry but she didn't raise her voice. 'Do you know how long we've waited? We've been teased by her since we were children. Always she has an excuse, except when she is angry, and then she offers no excuse for 255.

anything, and G.o.d help those who ask her for one!' She took a comb to my hair. 'You're ready as far as I can see.'

" 'Don't worry,' said the other one. She stood with folded arms. Her face was cold. She had beautiful sneering lips. 'We won't hurt you. She would know when she comes. And then she would kill us for certain.'

" 'Are you talking about Petronia?'

" 'You don't know anything,' said the one who had been combing my hair. 'She's just playing with you. She's going to kill you like all the rest.'

"I could feel the drug working in me, or was it my imagination? I was so hot, so miserable. I was neither drugged nor conscious.

" 'Don't try to get up,' said the woman with the comb. But I did try and I pushed her away from me.

"She fell back, murmuring in Italian. I think she was cursing. 'I hope she tortures you!' she said.

"I was flat on my back. I imagined myself crawling to the bal.u.s.trade. I should have dropped down, no matter how low it was. I had been a fool not to try it. My eyes closed. I could hear their voices, their cheap, cruel laughter. I hated them.

" 'Listen to me,' I said. 'Help me to the bal.u.s.trade. I'll go over it myself. You can tell her that I jumped. I'll probably die, and you'll be happy and free of me, just like. . . just like. . .' I couldn't make my mouth form the words. I wasn't sure I had said even what I thought I had said.

"I was swooning. I could no longer see.

"The bed was moving, and at first I thought it was my disorientation, but then I heard the squeak of the wheels. A coolness came over me and I felt my clothes being ripped from me, and then, down into a pool of warm water, my body was slipped.

"Thank G.o.d for it, I thought. The sweat and the heat were gone. Someone was bathing me and I didn't hear the voices of the young women anymore.

" 'Listen to me,' said a voice right close to my ear.

"I tried to open my eyes. In a flash I saw the ceiling painted with murals --a great blue sky with flying G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses: Bacchus in his chariot and satyrs around him with wreaths and trails of green ivy, and the maenads with their hair ripped and their clothes in tatters following behind. Brandnew. Too bright.

"Then I saw the boy who was bathing me. He was one of those extraordinary young Italian beauties with a halo of black curls for hair, and a gorgeous naked chest and muscular arms.

" 'I'm talking to you,' he said with a thick accent. 'Can you understand me?'

" 'The water feels good,' I tried to say, but I'm not sure I managed the words.

" 'Can you understand me?' he asked again.

"I tried to nod but my head was against a rim of porcelain. I said, 'Yes.'

" 'She'll test you,' he said. He went on bathing me, lifting the water in his hands and letting it flow over me. 'If you fail her tests, she'll kill you. That's always her way with those who fail her. There is nothing to be gained from fighting her. Remember what I say.'

" 'Help me to get away from here,' I said.

" 'I can't help you.'

" 'Do you believe me?' I struggled to articulate it. 'When I say that I can reward you? I have plenty of money.'

"His eyes widened and he shook his head. 'Doesn't matter if I believe you,' he said. 'She would find me, no matter where we went or what you gave me. She's too powerful for me ever to escape her. My life was finished the night that she saw me waiting tables in a cafe in Venezia.' He made a short bitter laugh. 'I wish to G.o.d that I had never brought her that little gla.s.s of wine, that useless little gla.s.s of wine.'

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" 'There has to be a way,' I said. 'She's not G.o.d, this woman.' I was losing consciousness again. I fought it. I remembered the cold air and the stars around me. What was she? What kind of monster?

" 'No, not G.o.d,' he said smiling bitterly. 'Just powerful and very cruel.'

" 'What does she want with me?' I asked.

" 'Try to stand up to her tests,' he said. 'Try to please her. Otherwise you die. She never does anything else with those who fail her. She gives them to us, and we rid the world of the bodies, and for that we are allowed to continue to live. That's our existence. Can you imagine the place the Devil has for us in his inferno? Now, if you believe in G.o.d, use this time to say your prayers.'

"I couldn't speak anymore.

"I felt him raise my arms, one at a time, and shave the hair beneath them. It was a strange ritual, and I couldn't understand the desire of anyone for such a thing to be done.

"He seemed to sense my discomfort.

" 'I don't know what it means,' he said to me softly, 'but for you she has ordered us to take great care.' He shook his head sadly. 'Maybe it means nothing, maybe it means something. Only in time will we know.'

"I think I laid my hand over his and patted him to console him because he sounded so sad.

"All the while the water of the bath was warm and moving, and then he told me in my ear that he was taking me to a place where I would wake from the drugs I'd been given, but I mustn't make noise.

"I.

slept.

"When I woke, I knew that I was alone. I could hear the silence and stillness around me, and I found myself on a couch and surrounded by golden bars.

" 'How my friend loves gold,' I whispered, 'but then I have always loved it myself.'

"Within seconds I realized I was in a glorified round cage. The door was securely locked, and I wore no boot or even a sandal with which to kick at it, and my fist did little good.

"As for my clothes, I'd been dressed in a pair of black pants. No shirt.

"Now, outside of this cage there was a great marble room, precisely what one would expect in a hillside palazzo, and it had its large square floor-length windows open to a long terrace, as one might also expect, and there was the sunset streaking the sky with red, and the violet light simmering as the sun sank into the sea.

"Italy, so glorious, on the flank of the great mountain, and not very far no doubt from the ruins of tragic cities it had destroyed.

"I sat back on the couch, watching the windows fill up with early stars and the room darken before me, which only proved to put it in a gentler light.

"There was something so very decadent and perverse about the cage in which I was imprisoned that I loathed it intensely, yet it had an odd calming effect on me because I knew that in a monstrous game with Petronia I might have some chance. That had been the implication of the boy who had bathed me. At least that had been the inference which I drew. Nevertheless, I was revolted by everything around me. This was a completely new emotion for me.

"The lights came up slowly, revealing scattered lamps along the inner walls of the room and murals which somewhat mimicked those of Pompeii --that is, rectangular paintings framing in Roman red various G.o.ddesses who danced with their backs turned to the room.

"And as these lights filled the s.p.a.ce with a golden illumination there entered not the proud arrogant Petronia whom I expected but two other creatures equally strange.

"One was a black man, so black indeed that he looked like polished onyx, and though he was at the very far end of the marble room, away from me, I could see the gold earrings in his ears.

"He had very delicate features and he had yellow eyes. His hair was very curly and shortcropped and not totally unlike my own.

257.

"The other man was a puzzle. He appeared old. Indeed, he had heavy jowls and receding temples and his hair was silver, but he appeared to be without blemish, as if he were made not from old flesh and blood but from wax. His eyes sagged slightly at the outside edges as if they were going to slide down his face, and his chin jutted, which gave him a firm look.

"This one, the old one, reminded me of someone, but I couldn't think who it was.

"Neither of these creatures looked human and there settled over me the certainty that they weren't.

"I flashed on the stars I'd seen last night, or whenever it had been as we'd risen into the air, and I felt a dreadful fatality --indeed, an awful sense that everything I'd known and loved was about to be taken from me and there was little really that I could do to prevent it. The test, the fight, the contest, whatever, would be a matter of form.

"I was mutely horrified and I sought to adjust my emotions. To be tantalized was my only hope. There was no time for wonder or curiosity.

"These two men came towards me but purely by accident. Though they looked at me, they seated themselves at a table in the center of the room. And there they began to play chess and to talk to each other, their profiles turned to me, which meant that the silver-haired man with the waxy jowls had his back to the star-studded sky and the black man looked out.

"Both of these creatures wore immaculate evening dress of a sort. They had on shining black dinner jackets and trousers and patent leather shoes. But they wore white turtlenecks of some very glossy material rather than shirts and black ties.

"They were soon laughing and joking with each other, and the language was Italian, so I couldn't follow what they said. But when I'd had a bellyful of it, I spoke up.

" 'So neither of you will enlighten me,' I asked, 'as to why I'm held captive here? You don't think I'd be in this predicament of my own free will?'

"It was the elderly-looking gentleman who answered me, his chin jutting even more as he did so. 'Well, now,' he said in clear English, 'you know you did something to be here. Now, what did you do to Petronia? She wouldn't have brought you here if you were innocent. Don't claim to be that with us.'

" 'That's exactly what I claim,' I said. 'I was brought here out of her caprice, and I ought to be released.'

"The black man spoke to the other. 'I do tire of her games, I swear it.' His voice was mellow and sweet, as though he was used to power.

" 'Oh, come, you know you enjoy it as much as I do,' said the elderly one. His voice was deep.

'Why else would you be here now? You knew she had this boy.'

" 'All I ask is to be released,' I said sharply. 'I can't send the authorities after you because I don't know who you are, and as for Petronia, all attempts in the past by me to have her discovered or arrested have failed, and they'll fail in the future. I won't attempt any such thing. What I ask is to be let go!'

"The black man rose from his armchair and he came towards me. He was the taller of the two. I didn't stand up to measure my height against his. He reached through the bars and laid his cool hand on my head. He looked into my eyes. I hated him. It took all my self-control to remain still.

" 'You've done no wrong to anyone,' he said under his breath, as though he had read it from my mind. 'And across the world she brings you for her blood sport.' He sighed. 'Oh, Petronia, why the cruelty, always the cruelty? Why, my beautiful pupil? When will you ever learn?'

" 'You'll let me go?' I asked. I looked up at him. What a splendid being he was. His features were sublimely chiseled and his face looked kind.

" 'I can't do that, my child,' he said in an even voice. 'I wish that I could, but I believe your fate is decided. I'll try to make your agony short.'

" 'Why does my life mean so little to you?' I asked. 'I come from a world where every life is 258.

precious. Why is it so different for you?'

"The old man had approached by this time, walking in a sprightly manner completely out of keeping with the appearances of age in him, and he was peering through the bars at me too.

" 'No, you're not innocent, don't tell us that,' he chortled. 'You're the Evil Doer in some guise,'

he protested. 'She wouldn't bring you here otherwise. I know her too well.'

" 'Not well enough,' said the coal black one. 'She does what she pleases and it's never enough for her.'

"I stared at the old man. 'The old man,' I said aloud, and then I realized it. 'The Old Man,' I said again. 'It's you. The portrait on the living room wall! It's Manfred Blackwood, that's who you are.'

" 'And who are you to say my name so boldly to me?' he demanded. He puffed himself up.

" 'You're demons, all of you. G.o.d, this is h.e.l.l.' I laughed. I felt the drug in me again. There was no escape. My words came in a rush. 'If it weren't for Julien Mayfair, you'd be my ancestor. I'm Tarquin Blackwood, that's who I am. She took me from the Hermitage, the Hermitage you built for her, and that I refurbished for her. Blackwood Manor's in my hands now. Your granddaughter, Lorraine, is still living, living to mourn for me and tear out her hair that I've disappeared from Blackwood Farm. Didn't Petronia tell you what she was up to?'

"He went into a fury. He tried to shake the bars but he couldn't. He pounded upon the lock. Now he was an old man in all his parts, his jaw trembling, his eyes tearing. 'Abomination!' he roared.

"The black one tried to calm him. 'Now, let this matter be in my hands,' he said. 'We have an order here of authority.'

" 'Do you see what she means to do?' the Old Man shouted. His jowls trembled. All of him trembled. His eyes were inflamed as he gazed at me. 'Who told you about Julien?' he demanded, as if such a thing were important now.

" 'Julien himself told me. I'm a seer of spirits,' I retorted. 'But what does it matter? Get me out of this place. Your granddaughter Lorraine needs me. Blackwood Farm needs me. I have flesh and blood that need me.'

"Suddenly Petronia herself appeared. Clad in a black velvet tunic and pants with a belt of cameos, she came striding across the long room and up to the two men, declaring as she did: " 'What is this, the convocation of the cage?'