Beautiful Blood

14

Upon returning to the House, Rosacher busied himself with scheming, studying Aldo’s maps and charts, hoping to construct a strategy for blunting a potential aggression on the part of Mospiel. He made some progress, but deciding that he needed help with the plan, he met the following morning with Breque in the conference room where he had initially proposed an alliance between himself and the council. Also in attendance was Gerald Makdessi, a young colonel who had been on Aldo’s staff and was thought to be a natural successor to the fallen general. He was a tall, punctilious man in his thirties, his close-cropped brown hair beginning to show gray, with a lean face that might have been laid out by a carpenter rule, its features were so standard—straight nose, thin, wide mouth, narrow blue-gray eyes all gathered within a tanned oblong frame. His expression—one of calm, attentive reserve—rarely changed, and then only by degree. As the men sat at the long mahogany table, their voices echoing slightly in the spacious room, the sun shafting through the eastern windows, its beams articulated by motes of glowing dust, Makdessi’s movements were economical, confined to a slight inclination of the head, a gesture with the fingers, and the like. Once Rosacher had finished his presentation, he asked permission to speak.

“The morale of Mospiel’s army is, as you have stated, not high,” he said. “Their discipline is poor and I have been informed that there are influential elements within the command that differ with the prelates on the value of a war with Teocinte. They have no great will to fight, but they nonetheless present a formidable foe due to their sheer numbers. I recommend that we flood the garrison towns along the border with mab. And I recommend we do so immediately.”

“Mospiel has made it clear that they would consider any attempt to introduce mab into their territory an act of war,” said Breque.

“Yet they have permitted a black market in the drug to go more-or-less unchecked,” Makdessi said. “Frankly, I doubt that they would notice the influx of drugs for several weeks, but even if they did, they can prepare for war no more quickly than they are at present. A sudden infusion of a drug that makes self-sacrifice less appealing, that lessens aggression and creates a lack of rigor in their preparation…it can’t help but benefit our cause.” He turned to Rosacher. “As to the city of Mospiel itself, your design is sound as far as it goes, but I have some ideas that may augment your own.”

“Please, proceed,” said Rosacher.

“In my view we should act boldly. We cannot afford to wait to learn if your attempt to assassinate Carlos has succeeded before initiating our attack on Mospiel.” Makdessi cleared away papers from a map of the region and pointed to an area on the northern border. “Mospiel has always felt that the swamps of the Gran Chaco were a barrier against an attack from the north—and they would, indeed, negate the possibility of an army moving upon the city from that direction. But a force comprised of small independent units trained to negotiate that terrain, expert in hand-to-hand combat, a guerilla troop, if you will…that is a wholly different matter. Three years ago General Aldo and I, with the approval of the council, established such a force in the towns along the perimeter of the swamp. We have over eight hundred men and women in eleven separate communities who are often away from home for weeks at a time, engaged in trapping, trading, and other pursuits. Their absence from their homes will not be seen as extraordinary and thus will not be reported on by the operatives of the prelates. We should send this force into Mospiel as soon as possible.”

“Why haven’t I been told about this before?” Rosacher asked, the restraints on his temper starting to slip.

“I saw no great urgency to inform you,” said Breque. “You were preoccupied with other matters…as was I.”

“I was not so preoccupied that I wished to remain ignorant of a possible incursion into Mospiel.”

“I was engaged on several fronts at the time, and thus I didn’t think to notify you of the disposition of every matter. Perhaps I should in the future inform you of every shipment of toilet tissue, every…”

“An act of aggression against Mospiel is scarcely something so insignificant!”

“Gentlemen!” said Makdessi. “This is neither the time nor the place for such an unproductive digression. The situation is grave and I, at least, have duties to perform.”

Rosacher shot a scathing look at Breque and waved in assent, and Breque said, “This is a trying time. Colonel. My apologies.”

“At the same time we push in from the Gran Chaco,” Makdessi went on, “we’ll pull troops away from the Temalaguan border and march them toward our southern border with Mospiel, a point from which they might logically expect an attack to be launched. And then we strike with our elite cavalry unit farther north, the garrison at Ciudad Flores, with the aim of killing General Teixera and as many of his staff as we can.” He leaned back from the map. “Teixera and his staff constitute the best of their military minds. If we’re able to inflict casualties amongst them, we’ll be well ahead of the game.”

“I don’t understand the purpose of your guerillas in the Gran Chaco.” Rosacher said. “To what end will they be deployed?”

“They will endeavor to occupy the seat of power in Mospiel,” Breque said. “The Temple of the Gentle Beast. That has been their goal from the outset. To occupy the temple and hold the hierarchy hostage.”

“You intend to take the temple with only eight hundred men?” Rosacher shook his head in disbelief.

“I’ll coordinate the attack myself.” Makdessi said. “The Temple Guard are excellent soldiers, but so are we, and we will enter the complex disguised as pilgrims. The element of surprise will be ours. Once the temple is secured, it would take an army to dislodge us, and to do so would forfeit the lives of His High Holiness and the prelates.”

“There are too many moving parts to this plan for my liking,” said Rosacher.

Makdessi said, “We’re in a desperate position. One that calls for desperate measures. We’re bound to take a great many casualties—of that there is little doubt. But the virtue of this plan is that it doesn’t require precise coordination between the various moving parts, as you put it. So long as they occur within a few days of each other, we have a decent chance of success.”

“We’d be leaving Teocinte unprotected,” said Breque. “If they were to launch a counter-offensive, it would be unopposed.”

“The circumstance in which we find ourselves necessitates a certain amount of risk,” said Makdessi. “There is no certain way to accomplish our aims, and to be conservative at this juncture would be to guarantee failure.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Rosacher.

“Precisely.”

After a silence Breque said, “I think it would be best, Colonel, if you gave us an hour or two to discuss the situation. You may rest assured that we will give due consideration to all your recommendations.”

When the door closed behind Colonel Makdessi, he said, “What do you think?”

“I’d watch that one if I were you,” said Rosacher. “His ambition is likely aimed higher than the rank of general.”

“My chief concern at the moment bears upon the question of whether he’s capable of being a general. I’ll worry about his ambition later.”

“His plan seems reasonable given the circumstances.”

“Did you think so?” Breque rubbed his cheek with his thumb. “I’m not sure.”

The councilman’s calm demeanor, the casual way he seemingly glossed over his duplicity, pricked Rosacher’s anger again. “Is there anything else you have omitted telling me? Anything I should know before we decide this matter?”

“Damn it, Richard!” Breque spanked the table. “I apologize. It was an oversight for which I…”

“Oh, I very much doubt it was an oversight,” said Rosacher. “You concealed from me the existence of a force whose primary function was to attack Mospiel. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had engineered the entire situation, risked thousands of lives, just to fulfill your dreams of glory.”

“You’re one to talk about engineering situations!” Breque said, and would have said more, but Rosacher outvoiced him.

“I can see it now! Statues everywhere! Portraits, busts of Breque the Conqueror! Breque the Deliverer! Breque the All-Powerful!”

“Before this degenerates…”

“Who knows? Maybe even Saint Breque. Little schoolchildren will sing of your generosity and caring.”

Breque, red-faced, mastered himself and said in a strained voice, “Before this degenerates into a shouting match, let me remind you that we have a decision to make. We need to set aside personal differences and act in accordance with our best judgment.”

Rosacher bit back his response and sat glowering at Breque.

“I would like to hear more about this monster of yours,” said Breque stiffly. “Do you really believe it’s the same creature that lived for centuries beneath the wing?”

“What I believe has no bearing on its capacity for killing,” said Rosacher. “But I have no reason to doubt the story. Nor would you, if you had seen it.”

“It’s made of a gelatinous substance, you say?”

“I said it appeared gelatinous, but I could just as easily say it appeared to be made of obsidian. What passes for its flesh is mutable in form and density. Once it seemed about to assume a fully defined shape, but…” Rosacher absently pushed papers around. “It is one of Griaule’s creatures and thus we cannot hope to comprehend it. All you need to know is that it literally ripped my horse in half and that its speed is incredible. In the confined spaces offered by the jungle, Carlos and his men won’t be able to stand against it.”

“Interesting,” said Breque. “That Griaule would choose such a flawed man to be his agent. That is, if Cerruti’s story is true.”

“All men are flawed.”

“Yes, but not as terribly as this one.”

“It strikes me that Griaule is adept at selecting the right man for the job. A deviant, a murderer…he becomes Griaule’s guard dog. I assume that was Frederick’s position before he became Cerruti’s pet. And I’m certain Griaule saw some quality in you that, when nourished, would make you an efficient bureaucrat.”

“That’s a horrid compliment!” Breque punctuated the sentence with a barking laugh. “Of course it goes without saying that he must have seen something similar in you.”

Rosacher shrugged.

“How much did you offer Cerruti?” Breque asked.

“Five thousand and free lodging at the House whenever he desires it.”

“So little?”

“And a hundred horses for Frederick.”

“I would have thought he’d ask for more.”

“I told him that if Mospiel succeeded in their aggression, they would expand into the plain and make life difficult for him and Frederick. That engaged his patriotism.” Rosacher placed his hands flat on the table, as though preparing to stand. “If there’s nothing else, I have much to do before I depart.”

“We haven’t even begun our discussion of Makdessi’s plan,” said Breque.

“What is there to discuss? Every element of the plan works together in a way that promises the hope of success. A slim hope, perhaps, yet we can expect no more.”

“But he’s leaving the city undefended!”

Rosacher got to his feet. “The sole difference between Makdessi’s plan and a plan that leaves a force to defend Teocinte is that, in the second instance, there will be more bodies piled up below Haver’s Roost and our own attack will be commensurately less efficient. You know that as well as I.”

“So you’re comfortable with the rest of his design?”

“We might be able to put together a better plan, but how long would that take? How many opinions would we have to seek, how many consultations would we need to validate our conclusion? We cannot afford to mistrust our instincts. You’ve told me that Makdessi is the best available man to lead our troops. Very well. Let him lead.”

“Of course you’re right,” Breque said after a pause, and sighed. “You’ll be leaving in the morning?”

“Tonight, if possible. I’ve sent riders on ahead to spread rumors of a dangerous beast terrorizing a specific area of the jungle not far from the palace. I hope that by the time we reach that area, Carlos’ interest will have been engaged, so that when Frederick’s attacks begin, he’ll be primed to come after him.”

Breque nodded. “Good.”

The councilman’s tone of voice was dispirited, but Rosacher was in no mood to buck him up. “One more thing,” he said. “We have a sufficient stock of mab to survive a two week lapse in production. I should be able to return by then. But if I do not…”

“We’ll be fine as far as production goes no matter when you return.”

“How can that be…unless you have succeeded in spying upon me and secured a knowledge of my process?”

“There is no process,” said Breque. “I’ve been aware of that for years.”

Rosacher sat back down.

“Ludie told me,” Breque continued. “She yielded all your secrets before she died. She was not your friend…certainly not at the end.”

Breque appeared to take no pleasure in this revelation—his glum countenance did not reflect the slightest joy or satisfaction.

“If that is so,” Rosacher said, “why tell me? Why am I alive?”

“Why am I telling you?” Breque shook his head, as if bewildered by the question. “There was a time when I longed to tell you, when I wanted you to know who really was the master of our mutual circumstance. I wanted to tell you that day when I informed you of Ludie’s death, but chose not to because I felt you would be easier to manage if you believed you were in control. But how I felt at that time is irrelevant. As I’ve told you, I’ve come to recognize your value as a resource and a friend.”

“How could you ever perceive us to be friends? You’ve lied to me for decades.”

“I understand that is how you see things, but though I had little respect for you in the past, and less love, my lie became a benign form of duplicity, a means of preserving the friendship. Your lies, on the other hand, have been funded, without exception, by your self-interest.”

“Is this confession intended to persuade me to lower my guard where you’re concerned? If so, I must tell you it has achieved the opposite effect.”

Breque gestured to the heavens—he might have been importuning a deity. “I’ve always thought of myself as a ruthless politician, a skilled manipulator. Now that we are both facing the possibility of death, I felt that honesty might prove a comfort to us both. As I’ve grown older, I’ve softened my stance, but even in my salad days, I could never match you as regards ruthlessness and manipulation. You are relentless in the practice of those arts. Perhaps the fact that you don’t appear to have aged…perhaps it is not merely appearance. That might explain why you have failed to grow more understanding of other men’s frailties.” He stood. “At any rate, there it is. You have regained the advantage over me. I have no cards left to play.”

“I realize that is what you wish me to think,” Rosacher said. “But I would not be the man you judge me to be if I accepted your statement as fact.”

Breque threw up his hands. “Think what you want! I’m done with this discussion.”

“We’ll talk further upon my return,” said Rosacher—despite himself, he felt badly for Breque.

“I’m certain you will return,” Breque said. “Griaule is clearly your protector. But is he mine? That remains to be seen.”

+

Though they began their journey at night, Cerruti and Rosacher thereafter traveled by day, leaving Frederick to follow their scent. The days passed without significant event. At night, Rosacher could hear Frederick moving out in the brush, beyond the light of their campfire, and on those nights when he did not hear the beast, to ease his mind Cerruti would summon him and Frederick would materialize as a puddle of shadow or a heap of blackness, staying in sight just long enough to fray Rosacher’s nerves.

The hours that proved the most onerous for Rosacher were those between dusk, when they pitched camp, and when they went to sleep. Simply put, Cerruti was a bore. He regaled Rosacher with stories about minor wounds he had suffered, tooth problems, illnesses he had endured, encounters with poisonous plants and pests such as fleas and lice, as well as afflictions of unknown origin. As he told it, his life had been spent in a condition of mild constant pain, and this was the only subject about which he was at all voluble. In opposition to his usual taciturn manner, he related his experiences with a kind of crude eloquence, describing his various injuries and symptoms in detail. He seemed to have relished each abrasion and cut, each festering sore and fever and runny nose. Everything they saw reminded him of some incidence of sickness or impairment, and whenever Rosacher tried to turn their campfire chats to a subject more to his pleasure, Cerruti would answer in a terse fashion and then go on with his litany of medical woes. Not even Frederick, a topic about which Rosacher thought that Cerruti would wish to display his expertise, warranted a detailed response. When asked to expound on Frederick’s method of communication, the shape he preferred to assume, or any other facet of its behavior, Cerruti would provide an answer both brief and uninformative, leading Rosacher to suspect that he knew considerably less than he pretended and was glossing over his ignorance. He wondered, too, if Cerruti had as much control over Frederick as he claimed and whether or not, when the time came to unleash his pet, Cerruti would be able to reel it in.

They crossed over the Temalaguan border on the sixth day, passing into a region of dense jungle that impeded their progress and brought to Cerruti’s narratives of illness a new level of intensity. They camped that evening near a bend in the Rio Coco beneath a canopy of aguacate trees, on a patch of packed earth that had been cleared of vegetation by the passage of tapirs and various other animals—it had rained earlier in the day and their tracks pockmarked the moist clay. Ordinarily Rosacher would have chosen a different place in which to camp. It was obviously part of a trail leading to a watering hole and as such was sure to attract predators; but with Frederick lurking nearby and his rifle to hand, he felt secure. As dusk blended into full dark and the vine-hung canopy vanished from sight, he would have expected to hear the droning of insects and the liquid repetitions of frogs, but the only sounds he heard before falling asleep that night were those of Frederick’s predation—a high, thin squeal cut short—and the crackling of their fire and the whining constancy of Cerruti’s voice celebrating each new mosquito bite with a narrative of past travails.

“I was up on the coast a’ways once, not far from Buttermilk Key, traveling in a caravan,” he said, slathering his arms with a pale yellow ointment that, he claimed, would drive off any six-legged creature. “That was the worst place I ever saw for bugs. When the wind off the water died, you could stick your arm out the window of the wagon and it’d turn black with mosquitoes in a second or two.”

Rosacher was busy rubbing his exposed skin with water in which he had dissolved a number of small, black cigars. His method of repelling mosquitoes. “I wouldn’t have stuck my arm out, then,” he said.

“Had to, it was so damn hot. Not like here. Here, the heat’s uncomfortable, but up on the coast the heat’s pestilential.” He repeated the word, as if enunciating it gave him satisfaction. “Anyhow, my bites got infected and my arm swole up the size of a hawser. They were draining pus from it for a week.”

Rosacher lit one of the cigars and puffed out a cloud of smoke and said without the least emotional inflection, “That’s awful.”

“Too right it was! They must have took a gallon out of me.”

“Speaking of bodily fluids and the like,” said Rosacher. “Have you ever noticed whether Frederick defecates after eating?”

Cerruti, likely irritated by Rosacher’s lack of interest in his arm, said, “Hell, no.”

“We’ve been traveling with Frederick for a week and I haven’t seen any sign of his spoor. Don’t you find that odd, considering the fact that he’s consumed half-a-dozen large animals…and that’s only the ones we’ve run across?”

“Frederick’s a fastidious type,” Cerruti said. “He does his business in private.”

Recalling the condition of the animal cadavers, Rosacher did not think the word “fastidious” would apply to any of Frederick’s behaviors; but he let it pass. “I’d be interested in examining one of his stools. It might prove instructive in determining the workings of his digestive system.”

Cerruti rubbed ointment into his neck. “Got better things to do than look for Frederick’s shit.”

“Could you ask him or me? I’m very interested in his physiological characteristics.”

“You want to rile up Frederick, that’s a good way to do it—asking about his private business. He don’t like talking about it.”

“What does he like talking about? I’m assuming that you and Frederick have had occasion to chat from time to time.”

“He don’t usually have much to say,” said Cerruti. He stopped applying ointment and his body language displayed, Rosacher thought, a degree of wariness. “He tells me what’s been hunting, for one thing. His conversation don’t run too deep, if you catch my meaning.”

“You’re saying that you don’t engage in philosophical speculations, that sort of thing?”

Cerruti peered across the fire at Rosacher, as if trying to read his face.

“Do you ever speak about old wounds and illnesses, as you do with me?” asked Rosacher.

“Oh, aye!” Cerruti brightened. “We swap stories all the time.”

“I wouldn’t think Frederick would be vulnerable to much.”

Cerruti sat up straighter, eager to talk now that the subject was more to his liking. “Most of the time he’s not, but there’s times when he’s prone to injury as you or me.”

A night bird passed overhead, giving an ululating cry; the wind shifted, bringing a sweetish odor off the river to mix in with the dark green scents of the foliage.

“Really?” said Rosacher, not wishing to appear overly inquisitive, but thinking this might be an opportunity to learn something salient about Frederick.

“He’s often injured when he’s feeding. He gets so damn hungry, sometimes he fails to finish an animal off before he starts in and whatever it is he takes a bite of is liable to mark him with a claw or a tooth.”

“Do they leave a scar?”

“Naw, you seen him. Whatever damage is done gets healed up when he pulls back from eating.”

A host of questions occurred to Rosacher, but he left them unspoken for fear of making Cerruti uneasy.

“Pity we can’t do the same,” he said.

Cerruti looked perplexed, but then he grinned. “If we had a body for feeding and another for healing like Frederick, the law couldn’t never touch us.”

“I don’t suppose it could.”

Cerruti relaunched his tale of mosquitoes and pus, and Rosacher did not attempt to dissuade him. He lay back, responding to Cerruti’s recitation of his maladies with grunts and other affirmations, trying to piece together the few things he knew about Frederick into a coherent picture, and soon drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, they followed the river course through a dense whitish mist that made every feathery frond, every loop of vine, into an article of menace. A pack of howler monkeys trailed them for a while, their cries seeming to issue from the throats of enormous beasts whose heads were thirty feet above the jungle floor. Sunlight thinned the mist and the poisonous greens and yellow-greens of the foliage emerged. Swarms of flies came to plague them, rising from mattes of vines beneath the hooves of their horses. Serpents could be seen swimming in the murky green water. The heat merged the dank scent of the river and that of a trillion tiny deaths with the great vegetable odor of the jungle, combining them into a cloying reek that so clotted Rosacher’s nostrils, he did not think he ever again would be able to smell the slight fragrance of a flower or a woman’s perfume.

In late afternoon they arrived at the village of Becan, on the edge of the king’s hunting ground amidst banana trees and one towering mago tree whose ripening fruit hung from structures that looked as ornate as candelabras—it was a dismal collection of huts constructed of sapling poles and thatch, its muddy streets dappled with puddles. At the center of the village was a longhouse where travelers were permitted to sleep in hammocks for the night, and close by the longhouse was a largish hut, overhung by the leaves of a banana tree, wherein a wizened, white-haired old man, dressed in clothes made from flour sacking, with perhaps a dozen teeth left in his head, sat behind an empty crate and dispensed cups of unrefined rum. The late sun shining through the poles striped the dirt floor. Four wooden tables were arranged about the interior, but only six chairs, one toppled on its side and another occupied by a young woman who might have been pretty had she run a brush through her tangled hair and washed away the grime from her face and worn something more appealing than loose canvas trousers and a blouse that was mostly rips and stains. She affected what Rosacher judged to be a seductive pose and smiled at the two men as they entered, thus advertising her function. With a palsied hand, the old man began to pour from a bottle half-full of yellowish liquid. Rosacher laid a hand over the cup the old man had provided, but Cerruti gulped down his measure and gave a satisfied sigh.

“Another?” the old man asked.

Cerruti looked to Rosacher, who nodded, and the old man proceeded to pour.

“Do you have anything else to drink?” Rosacher asked.

“Yes, but it’s very expensive. Twelve quetzales for a small measure.”

“Let’s see it.”

Cerruti pulled up a chair next to the woman and they spoke together in muted tones.

From the rear of the packing crate, the old man withdrew a bottle wrapped in a red cloth and displayed it: Scotch whiskey, a decent brand. Rosacher signaled him to pour and leaned against the crate, gazing through the door of the cantina. A rooster hurried past, clucking, pursued in short order by a naked toddler. At the rear of one of the huts, a matronly woman in a striped dress was taking down her wash. The old man made a production out of cleaning Rosacher’s cup with a filthy rag and poured. As Rosacher drank, he asked if they had come from Teocinte.

“From Mospiel.” Rosacher pushed his cup toward the old man, asking for a refill, and handed him a fifty quetzal note.

“I have no change,” the old man said.

“I’ll drink it up,” said Rosacher, and the old man beamed.

Cerruti stood, linked arms with the woman and, with a salute to Rosacher, the two of them headed toward a hut on the far side of the longhouse.

“And what are you doing in Temalagua?” asked the old man.

“I am a trader in exotic birds. I’m going to the market in Alta Miron to buy stock.” Rosacher sipped the whiskey. “Truly, I did not think I would ever come to Alta Miron. Last night we were attacked in our camp by a beast. We were lucky to survive.”

“What manner of beast?”

“I did not get a good look at it. But it was black and very large. It trampled the jungle flat around our campsite. We eluded it by diving into the river. It killed one of our horses.”

The old man attempted a whistle in appreciation of Rosacher’s story, but due to his lack of teeth all that emerged was a breathy sound. “I have heard of this beast,” he said. “It’s said it killed a mother and her daughter in Dulce Nombre.”

“What a pity!” Rosacher said, chalking up the story to the rumors started by the riders he had sent on ahead and the typical hyperbole of Temalaguan storytellers.

“Indeed! But there is good news. It is said King Carlos will hunt the beast. Some of the men from our village have gone to the capital to volunteer their services.”

“Why would Carlos look to Becan for help? I’m certain his guards can ably assist him.”

“The men of Becan are accomplished trackers,” said the old man pridefully. “We have assisted the king on other hunts. And Carlos is a friend to the village. In fact it was he who presented me with this bottle”—he indicated the whiskey—“so he might have something suitable to drink when he stops by.”

“If that’s the case, should you be selling me whiskey?”

“Carlos is generous and kind. All I needs do is tell him I’ve run out and he sends me a new bottle.”

“Then I’ll have another.”

Darkness slipped in, lamps were lit in the little huts, their gapped walls revealing families moving about within and the jungle resounded with the singing of insects and frogs. The old man, whose name was Alonso, served a dinner of beans and rice and chorizo, brought by a sallow girl with a cast in one eye. He joined Rosacher at a table and told stories of the village and the king. How Carlos had shot the man-eating jaguar of Saxache, a creature that, once dead, had turned back into an elderly woman, a bruja of some renown. How Carlos had hunted down the great caiman of El Tamarindo, also a killer of men—its head was now mounted above the Onyx Throne. How Carlos had brought doctors and medicine to Becan when the village had been afflicted with dysentery. Other men dropped by and, after being introduced to Rosacher, joined him and Alonso for a drink. They, too, spoke highly of the king’s courage and largesse, and one, a bearded fellow by the name of Refugio, missing a leg, told of how Carlos, his rifle empty, armed only with a machete, had risked his life to save him from a wild boar.

“A man like that,” Refugio said. “A rich and powerful man who would sacrifice his life for someone poor like me when he has so much to live for…he is much more than a king. He has been crowned by the gods and will one day reign with the Beast in heaven.”

“Truly,” said Alonso, and the other men echoed his sentiments.

Tipsy now, sweating profusely in the windless night, in that cramped circle of men, Rosacher understood for the first time that he intended to kill a man who had done far more good than evil. Even if one discounted the stories as embellished, it was impossible to deny that Carlos was an anomaly, a benevolent ruler in a region that consistently spawned kings who were little more than human monsters with the souls of jackals. He tried to think of how to avoid killing Carlos, but made no headway and instead bought the house a round from another example of the king’s largesse, a second and previously unopened bottle of Scotch. This accentuated the air of rough bonhomie that had come to govern the cantina, and soon stories about the king were replaced by songs that celebrated women, famous hunts, and the fictive events that masqueraded as glorious Temalaguan history. A choir of drunken voices served to suppress Rosacher’s guilt, but not to drown it utterly. As a result he happily joined in the singing, but his joy was compromised by an undercurrent of fretful thought and half-formed plans to return to Teocinte, his mission unfulfilled, and the possibility that he could approach Carlos, persuade him not to join forces with Mospiel. He entertained the notion that he was fighting on the wrong side and that he should immediately break with the city council, with Breque, the only member of the council who mattered, and throw his weight behind Mospiel and Temalagua.

He heard the screaming before he really registered it and, by the time he clutched for his rifle, it had ceased and all that could be heard was a snapping of poles and thatch crunching and the hoarse shouts of the men who had preceded him through the door of the cantina. He staggered out into the night and saw people running toward the ruins of a hut across the way. He followed them and then realized that the ruined hut was the same one toward which Cerruti and the woman had been heading.

He sprinted to the hut, thrust people aside, and saw Cerruti, naked, smeared with blood, sitting against the remnants of a wall, head in hands. Some of the thatch lay across the pallet where Cerruti and the woman had been, and was soaking in a puddle of dark arterial blood. Rosacher knelt and Cerruti glanced up, wild-eyed, strings of mucous hanging from his nose. He tried to speak, but only a bubble of spit came forth. The villagers behind Rosacher babbled and someone let out a wail.

“He plucked her right off me.” Cerruti appeared to be speaking to someone hovering above his head. “I’s giving her a ride and Frederick…” His breath caught in his throat and he started sobbing.

“Shh! It’s all right!” Rosacher held his head, hoping to silence him before he gave away their part in this butchery.

“His face…” Cerruti’s voice was partially muffled by Rosacher’s chest. “I never seen Frederick like that before.”

“Get a hold of yourself, man!” Rosacher pulled Cerruti more tightly to him and whispered in his ear, “People are listening!”

“He didn’t act like he knew me!”

“Here! Help me with him,” Rosacher said to the villagers. “Get him a blanket!”

As he walked Cerruti over to the cantina, Rosacher caught snatches of conversation: “What will Adelia do now? Yasmin was her sole support.” “Give me something to wipe off the blood.” “He said, ‘Frederick’. Who is Frederick?” “Alonso, bring a cup of water!”

Once Cerruti was seated in the cantina, he grew unresponsive to questions and stared into space, his lips moving silently. Relieved to see this, yet concerned for his well-being, Rosacher helped to clean the blood away and forced him to drink a glass of rum. Several of the men talked about forming a party to go after Frederick and the woman, Yasmin, but Rosacher dissuaded them, relating his “experiences” of the previous night and telling them that the creature was too fast and powerful for them to go off half-cocked. The headman of the village dispatched a rider to Alta Miron so as to inform the king and Rosacher made no attempt to interfere with this. He had abandoned his misgivings about killing Carlos, feeling that the die was cast, and thought that if the king could be brought to Becan, it would not only make their task easier, it would be proof that Griaule’s will was at work here.

After the furor had subsided and many anecdotes had been told about where this and that person was and what they had been doing when Yasmin was taken, Rosacher led Cerruti to the longhouse and helped him into a hammock. Though the night was humid, almost as warm as the day, Cerruti shivered and complained feebly of the cold. Clearly, he was in shock. Having no medicine, all Rosacher could do was keep him warm and talk to him. The headman had set guards with torches and machetes about the village in case Frederick returned, some of them standing watch beside the longhouse, and he was thus forced to keep his voice low, but he enjoined Cerruti to hang on, saying he needed him in order to direct Frederick, and finally managed to elicit some coherent responses.

“It’s my fault for lying with her,” said Cerruti at one point. “I wouldn’t have done, if I’d thought Frederick was about.”

His sweaty face, a pale orange in the dim, flickering light, was a mask of anxiety and anguish.

“He can’t abide women around me,” said Cerruti. “Or maybe it’s just women and I got nothing to do with it.”

Rosacher cautioned him once again to lower his voice. “Can you tell if he’s still out there?”

“Oh, he’s out there. He never goes far.”

“Will he do the job for us? Can you still control him?”

Cerruti nodded, or it might have been a shiver. Rosacher asked the question again.

“He’ll do your killing.” Sweat beaded on Cerruti’s brow. His skin was ghastly pale and the shadows in his eyes looked moist and feverish. “He’ll do your killing and more, don’t you worry.”

+

Cerruti’s fever abated during the night, his temperature went down and his heartbeat grew regular. He slept late in the morning and was able to eat a breakfast of tortillas, rice and beans in the cantina. The villagers had cleared away the wreckage of the hut, restoring a semblance of normalcy to their home. Chickens and pigs foraged in the dirt, grubby children sucked on mango pulp, and hobbled beside a banana tree, a donkey that Frederick had passed over in favor of Yasmin stood placidly, chewing on a stalk of sugar cane.

+

After breakfast, Rosacher cautioned Cerruti against speaking about Frederick and retired to his hammock, hoping to sleep for an hour or two; but his mind was agitated and sleep would not come. Having to care for Cerruti had suppressed his anxieties and, relieved of that duty, he thought of all that could go wrong. He wondered if Frederick, as Alonso had suggested, had been responsible for the death of the mother and child in Dulce Nombre—it did not seem so implausible now. And what did that say about Cerruti’s ability to control his pet? Rosacher suspected that Cerruti’s control was subject to Frederick’s inclination and doubted that the task before them could be accomplished with anything approaching ease. Would Frederick go after any woman who came close to Cerruti…and what if the king had women in his retinue, a distinct possibility. These and other related concerns pressed in on him until at last he sank under their weight and lapsed into a sleep troubled by dreams in which he lay awake, worrying about this and that.

A clamor of voices, of horses neighing and being steadied, woke him. He lay still for a minute or thereabouts, unable to bring these sounds into focus. His head throbbed and his heart fluttered. A few minutes more elapsed and he sat up. In front of the cantina were a group of brown-skinned men wearing royal livery, perhaps ten or twelve, and an equal number of horses. The villagers crowded around them, all speaking at once. Rosacher swung his legs out of the hammock, blinking against the morning light, and went to the door. The man central to this hubbub was not in the least imposing: he had a pale complexion and was of average height, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a Vandyke. Handsome, but not remarkably so. Clad in a red doublet trimmed with gold and khaki riding trousers. Had it not been for the beard, which was meticulously barbered, a foppish accessory shaved into points along his jaw, Rosacher might not have recognized him; but recognize him he did. This very man had come to the House of Griaule not two years before, in the company of a half-dozen other men, seeking information about a young woman who had been employed there. A cousin, as Rosacher recalled. The man had traveled under an assumed name, but it was evident by the attentiveness of his retinue that this was Carlos. Stunned by the fact that he had previously had dealings with the king, Rosacher retreated into the shade of the longhouse, debating how best to handle the situation, whether to dissemble and hope that Carlos would not recognize him or to put on a bold face and own up to the fact that he and the king had met before. After smoothing down his hair, deciding to trust his instincts on how he should proceed, Rosacher walked out into the light and was quickly pushed forward into the king’s presence by the villagers, who claimed him to be someone with intimate knowledge of the monster.

After making a salutatory bow, Rosacher thought he detected a flicker in the king’s expression and, thinking that this signaled recognition on the king’s part, he said, “It may be presumptuous of me, Your Majesty, but is it possible that we have met before?”

“Carlos,” said the king. “There are no majesties here. Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself.” He studied Rosacher for a moment. “The House of Griaule, was it not? You’re the elusive Mister Mountroyal’s aide de camp. I’m sorry…I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Myree,” said Rosacher. “Arthur Myree. I did serve Mister Mountroyal for a brief period in that capacity, but we parted ways after a disagreement over salary. I am now a trader in exotic birds.”

“So Alonso tells me.” Carlos indicated that Rosacher should enter the cantina. “I have spoken with your companion, Mister Cerruti, about the beast that attacked him, but he was not very forthcoming. I’m eager to hear what you have to tell me.”

“Where is he?” Rosacher asked, as he stepped inside the cantina. “He was suffering from shock and may need medical attention.”

“He’s with another of my party. An artist. I hope he’ll be able to describe what he saw and that my artist is able to capture its likeness. I’ll have my doctor look in on him once he’s done.”

Alonso served Rosacher a plate of beans, rice and fried plantains. As he ate, he told Carlos the story he had earlier told Alonso and, when he had done, the king said, “It would appear that the creature is nocturnal. All the attacks thus far have occurred at night…though one of the three killed in Dulce Nombre occurred near dawn.”

“Three?” Rosacher set down his fork. “I was told only two, a mother and daughter.”

“There were three. A girl sent to fetch water with which to prepare the morning meal. She happened upon the remains of the other two and was killed. A black shape was seen feeding upon her flesh, but the witness was too terrified to remember much detail.”

The acuity that Carlos brought to bear on him as they talked unsettled Rosacher. The king seemed to register his every movement, every change in expression, but Rosacher maintained the demeanor of a man who had been through a frightening experience, yet had mastered himself and was trying to be helpful—he did so, he believed, without error, but he could not be certain as to what Carlos perceived.

Their conversation was interrupted by a middle-aged man whom Carlos introduced as Ramon, who brought with him a large sketchbook that he handed to Carlos. Rosacher asked Carlos, who was leafing through the sketchbook, if he was in the habit of traveling with an artist.

“I am a vain man in many ways,” Carlos said. “Often I am unable to bring home a trophy from my hunts, and thus Ramon travels with me to record my successes and failures.”

He stopped leafing through the book and showed Ramon one of the pages. “This?”

“He swore it was accurate,” Ramon said. “But his memory may have produced an exaggerated image.”

Carlos handed the book to Rosacher. On the page was the sketch of a furred animal standing on its hind legs, as might a bear, but with an elongated head that resolved into the leathery face of a horrid old man, so distorted and vile, every wrinkle and line etched so deeply that it appeared the face of a demon, its mouth open to reveal an array of needle-like teeth framed by fangs. The drawing was beautifully rendered and shaded, rife with delicate lines that implied musculature—in the manner of one of Durer’s engravings. Rosacher gazed at it, struck speechless by this representation of, he assumed, Frederick’s base form.

“There are a few details over here,” Ramon volunteered, encouraging Rosacher to turn to the next page.

A black paw with three nasty-looking talons; an eye, almost human, but having a slit pupil and red shadings at the corners; a fang and several teeth, discolored in the way of ivory.

“Does any of this seem familiar?” Carlos asked.

Rosacher shook his head—he no longer had to act in order to simulate the confusion of the recently traumatized. “No, I…I never saw its face, but this…It’s impossible! It’s the face of something out of hell!” He laid down the sketchbook. “It can’t be!”

“Cerruti swears to it,” Ramon said.

“He was in shock! His memory can’t be trusted.”

“The only sure way to ascertain the truth,” said Carlos, “is to hunt it down and kill it. I hope that you and Mister Cerruti will join us in the enterprise.”

Confounded by this pronouncement, Rosacher fumbled for an excuse, citing fatigue and the need to be in Alta Miron by market day; but the king insisted, saying, “There will be other market days and I assure you that you will not find the hunt taxing. We will set a trap for the creature at some distance from the village, but not too far away, and near the river so that we’re able to take refuge should the occasion arise.”

“I fear for Mister Cerruti’s health,” said Rosacher. “Perhaps he should be left back to recuperate.”

“My doctor will examine him and make a determination.” Carlos laid his hands flat on the table. “In the meantime, my men will go on ahead to find a suitable location for a campsite. We will join them in mid-afternoon. You may do as you wish until then. Sleep, rest…or if you will grant me the pleasure of your company, we can chat some more. I’m sure both of us would find it edifying.”