The Master
I know that this ink is vitriol. Almost tasting of anisette, it numbs the
tongue and the throat on the way down.
The bouquet could be confused for fennel.
There is that burning. It is inescapable, always there, the coal swallowed
from the brazier, smoky and glowing from my abdomen. I sit here and think, scratching through its
bastard light in the darkness.
Not alone, I can hear the dreaming
murmurs and breath from my bed beside this chair. Wrapped in white marble, facing away from my
burning lamp, shadow dancing upon the wall in its unsteady light, there is the
contentment in the stillness of night.
An acceptance of the void and the threatening, a submission made of the
corners of the mind grown weak from fright.
It rolls its dice. It awakes in the morning light, always, but
not for this false dawn of my petty scratches and throat clearing.
Which is the greater shame? By sleeping, that this one misses the sepia
of the candle’s flame, I miss the understanding of so many scribbles; or that I
watch, unable affect this other passed beyond before me to the service of the Oneiroi?
I am humbled by my weakness. I think of my humility often, and wish for
its return.
When they lead me, grey with wisdom,
through their tall courts, I can feel the blood, ankle deep, my sodden shoes
pumping with each step. The echo of my
heartbeat reverberates through hallways gilded by burning lamps hanging from
the walls.
Here in the widening chambre sits the
Duke. The room reeks of copper.
The Table is laid. The utensils are silver, but the cups are all
gold, filled with a wine that never empties, but is ladled from the floor and
blessed through the acts of a tight-eyed old priest by the doorway, his robes match
both the wine and the blood through which we all wade. The wine tastes like battle and youth. It has an undertone of fear and vainglory.
I listen to their plans, drink, and
wonder when the money will come. They
have plans, plots, greater conquests.
Smiles are wolves in the grass winking at me over their own
cleverness. They wait for my glass to be
filled.
We are on stage for the servants. The timing must be perfect. Possibly this display is even for me, but I
doubt it. I am simply another ornament. The spheres and heavens spin around us.
First, there will be a horse. There must always be a horse. I’ve modeled so many damnable horses that I
feel more like a common husband fresh from the stables with dung on his boots. I can remember still, in Milan, that paradise
of days when I held command over the planets in their spheres; the stars coming
to light, the scent of the court bathed in color among lira and song. It was and it is a time which has gone.
While this Duke may be in charge of
events, the program and pace, I am
still the one who makes the stage. In
this we have our game of scacchi,
always. I set the board and the
pieces. The first move is his.
Their dreams and their damned horses;
they used Sforza’s for target practice in the smoke, after he was in chains and
the fires cooled. I agree to make a
fabulous horse for this one, out of many tons of bronze.
“It is true that I make everything.”
He smiles. We move on.
The pedone advances. This borghese
smiles now, but will join me in the same box in the end.
We must take the machines out of the
garage, of course. Plans are unraveled
and spread across the table by the servants.
They are impressed. There will be
flames and men screaming. Wood will burn
and the trebuchets will set the hills to flight. Walls will buckle to crush the populace
beneath heavy stones they once thought permanent and divine. There will be plenty of wine for us all.
Il
suo
vizier has come into play early. He is eager.
It is always the same. They are simply the new face with the same
story, always the same words. Their
money was the same money, and has been the same money, melted time and again
like the ice in the Alps.
I will be part of the killing. My hands will not see blood, but there is
enough on the floor for all of us. It
soaks into your skin. It stains your
clothes. I will make the thoughts for
the killing. I will bring men barrels of
misery, enough to choke and drown them.
My vintage is an older evil, true enough, but any evil will do, it
seems.
I bring forth il mio cavallo. I do not fear i suoi alfieri.
“Hannibal
ad portas,” I say and smile.
We drink more wine. Valentino is more proud of his
cleverness. The conversation becomes
unimportant.
When the line breaks, I am pleasant in
my defeat. He has taken to my left flank,
an open space, di pedoni.
Il Re Blanco hides in the farthest
corner. Un pedone falls da suo
cavallo, and his eyes broaden as my
hand slides il vizier across and into his lines.
La Torre follows, Via del Corso, and there are no more
moves to be made.
I feign humility and pantomime
acquiescence. My performance is
flawless. I’d have been an actor, if
only there was money in it.
He sits back in his chair, his sleeves
hanging upon the rests. This Duke
discusses the details of our finance. He
is princely; I will not starve once again.
Ite,
missa est.
I write in the brass light from the
lamp. The body on the bed has rolled
over, and I can see the flesh in the gentle shade glow like the sun at
dusk. My hand searches for words, the
stylus spearing them as they swim in the ink.
Here is the bag, res deposito. It sits heavy,
a trickle trailing from the seam and off the table. My eyes hold on the bag and the thin dark
weeping that spreads from my drawing board to the floor.
Lifting the bag with one hand, I watch
the drops leave as it chimes and settles with a swing. The floor will be covered by morning.
There is nothing that can be done, now. Solely a game, it is never a game. The pieces move. The hands which touch them need not be
kind. There is only one acceptable end. The rest is simply revista.
“’Tutto
รจ permesso’. Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata—”
It is late. I feel Him in the silence as the bag settles. The loneliness, the watching, the knowing.
I lick the tip of my stylus and scratch more, listening to the noise of
the paper and the mice in the hall.
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