The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W. Aldiss Page A

stop in a weed-grown courtyard. Two urchins played by an elaborate fountain. Windows confronted us on all sides, straight-faced. To one side, cliffs loomed above the rooftops.
    Everything was unloaded and placed on the flagstones. Armida climbed from her carriage. Her father merely sat back in his seat and suddenly, at a whim, drove away without speaking further to anyone.
    Bonihatch made a face at Bengtsohn.
    â€˜Looks as if the Council didn’t make up their mind regarding the hydrogenous balloon.’
    â€˜Or maybe the zahnoscope either,’ said Bengtsohn grimly.
    â€˜I’d prefer you not to discuss my father’s business,’ Armida said. ‘Let’s get on.’
    Later, the mule-cart was driven off. While a primitive outdoor stage was being set up, Armida talked to a timid girl in work clothes. I went over to speak with them and discovered that this was Letitia Zlatorog, the little seamstress engaged to play Lady Jemima.
    It would be difficult to imagine anyone less fit for the role, although she was pretty enough in an insipid way. She was pale, her hands were red, and she had no mannerisms. She appeared all too conscious of the honour of meeting a player from the great Kemperer’s company. I took care to appear rather grand; nevertheless, when Armida’s attention was elsewhere, I slipped an arm about her waist to set her at ease.
    Even more strongly than before, I felt that I, as the one professional member of this ludicrous cast, was entitled to play the Prince, and so be married to Armida. I knew how the simulated passions of the stage often translated by sympathetic magic into genuine passions off stage; to think of the cocky apprentice Bonihatch embracing Armida was not to be borne.
    Having failed to convince Bengtsohn on this point, I took Bonihatch himself aside, intimating as tactfully as I could that as mine was the name which would win audiences, mine should be the right to play the title role of Mendicula.
    â€˜Think of this as a co-operative enterprise,’ he said, ‘in which all work as one, not for profit or fame, but for the common good. Or is such an ideal too much for your imagination?’
    â€˜I see no disgrace in fame as a spur! You talk more like a Progressive than a player.’
    He looked at me levelly. ‘I am a Progressive. I don’t wish to make an enemy of you, de Chirolo. Indeed, we’d all be glad to have your co-operation. But let’s have none of your fancy airs and graces round here.’
    â€˜Take care how you speak to me. I imagine a good thrashing would impress you.’
    â€˜I said I didn’t want to make an enemy of you –’
    â€˜Now now, young gentlemen,’ said Bengtsohn, bustling up. ‘No quarrels as we inscribe a new page in the massive volume from Malacia’s history. Give me your hand to setting up this ruin.’
    He had some flats representing a destroyed town. Bonihatch and other apprentices went to his aid. I tucked my arms under my cloak and made myself look tolerably moody, remarking to Armida, ‘This is a melancholy old place. What has become of the Chabrizzis? Did they all kill themselves in a fit of spite, or have they gone to look for the Lost Tribes?’
    â€˜Poor Chabrizzis, they squandered several fortunes in the service of the Nemanijas and Constantinople. One branch of the family turned to Mithraism. Of the remainder, one of them – my great grandfather – married into the Hoytolas, though for a noble to marry a merchant’s daughter was generally condemned. They both died of the plague within a twelvemonth, leaving a little son. So their history may be reckoned, as you say, a melancholy one. All the same, I love this old palace and played here often as a small girl.’
    â€˜That news makes it sound immediately more friendly.’
    One part of the inner courtyard was bathed in sun. Here Bengtsohn’s paraphernalia was set up. In rooms nearby we