The ballroom darkened, and the world of the gros bon ange came into view. It was laughable to see these black, jeweled phantoms flailing their arms, shaking their hips, flaunting their clumsy eroticism to the accompaniment of Downey’s song. He scanned the crowd, searching for the complex pattern that would single out Dularde; then Otille could loose her hounds, and he and Jocundra could rest. He wondered what Dularde’s punishment would be. Banishment? Gruel and water? Perhaps Otille would have him beaten. That would be well within the capacity for cruelty of the spoiled brat who had batted her lashes at him moments before. He swung his gaze up to the makeshift balconies, and there, at the far end of the room, were two figures holding hands and kicking out their legs in unison on the edge of a silver-trimmed platform. Glittering prisms twined in columns around the legs of the taller figure, delineated the musculature of his chest, and fitted a mask to his face.
‘There,’ said Donnell, adding with all the nastiness he could muster, ‘is that your goddamn stray?’
He pointed.
As he did, his elbow locked sharply into place, and his arm snapped forward with more force than he had intended. The lights inside Dularde’s body scattered outward and glowed around him so that he presented the silhouette of a man occulting a rainbow. He wavered, staggered to one side, a misstep, lost his grip on his partner, fought for balance, and then, just as Donnell normalized his sight and drew back his arm, Dularde fell.
Hardly anyone noticed. If there were cries of alarm, they could not be heard. But Otille was screaming, ‘Turn off the music! Turn it off!’ Papa and Simpkins and Downey echoed her, and several of the dancers, seeing it was Otille who shouted, joined in. The outcry swelled, most people not knowing why they were yelling, but yelling in the spirit of fun, urging others to add their voices, until it became a chant. ‘Turn off the music! Turn off the music!’ At last it was switched off, and someone could be heard above the hubbub calling for a doctor.
Otille flashed a perplexed look at Donnell, then pressed into the crowd, Papa Salvatino clearing a path before her. Downey craned his neck, gawking at the spot where Dularde had fallen. Simpkins folded his arms.
‘My, my,’ he said. ‘We’re purely havin’ a rash of coincidences. Ain’t we, Brother Downey?’
Their bedroom was on the second floor, as were those of all the pets, and though the furnishings were ordinary, Jocundra had spent a sleepless night because of the walls. They were paneled with ebony, and from the paneling emerged realistically carved, life-sized arms and legs and faces, also ebony, as if ghosts had been trapped passing through the tarry substance of the boards. Everywhere she rested her eyes a clawed hand reached for her or an angelic face stared back, seeming interested in her predicament. The faces were thickest on the walls of the alcove leading into the hall, and these, unlike the others, were agonized, with bulging eyes and contorted mouths.
Donnell, too, had spent a sleepless night, partly because of her tossing and turning, but also due to his concern over the man who had fallen. She didn’t fully understand his concern; he had taken worse violences in stride. She tried, however, to be reassuring, telling him that people commonly survived far greater falls. But Dularde, said Otille, when she came to visit early in the afternoon, had suffered spinal injuries, and it was touch and go. She did not appear at all upset herself and insisted on showing them the grounds, which were fantastic in their ruin.
