A dozen men and women appeared. “Baths for our guests scented with—” he kneaded his chin with his hand, as if the matter required the utmost nicety of judgment. He arrived at a decision. “—with Nigali No. 29, that will be most suitable, and let there be new garments for their comfort.”
Cloyville sighed. “A bath… Hot water…”
“Thank you,” said Glystra shortly. Sir Walden’s hospitality was still a mystery.
A servant stood before him, bowed. “This way, sir.”
He was conveyed to a pleasant chamber high above the city. An expressionless young man in tight black livery took his clothes. “Your bath is through this door, Lord Glystra.”
Glystra stepped into a small room with walls of seamless mother-of-pearl. Warm water rose up around his knees, his waist, his chest. Foam, bubbles surged up under his feet, rushed up past his tingling body, burst into his face with a pleasant sharp fragrance. Glystra sighed, relaxed, floated.
The fragrance of the foam shifted, changed, always new, now tart, now sweet. Bubbles kneaded his skin, flushed it free of grime and perspiration, toned, stimulated, and fatigue was gone, leaving behind a pleasant soft weariness.
The water level dropped swiftly, warm air gushed around him. He pushed open the door.
The man had disappeared. A girl carrying a towel on two outstretched arms stood before him smiling. She wore a short black skirt, no more. Her body was tan and lovely, her hair arranged in a stylized loose swirl.
“I am your room-servant. However, if you find me unpleasant or unsuitable, I will go.”
She seemed very sure that he would find her neither. Glystra stood still a moment, then seized the towel, wrapped himself in it.
“Does—um, everyone get a playmate?”
She nodded.
“The women too?”
She nodded again. “That they may welcome you with renewed pleasure when at last you depart.”
“Mmmph,” snorted Glystra. He wondered about the man now possibly standing before the naked Nancy. “Mmmph.”
He said with a brusqueness and finality he did not altogether feel, “Give me my clothes.”
With no change in expression, she brought him Kirstendale garments, assisted him into the intricate folds, tucks and drapes.
At last she pronounced him dressed. He wore a garment of green and blue in which he felt awkward and ridiculous. The first piece of head-gear she brought forward, a tall tricorn dangling a dozen wooden sound-blocks, he refused even to allow on his head. The girl insisted that a man without a head-ornament would be a spectacle for derision, and finally he allowed her to pull a loose black velvet beret over his cropped black poll, and before he could protest she had fixed a string of scarlet beads so as to hang over one ear.
She stood back, admired him. “Now my lord is a lord among lords… Such a presence…”
“I feel like a lord among jackasses,” muttered Glystra. He went to the door, but the girl was there before him to sweep it open. Glystra frowned, stalked through, wondering if Sir Walden had also arranged to have him fed with a spoon.
He descended to the main hall. Sunset light poured in through the mullioned windows. A pair of lads placed screens of violet and green satin where they would glow to the best advantage. A round table was spread with heavy ivory cloth, and set with fourteen places.
The plates were marble, thin and fragile, apparently carved and worked by hand; the implements were carved from a hard black wood.
One by one Glystra’s companions arrived—the men sheepish in their new garments, the girls sparkling and radiant. Nancy wore pale green, pink and white. When she entered the room Glystra hastily sought her eye, hoping to read how she had disposed of the companion assigned her by the painstaking Sir Walden. She looked away, would not meet his eye. Glystra clamped his mouth, scowled toward the blue pool in the center of the room.
Sir Walden appeared and with him his two sons, a daughter, and a tall woman in billows of lavender lace whom he introduced as his wife.
Dinner was a splendid event, course after course, dishes of unfamiliar, odd-tasting food, all elaborately prepared and served: greens, fibers, cereals, fungus, fruits, thistles, succulent stems, prepared in starchy coverings like ravioli, spicy goulashes, croquettes, pastries, jellies, salads. The variety was such that it came as a slight shock when Glystra realized that the meal was entirely vegetarian— with the exception of certain ambiguous hashes, which he took to be of insect origin, and avoided.
After dinner there was oil-smooth liquor and much talk. Glystra’s head swam with the dinner wine, and the liquor relaxed him completely. He leaned toward Sir Walden.
“Sir, you have not yet explained your interest in us casual passers-by.”
Sir Walden made a delicate grimace. “Surely it is a trivial matter. Since I enjoy your company, and you must rest your heads somewhere—what is the difference?”
“It is a matter which disturbs me,” protested Glystra. “Every human act is the result of some impulse; the nature of the impulse which caused you to send the messenger for us preys on my mind… I hope you will forgive my insistence”
Sir Walden smiled, toyed with a bit of fruit. “Some of us here in Kirstendale subscribe to the Doctrine of Illogical Substitution, which in many respects disputes your theory of causation. And then there is the Tempofluxion Dogma—very interesting, although I for one cannot entirely accept the implications. Possibly the central postulates are unknown on Earth? The advouters claim that as the river of time flows past and through us, our brains are disturbed—jostled, if you will—by irregularities, eddies, in the flow of the moments. They believe that if it were possible to control the turbulence in the river, it would be possible to manipulate creative ability in human minds. What do you say to that?”
“That I still wonder why you asked us to be your guests.”
Sir Walden laughed helplessly. “Very well, you might as well learn the inconsequential truth—and learn the inconsequentially of our lives in Kirstendale.” He leaned forward, as if resolved on candor. “We Kirsters love novelty—the new, the fresh, the exciting. You are Earth-men. No Earthmen have passed through Kirstendale for fifty years. Your presence in my house not only affords me the pleasure of new experience, but also adds to my prestige in the town… You see, I am perfectly frank, even to my disadvantage.”
“I see,” said Glystra. The explanation appeared reasonable.
“I was quick with my invitation. Undoubtedly you would have received a dozen others inside the hour. But I have connections with the depot agent.”
Glystra tried to remember the head porter at the landing, who must have relayed the information almost instantly to Sir Walden.
Sir Walden cared little for answering Glystra’s questions; he preferred to discuss contemporary Earth culture, a lead which Glystra followed, to please his host.
The evening passed. Glystra, head spinning from the wine and liquor, was conducted to his room. Waiting to undress him was the girl who had helped him into his clothes. She moved on soundless bare feet, murmuring softly as she unclasped the buckles, untied the hundred and one ribbons, bindings, tassels. Glystra was drowsy. Her voice was warm and heady as mulled wine.
The morning attendant was a thin-faced young man, who dressed Glystra after his morning bath in silence.
Glystra hurried to the main hall, anxious to find Nancy. How had she spent the night? The question throbbed at the back of his mind like a bubble of stagnant blood. But she was not yet in evidence. Pianza and Corbus sat alone at the table, eating pink melon.
Corbus was speaking. “—I think I’ll trade Motta in on this yellow-haired girl. That’s the way to cross a planet, wench by wench!”