R. A. MacAvoy - Black Dragon 1 - Tea With The Black Dragon

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2024-12-22 0 0 268.91KB 122 页 5.9玖币
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Tea With the Black Dragon
R A MacAvoy
(v1.3 cleaned & proofed)
Chapter 1
Martha Macnamara stood at the Pacific, her toes digging into the froth.
She had come the length of the country in one day's flight, and she had
trouble believing that this was a different ocean.
“Oh go on, admit it,” she grumbled, kicking the ivory scum from a pile of
kelp. “You're all the same water.”
Perhaps not. She peered at the line where the iron blue of the sky hit the
soft-colored water. So bare a sky did not shine over Coney Island.
A gull plunged, kissed the water and veered right and away, all ten yards
from Mrs. Macnamara. Her head rose to follow its flight and her hands
lifted, echoing the bird's gesture. For a moment it seemed her prim figure,
gray suited and graying, would fly away into the west—or north along the
dirty beach toward the Bridge.
But that was just for a moment, and then the hands touched at the braids
that coiled around her head, braids that threatened to slip over her ears.
“If you would know the Way,” she recited to herself, “observe the
subtlety of water.” Martha considered these words as she watched the waves
fling themselves roaring onto the sand. What was subtle in such a display of
power?
With her round blue eyes very calm in her small round face Mrs.
Macnamara watched the ocean. Slowly she smiled.
Where was Liz now—at work? Should Martha try to call again, or wait
for her daughter to make the move? After all, Elizabeth had set up the
reservation. Martha Macnamara would never have chosen to stay in a place
like the James Herald Hotel. Oh, it was comfortable, doubtless, and the only
person she had spoken to in the hotel—a bartender—had proven friendly;
she had bent his ear for forty minutes at lunch—her dinner, what with the
time change—perched on a red leather stool amid black oak and brass,
rattling on about airplanes racing the sun, and how the violin had evolved
from the viola when Europeans were able to afford carpets and drapes…
But with the price of a night's lodging at the James Herald she could have
bought that bass bow she'd wanted since June.
Martha could just as well have slept on Liz's couch as spent so much of
her daughter's money. It was all very strange. The smile disappeared from
her lips as she considered how strange. She turned from the water and
ascended the sandy slope.
“Mysterious meetings in expensive places,” she mumbled as she climbed.
A wealth of sand was trapped in her open-toed shoes. “Intrigue. Suspense…
“Tune in tonight for shocking revelations!” The sole of her foot gritted
against concrete; she stood on the pavement above the beach, emptying her
shoes. Except for her gray form, unobtrusive as a rock, the beach was empty
on this workday afternoon. Empty and cool. Martha shivered deliciously in
the good wool suit she hadn't been able to wear since May.
The Great Highway cut between the City and the Ocean, sharp as the mark
of a razor. A young boy ran along the curb, all dressed in white, his feet
making a noise like pigeon wings.
Thinking of pigeon wings, Martha's spirits lifted once again. It was her
spirits' natural condition, to be lifted. She sprinted across the street in her
cordovan brogues, her pleated skirt flapping, receiving the honks of
motorists with quiet grace. On the far side—the City side— stood the stand
of a pretzel vendor. His teeth flashed at her from a strong, Latin face. She
bought a soft pretzel, decorated it with mustard, and ate it where she stood.
Three men walked by together, arm in arm in arm, and then a young
woman with bushy hair red as a radish. A bare-chested boy on a spyder bike
did wheelies in the street. Honks again. Martha's approval was limitless; San
Francisco bid fair to being as zany as New York.
And this was a good corner, probably packed on weekends. Close to
downtown yet in sight of the water. She wished she had brought her fiddle.
How invigorating to sit down next to the pretzel vendor and play a Bach
passacaglia, or maybe a slip jig. Put out the hat. Liz would hate that! Liz
behaved with propriety.
Martha Macnamara was smiling again. She licked mustard from her
fingers and turned toward the hotel.
She took the stranger's long hand in her own and shook it. “How
wonderful! You could span way over two octaves!”
The hand retreated as soon as custom permitted. The owner of it remained
standing, a dark figure in the shadow of a paneled wall. He bowed slightly to
Mrs. Macnamara.
“ Mayland Long… Martha Macnamara…”The young bartender continued
his introduction. “I thought you two should meet.”
Both parties stared at him. “Because of the violin,” he explained.
“But surely you play keyboards,” Martha insisted. “With such a reach…”
Mr. Long motioned across the white expanse of table, and did not sit
again 'til Martha had lowered herself into the chair opposite. “Forgive the
clutter. I have had a late dinner.” He spoke quietly, as empty plates and silver
were cleared away before him. “Please have tea with me.”
My, thought the woman to herself. His voice. Lovely English. How
wonderful.
“I don't make music,” Mr. Long stated. “I merely appreciate it.” He sat in
the shadow of his corner table, gazing across to where she sat touched by a
beam of light. He saw a slim woman of some fifty years. Her features were
small and regular, and her head set well on a slender neck. Her grizzled hair
was braided around her head. The hair and her gray wool suit were back lit,
causing Martha Macnamara to shine about the edges.
She saw a thin man, dressed darkly, hidden in the dark. The hands stood
out against the white linen. They were very dark also, unusually dark, if this
man were indeed English. She thought of the beautiful voices of the West
Indies. Beautiful, yes, but not correct. Mr. Long's pronunciation was
faultless.
“But you, madam,” he was saying, “are a creator. I remember you.”
“I doubt that!”
“I have a record upstairs in my rooms. A 78. I believe the label is
Seraphim. You play, among other things, the Chaconne from the Partita for
unaccompanied violin 4n D minor, by J. S. Bach. I have never heard that
piece played better.”
He leaned forward as he spoke. Martha Macnamara saw his face.
Her new-built conceptions fell apart as she looked at Mayland Long. The
man was Oriental. At least his eyes were. But the rest of him… Too long a
nose. Too much cheekbone. She gave up trying to place his origin.
“You must be an historian,” she laughed. “How many years has it been
since they pressed 78s?”
He smiled but did not answer. The tea arrived. Mr. Long poured for her,
then for himself. Ignoring the handle on the white china cup he wrapped his
hand around it. The thumb overlapped the fingers.
Martha experimented, to see how much other cup her hands would
compass. “Ouch! It's hot!”
“Do not burn yourself, Mrs. Macnamara,” said Mr. Long. He smiled with
excellent teeth. “I am not an historians—in any organized sense. If you tell
me where to find your latest stereo album or Dolby tape, I will bring my
collection out of the middle ages.”
Martha smiled in turn—not with the smile of flattery well received, but as
though she were a child who was about to reveal a naughty secret. It was a
smile that made her round face rounder. “Look under the label Ceirnfni
Claddagh. I play fiddle in a Irish-American Ceili band.” Having uttered this,
she sat back, wondering if she had become so jaded with the public life—a
musician's life—that it was now effortless to talk to strange men alone in
strange places. And if she were jaded, then why were Mr. Longs attentions
so pleasant?
“Thar Ci'onn! How wonderful,” he laughed.
“Oh. You mustn't call my bluff. I speak very little Irish, though I'm taking
lessons with a Meath man. He says although my spirit is willing, my accent
is very bad. But then music is international, and with a fiddle under my chin
I can't talk anyway.”
She heard her voice echo through the empty dining room. “And I guess
that's the only time I don't. But Mr. Long, I have to ask. Where are you
from?”
He glanced into his teacup, then met her blue eyes again. He did not seem
offended. “I was born in China,” he said. “But I am not entirely—Chinese.”
Gripping the teapot around its portly middle, he freshened her cup.
“What is the name of your ensemble?”
“It's called Linnet's Wings, after a poem by Yeats.” She sighed. “Actually,
it's a poem Yeats hated…”
“I know it,” said Mr. Long. “ 'There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a
purple glow, and evening full of the linnet's wings.' He had schoolchildren
prattling that into his ears for twenty years, so his distaste may be
understood.”
“I've never been to Innisfree,” brooded Martha, staring across the dining
room and into the deeper dimness of the bar. She swallowed a yawn. “I don't
even know if it's a real place.”
The chandeliers were crystal. The tiny drops sparkled in their own light.
The weariness of a day's flight blurred her vision, and the play of light
reminded her of snow falling into the bright circles of street lights.
But here in San Francisco there was no snow. Never. Just fog and sea.
How strange. Unreal.
The voice recalled her. “It is quite real,” the voice was saying. She
focused again. He meant Innisfree, of course. Not San Francisco.
“You have been to Ireland?” she asked. But she guessed his answer
before he could speak.
“What did you do there?”
His eyebrows lifted, and the lean face softened in memories. “I was
looking for something.” There was a silence Martha allowed to grow. Then
he spoke again, with animation.
“Mrs. Macnamara—it is Mrs. Macnamara, if I remember?”
“It was.”
He did not falter. “Mrs. Macnamara, have you heard the story of Thomas
Rhymer?”
“I know the ballad,” she admitted. “But it's not Irish.”
“That ballad? No. That is Walter Scott. But the story itself is Irish, I
believe. It was an Irishman who told it to me.
“Listen!,” he began, and as he spoke he stirred his spoon in his cup with a
silver sound. Mrs. Macnamara noted this gesture with amusement. She was
sure that Mr. Long had not taken sugar.
“You know how Thomas the Rhymer was taken off by the queen of
Elfland on her horse of the nine-and-fifty bells. How they swam the river of
blood, and how she showed him the roads to heaven and hell, avoiding both
of them to take a third. How he served her seven years in delightful capacity,
and how in the end his poor reward was that he was made incapable of lying.
This much is what got back to Scott.”
“There is more?”
“Obviously. The ballad is cut off just where it becomes interesting. It
does not touch on the predicament of a bard bereft of his stock in
trade—flattery. It does not so much as mention the Rhymer's son.”
Mr. Long straightened in his chair, thereby disappearing into shadow. His
hands touched together and then opened, as though he were releasing a bird
into the air. “Thomas Rhymer,” he stated, “had a son by the queen of
Elfland. The boy was five years old when his fathers term ended and the
Rhymer was sent upon his way.” Mr. Long paused, breathed deeply and
stared into the air above Martha's head.
“Thomas left, but he came back again, fording the river of blood,
blundering through the tangle of green which hides that road from mortal
eyes. It was not so pleasant a journey for a man alone, but Thomas Rhymer
found his way back to the land of the not-so-blessed and he stole his little
son away.”
“No. I've never heard this,” whispered Martha Macnamara. “Have you got
the verses?”
He stopped and drew breath. “There are verses,” he admitted. “But I don't
sing. Humor me.”
And he continued. “Back in the world again, Thomas Rhymer took to his
trade, and the lad went with him. But fortune no longer smiled upon him.”
“Because he couldn't lie.”
“Quite likely, Mrs. Macnamara. And before the year was out, the Rhymer
began to hear the wailing of the Sidhe in the night and he knew he was
hunted.”
“Oh no!” exclaimed Mrs. Macnamara, finding herself moved, almost
frightened. It was that voice…
“Hiding the boy at the monastery at Lagan—this was in the days Cormac
O'Dubh was Abbot—he rode off, leading the hunt away. .
“Crofters heard the racket of his horse's hoofs pass in the early night, but
in the coldest hour they saw the passage of riders who made no sound, a
company with faces like chalk and horses shining without moonlight. This
part of it has been remembered in Lagan Valley from then ‘til now.
“In the last hour before dawn this ghastly company arrayed itself before
the gates of the monastery, and she who led them threw down upon the grass
the body of Thomas. Knowing she could not storm such a stronghold of the
new faith she offered a trade: her son for the small breath of life she had left
in the father.
“Cormac himself stood at the gate. He was a burly Abbot. He cried out
that he would pray for souls, but he could not sell them.
“But out from the gate squirmed the boy himself, and he ran to his father
and knelt beside him. Spurring her horse the queen plucked up her son. In
the same moment Abbot Cormac O'Dubh ran out from the monastery gate
to Thomas Rhymer. Him he took and carried to safety behind the gates.
“But even this is not the end of the story. For the queen of Elfland, chalk
faced on her pale horse, let out a wail of anger, and she held the boy at arm's
length from her, and she put him down from her horse.
“ 'He stinks!' she cried. 'He stinks of the dove! My boy, ma'cushia! Heart
of my heart, has been dipped in the filthy bowl!'
“And all the shining horses reared up and sank into the earth, and the
Sidhe were gone. Because the good Abbot had put the boy beyond the reach
of his mother's people as long as time holds sway. He had baptized him.”
“Ah! Of course.” Martha hit her palm against the table. “The obvious
solution. I never thought of it. But Thomas Rhymer… he's alive? I mean, he
was alive after that?”
“He lived. He was a very quiet man in later years.”
Mayland Long stared into the depths of an empty cup.
“I believe you have that tale from Thomas Rhymer himself,” said Martha.
“You tell it with such… authority.” She sighed, once more aware of the
time change. While Mr. Long was speaking she had forgotten she was tired.
“From the Rhymer?” He leaned forward and lifted his eyebrows in mock
wonderment. “How could that be?
“He was unconscious during the crux of the story. I have the story from
the boy, of course. The Rhymer’s son.”
“Beautiful boy,” he added, after a moment. “Resembled his mother.”
Martha blinked twice. The hour and the moment combined to overwhelm
her. Cradling her head in her arms she laughed until she hiccupped.
“Forgive me—I'm tired. Jet lag. I'd better turn in now. Getting up at five.”
This last word dissolved into a yawn.
As she pulled herself to her feet Mr. Long rose also. “You will remain
through tomorrow, though?” He spoke with some alarm. “I have not let you
talk about your music. You must join me for dinner.”
She put her hand to the gray braid above her ear and scratched
thoughtfully. “Tomorrow I'm supposed to meet my daughter. That's why I
flew in. But she hasn't called yet, and I can't reach her. Can I call you
sometime in the middle of the day?”
“Certainly. My schedule is not crowded; if I am not in my rooms, you can
leave a message at the desk.”
His voice pulled at her once again as she turned to leave the table. “Mrs.
Macnamara. Why so early? Why five o'clock?”
“I sit,” she called back. “Zazen.”
Mayland Long stood alone beside the empty cups. “Zazen?” he whispered
to himself. His dark face was lit with an amusement which grew and
deepened.
The bartender stopped her on the stair. “Mr. Trough,” she greeted him,
and continued walking.
“Jerry,” he corrected. “Can you spare two minutes?”
“Just about,” Martha smiled, and putting the key to her door, she ushered
the young man in.
Martha’s rooms were not the largest nor the most opulent in the James
Herald Hotel. Had Martha herself made the reservations, they would have
been the cheapest. As it was, she had a bed-sitting room with three chairs, all
of which were too large and too soft to be comfortable and a canopy bed
that dwarfed her.
Jerry Trough was still clutching a damp bar towel in one hand. He sought
for a place to put it down, rejecting the walnut table, the quilted satin
spread, the brocade seat of a side chair. At last he dropped it to the carpet,
where it lay by an open suitcase which spilled over with white cotton
underwear and paperback books. He cleared his throat.
“I saw you leave the dining room and wanted to catch you before you
turned in. It's about the man I introduced to you tonight.”
She turned quickly, leaning her hip against the Chippendale reproduction
dresser. “Mr. Long? Yes, we talked an hour away. What about him?”
“What did you think of him?” She smiled at the impudence of the
question. “I found him informative and entertaining. Not to mention exotic.
I may have supper with him tomorrow.”
“Watch out,” mumbled the bartender. “I know. He can be a real—actor,
and all. Loads of fun. He's a friend of mine, too, in a way.” Trough shifted
from foot to foot.
“Just 'in a way?' “ Her eyebrows lifted interrogatively.
Trough shrugged. “Okay. He is a friend. But I ask you to be careful,
Martha. I don't think he's quite all there.”
“Mr. Long?” Her voice rose in consternation. “I've rarely met anyone
more—more there. More present, I mean.” She glared at the bartender. “If
the man is schizophrenic or something like that, why did you introduce me
to him?”
As though Martha's outrage had shaken the starch out of him. Jerry
Trough sat down on the edge of the bed. His eyes darted about the room and
he laced his hands together. “I told you why Because of the violin. And
because you're a lot alike in other ways.”
“Oh. I'm a nut too?” Martha’s eyes went even wider, and she put her
hands on her hips.
The young man sighed and ran his fingers through his curly black hair.
“Of course not. You take me wrong. What I mean is that you both seem to
like… conversation. Have large vocabularies. And you're both alone —you
because you just got here, and he because… he just is.
“And when I see you get excited about little things. Like the way you
talked about racing the sun in the airplane and almost winning except you
had to stop at the end of the country Well, Mr. Long's like that too; he's got
these old, falling apart books of Chinese poetry he says nobody's ever
translated before, and he brings them to the bar and sets them down and
scribbles in little notebooks. He gets excited about it, but I never hear about
his translations getting printed anywhere, so I don't know…
“I used to think he was really stuffy until I noticed that half of everything
he said was a pun or a joke. You're somewhere around the same age… I
think…” Here Trough’s words faded. He knew himself to be treading shaky
ground on the subject of age.
“So I thought he'd interest you—to talk to for a few minutes. But Mr.
Long… I want you to know if you get him drunk,” Trough said, “Old Mr.
Long will tell you that he used to be a dragon. And he's not joking around
when he says it.”
Martha pushed off from the dresser and came to stand beside the awkward
young man. On her face a triumphant smile was blossoming.
Trough regarded his own feet as he continued. “He told” me he used to be
ten yards long and solid black, with a head like a chrysanthemum. Not any
other flower—he insisted it was a chrysanthemum. He also thought it was
important I knew that he had had five toes on each foot. As a dragon, that
is.”
The worry had cleared from Martha's brow. “Oh!” she breathed. “I see.
Well, Jerry, me boy. This night he told me that he was personally acquainted
with Thomas Rhymer.”
“Or at least knew his son,” truth compelled her to add.
Trough stared blankly. “And he doesn't?”
“Not likely. But don't you see where his head is at, when he says things
like that?”
“No. Where?” She gestured in the air above her head, as though calling
all available Muses to her aid. “Why he's… exercising a scholarly
imagination. He's smashing the world, to recreate it in his own pattern. That
man is an artist, and conversation is his medium. If he appears a bit crazy it's
only because he's too much alone,” she concluded. “I understand him. Or I
think I do. I can't explain any better than that.” Her blue eyes stared at the
carpet, the pile of books, the wet bar towel…
The bartender stood up. “Still, be careful, Martha. They found a body in
the hall last year, in front of his door.”
Martha Macnamara took Trough's place on the bed. It bounced. “What? A
body? Whose?”
“The dead guy was a junkie, I heard. Police record long as your arm. No
loss to San Francisco, I guess, but that was just a freaky way to end him, you
know? No marks, no blood, just his neck bone snapped. Coroner decided he
fell, but why he was there in the first place, and why he should fall so hard
he broke his neck…” Here the bartender stopped portentously.
“So you think poor Mr. Long is a secret killer, do you? He's part
Chinese—perhaps he knows some deadly Oriental way to kill a man from
behind a wooden door. Perhaps he's the head of a Tong!” Eyes flashing,
Martha rose to her feet.
“I rather like old Mr. Long,” she stated. “He may tell me that he used to
be a dragon, or will be a dragon come Tuesday next, or that he actually is a
dragon underneath his suit jacket and white shirt-front. I will try to receive
such a confidence in the spirit in which it is given.”
She paused for breath, and her bright outrage flowed away from her. She
regarded the bartender more calmly. “And I doubt very much that you'll find
me in the hallway outside his door, dead with no marks of violence.”
Mr. Trough shrugged an ineloquent shrug. “Sure. You're safe, I guess.
Besides, he never drinks much with dinner.” Martha's irritated frown sent
Trough out the door.
She put her face between the panels of the drape and rested her forehead
against cool glass. Outside the city swept twinkling north and west to the
sea. No snow. Also no fog.
That little interview had almost ruined her mood. She decided she
wouldn't let it. After all, she was in San Francisco neither to fight nor frolic,
but to talk to Liz, who evidently had problems and wanted her advice.
Martha had been able to give her daughter little enough as a child—surely
she could now spare a week and a little maternal concern. Regardless of
impudent bartenders. Regardless of fascinating men.
Where was Liz's apartment? San Mateo. That was south. Behind the
hotel. She could not play the game of pretending to locate her daughter
among the lights below.
Was Liz nervous also? Sleepless? Afraid of the interview for which she'd
called her mother clear across the continent? That would be unlike Liz. She
was probably sleeping soundly, believing her mother was getting in on a late
flight. Or she could be out on a date, or what was most likely of all, at work
amid a clatter of computers. Liz would get in touch.
She turned from the window and yawned. Her thoughts returned to the
man she had met tonight. What a wonderful voice. Impossible hands. And
that strange hybrid face, falling in and out of shadow.
It was easier to think of this brief acquaintance than it was to think of her
daughter. Easier and more fun.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror. One of her braids
was falling over her ear. She shook her head dubiously at her image. She
could not see herself a remarkable beauty.
Yet Mr. Long—she felt—liked her. He knew who she was. He was
interested to know more. Her gaze searched the mirror.
So he has an old 78 and a good memory—the mirror told her. And he
likes an audience. Her shoulders sagged as she kicked off her shoes.
But in five seconds this depression also vanished, swept away in the tides
of Martha's good humor. She threw off the tweed suit and stepped out of her
underwear. Stark naked, she dialed the switchboard and asked for a wake-up
call at five.
In darkness, leaning against a wall of red brocade, Mayland Long waited
for the elevator. He smiled, and his teeth glinted in the greenish light of the
control buttons.
Zen… to have come so far, to this stone city where the ocean was on the
wrong side of the sun, to wait and watch himself age with cruel speed,
摘要：

TeaWiththeBlackDragonRAMacAvoy(v1.3cleaned&proofed)Chapter1MarthaMacnamarastoodatthePacific,hertoesdiggingintothefroth.Shehadcomethelengthofthecountryinoneday'sflight,andshehadtroublebelievingthatthiswasadifferentocean.“Ohgoon,admitit,”shegrumbled,kickingtheivoryscumfromapileofkelp.“You'reallthesame...

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