Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(78)
Author: Anne Rice

He bent down, tried to read the name of the tape inside the player.

“It’s what she wants,” said Stuart, staring still at the woman. “Just start it. She plays it all the time. It is her music.”

“Dance with us,” said Tessa. “Don’t you want to dance with us?” She moved towards Ash, and this time he could not resist. He caught her hands, and then embraced her as a man might embrace a woman for a waltz, in the modern intimate position.

Michael pressed the button.

The music began low, the throb of bass strings plucked slowly—flowing out of the many speakers; then came trumpets, smooth and lustrous, over the shimmering tones of a harpsichord, descending in the same melodic line of notes and now taking the lead, so that the strings followed.

At once Ash guided his partner into wide graceful steps, and a gentle circle.

This was Pachelbel’s Canon, Michael knew it at once, played as he’d never heard it, in a masterly rendition, with the full brass perhaps intended by the composer.

Had there ever been a more plaintive piece of music, anything more frankly abandoned to romance? The music swelled, transcending the constraints of the baroque, trumpets, strings, harpsichord now singing their overlapping melodies with a heartrending richness so that the music seemed both timeless and utterly from the heart.

It swept the couple along, their heads bending gently, their wide steps graceful and slow and in perfect time with the instruments. Ash was smiling now, as fully and completely as Tessa. And as the pace quickened, as the trumpets began to delicately trill the notes, with perfect control, as all voices blended magnificently in the most jubilant moments of the composition, faster and faster they danced, Ash swinging Tessa along almost playfully, into bolder and bolder circles. Her skirts flared freely, her small feet turned with perfect grace, heels clicking faintly on the wood, her smile ever more radiant.

Another sound was not blended into the dance—for the canon, when played like this, was surely a dance—and slowly Michael realized it was the sound of Ash singing. There were no words, only a lovely openmouthed humming, to which Tessa quickly added her own, and their faultless voices rose above the dark lustrous trumpets, effortlessly traveling the crescendos, and now, as they turned faster, their backs very straight, they almost laughed in what seemed pure bliss.

Rowan’s eyes had filled with tears as she watched them—the tall, regal man and the lithesome, graceful fairyqueen, and so had the eyes of the old man, who clung to the arm of his chair as if he were very close to the limit of his resources.

Yuri seemed torn inside, as if he would lose control finally. But he remained motionless, leaning against the wall, merely watching.

Ash’s eyes were now playful, yet adoring, as he rocked his head and swayed more freely, and moved even more quickly.

On and on they danced, spinning along the edge of the pool of light, into shadow and out of it, serenading one another. Tessa’s face was ecstatic as that of a little girl whose greatest wish has been granted her.

It seemed to Michael that they should withdraw—Rowan, Yuri, and he—and leave them to their poignant and gentle union. Perhaps it was the only embrace they’d ever really know with each other. And they seemed now to have forgotten their watchers, and whatever lay ahead of them.

But he couldn’t go. No one moved to go, and on and on the dance went until the rhythm slowed, until the instruments played more softly, warning that they would soon take their leave, and the overlapping lines of the canon blending in one last full-throated voice and then slacking, drawing away, the trumpet giving forth a final mournful note, and then silence.

The couple stopped in the very center of the floor, the light spilling down over their faces and their shimmering hair.

Michael rested against the stones, unable to move, only watching them.

Music like that could hurt you. It gave you back your disappointment, and your emptiness. It said, Life can be this. Remember this.

Silence.

Ash lifted the hands of the fairyqueen, looking at them carefully as he did so. Then he kissed her upturned palms and he let her go. And she stood staring at him, as if in love, perhaps not with him, perhaps with the music and the dance and the light, with everything.

He led her back to her loom, gently urging her to sit again on her stool, and then he turned her head so that her eyes fell on her old task, and as she peered at the tapestry, she seemed to forget that he was there. Her fingers reached for the threads, and began immediately to work.

Ash drew back, careful not to make a sound, and then he turned and looked at Stuart Gordon.

No plea or protest came from the old man, fallen to one side in the chair, his eyes moving without urgency from Ash to Tessa and then to Ash again.

The awful moment had come, perhaps. Michael didn’t know. But surely some story, some long explanation, some desperate narrative would forestall it. Gordon had to try. Somebody had to try. Something had to happen to save this miserable human being; simply because he was that, something had to prevent this imminent execution.

“I want the names of the others,” said Ash in the usual mild fashion. “I want to know who your cohorts were, both within and outside the Order.”

Stuart took his time in answering. He didn’t move, or look away from Ash. “No,” he said finally. “Those names I will never give you.”

It sounded as final as anything Michael had ever heard. And the man, in his pain, seemed beyond any form of persuasion.

Ash began to walk calmly towards Gordon.

“Wait,” said Michael “Please, Ash, wait.”

Ash stopped, politely looking to Michael.

“What is it, Michael?” he asked, as if he could not possibly presume to know.

“Ash, let him tell us what he knows,” Michael said. “Let him give us his story!”

Seventeen

EVERYTHING WAS CHANGED. Everything was easier. She lay in Morrigan’s arms and Morrigan lay in hers and—

It was evening when she opened her eyes.

What a great dream that had been. It was as if Gifford and Alicia and Ancient Evelyn had been with her, and there was no death and no suffering, and they had been together, dancing even, yes, dancing, in a circle.

She felt so good! Let it fade; the feeling remained with her. The sky was Michael’s violet.

And there was Mary Jane standing over her, looking so goddamned cute with her flaxen yellow hair.

“You’re Alice in Wonderland,” said Mona, “that’s who you are. I should nickname you Alice.”

Going to be perfect, I promise you.