LE LION VERT, 2022
People gathered around Fulvia. She occupied herself with polite greetings. Once I felt everyone’s attention was sufficiently divided, I escaped to a quiet corner of the room where a large Turkish-style divan had been erected.
The pillows were luxurious. Gold and green with soft tassels. Many of them had fine medieval scenes rendered in the most exquisite embroidery. One depicted the sainted Christine de Pisan and her City of Ladies. Others were of Saracens on mares marching into battle, all in bright pastels or saturated primaries.
On the walls around the divan were fine tapestries. One showed scenes I knew to be from One Thousand and One Nights, and another was of Dante’s Inferno, but all the figures were shown in jubilation. Dante’s secret work, the Infernal Comedy, told the true tale of Hell.
The moment I sat on the pillows, the ebony Drow I had seen earlier appeared with a tray of mint tea and Shisha, aromatic tobacco smoked in a hookah. There was a tall one in the corner with several pipes running off of it. I decided a smoke would be desirable, so the wench packed it neatly in a ceramic bowl and ignited some coals.
I was so distracted by the night’s failures I didn’t enjoy the elegant woman’s nudity, which was unusual for me. I had blown it with Samson and Fulvia, and though I am normally rather upbeat and sociable, I was overcome with a desire to be very alone.
While I stewed in my self-pity, someone slipped onto the divan across from me. I looked up and saw that it was Mademoiselle Umbra, the little grey girl I had noticed earlier at the funeral.
“Do you mind if I join you?” She asked.
“Of course not, mademoiselle.” I had wanted to be alone, but something about her smallness and ugliness made her seem like she was just the sort of person you’d want to be alone with. I did not find her attractive, but I do not mean to say she was universally ugly; I imagine many men would find her a pretty, alternative sort of girl. I believe the term would be an Emo Spinner.
“I guess you’re not much for parties?” Thea picked up a hose, brushed off the tip and then pointed it towards me, “do you mind if I?”
“Be my guest. I’m not usually this dour; I like parties. I suppose I came here expecting a bit more success.”
Mademoiselle Umbra took a long draw and let out a cloud of rich smoke that seemed much bigger than her little lungs could manage. The area was filled with the rich smell of Double Apple. There was a gentle bitter arsenic base note to the smoke. It was sweet and sour all at once.
“You and me both, I don’t know what I was thinking. I hate parties.”
I pointed the tip of my pipe at my chest. “Nikolai Bozerenski, wand maker.”
She copied my action, pointing towards her chest, “Thea Umbra, black sheep.”
I chuckled. She was deadpan in her delivery but seemed half serious.
“Does it pay well, being a black sheep?”
“Fabulously, in rumours and sideways glances, not much in the way of coin.”
I nodded, unsure what to say. Thea Umbra was infamous, but not in the sense of celebrity. The gossip about her was particularly lurid. That she had a Gorgon for a wet nurse. That she had lost her virginity to an Aesculapian, which is absurd as they generally sneaked into open windows and ate the baby from within expecting mothers. Perhaps he was just confused?
There was the rumour that she had received her Elder Law from Atum, the masturbating God who ingests a perpetual stream of his own semen. Some said she stole his seed, impregnated herself, and then sacrificed the child to the Yellow King, Nyarlathotep, before the babe’s cord was even cut.
There were stories that she was insane, and that’s why Charles-Francois had kept her locked in a tower. Others wondered why she would join the Serpentine Court, not the Peregrines, like her guardian. I didn’t see all that much mystery, as far as I knew - which isn’t much — her father had been a Serpentine, as had been the entire Umbra line.
The Serpentines were notoriously sadomasochistic. Worshipers of pain and torture, though I imagined much of that was overstated. Their aesthetic was indeed especially dark and sometimes grotesque, but I’ve often found that the most horrible-sounding people are usually quite nice. The evilest sort of person is the one who can hide what they are, layered under the pretence of goodness, generosity, and empathy.
In our world, every kind of evil is practised to the level of aesthetic and compelling art, save one. We never do anything for another living being’s “own good.”
“It can’t be all bad, there are just as many good rumours about you as bad ones.”
“I guess that was unavoidable. Sometimes I wish nobody knew who I was or thought they knew.”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t mean to imply anything; I don’t believe a thing I read in the Chronicle or overhear as gossip. But, as a satyr, I am well aware of the nasty things people say that aren’t true.”
She smiled at that. However, it was a subdued kind of smile.
“I didn’t want to mention it, though I was curious. I’ve never met a satyr who was also a sorcerer. Or a wand maker. Come to think of it; I’ve never met a satyr, period.”
I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t met a satyr before. We are rare, largely due to our difficulty in reproducing. Satyrs are theriomorphic, our physical being is entirely from the mother, and our essence is a manifestation of the Elder God known as Pan. So you have to find the right fit, and that is largely a game of numbers.
It does lead to a kind of spiritual consanguinity, though, very often, satyrs will stick to the same line of women, as was the case with my father. I never learned his name. Bozerenski was the family name of my step-father, who my mother married shortly after becoming pregnant with me.
“My grandfather was somewhat of a sorcerer, in Russia under the Romanovs. My grandmother, too, though she fled during the revolution.”
“Ah, so, that explains the name, Nikolai. Was your grandfather very famous? It seems like a satyr and sorcerer would be.”
“His name was Rasputin.”
“Ah, so. I don’t know much about Russian history - or human history - I didn’t even meet another human until I was eight. I guess it makes sense now that you mention it. He was supposed to be a lady’s man.”
I made a long draw on the Hookah and blew out the smoke.
“Quite.” I wasn’t sure I liked talking about my grandfather. Satyrs don’t usually stay with the woman they seed; they just move on to the next. It was something I despised in myself. Something I fought against and suppressed.