Tonino and the Incubus
by Peg Robinson
I should say at the start that there is not now, never was, and never will be another gigolo so marvelous as Tonino. Not in any world, nor in any universe, alternate or otherwise. How could there be? All extremes must reach their end-point; the ne plus ultra which cannot be exceeded, or even equaled. So with Tonino: never have there been such sweet black eyes, such tousled hair. Never such skillful hands. Never such cheekbones, never such a mouth, full and soft — yet firm when firm was wanted, clean-lined and luscious as the curve of a cut plum.
Oh!, the old ladies cried, as they gossiped over shiraza and cakes in the courtyards of Rolara. Oh! You must have seen Tonino! At the canazonet? At the grendaza, flying above the bulls? You must have seen him dance the haliandar, his hips like…no, I can't say. But you must have seen Tonino. So young, so dark, so fair, so fine — if I weren't a widow I'd soon become one, just for the pleasure of Tonino's company. If there is a God of cicisbeos, Tonino is his incarnation. And his soul! The Gods themselves cannot have souls so sweet and pure as our Tonino's!
They were right: Tonino's soul was beyond reproach. He did what he did for love, and took the gifts he was offered as a God takes prayer and sacrifice: unasked for, though as his due, and always with a gentle grace that rewarded the smile of the little lace-maker in the market as generously as the gold of the high-born Soras in their mansions. And, one and all, they all adored him.
Do you find it strange that a mere gigolo should be so worshipped? So, too, do I; it is not the common way of such things. Yet it was so: Tonino had a most uncommon gift for love. If other, lesser men scowled and spoke darkly of sorcery, it must be said that no client of Tonino's ever raised a word against him — or failed to introduce him to a lonely friend. As I believe I have said, Tonino was unique: one such paragon is almost beyond human belief; two would challenge the infinite credulity of the gods, who by definition must believe everything that might ever be. Such miracles as Tonino seldom go unnoticed by the fates, however, and so it came to pass that his worthiness was put to the test.
This is how it happened:
It was summer in Rolara, and, in Rolara, summer is a time of sultry delights. The cunningly whorled bina blossoms hang in scarlet trusses from every balcony and scent the air with the odor of honey, provoking even wise and talented poets to attempt an ode or sonnet, undeterred by the certainty that such attempts are always sentimental and seldom deserving of the ink it takes to write them. In summer the young women peddling ices in the streets hitch up their skirts to show long brown legs and petticoats like white surf, and their shoulders are so bare that holy prietas and prietos hold debates over their wine as to where, precisely, a shoulder can be said to stop, and other, more intimate portions of the anatomy, start. The people of the city, low or high, stay up late over their meals, singing and laughing under a million blazing stars, and young men sit in the public squares and drink fiery bista by moonlight, cooling their heads in the fountains when tempers burn too hot.
On such a summer night Tonino attended a party at the home of the Sora Minelle. He wandered in the garden, listening to the musicians on the torch-lit patio beyond, and marveling at the filigree of leaf-shadow and moonlight on the flags of the walk.
He was most pleased, that night. In the morning he had been closeted with dear little Sora Fissa, who had bad eyes, but a good heart. When he left she was laughing, and she pressed a gold ring into his palm, begging that he come to her again as soon as her grandchildren returned to their home in the country. In the afternoon he had lain beside a stream with Sora Tempastina, who had forgotten her doctor's advice to live quietly the minute Tonino had arrived at her mansion door — and who regretted her lapse of memory so little that she slipped the physician's fee into Tonino's belt-purse when he left her to wash in the flowing waters. That evening he had eaten a light meal with Sora Minelle, and had succeeded in distracting her from her worries about the party he now attended. And, tomorrow, very, very early, he was to see Sora Gauda, who had only just put off her black and bought a dress of blue and gold — bought it, she vowed, just to please him, who had been so tender during her mourning.
There was but one bitter seed in the basket of his pleasures: Prieta Safina, the new Archcleric of the city. She stood at the edge of the torch-light, her eyes trying to penetrate the darkness, and her still face hinted at danger, as black ice in winter hints at death. She was of the Order of Renunciation, who give themselves over to prayer and asceticism that they may better pursue that most mysterious and paradoxical of gods, the Hidden One, who passes unheralded and unrecognized, working wonders that cannot be spoken of in forms that surprise even the other gods. For one who worshipped so joyful a mystery, Tonino found her most mysteriously joyless.
It is well enough to be a Renunciatta if that is one's calling, he thought, but even an Archcleric should not bring her judgments, like ill-mannered children, to disturb adult pleasures. If she likes me and my pastimes so little, why does she seek me out so intently?
"Why so sad, beloved?" The voice of Sora Catola came to him from the shadows beneath an oak. "Was your day less than wondrous?"
He turned and smiled. "Ah, mi corana, any day in which I have gone without your company is less than wondrous. But now all is well — I have been blessed with your presence!"
"Hea-dea! Flatterer!" She chuckled, and rose. "Come, come, Tonino, such words are well enough for most, but they will not put an old hegata like me off the trail. I have a glass to see futures in, and my familiars fly, bat-winged, to whisper in my ears. I say you are sad, and will tell me why." She tapped him with her fan, and frowned ferociously under white brows.
"You are wise, mi corana. Too wise, perhaps: who would care for me, if they thought me less than joyful?"
She shook her head in mock-censure. "Fool. You could cry the oceans full, and none would pause longer than it would take to find a handkerchief and hope you would allow them to dry your tears. Now, tell me, what disturbs you?"
He took her thin arm and drew her to him, leading her back to the bench beneath the oak. "Oh, this and that, mi corana, this and that. I lost a button from my favorite shirt, but Leavenday-last. My landlady's cat has kittened, and the little ones have wrecked havoc on my neck-cloths. I have worn black twice since this month began: once for poor Sora Tenteline, who was so good to me for so many years; and once for Sora Ninana, who had such black eyes and such generous ways. And only this morning I tried to buy a sintana ice from a girl in Rola Plaza, and was told that there were none to be had in all the city. For such things I mourn — but not for long. I have a merry soul."
"Tchk. You would not weep for such things — except the wearing of black, and a man who loves the old must become accustomed to bidding them good-bye. Tell me true, love, what troubles you, tonight?"
"You are indeed a hegata, my beautiful one. You see through darkness, like a true witch. But it is nothing — just the sour looks of the Prieta Safina, reminding me that my worth is less than the greatest sinner's at the shrine, for I cannot repent my sins as others do. That is all, and it is nothing to the pleasure of your company. I will let it go."
She shook her head, crowned with a braid of silver and draped with a veil of lace. "And well you should. Mi corano, mi amado, let such as she frown as they will. You bring the joys of heaven to earth, and that can only be the gods' will; so any true prieta should know. There's many a widow, many a spinster, many a wife whose husband lies useless all night and sits in the sun in the plaza with the old men all day, whose lives you've made rich again. If we have chosen to accept your gifts, who is the Archcleric Safina to judge?"
"It is my duty to judge." The prieta's face, framed by her black wimple, shone in the moonlight. "You name Sora Tenteline, and Sora Ninana…had you heard they died weary, their servants muttering that this one would leave their mistresses no peace, coming night after night at all hours, making them cry out over and again? It is a tragedy! A scandal! It is the will of the Gods that a woman, in her dotage, be chaste and without desire; but this Tonino is like an incubus, seducing crones with hot delusions of youth."
"So happy a tragedy, to die of an excess of Tonino! If Tenteline and Ninana cried, I am sure they cried for joy, and ascended to heaven singing the praises of their executioner." Sora Catola stood, her chin high — if draped with folds like a trail-hound's. "Having sworn as a prieta of a celibate order, you would have all others swear likewise; but the gods make no such demands. As for Tonino, he is no devil. I have known him for years, and in all those years have never known him to be less than gentle and thoughtful. Certainly he was so last night, when he came to this unchaste crone."
Tonino would have protested out of modesty, and concern for Sora Catola's reputation, and for still one reason more. But the prieta spoke before him.
"Thus he makes harlots of foolish old women." Her deep eyes turned on Tonino. "I cannot have you driven out, though in better days I would have had it done. But if another woman dies crying your name, worn to death by your attentions, I shall note it, and take action."
She left, and Tonino, the flower of all gigolos, was troubled in his heart. In his distress he forgot his confusion: he had not visited Sora Catola the night before. But she was old, and he had reason to know the old often forget small things. And, it went without saying, she was generous: how like his dear to speak so bold a lie, in the interests of a greater truth! For he had loved her many times, and she had indeed cried out for joy. And so it was that he allowed her to make him smile, and repaid her with interest, making her smile a score of times more. As a result he nearly missed his assignation with the delightful Sora Gauda — nearly, but not quite. He was punctilious in his devotions, and was ever careful to leave no lover feeling destitute, bereft of the treasure of his company.
But Sora Catola died a scant fortnight after. Tonino wore black at her funeral, and cried into a black silk handkerchief, ignoring the stares of the other mourners and the affronted glare of the little chapel prieto who said the words over her grave. He had adored her as he adored all his women, and willingly suffered the darting glances and the whispers that faded at his approach.
Then Sora Tempastina died, and the accusations followed: that he had lain with her all that fatal night; that her cries had been many and most impassioned; and that, in the dim hour of dawn, she had died the little death — and the great one, also. This Tonino heard from the scowling guard who took him to the Palaza Nigara to be questioned. It was luck alone that he had been seen the night before leaving the house of Sora Astarta, wearing a new, blood-red Himendi cloak of exotic weave which she had bought only the day before in the bazaar. Tonino was released.
This time he did not go to the funeral. Instead he sat in his rooms over the Taverna della Mondar, and thought long and deeply. It came hard to him. He seldom plumbed the depths of thought, preferring to sport in the shallower waters of wit; for cogitation was widely known to lessen a man's stamina and diminish his capacity to give joy to women, while wit brought smiles to all and enhanced even the most trivial forms of intercourse. However, the situation was of such magnitude that even the threat of being unmanned by his cerebral exertions was insufficient cause to abstain. So it was that Tonino pondered, his perfect face twisted in a frown, his graceful hands clutched at his brow.
Ona, doa, tretza, catora…
One by one he counted them off: the darlings of his affections who had died in the last three months. There was his plump little Sora Virginata, who had so delighted in disproving her naming. Sorita Vivelda, who had loved his smile, and left him a small but valuable property in the province of Luventos, as proof of her regard. Sora Delinah, of the many cats, and Sora Patala, of the yapping lapdogs. And, of course, the previously mentioned Soras Tempastina, Tenteline, Ninana, and Catola.
…Quinza, sexta, septa, octat! Eight! Names of the gods, from the Hidden to the Highest! The number of the dead was eight…
Looked at against the many who still lived, the list seemed short — a mere handful of tarnished brown coppers set against a coffer overflowing with living gold. Had Tonino been less than he was he might have reckoned the loss small, if the rumors could be quelled. What are a few setbacks to a merchant, so long as business is good and customers plentiful? But, as I have sworn previously, Tonino was no mere trader in love. He was as profligate in his devotion as he was in his favors, as passionately protective of his ladies as any miser is of the least of his coins. The tally of his losses grieved him mightily.
Eight? So many? Oh, terrible! I alone adore them, he thought, I alone know the tender, ancient secrets of their hearts — how could I not have known of this? The Archcleric was right — it is an incubus. It must be! What else explains the stories? Why else would my beloved Catola have claimed I visited her when I had not? How could I have failed to see it?
But he knew the answer: there were so many to love, and all so old. It was not so strange when one died, and there was always another, newly widowed or long alone, looking to him with hope and holding out her hand. Tonino's calling was to serve his devotees lustily and lovingly during their lives. In death he could only mourn them.
Still, though, eight? This was not just a tragedy, it was a disaster. His honor, his reputation, and, worst of all, the lives of his beloved ladies were at stake. For this he must not only think — he must dare the Archcleric, laired in the Shrine of the Hidden God on the highest hill in Rolara.
And so it was he wrapped himself in his cape, the very cape given him by Sora Astarta, pulled on boots given him with a smile by the late Sora Tempastina, placed a many-feathered hat from Sora Catola upon his lustrous curls, and so, vested in the offerings of his adoring congregation of admirers, he ventured out into the streets. He strode up out of the gossiping neighborhood of the artists' quarter where the Taverna della Mondar stood, past the tidy townhouses of the bourgeoisie, past the bazaar, past the courts bustling with people, past the Palaza Nigara, past the villas and the mansions, up to the towering shrine of the Hidden God at the crown of the city. He mounted the famous hundred-and-ten steps, penetrated the high arch carved two centuries before by the great artist Gandolfo DeSovasi, and invaded the dim recesses of the shrine.
Prieta Safina met him in her public rooms with a forbidding frown, standing tall and stern behind her desk. She offered him no hospitality, nor even her hand to kiss. "And what brings you to the Shrine of the Hidden God, Tonino of the many sins? Have you come at last to repent?"
"I have nothing to repent but my own stupidity, Archcleric. When you spoke of an incubus, you were a prophetess proclaiming simple truth. No, it is not I who rides my beloved ones into their graves. But an incubus wears the face of a trusted lover, the form most dreamed of: man or woman, young or old, dark or fair. Such a demon haunts Rolara, and I, who am known neither for my wisdom nor my piety, have come to you for aid." So Tonino pled before the prieta, humble in his devotion.
Oh, how the Archcleric laughed, then! "Tonino, Tonino, you waste your time and mine. Why should I seek an incubus, when a likelier devil stands before me? No, no, Tonino, it will not serve."
"I tell you, it is so! There are reports of me being where I have not been — or where I haven't been at the times reported," he corrected himself, conscientiously. "My darling ones, my gentle doves, they fade and die…yet when I leave a woman, she is strong and in love with life. No, no, it is a demon! What other answer could there be?"
"A simple answer: that Tonino of the curling locks has become too bold and too demanding, and now tries to hide the consequences behind a foolish story of demons in the night." Prieta Safina shook her head, soberly. "Oh, Tonino, I would weep for you, did I not weep already for the women you have seduced. Your women are old, and frail, and lonely — how can it be right that you come to them when their minds should be on heaven and their bodies learning patience, preparing for the stillness of the grave? The gods have decreed that old age is the time of abstinence. Are you so vain you think to overrule heaven?"
Tonino rose up, enraged. "You are a peasant judging Vetanti silk — you criticize out of ignorance. The gods give no gifts without the hope they will be enjoyed; yet my amadas are rich in gifts left to shrivel and fall to dust. They sit against the wall at the canazonet, and no one invites them to dance. They are wise, but no one reveres their wisdom. They are joyful, but are asked to smother their joy and contemplate death. If it were not for me, what would they delight in? Who would make them blush so sweetly, and remember what it is to be adored? Who but Tonino, who loves them so?"
"It is no doubt through such insights that you have become a wealthy man, with properties in Luventos, and Cadrillo, and Avantante, and Proalt, and why the bankers in their counting houses on La Strata speak of you in whispers, as a prieto speaks of the Hidden God. Bow to the truth, Tonino: you are merely a prostitute, as much so as the whores and catamites who sell themselves for a copper a shove behind the barrels on the docks. Fine words cannot change that."
Tonino's eyes narrowed. "Nor will foul words. I am not ashamed to admit my calling; only determined that I practice it well, and kindly. Should I refuse my coranas' offerings, like a man who turns his face in disgust from a plain girl's kiss after loving her only the night before? The giving pleases them. To me the gifts are the necessary proof that I gave honestly what was most desired. Who shall say truly who gives and who receives, when all are satisfied?"
"And you have been given so very many gifts, Tonino! You must be satisfied, indeed! Look at you: your cloak so bright, your hands so heavy with gold. Your coffers are filled to overflowing, you own more lands than many a Grande Soro. The gods themselves have no such offerings, they are impoverished compared to you. What should have been humbly handed up to the altar has been squandered on Tonino…the prostitute. What value is there in love paid for? A kiss, and only a gold pezata in return? You should feel disgust, if they do not."
"Having been blessed with the Hidden God's love, would you have him spurn your prayers of thanksgiving?" he retorted, "Or would you not cry out were your poor gift so scorned? What passes between my loves and I, kisses or pezatas, is no more than token of a greater mystery — as it is with blessings and prayers. Or is your Hidden One so cruel as to mock your offerings and turn away, as you would have me do? Poor prieta! You would do better to find a good gigolo. At least with such as I you could count on kisses. A gigolo must be accountable for the joy he gives, as a god need not."
The prieta paled, and her hands were talons. "You cannot compare my worship to your women's wickedness, nor my god's love to your lust. The one is blessed, the other darkest sin. As for joy, even that gained from gigolos is only passed on. All joy, all beauty, all truth, all faith, comes first from the gods themselves."
Tonino cocked his head, pensively. "You are so sure? But of course you are. And, if so, then what complaint have you? If joy is from the gods, and I but dispense it, then the joy remains holy, no? And offerings which come to my hands are no less deserved than any which might come to you and the other prietii who dwell here at the shrine." The Archprieta bridled, and Tonino shook his head in pretended sorrow. "Ah, I see I am wrong again. My pardons for the offence, Archcleric, I am but a simple man — a prostitute, as you have said. The mysteries of grace are, no doubt, beyond me. I will leave you to your theologies, who understand such things, and deal with more earthly matters myself." He turned to the door, his cape a flourish of red against the grey stone walls.
"Tonino — " The Archcleric glowered, her eyes dark with rage. "Do not think you can escape me by spreading this tale of an incubus, or whatever wild fable you dream of next. If you keep on as you have, demon-tale or no, I will have you burned in Rola Plaza."
"I must protect my ladies. I owe them my service, as you owe service to your gods."
"Fine words, Tonino the gigolo."
"The finest, Safina the prieta, and meant with all my soul's ardor."
So Tonino left the shrine of the Hidden God and walked back down into the city, his step no less bold than when he'd come, though fear coiled on fear in his belly. There are few evils so great as the incubus, which makes weakness of the strength of love. Even one high among heaven's Sanctas would shake to face such a one. Yes, even a god might turn from the challenge. How much more then should Tonino fear, who was only a man — and, if the Prieta Safina was to be believed, a poor and sinful man at that? Yet he was committed to his course. He would do all he could to save his inamoratas.
So, during the days that followed, the city came to be thrice-haunted: first, by the spirit who slipped silent into the houses of Tonino's women, and which left them weaker than when it came. Second, by Tonino, whose eyes searched the shadows for his enemy, the devil which preyed on his lovers. And, third, it was haunted by the prayers of the Prieta Safina, who knelt each day in front of the icon of the Hidden God, that perfect imperfection — the imagined face of the faceless mystery. She begged him to aid her in her efforts to accomplish the end of Tonino the gigolo, who defiled all decent things and cursed her metropolis. She pled that, wherever the god was, in whatever form he had incarnated, he come to Rolara and cleanse it of evil. She spoke the five hundred known names of his past Avatars, calling him to be her champion, her shield and her sword. She fasted, and went without sleep — and her servants slid through the city, seeking news of Tonino, the depraved.
If the Archcleric was tireless in her devotion, Tonino was no less so. In those days he begged his women as sweetly as ever he had wooed them that they now turn him from their chambers if he came to them uncalled for, knowing with horror that they would not; that they could not resist his image, having already come to trust the loving reality. Desperate, he walked the streets at night, not simply in transit to finer things, or to spend a pleasant hour between assignations, but to watch for signs of the incubus. Little by little, he puzzled out a pattern — even as the prieta solved puzzles of her own, and planned her plans.
You doubt my tale? You do not believe in my fair, foolish Tonino? You do not believe a little cicisbeo would brave so much when he could take his money, leave Rolara, and let things fall out as they would between the women, the incubus, and the Archcleric? But it was so! What would life be worth, if there were no such marvels, after all? We must all live in the hope of unicorns, angels, gods, and even such earthy wonders as Tonino. If such things cannot be then we have little to dream of, in youth or age, and the world is a sorry place indeed.
So the incubus preyed, as such night demons will; the Prieta Safina prayed, as will clerics in any time; and Tonino, darling Tonino — it was the time of his testing. He was half mad with fear for his adored handmaidens, who had no other to protect them from love turned awry. So fearful was he for them that he nearly forgot to fear for himself. And so it came to pass one night that Tonino wandered in the place where his test had first come upon him: the garden of Sora Minelle.
Summer had spent its youth and passed its prime. The last of the bina blossoms bobbed among the trees, and dropped crimson petals that drifted like wind-blown confetti the night after a festival. The old moon was no more than a ghost, dressed in the black of mourning. Even the stars seemed paler than they had, dim as aging eyes. Tonino looked up at them, fondly. "You are old, my darlings, and more weary than you were, but you are no less beautiful to me for that. And perhaps you are wiser, too. If so, lend me your wisdom this night, for I will need it sorely."
From the darkness, a voice: "And why is that, Tonino of the many loves? Is it that you knew I waited for you, and hoped to pass unnoticed by my guards?" Thus Prieta Safina spoke, sitting in the shadows on the bench where Sora Catola had sat before. "If so, the stars cannot help you. We have seen you go in at the window, and have waited here to take you when you came out again. We have succeeded, though you have chosen a different exit than that by which you entered." Around her stood guards of the Palaza Nigara, still and threatening.
Tonino shook his head in dismay. "But I have not gone in to Minelle! I have only come this minute, over the garden wall." He reached out to the Archcleric, beseeching. "You must come and see! I have stalked the demon this whole week past — it is an incubus, in truth it is! Please, prieta, I beg you, come…Minelle is weak these days, and it is best the devil is routed, before it destroys her entirely."
Prieta Safina shook her head and looked at him with pity and revulsion, as a woman might look at a naked madman singing lecherous songs beneath her window. "Oh, Tonino, it is too bad of you to lie so even now, when all your sins stand bare before us. We have seen you enter. The servants of the house will testify against you: Minelle pines and fails, and still you haunt her rooms. Others will speak of darker crimes. You will be judged on the morrow, at the Palaza Nigara, and after, in Rola Plaza, you will burn. It is finished. Fight no more."
She gestured to her guards, and they came and laid hands on him to take him away. Their manner was cruel, but no more cruel than Tonino's regrets, for now his ladies would have no one to protect them at all. The devil would only take another form, or even risk the use of Tonino's own, presenting itself as a well-loved ghost to women who would welcome such a visitation.
But the fates had reserved a greater trial than prison and pointless death for the paragon of gigolos. Before he could be shackled, a door opened on the balcony high above them. From the darkened villa a form emerged.
It was Tonino, yet it was not, could not be — for Tonino stood in the garden, weeping under silver starlight.
"Prieta Safina — Archcleric! Look!" a guard whispered, his voice thick with fear. "It is he!"
The Archcleric searched for the relic that swung at her waist. "Oh, Hidden One, give me strength. The gigolo was right — it is an incubus! Holy spirits come to my aid." She bowed her head and began the song of binding, to hold the demon where it was until she could defeat it, lest it run wild through the city.
A scream shrilled from the balcony, and Tonino-above changed, until it never could have been mistaken for faithful, loving Tonino-below, crying for his coranas. Wings spread out wide, edged in glittering spines. Arms thickened and stretched, talons flashed, eyes glowed red as bina blossoms.
"Thou shalt not, thou shalt never!" the demon wailed. "I cannot, I will not! It never will be…" Then it took wing and soared above them like a hell-bred owl. The guards moaned, and touched holy stone for the protection of the gods — but still the demon circled overhead, shrieking and howling. "Thou canst not, thou may'st not! I shall not, I never. Hope not, love not, for never shall it be…" It stooped in its flight, its wings raising dust devils that swirled the castoff bina petals and tore leaves from the trees. The air thundered with the violence of its passage. When it rose high to strike again the stars were eclipsed from one end of heaven to the other, as though the gods themselves had closed their eyes on the obscenity below.
The guards ran from the garden and hid themselves away, shaking and sobbing, praying for deliverance. But the prieta sang on, her relic before her, and dear Tonino stood beside her. How could he not? His enemy was finally at hand, and he would face death and damnation rather than turn away.
There was light — but what light? Light like spilled blood over all the garden. There was sound — but what sound? The sound of despair, an ache that knew no healing. The Prieta Safina's voice was drowned in cries of "nevermore joyful, nevermore loving, nevermore living, no, nevermore…" Yet, for all the demon's power, the song of binding held. The spirit came at last to stand before them. It raged, and tore the earth with clawed feet. It shook leather wings. It cursed the prieta with eternal anguish in the uttermost boundaries of the ultimate hell. Where its eyes passed, hope stilled and joy seemed impossible.
Tonino stared, wide-eyed and shivering. He had hoped to defeat this thing? Such folly, such arrogance! How had a mere gigolo, whose only virtue was delight, whose only sword-skill was with the shortest of blades, have hoped to stand against such evil?
Safina began the song of banishment.
Then the demon smiled. "Thou shalt not, sweet one. Thou hast not the sanctity." Its eyeteeth, like fine stilettos, shone white and red.
"It is not my sanctity that shall banish you, but the sanctity of all the gods."
"And think you so, beloved? Canst thou say the words? Canst thou banish thine own god?" The incubus' form shifted, and before them stood no demon, but the very image of the idol which stood in the heart of the prieta's shrine — the perfect icon of the Hidden God, whose current name and avatar is always a holy mystery. He was most fair and shining, his eyes a psalm of love and longing. "How can you send me from you, beloved?" he cried, piteously, "I who have loved you so long, so dearly? How can you send your lord from your side? Oh, Safina, betray me not."
"You are not he," she shouted, but tears streamed down her cheeks. "You are not he!"
"Do not spurn me, dearest Safina. Do not turn me away, as others do. They praise me in public, but in their hidden souls they despise me. You alone adore me. You alone are true. Wrap me in your heart, dear one, for I am sad and hunger for your love." The voice was honey, sweet as bina perfume, and it floated over the garden.
"You are not he," she whispered. "Oh, Lord, set me free from this desire."
"Set me free," the coaxing voice echoed back. "Set me free."
Safina dropped to her knees in agony. "Lord, help, for I cannot do this thing. Wherever you are, fight for me, for I cannot harm even the image of you." Her hands held the relic close to her breast — yet she did not free the demon.
Then Tonino spoke, his voice broken with fear, and rage. "Leave her and challenge me, devil. You may be any god you choose, you could wear the face of the very Highest, and I would not care. You killed my ladies."
The counterfeit of the Hidden God twisted and blurred. "They died of love, not of me."
"Riddle me no riddles. I am a simple man, and I know but one simple truth: you came to them, and took them, and they died." Tonino's face was stark and shadowed in the red light of the demon's eyes, and he shook with terror; but he refused to turn away. Safina had never believed in Tonino's love for his clients, but she believed now. Who could not, hearing his pain, seeing his fear and his dedication?
The demon began to change again. "I did not kill, I loved. Surely you understand that?" So thin its voice, so frail…
"How can you speak of loving what you know you will destroy?" As he spoke, Tonino stared. So old the devil was! No longer a man or a god, but something sweeter by far.
"It is the only love I know," the tiny old woman said, and her cracked voice mourned. "Oh, Tonino, sweet Tonino, I am so lonely, so sad. Love me, Tonino. Please, please, love me?" Thin hands reached out, quivering, and aged arms opened. "Oh, Tonino, come to me, for I have been alone far longer than any of your other women."
"You are a demon." But Tonino faltered, drawn by yearning eyes.
"I am lonely, and may not die from the start of time until its very end. Tonino, love me, for I have never been loved before. Even the gods do not love a devil."
Safina had fallen silent. The bina blossoms were still, with never a wind to stir them. Tonino hesitated, grasping at a single hope. "If I love you, will you leave this city? Spare my beloved ones? For that I will love you."
"If you please me, I will go."
"No, Tonino," Safina cried. "You cannot please a demon. Even a god could not."
"Can you send it from this place?" Tonino trembled with terror and despair and longing.
The Archcleric's voice was small, and humble. "Not as I am. Not if it cries to me with the voice of the Hidden God."
"Then I must try. If I fail and you live, do what you can to save my ladies." Then Tonino, the most glorious gigolo who ever lived, stepped into the demon's arms and kissed her tenderly. "Hush, now, my dear one, my lonely one, hush. Tonino is here." His hand cradled her fragile skull, smoothed fine grey hair. "Oh, hush, dearest, I will love you. Be comforted and never cry."
Do you believe in miracles? Sometimes I do, sometimes I do not; but what happened after was a miracle. All that night, there in the garden, Tonino's love battled with the demon's loveless rage, soothing and softening, caressing and coaxing. For every touch he gave, every word he whispered, she tore the depths of his soul with emptiness and despair. He crooned to her, but she shrieked back, hungry for more, and more. He stroked, tender and sweet, and she moaned — but in frustration, not joy. He poured out words of adoration, and she cast back taunts and railed at him for his clumsiness. For every kiss she returned a bite, with every thrust she drummed him with her heels and tore his hair, raked him with her yellowed claws. Still he tried.
Men speak of such things, and laugh. They jest about the lover who cannot be satiated, the woman who will not be appeased; of the hero, desperate, driven endlessly, like a beaten and weary donkey staggering in the traces, falling under the whip of passion. Such a joke! It is funny, no? Not when the lover is incapable of joy, not when the hero battles for life, and love, and salvation. So Tonino battled — and so he failed.
For the first time his sword fell before it had achieved a victory, melted by the very heat of the battle. Then he fell back on other weapons in the arsenal of love, on skills learned once as mere frivolity, as playful diversions to delight his old ones and make them smile. Now they were no games, and he huddled on the stone flags, laboring, as soldiers labor in war, as women labor in childbirth, to please the demon.
"Oh, poor little one, be happy. You are not alone."
"Alone!" she screamed, and it was true as words in stone.
Safina watched, amazed, afraid to act lest she make worse what was already desperate. In all her years in the service of the Hidden God, she had thought she believed in miracles. Now one unfolded before her, and she knew she had believed in nothing. How could anything match Tonino and his loving, how could anything match the valor and generosity of his inevitable defeat? After all, what greater shame is there for a gigolo, than to be unable to please? And what greater courage than to try anyway? So Tonino sacrificed himself on the altar of the demon's insatiable desire.
Oh, Tonino, poor Tonino. To fail was agony, but worse was to see the emptiness in the demon's eyes and know she hungered still. If ever he had loved his darlings, he loved the devil all the more, for she was a thing of wonder, as rare as any angel, and more sad by far. "Oh, my poor one, oh, my dear one, be still, be still, I love you well," he murmured, over and over. "Poor little demon, you're not alone." He gathered his strength, and searched his heart for yet another way to love her.
It was a gallant battle, but doomed. As dawn flushed the sky with crimson, Tonino lay, weary and beyond hope, the knight vanquished, the lover fallen and helpless. "Ah, I am sorry," he whispered, "I am sorry, my poor dove. I have pleased you not."
"No. You have not." The demon traced her finger over the skin of his chest. "You have failed."
Safina began the song of banishment, knowing nothing else to do now. But Tonino looked up at the demon, at her eyes like bina petals, so sad, so alien. "Take me with you, corana. Let me rest awhile in hell, and I will try again."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Do you love them so, your ladies, that you would come to hell with me? Even if the shriveled hags deserved such service, it would be no use. As you fail now, so shall you fail for endless eternity."
"I love them so, and would willingly do this thing for them alone. But I do it most for you. Nothing should live loveless. Who else will love a demon, if not me? Love is all I was ever good for — I offer it to you, though you value it not." And Tonino the gigolo wept: for himself, and for his ladies, and most of all for the loveless demon.
The devil gave a cry that tore across Safina's song. Oh, be sure, it penetrated the uppermost heavens, and thrust deep into the hundred hells. She took Tonino in her arms, folded him close, and rose in the air on dragon's wings. Then she dropped down and laid Tonino, limp and spent and weak beyond rising, on the stones of the walk. "No more. It is finished." There was a crash, and a suck of air, and reality heaved into sudden emptiness. Tonino cried harder still, then, for he had failed, and the old one was gone, unsatisfied.
Prieta Safina knelt down in wonder. Where the demon had stood there were only bina petals, fluttering across the flags. "It has departed." Still Tonino cried, the soft grey light of morning shining on his skin, picking out scratches and welts, illuminating bruises. "Tonino, it has gone."
"It will be back. Prieta, shrive me, for I have failed and have nothing to live for. It will take my doves, and more besides — and its loneliness will haunt me to my grave. I cannot regret that I am only a gigolo, but gods and powers, I regret that I was not a better one. For that sin, I must repent. Oh, shrive me, madera, shrive me."
The Archcleric took her stole from her shoulders and wrapped Tonino in it, tenderly. She drew him onto her lap, and set chaste kisses on his hair. "No, do not cry, 'Nino. I pray you, do not cry. You have nothing to repent. There was never a gigolo like you; never before, and never again. I swear it is so. Look, 'Nino, see? The demon was pleased." She reached over, and from the petals on the walk retrieved a ruby, shaped like a perfect bina flower. She slipped it into his palm. "You see, sweet boy? You alone of all gigolos can claim a demon among your customers. You gave all that was needed, and she has paid you with a gift, in thanks."
When he was done crying she helped him dress, then walked him home.
And so it was confirmed, as I told you at the outset: there was never a gigolo like Tonino! Everyone in Rolara said so. In the years to come they said so very many times, there in that city of flowers and love. The old women would laugh behind their fans when he walked each week to sip shiraza and eat cakes in the office of the Archcleric. "We said so, didn't we? Oh, such a marvel, such a darling! There's none like our Tonino: even the prieta knows it, and worships him. He is the very god of love."
And they were more right than they could ever know; for only the Archcleric had seen the glory that haloed Tonino as he loved the demon, and the spirits of his eight departed ones who hovered around him and prayed for his victory. But she knew better than to speak of it. Instead she held silent, only writing the tale down and sealing it with wax, red as bina blossoms, to be opened after Tonino's death. Beyond that she did nothing; for by what right does a mere Archcleric interfere with the strange and subtle arrangements of the affairs of the Hidden God? It was enough to serve him shiraza and cakes, and to know what even he was ignorant of: that an avatar of the Secret One had come to dwell with humanity once again, and served as gigolo to the old ladies of Rolara, who worshipped him for no more holy reason than that he gave them joy, and loved them well.
And then, you ask, is that the end of it? Oh, no! Of course not! For never does the Hidden One incarnate but wonders come calling in cartloads and miracles occur by the seven-score. As for Tonino, he was exceptional — as always — and the tales of him are more numerous than those of all the Hidden One's other lives put together. But if you would hear more, perhaps you should think to bring an old woman some good shiraza, of the sort found only in Rolara: the kind that comes in dusty brown bottles covered in cobwebs, pours out tawny and thick as syrup, and burns fiery on the tongue. It is expensive, but every sip proves worthy of the price. And perhaps a few cakes as well? A sweet tale deserves a sweet payment, and all the tales of Tonino the gigolo are sweet ones — or so near to all as makes no difference in the end.
