Auraria: A Novel (35 page)

“You need not be concerned with it,” said Almeda. “All will be orchestrated. The second introduction we have planned is to Ms. Elizabeth Rathbun. She is heir to a medical practice here, and her father is a local politician—the mayor, I believe. On a social rank, this match is more favorable. She has a respectable personal capital, as well, according to our sources. She is owner of a floating hotel called the Maiden of the Lake.”

“I know Ms. Rathbun quite well too,” said Holtzclaw. “I’m her partner in her boat project.”

The foursome had come to a temporary halt at one of the mineral water stations. An employee ladled mineral water into silver cups for Holtzclaw and the women. They drained the contents while walking and returned their cups to next station on the walk.

“Yes, you may know her,” said Almeda, “but again, you have not been introduced.”

“I fail to see the value in your introductions, if you are only presenting me to people with whom I’m already familiar.”

“Mr. Holtzclaw! How can you be familiar without having been introduced?” said Almeda. Her lieutenants blushed so deeply that the color of their faces clashed with their clothing.

“Not in an improper sense, of course,” said Holtzclaw. “Until not so long ago, this valley was a less refined place. One could not rely upon the Billing, Wooing, and Cooing Society …”

The women performed their ritual. They took pride in the delicacy of the winglike motions. No bird could soar on such minute movements.

“Upon such societies to perform the social niceties needed for conducting commerce,” continued Holtzclaw.

“Then we will look to your recent guests,” said Almeda, Reader of Mysteries. “Eligible parties that have not yet been tainted by familiarity. Ladies?”

Vera, the Tender of the Entwined Rose and Briar, placed a pair of reading spectacles on her nose and withdrew papers from her portfolio. Holtzclaw had never seen a portfolio shaped like a parasol before; it was an ingenious and socially acceptable solution. The paper that Vera consulted was labeled with a case file number and bore BWCS letterhead.

“Emmagreen S.,” said Vera. “An Old World firebrand. She is, and I mean this in the most complimentary and delicate way, a capricious and demanding person, prone to fits of rage if her will is not obeyed. She arrived a fortnight ago and has changed suites five times.”

“Oh yes,” said Holtzclaw. “Her.”

Vera noted this on her paper. “Emmagreen S. also has poisonous blood,” she continued. “Not poisonous to her, naturally—I think it makes her immune to most of the infirmities that afflict the human race. But it is harmful to those who touch her—which would only be necessary after the courtship has been completed and, thus, of little concern to us.”

“My apologies, but I have a categorical aversion to poisonous people,” said Holtzclaw.

“There is another candidate,” said Almeda.

Now Luella withdrew her file. These women carried with them a great deal of paper, Holtzclaw realized. “A wisp of an Oriental aristocrat. Her name is unpronounceable, which complicates introductions. Our intelligence indicates that she will be arriving by train in six days. Her fortune was made in some quintessentially Oriental fashion—tea export or the manufacture of antiquities or some such.”

“If I may interrupt, Poetess of the Stirring Heart,” said Almeda, the Reader of Mysteries, “I received updated information this morning that suggests she is an … artist. A painter and sculptor of some talent.”

“As a supplement to her business fortunes?” asked Vera. “Because we have not disqualified ladies who play with watercolors between luncheon and tea.”

“No, as her sole support. There is no export business. She eats by her art.”

Luella folded the information paper and tore it twice. She deposited the shreds in the hands of a passing hotel employee.

“There are more suitable candidates, Holtzclaw,” said Almeda. “Never fear. Why, just last evening, we caught sight of a splendid creature. Very beautiful. A charming laugh. Her bones suggest she may be royalty, though we are not sure from where. The chin is not right for the European rulers; it could mean she’s descended from one of the South Seas kingdoms. She is proving to be somewhat difficult to talk to, as she keeps fleeing from where she is bathing when we approach.”

“She had a rabbit face,” said Vera. “Pointy ears. Coal-black eyes.”

“It is our imperfections that make us charming,” said Almeda.

#

By the time Holtzclaw rid himself of the meddlesome women, worked his figures, gathered the latest on the dam repairs, and tried to deliver his daily report to Shadburn, who was already asleep, it was midnight. The lobby desk was unstaffed. A small party played faro at a round table; they talked in low voices, as though afraid of disturbing their slumbering compatriots.

Holtzclaw did not retire to his room but took the steam elevator to a lower floor. The corridor leading to the baths was tiled on all sides with an irregular green and white pattern. Iron gates barred the entrance to changing rooms; Holtzclaw unlocked them. A row of wooden stalls provided a place for guests to doff their formal clothing and put on the bathing costumes provided by the Queen of the Mountains. For men: a one-piece garment that stretched from just above the knee to the shoulder, featuring a blue diagonal stripe. For women: a similar garment that had an optional wrap around the waist to provide modesty around the ankle but still—and here was the delicate matter—expose a measure of skin to the action of the mineral waters. If the swimming attire were too conservative, then the waters could not be absorbed effectively.

The bathing chamber was dark; Holtzclaw threw the switch. Lights activated in series, down the long chamber. As they warmed up and glowed brighter, their buzzing came into harmony. Holtzclaw had ordered all the bulbs together, and when any burned out, he replaced them all as a set. Bulbs made together all hum in the same key; bulbs mixed and matched from different lots were apt to be sharp or flat. The healing action of the water would be upset by any disharmony. At least, this is what Dr. Rathbun had advised. It was on his recommendation that the Queen of the Mountains provided ewers of mineral water on every flat surface and that employees pulled wheeled barrels over the croquet field. Likewise by Dr. Rathbun’s advice, mineral water was not provided at mealtimes. Then it was alcohol, especially whiskey, to aid digestion, and for children, pickle brine.

It was not enough to only drink the waters, said Dr. Rathbun, though that was an essential part. Bathing, too, must be performed at appropriate times and in appropriate ways, and in correct combination with the patient’s needs and other mineral waters consumed. Mineral water could be classified into eight varieties: saline, sulfur, white sulfur, chalybeate, epsom, lythia, plyant, and freestone. The Queen of the Mountains had sources of each flowing to its baths, pumped from locations all over the valley, but not every source was pure. For instance, the cold waters from Moss’s spring were rich in epsoms but also held a measure of white sulfur. Patients who needed to consume epsom rarely needed white sulfur, which could cause unwanted imbalances. Thus, they were advised to bathe in chalybeate waters to draw out the excess sulfur. Bathing, in such cases, was not itself therapeutic, but an antidote to side effects of the actual cure.

Dr. Rathbun diagnosed Holtzclaw’s recurring pain as a common condition to new residents of the valley. The debris of the Lost Creek Valley—its peculiar collection of sediments, minerals, fogs, humidities, and ghosts—collected in the turns of the intestine. Holtzclaw protested that he was not a resident, merely a long-term visitor, but Dr. Rathbun told him that his bowels evidently disagreed. Dr. Rathbun prescribed alternating consumption of saline water, to break up the internal mass, and plyant waters, to charge the intestines with the necessary solvents to prevent further accretions. This was followed by bathing in heated sulfur water, which awakened the ingested ingredients by temperature and smell, for precisely fifteen minutes. Then a cold cascade of freestone water was to be applied instantaneously to rinse away sulfur residue and halt the heating action, so Holtzclaw’s gut would not become overcooked.

The bathing hall provided eight long pools, large enough for twenty people at once and deep enough for even the tallest bather to submerge himself fully. These were supplemented by two dozen overhead basins, for greater variety in topical application. Water was delivered into these basins by either heated or refrigerated pipes. The bather stood directly underneath the basin and pulled a handle to release the entire contents over himself at once.

Holtzclaw found the taste of the saline water very unpleasant, and Dr. Rathbun had given him license to mix it with a stabilizing substance. Holtzclaw measured a spoonful of Pharaoh’s Flour into a cup that he then filled with saline water from a tap. He drank the whole in one draught and then entered the steaming sulfur bath. He had to lower himself carefully, by degrees, adjusting to each new level.

As the water rose above his navel and his stomach, Holtzclaw winced. The pain became sharper, then after a moment he felt it widen, growing less acute as it spread. Then the pain was gone—or nearly gone. Holtzclaw could still feel a faint stripe of discomfort in the usual place. It was a ghost that had not yet been washed away.

A soft splashing disturbed him from his restorative thoughts.

“Come in on the pipes?” he said, addressing the presence of the princess. He did not scamper to shelter; his bathing suit was modest enough.

“No, by the power of my feet,” she said. They were swirling the waters of the lythia bath, next to the sulfur one.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” said Holtzclaw. “These aren’t your kind of springs.”

The princess walked the perimeter of the bathing hall. She looked into drains and pipes. She sniffed the waters. “You have made the best of it,” she said. “They are like tiny underground lakes.”

Holtzclaw turned around so he could watch her; he propped himself against the rim of the bath on his elbows. “Tell me plainly: are we enemies, Princess? Are you trying to destroy the dam?”

Trahlyta said nothing. She finished her patrol and then sat at the edge of the sulfur bath, beside Holtzclaw. Again he found himself debating from a position of weakness. He strained his neck to look up at the small, seated princess.

“Why do you want this dam, James? What purpose does it serve for you?”

“To rid this valley of gold. Hide it away.”

“Then we are not enemies.” She stirred the water with her feet. For the first time, Holtzclaw noticed that she had only four toes on each.

“I mean, those are Shadburn’s reasons,” he said. “I gave you his reasons. I have my own. You’ve seen my work. The Maiden of the Lake.”

“There’s no such creature, James.”

“I assure you, there is. Soon enough, she’ll launch with her first guests. She will sail the narrow ocean of her world.”

“And you’ve always wanted to be the master of a hotel, have you? Captain a steamship that putters around a lake? Why work for dreams that are not your own?”

The princess rose before Holtzclaw could respond; he did not know what to say. She walked to each other basin in turn. Her soft feet padded against the tile. She lifted a handful of water from each and then let it fall back into the basin. She pulled the handle on an overhead water basin. A cascade tumbled before her and then ran off through a complex network of pipes.

“They will do,” said the princess. “The usual baths for my employers are presently unavailable. They are flooded with water or tourists. And yet, they need to get clean.”

“Why do you have employers at all? Why aren’t you free to do as you please?”

“The natural and supernatural worlds grow into each other. You must remember, you middle -world mortals are all very short-lived. A decade, a century—these are very brief moments of time for terrapins and Trahlytas. Mountains and ghosts live for eons. They become friends.”

She picked up the tin of Pharaoh’s Flour from where it rested beside Holtzclaw’s cup and smiled as she saw Amenhotep’s laughing face on the label.

“I like him,” said the princess. “His laugh rings like rain.”

“How do you know what his laugh sounds like?” said Holtzclaw, climbing out of the hot sulfur bath. His prescribed time had passed.

“We are old acquaintances,” said the princess.

“But he’s as tied to the desert as you are to the springs of this valley.”

“It’s not so simple as that,” said the princess. “We can all visit the moon. We have an exposition there, once every age or so. We build a palace of crystal, and the moon maidens wiggle their noses, and it is a grand time. But cold, so cold. Golden starlight sticks to your skin, and you want a vacation—someplace warm, for a swim.”

“Are there moon men too, to complement the maidens?” Holtzclaw asked. “Where do they go on their holidays?”

“They go on hunting parties with the pharaoh Amenhotep III. He leads them across plains of sand so white and blameless that they feel they are walking on clouds. The moon men find strength in his laugh and smiling eyes. But his friendship is only mercenary. He is an employee, James, like you and me.”

#

A panic interrupted the afternoon tea hour, echoing through all the stories of the Queen of the Mountains like a thunderclap. A pink-bonneted woman, sitting before cucumber sandwiches, saw a green snake crawl over her shoes. She emitted a long, high-pitched wail that drew every ear, and then she burst into guttural noises like she was drowning in her own tears.