The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W. Aldiss Page A

them – he’s a true friend and almost as witty and handsome as I.’
    â€˜He couldn’t be, I’m certain of that. Supposing I fell in love with him instead.’
    â€˜The mere thought is torture! But you have better sense than to prefer him. I am going to be famous.’
    â€˜Perry, you are as over-confident as Prince Mendicula himself!’
    â€˜Let’s leave that farrago out of our conversation. Of course I hope that Bengtsohn will be successful, and that the play will do well for us, but after all as a story it is such rubbish – banal rubbish, too.’
    â€˜Banal?’ She looked quizzingly down her pretty nose at me. ‘I love stories about princes and princesses. How can such things be banal? And Princess Patricia is so marvellously proud when she is found out … I have a good opinion of the piece. So does my father.’
    â€˜My father would be very scornful. The situation is as old as the hills. Man and best friend, best friend seduces friend’s wife; the deception is discovered, they fall out and become enemies. Blood is shed. Why, that sort of thing could have been written a million years ago.’
    â€˜Yet Otto has set out the old story in a novel way, and draws a sound moral from it. Besides, I like the setting in the captured city.’
    I laughed and squeezed her.
    â€˜Nonsense, Armida, there’s no moral in the piece. Mendicula is a dupe, Patricia unkind, Gerald a false friend, Jemima just a pawn. Perhaps that represents Bengtsohn’s view of the nobility, but it makes for a poor tale. My great hope is that the astonishing technique of mercurization will carry the charade through to success – aided, of course, by the outstanding handsomeness of fifty per cent of the players.’
    She smiled. ‘You mean the fifty per cent lying here on this bed?’
    â€˜All glorious hundred per cent of it!’
    â€˜While you are playing with these figures – and with my figure too, if you don’t mind – may I refresh your memory on one point? Otto’s venture will come to naught if my father does not settle his dispute with the Supreme Council. Father is very ambitious, and so is feared. If he falls, then so fall all who depend on him, including his daughter.’
    â€˜You refer to that business of the hydrogenous balloon? Balloons have sailed from Malacia before, for sport and to scare the Turk. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Nothing is going to be changed if the balloon does go up.’
    â€˜The Council think differently. But if popular opinion is too much against them, then they may yield. Alternatively, they may strike against my father – which is why he now seeks powerful friends.’
    I rolled on to my back and gazed up at the patches on the ceiling.
    â€˜It sounds as if your father would be best advised to forget about his balloon.’
    â€˜Father intends that the balloon should ascend; it would be an achievement. Unfortunately, the Council intends that it should not. That is a serious situation. As common usage comes between us, so it can come between my father and his life. You know what happens to those who defy the Council for too long.’
    What I saw in my mind’s eye was not a corpse in the sewers but its daughter sharing my little bare garret.
    â€˜I would defy anything for you, Armida, including all the fates in opposition. Marry me, I beg you, and watch me excel myself.’
    She would have to have a dozen horoscopes read before she could consent to that; but she did agree to a secret betrothal, and to the same sort of bond that existed between General Gerald and the fair Princess Patricia, our absurd alter egos.
    Scents of sandalwood, camphor and pine mingled with patchouli and the precious aromas of Armida’s body as we forthwith celebrated our intentions.

A Balloon over the Bucintoro
    When you take a stroll through our city along the banks of the River