The Vorrh

bad humour. He had noticed the market square changing over the last two days, its simple frame being decorated between its daily functions. Something was being prepared. He cornered Ghertrude when she arrived to change his bed linen.
    Her visits had become less frequent recently, and she seemed remote and uninterested in his questions. She had certainly lost her appetite for mating, having nothing new to show or explain to him. He still possessed an active interest in the subject, but when he suggested that they might try other ways of doing it, she became defensive and limp. Not wishing to disturb his comfortable position within the house, he chose to let his desires go untended.
    Besides, his need to be outside again and explore the city in detail was of greater importance. She had told him of the perils, explained that a rarity such as he would be in danger from the mob. She told him the story of a small, ornate bird she had owned as a child. Its plumage was vermilion, with a trim of yellow. Its voice was exquisite, and she often put it in her window so that it might sing to the sun. Local, indigenous birds would flock to the areas nearby to listen to it and admire its splendid colours. One day she sat, with the bird tamely on her finger, talking to the brightness of its attention. She did not notice the window’s slight opening and, as the curtain swayed, the bird smelt the air and flew to freedom. In horror, she ran to the window and watched it flutter and swoop in poor, close circles. She called to it and it turned in her direction; she saw the excitement in its eyes, just before it was torn to pieces by the same grey flock that had watched it before.
    That would be his fate, she had explained. His exotic originality would be seen as a threat, they would call him a monster. But he knew he was superior to the double eyes, and he had proved it. She did not know this, and the time to tell her had not yet dawned.
    ‘Ghertrude?’ he said, as she worked with her back to him, ‘why are the streets below being decorated?’
    ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed happily, ‘that’s for the carnival!’
    ‘And what is ‘carnival’ in this place?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, every year, the people have a party to thank the forest for its gifts. It lasts for three days and nights, everybody stops work, and the streets are alive with music, food and dancing. Everything is decorated, even the cathedral. The people dress in costumes that they have spent all year making. Lords and ladies mix with peasants and rogues, not knowing each other’s rank or status.’
    ‘How is that possible, when everybody recognises each other here?’
    ‘Because of the masks!’ she whooped, carried away in the joyful momentum.
    ‘Masks?’ he queried.
    ‘Yes! Fanciful, mysterious masks of every description, angels and demons, animals and mons-’
    ‘Monsters?’ he ventured slowly.
    She had become suddenly quiet and unsure of where to look.
    ‘Could it be,’ he pressed, ‘that on such an occasion, a ‘rarity’ might hide its strangeness, that an exotic bird might conceal its beauty, and that a
monster
would be safe amongst so many others?’
    And so it came to pass that the beast went the ball.
    They stood just inside the gate of 4 Kühler Brunnen. They made a fine pair, plumed and bejewelled, masked and covered, loose and sensuous silks flashing provocatively beneath their cloaks.
    ‘Will it be like the story you read me, the one you liked so much? With the clock and the coloured rooms, the one that gave me nightmules?’ he asked.
    ‘Nightmares,’ she corrected. ‘Yes, but not so solemn. It will be much ruder. Everybody is drunk and behaves badly.’
    ‘How badly?’ he asked, apprehensively.
    ‘Behind a mask you can be anybody, do anything. No one is found guilty, no one is innocent; there are more children sired during these three days than the rest of the year. And no one looks too closely for family resemblance, nine months later, when the babes are born.’
    ‘And nobody is ever unmasked?’
    ‘Never!’ she said, with more certitude than she felt. It was true that one felt a certain freedom under the protection of disguise, and she had committed petty crimes and minor malices before under the mask. But she had never possessed the nerve to engage in open debauchery. Until now.
    They peeped through the gap and plucked at the springboard of their nerves, readying to be jettisoned into the whirling throng of dreams that bustled and