Elysium

Chapter 7: The Yellow Narcissus

The Yellow Narcissus inn was near the river flowing through the town, attached to the caravanserai. This time, we were given two rooms, and it had been arranged that we could stay there for free. Chairo and Vixen assured the guesthouse was safe. The innkeeper, a saintly figure dressed in gold-embroidered yellow suit, buttoned up to his neck, had Asian face and rounded spectacles, and he was a friend of Professor Itikain's. The man's name was André Shato, and he told he also knew the Carosa couple by guild association.

"The trade of an innkeeper is a life task", Shato explained to us, standing still like a statue and looking at something in a distance, although it seemed his slanted eyes were simultaneously everywhere. "Our honourable guild serves the society - we provide a bed, a bath, food, drinks. Locals and travellers meet at our place. We hear stories and we share information, yet without the storyteller being compromised for what he told. We know how to keep secrets."

There was no terrace in the room where the tea was served, as between the river and the guesthouse there was a cobblestone street where people strode, rode, and drove in carriages. The windows, however, looked over the street at the river and its opposite bank, where stone houses hung in a slope as if they were at any moment about to collapse down to the river.

At one end of the room, there was a wooden, painted sculpture of three monkeys. One had covered its eyes, another its ears, and the third one its mouth. Apparently, the Yellow Narcissus also held on to the principle of seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and speaking no evil of its customers.

"I am an end-time hedonist and a raconteur", said Shato, placed a cigarillo, which he had picked from a delicate box, to a holder, and then lit it. "Any of you smoke?" he enquired from us, who had sat down on the pillow-covered divans. He studied each one of us in turn with his screwed eyes, blew out a cloud of smoke and gave a small laugh. "I have a feeling that you may have a story or two to tell me."

Roland accepted the offer with an odd eagerness - considering how he had claimed to me on the volcano that he no longer smoked - and I followed the example, for the reason that the innkeeper seemed like an interesting fellow. Maybe he would have a story to share with us, too.

There were five of us in the tearoom, accompanying Shato. Brynhilde was neatly seated between Max and Roland. Chairo was next to me. Vixen and Hedwig had gone somewhere on their own. The innkeeper still stood in our midst, at the windows, looking at the river. Sun had not yet set.

"I have something for you", said Shato suddenly, placed the cigarillo box in front of us on a bronze table decorated with engravings, and for a moment, he disappeared from the room. We sipped our tea, and Roland and I blew smoke rings from our cigarillos.

"Did you agree anything with the Resistance guy, Bry?" asked Max, who treated Brynhilde with an owner's gestures, fingering her red hair. I saw a hint of jealousy in Max's eyes.

"I didn't agree anything with Nick", said Brynhilde, but where she would have been defiant in an earlier occasion, she now only seemed absent-minded, as if Max's hand wasn't where it was, on her head. "The Resistance will let us know when it's the time."

"How do you know that Nikos is really a Resistance agent?" I asked. "Have you heard of him before?"

"He knew the password", said Brynhilde. "He also knew I had left them a word in the bazaar. And we cannot all know about each other. It would be too dangerous. The Resistance cannot freely operate where the Duke's regime is enforced. There are spooks everywhere."

André Shato returned. He moved softly like a leopard, although he was probably at least fifty years of age. He brought with him an Oriental box with nacre decorations.