II.
He strode to the door at the end of the room and opened it with a flourish. Beyond, candles burned, illuminating a room of dark green dominated by a large canopied bed with thick curtains. Hanna realised then that the only way in or out of the suite was through the secret panel.
The Patrician pulled the bed curtains aside.
"Please take a seat, Hanna."
The fireplace was cold and despite the many candles, the room was too. Hanna sat, hoping she'd soon be under what looked like especially warm blankets. She was grateful that things were progressing. The Patrician interested her, she had to admit. But Hanna had no desire to eat peaches all night and she wasn't, she realised, in the mood to answer any more of his questions. She would if she had to, of course. She was a professional. Yet "commerce" – the euphemism preferred in the guild -- would be simpler and certainly faster. The Patrician was no longer young. Though he was known for sleeping very little, she hoped that if she got him in bed, he'd sleep within a couple of hours. Maybe she'd have her peace until dawn.
He hovered by one of the bed posts. "I believe it was last year's Lady who was altogether too…eager," he said. "Quite a forward young lady."
"Julia, wasn't it? She's that way."
"Did she tell you what we did?"
"The Ladies are not allowed."
"Nor will you be." His face lightened as if a joke had just occurred to him. "I asked her how many egg nogs she could drink without falling asleep. She said four and I asked her to break the record. She drank five and was out like a light. She snored horribly."
Hanna giggled, her hand over her mouth.
"She bored me, you see," said the Patrician. "I wanted her asleep. I would like you to stay awake."
"I'm honoured, sir."
He went to the dresser and began pulling papers out of the top drawer. "Do you read music, Hanna?"
"Yes, though not well. It was only a few years ago that Mrs. Palm added it to her requirements for ladies with upper class clients."
"A worthy move." The Patrician settled onto the bed, his back against the head board. "This is Tellian's Piano Concerto in C." He squared the papers on his knees. "It begins in common time. C major, of course." He glanced at Hanna. "Come closer. You can't see from there. That's better. Now…" He raised a thin hand in the air as if it held a baton. "On the downbeat is a rest, the upbeat begins the piece. Imagine the tones as you read. There's nothing between you and the mind of Tellian himself. This is the purest form of music without being a composer, the notes living there in your head."
His arm dropped the downbeat, then rose again. Hanna stretched out beside him and tried to follow the notes on the sheet music. It was hard going. She wasn't good at reading music to begin with and she had no ear for the tones without first hearing at least a C. Though the Patrician regulated the beat, Hanna quickly lost track of where she was supposed to be.
At the bottom of the page, the Patrician dropped his hand. "You're lost," he said.
"I'm afraid so."
"Was it too fast? Tellian wrote allegro."
"It was a bit fast, sir. And I don't know what the notes are supposed to sound like. I have to hear them first."
"You learn by ear, hmm? Not a bad talent." He took a breath. "If you promise never to inform anyone else, I will…sing the notes for you." He looked at her, his face grave. "You must promise. This is above and beyond normal guild confidentiality. You will be the first to hear me sing since the Year of the Beaver when they forced me to join in the Assassins School song during a visit of the Patrician of that time."
"I promise. Of course."
The Patrician settled back, raised the baton hand again, and began the beat a bit slower. His singing was a series of "tah-tee-tahs" with the occasional "dee-dum" to the rhythm, his voice rising and falling with the notes. He was an untrained but still pleasant tenor, especially sonorous in the lower register. Hanna relaxed against him; she could hear the hollow tones of Tellian's piece as they vibrated in his chest.
At the end of the first page, he stopped. "Was that better?"
"Oh yes, thank you, sir."
He tucked the first page of the score behind the stack and raised his hand for the second. It dropped the downbeat. Hanna lifted her head.
"You've stopped singing, sir!"
His hand hovered on the upbeat. "I did not say I would sing the whole score."
"Won't you?"
He touched her face, ran a finger along her cheek and into her hair where it stopped to tap her head.
"The point of this is to meet the mind of the composer directly, without the intervention of voice or instrument. I was merely helping you get started."
"I'm not good enough at sight reading, sir," she said.
"Then I will teach you."
"In one night?" Hanna laughed, delighted. It had been a long time since a client had amused her this much. Perhaps she could charge extra for using her brain instead of her body. How much was intellectual strain worth? An extra hundred? Two?
The Patrician was staring.
The look on his face of dour disapproval was like a gulp of champagne to Hanna. She rolled onto her stomach and began laughing into the pillow, real laughter, peals of it. She didn't know why. It was as if she'd slipped on a patch of ice and couldn't stop herself from sliding. Something beneath the laughter warned her that even a singing Patrician was not someone to laugh at. But she went on anyway, sliding. She laughed that she'd been so nervous the past weeks, that the rumours about the Client had worried her, that the silent servant and secret room and disembodied voice of his had unsettled her. This was not the Patrician she knew from her clients. He was a man who made one Lady eat peaches and another drink egg nog to the point of unconsciousness. A man who sang and would teach her music…
"You appear to be laughing at me," said the Patrician sternly.
Hanna coughed into the pillow. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what's--"
"In 13 years, no Lady has ever dared do that."
Hanna tried to get up but the Patrician pressed her back down onto her stomach. "Now that you're there, you should stay there," he said quietly. "If your little fit of merriment is over, we can return to our previous discussion. On the reading of music. Do you know the concept of osmosis?"
"No, sir," Hanna said into the pillow. She'd sobered up again almost as fast as the laughter had come.
"It is the theory that one can learn new things without effort by absorbing them directly into the mind through sleep, touch or other means." The Patrician began to undo the laces in the bodice of her dress. "Would you like to try an experiment in osmosis?" he asked.
Hanna sensed that it wasn't really a question. The Patrician allowed her to stand up and pull off her gown. She wore a white chemise underneath, nothing else. If her clients required the corset and garter belts and stockings, she carried them in her coat pockets and put them on upon request. It was a time saving measure. Most of her clients got frustrated trying to get the things off of her. She began pulling up the chemise but the Patrician stopped her.
"There's no need. Lay back down, please." He disappeared into the sitting room as Hanna pulled the blanket around her and shivered. She was regretting the laughter and hoping the Patrician was enough in the Hogswatch spirit to allow her a little spontaneous merriment. She repressed a vision of the slim knives she'd heard he possessed, and thought instead of Mrs. Palm's words: No Lady had ever come back with cuts.
The Patrician returned with a portable writing kit, a wooden box with a slanted front where papers could rest, a quill and ink well at the edge. He set them on the bed.
"Please turn over, Hanna," he said. He pulled back the blanket as she settled onto her stomach, her arms cradling her head. For a minute or so, nothing else happened. Then he touched the sole of her left foot. Very lightly. He touched her ankle, and moved the chemise up as he ran his hand higher on her leg. He pressed her calf as if to see how firm it was and ended with a brush of his fingertips on her left thigh. "Quite suitable," he muttered. Then his fingers were gone.
Another minute passed. Hanna heard a shuffle of papers, another moment of quiet, and … there was a cold, wet pressure on the heel of her left foot, then a scraping motion. It couldn't have shocked her more if she'd been attached to a lightening rod. The muscles along her leg tensed up but otherwise she did her best to keep still, waiting for the next bit of pressure. It came then, a single scrape from ankle to calf that then dipped into the hollow of her knee and continued onto her thigh. She let out a giggle and involuntarily moved her leg.
"That is unacceptable, Hanna," said the Patrician. He licked his thumb and rubbed the place on her thigh where the ink line had curved off. She giggled again. Despite Mrs. Palm's best efforts to cure her, she was still intensely ticklish.
"Do try not to move anymore," said the Patrician. He finished the line to the top of her thigh and paused to dip the quill in the ink. Then he drew another long line near the first. A pause for ink, and another line. And another. Until there were five black lines along the length of Hanna's leg.
"You're doing very well, Hanna."
The papers rustled again, and the Patrician began to write. Little pressures, scrapes, swipes. The quarter notes and rests and arpeggios of Tellian's Concerto were slowly traced onto Hanna's leg. She gritted her teeth to keep from laughing and gripped the sheets in her fists.
It was some time before the Patrician finished her left leg. He set the quill into its holder and brushed Hanna's hair out of her face.
"Asleep?"
"No, sir."
"Good. I did say I wanted you to stay awake."
The Patrician mulled over his work, dissatisfied. "I should have written it the other way," he said absently. "Thigh to ankle, not ankle to thigh." He sighed.
Hanna pulled herself onto her elbows. "You're not going to do it over again, are you, sir?" She had barely endured the left leg and couldn't imagine repeating the experience.
"No. No. I live with my mistakes. There are so few times when I'm allowed them."
He began on her right leg. Instead of getting used to the sensation of the quill and the wet ink, Hanna found it even more unbearable. Her mind played tricks, guessing where the next pressure or scrape would come, whether it would be a half note or sixteenth. The anticipation was worse than the actual tickling movements of the Patrician's pen.
After another space, he set down the quill.
"I wonder how long it will take for the ink to dry," he said. He touched the heel of her left foot. "This is barely dry and it's been over an hour."
"Are you finished, sir?"
"Certainly not. We only have a very small part of the first movement." The Patrician put a hand on Hanna's back. "We shall proceed as far as we can. If you please…" He pulled at the chemise, and Hanna lifted herself enough to get it disentangled from her hips. He helped her slide it over her head and dropped it onto the floor.
The Patrician dipped his pen and carefully traced long lines down her back, one after the other.
"You're shivering," he scolded. "It's rather hard to write when you do that."
"It's cold, sir. And it tickles."
"I believe there is hot cocoa. For later." It took longer to fill her back than it did her legs. The Patrician finally paused to survey his work, then tested the ink on Hanna's left calf.
"Almost dry. We will wait a little while." He packed up the papers and the writing kit and set them on the dresser. "Do you hear Tellian's concerto in your mind yet?" he asked.
Hanna propped herself up on her elbows. "Ta-dee-da-dee-dum—dee-daaaaah…"
"That, I believe, is the opening of the Hedgehog Song," said the Patrician, smiling. "But it appears we're moving in the right direction."
Hanna smiled as well. She was immobile on her stomach and her skin felt alarmingly, wonderfully sensitive and she admitted to herself she was having fun. It was the last thing she'd expected.
The Patrician busied himself making a fire, then sat on the edge of the bed. "A warm room will be effective for the drying process in the long run, but perhaps I should help things along."
He bent over her and touched various parts of his work. On the parts that were still wet, he leaned in close and gently blew with long, warm breaths, just as he'd blown on the fire in the sitting room. The combination of his breath and the sheer closeness of him was so effective that Hanna forgot the cold. Her eyes drooped, then closed. As her mind drifted, she thought of her client who had once told her that the Patrician – the client had actually called him Dogbotherer -- was the coldest man in Ankh-Morpork. A piece of political clockwork, meticulous, mechanised. Hanna had thought it comical that her client truly believed that a man could be a machine. She knew better.
"Wake up, Hanna."
She surfaced slowly and stretched, enjoying the warmth of the room. "Is everything dry, sir?"
"I believe so. Come look at my handiwork."
Hanna groggily pulled herself off the bed and noticed the mirror against the wall. It was a full length one, usually attached to the door of a wardrobe. The Patrician had apparently unhooked it and set it length wise on the floor as she dozed. He had another long mirror in his hands. Hanna laid on her side, her back to the wardrobe mirror. The Patrician knelt in front of her and positioned the second mirror.
"What do you think?" he said.
The musical notes looked like a tribal tattoo on her skin. She smiled at the strangeness of it, then she noticed…
…she could read the music just fine. In the mirror.
"You wrote it backwards," she said with disbelief.
"Mirrored, actually. It would be useless for you to learn Tellian the wrong way round." He propped the mirror on the side of the bed. "And now we will try it again. From the beginning. You will sing."
"I can't--"
"I will help you." He took a breath and sang out a tone. "That was a C. The beat will be so." He tapped her hip lightly with a finger. "Upbeat on two… And…"
Hanna sang. Her voice was just as untrained as the Patrician's and tended toward the soprano. His finger moved along the ink on her leg, showing her where she was supposed to be, and her voice rose and fell as she followed the meticulous lines and circles. By the time they reached the music on her back, she was no longer stumbling so much over the rhythms.
"Unbelievable," she said when they had finished. She rolled onto her back and hummed the beginning of the concerto. "A satisfactory result of the experiment, yes," said the Patrician.
"I wonder what else people could learn that way," said Hanna. "Math? Foreign languages?"
The Patrician tapped his lips thoughtfully with a slim finger. "Languages. An intriguing thought. The acquisition of vocabulary is always such a challenge." He nodded. "Perhaps next time we'll try Klatchian."
"Let's hope next time Fate chooses a Lady less ticklish than me."
The Patrician's face went blank. He gazed at Hanna for some time. Just her face, as if her nakedness held no interest. She avoided his gaze only by looking in one of the mirrors. In both she saw the same thing; herself, make up smudged, hair mussed, wearing only a thin gold necklace. She closed her eyes and waited to see what would happen next.