Chapter 6: Tai Chi

Philippe of Orleans climbed out of his carriage feeling slightly nauseous from his chronic motion sickness. Such a troublesome ailment it was. It had prevented him from serving in the navy and seemed to be worse than ever in a luxury carriage. He decided, as he held his softened hands to his churning gut that he would ride by himself the next time he wanted to visit the opera.

He stood tall for a moment to stretch his six feet and five inches, and straightened his jacket's lapels. Then he strode confidently up the stone stairs, head held high; for a royal, confidence was the best tool in persuasion.

Mme. Giry was already waiting at the door, thin and straight as curtain rod. She seemed unaffected by the cold, clad in only a thin linen dress and a shawl. There was a speck of frost caught in her hair. Philippe waited a second as she pressed her lips together, obviously disliking his presence. "Well, I suppose I must let you in." The duke allowed himself an inward smirk of triumph, but stopped his overconfidence. Perhaps it's better to be prepared for the worst that to expect the best.

"Then, Madame," he said, taking note of her wedding ring, "would you please let me in? I wish to speak with the manager about a possible patronage."

"I am the manager. You can say what you wish in public or not at all." He tried a different approach.

"Madame, are you well? You seem disturbed." Mme. Giry's breath hitched. She had not told anyone that Meg was missing besides Erik. She paused to recompose herself.

"My daughter has been reported missing, but I do not think you would be interested in such a commonplace affair," she sniffed, refusing to let the stinging in her eyes control her actions. "We will discuss your errand inside. Come."

Interesting… He pushed the door open and gestured elegantly for the woman to enter the foyer before him. "After you."

…

Marcus watched silently as he waited for M. Erik to fetch him and the other singers to his cave for another rigorous lesson. It had been rough, the last time; he had pushed himself to extend his range and hit every note in the various exercises.

Now, his eyes followed not the musical phrases on a scrap of parchment, but the tall, well-built and well-dressed man walking purposefully down towards the stage. There is something off about him… He is prideful. Marcus had always prided himself on his intuition, and to date, it had never been wrong. At least he looks like he knows what he's doing…but what he is doing may not be good.

"Ach, some new patron. Honestly, at th'speed they come in, you'd think they'd never been t'the opera before!" Perhaps his intuition went haywire around Anna. He hadn't even heard her behind him until she spoke.

"Please stop standing behind me unannounced, Iseal." His dark hair was pinched between his neck and Anna's arm as she threw it around his shoulders.

"All'n good fun, lad!" She sipped at a glass of tawny wine, savoring the liquid as if it was what she lived and breathed on. "Or should I say, Ischyros?"

"Is that M. Erik's wine?" He gingerly lifted the woman's arm from about his shoulders and eyed the glass. A devilish grin swept her features upwards.

"It is. And this's M. Erik's pocket watch- one o'them, anyway," she said, dangling the gold and glass timekeeper back and forth before his eyes. Marcus frowned, unsure of whether to comment on the fact that the maestro had many watches or to ask if Anna had ever been a professional pickpocket. Christine decided at that moment to interrupt his thoughts.

"Marcus, do you think M. Erik cares how we dress to lessons?" He scrutinized the outfit his fellow cast member had chosen for the day and shrugged.

"He probably expects us to dress comfortably and with more decency than some of the ballerinas." The dress she'd picked was forest green, and cut low across her shoulders for a more feminine look. It was something one might wear to a casual dinner party with close friends- respectable, but beautiful as well. "You might prefer a shawl over that, though. If it were any colder down in his house, it would snow!"

Erik chose that moment to appear out of one of the trap doors on the stage. No one saw him because he did not want them to be seen. He sat towards a corner and listened carefully; Christine's soft laughter directed his gaze, and he watched, fascinated, as she smiled. She was hiding her sadness, he could tell by the way her eyes flicked back and forth from empty space to her companions…but her smiles were exquisite all the same.

Since when do I watch from a distance? Mme. Giry approached him, her mouth set in a straight line.

"There's another noble vying for a patronage." He looked across the auditorium. He would have replied with something sarcastic, but the ballet mistress was obviously not in the mood. She still seemed fragile from the hopefully temporary loss of her daughter.

"Is he going to interfere with my designs? If so, he is not welcome here." He gazed at Christine again, increasingly intrigued by her every movement. She could almost be a dancer, with the grace she had. His brain switched to multitasking mode so he could watch her dark hair and bewitching movements. "The most I can offer him is a box or a balcony seat."

Mme. Giry sighed. "Shall I gather your students?"

…

Erik had built his own catwalks above the lake, hidden between the largest stalactites and bolted to the roof with industrial steel screws. Each connected to tunnels and shores around the lake, and provided access to emergency supplies and oxygen from aboveground.

It was on these narrow, sturdily fashioned platforms that the composer with perfect pitch walked about as he tapped the hanging, reconstituted stone around him with a small rubber mallet. "Blasted high C... Choosing the middle of a piece to break and fall into the lake," he growled to himself, cursing his shortage of proper hinges, springs, and rubber. Yes, industrialization had worked wonders for France, but he had used up all the rubber to be had in the theatre. If another hammer broke, he'd have to steal the soles of someone's shoes.

The high C key, or rather, stalactite, had indeed shattered under repeated and strenuous use; Christine probably had the greatest vocal range of any human being ever to walk the earth, and he didn't want her to be limited by his organ's fragile foundations.

At last, he struck the right rock. A pure, ringing, tone sounded when he tested it. Satisfied, he attached a mechanism to the protrusion of the cave and fastened all the signal wires and gears and made the trek back down to his icy cold home. The wire he held in his gloved hand stretched far- almost thirty meters- to pull the hammer that hit the stone when he so wished.

The entirety of his abode was a musical instrument.

It was probably late now. Lessons had ended a hours ago, just before dinnertime, and since then Erik had done nothing but search for the perfect note to add to the vehicle of his masterpieces… Now where the hell was his pocket watch?! He'd had it just the day before…

…

Artur did not share a room with Marcus. There simply wasn't enough room for both of them, despite the fact that the 'little Greek man' was indeed very little and took up very little space.

That matter aside, Artur turned his mind to the other little person who'd captured his attentions since his arrival: Eter Candan. The ordinary Russian women were good for nothing except perhaps bearing children and doing chores. The French girls, as far as he could tell, were worse: completely frivolous and unable to do anything but scream and demand that the men do all the work. Perhaps he was a strange man for wanting a woman who was as tough and stubborn as he was.

Eter made him feel like he fit in in this world of thin, short people (even though she herself was thin and short) and skittish women. He did not know much about her, but that would change soon. They had shared ideas in the few days they'd had together, mostly about knife fights and technique. She truly had a passion for the fighting arts.

What else does she interest herself in, besides blades? As beautiful as weapons are, there must be something she likes.

A shy knock at the door broke him from his thoughts. "Artur? May I come in?" He liked the way she said his name, although her accent was a terrible mishmash of Turkish and slowly acquired French. "I just cannot sleep without another one of your stories. I think it is that strange coffee they have here." Her slightly accelerated speech betrayed her caffeine high.

He allowed her inside his room. It was warmer than other places, probably because of his sheer size. Eter took a moment to observe the man's figure through the large, roughly hand-sewn nightclothes he had donned. He is not like the Castelot man, not fat… Only fit.

Artur sat in a large chair in the corner and made it look like nothing more than a child's stool. His voice rumbled like mountains as he spoke. "Was there anything specific you wanted to hear?" She sat down on the bed and pulled the blanket about her shoulders.

"I want to hear the one about Baba Yaga again." The smile she gave him showed some of her perfectly sized, slightly crooked teeth. He chuckled deep in his throat, and she shivered with delight. His voice made her ticklish all over, it seemed.

"You are sure? Baba Yaga will give you nightmares." She turned a rather dark shade of pink as she said her next words.

"Your voice makes Baba Yaga sound like a lullaby." He smiled. She made him feel as if the world had disappeared and he was home again.

"As you wish." He cleared his throat as if he was going to sing, and began the tale. "Once there was an old witch who lived in a deep, dark wood…"

…

Erik pulled on his black night attire, and replaced his white mask with one of black suede. If I were not marred, I would not have to go through the trouble of picking out suitable masks. The one he usually wore had been carved out of the skull of a tiger, a gift from Nadir just before he'd departed the Ottoman Empire and ridden on horseback all the way to Paris.

He took a longer route to the surface, a route that led out to the back of the opera, where Meg had been abducted. One cannot trust the police to handle a crime, especially when they refuse to follow hunches. They don't know what intuition is.

Whoever had taken Meg and her sweetheart was obviously stupid enough to take any captive and not a specific target. Most of the nobility were highly trained and certainly not opium addicts, so that left only Baron Castelot that Mme. Giry had somehow made an enemy of, probably by refusing his offer of funds for the opera…right?

…Except he would not have committed a crime unless he was moved by someone else. Then Erik remembered that Meg was to be engaged to Castelot's half-brother. Therefore, he had a reason to kidnap them… And if it was not Castelot-Barbezac, one of the half-brothers must know something. Gossip travels faster through the wealthy than through the proletariat.

The opera was situated along an obvious border between the rich and the poor. One bit of town was filled with towering mansions, and the other, larger portion was cluttered by rented apartments, rickety, old stores, and wood buildings. It would not take long for one to search the entirety of the rich neighborhood. And they make their residences quite obvious, too. Their nameplates are almost an invitation.

Ah, I pity you, Castelot, though it should be amusing to see you quaking in fear. With that thought repeating in his mind, Erik set off to find the house of Castelot. The interrogation would not take long.

…

Meg curled up against the cold wall. Water dripped somewhere, keeping her sleepless and exhausted. After only a day or so (or had it been a week?) in the dark, damp cell, she was exhausted and hungry. At one point, the metal door had been opened so she might receive water and some table scraps from her mute, brutish jailer, but the light from his lantern had stung her eyes. She was forced to eat blind.

There were no accommodations, really, except for a chamber pot that she had used exactly twice now, when her innards complained so that she cared not about the stench. She could not sleep, not on a hard, crooked floor with water dripping somewhere in the distance.

The darkness under her eyelids was the same as the darkness around her. It was a heavy sort of blackness, although the cell was as large as a dorm room back at the opera. Thankfully, her biological clock was still intact; it felt as though it were late at night.

The rest of the dancers will be making up for bed, now, or chatting with their roommates. And the stage boys will be taking their rests in the wings or their hammocks in the rafters above the stage. And maybe Jammes took my advice at last and has moved to the second floor, away from her snoring roommate. Tears began to stream down her grimy face and into her mess of hair. And Mother will probably be up late again, worried sick about me, and those new singers are blissfully unaware…

For some reason, this made her angry, and she uncurled and stretched almost indignantly. Her joints cracked. They think nothing's wrong! And…maybe no one has announced the kidnapping for fear of ruining the atmosphere for that new opera, Il Guarany.

She stood with her face hard set, and began an oriental 'dance' routine she had learned from a Chinese guest star. It was something called 'Tai Chi.' Slowly her breathing became regular and deep, and her limbs moved automatically. Eyes became unnecessary as she became aware of the exact dimensions of her cell. The next time that ugly guard opens the door, he is not going in. I am going out.