Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  "I don't expect you to believe me, Your Cognizance-" Hyacinth began.

  "Whether I believe you or not, my child, will depend on what you say."

  "We didn't! I swear to you by Thelxiepeia and Scalding Scylla-"

  "For example. If you were to say that Patera Caldé Silk had violated his oath and disgraced his vocation, I would not believe you."

  Standing upon the arm of his mother's reading chair, he had studied the Caldé's head, carved by a skillful hand from hard brown wood. "Is this my father?" Mother's smile as she lifted him down, warning him not to touch it. "No, no, that's my friend the Caldé." Then the Caldé was dead and buried, and his head buried, too-buried in the darkest reaches of her closet, although she spoke at times of burning it in the big black kitchen stove and perhaps believed eventually that she had. It was not well to have been a friend of the Caldé's.

  "I know our Patera Caldé Silk too well for that," Quetral was telling Hyacinth. "On the other hand, if you were to say that nothing of the kind had taken place, I would believe you implicitly, my child."

  Xiphias helped Silk to his feet, and Hyacinth pulled up a pair of unbicached linen drawers that had somehow appeared around his ankles and were new and clean and not his at all, and tied the cord for him.

  "Caldé-"

  At that moment, the title sounded like a death sentence. He said, "I'm only Patera-Only Silk. Nobody's Caldé now."

  Oosik stroked his drooping, white-tipped mustache. "You fear that because my men and I are loyal to the Ayuntamiento, we will kill you. I understand. It is undoubtedly true, as this young woman has said-"

  In the presence of the Prolocutor, Oosik was pretending he did not know Hyacinth, exactly as he himself had tried to pretend he was not Caldé;; Silk found wry amusement in that.

  "-and already you have almost perished in this foolish fighting," Oosik was saying. "Another dies now, even as we speak. On our side or yours, it does not matter. If it was one of us, we will kill one of you soon. If one of you, you will kill one of us. Perhaps it will be me. Perhaps my son, though he has already-"

  Xiphias interrupted him. "Couldn't get home, lad! Tried to! Big night attack! Still fighting! Didn't think they'd try that. You don't mind my coming back to look out for you?"

  Kneeling with his trousers, Hyacinth nodded confirmation. "If you listen at the window, you can still hear shooting."

  Silk sat on the rumpled bed again and pushed his feet into the legs. "I'm confused. Are we still at Ermine's?"

  She nodded again. "In my room."

  Oosik had circled the bed to hold his attention. "Would it not be a great thing, Caldé, if we-if you and I, and His Cognizance-could end this fighting before shadeup?"

  With less confidence in his legs than he tried to show, Silk stood to pull up and adjust his waistband. "That's what I'd hoped to do." He sat as quickly as he could without loss of dignity.

  "We will-"

  Quetzal interposed, "We must strike fast. We can't wait for you to recover, Patera Caldé. I wish we could. You were startled to see me vested like this. My clothes always shock you. I'm afraid."

  "So it seems, Your Cognizance."

  "I'm under arrest, too, technically. But I'm trying to bring peace, just as you are."

  "We've both failed, in that case, Your Cognizance."

  Oosik laid his hand upon Silk's; it felt warm and damp. thick with muscle. "Do not burden yourself with reproaches, Caldé. No! Success is possible still. Who had you in mind as commander of your Civil Guard?"

  The gods had gone, but one-perhaps crafty Thelxiepeia. whose day was just beginning-had left behind a small gift of cunning. "If anyone could put an end to this bloodshed, he would surely deserve a greater reward than that."

  "But if that were all the reward he asked?"

  "I'd do everything I could to see that he obtained it."

  "Wise Silk!" Oreb cocked a bright black eye approvingly from the bedpost.

  Oosik smiled. "You are better already, I think. I was greatly concerned for you when I saw you." He looked at the surgeon. "What do you think, Doctor? Should our Caldé have more blood?"

  Quetzal stiffened, and the surgeon shook his head.

  "Achieving peace, Caldé, may not be as difficult as you imagine. Our men and yours must be made to understand that loyalty to the Ayuntamiento is not disloyalty to you. Nor is loyalty to you disloyalty to the Ayuntamiento. When I was a young man we had both. Did you know that?"

  Xiphias exclaimed, "It's true, lad!"

  "There is a vacancy on the Ayuntamiento. Clearly it must be filled. On the other hand, there are councillors presently in the Ayuntamiento. Their places are theirs. Why ought they not retain them?"

  A compromise; Silk thought of Maytera Mint, small and heartrendingly brave upon a white stallion in Sun Street. "The Alambrera-?"

  "Cannot be permitted to fall. The morale of your Civil Guard would not survive so crushing a humiliation."

  "I see." He stood again, this time with more confidence; he felt weak, yet paradoxically strong enough to face whatever had to be faced. "The poor, the poorest people of our quarter especially, who began the insurrection, are anxious to release the convicts there. They are their friends and relatives."

  Quetzal added, "Echidna has commanded it."

  Oosik nodded, still smiling. "So I have heard. Many of our prisoners say so, and a few even claim to have seen her. I repeat, however, that a successful assault on the Alambrera would be a disaster. It cannot be permitted. But might not our Caldé, upon his assumption of office, declare a general amnesty? A gesture at once generous and humane?"

  "I see," Silk repeated. "Yes, certainly, if it will end the fighting-if there's even the slightest chance that it will end it. Must I come with you, Generalissimo?"

  "You must do more. You must address both the insurgents and our own men, forcefully. It can be begun here, from your bed. I have a means of transmitting your voice to my troops, defending the Palatine. Afterward we will have to put you in a floater and take you to the Alambrera, in order that both our men and Mint's may see you, and see for themselves that there is no trickery. His Cognizance has agreed to go with you to bless the peace. Many know already that he has sided with you. When it is seen that my brigade has come over to you as a body, the rest will come as well."

  Oreb crowed, "Silk win!" from the bedpost.

  "I'm coming, too," Hyacinth declared.

  "You must understand that there is to be no surrender, Caldé. Viron will have chosen to return to its Charter. A Caldé-yourself-and an ayuntamiento."

  Oosik turned ponderously to Quetzal. "Is that not the system of government stipulated by Scylla. Your Cognizance?"

  "It is, my son, and it is my fondest desire to see it reinstated."

  "If we're paraded through the city in this floater," Silk said, "many of the people who see us are certain to guess that I've been wounded." In the nick of time he remembered to add, "Generalissimo."

  "Nor will we attempt to conceal it, Caldé. You yourself have played a hero's part in the fighting! I must tell Gecko to work that into your little speech."

  Oosik took two steps backward. "Now someone must attend to all these things, I fear, and there is no one capable of it but myself. Your pardon, my lady." He bowed. "Your pardon, Caldé. I will return shortly. Your pardon, Your Cognizance."

  "Bad man?" mused Oreb Silk shook his head. "No one who ends murder and hatred is evil, even if he does it for his own profit. We need such people too much to let even the gods condemn them. Xiphias, I sent you away last night at the same time that I sent away His Eminence. Did you leave at once?"

  The old fencing master was shamefaced. "Did you say at once, lad?"

  "I don't think so. If I did, I don't recall it."

  "I'd brought you this, lad, remember?" He bounded to the most remote corner of the room and held up the silver-banded cane. "Valuable!" He parried an imaginary opponents's thrust. "Useful! Think I'd let them leave it behind in that garden?"

&n
bsp; Hyacinth said, "You followed when we carried him up here, didn't you? I saw you watching us from the foot of the stairs, but I didn't know you from a rat then."

  "I understand." Silk nodded almost imperceptibly. "His Eminence left at once, I imagine. I had told him to find you if he could, Your Cognizance. Did he?"

  "No," Quetzal said. With halting steps, he made his way to a red velvet chair and sat, laying the baculus across his knees. "Does it matter, Patera Caldé?"

  "Probably not. I'm trying to straighten things out in my mind, that's all." Silk's forefinger traced pensive circles on his beard-rough cheek. "By this time, His Eminence may have reached Maytera Mint-reached General Mint, I should say. It's possible they have already begun to work out a truce. I hope so, it could be helpful. Mucor reached her in any event; and when General Mint heard Mucor's message, she attacked the Palatine hoping to rescue me-I ought to have anticipated that. My mind wasn't as clear as it should be last night, or I would never have told her where I was."

  Hyacinth asked, "Mucor? You mean Blood's abram girl? Was she here?"

  "In a sense." Silk found that by staring steadfastly at the yellow goblets and chocolate cellos that danced across the carpet, it was possible to speak to Hyacinth without choking, and even to think in a patchy fashion about what he said. "I met her Phaesday night, and I talked to her in the Glasshouse before you found me. I'll explain about her later, though, if I may-it's appalling and rather complex. The vital point is that she agreed to carry a message to General Mint for me, and did it. Colonel Oosik's brigade was being held in reserve when I spoke to him earlier; when the attack came, it must have been brought up to strengthen the Palatine."

  Hyacinth nodded. "That's what he told me before we woke you. He said it was lucky for you because Councillor Loris ordered him to send somebody to kill you, but he came himself instead and brought you a doctor."

  "I operated on you yesterday, Caldé," the surgeon told Silk, "but I don't expect you to remember me. You were very nearly dead." He was horse-faced and balding; his eyes were rimmed with red, and there were bloodstains on his rumpled green tunic.

  "You can't have had much sleep, Doctor."

  "Four hours. I wouldn't have slept that much, if my hands hadn't started to shake. We have over a thousand wounded."

  Hyacinth sat on the bed next to Silk. "That's about what we got, too-four hours, I mean. I must look a hag."

  He made the error of trying to verify it, and discovered that his eyes refused to leave her face. "You are the most beautiful woman in the Whorl," he said. Her hand found his, but she indicated Quetzal by a slight tilting of her head.

  Quetzal had been dozing-so it appeared-in the red chair; he looked up as though she had pronounced his name. "Have you a mirror, my child? There must be a mirror in a suite like this."

  "There's a glass in the dressing room, Your Cognizance. It'll show you your reflection if you ask." Hyacinth nibbled at her full lower lip. "Only I ought to be in there getting dressed. Oosie will come back in a minute, I think, with a speech for Patera and one of those ear things."

  Quetzal rose laboriously with the help of his baculus, and Silk's heart went out to him. How feeble he was! "I've had four hours sleep, Your Cognizance; Hyacinth less than that, I'm afraid, and the doctor here about the same; but I don't believe Your Cognizance can have slept at all."

  "People my age don't need much, Patera Caldé, but I'd like a mirror. I have a skin condition. You've been too well bred to remark upon it, but I do. I carry paint and powder now like a woman, and fix my face whenever I get the chance."

  "In the balneum, Your Cognizance." Hyacinth rose, too. "There's a minor, and I'll dress while you're in there."

  Quetzal tottered away. Hyacinth paused with one hand on the latch-bar, clearly posing but so lovely that Silk could have forgiven her things far worse. "You men think it takes women a long while to get dressed, but it won't take me long this morning. Don't go without me."

  "We won't," Silk promised, and held his breath until the boudoir door closed behind her.

  "Bad thing," Oreb muttered from a bedpost.

  Xiphias displayed the silver-banded cane to Silk. "Now I can show you this, lad! Modest? Proper? Augur can't wear a sword, right? But you can carry this! Had a stick first time you came, didn't you?"

  "Bad thing!" Oreb dropped down upon Silk's shoulder.

  "Yes, I had a walking stick then. It's gone now, I'm afraid. I broke it."

  "Won't break this! Watch!" Between Xiphias's hands, the cane's head separated from its brown wooden shaft, exposing a straight, slender, double-edged blade. "Twist, and pull them apart! You try it!"

  "I'd much rather put them back together." Silk accepted the cane from him; it seemed heavy for a walking stick, and somewhat light for a sword. "It's a bad thing, as Oreb says."

  "Nickel in that steel! Chrome, too! Truth! Could parry an azoth! Believe that?"

  Silk shuddered. "I suppose so. I had an azoth once and couldn't cut through a steel door with it."

  The azoth reminded him of Hyacinth's gold-plated needler; hurriedly, he put his hand in his pocket. "Here it is. I've got to return this to her. I was.afraid that it would be gone, somehow, though I can't imagine who might have taken it, except Hyacinth herself." He laid it on the peach-colored sheet.

  "I gave your big one back, lad. Still got it?"

  Silk shook his head, and Xiphias began to prowl around the room, opening cabinets and examining shelves.

  "This cane will be useful, I admit," Silk told him, "but I really don't require a needler."

  Xiphias whirled to confront him, holding it out. "Going to make peace, aren't you?"

  "I hope to, Master Xiphias, and that's exactly-"

  "What if they don't like the way you're making it, lad? Take it!"

  "Here you are, Caldé." Oosik bustled in with a sheet of paper and a black object that seemed more like a flower molded from synthetic than an actual ear. "I'll turn it on before I pass it to you, and all you'll have to do is talk into it. Do you understand? My loudspeakers will repeat everything that you say, and everyone will hear you. Here's your speech."

  He handed Silk the paper. "It would be best for you to read it over first. Insert some thoughts of your own if you like. I would not deviate too far from the text, however."

  Words crawled across the sheet like ants, some bearing meaning in their black jaws, most with none. The insurgent forces. The Civil Guard. The rebellion. The commissioners and the Ayuntamiento. The Army. The arms in the Alambrera. The insurgents and the Guard. Peace.

  There it was at last. Peace.

  "All right." Silk let the sheet fall into his lap.

  Oosik signaled to someone in the outer room, waited for a reply that soon came, cleared his throat, and held the ear to his lips. "This Is Generalissimo Oosik of the Caldé's Guard. Hear me all ranks, and especially you rebels. You're fighting us because you want to make Patera Silk Caldé, but Caldé Silk is with us. He is with the Guard, because he knows that we are with him. Now you soldiers. Your duty is to obey our Caldé. He is sitting here beside me. Hear his instructions."

  Silk wanted his old chipped ambion very badly; his hands sought it blindly as he spoke, rattling the paper. "My fellow citizens, what Generalissimo Oosik has just told you is true. Are we not-" The words seemed predisposed to hide behind his trembling fingers.

  "Are we not, every one of us, citizens of Viron? On this historic day, my fellow citizen-" The type blurred, and the next line began a meaningless half sentence.

  "Our city is in great danger," he said. "I believe the whole Whorl's in great danger, though I can't be sure."

  He coughed and spat clotted blood on the carpet. "Please excuse me. I've been wounded. It doesn't matter, because I'm not going to die. Neither are you, if only you'll listen."

  Faintly, he heard his words re-echoed in the night beyond Ermine's walls: "You'll listen." The loudspeakers Oosik had mentioned, mouths with stentorian voices, had heard him in some fashion, and in so
me fashion repeated his thoughts.

  The door of the balneum opened. Framed in the doorway, Quetzal gave him an encouraging nod, and Oreb flew back to his post on the bedpost.

  "We can't rebel against ourselves," Silk said. "So there is no rebellion. There is no insurrection, and none of you are insurgents. We can fight among ourselves, of course, and we've been doing it. It was necessary, but the time of its necessity is over. There is a Caldé again-I am your Caldé. We needed rain, and we have gotten rain." He paused to look across the room at the rich smoke-gray drapes. "Master Xiphias, will you open that window for me, please? Thank you."

  He drew a deep and somewhat painful breath of cool, damp air. "We've had rain, and if I'm any judge of weather, we'll get more. Now let's have peace-it's a gift we can provide ourselves, one more precious than rain. Let's have peace."

  (What was it the captain had said whole ages ago in that inn?) "Many of you are hungry. We plan to buy food with city funds and sell it to you cheaply. Not free, because there are always people who will waste anything free. But very cheaply, so that even beggars will be able to buy enough. My Guard will release the convicts from the pits. Generalissimo Oosik, His Cognizance the Prolocutor, and I are going to the Alambrera this morning, and I'll order it. All convicts are pardoned as of this moment-I pardon them. They'll be hungry and weak, so please share whatever food you have with them."

  He recalled his own hunger, hunger at the manse and worse hunger underground, gnawing hunger that had become a sort of illness by the time Mamelta located the strange, steaming meals of the underground tower. "We had a poor harvest this year." he said. "Let us pray, every one of us, for a better one next year. I've prayed for that often, and I'll pray for it again; but if we want to have enough to eat for the rest of our lives, we must have water for our fields when the rains fail.