by Gene Wolfe
“I was thinking of—of the bird that did this,” Silk finished weakly.
“You could have broken off the needle. How’d you like me fishing around in your arm for that?”
“It is a bird!” Maytera Marble pointed. “It hopped back that way. Into your kitchen, I suppose, Patera.”
“That’s the stairwell, actually,” Silk told her. “I’m surprised it’s still here.”
“It was a big black bird, and I think one of its wings must be broken. It wasn’t exactly dragging it but it wasn’t holding it right either, if you know what I mean. Is that the bird—? The one that—?”
“Just sit quietly,” Crane said. He was putting a fresh bandage on Silk’s arm.
Silk said, “No wonder it didn’t fly,” and Maytera Marble looked at him inquiringly.
“It’s the one that I’d intended to sacrifice, Maytera. It had only fainted or something—had a fit, or whatever birds do. I opened the kitchen window for it this morning so it could fly away, but I suppose I must have broken its wing when I was poking around on top of the larder with my walking stick.”
He held it up to show her. It reminded him of Blood, and Blood reminded him that he was going to have to explain to Maytera Marble—and if he was not extremely lucky, to Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint as well—exactly how he had received his injuries.
“On top of the larder, Patera?”
“Yes. The bird was up there then.” Still thinking of the explanation the sibyls would expect, he added, “It had flown up there, I suppose.”
Crane pulled a footstool into place and sat on it. “Up with your tunic now. Good. Shove your waistband down just a bit.”
Maytera Marble turned her head delicately away.
Silk asked, “If I’m able to catch that bird, will you set its wing for me?”
“I don’t know much horse-physic, but I can try. I’ve seen to Musk’s hawks once or twice.”
Silk cleared his throat, resolved to deceive Maytera Marble as little as possible without revealing the nature of his visit to the villa. “You see, Maytera, after I saw—saw Maytera Mint’s friend, you know who I mean, I thought it might be wise to call on Blood. Do you remember Blood? You showed him around yesterday afternoon.”
Maytera Marble nodded. “Of course, Patera. How could I forget?”
“And you had spoken afterward, when we talked under the arbor, about our buildings being torn down—or perhaps not torn down, but our having to leave. So I thought it might be wise for me to have a heart-to-heart talk with the new owner. He lives in the country, so it took me a good deal longer than I had anticipated, I’m afraid.”
Crane said, “Lean back a little more.” He was swabbing Silk’s chest and abdomen with a blue solution.
Maytera Marble nodded dubiously. “That was very good of you, Patera. Wonderful, really, though I didn’t get the impression that he—”
Silk leaned back as much as he could, pushing his hips forward. “But he did, Maytera. He’s going to give me—to give us, I ought to say—another month here at least. And it’s possible that we may never have to go.”
“Oh, Patera!” Maytera Marble forgot herself so far as to look at him.
Silk hurried on. “But what I wanted to explain is that a man who works for Blood keeps several large birds as pets. I suppose there are several, at least, from the way that he and Blood talked about them.”
Crane nodded absently.
“And he’d given this one to Blood,” Silk continued. “It was dark, of course, and I’m afraid I got too close. Blood very graciously suggested that Doctor Crane come by today to see to my injuries.”
“Why, Patera, how wonderful of him!” Maytera Marble’s eyes positively shone with admiration for Silk’s diplomatic skills, and he felt himself blush.
“All part of my job,” Crane said modestly, replacing the stopper in the blue bottle.
Silk swallowed and took a deep breath, hoping that this was the proper moment. “Before we leave, Doctor, there’s something I must bring up. A moment ago you said you would treat that injured bird if I was able to catch it. You were gracious about it, in fact.”
Crane nodded warily as he rose. “Excuse me. Have to get my cutter.”
“This morning,” Silk continued, “I was called to bring the forgiveness of the gods to a little girl named Teasel.”
Maytera Marble stiffened.
“She’s close to death, but I believe—I dare to hope that she may recover, provided she receives the most basic medical attention. Her parents are poor and have many other children.”
“Hold your leg out.” Crane sat down on the footstool again and took Silk’s foot in his lap. The cutter buzzed.
“They can’t possibly pay you,” Silk continued doggedly. “Neither can I, except with prayers. But without your help, Teasel may die. Her parents actually expect her to die—otherwise her father wouldn’t have come here before shadeup looking for me. There are only two doctors in this quarter, and neither will treat anyone unless he’s paid in advance. I promised Teasel’s mother I’d do what I could to get her a doctor, and you’re the only real hope I have.”
Crane looked up. There was something in his eyes, a gleam of calculation and distant speculation, that Silk did not understand. “You were there this morning?”
Silk nodded. “That was why I got to bed so late. Her father had come to the cenoby before I returned from my talk with Blood, and when Maytera Rose saw that I had come home, she came and told me. I went at once.” The memory of green tomatoes stung like a hornet. “Or almost at once,” he added weakly.
Maytera Marble said, “You must see her, Doctor. Really you must.”
Crane ignored her, fingering his beard. “And you told them you’d try to get a doctor for whatshername?”
Hope blossomed in Silk. “Yes, I did. I’d be in your debt till Pas ends the whorl, and I’d be delighted to show you where she lives. We could stop there on the way.”
Maytera Marble gasped. “Patera! All those steps!”
Crane bent over the cast again; his cutter whined and half of it fell away. “You’re not going to climb a lot of stairs if I have anything to say about it. Not with this ankle. Marble here can show me—”
“Oh, yes!” Maytera Marble was dancing with impatience. “I’ve got to see her. She’s one of mine.”
“Or you can just give me the address,” Crane finished. “My bearers will know where it is. I’ll see to her and come back here for you.” He removed the rest of the cast. “This hurt you much?”
“Not nearly as much as worrying about Teasel did,” Silk told him. “But you’ve taken care of that, or at least taken care of the worst aspect of it. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” Crane said. He rose again, dusting particles of the cast from his trousers legs. “What I want is for you to follow my instructions. I’m going to give you a remedial wrapping. It’s valuable and reusable, so I want it back when your ankle’s healed. And I want you to use it exactly as I tell you.”
Silk nodded. “I will, I promise.”
“As for you, Marble,” Crane turned to look at her, “you might as well ride along with me. It’ll save you the walk. I want you to tell this girl’s parents that I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, because I don’t want to be pestered night and day by beggars. It’s a favor to Silk—Patera Silk, is that what you call him? And it’s a one-time thing.”
Maytera Marble nodded humbly.
The little physician went to his bag again and produced what looked like a wide strip of thin yellow chamois. “Ever see one of these?”
Silk shook his head.
“You kick them.” Crane punted the wrapping, which flew against the wall on the other side of the room. “Or you can just throw it a couple of times, or beat something smooth, like that footstool.” He retrieved the wrapping, juggling it. “When you do, they get hot. You woke it up by banging it around. You follow me? Here, feel.”
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Silk did. The wrapping was almost too hot to touch, and seemed to tingle.
“The heat’ll make your ankle feel better, and the sonic—you can’t hear it, but it’s there—will get the healing process going. What’s more, it’ll sense the break in your medial malleolus and tighten itself enough to keep it from shifting.” Crane hesitated. “You can’t get them any more, but I’ve got this one. Usually I don’t tell people about it.”
“I’ll take good care of it,” Silk promised, “and return it whenever you ask.”
Maytera Marble ventured, “Shouldn’t we be going?”
“In a minute. Wrap it around your ankle Patera. Get it fairly tight. You don’t have to tie it or anything—it’ll hold on as long as it senses the broken bone.”
The wrapping seemed almost to coil itself about Silk’s leg, its heat intense but pleasant. The pain in his ankle faded.
“You’ll know when it’s stopped working. As soon as it does, I want you to take it off and throw it against the wall like I showed you, or beat a carpet with it.” The physician tugged at his beard. “Let’s see. Today’s Sphigxday. I’ll come back on Hieraxday, and we’ll see. Regardless, you ought to be walking almost normally a week from now. If I don’t take it Hieraxday, I’ll pick it up then. But until I do, I want you to stay off that ankle as much as you can. Get a crutch if you need one. And absolutely no running and no jumping. You hear me?”
Silk nodded. “Yes, of course. But you told Blood it would be five—”
“It’s not as bad as I figured, that’s all. A simple misdiagnosis. Your head augur … What do they call him, the Prolocutor? Haven’t you noticed that when he gets sick I’m not the one he sends for? Well, that’s why. Now and then I make a mistake. The sort of doctors he has in never do. Just ask them.”
Maytera Marble inquired, “How does it feel, Patera?”
“Marvelous! I’m tempted to say as though my ankle had never been injured, but it’s actually better than that. As if I’d been given a new ankle, a lot better than the one I broke.”
“I could give you dozens of things that would make you feel better,” Crane told him, “starting with a shot of pure and a sniff of rust. This will really make you better, and that’s a lot harder. Now, what about this bird of yours? If I’m going to have to doctor it, I’d like to do it before we go. What kind of bird is it?”
“A night chough,” Silk told him.
“Can it talk?”
Silk nodded.
“Then maybe I can catch it myself. Maytera, would you tell my bearers to come around to Sun Street? They’re on Silver. Tell them you’ll be coming with me, and we’ll leave in a minute or two.”
Maytera Marble trotted away.
The physician shook his finger at Silk. “You sit easy, young man. I’ll find him.”
He vanished into the stairwell. Soon, Silk heard his voice from the kitchen, though he could not make out what was being said. Silk called, “You told Blood that it would take so long to heal so that I’d get more time, didn’t you? Thank you, Doctor.”
There was no response. The wrapping was still hot, and oddly comforting. Under his breath Silk began the afternoon prayer to Sphigx the Brave. A fat, blue-backed fly sizzled through the open doorway, looked around for food, and bumped the glass of the nearer Sun Street window.
Crane called from the kitchen, “You want to come here a minute, Silk?”
“All right.” Silk stood and walked almost normally to the kitchen door, his right foot bare and the wrapping heavy about his ankle.
“He’s hiding up there.” Crane pointed to the top of the larder. “I got him to talk a little, but he won’t come down and let me see his wing unless you promise he won’t be hurt again.”
“Really?” Silk asked.
The night chough croaked from the top of the larder, and Crane nodded and winked.
“Then I promise. May Great Pas judge me if I harm him or permit others to do so.”
“No cut?” croaked the bird. “No stick?”
“Correct,” Silk declared. “I will not sacrifice you, or hurt you in any other fashion whatsoever.”
“Pet bird?”
“Until your wing is well enough for you to fly. Then you may go free.”
“No cage?”
Crane nudged Silk’s arm to get his attention, and shook his head.
“Correct. No cage.” Silk took the cage from the table and raised it over his head, high enough for the bird to see it. “Now watch this.” With both hands, he dashed it to the floor, and slender twigs snapped like squibs. He stepped on it with his good foot, then picked up the ruined remnant and tossed it into the kindling box.
Crane shook his head. “You’re going to regret that, I imagine. It’s bound to be inconvenient at times.”
With its sound wing flapping furiously, the black bird fluttered from the top of the larder to the table.
“Good bird!” Crane told it. He sat down on the kitchen stool. “I’m going to pick you up, and I want you to hold still for a minute. I’m not going to hurt you any more than I have to.”
“I was a prisoner myself for a while last night,” Silk remarked, more than half to himself. “Even though there was no actual cage, I didn’t like it.”
Crane caught the unresisting bird expertly, his hands gentle yet firm. “Get my bag for me, will you?”
Silk nodded and returned to the sellaria. He closed the garden door, then picked up the dark bundle that Crane had displayed to him. As he had guessed, it was his second-best robe, with his old pen case still in its pocket; it had been wrapped around his missing shoe. Although he had no stocking for his right foot, he put on both, shut the brown medical bag, and carried it into the kitchen.
The bird squawked and fluttered as Crane stretched out its injured wing. “Dislocated,” he said. “Exactly like a dislocated elbow on you. I’ve pushed it back into place, but I want to splint it so he won’t pop it out again before it heals. Meanwhile he’d better stay inside, or a cat will get him.”
“Then he must stay in on his own,” Silk said.
“Stay in,” the bird repeated.
“Your cage is broken,” Silk continued severely, “and I certainly don’t intend to bake in here with all the windows shut, merely to keep you from getting out.”
“No out,” the bird assured him. Crane was rummaging in his bag.
“I hope not.” Silk pulled the blanket from the garden window, threw it open, and refolded the blanket.
“What time are you supposed to meet Blood at the yellow house?”
“One o’clock, sharp.” Silk carried the blanket into the sellaria; when he returned, he added, “I’m going to be late, I imagine; I doubt that he’ll do anything worse than complain about it.”
“That’s the spirit. He’ll be late himself, if I know him. He likes to have everybody on hand when he shows up. I doubt if that’ll be before two.”
Stepping across to the Silver Street window, Silk took down the dishrag and the dish towel and opened it as well. It was barred against thieves, and it occurred to him that he was caged in literal fact, here in this old, four-room manse he had taught himself to call home. He pushed away the thought. If Crane’s litter had been on Silver Street, it was gone now; no doubt Maytera Marble had performed her errand and it was waiting on Sun Street.
“This should do it.” Crane was fiddling with a small slip of some stiff blue synthetic. “You’ll be ready to go when I get back?”
Silk nodded, then felt his jaw. “I’ll have to shave. I’ll be ready then.”
“Good. I’ll be running late, and the girls get cranky if they can’t go out and shop.” Crane applied a final strip of almost invisible tape to keep the little splint in place. “This will fall right off after a few days. When it does, let him fly if he wants to. If he’s like the hawks, you’ll find that he’s a pretty good judge of what he can and can’t do.”
“No fly,” the bird announced.
“Not now, that’s for sure
. If I were you, I wouldn’t even move that wing any more today.”
Silk’s mind was elsewhere. “It’s diabolic possession, isn’t it? At the yellow house?”
Crane turned to face him. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, I hope you have better luck with it than I’ve had.”
“What’s been happening there? My driver and I heard a scream last night, but we didn’t go inside.”
The little physician laid a finger to his nose. “There are a thousand reasons why a girl might scream, especially one of those girls. Might have been a stain on her favorite gown, a bad dream, or a spider.”
A tiny needle of pain penetrated the protection of the wrapping; Silk opened the cabinet that closed the kitchen’s pointed north corner and got out the stool Patera Pike had used at meals. “I doubt that Blood wants me to exorcise his women’s dreams.”
Crane snapped his medical bag shut. “No one except the woman herself is really occupying the consciousness of what people like you choose to call a ‘possessed’ woman, Silk. Consciousness itself is a mere abstraction—a convenient fiction, actually. When I say that a man’s unconscious, I mean no more than that certain mental processes have been suspended. When I say that he’s regained consciousness, I mean that they’ve resumed. You can’t occupy an abstraction as if it were a conquered city.”
“A moment ago you said the woman herself occupied it,” Silk pointed out.
With a last look at the injured bird, Crane rose. “So they really do teach you people something besides all that garbage.”
Silk nodded. “It’s called logic.”
“So it is.” Crane smiled, and Silk discovered to his own surprise that he liked him. “Well, if I’m going to look in on this sick girl of yours, I’d better scoot. What’s the matter with her? Fever?”
“Her skin felt cold to me, but you’re a better judge of diseases than I.”
“I should hope so.” Crane picked up his bag. “Let’s see—through the front room there for Sun Street, isn’t it? Maybe we can talk a little more on our way to Orchid’s place.”
“Look at the back of her neck,” Silk said.
Crane paused in the doorway, shot him a questioning glance, then hurried out.