by Gene Wolfe
Silk rose. “I understand. I wouldn’t have disturbed you if I hadn’t wanted to let you know that Blood’s agreed that your daughter should be buried with the rites of the Chapter. Her body will be washed and dressed—laid out, as the people who do it say—and carried to my manteion, on Sun Street. We’ll hold her service in the morning.”
Orchid stared at him incredulously. “Blood’s paying for this?”
“No.” Silk actually had not considered the matter of expenses, though he knew only too well that some of those connected with the final offices of the dead could not be avoided. His mind whirled before he recalled Blood’s two cards, which he had set aside for the Scylsday sacrifice in any event. “Or rather, yes. Blood gave me—gave my manteion, I should say, a generous gift earlier. We’ll use that.”
“No, not Blood.” Orchid rose heavily. “I’ll pay it, Patera. How much?”
Silk compelled himself to be scrupulously honest. “I should tell you that we often bury the poor, and sometimes they have no money at all. The generous gods have always seen to it—”
“I’m not poor!” Orchid flushed an angry red. “I been pretty flat sometimes, sure. Hasn’t everybody? But I’m not flat now, and this’s my sprat. The other girl, I had to—Oh, shag you, you shaggy butcher! How much for a good one?”
Here was opportunity. Not merely to save the manteion the cost of Orpine’s burial, but to pay for earlier graves bought but never paid for; Silk jettisoned his scruples to seize the moment. “If it’s really not inconvenient, twenty cards?”
“Let’s go into the bedroom, Patera. That’s where the book is. Come on.”
She had opened the door and vanished into the next room before he could protest. Through the doorway he could see a rumpled bed, a cluttered vanity table, and a chaise longue half buried in gowns.
“Come on in.” Orchid laughed, and this time there was real merriment in the sound. “I bet you’ve never been in a woman’s bedroom before, have you?”
“Once or twice.” Hesitantly, Silk stepped through the doorway, looking twice at the bed to assure himself that no one lay dying there. Presumably Orchid thought of it as a place for rest and lust, and possibly even for love. Silk could only too easily imagine his next visit, in ten years or twenty. All beds became deathbeds at last.
“Your mama’s. You’ve gone into your mama’s bedroom, I bet.” Orchid plumped herself down before the vanity table, swept a dozen colored bottles and jars aside, and elevated an ormolu inkstand to the place of honor before her.
“Oh, yes. Many times.”
“And looked through her things when she was out of the house. I know how you young bucks do.” There were twenty bedraggled peacock quills at least wilting in the rings of the ormolu inkstand. Orchid selected one, then wrinkled her nose at it.
“I can sharpen that for you, if you like.” Silk got out his pen case.
“Would you? Thanks.” Revolving on the vanity stool, she handed the peacock quill to him. “Did you ever try on her underwear?”
Silk looked up from the quill, surprised. “No, I never even thought of it. I did open a drawer once and peep into it, though. I felt so bad about it that I told her the next day. Do you have something to catch the shavings?”
“Don’t worry about them. You had a nice mama, huh? Is she still alive?”
Silk shook his head. “Would you prefer a broad nib?” Orchid did not reply, and he, contemplating the splayed and frowzy one before him, decided to give her one anyway. A broad nib used more ink, but she would not mind that; and broad nibs lasted longer.
“Mine died when I was little. I guess she was nice, but I really don’t remember her very well. When somebody’s dead, Patera, can they come back and see people they care about, if they want to?”
“It depends on what is meant by see.” With the slender blade of the long-handled penknife, Silk sliced yet another whitish sliver from the nib. He was accustomed to goose and crow quills; this was larger than either.
“Talk to them. Visit with them a while, or just let them see you.”
“No,” Silk said.
“Just no? Why not?”
“Hierax forbids it.” He returned the quill to her and snapped his pen case shut. “If he did not, the living would live at the direction of the dead, repeating their mistakes again and again.”
“I used to wonder why she never came to see me,” Orchid said. “You know, I haven’t thought about that in years, and now I’ll think about Orpine, hoping that Hierax will let her out once or twice so I can see her again. Have a seat there on the bed, Patera. You’re making me jittery.”
Reluctantly, Silk smoothed the canary-colored sheet and sat down.
“A minute ago, you said twenty cards. That’s about as cheap as they come, I bet.”
“It would be modest,” Silk admitted, “but certainly not contemptible.”
“All right, what about fifty? What would she get for that much?”
“Gods!” He considered. “I can’t be absolutely sure. A better sacrifice and a much better casket. Flowers. A formal bier with draperies. Perhaps a—”
“I’ll make it a hundred,” Orchid announced. “It will make me feel better. A hundred cards, and everything the best.” Orchid plunged her quill into the inkwell.
Silk opened his mouth, closed it again, and put his pen case away.
“And you can say that I was her mother. I want you to say it. What do you call that thing where they stand up and talk in the manteion?”
“The ambion,” Silk said.
“Right. I never told them here, because I knew—we both knew—what sort of things the other girls would say about her, and me too, behind our backs. You tell them tomorrow. From the ambion. And put it on her stone.”
Silk nodded. “I will.”
With florid sweeps of her quill, Orchid was writing the draft. “Tomorrow, right? When’ll it be?”
“I had thought at eleven.”
“I’ll be there, Patera.” Orchid’s face hardened. “We all will.”
* * *
Silk was still shaking his head as he closed Orchid’s door behind him. Chenille was waiting in the hall outside; he wondered whether she had been eavesdropping, and if so how much she had heard.
She said, “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Not here.”
“I waited in my room. You never came, so I came over here to see what was up.”
“Of course.” Orchid’s draft for a hundred cards was still in his hand; he folded it once and thrust it into the the pocket of his robe. “I told you I’d be there in a few minutes, didn’t I? We were a great deal longer than that, I’m afraid. I can only apologize.”
“You still want to talk in my room?”
Silk hesitated, then nodded. “We must speak privately, and I’d like to see where it is.”
SUMMONED
“What Orchid’s got used to be for the owner and his wife,” Chenille explained. “Then their sprats had rooms close to theirs, then upper servants, then maids, I guess. I’m about halfway on the inside. That’s not so bad.”
Turning left, Silk followed her down the musty hallway.
“Half look out on the court like mine does. That’s not as good as it sounds, because they have big parties in there sometimes and it gets pretty noisy unless you stay till the end, and usually I don’t. You take those drunks up to your room and they get sick—then you never get the smell out. Maybe you think it’s gone, but wait for a rainy night.”
They turned the corner.
“Sometimes they chase the girls along the gangways and make lots of noise. But the outside rooms on this side have windows on the alley. There’s not much light, and it smells bad.”
“I see,” Silk said.
“So that’s not so good either, and they have to have bars on their windows. I’d rather hang on to what I’ve got.” Chenille halted, pulled a key on a string from between ample breasts, and opened a door.
“Are the rooms beyond yours vacant?”
“Perhaps she might occupy Orpine’s room.” Chenille’s was less than half the size of Orchid’s bedroom, with most of its floorspace taken up by an oversized bed. There were chests along the wall, and an old wardrobe to which a hasp and padlock had been added.
“Yeah. Maybe. I’ll tell her. You want me to leave the door open?”
“I doubt that it would be wise.”
“All right.” She closed it. “I won’t lock us in. I don’t lock when there’s a man in here, it’s not a good idea. You want to sit on the bed with me?”
Silk shook his head.
“Suit yourself.” She sat down, and he lowered himself gratefully onto one of the chests, the lioness-headed stick clamped between his knees.
“All right, what is it?”
Silk glanced toward the open window. “I should imagine it would be easy for someone to stand there on the gallery, just out of sight. It would be prudent for you to make sure no one is.”
“Look here.” She aimed a finger at him. “I don’t owe you one single thing, and you’re not paying me, not even a couple bits. Orpine was kind of a friend of mine, we didn’t fight much, anyhow, and I thought it was nice, what you did for her, so when you said you wanted to talk to me, I said fine. But I’ve got things to do, and I’ll have to come back here tonight and sweat it like a sow. So talk, and I better like what you’re going to say.”
“What would you do if you didn’t, Chenille?” Silk asked mildly. “Stab me? I don’t think so; you’ve no dagger now.”
Her brightly painted mouth fell open then clamped shut again.
Silk leaned back against the wall. “It wasn’t terribly obscure. If the Civil Guard had been notified, as I suppose it should have been, I’m certain they would have understood what happened at once. It took me a minute or two, but then I know very little about such things.”
Her eyes blazed. “She did it herself! You saw it. She stabbed herself.” Chenille gestured toward her own waist.
“I saw her hand on the hilt of your dagger, certainly. Did you put it there? Or was it only that she was trying to pull it out when she died?”
“You can’t prove anything!”
Silk sighed. “Please don’t be foolish. How old are you? Honestly now.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, I suppose. It’s only that you make me feel very old and wise, just as the children at our palaestra do. You’re not much older than some of them, I believe.”
For several seconds Chenille gnawed her lip. At last she said, “Nineteen. That’s the lily word, too, or anyhow I think it is. As well as I can figure, I’m about nineteen. I’m older than a lot of the girls here.”
“I’m twenty-three,” Silk told her. “By the way, may I ask you to call me Patera? It will help me to remember who I am. What I am, if you prefer.”
Chenille shook her head. “You think I’m some cank chit you can get to suck any pap you want to, don’t you? Well, listen, I know a lot you never even dream about. I didn’t stick Orpine. By Sphigx, I didn’t! And you can’t prove I did, either. What’re you after, anyhow?”
“Fundamentally I’m after you. I want to help you, if I can. All the gods—the Outsider knows that someone should have, long ago.”
“Some help!”
Silk raised his shoulders and let them drop. “Little help so far, indeed; but we’ve hardly begun. You say that you know much more than I. Can you read?”
Chenille shook her head, her lips tight.
“You see, although you know a great deal that I do not—I’m not denying that at all—what it comes down to is that we know different things. You are wise enough to swear falsely by Sphigx, for example; you know that nothing will happen to you if you do that, and I’m beginning to feel it’s something I should learn, too. Yesterday morning I wouldn’t have dared to do it. Indeed, I would hardly dare now.”
“I wasn’t lying!”
“Of course you were.” Silk laid Blood’s stick across his knees and studied the lioness’s head for a moment. “You said that I couldn’t prove what I say. In one sense, you’re quite correct. I couldn’t prove my accusation in a court of law, assuming that you were a woman of wealth and position. You’re not, but then I have no intention of making my case in any such court. I could convict you to Orchid or Blood easily, however. I’d add that you’ve admitted your guilt to me, as in fact you have now. Orchid would have the bald man who seems to live here beat you, I suppose, and force you to leave. I won’t try to guess what Blood might do. Nothing, perhaps.”
The raspberry-haired girl, still seated on the bed, would not meet his eyes.
“I could convince the Civil Guard, also, if I had to. It would be easy, Chenille, because no one cares about you. Very likely no one ever has, and that’s why you’re here now, living as you do in this house.”
“I’m here because the money’s good,” she said.
“It wouldn’t be. Not any longer. The big, bald man—I never learned his name—would knock out a tooth or two, I imagine. What Musk might do if Blood allowed him a free hand I prefer not to speculate on. I don’t like him, and it may be that I’m prejudiced. You know him much better, I’m sure.”
The girl on the bed made a slight, almost inaudible sound.
“You don’t cry easily, do you?”
She shook her head.
“I do.” Silk smiled and shrugged again. “Another of my all too numerous faults. I’ve been close to tears since I first set foot in this place, and the pain in my ankle is no help, I’m afraid. Will you excuse me?”
He pushed down his black stocking and took off Crane’s wrapping. It was warm still to his touch, but he lashed the floor with it and replaced it. “Shall I explain to you what happened, or would you prefer to tell me?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“I hope to change your mind about that. It’s necessary that you tell me a great deal, eventually.” Silk paused to collect his thoughts. “Very well, then. This unhappy house has been plagued by a certain devil. We’ll call her that for the present at least, though I believe that I could name her. As I understand it, several people have been possessed at one time or another. Did they all live here, by the way? Or were patrons involved as well? Nobody’s talked about that, if some were.”
“Only girls.”
“I see. What about Orchid? Has she been possessed? She didn’t mention it.”
Chenille shook her head again.
“Orpine? Was she one of them?”
There was no reply. Silk asked again, with slightly more emphasis, “Orpine?”
The door opened, and Crane looked in. “There you are! They said you were still around somewhere. How’s your ankle?”
“Quite painful,” Silk told him. “The wrapping you lent me helped a great deal at first, but—”
Crane had crouched to touch it. “Good and hot. You’re walking too much. Didn’t I tell you to stay off your feet?”
“I have,” Silk said stiffly, “insofar as possible.”
“Well, try harder. As the pain gets worse you will anyhow. How’s the exorcism coming?”
“I haven’t begun. I’m going to shrive Chenille, and that’s far more important.”
Looking at Crane, Chenille shook her head.
“She doesn’t know it yet, but I am,” Silk declared.
“I see. Well, I’d better leave you alone and let you do it.” The little physician left, closing the door behind him.
“You were asking about Orpine,” Chenille said. “No, she was never possessed that I know of.”
“Let’s not change the subject so quickly,” Silk said. “Will you tell me why that doctor takes such an interest in you?”
“He doesn’t.”
Silk made a derisive noise. “Come now. He obviously does. Do you think I believe he came here to inquire about my leg? He came here looking for you. No one but Orchid could have told him I was here, and I left her only a few moments ago; almost the last thing she said to me was that she wanted to be alone. I just hope that Crane’s interest is a friendly one. You need friends.”
“He’s my doctor, that’s all.”
“No,” Silk said. “He is indeed your doctor, but that’s not all. When Orchid and I heard someone scream and went out into the courtyard, you were fully dressed. It was very noticeable, because you were the only woman present who was.”
“I was going out!”
“Yes, precisely. You were going out, and thus dressed, which I found a great relief—sneer if you like. I didn’t begin, of course, by asking myself why you were dressed, but why the others weren’t; and the answers were harmless and straightforward enough. They’d been up late the previous night. Furthermore, they expected to be examined by Crane, who would make them disrobe in any event, so there was no reason for them to dress until he’d left.
“Crane and I had arrived together just a few minutes earlier, yet you were fully dressed, which was why I noticed you and asked you to bring something to cover poor Orpine’s body. The obvious inference is that you had been examined already; and if so, you must certainly have been first. It seemed possible that Crane had begun at the far end of the corridor, but he didn’t—this room is only halfway to the old manteion at the back of the house. Why did he take you first?”
“I don’t know,” Chenille said. “I didn’t even know I was. I was waiting for him, and he came in. If nothing’s wrong, it only takes a second or two.”
“He sells you rust, doesn’t he?”
Surprised, Chenille laughed.
“I see I’m wrong—so much for logic. But Crane has rust; he mentioned it to me this morning as something that he could have given me to make me feel better. Orchid and a friend who knows you have both told me you use it, and neither has reason to lie. Furthermore, your behavior when you encountered Orpine confirms it.”
Chenille appeared about to speak, and Silk waited for her to do so while silence collected in the stuffy room. At last she said, “I’ll level with you, Patera. If I give you the lily word, will you believe me?”