"Eat, Tig," she said.
"No. Tell me why."
"Well," she said casually, holding the spoon to my lips, "maybe I think you're not such a total fool after all. And if you really are such a fool, you'll need my help even more. Open wide."
It was an endorsement of a sort. Anyway, it sufficed. I relaxed against the cushion, wondering why I felt so pleased.
"By the way," Calla went on, "Faruli says you'll need a couple of weeks to get your strength back. We're going to use that time to our advantage."
I mumbled a question through the soup.
"How? Why, we're going to teach you some things you might want to know. You're a memorian, Tig, you'll enjoy yourself. Maybe you'll write it all down someday."
I nodded—unwisely. Calla reverted to her normal impatient self as she wiped the soup off my chin. But I felt even happier; it seemed that at last I might be taught something worth the learning. And it had suddenly dawned on me that Calla was calling me Tig.
Bekri took personal charge of my training programme, although he did not himself teach me. My pallet was moved to the outer chamber and we lay side by side, he on his sofa, I on my bed, while this instructor or that imparted wisdom from a cushion on the floor. Mysheba taught me many tricks of disguise, drafting a trio of bored, initially clean children as models. The Third Flamen, a grizzled giant named Corri, took me street by street through a detailed hand-drawn map of the city, stressing danger zones, escape routes, safe houses, rendezvous places, strategic viewpoints, and the odd inn where a beaker of reasonable brew could be had if you mentioned the right name.
It was Calla's job to teach me street theory, which kept me spellbound and happy. Things which I had observed and wondered about were suddenly illuminated: the ways of not drawing attention to yourself, for example; or, conversely, of creating a diversion if a Sherkin trooper approached too closely to something he was not meant to see. Methods of sabotage, of message-leaving, of thieving, of evanishment, of smuggling people and things past sensitive Sherkin noses—a whole street-lore, in short, beautifully adapted to the special and terrible needs of Gil. It seemed to me also that Calla enjoyed these lessons almost as much as I did, perhaps because I was such an avid pupil; I couldn't, of course, flatter myself that it was my company that she enjoyed. That would be expecting too much.
Jebri taught me the fingerspeech, not a difficult task for either of us, since it was rooted in the ancient gestural system. In the old days, and in Exile, the gestures had become ritualized and restricted to use on formal occasions. I had mastered the syntax as a child, but was always too clumsy or rattled to perform it well. This was different, more exciting, a genuine means of communication, at once subtler and more direct than the original motions. Its use was not limited to the Web—many of the things I was learning were used by all Gilmen in their secret battle for survival—but Jebri also taught me the special coded twitches and waggles that only another member of the Web would understand. By the end of a week, I was able to carry out longish conversations with Bekri between lessons with never a word being spoken out loud.
"You learn fast, Lord of Gil," Bekri said over our bowls of soup on the eleventh day after my illness. I returned his smile—when I looked at him now, I hardly saw the scars, only the face of a good friend.
"I have good teachers. But there's still so much to learn, Revered Bekri. The more I hear of the Web, the more I marvel at it."
"It didn't happen all at once. The first years were grim, Tig, very grim, before we learned what we had to do. Sometimes I wonder . . ." His voice died away.
"Yes?"
"I wonder what will happen when you find the Lady at last, and free us from this kind of life? How will we cope with real freedom? What will our street-wise children do when there's no more need to hide?"
I shrugged, and signed with my fingers that life would go on. "You may find freedom an easier lesson," I added aloud.
"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose it's possible." Then he shook himself, and smiled at me. "At any rate, I hope I will live long enough to find out. A month ago, I had no such hope."
I put my spoon down and looked closely at him. He seemed to be aging in front of my eyes; it was hard to believe he was the same man who, only a few weeks before, one-legged and all, had led me a fine chase through the dark streets of the city. At that moment he looked all of his eighty-odd years. I was suddenly frightened. Here was a new kind of burden—his hope was like a sack of lead on my back. I leaned across the gulf between sofa and pallet and took his hand in mine. There was nothing sensible for me to say.
The time came when Faruli no longer looked at me with pursed lips and a frown. He poked at my body, not nearly as well-fatted as before; prodded my sunken belly, peered into my pupils, nodded sombrely. He was a very tall, thin Flamen, lugubrious to an extraordinary degree, whose very appearance should have been enough to scare his patients to death. Still, his tinctures were famous and his treatment the best that could be had in the shadowy underworld of Gil. "Your condition pleases me, my lord," he said in his deep, funereal voice. "You may go outside this afternoon if you wish, but nothing too energetic for the next few days."
He glided out through the curtains. I dressed slowly in a clean tunic and britches, a confused mixture of feelings. Now that the pleasant educational interlude was over, I was afraid again; but I was also eager to get started, and that surprised me.
Mysheba peered through the curtains, tense with excitement. "May I come in, my lord? Faruli says you're better. Good, because there's something Bekri wants you to see." She came in and drew me over to the window, pointing through the slats in the direction of the market. "You'll have to look from here, the fountain isn't visible from the council chamber. Can you see it?"
"Yes." I saw crowds gathering; knots of distant workmen streaming laden out of the marketplace, like ants carrying off crumbs; others straining in teams to erect a framework like a glittering gibbet, close to the fountain. "What is it? What's going on down there?"
"Oh, the Sherank are laying on a bit of public entertainment. They do, now and then, though we're never very entertained." She laughed sourly.
"But what's happening? Why are they tearing down the market?"
"They aren't, just the stalls within a certain distance of Oballef's Fountain. Can you see the man on the white horse?"
"With a red crest on his helmet? Near the gibbet?"
"That's the one. He's Lord Shree, Governor Kekashr's nephew, second in command in Gil. A strange one, Shree. We're told even the Sherank think so."
"How do you mean?"
"It seems he's not quite vicious enough for their liking. I don't know, Tig." Mysheba shrugged. "It's hard to tell one monster from another. Calla exchanged a few words with him once, and she didn't notice any difference. Anyway, he has no qualms about erecting the Gilman's Pleasure. Do you see it?"
"That gibbet-thing?" I squinted at the marketplace. The details I could make out suddenly made sense. "Does that do what I think it does?" I whispered, shocked.
"Are you thinking something awful?"
"Very awful."
"Then you're probably right."
"Great Lady in Gil," I said slowly.
"Never mind that now. The Flamens think you should go, for the experience. Calla's waiting to take you out. Better get changed, then I'll do your face." She threw a bundle of street clothes at me and hurried out of the room.
* * *
11
THE CROWDS SURGED towards the marketplace, not entirely of their own volition. We were goaded on by patrols of gleeful Sherank, rearing their horses, prodding and smacking with their swords for more speed, more terror, more urgency. I got hit on the rump myself with the flat of somebody's sword, moments after Calla and I stepped into the street.
Calla heard the thwack and the hooves behind us. "Don't look back," she muttered. "They like it if you do."
"What's their hurry?" I panted.
"They want the aud
ience in place well before the show begins."
"Oh." I hustled along beside her for a few paces. "You speak of this like a juggling show, or a harp concert—but no Gilmen are depraved enough to enjoy it, are they?"
"You'd be surprised," Calla answered shortly. "But you're right, most hate it."
"Why do they come, then? Why not just stay in their houses?"
Calla sighed patiently. "Because if the Sherank aren't pleased with the turnout, they come and chivvy out everybody they can find, including the sick and the children. Now don't talk, Tig, just remember what I taught you."
I shut up, but not just because I was told to. Where the street joined the market, a Sherkin was sitting on horseback watching the crowds eddy past him. From the red crest on his helmet, I recognized Lord Shree. His visor was pushed up, unlike all the others—and so, for the first time, I looked on the real face of the enemy. It was a lean and dissatisfied face, youngish, leached-looking, as if it spent too much time behind metal; the eyes, which caught mine briefly and then passed on, were deep-set and underscored with purple smudges. It was not really a face to be frightened of—I could imagine my mother clucking over him and sending to the kitchen for a bowl of mutton broth. Then, when I was closest to him, he knocked his visor down and all semblance of personality vanished. He pulled at his reins and rode slowly through the parting crowd towards the mass of horsemen at the fountain.
"Quit gaping," Calla whispered furiously into my ear.
"Was I gaping? Sorry."
"It isn't safe, you know that."
"I said I was sorry," I answered mildly. Under cover of picking my nose, I added a rude twitch of the fingers that Bekri had taught me on the sly. Calla smothered a gasp of laughter. "Sorry," she whispered, "I always dread this."
"I understand. Is it really necessary for us to go?"
"Bekri thought so. It is something you should see—once. And you should see the Sherank in action before you go wandering into their fortress."
"Our fortress," I reminded her.
"They've made it theirs, haven't they? Come on."
We edged our way through the crowd, a little nearer to the Gilman's Pleasure than I really cared to be. It loomed over the marketplace beside the desecrated Lady, a scaffolding about twenty feet tall with a platform at the top, and a second platform about halfway down, reached by a set of stairs. The tall posts and stairs were of dark wood, carved with cruel Sherkin motifs; the platforms were grids made of iron bars, polished to a cold grey brilliance. In its way, it was a beautiful structure. But welded to the nodes of the upper platform were metal spikes about three feet in length, slim and viciously sharp, pointing downwards; and that platform was not fixed, but floating in vertical grooves in the posts, grooves that extended as far down as the lower platform. Its weight was counterbalanced by four enormous leather sacks, attached to the platform by four heavy hawsers running through pulleys. At that moment, the sacks were hanging just below the level of the lower platform.
"Calla?"
"What now?"
"Are there shackles on the lower platform?"
"Yes. Strong ones. You can't see them from this angle, but you'll see the poor shullbait in them soon enough."
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she shook her head. "Hush now, it's not safe to talk in this crowd."
I closed my mouth and looked around in quick, sidelong glances. There were some faces I recognized within a few armlengths, a couple of the junior Flamens, some Web functionaries I had seen in the council chamber but never directly addressed—and, to my surprise and discomfort, Hawelli, miraculously sunken and ugly. Our eyes met; he lifted one hand to adjust his cloak, and flashed a quick greeting with his fingers. Then he was gone, sliding through the crowd towards the bakery. I nudged Calla.
"Hawelli's here."
Her body stiffened. "Where?"
"He went back through the crowd. What's wrong?"
She relaxed. "Nothing, if he's headed for home. The council banned him from attending these executions—the last time he came, he made some stupid trouble that could have endangered the Web."
"That sounds in character. But doesn't the audience ever protest?"
"Yes." Her whisper sank so low that I had difficulty hearing. The mob pressed around us.
"What did you say?"
"I said, yes, once, about sixty years ago, the crowd tried to rescue some poor wretch from the points of the Pleasure. That was the first and last time."
"The Sherank were angry?"
"No, they were delighted. Gil learned its lesson, right enough."
There was a shifting in the crowd like wind through a cornfield. A long parade of Sherkin horsemen, glittering in crimson and polished iron, charged into the square four abreast, parting the crowd with all the courtesy of a butcher's cleaver. They joined Lord Shree and the horsemen at the foot of the Gilman's Pleasure, milling about, waving their swords in the air, roaring bloody war-cries in the Sheranik tongue. A chorus outside the market answered them, and I saw that scores more had surrounded the square and were jocularly charging the fringes of the crowd. One old woman went down under their hooves, then another, then a man—this only seemed to increase the horsemen's pleasure, for there were howls of hilarity behind the snarling helmets.
Lord Shree raised his arm. The shouting cut off abruptly, the riders quieted their mounts. Down the aisle left by the horsemen marched a large body of Sherkin troopers, their boots thudding in unison into the muddy ground. Midway along the array, in a cage carried on a wain, came the object of this terrible exercise: a naked man, bearded and matted and filthy, crouching in a corner with his face pressed to the bars. The crowd was so quiet now that his keening could be heard as an eerie descant to the rhythm of the boots. As the wain pulled up by the Gilman's Pleasure, he fell silent. I caught a glimpse of his face, and looked quickly back at the ground.
Lord Shree dropped his arm. The square was perfectly, weirdly quiet for a moment or two. Then a quartet of troopers marched to the cage and dragged out the wretched occupant. He struggled weakly; small noises came from his throat. I glanced around at the crowd—there was not a flicker of expression visible in the whole marketplace. Choking back despair, anger, compassion, I tried to be as stolid as the rest, but I lacked the experience. Calla nudged me sharply in the ribs.
They half-carried, half-dragged the prisoner up the stairs, threw him down on the lower platform, and busied themselves securing fetters around wrists, ankles, waist and upper arms and legs. The evil snicking of the shackles echoed through the marketplace. When the prisoner was fixed to the platform, the troopers turned and stepped smartly down the stairs, taking up positions beneath the leather sacks.
Lord Shree raised his arm again. "People of Gil, beloved subjects of the Dynasty in Iklankish in Sher, we present to you a dangerous criminal, a traitor who sought to defy the benevolent rule of Kekashr, Governor of Gil."
He spoke in a pleasant, well-modulated voice, in reasonable Gillish, with only a trace of the atrocious Sheranik accent. He paused for a moment, as if pondering the ironies of his own formulae—I wished that he would raise his visor again, so I could see if he was keeping a straight face. Suddenly he roared, "Make no mistake, people of Gil! Any ingratitude, any treachery, will bring any one of you to the same end! Watch this traitor die, people of Gil, and learn to love the justice of Sher. Let the Pleasure begin!"
Again he lowered his arm. The four executioners reached upwards, pulled at something dangling from each of the leather sacks, and stepped aside. From each sack, a thin stream descended. Sand, just as I expected. The heavy upper grid stirred as its equilibrium shifted. Ever so slowly, it began to move downwards in its grooves.
The prisoner jerked in his fetters. His profile was visible from that angle—I could see his mouth stretch wide in a silent scream, his eyes bulge up at the slow, smooth, inexorable advance of the glittering points. When I shut my eyes, I could see it too: the swelling squares of sky through the bars of the gril
le, the points of light sliding closer, as slowly as the dribble of sand through a small hole, so slowly that their approach was almost imperceptible; and at last, the first gentle touch of the spikes, sure and unhurried, minor as the prick of a pin, but insistent, inescapable, sharpening to agony as the sand drained from the counterweights and the heavy grid sank lower. Calla poked me again and disentangled her fingers from mine. (I could not remember taking her hand.) I opened my eyes.
The grid was visibly lower, the points only a span or so from the prisoner's straining body. One could trust the Sherank to position the spikes so that no vital organ would be pierced—the poor wretch was doomed to writhe for some time, perhaps hours, a quivering envelope of flesh around the hard shafts of metal, until at last he died of blood-loss, shock, or simply of pain. Under the Heroic Code, I thought bitterly, I'd be halfway to the Pleasure already, swordstick drawn, panting to slash my way through the Sherank to free him—and a second later, judging by the bloodthirsty faces of Shree's honour guard, I'd be mincemeat. The prisoner would still die, and I with him, and probably many innocent people; and also, of course, Bekri's hopes of the Lady. One grim death against four hundred thousand grim lives. No choice, really. But I found I was shaking with impotent rage.
I forced myself to look at the prisoner again—he was in the same posture precisely, mouth open, eyes wide, body arched; he seemed rigid with fear. Or—with something else? It was very odd that not a muscle had moved in all that time; and then the first gleaming needle-tip touched his belly, and I braced myself for the first flinch, the first scream, but he remained frozen, silent. I nudged Calla and she looked up and saw the same thing. After a second while she figured it out, she signed frantically for me to look anywhere but at the Pleasure.
I glanced around at the crowd, and saw that others had noticed as well, and were quickly turning their faces towards the ground. Only the Sherank, who were watching the crowd instead of the Pleasure, had not yet realized. The prisoner was dead—had been dead well before the spikes even touched him. I breathed a prayer of gratitude to the Lady. However, there was no relief on the faces around me; if anything, there was more terror.
Gil Trilogy 1: Lady in Gil Page 8