by Gene Wolfe
Silk nodded, wondering whether she realized how much he wanted to touch her. "I believe you, my daughter. If you wish me to know the truth, however, you must tell me. How did it appear to you at the time?"
"Crane was a friend, just like I said yesterday. He was nice, and he brought me things, when he didn't have to. You remember about the bouquet of chenille? Little stuff like that, but nice. Most of the girls like him, and sometimes I gave him a free one. He's got a thing for big girls. He sort of laughs about it."
Silk said, "He's sensitive about his height; he told me so the first time we met. It may be that a tall woman makes him feel taller. Go on."
"So that's how it's been with us ever since I moved into Orchid's place. He didn't say, I want you to do some spying, so promise to sell out your city and I'll give you a uniform. We were talking a couple months ago, four or five of us in the big room when Crane was there. There were jokes about what he does when he looks us over. About the checkups. You know the kind of thing?" "I don't," Silk admitted wearily, "though I can readily imagine."
"Somebody let it drop that a commissioner had been in, and Crane kind of whistled and asked who hooked him. I said it was me, and he wanted to know if he gave me much of a tip. Then later, when he was looking me over, he wanted to know if this commissioner happened to mention the Caldé."
Silk's eyebrows shot up. "The Caldé?"
"That's the way I felt, Patera. I said no, he didn't, and I thought the Caldé was dead. Crane said, yeah, sure, he is. But when we were done and I was getting dressed, he said that if this commissioner or anybody else ever said anything about the Caldé or the Charter, he'd like for me to tell him about it, or if he said anything about a councillor. Well, he had said something about councillors-"
"What was it?" Silk asked.
"Just that he'd gone out to the lake to see a couple of them, Tarsier and Loris. I went oh! and ah! the way you're supposed to, but I didn't think it sounded like it was very important. Crane just sort of stopped when I told it. You know what I mean?"
"Certainly."
"Then when I was dressed and going out, he was coming out of Violet's room and he passed me this folded up paper. He stuck it-you know, Patera-right down here. When I was alone I pulled it out and looked, and it was a bearer draft for five cards, signed by some cull I never even heard of. I thought probably itwas no good, but I was going up that way anyhow, so I took it to the fisc and they gave me five cards for it, no who are you or how'd you get hold of this at all. Just like that, five cards slap on the counter." Chenille paused, waiting for his reaction. "How often do you think I snaffle a dimber five-card tip like that, Patera?"
He shrugged. "Since you've entertained a commissioner, once a month, perhaps."
"Not counting that one, I've got two in my whole life and that's lily. At Orchid's the cully's forked ten bits to get in and look at the dells, and then he's got to pay me a card-I've got to split with Orchid-unless it's somebody like that commissioner. He gets in free and gets it free, because nobody wants trouble. The best of everything and keep telling him how good he is, and usually he don't tip, either. From the ones that pay, I get a card like I said. That's for all night if they want it. So if the first one does and he won't tip, I clear half a card for the whole night."
Silk said, "I know people who don't get half a card for a week's hard work."
"Sure you do. Why do you think we do it? But what I'm saying is that in a good week, with tips, I might clear four or five. Maybe six. Only if it is, next week'll be two or three every time. So here I've got as much as I'd make in a good week, just for telling Crane something this commissioner said. Real candy! You're going to tell me I should've known, but I didn't think much about it back then, and that's lily." Chenille paused again, as if anticipating an accusation. Silk murmured, "So that was how it began. What about the rest, my daughter?"
"Since then I've passed along maybe six or eight other things and taken things to a couple people for him dayside. Then if a commissioner or maybe a colonel-somebody like that, you know?-comes in, I'm really nice to them and I don't work them for tips and presents or anything like the other dells would. It's got to where they ask for me when I'm not around."
The night chough stirred uneasily on top of the curio cabinet, his head cocked inquiringly and his long, crimson beak half open.
"So ever since I saw Orpine on ice, I've been thinking." Chenille drew her chair nearer Silk's and lowered her voice. "You've got to fork twenty-six thousand to Blood if you want to hang onto this place? That's what Musk said." Silk's head inclined less than a finger's width. "All right, then. Why don't you-why don't you and me get it from Crane, Patera?"
"Man here," Oreb warned them. "Out there." Chenille glanced up at him apprehensively. "There now," Oreb insisted. "No knock."
Chapter 4
THE PROCHEIN AMI
Silk rose as silently as he could, irresistibly reminded of his failure to surprise Musk and Chenille earlier. Leaving Blood's walking stick beside his chair, he crossed the room to the Sun Street door, snatched the heavy bar out of its fittings and (retaining the bar in his left hand for use as a weapon if necessary) jerked the door open.
The tall, black-robed man waiting in the street beyond the step did not appear in the least surprised. "Did my presence here-ah-disturb you, Patera?" he inquired in a reverberant, nasal voice. "I strove to be discreet and - um-unobtrusive. Do you follow me? Subdued, eh? Not so skillful about it, perhaps. I'd reached your door before I heard the-ah lady's voice."
Silk leaned the bar against the wall. "I know that it's somewhat irregular, Your Eminence -" "Oh, no, no, no! You have your reasons, I'm certain, Patera." The black-robed man bowed from the waist. "Good evening, my dear. Good evening, and may every god be with you this night." He favored Silk with a toothy smile that. gleamed even in the glimmering light from the sky-lands. "I took great care to stand well out of the-ah-zone of-um-listening, Patera. Audibility? Earreach. Beyond the-ah-carry of the lady's voice. I could hear voices, I confess, save when a cart passed, if you follow me. But not one word you said. Couldn't make out a single thing, hey?" He smiled again. "Sweet Scylla, bear witness!"
Silk left the manse to stand upon its doorstep. "I'm exceedingly soRRy that I was so abrupt, Your Eminence. We heard-I should say we were told-"
"Perfectly proper. Patera." One hand flipped up in a gesture of dismissal. "Quite, quite correct."
"-that there was someone outside, but not who-" Silk took a deep breath. "Your business must be urgent, or it wouldn't have brought you out so late, Your Eminence. Won't you come in?"
He held the door, then barred it again when the black-robed man had entered. "This is our sellaria, I'm afraid. The best room we have. I can offer you water and-and bananas, if you'd like some." He recalled that he had not yet explored Kit's sack. "Perhaps some other sort of fruit, as well."
The black-robed man waved Silk's fruit away. "You were advising this young lady, weren't you. Patera? Not shriving her, I hope. Not yet at least, though I didn't understand a word. I'd recognize the-ah-cadence of the Pardon of Pas, or so I fancy, having performed it so many, many times myself. The litany of Sacred Names, hey? Speak here for Great Pas, for Divine Echidna, for Scalding Scylla, and the rest. And I heard nothing like that. Nothing at all."
Chenille, who had followed Silk to the door and stood behind him in the doorway, inquired, "You're an augur, too, Patera?"
The black-robed man bowed again, then held up the voided cross he wore; its gold chain gleamed like the Aureate Path itself in the dingy little sellaria. "I am indeed, my dear. One quite, quite capable of discretion, or I should not be where I am today, eh? So you've nothing to fear, not that I overheard a single word you said."
"I'm confident that I can trust you implicitly, Patera. I was about to say that Patera Silk and I are liable to be quite some time. I can go somewhere else and come back in an hour or two-however much time you estimate that you may require."
Silk stared at
her, astonished.
"Such a lady as you, my dear? In this quarter? I would not-ah-will not hear of it. Not for a single instant! But perhaps I might have a word with Patera now, eh? Then I'll be on my way."
"Of course," Chenille told him. "Please disregard, me completely, Your Eminence."
He was more than half a head taller than Silk (though Silk was nearly as tall as Auk) and at least fifteen years his elder. Thin, coal-black hair spilled down his forehead; he tossed his head to keep it out of his eyes as he spoke. "It is Patera Silk, hey? I don't believe I've had the-ah-pleasure, Patera. I'm a perfect stranger, eh? Or nearly. Near as makes no matter. I wish it weren't so. Wish that-ah-that we met now as old acquaintances, eh? Though I did you a bad turn, eh? Couple of years ago. I admit it. I acknowledge it. No question about, it, but I've got to do what's best for the Chapter, eh? The Chapter's our mother, after all, and bigger than any man. I'm Remora."
He turned his smile on Chenille. "This young beauty may prefer to maintain an-ah-ah-discreet anonymity, eh? That might be the prudent course, hey? However she prefers, and no offense taken."
Chenille nodded. "If you don't object, Patera."
"No, no, indeed not." Remora's hand waved negligently. "Indeed not. Why I-ah-advise it myself."
Silk said, "You attended my graduation, Your Eminence. You were on the dais, to the right of our Prelate. I don't expect you to remember me."
"Oh, but I do! I do! Won't you sit, my dear? I do indeed, Silk. You received honors, after all, eh? Never forget the sprats that get those. You were quite the huskiest cub the old place could show that year. I recall remarking to Quetzal-the Prolocutor, my dear, and I ought to have said His Cognizance. Remarking afterward that you ought to have gone into the arena, eh? So we-ah-ah-sent you there. Yes, we did! Merely a jest, to be sure. I was-um-I am responsible. My fault, all of it. That you were sent here, I mean. To this quarter, this manteion. I suggested it." With a sidelong glance at the wreckage of the table upon which Musk had fallen, Remora lowered his lanky body into Silk's reading chair. "I urged it-sit down, Patera-and dear Quetzal quite agreed."
"Thank you, Your Eminence." Silk sat. "Thank you very much. I couldn't have gone to a better place." "Oh, you don't mean it. I can't blame you. Not at all, eh? Not at all. You've had a miserable time of it. I-ah-we know that, Quetzal and I. We realize it. But poor old - um-your predecessor. What was his name?"
"Pike, Your Eminence. Patera Pike."
"Quite right. Patera Pike. What. if we'd sent poor old Pike one of those rabbity little boys, ell? Killed and eaten him on the first day, in this quarter, eh? You know it now, Patera, and I knew it then. So I suggested to Quetzal that we send you, and he saw the logic of it straight off. Now here you are, hey? All alone. Since Pike left for-ah-purer climes? You've done a fine, fine job of it, too, Patera. An - ah-exceptional job. I don't think that's too strong an expression."
Silk forced himself to speak. "I would like to agree, Your Eminence." The words came singly and widely spaced, as heavy as waystones. "But this manteion has been sold. You must know about that. We couldn't even pay taxes. The city seized the property; I assume that the Chapter was notified, though I was not. The new owner will certainly close the manteion and the palaestra, and he may well tear them both down."
"He's worked hard, my dear," Remora told Chenille. "You don't live in the quarter, eh? So you can't know. But he has. He has."
Silk said, "Thank you, Your Eminence. You're very kind. I wish, though, that there were no need for your kindness. I wish I had made a success of this manteion, somehow. When I thanked you for assigning me here, I wasn't being polite. I don't really love this place-these cramped old, run-down buildings and so forth, though I used to try to make myself believe I did. But the people - We have a great many bad people here. That's what everyone says, and it's true. But the good ones have been tried by fire and remained good in spite of everything that the whorl could throw against them, and there's nothing else like them in the whorl. And even the bad ones, you'd be surprised-"
At that moment, Oreb fluttered into Chenille's lap with Musk's knife in his beak.
"Hey? Extraordinary! What's this?"
"Oreb has a dislocated wing," Silk explained. "I did it by accident, Your Eminence. A physician put the bone back in the socket yesterday, but it hasn't healed yet."
Remora waved Oreb's woes aside. "But this dagger, hey? Is it yours, my dear?"
Chenille nodded without a trace of a smile. "I threw it to illustrate a point that I was making to Patera Silk, Your Eminence. Now Oreb's kindly returned it to me. He likes me, I think."
Oreb whistled.
"You threw it? I don't want-ah-intend to appear skeptical, my dear-"
Chenille's hand flicked in the direction of the cabinet, and the wainscotting above its top boomed like a kettledrum. With its blade half buried in oak. Musk's knife did not even vibrate.
"Oh! O you gods!" Remora rose and went to examine the knife. "Why, I'd never- This is really most-ah-um - most…" He grasped the hilt and tried to pull the knife out, but was forced to work it back and forth. "There's only the single scar here, one-um-hole in the wood."
"I thought Patera Silk would prefer that I mark his wall as little as possible," Chenille told him demurely.
"Hah!" Remora gave a snort of triumph as he succeeded in freeing the knife; he returned it with a profound bow. "Your weapon, my dear. I knew that this quarter is said to be-ah-rough? Tough. Lawless. And I observed the broken table. But I hadn't realized… Patera, my - ah-our admiration for you was already very great. But it's-um-mine's now, well…" He seated himself again. "That's what I was about to remark, Patera. You may possibly imagine that we-um-Quetzal and I-"
His attention shifted to Chenille. "As this good augur knows, I am His Cognizance's-ah-prochain ami, my dear. Doubtless you are already familiar with the-ah- um-locution. His adjutant, as they would say it in the Guard. His coadjutor, hey? That's the-ah-formal official phraseology, the most correct usage. And I was about to say that we have been following Patera's progress with attention and admiration. He has had difficulties. Oh, indeed! He has encountered obstacles, eh? His has been no easy field to plow, no-um-quiet pasture, this manteion, poor yet dear to the immortal gods."
Chenille nodded. "So I understand. Your Eminence." "He ought to have come to us for-ah-assistance, eh? He ought to have appealed, frankly and fbrthrightly, to His Cognizance and to me. Ought to have laid his case before us, so to speak. Do you follow me? But we, still more, hey? We still more ought, to have proffered our assistance without any of that. Yes, indeed! Proffered the ready assistance of the Chapter, and-ah-more. Much more. And much sooner than this."
"I couldn't get in to see you," Silk explained somewhat dryly. "Your prothonotary kindly informed me that a crisis was occupying all your attention."
Remora wheezed. "Doubtless one was, Patera. Frequently it seems that my sole task, my-ah-entire duty consists of wrestling with an unending-um-onrushing and-ah-remorseless torrent of continually worsening - crises."
Blowers roared to the west, louder and louder as an armed Civil Guard floater roared along Sun Street. Remora paused to listen.
"It's our-ah-invariable policy with young augurs, Patera, as you must understand, to-ah-permit them to try their wings. To observe their first flights, as it were, from a distance. To thrust them rudely from the nest, if I may say it. You follow me? It is an examination you have passed very-um-creditably indeed."
Silk inclined his head. "I'm gratified, Your Eminence, although thoroughly conscious that I'm not entitled to such praise. This may be the best opportunity I'll have, however, to report-I mean informally-the very great honor that was accorded to our troubled manteion today by the-"
"Troubled did you say, Patera? This manteion?" Remora smiled all difficulties away. "It has been-ah- um-well, sold, as you say. But the sale is only a legality, eh? You follow me? A mere contrivance or-ah-stratagem of old Quetzal's, actually. The new owners-ah. The name is-the name�
��"
"Blood," Silk supplied.
"No, that's not it. Something more common, hey?"
Chenille murmured, "Musk?"
"Quite, quite correct. Musk, indeed. Rather a foolish name, hey? If I may put it so. Infants do not, as a rule, smell half so-ah-sweet. But this Musk has paid your taxes. That's how he got it. You follow me? For the taxes and some trifling amount over. These buildings are in need of-ah-refurbishing, eh? As you pointed out yourself, Patera. We'll let him do it, hey? Why not? Let him bear the expense, and not the burse, eh? Eventually he'll donate everything to us again. Give it all back to the Chapter, eh? A meritorious act."
Chenille shook her head. "I doubt-"
"We have ways, my dear, as you'll see. Dear old Quetzal has, most particularly. He's very good at it. His-ah- um-consequence as the Prolocutor of the Chapter. And his influence with the Ayuntamiento, eh? He has plenteous-ah-standing there even yet, never doubt it. An arsenal of pressures that he-ah-that we can, and will, exert in any such an eventuality as-ah-this present instance. As yours here on Sun Street, Patera."
Silk said, "Musk is no more than the owner of record, Your Eminence. Blood controls this property, and Blood is threatening to tear down everything."
"Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You'll see, Patera." Remora flashed his toothy smile again. "It will not occur- ah-come to pass. No fear. No fear at all. Or if it should, the old structures will be replaced with better ones. That would be the best way, eh? Rebuilt in a better style, and upon a more-ah-commodious scale. I must remember to speak to Quetzal about it tomorrow when he has had his beef tea."
Remora inclined his head toward Chenille. "He's quite fond of beef tea, is old Quetzal. Doubtless Patera knows. These things get bandied about, you know, among us. Like a bunch of-um-washerwomen, eh? Gossip, gossip. But dear old Quetzal should eat more, hey? I'm forever after him about it. A man can't live on beef tea and air, hey? But Quetzal does. Feeble, though."
He glanced at the clock above the sellaria's diminutive fireplace. "What I-ah-ventured out to inform you of, Patera Silk- You see, my dear, I'm terribly selfish. Yes, even after half a lifetime spent in the pursuit of-ah-sacrosanctity. I wished to inform him myself. Patera, you shall no longer labor alone. I said-um-earlier, eh? I assured you that your struggles had not gone unnoticed, hey? But now I can say more, as I-ah-most certainly shall. As I do. An acolyte, a youthful augur who only in the springtide of this very year completed his studies with honors-um. As you yourself did, Patera. I-ah-we are very aware of that. With a prize, I was about to say, for hierologics will arrive in the morning. You yourself shall know the joy of leading this promising neophyte down the very paths that you yourself have traversed with so much credit. You have two bedrooms, I believe, upstairs here? Please have the less-ah-vantaged prepared to receive Patera Gulo."