by Gene Wolfe
"We'll get into that later, maybe. Yeah, I've got them staying
here. It's not the first time, either. When I found out about you--if
you're who you say you are--I talked to Loris, just one friend to
another, and he let me have it for taxes. Know how much it was?
Twelve hundred and change. I was going to leave you hanging, keep
talking about tearing the whole thing down. Then Silk came out
here. The great Calde Silk himself! Nobody would believe that now,
but he did. He solved my house like a thief. By Phaea, he was a thief."
Maytera Marble sniffed. It was at once a devastating and a
confounding sniff, the sniff of a destroyer of cities and a confronter
of governments; Blood winced, and she enjoyed it so much that she
sniffed again. "So are you, Bloody."
"Lily." Blood swallowed. "Only your Silk's no better, is he? Not a
dog's right better. So I saw a chance to turn a few cards and have a
little fun by making the whole wormy knot of you squirm. I'd got
your manteion for twelve hundred like I told you, just a little
thankyou from Councillor Loris, and I was going to tell Silk thirteen
hundred, then double that." Blood crossed the room to an inlaid
cabinet, opened it, and poured gin and water into a squat glass.
"Only when I'd talked to him a little, I made it thirteen _thousand_,
because he really thought those old buildings in the middle of that
slum were priceless. And I said I'd sell them back to him for
twenty-six thousand."
Blood chuckled and sat down again. "I'm not really a bad host,
Mama. If I thought that you'd drink it, I'd stand you a drink, even
after you called me a thief."
"I was speaking of fact, Bloody, not calling names. Here in private
you may call me a trull or a trollop any other such filthy sobriquet.
That is what I am, or at any rate what I've been, although no man
but your father ever touched me."
"Not me," Blood told her. "I'm above all that."
"But not above defrauding that poor boy because he valued the
things given to his care, and was so foolish as to imagine you
wouldn't lie to an angur."
Blood grinned. "If I were above that, Mama, I'd be as poor as he
is. Or as he was, anyhow. I don't remember how much time I gave
him to come up with the gelt. A couple of weeks, maybe, or
something like that. Then when I had him crawling, I said that if he
brought me something next week or whatever, I might let him have
a little more time. Then after a couple days, I sent Musk to tell him
I had to have it all right away. I figured he'd come out here again
and beg me for more time, see? It looked like it was going to be a
nice little game, the kind I like best."
Maytera Marble nodded sympathetically. "I understand. I suppose
all of us play wicked little games like that from time to time. I
have, I know. But yours is over, Bloody. You've won. You have
him here, a prisoner in your house. The person who told me that the
councillors were here told me that, too. You have me as well. You
say you wanted to avenge yourself on the foster mother we found
for you, and you bought our manteion so you could avenge yourself
on me, because I gave you life and tried to see that you were taken
care of."
Blood stared at her and licked his lips.
"You've won both games. Perhaps all three. So go ahead, Bloody.
A single shot should kill me, and I saw a lot of slug guns out there in
your foyer. Then the Trivigauntis can kill you for killing General
Saba's adjutant, or Generalissimo Oosik can shoot you for shooting
me. Possibly you'll be given your choice. Would you rather die
justly? Or unjustly?"
When Blood did not reply, she added, "Perhaps you ought to ask
your friend Musk about it. He advises you, from what you've said.
Where is he, anyway?"
"He stayed behind after we brought the doves. He said he had a
couple things to take care of, and he doesn't get into town very
often. I thought maybe your side picked him up when he tried to
come home.
Maytera Marble shook her head.
Blood took a liberal swallow from his glass. "I wasn't going to
shoot you, Mama, and I didn't shoot her. You agreed to that
already. Let's pin it down. In about an hour, the Guard could knock
this house down and kill everybody. I know that. They're not doing
it because they know we've got Silk in here. Isn't that right?"
Maytera Marble nodded. "Free him, turn him over to me, Bloody,
and we'll go away and leave you alone."
"It's not that easy. He's here all right, right here in my house. But
it's the councillors and their soldiers who've got him, not me."
"Then I must speak with them. Take me to them."
"I'll bring them in here," Blood told her, "they're all over." Under
his breath he added, "It's still my hornbussing house, by Phaea's
feast!"
Potto opened the door at the top of the cellar steps and crooked his
finger at Sand. "Bring him up, Sergeant. We're getting them all together."
Sand saluted with a crash of titanium heels, his slug gun vertical
before his face. "Yes, Councillor!" He nudged Silk with the toe of his
right foot, and Silk rose.
He fell as he attempted to mount from the second step to the
third, and again halfway up. "Here," Sand told him, and returned
Xiphias's stick.
"Thank you," Silk murmured. And then, "I'm sorry. My legs feel a
trifle weak, I'm afraid."
Potto said cheerfully, "We're going to try to give you back to your
friends, Patera, if we can get them to take you." Grabbing the front
of Remora's ruined robe, he jerked Silk up the remaining step.
"You'd like to lie down again, wouldn't you? Get in a little nap?
Maybe something to eat? Help us, and you'll get it."
He released Silk so suddenly that he fell a third time. "Has he
tried to escape again, Sergeant?"
Silk did not hear Sand's reply; he was thinking about a great many
things. Among them, names.
His own and Sand's were similar--each had four letters, each
contained a single vowel, and each began with an S. They could not
be related, however, because Sand was a chem and he a bio. Yet
they were related by the similarity of their names. Not inconceivably
(he found it a tantalizing idea). Sand was a cognate, a version of
himself in some whorl of a higher order. Many things the Outsider
had shown him seemed to imply that there were such whorls.
Sand prodded him from behind with the barrel of his slug gun,
and he staggered against a wall.
Since chems were never augurs, it could not be that Sand had
been meant to be an augur. Was it possible then, that he, Silk, had
been meant to be a Guardsman? If he were a Guardsman instead of
a failed augur, the many correspondences (already so marked)
linking them would be much more perfect, and thus this inferior
whorl they inhabited more perfect, too.
But, no his mother had wanted him to enter the Juzqado, to
become a clerk there like Hyacinth's father and perhaps rise to
commissio
ner. How glowingly she had spoken of a political career,
almost up until the day he left for the schola.
"This way," Potto told him, and pushed him through a door and
into a gorgeous room full of lounging soldiers and armored men. "Is
that the calde?" one of the men asked another; the second nodded.
He was in politics at last, as his mother had wished.
He had pulled a chair over to her closet and stood on the seat to
examine the calde's bust on its dark, high shelf; and she, finding him
there intent upon it, had lifted it down for him, dusted it, and set it
on her dressing table where he could see it better--wonder at the
wide, flat cheeks, the narrow eyes, the high, rounded forehead, and
the generous mouth that longed to speak. The calde's carved
countenance rose again before his mind's eye, and it seemed to him
that he had seen it someplace else only a day or two before.
Streaming sunlight, and cheeks that were not smooth wood but
blotched and lightly pocked. Was it possible he had once seen the
calde in person, perhaps as an infant?
"Now listen to me." Potto was standing before him, his plump,
pleasant face half a head lower than Silk's own.
...had seen the calde outside, because even without his lost
glasses he had noticed the powder on the cheeks and the flaws that
the powder tried to cover--had seen him, in that case, under the
auspices of the Outsider, in a sense.
Blood and Maytera Marble were sitting side-by-side when Potto
shoved Silk into the room; he was so surprised to see her that for a
moment he failed to notice Chenille, Xiphias, and a drooping augur
lined up against the wall.
A still handsome elderly man standing by the fireplace said, "I'm
Councillor Loris. I take it you're Silk?"
"Patera Silk. His Cognizance the Prolocutor has not yet accepted
my resignation. May I sit down?"
Loris ignored the last. "You're the insurgent calde."
"Others have called me calde, but I'm not involved in an
insurrection." Potto pushed him to the wall beside Chenille.
Loris smiled, his blue eyes glinting like chips of ice; and the
seduction of his craggy wisdom was so great that even a mocking
smile made it almost irresistible. "You killed my Cousin Lemur, did
you, Calde?"
Silk shook his head.
Maytera Marble said, "I don't know these others, except Chenille.
Shouldn't I introduce myself?"
"I'll do it," Blood told her, "it's my house." With a slight start, Silk
realized that Blood was in the chair he had occupied a week earlier,
and that this was the same room.
"This is Councillor Loris," Blood began unnecessarily, "the new
presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento. This other councillor's
Councillor Potto."
"Calde Silk and Councillor Potto are old acquaintances," Loris
purred. "Isn't that right, Calde?"
"I don't know this soldier myself," Blood continued, and paused to
sip his drink. "It probably doesn't matter."
"Sergeant Sand," Silk told him. "He and Councillor Potto interrogated
me Tarsday. It was very painful, and I suppose it's quite
possible they're going to do it again."
Sand came to attention and appeared about to speak, but Silk
stopped him with a gesture. "You were only doing your duty.
Sergeant. I understand. In justice to you, I ought to add that you
had treated me well earlier."
Potto said, "We won't need you here, Sergeant. You know what
to do." Sand looked at Silk, saluted, executed an about-face, and
left, shutting the door behind him.
"A very handsome young man," Maytera Marble remarked. "I was
sorry to hear that he behaved badly toward you, Patera."
Blood indicated her with his glass. "This holy sibyl's Maytera
Rose--"
Chenille tittered nervously. Maytera Marble said, "I'm Maytera
Marble, Bloody. Remember? I explained about that. Chenille and I
have met, and naturally Patera knows me well."
"Patera _Silk_, she means," elucidated the small augur in the corner.
"I, _too_, am entitled to the honorific, as well as my more customary ones.
Calde, I have been appointed the new _Prolocutor_ of _Viron_ by
_Subleviating Scylla_, who during that same _theophany_ confirmed
_you_ as its calde. Am _I_, as I _dare hope_, the first
to--"
Silk managed to smile. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Patera."
Chenille blurted, "Why weren't you dead? I've just been standing
here... We couldn't, none of us--"
Xiphias cackled. "He's a tough one! Student of mine, too! Truth!"
Silk said, "Maytera, do you know Master Xiphias? Master Xiphias
is teaching me to fence. Master Xiphias, this holy sibyl is Maytera
Marble. She's the senior sibyl now at my-- Of the manteion on Sun
Street."
Maytera Marble added softly, "I'm also the representative of our
Generalissimo Oosik and the Trivigauntis' General Saba, Patera.
I've come to arrange your release."
His voice thick with mock sincerity, Loris said, "We hold the key
to the crisis now, you see, the generous gods having flung the ring
into our laps. How foolish are those who scorn the power of the
immortal gods!"
A black shape darted through the open window, landing with a
thump on Silk's shoulder. "Bird back!"
"Oreb!" Silk looked around at him, surprised and more pleased
than he would have been willing to admit.
"_Scourging Scylla_," ignoring Oreb, Incus had leveled his forefinger
at Loris, "has given _you_ nothing."
"In that case, we have gained our present advantage by merit."
Loris smiled. "We thank the undying, ever-generous gods for our
talents."
Oreb cocked an inquiring head. "Good gods?"
"She will _destroy_ all of you, should you harm _either_ of the holy
augurs present, or this _sibyl_. We are _sacred_."
"We'll risk her wrath if need be. Old man, stop reaching for your
sword. It's gone. Were you thinking of overpowering us?"
Xiphias shook his head. "You think I don't know there's soldiers
out there?"
"You could not even if there were none." Loris took a bookend
from the mantle; it shattered between his fingers with a sharp
report and an explosion of snowy chips. The door flew open,
revealing Sand and two other soldiers with leveled slug guns.
Oreb whistled.
Potto told them, "It's all right. Shut it."
"Calde Silk is a strong young man, but he's been severely
wounded. You are an old one, unarmed, and not as strong as you
suppose. Our new Prolocutor's not physically imposing. Need I
continue?"
Silk said, "I can understand how you came to be in the tunnel,
Master Xiphias--both you and His Cognizance. You ran for cover
just as Hyacinth and I did--"
Blood interrupted. "You've got her? Where is she?"
"I don't. I had her, if you like. We were separated." Turning back
to Xiphias, Silk continued, "After you dug me out of the loose soil,
you went down the tunnel to look for water with Chenille and
Patera, leaving His Cognizance with me--w
ith my body, as you
thought. Is that right?"
Xiphias nodded.
"Only we didn't think your body," Chenille told Silk, "We knew
you were alive. His Cognizance said there was a pulse, only we
didn't understand how you could be alive after getting buried like
that."
Loris rattled what remained of the bookend in his hand. "What
puzzles me--excuse my interrupting your conference--is your
mention of His Cognizance. I take it you don't refer to our friend,
but to the actual head of the Chapter? Was he in the tunnel with
you, Calde?"
"Yes, he was. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it."
Potto said happily, "He's an old man. One of the patrols will pick
him up, Cousin."
"A clever old man." Loris looked grim. "A troublemaker."
Privately, Silk was trying to reconcile Quetzal's telling Chenille
that he, Silk, was alive with his saying that they had thought him
dead. He had lied in one or the other, but why?
"Bad thing!" Oreb told everyone.
Silk ventured, "A patrol headed by Sergeant Sand--one like the
patrol that arrested me originally, I suppose--must have come
across Master Xiphias, Patera Incus, and Chenille. I was surprised
to see them here, but I believe I understand now. Sand must have
sent the other man back here with them and gone on alone until he
found me, perhaps because he'd heard my voice--I'd been talking
to His Cognizance. Is that correct?"
"Where is this tunnel, Patera?" Maytera Marble asked. "Are you
talking about a tunnel underneath the house?"
Potto grinned at her, displaying gleaming teeth.
Blood put down his drink. "Yeah, we're right over it, Mama, and
it hooks up with a bunch of others."
Loris told her, "That's the first item you ought to pass on to your
principals, Maytera. They think they have us like rats in a cauldron.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We can leave this house,
and them, whenever we wish."
Blood added, "Only I don't want to. It's my house."
She looked thoughtful, a finger pressed to her cheek.
"Bad hole." Oreb ruffled his feathers apprehensively. Chenille
whispered, "Your bird was down there with us. Auk had him on the
boat."
"You're sunburned!" Inwardly, Silk reproached his own stupidity.
"I've been looking at you--gaping actually, I suppose. I hope you'll
excuse it, but I couldn't imagine how your face had gotten so red, so