by Tanith Lee
The J’ara girl stepped from the elevator. Dina Sirrid-like, she did not glance back to see if Vel Thaidis followed.
“Please,” Vel Thaidis said. She put her hands to the wall to steady herself as they turned into one of the passages.
“What do you want?”
“I want aqua. I must have it. In the name of the gods—”
“Oh, the gods. Excrement on them,” said the girl casually. “Boiled aqua is more precious than wine. Tech-credits more precious than metal or gems.”
I cannot bear it, the cry came from within Vel Thaidis. But she must. She had borne so much already, she could bear this. Truly, she would. And suddenly, she could. It was as if the gods, the sophisticatedly accepted gods of the estates, the reviled gods of the Slum, spoke in her ears. A strange confidence went through her. She could bear it all. The revelation lasted only a moment. The corridor was turned, and there a basin jutted from the wall, a bright faucet, the girl mocking her before it. “It’s allowed you. Drink then.”
Vel Thaidis went to the basin and pressed the faucet and filled the little drinking thimble repeatedly, and drank and drank the ready-boiled aqua. All the while the gods seemed at her elbow, yet as the cool fluid put out her fever, the gods also drew away. It appeared they had rewarded her valor, yet not allowed her to prove herself. Later, she searched for that sudden moment of self-reliance, and felt only a dim residue of religion, of childish myopic trust.
* * *
• • •
She did not see Tilaia, the “princess,” that Maram. Instead she saw a succession of women, the gilded objects of the house, who mocked her, taunted her, but did her no positive harm. Also she saw an older woman, with lines cracking the thick plastum of her cosmetics. She was ninety years of age, she informed Vel Thaidis, and mistress of Seta—indeed, that was the name by which she would be called: Zenena Seta. The master of the mansion did not trouble himself with the hiring, upkeep, reward or chastisement of his J’ara girls. He dealt only with the credits they brought him. He was to be called the Princes’ Friend. (Many mansion zenens along the Basin were so self-styled, due to constant patronage by the aristos.)
Before Zenena Seta, Vel Thaidis must disrobe. Shamed, affronted, Vel Thaidis nevertheless obeyed without fruitless protest. Something of her former strength had come back to her, the strength of silence, a refusal mentally to take part.
Zenena Seta pronounced Vel Thaidis a fitting acquisition for the mansion. Fifteen gold bracelets collided on Zenena Seta’s bony arms as she magnetized her index seal to a bronze tablet, and fed it in a small machine.
“Give me the possession chip of your apartment,” said Zenena Seta. “From this Maram until and if you are dismissed you’ll sleep here.”
Vel Thaidis handed her the bit of metal which she had never been able to utilize, and the chip was tossed into a chute beneath the table.
Zenena Seta wore a wig of blond spinning, like a robot. Probably the creeping in of age coupled to the near Zenith sun beyond the parasol had crisped her bald. Vel Thaidis had observed bald women and men about the streets.
One of the dark-tunicked women took Vel Thaidis to a huge communal bath chamber, currently empty. A flush of aqua sped from the faucets, and as the woman did not leave her, Vel Thaidis bathed in her presence. When the woman brought a sachet, broke it, and began to knead its contents, the saffron dye of the house, into Vel Thaidis’ hair, she swallowed down her objections and her allergic anger. Such a thing was unimportant; she might be thankful later for its disguise. Vel Thaidis asked, “Is it difficult or simple to serve the tables here?”
“Both,” said the woman.
Dumbness came between them again. Vel Thaidis sensed a peculiar combination of resentment and indifference from her companion.
When the dye had been set and the bath was finished, the woman handed her charge a loose black robe to wear, then took her to a cubicle room. All the living chambers were situated in clusters along the spiraling, twisting corridors, but the woman had indicated panels at intervals which had picture-symbols of baths, closets, foyers, lifts and so on, and pointing hands painted underneath to reveal their direction. The cubicles of the kitchen workers were squeezed together at the rear of the building, and were windowless, yet ventilated by shafts let down from the roof. Enameled fans were set in the ceiling over these shafts, to cool the air on entry; they whirled continually with a relaxing insectile sound. Men and beasts toiled in circles in the cellar, dragging around the wheels which powered the fans.
The cubicle was a few inches larger than the room in the apartment block, though the pallet was stowed against the wall in the same fashion. Another wall was a mirror, and before it stood a small table of plastum-marble, with combs, brushes, slabs and sticks and pots of make-up and a vial of Seta’s individual scent. All these items were obligatory of use, the woman proclaimed. By the mirror, a rod hung with one of the long, light black, full-skirted tunics, a belt of gilt links, gilt sandals.
“Each Jate after J’ara, before you sleep, wash the tunic in the bath chamber. That’s the rule of Seta. The ceiling fans will dry the garment.”
The woman demonstrated (Dina Sirrid had not bothered) how an upright bed was lowered by a lever. Another woman, twin of the other, entered with a jar of anteline milk and a platter of bread, herbs and cheese paste.
“Next Jate, you will be summoned,” the first woman told Vel Thaidis.
To what? Vel Thaidis did not inquire as she crammed the bread into her mouth.
Even this pittance is luxury to me now, and I devour it like an animal, so low have I been brought. But she no longer felt it keenly.
The women went away.
In the milk some of the dry alcohol was mixed, the same as had been in Dina Sirrid’s aqua jar. It drugged Vel Thaidis. She fell on the pallet, on its black sheets, her newly yellow hair on the yellow pillow. She sighed and slept and dreamed of Velday.
She woke once or twice in the Maram, to loud floodings of music from below. She slept through Jate to the fourteenth hour, till a bustle in the passages outside alerted her.
Someone had entered while she slept and left for her a square of paper held on a metal frame. The paper was scrawled with written instructions and bore the seal of Zenena Seta. Perturbed, Vel Thaidis wondered how they had ascertained she could read, then recollected her testing at the building of labor allocation. Doubtless, information had been passed concerning her.
The instructions offered her the facilities of the mansion, including an upper kitchen where she might break her fast. At the kitchen one would come to her and take her for training in her duties.
Vel Thaidis, a princess of Hirz, felt a spasm of nervous fear at the thought of this lesson. But she put the fear from her, and did as she was bidden.
Her reflection had mansion Seta’s hard saffron hair. And presently Seta’s face, lacquered in cosmetics, in rose dusts and gold coarse powders.
The painted pointing hands guided her to the upper kitchen.
Vel Thaidis entered on a gallery, above a wide and steamy area, where great braziers throbbed between the pillars. There seemed few pieces of machinery here, most of the work being done by hand and foot. The toil was basic in the extreme and entailed much physical exertion. Vel Thaidis understood little, as formerly she had known only of the kitchens of the palaces, robot-operated and hidden under the foundations.
But this much she understood. These human menials were a broad step below her own new station. One, dressed in a sleeveless, colorless shift, scrambled to the gallery immediately, to serve her boiling caffea, a cake of the inevitable rough bread and green honey, the delicacy manufactured mechanically from the distillations of flowers.
The hand which settled on Vel Thaidis’ shoulder was timed so perfectly to accord with the end of her meal, it occurred to her she had been watched some while. There in the overheated and urgently laboring kitche
n stood the J’ara girl who had first admitted her.
“The princess wants you.”
“I’m to wait here for training in my tasks.”
“The princess will arrange your training.”
“You mean Zenena Tilaia.”
“I mean the Princess Tilaia.”
There was revealed to be some spurious justification for the title. For one, Tilaia’s chamber was not a cubicle. She was the foremost courtesan of Seta, and lived to suit her position, in an apartment rented from the Princes’ Friend at the apex of the building. No ceiling, but a dome of pale amber crystal which stood open to the parasol sky. Beneath, all was silk and bead-sewn gauzes. Divans poised on many tiny lionag paws of rose metal, prisms glittered and smoking pomanders elevated incense.
In the midst, Tilaia, wrapped in a robe like fiery glass, her nails in the process of manicure, her hair in the process of being dressed by two robot attendants. Princess Tilaia. She looked long at Vel Thaidis. See where you are, her look said. See where I am.
“Are you happy, Thaidis?” Tilaia eventually said.
Vel Thaidis returned the look. Her face was patrician in its silence, though she did not know it, had not calculated its effect.
Tilaia’s mask twitched, then smoothed.
“Are you going to thank me for my kindness?” Tilaia murmured. “My kindness, and the generosity of my Slum-dog brother?”
“I thank you,” Vel Thaidis said. Now, even she herself caught the glare of her own comportment. She must be wary. And yet, more than the coming of amorphous hope with the aqua basin, more than her scornful obedience to her instructions, such as the painting of her face—those acts and attitudes which had followed a renewal of her inner strengths—more than these had made her bold before Tilaia. What was it, then? Tilaia’s absurd title of princess? Tilaia’s pretended aristocracy? No. Another thing . . . which had, as yet, no name.
“Well,” said Tilaia. She glanced at one of the attendants. “Wine,” she said. No hint of Courteous Address. The robot woman moved elegantly and brought her a goblet of thin yellow jade. Tilaia sipped. “This Maram,” said Tilaia, “the prince who is my master, to whom I am mistress—Yune Mek—is to keep his J’ara here, from the eighteenth hour, with certain companions. I intend the nicest girls to amuse him by waiting on us. You shall be one.”
So even the strongest-seeming tower can shake at a planetary tremor. A gong of brass seemed to strike in Vel Thaidis’ breast. Shattered by this immediacy of a meeting, even with a house unknown, she was once more afraid.
“I have no experience. I shall be awkward,” she said. Her voice again betrayed her. Its regal arrogance was astounding. If I am awkward, that voice said, yet are you honored by my lack of skill.
Tilaia threw the jade goblet to her second robot.
“You’re too modest,” said Tilaia. “To carry a few dishes, a flagon, to stand behind a prince’s chair—what is that?”
“You judged rightly in the beginning. I don’t wish to have contact with aristos.”
“Oh, that was your lie in which I humored you. Who in the Slum wants otherwise than to fawn on rich technocrats? Someone may tip you. It may be enough to buy a sumptuous garment. Better, an hour’s use of a robot maid. I should be lost without my robots, Thaidis. But then, I’m extravagant—my prince is generous.” Her eyes narrowed, narrowed, became impenetrable slits. “And he is handsome. Virile and handsome and magnificent. And has many friends.”
Vel Thaidis guessed Tilaia’s power in Seta. She could not dare defy her.
“I beg you to excuse me this,” Vel Thaidis said humbly, lowering her head—all too late. The bow after the regality before was inflaming as acid on a burn.
“I will not,” said Tilaia, her pleasure blatant.
Vel Thaidis thought, she has planned this, intended it. I believe she guesses what I am, have been. But the Yune Meks, if they have heard of my exile, won’t expect me here, won’t know me, a rouged kitchen slut. If she’d prove me that way, she may fail. Or if they learn, then I shall get word to Velday. I have only to survive. And murder is forbidden. I, of all women, should remember that.
The incorporeal gods at her back, Vel Thaidis said quietly, “Since you are a princess, then, I accept your command.”
Tilaia started as if she had been scratched.
“I’ll see to it,” Tilaia said, “you don’t forget who I am. Now, out. Fressa at the door will teach you how to carry a dish.”
Fressa at the door. the J’ara girl, waved Vel Thaidis again to follow.
Vel Thaidis was grateful for an awareness of gods; the very air of the mansion seemed to have grown hostile and electric.
* * *
• • •
At the eighteenth hour, second of Maram, Seta, the Black and Gold, officially opened itself for business. To advertise this event, a spire upon the topmost parapet of the roof was activated and began to give off fluorescent pulses of topaz neon.
A scatter of some two hundred or so customers began to fill the first and second floors. These were the lesser patrons of the J’ara mansions, the scum who, by good luck or lucky villainy, had risen to the surface of the city and gained thereby sufficient credits to visit princely haunts. (Possibly, too, they were the bread by which every mansion lived, the aristos being its sweetmeats and its wine.) Overseers of manufacts, masters and mistresses of Instations and other creatures of the Slum’s human governance. Any, in fact, whose job was equivalent to that of a machine, and who, a few hundred years before, would have had no position in that former era, when mechanisms had care of all work of consequence, however slight. But technology was melting from the Slum, gradually, degree by degree and inch by inch, and men necessarily took up the roles of machines. Computers, those enormous brains which had been the core of the sun-side world, had split into little units to tell time, add sums, effect justice, supply air and feed the millions of mouths. And human hierarchs replaced the lesser computers, and unowned and malnourished slaves replaced the lesser robots. Which had benefited some, those at the surface, or had seemed to. The process, besides, in the long run, was subtle, covering countless decades. Each generation scarcely registered how the vast wheel was running down. Only when some great estate collapsed, abrupt dramatic disaster, did the heads turn. Then, merely in a baying joy to see the favored topple. Not to decipher anything from it of their civilization’s fate.
The third floor of Seta held its lower kitchens, far worse in appearance and frenzy than the private kitchen which served the women’s fifth floor above. Between the third and fifth floors, the fourth and broadest, which was portioned into a series of dining salons and adjoining chambers—the aristocrats’ playground.
On the threshold of this floor, at the eighteenth hour, Vel Thaidis stood, one of ten superficially identical icons.
Having gazed in the mirror at the stranger she had become, Vel Thaidis had secured comfort from her anonymity. To her own eyes, she no longer looked anything like herself. No one could recognize her, unless she determined to reveal her identity. So it had seemed.
None of the J’ara girls, not even Tilaia, had yet arrived. Presently doors of beaten copper slid aside and the kitchen women, Vel Thaidis taking the cue from the rest, moved forward to the brink of a brilliant salon. Intimations of heaven. Pillars of black plastum-marble upheld a roof of sunglobes fired and scented. Flowers bloomed in sculptured urns about the individual tables. Wine stood cooling in jars of mineral crystal. A tank of fluid at the room’s center was continuously, but spasmodically, smashed by three jets of white vapor smoked from the golden nostrils of fish. Gilt fish swam also in the tank, robots.
Unavoidably, immediately, Vel Thaidis thought of the ruined salon at Thar, its basin empty of mechanisms, and claws seemed to fasten on her.
Just then, Tilaia entered by another doorway.
A moment came, which stepped between the measurabl
e shortcomings of the present and a future of trackless, teeming vortexes. It was the moment which separates the final leap, out over the precipice, from the screaming wind, the agony and irrevocable terror of the fall. The moment which divides sanity from unreason. And in that moment, as Vel Thaidis saw Tilaia, garbed in a dress of dark green richly fringed and embroidered, bracelets of green metal on arms and wrists, a collar of sunseyes at her neck, in that moment Vel Thaidis was enabled to gaze at Tilaia, nonplussed, bemusedly seeking—but not yet answered. For a moment, Vel Thaidis could retain her reason. But then the moment was done.
The inchoate questioning within her, the macabre familiarity, all grew sharp-edged and undeniable.
The dress was Vel Thaidis’ own garment, even to its drapery. The dress she had worn to face the council gathered at Hirz, the dress in which she had heard Ceedres’ false evidence believed, her verity disqualified. The dress of which she had stripped in the Lawguard’s transport, along with her bracelets and her jewels, every iota of what Tilaia now carried on her body.
Even then, as reality coursed over Vel Thaidis with its madness, she did not grasp its meaning. She did not have to. The ultimate answer was upon her.
A gilded lattice flew aside, a risen elevator filled the opening revealed. From the elevator emerged a lean sinewy man, a typical zenen of the Slum, but with a bag of belly slung before him which the richer years had added to his frame. On this frame, black silk in the coarse Slum drapery was bordered with jewels, and he was otherwise jeweled at ear, wrist, finger joints and throat, for all the world like one of his girls, for he could be none other than the establishment’s master, the “Princes’ Friend.” His skull was shaved and buffed to a brown and varnished nut; skipping aside, he lowered his skull to his very vitals, a mark of honor to the man who came from the elevator behind him. The man who was Ceedres Yune Thar.