The Urth of the New Sun botns-5

by Gene Wolfe

  Then their leader said, “Tell us what you will take for this place. For I warn you we will have it by one means or another, and I cannot much longer restrain the rest.” At that the old woman thought long and hard; and at last she said, “When you build your town, you must put a garden in the midst of it, with trees that blossom and fruit, and humble plants likewise. And in the center of this garden you must erect a statue of me made of precious stuffs.”

  To this they readily agreed, and when they returned to the place with their wives and children, the old woman was no more to be seen. Her hut, her dovecotes, and her rabbit hutches they used for firewood, and they feasted on her produce while they built their town. But in the center of it, as they had sworn, they made a garden; and though it was not a large garden, they promised to make it bigger by and by. In the middle of this garden, they erected a statue of painted wood.

  Years passed; the paint peeled away, and the wood cracked. Weeds sprang up in the flower beds, though there were always a few old women who pulled them out and planted marigolds and hollyhocks, and scattered crumbs for the doves that perched on the shoulders of the wooden figure.

  The town gave itself a grand name and grew walls and towers, though its walls were but little walls to keep out beggars, and owls nested in the empty guardrooms of its towers. Its grand name was not used by travelers or farmers, the former calling the place Pestis and the latter Urbis. Yet many merchants and many outlanders settled there, and it grew until it reached the heels of the mountains, and the farmers sold their fields and meadows and were rich.

  At last a certain merchant purchased the weedy little garden in the center of the Old Quarter and built godowns and shops upon its flower beds. He burned the gnarled old apples and mulberries in his own fireplaces, for wood was dear; and when he burned the wooden woman, ants fled from her to explode among the coals.

  When the harvest was poor, the town fathers took what corn there was and shared it out at the price paid the year before; but a year came when the harvest failed. The merchants demanded to know by what right the fathers of the town did this, for they desired to sell what corn there was for the price it would bring.

  Prompted by the merchants, the town’s many poor asked too, demanding bread at public cost. Then the town fathers recalled that their own fathers had taught them the name by which they governed the town, but none could lay tongue to it. There was fighting and many fires — but no bread — and before the last fire had smoldered out, many had left the town to search for berries and hunt rabbits.

  That town lies in ruins now, all its towers cast down; yet it is said that one old woman remains, who has made a garden at its center among the tumbled walls.

  When I murmured the words I have just written here, Os had nearly vanished; but I remained where I was, leaning on the rail of the little quarterdeck near the stempost, looking back along the upper river that lay gleaming to the north and east.

  This part of Gyoll, below Thrax but above Nessus, is as different from that below Nessus as can be imagined. Though it carries already its burden of silt from the mountains, it flows too swiftly to foul its channel; and because it does not, and is hemmed by rocky hills on either side, it runs as straight as a spar for a hundred leagues.

  Our sails had brought us to the center of the flood, where the current will bear a vessel three leagues in a watch; close-hauled, they gave us just enough way for the rudder to bite the swirling water. The upper world was fair and smiling and full of sunshine, though in the farthest east there was a patch of black no bigger than my thumb. From time to time the breeze that filled our sails died away, and the strange, stiff flags ceased their uneasy stirring and fell lifelessly to the masts.

  I had been aware of two sailors crouched nearby but had assumed they were on watch, waiting to trim the mizzen (our mizzenmast extended through the sun deck) if the need arose. When I turned at last, thinking to go to the bow, they were looking up at me; and I recognized both.

  “We’ve disobeyed you, sieur,” Declan muttered. “But we did it because we love you for our lives. We beg you to forgive us.” He could not meet my eyes.

  Herena nodded. “My arm ached to follow you, sieur. It will cook and wash and sweep for you — do whatever you order it to do.”

  When I said nothing, she added, “It’s only my feet that rebel. They won’t stand idle when you go away.”

  Declan said, “We heard the doom you laid on Os. I can’t write, sieur, but I remember it all, and I’ll find someone who can. Your curse upon that evil city won’t be forgotten.”

  I sat on the deck before them. “It isn’t always good to leave your native place.”

  Herena held out her cupped hand — the hand I had shaped for her — then turned it upside down. “How can it be good to find the master of Urth and lose him again? Besides, I’d have been taken if I’d stayed with Mother. But I’d follow you anywhere, though an optimate waited to wed me.”

  “Did your father follow me too? Or any others? You can’t remain with me unless you’ll tell me the truth.”

  “I’d never lie to you, sieur. No, no others. I would have known them.”

  “Did you really follow me, Herena? Or did you and Declan run ahead of us, just as you ran ahead of us after you’d seen us land from the flying ship?”

  Declan said, “She didn’t mean to lie, sieur. She’s a good girl. It was just a manner of speaking.”

  “I know that. But did you go ahead of me?”

  Declan nodded. “Yes, sieur, we did. She told me the woman had been talking about going to Os the day before. So when you wouldn’t let any of us go with you yesterday…” He paused, rubbing his grizzled chin and ruminating on the decision that had caused him to leave his native village.

  “We went first, sieur,” Herena finished simply. “You said nobody but the woman was to come with you and nobody could follow you. But you didn’t say we couldn’t go to Os at all. We left while Anian and Ceallach were making a staff for you.”

  “So you arrived before we did. And you talked to people, didn’t you? You told them what had happened in your villages.”

  “We didn’t mean any harm, sieur,” Herena said.

  Declan nodded. “I didn’t. That’s what she should say. It wasn’t really her that talked, not until they asked her. It was me, though I’ve always been so slow with my words. Only I’m not, sieur, when I’m talking about you.” He drew in breath, then burst out, “I’ve been beaten before, sieur. Twice by the tax gatherers, once by the law. The second time I was the only man in Gurgustii that fought, and they left me for dead. But if you want to punish me, all you have to do is tell me. I’ll jump into the water right now if you tell me to, though I can’t swim.”

  I shook my head. “You meant no harm, Declan. Thanks to you, Ceryx learned about me, and poor Zama had to die a second death, and a third. But whether all that came to good or evil, I don’t know. Until we reach the end of time, we don’t know whether something’s been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted. How did you learn that I was going to take this ship?”

  The wind was rising; Herena drew her stola more closely around her. “We’d gone to sleep, sieur—”

  “In an inn?”

  Declan cleared his throat. “No, sieur, it was in a tun. We thought it would keep the rain off if it rained. Then too I could sleep at the open end and her in the butt, so there couldn’t anyone get at her without passing me. There was some people that didn’t want us to, but when I had explained how it was to them, they let us.”

  “He knocked two of them down,” Herena said, “but I don’t think he hurt them, sieur. They got back up and ran away.”

  “Then, sieur, when we’d been asleep for a while, a boy came and woke me. He was a potboy, sieur, at the inn where you were, and he wanted to tell me about how you were staying there and he’d served you and you’d brought back a dead man. So then she and I went up to see. There was a lot of people in the taproom, all talking about what had
gone on, and some that knew us because we’d told them about you before. Like the potboy, sieur. They stood us ale because we didn’t have any money, and we got boiled eggs and salt that was free to drinkers there. And she heard a man say you and the woman was going on the Alcyone tomorrow.”

  Herena nodded. “So this morning we came. Our tun wasn’t far from the dock, sieur, and I got Declan up as soon as it was light. The captain wasn’t there yet, but there was a man he’d left in charge, and when we said we’d work if they’d take us, he said all right, and we helped carry things. We saw you come, sieur, and what happened on the bank, and we’ve tried to stay close to you ever since.”

  I nodded, but I was looking toward the bow. Hadelin and Burgundofara had come up and were standing on the forecastle deck. The wind pressed her ragged sailor clothes against her, and I wondered to see how slender she was, remembering Gunnie’s heavy, muscular body.

  Declan whispered hoarsely, “That woman — Down under this floor here, sieur, with the captain—”

  “I know,” I told him. “They lay together last night too, at the inn. I have no claim on her. She’s free to do as she wishes.”

  Burgundofara turned for a moment, glancing up at the sails (which were full now as though big with child) and laughing at something Hadelin had said to her.

  Chapter XXXIV — Saltus Again

  BEFORE NOON we were racing along like a yacht. The wind sang in the rigging, and the first big drops of rain spattered the ship like paint flung at her canvas. From my position by the quarterdeck rail, I watched the mizzentop and main topgallant struck and the remainder of our hamper reefed again and again. When Hadelin came to me, excessively polite, to suggest I go below, I asked him if it would not be wise to tie up.

  “Can’t, sieur. There’s no harbor between here and Saltus, sieur. Wind’d beach us if I tied to the bank, sieur. A blow’s coming, sieur, it is indeed. We’ve rode out worse, sieur.” He dashed away to belabor the mizzen gang and shout obscenities at the helmsman.

  I went forward. I knew there was a chance I would soon be drowned, but I was enjoying the wind and found I did not greatly care. Whether my life had come to its end or not, I had both succeeded and failed. I had brought a New Sun that could not possibly cross the gulf of space in my lifetime — nor in that of any infant born in mine. If we reached Nessus, I would reclaim the Phoenix Throne, scrutinize the acts of the suzerain who had replaced Father Inire (for I felt sure the “monarch” mentioned by the villagers could not be Inire), and reward or punish him as his conduct deserved. I would then live out the remainder of my life amid the sterile pomp of the House Absolute or the horrors of battlefields; and if I ever wrote an account of it, as I had the account of my rise whose final disposal began this narrative, there would be little of interest in it once I had described the termination of this voyage.

  The wind snapped my cloak like a banner and made our lateen foresail flap like the wings of some monstrous bird as the tapered yard bent again and again to spill the blasts. The foresail had been reefed to the last point, and with every gust Alcyone shied toward Gyoll’s rocky shore like a skittish steed. The mate stood with one hand on the backstay, watching the sail and cursing as monotonously as a barrel organ. When he caught sight of me, he stopped abruptly and mouthed, “May I speak with you, sieur?”

  He looked absurd doffing his cap in that wind; I smiled as I nodded. “I suppose you can’t furl the foresail without making her harder to steer?”

  It was just at that moment that the full fury of the storm descended on us. Though so much of her hamper had been struck or reefed, Alcyone was laid on her beam ends. When she righted herself (and to the glory of her builders, she did right herself) the water all around us was boiling with hail, and the drumming of the hailstones on her decks was deafening. The mate sprinted for the overhang of the sundeck. I followed him and was startled to see him fall to his knees as soon as he had gained its shelter.

  “Sieur, don’t let her sink! I don’t want it for me, sieur, I got a wife — two babies — only married last year, sieur. We—”

  I asked, “What makes you think I can save your ship?”

  “It’s the captain, ain’t it, sieur? I’ll see to him, soon as it gets dark.” He fingered the hilt of the long dirk at his side. “I got a couple hands that’s sure to stand by me, sieur. I’ll do it — I swear it to you, sieur.”

  “You’re talking mutiny,” I said. “And nonsense.” The ship rolled again until one end of the main yard was under water. “I can no more raise storms—”

  I was addressing no one. He had bolted from beneath the overhanging deck and vanished into the hail and pouring rain. I seated myself once more on the narrow bench from which I had watched the ship loaded. Or rather, I rushed through the void as I had been rushing through the void since Burgundofara and I had leaped into the black emptiness under that strange dome on Yesod; and as I did, I made the lay figure I moved with strings that might have strangled half Briah sit upon the bench.

  In the space of a dozen breaths, or a hundred, the mate returned with Herena and Declan. He knelt again, while they crouched at my feet.

  “Stop the storm, sieur,” Herena pleaded. “You were kind to us before. You won’t die, but we will — Declan and me. I know we’ve offended you, but we meant well and we beg you to forgive us.”

  Declan nodded mutely.

  I told them all, “Violent thunderstorms are common in autumn. This one will soon pass, like other storms.”

  Declan began, “Sieur…”

  “What is it?” I asked him. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t speak.”

  “We saw you. She and I did. We were up there where you left us when the rain came. The mate here, he ran. You walked, sieur. You walked, and the hail didn’t hit you. Look at my clothes, sieur, or hers.”

  “What do you mean, Declan?”

  The mate mumbled, “They’re soaked, sieur. So’m I. But feel your cloak, sieur, feel your cheeks.”

  I did, and they were dry.

  When it is confronted with the incredible, the mind flies to the commonplace; the only explanation I could think of was that the fabric was of some extern weave that could not be wet, and that my face had been shielded by the hood. I pushed it back and stepped out into the waist.

  With my face turned to the wind, I could see rain streaming toward my eyes and hear the whizzing hail as it passed my ears; but no hailstone ever struck me, and my face and hands and cloak remained dry. It was as though the words — the foolish words, as I had always believed — of the munis had become truth, and all I saw and heard was mere illusion.

  Almost against my will, I whispered to the storm. I had thought to speak as men speak to men, but I found that my lips produced the sounds of soft wind, of distant thunder rolling among the hills, and of the gentle tympanation of the rain of Yesod.

  A moment passed, then another. The thunder rumbled away, and the wind fell. A few hailstones, like pebbles flung by a child, plopped into the river. I knew that with those few words I had called the storm back into myself, and the feeling was indescribable. Earlier I had somehow sent forth my feelings, and they had become a monster as wild as I was then, a monster with the strength of ten thousand giants. Now they were only feelings again, and I was angry again as I had been angry before, and not least angry because I was no longer certain where the line ran between this strange, sordid world of Urth and myself. Was the wind my breath? Or was my breath the wind? Was it the rush of my blood or the song of Gyoll that sounded in my ears? I would have cursed, but I feared what my curse might do.

  “Thank you, sieur. Thank you!”

  It was the mate, kneeling again and ready to kiss my boot if I had been ready to permit it. I made him rise instead and told him that there was to be no murder of Captain Hadelin. In the end I was forced to make him swear it, because I could see that he — like Declan or Herena — would cheerfully have acted in what he felt to be my cause in direct disobedience to my orders. I had become a mir
acle monger whether I liked it or not, and miracle mongers are not obeyed as are Autarchs.

  Of the remainder of that day, as long as the light lasted, there is little to say. I thought much, but I did nothing but wander once or twice from the quarterdeck to the forecastle deck and back, and watch the riverbanks slide by. Herena and Declan, and indeed all the crew, left me strictly alone; but when Urth seemed about to touch the red sun, I called Declan to me and pointed toward the eastern shore, now brilliantly illuminated.

  “Do you see those trees?” I asked. “Some are in ranks and files like soldiers, some in clusters, and some in triangles interlaced. Are those orchards?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I’d my own trees, sieur. Nothing from them this year but green apples for cooking.”

  “But those are orchards?”

  He nodded.

  “And on the west bank too? Are those orchards as well?”

  “The banks are too steep for fields, sieur. If you plow them, the rain washes everything away. But they do well enough in fruit trees.”

  Half to myself I said, “Once I stopped at a village called Saltus. There were a few fields and a few cattle, but it wasn’t until I got farther north that I saw much fruit.”

  Hadelin’s voice surprised me. “Strange you should mention that. Dock at Saltus in half a watch, sieur.”

  He looked like a boy who knows he is to be beaten. I sent Declan away and told Hadelin he had nothing to fear, that I had indeed been angry with him and with Burgundofara too, but that I was angry no longer.

  “Thank you, sieur. Thank you.” He turned aside for a moment, then looked back, meeting my eyes, and said something that required as much moral courage as anything I have ever heard. “You must think we were laughing at you, sieur. We weren’t. In the Chowder Pot, we thought you’d been killed. Then down in your cabin, we couldn’t help it. We were pulled together. She looked at me and me at her. It happened before we knew. Thought we were going to die, after, and I s’pose we nearly did.”