by Gene Wolfe
“Aren’t you coming?”
She had already reached the top of the stair, nearly out of sight. Someone spoke to her, calling her “my dearest sister,” and when I had gone up a few steps more I saw it was a woman very like the one who had been with Vodalus, she of the heart-shaped face and black hood. This woman paid no heed to me, and as soon as I gave her room to do so hurried down the stair.
“You see now what you might have had if you’d only waited for one more to come out.” A smile I had learned to know elsewhere lurked at one corner of my paphian’s mouth.
“I would have chosen you still.”
“Now that is truly amusing—come on, come with me, you don’t want to stand in this drafty hall forever. You kept a perfectly straight face, but your eyes rolled like a calf’s. She’s pretty, isn’t she.”
The woman who looked like Thecla opened a door, and we were in a tiny bedroom with an immense bed. A cold thurible hung from the ceiling by a silver-gilt chain; a lampstand supporting a pink-tinted light stood in one corner. There was a tiny dressing table with a mirror, a narrow wardrobe, and hardly room enough for us to move.
“Would you like to undress me?”
I nodded and reached for her.
“Then I warn you, you must be careful of my clothes.” She turned away from me. “This fastens at the back. Begin at the top, at the back of my neck. If you get excited and tear something, he’ll make you pay for it—don’t say you haven’t been told.”
My fingers found a tiny catch and loosed it. “I would think, Chatelaine Thecla, that you would have plenty of clothes.”
“I do. But do you think I want to return to the House Absolute in a torn gown?”
“You must have others here.”
“A few, but I can’t keep much in this place. Someone takes things when I’m gone.”
The stuff between my fingers, which had looked so bright and rich in the colonnaded blue room below, was thin and cheap. “No satins, I suppose,” I said as I unfastened the next catch. “No sables and no diamonds.”
“Of course not.”
I took a step away from her. (It brought my back almost to the door.) There was nothing of Thecla about her. All that had been a chance resemblance, some gestures, a similarity in dress. I was standing in a small, cold room looking at the neck and bare shoulders of some poor young woman whose parents, perhaps, accepted their share of Roche’s meager silver gratefully and pretended not to know where their daughter went at night.
“You are not the Chatelaine Thecla,” I said. “What am I doing here with you?” There was surely more in my voice than I had intended. She turned to face me, the thin cloth of her gown sliding away from her breasts. I saw fear flicker across her face as though directed by a mirror; she must have been in this situation before, and it must have turned out badly for her. “I am Thecla,” she said. “If you want me to be.”
I raised my hand and she added quickly, “There are people here to protect me.
All I have to do is scream. You may hit me once, but you won’t hit me twice.”
“No,” I told her.
“Yes there are. Three men.”
“There is no one. This whole floor is empty and cold—don’t you think I’ve noticed how quiet it is? Roche and his girl stayed below, and perhaps got a better room there because he paid. The woman we saw at the top of the stair was leaving and wanted to speak to you first. Look.” I took her by the waist and lifted her into the air. “Scream. No one will come.” She was silent. I dropped her on the bed, and after a moment sat down beside her. “You are angry because I’m not Thecla. But I would have been Thecla for you. I will be still.” She slipped the strange coat from my shoulders and let it fall. “You’re very strong.”
“No I’m not.” I knew that some of the boys who were afraid of me were already stronger than I.
“Very strong. Aren’t you strong enough to master reality, even for a little while?”
“What do you mean?”
“Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real. What is the Autarch but a man who believes himself Autarch and makes others believe by the strength of it?”
“You are not the Chatelaine Thecla,” I told her. “But don’t you see, neither is she. The Chatelaine Thecla, whom I doubt you’ve ever laid eyes on. No, I see I’m wrong. Have you been to the House Absolute?”
Her hands, small and warm, were on my own right hand, pressing. I shook my head.
“Sometimes clients say they have. I always find pleasure in hearing them.”
“Have they been? Really?”
She shrugged. “I was saying that the Chatelaine Thecla is not the Chatelaine Thecla. Not the Chatelaine Thecla of your mind, which is the only Chatelaine Thecla you care about. Neither am I. What, then, is the difference between us?”
“None, I suppose.”
While I was undressing I said, “Nevertheless, we all seek to discover what is real. Why is it? Perhaps we are drawn to the theocenter. That’s what the hierophants say, that only that is true.”
She kissed my thighs, knowing she had won. “Are you really ready to find it? You must be clothed in favor, remember. Otherwise you will be given over to the torturers. You wouldn’t like that.”
“No,” I said, and took her head between my hands.
10. THE LAST YEAR
I think it was Master Gurloes’s intention that I should be brought to that house often, so I would not become too much attracted to Thecla. In actuality I permitted Roche to pocket the money and never went there again. The pain had been too pleasurable, the pleasure too painful; so that I feared that in time my mind would no longer be the thing I knew.
Then too, before Roche and I had left the house, the white-haired man (catching my eye) had drawn from the bosom of his robe what I had at first thought was an icon but soon saw to be a golden vial in the shape of a phallus. He had smiled, and because there had been nothing but friendship in his smile it had frightened me.
Some days passed before I could rid my thoughts of Thecla of certain impressions belonging to the false Thecla who had initiated me into the anacreontic diversions and fruitions of men and women. Possibly this had an effect opposite to that Master Gurloes intended, but I do not think so. I believe I was never less inclined to love the unfortunate woman than when I carried in my memory the recent impressions of having enjoyed her freely; it was as I saw it more and more clearly for the untruth it was that I felt myself drawn to redress the fact, and drawn through her (though I was hardly conscious of it at the time) to the world of ancient knowledge and privilege she represented. The books I had carried to her became my university, she my oracle. I am not an educated man—from Master Palaemon I learned little more than to read, write, and cipher, with a few facts concerning the physical world and the requisites of our mystery. If educated men have sometimes thought me, if not their equal, at least one whose company did not shame them, that is owing solely to Thecla: the Thecla I remember, the Thecla who lives in me, and the four books. What we read together and what we said of it to one another, I shall not tell; to recount the least of it would wear out this brief night. All that winter while snow whitened the Old Yard, I came up from the oubliette as if from sleep, and started to see the tracks my feet left behind me and my shadow on the snow. Thecla was sad that winter, yet she delighted in talking to me of the secrets of the past, of the conjectures formed of higher spheres, and of the arms and histories of heroes millennia dead.
Spring came, and with it the purple-striped and white-dotted lilies of the necropolis. I carried them to her, and she said my beard had shot up like them, and I should be bluer of cheek than the run of common men, and the next day begged my pardon for it, saying I was that already. With the warm weather and (I think) the blossoms I brought, her spirits lifted. When we traced the insignia of old houses, she talked of friends of her own station and the marriages they had made, good and bad, and how such and such a one ha
d exchanged her future for a ruined stronghold because she had seen it in a dream; and how another, who had played at dolls with her when they were children, was the mistress now of so many thousands of leagues. “And there must be a new Autarch and perhaps an Autarchia sometime, you know, Severian. Things can go on as they have for a long while. But not forever.”
“I know little of the court, Chatelaine.”
“The less you know, the happier you will be.” She paused, white teeth nibbling her delicately curved lower lip. “When my mother was in labor, she had the servants carry her to the Vatic Fountain, whose virtue is to reveal what is to come. It prophesied I should sit a throne. Thea has always envied me that. Still, the Autarch…”
“Yes?”
“It would be better if I didn’t say too much. The Autarch is not like other people. No matter how I may talk sometimes, on all of Urth there is no one like him.”
“I know that.”
“Then that is enough for you. Look here,” she held up the brown book. “Here it says, ‘It was the thought of Thalelaeus the Great that the democracy’—that means the People—‘desired to be ruled by some power superior to itself, and of Yrierix the Sage that the commonality would never permit one differing from themselves to hold high office. Notwithstanding this, each is called The Perfect Master.’ “ I did not see what she meant, and said nothing.
“No one really knows what the Autarch will do. That’s what it all comes down to. Or Father Inire either. When I first came to court I was told, as a great secret, that it was Father Inire who really determined the policy of the Commonwealth. When I had been there two years, a man very highly placed—I can’t even tell you his name—said it was the Autarch who ruled, though to those in the House Absolute it might seem that it was Father Inire. And last year a woman whose judgment I trust more than any man’s confided that it really made no difference, because they were both as unfathomable as the pelagic deeps, and if one decided things while the moon waxed and the other when the wind was in the east, no one could tell the difference anyway. I thought that was wise counsel until I realized she was only repeating something I had said to her myself half a year before.” Thecla fell silent, reclining on the narrow bed, her dark hair spread on the pillow.
“At least,” I said, “you were right to have confidence in that woman. She had taken her opinions from a trustworthy source.”
As if she had not heard me, she murmured, “But it’s all true, Severian. No one knows what they may do. I might be freed tomorrow. It’s quite possible. They must know by now that I am here. Don’t look at me like that. My friends will speak with Father Inire. Perhaps some may even mention me to the Autarch. You know why I was taken, don’t you?”
“Something about your sister.”
“My half-sister Thea is with Vodalus. They say she is his paramour, and I think it extremely likely.”
I recalled the beautiful woman at the top of the stairs in the House Azure and said, “I think I saw your half-sister once. It was in the necropolis. There was an exultant with her who carried a cane-sword and was very handsome. He told me he was Vodalus. The woman had a heart-shaped face and a voice that made me think of doves. Was that she?”
“I suppose so. They want her to betray him to save me, and I know she won’t. But when they discover that, why shouldn’t they let me go?” I spoke of something else until she laughed and said, “You are so intellectual, Severian. When you’re made a journeyman, you’ll be the most cerebral torturer in history—a frightful thought.”
“I was under the impression you enjoyed such discussions, Chatelaine.”
“Only now, because I can’t get out. Though it may come as a shock to you, when I was free I seldom devoted time to metaphysics. I went dancing instead, and pursued the peccary with pardine limers. The learning you admire was acquired when I was a girl, and sat with my tutor under the threat of the stick.”
“We need not talk of such things, Chatelaine, if you would rather we not.” She stood and thrust her face into the center of the bouquet I had picked for her. “Flowers are better theology than folios, Severian. Is it beautiful in the necropolis where you got these? You aren’t bringing me the flowers from graves, are you? Cut flowers someone brought?”
“No. These were planted long ago. They come up every year.” At the slot in the door, Drotte said, “Time to go,” and I stood up.
“Do you think you may see her again? The Chatelaine Thea, my sister?”
“I don’t think so, Chatelaine.”
“If you should, Severian, will you tell her about me? They may not have been able to communicate with her. There will be no treason in that—you’ll be doing the Autarch’s work.”
“I will, Chatelaine.” I was stepping through the doorway.
“She won’t betray Vodalus, I know, but there may be some compromise.” Drotte closed the door and turned the key. It had not escaped me that Thecla had not asked how her sister and Vodalus had come to be in our ancient—and by such people as themselves, forgotten—necropolis. The corridor, with its lines of metal doors and cold-sweating walls, seemed dark after the lamp in the cell. Drotte began to talk of an expedition he and Roche had made to a lion pit across Gyoll; over the sound of his voice I heard Thecla calling faintly, “Remind her of the time we sewed Josepha’s doll.”
The lilies faded as lilies do, and the dark death roses came into bloom. I cut them and carried them to Thecla, nigrescent purple flecked with scarlet. She smiled and recited:
“Here Rose the Graced, not Rose the Chaste, reposes.
The scent that rises is no scent of roses.”
“If their odor offends you, Chatelaine…”
“Not at all, it is very sweet. I was only quoting something my grandmother used to say. The woman was infamous when she was a girl, or so she told me, and all the children chanted that rhyme when she died. Actually I suspect it is much older, and lost in time, like the beginnings of all the good and bad things. Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain?”
“I don’t believe all do, Chatelaine.”
“That beautiful Rose gave herself, and suffered such mockery for it that I know of it, though her dreams long ago turned to dust with her smooth flesh. Come here and sit by me.”
I did as I was told, and she slipped her hands under the frayed bottom of my shirt and drew it over my head. I protested, but found myself unable to resist. “What are you ashamed of? You who have no breasts to hide. I’ve never seen such white skin coupled with dark hair… Do you think my own skin white?”
“Very white, Chatelaine.”
“So do others, but it is dun next to yours. You must flee the sun when you’re a torturer, Severian. You’ll burn terribly.”
Her hair, which she often let fall free, today was bound about her head in a dark aureole. She had never more closely resembled her half-sister Thea, and I felt such desire for her that I seemed to be spilling my blood upon the floor, growing weaker and fainter with each contraction of my heart. “Why are you pounding on my door?” Her smile told me she knew.
“I must go.”
“You’d better put your shirt back on before you leave—you wouldn’t want your friend to see you like that.”
That night, though I knew it was in vain, I went to the necropolis and spent several watches in wandering among the silent houses of the dead. The next night I returned, and the next, but on the fourth Roche took me into the city, and in a drinking den I heard someone who seemed to know say that Vodalus was far to the north, hiding among the frost-pinched forests and raiding kafilas. Days passed. Thecla was certain now, since she had been held in safety so long, that she would never be put to torment, and had Drotte bring her materials for writing and drawing, with which she planned a villa she meant to build on the southern shore of Lake Diuturna, which is said to be the most remote part of the Commonwealth, as well as the most beautiful. I took parties of apprentices to swim, thinking that to be my duty, though I
could never dive in deep water without fear.
Then, suddenly as it seemed, the weather was too cold for swimming; one morning there was sparkling frost on the worn flagstones of the Old Yard, and fresh pork appeared on our plates at dinner, a sure sign that the cold had reached the hills below the city. Master Gurloes and Master Palaemon summoned me. Master Gurloes said, “From several quarters we have had good reports of you, Severian, and now your apprenticeship is nearly served.” Nearly whispering, Master Palaemon added, “Your boyhood is behind you, your manhood ahead of you.” There was affection in his voice. “Just so,” Master Gurloes continued. “The feast of our patroness draws near. I suppose you have given thought to it?”
I nodded. “Eata will be captain after me.”
“And you?”
I did not understand what was meant; Master Palaemon, seeing that, asked gently, “What will you be, Severian? A torturer? You may leave the guild, you know, if you prefer.”
I told him firmly—and as though I were slightly shocked by the suggestion—that I had never considered it. It was a lie. I had known, as all the apprentices knew, that one was not firmly and finally a member of the guild until one consented as an adult to the connection. Furthermore, though I loved the guild I hated it too—not because of the pain it inflicted on clients who must sometimes have been innocent, and who must often have been punished beyond anything that could be justified by their offences; but because it seemed to me inefficient and ineffectual, serving a power that was not only ineffectual but remote. I do not know how better to express my feelings about it than by saying that I hated it for starving and humiliating me and loved it because it was my home, hated and loved it because it was the exemplar of old things, because it was weak, and because it seemed indestructible.
Naturally I expressed none of this to Master Palaemon, though I might have if Master Gurloes had not been present. Still, it seemed incredible that my profession of loyalty, made in rags, could be taken seriously; yet it was. “Whether you have considered leaving us or not,” Master Palaemon told me, “it is an option open to you. Many would say that only a fool would serve out the hard years of apprenticeship and refuse to become a journeyman of his guild when his apprenticeship was past. But you may do so if you wish.”
