Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  “It sounds delightful! I’d so like to go!”

  “Your mother would object,” Ghyl stated more gruffly than he intended. “She’d never allow you to such a tavern.”

  “She doesn’t need to know,” declared Sonjaly with a sauciness Ghyl found astonishing. “Also, as it happens, she works tonight, catering a guild banquet.”

  “Good! Fine! Excellent! No problems whatever,” declared Floriel heartily. “We’ll all go together.”

  “Oh very well,” said Ghyl crossly. “I suppose we must.”

  Sonjaly drew up her shoulders. “Indeed! If you find my company so disturbing, I need not go.”

  “No, no, of course not!” protested Ghyl. “Do not misunderstand!”

  “I misunderstand nothing,” declared the outrageous Sonjaly. “And I’m sure Rt. Huzsuis would tell me the location of the Twisted Willow Palace, so that I might find my own way through the dark.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Ghyl. “We’ll all go together.”

  “That’s better.”

  Ghyl brushed his plum-colored breeches, steamed and pressed the jacket, inserted new stiffeners into his boots, polishing to a glitter the articulated bronze greave. With a side-glance toward Amiante—who maintained a studious disinterest—he fixed to his knees a pair of black ribbon rosettes, with streaming ends, then pomaded his golden-brown hair almost dark. With another quick glance toward Amiante, he teased the ends, where they hung over his ears into gallant upturned curls.

  Floriel was unflatteringly surprised at Ghyl’s elegance. He himself wore an easy graceful suit of dark green, with a soft black velvet cap. Together they went to the house with the blue hourglass on Gosgar Alley. Sonjaly anticipated their knock and cautioned them to silence. “My mother is still home. I’ve told her I’m out to visit Gedée Anstrut. Go to the corner and wait.”

  Five minutes later she was with them, somewhat breathlessly, her face more charming than ever for its mischief. “Perhaps we can take Gedée with us; she’s very jolly and she’d love a party. I don’t think she’s ever been to a tavern. No more than I, of course.”

  Ghyl grudgingly assented to Gedée’s presence, although it would void all hope of a private hour or two with Sonjaly. She also would impose a strain on his wallet, unless Floriel could be persuaded to act as her escort—a dubious hope, since Gedée was tall and spare, with a keen beak of a nose and an unfortunately sparse head of coarse black hair, which she wore in symmetrical fore and aft shingles.

  Still Sonjaly had proposed and if Ghyl disposed, she would pout. Gedée Anstrut eagerly assented to the party and Floriel, as Ghyl had assumed, quickly made it clear that he did not intend to participate in Gedée’s entertainment.

  The four rode Overtrend to South Foelgher, only a few yards from Hyalis Park. They climbed a little hill: an outcropping of the same ridge which further north in Veige became Dunkum’s Heights. But here the river was close below, reflecting the tawny violet, gold and orange dust of the sunset. The Twisted Willow Palace was close at hand—a rickety structure open to the air in warm weather, screened and shuttered when the wind blew. The specialty of the house was grilled mud-eel, esperges in spice-sauce, and a pale light wine from the coastal region south of Ambroy.

  Nion Bohart had not yet arrived; the four found a table. A waiter approached, and it developed that Gedée was tremendously hungry, having not yet dined. Ghyl watched glumly while she devoured vast quantities of eel and esperges. Floriel mentioned that he hoped to build or buy a small sailing craft, and Sonjaly declared herself keenly interested in sailboats and travel in general, and the two became involved in a spirited conversation, while Ghyl sat to the side dispiritedly watching Gedée attack the platter of eel which he had ordered for Sonjaly, but which she now decided she didn’t care for.

  Nion Bohart arrived, in company with a somewhat overdressed young woman a year or two his senior. Ghyl thought to recognize her as one of the girls who had sat on the bench at Keecher’s Inn. Nion introduced her as ‘Marta’, without reference to her guild. A moment later Shulk and Uger arrived, and presently Mael Villy, escorting a girl of rather coarse appearance, far from inconspicuous by reason of flaming red hair. As if to emphasize her disdain for orthodoxy, she wore a tight sheath of black fish-skin which concealed few, if any, of her bodily contours. Sonjaly raised her eyebrows in disparagement; Gedée, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, stared blankly, but seemed to care nothing one way or the other.

  Pitchers of wine were brought; goblets were filled and emptied. Evening became night. Colored lanterns were lit; a lutist purportedly from the Mang Islands played lilting Mang Island love songs.

  Nion Bohart was strangely taciturn. Ghyl suspected that his experience had chastened him, or at least had made him less flamboyant. But after a goblet or two of wine, a glance toward the door, a quick look at Sonjaly, Nion hitched his chair forward and became something like his old self: grim and cynical, yet easy and expansive and gay, all at once. To Ghyl’s relief Shulk Odlebush engaged Gedée in conversation and went so far as to pour her goblet full of wine. Ghyl moved his chair closer to Sonjaly, who was laughing at something Floriel had said, and turned Ghyl an unseeing glance, as if he were not there. Ghyl took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, and sat back sulking.

  Now Nion was speaking, telling of his experience at the Welfare Agency. Everyone quieted to listen. He told of how he had been conveyed to the office, of his questioning, of the stern injunctions against further trafficking with smugglers. He had been warned that the charge of his rod was high, that he risked rehabilitation. Gedée, chewing on the last of the esperges, asked, “Something I’ve never understood: the noncups aren’t recipients, so they aren’t on the welfare rolls and they don’t have deportment rods. Well then—can a noncup be rehabilitated?”

  “No,” said Nion Bohart. “If he is determined a criminal he is expelled, over one of the four frontiers. A simple vagrant is expelled east into Bayron. A smuggler fares worse and is expelled into the Alkali Flats. The worst criminals are expelled into the first two inches of Bauredel. The Special Investigator explained all this to me. I told him I wasn’t a criminal, that I had committed no great wrong; he said I had disobeyed the regulations. I told him that maybe the regulations should be changed, but he refused to laugh.”

  “Isn’t there a way to change regulations?” asked Sonjaly.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Nion Bohart. “I suppose the Chief Supervisor does what he thinks best.”

  “Strange, in a way,” said Floriel. “I wonder how it ever started.”

  Ghyl leaned forward. “In the old days Thadeus was the capital of Fortinone. The Welfare Department was a branch of the state government. When Thadeus was destroyed there wasn’t any more government, and there wasn’t anyone to change Welfare Department regulations. So there never was change.”

  Everyone turned now to look at Ghyl. “Eh, then,” said Nion Bohart. “Where did you learn all this?”

  “From my father.”

  “Well, if you’re so knowing, how are regulations changed?”

  “There’s no state government. The Mayor headed the city government until the Welfare Department made a city government unnecessary.”

  “The Mayor can’t do anything,” grumbled Nion Bohart. “He’s just the custodian of city documents: a nonentity.”

  “Come now!” cried Floriel in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know the Mayor is my mother’s second cousin. He is bound to be a gentleman!”

  “At the least he can’t be expelled or rehabilitated,” said Ghyl. “If a man like Emphyrio were elected—the elections, incidentally, are next month—he might insist on the provisions of the Ambroy City Charter, and the Welfare Department would have to obey.”

  “Ha ha!” chuckled Mael Villy. “Think of it! All the stipends raised! Agents cleaning the streets and delivering parcels!”

  “Who can be elected Mayor?” asked Floriel. “Anyone?”

  “Naturally,”
jeered Nion. “Your mother’s cousin managed to land the job.”

  “He is a very distinguished man!” protested Floriel.

  Ghyl said, “Generally the Council of Guild-masters nominate one of their elders. He is always elected and then re-elected and usually holds the job till he dies.”

  “Who was Emphyrio?” asked Gedée. “I’ve heard the name.”

  “A mythical hero,” said Nion Bohart. “Part of the interstellar folklore.”

  “Perhaps I’m stupid,” said Gedée with a determined grin, “but where is the advantage in electing a mythical hero Mayor? What is gained?”

  “I didn’t say we should elect Emphyrio,” explained Ghyl. “I said a man like Emphyrio would perhaps insist upon changes.”

  Floriel was becoming drunk. He laughed rather foolishly. “I say, elect Emphyrio, mythical hero or not!”

  “Right!” called Mael. “Elect Emphyrio. I’m all for it!”

  Gedée wrinkled her nose in disapproval. “I still can’t see what would be gained.”

  “Nothing real is gained,” Nion Bohart explained. “It just becomes a bit of nonsense: tomfoolery, if you like. A thumb to the nose toward the Welfare Agency.”

  “It seems silly to me,” sniffed Gedée. “A childish prank.”

  It only needed Gedée’s disapproval to stimulate Ghyl’s endorsement. “If nothing else, the recipients might become aware that existence is more than waiting for welfare vouchers!”

  “Right!” exclaimed Nion Bohart. “Well spoken, Ghyl! I had no idea you were such a firebrand!”

  “I’m not, really… Still, the ordinary recipient could stand a bit of stimulation.”

  “I still think it’s silly,” snorted Gedée, and seizing her goblet, turned a great gulp of wine down her throat.

  Floriel said, “It’s something to do, at least. How does one go about becoming Mayor?”

  “Peculiarly,” said Nion Bohart, “I can answer that, even though my mother has no cousins. It is very simple. The Mayor himself is in charge of the election, since, in theory, the office is outside the province of the Welfare Agency. A candidate must pay a bond of a hundred vouchers to the Mayor, who then is required to post his name on the bulletin board in the Municipal Parade. On election day, all who wish to vote go to the Parade, inspect the names on the bulletin board and announce their choice to a scrivener who keeps a tally.”

  “So then, all that is needed is a hundred vouchers,” said Floriel. “I’m good for ten.”

  “What?” giggled Sonjaly. “You’d put your mother’s cousin from his job?”

  “He’s a dim-witted old mountebank. Not a month ago he walked past my mother and me as if he failed to see us. In fact, I’ll pledge fifteen vouchers!”

  “I wouldn’t give a tainted check,” sniffed Gedée. “It’s ridiculous, and childish to boot. It might even be irregulationary.”

  “Put me down for ten,” Ghyl immediately declared. “Or fifteen, for that matter.”

  “I’ll give five,” said Sonjaly, with a mischievous glance toward Nion Bohart.

  Shulk, Mael and Uger all volunteered ten vouchers and the two girls who had come with Nion and Shulk laughingly promised five vouchers each.

  Nion sat looking from face to face with hooded eyes and a half-smile. “As I count it, the pledges come to seventy-five vouchers. Very well, I’ll go twenty-five, to make up the hundred, and what’s more I’ll take the money to the Mayor.”

  Gedée sat up straight in her chair and muttered something into Sonjaly’s ear, who frowned and made an impatient sign.

  Floriel filled goblets all around and proposed a toast. “To the election of ‘Emphyrio’ as Mayor!”

  Everyone drank. Then Ghyl said, “Another matter! Suppose, by some fantastic chance, that ‘Emphyrio’ is elected? What then?”

  “Bah! No such thing will happen,” retorted Nion Bohart. “And what if it did? It might set people to thinking.”

  “People had best be thinking of how to behave themselves,” declared Gedée stiffly. “I think the whole idea is beastly.”

  “Oh come now, Gedée,” said Floriel. “Don’t be so hoity-toity! What’s a little jollity, after all?”

  Gedée spoke to Sonjaly, “Don’t you think it about time we were going home?”

  “Why the rush?” demanded Floriel. “The party is just beginning!”

  “Of course!” echoed Sonjaly. “Come now, Gedée, don’t fret. We can’t go home so early! Our friends would think we were ridiculous.”

  “Well, I want to go home.”

  “And I don’t!” snapped Sonjaly. “So there!”

  “I can’t go by myself,” said Gedée. “This is a very boisterous part of town.” She rose to her feet and stood waiting.

  Ghyl muttered, “Oh very well. Sonjaly, we’d better leave.”

  “But I don’t want to leave. I’m having a good time. Why don’t you take Gedée home, then come back?”

  “What? By the time I got back here everyone else will be ready to leave!”

  “Hardly, my boy,” said Nion Bohart. “This is a celebration! We’re good for the whole night! In fact, from here we’ll presently move on to a place I know, where we’ll meet some other friends.”

  Ghyl turned to Sonjaly. “Wouldn’t you like to come along? We could talk along the way…”

  “Really, Ghyl! It’s such a little matter, and I’m having fun!”

  “Oh very well,” Ghyl said to Gedée. “Come along.”

  “What a coarse crowd!” declared Gedée as soon as they had left the tavern. “I thought things were to be nicer; otherwise I never would have come. I believe your friends are all noncups! They should be reported.”

  “They’re nothing of the sort,” said Ghyl. “No more than I myself.”

  Gedée gave a meaningful snort and said nothing more.

  Back to Brueben Precinct they rode, then walked to Undle Square, across to Gosgar Alley and Gedée’s home. She opened the door and looked back at Ghyl with a coy gap-toothed grin. “Well then, we’re here, and well away from that disreputable crowd. Not Sonjaly, of course, who is simply spoiled and perverse…Would you care to come in? I’ll brew a nice pot of tea. After all, it isn’t too late.”

  “Thank you, no,” said Ghyl. “I had better be returning to the party.”

  Gedée closed the door smartly in his face. Ghyl turned and marched back across Undle Square. In the workshop a dim light burned; Amiante would be carving at a screen or poring over an old document. Ghyl slowed his steps, and wondered if his father would like to come to the party. Probably not…but, as he crossed the square, he looked several times back over his shoulder at the lonely light behind the amber glass panes.

  Back to the Overtrend, back to South Foelgher, up the ridge to the Twisted Willow Palace. To Ghyl’s dismay the lights were turned down; the tavern was empty save for the janitor and the waiter.

  Ghyl went to the waiter. “The party I was with, at that table yonder—did they say where they were going?’

  “No, sir; not to me. They were all jolly and laughing; much wine they’d been drinking. I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Ghyl walked slowly back down the hill. Would they have gone to Keecher’s Inn in Cato? Unlikely. Ghyl gave a hollow laugh, and set out afoot across the dark echoing streets of Foelgher: past stone warehouses and huts of ancient black brick. Fog blew in off the estuary, creating moist auras around the infrequent street lamps. Finally, gloomy and sagging of shoulder, he tramped into Undle Square. He halted, then slowly crossed to Gosgar Alley and proceeded to the door with the blue hourglass. Sonjaly lived on the fourth floor. The windows were dark. Ghyl sat on the step and waited. Half an hour passed. Ghyl heaved a sigh, rose to his feet. She probably had come in long ago. He went home and put himself to bed.

  Chapter IX

  The next morning Ghyl roused himself to find Amiante already up and busy. He washed and dressed in his work smock and went below to his breakfast.

  “Well then,” asked Amiante, “ho
w did the party go?”

  “Nicely. Have you ever heard of the Twisted Willow Palace?”

  Amiante nodded. “A pleasant place to visit. Do they still serve mud-eel and esperges?”

  “Yes.” Ghyl sipped his tea. “Nion Bohart was at the party, and Floriel, and several others from the special class at the Temple.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “You know that there is a mayoralty election next month?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it. I suppose it’s about time.”

  “We spoke of raising a hundred vouchers and putting up the name ‘Emphyrio’ to be voted upon.”

  Amiante raised his eyebrows. He sipped his tea. “The welfare agents will not be amused.”

  “Is it any of their affair?”

  “Anything which concerns the recipients is the Welfare Agency’s affair.”

  “But what can they do? It is certainly not irregulationary to propose a name for Mayor!”

  “The name of a dead man, a legend.”

  “Is this irregulationary?”

  “Technically and formally, I would think not, since there would seem to be no intent to deceive. If the public wished to elect a legend to the Mayor’s office…Of course, there may be age or residence or other qualifications. If so, then of course the name cannot even be placed on the boards.”

  Ghyl gave a terse nod. After all, it meant little one way or another…He went down to the workroom, honed his chisels and began carving upon his screen—with all the time an eye cocked on the door. Surely there would come a knock, Sonjaly would look in, tearful, meek, to make amends for the previous evening.

  No knock. No wan face.

  Halfway through the afternoon, with the door open to the amber sunlight, Shulk Odlebush appeared. “Hello, Ghyl Tarvoke. Hard at work then?”

  “As you see.” Ghyl put down his chisels, swung around on the bench. “What brings you here? Is anything wrong?”