“They took more than they gave!”
This sort of outburst will beget awkward silence, but grandfather, mother, and Nurse had plenty to fill up the lull, putting the nursery back into order. The prince spit some milk onto Lucretia’s shoulder and fell asleep; she passed him to his nurse, who laid him down in the depression—softly pillowed—delved out of a massive granite block. Here was a cradle the little witch couldn’t hurl about the room while dreaming. Lucretia picked through heaped and scattered clothing for another shirt. Sooner would the menials flee the house howling than enter into the haunted nursery. Therefore it fell to them to right overturned bureau, table, stools . . . When they’d all sat down together, folding mother and baby clothes, Aqib told them of his worrisome dream.
“. . . but I woke this afternoon convinced the dream has come to me before, and come again and again. Ever since that day in the Daluçan Garden. Mad as it may sound, I would almost say that it feels as if there were a . . . whole episode missing from my memory of that day. As if asleep I can remember it, but once awake, the event slides away, rather like”—here his hands motioned, illuminating his words—“a fish might elude an ill-cast net.” Aqib bent his aching head (oh, it pained him!) and pressed a hand lightly to the roiling nausea in his belly.
“O Sanctified Cousin, I would ask,” said Nurse, very quietly: “Do you suffer feelings of vertigo and sun-dazzlement when you seek to remember that day?”
Aqib, who held temples pinched between thumb and forefinger, eyes squinted against a sudden glare, looked up sharply. “Yes! How did you know, Nurse? Tell me.”
Lucretia and her woman looked speakingly to each other. His daughter spoke. “Papa—truly I was so young then. I confess that what I remember best is having so badly to pee, and very little of what occurred, what was said. Two beautiful giants . . . ? You calling a pretty yellow bird to your finger . . . ? But the gods do take advantage of men sometimes . . .”
“Darling.” Lucretia’s woman set a hand upon her arm. “You know very well that you cannot—”
“We are speaking, Enghélasade, of my father!” Lucretia pulled her arm free, and said to Aqib in a great rush, “Because you are so strong a psion, I suspect a geas the gods laid took poorly. They did a thing to you they can only do to men—to the untrained, Papa. In the Sovereign House we learn too many counters, I mean we women and girls, against mnemonic extirpation and coercive psionics generally, and so no geas can . . .”
“Slowly, Daughter.” Aqib’s head swam from sickness and the flood of women’s argot. “I cannot follow you. ‘Mnemonic extirpation’—what is that, exactly? And, tell me; what are these ‘coercive psionics’? Explain to me this thing ‘geas,’ if you please.”
Nurse murmured again, “Lucretia”: the softest and yet monitory exhortation.
“They are . . . ,” and his daughter gave a defeated sigh. Her fatigue suddenly seemed to double as she slumped with exhaustion. “ . . . They are the stuff and business of women, Master Aqib.” She seized Aqib’s hand and pulled him nearer to her—to kiss his forehead, kiss both his cheeks. “I really may not say, Papa. Oh, it’s a mad, ugly world we live in, isn’t it? Men and women, side by side, yet further apart than this earth from the stars . . . ! But as you love me, Papa—as you value your own sanity—let the dreams come as they will, and never seek to ponder on them. Don’t pick at the edges of your memory. Please don’t, Papa. I’m sure you feel strongly impelled to let it all simply pass away—to forget—don’t you? Well, do that. Just let it all go, Papa.”
The fog of forgetfulness would indeed be easy to sink into, but Aqib wished fiercely to know more, to understand better. Then he saw an expression on his daughter’s face he recognized well, for he’d worn it from time to time himself. It was the careworn look of love wise parents wear, when they know better, when they know this most willful child of theirs is racing toward catastrophe. Lucretia was a woman, but she was wise; no one could deny that. The king himself came round night and day, What about this, O Blest, what about that? Should I, Lucretia, should I not? So Aqib nodded.
He left the women with the prince in the nursery and went out to his garden, where the menials spread a picnic for him. Among the flowers, in the shade, he sang down a parakeet. Bribing her with a morsel, he asked the bird go and inform his niece and nephew, in plainly spoken Olorumi, that Uncle would be around to the Menagerie before dusk to check upon their work.
The dreams might have come again after that day, but Aqib never remembered. He let the matter go.
[tenth night]
In his bedchamber Aqib lay atop the sheets, joggling his mother’s emeralds in one hand. He must go now. If he would make this valediction at all, it were best done while the household settled in after midnight prayers. Under cover of darkness, he could leave, return, and never be missed. “Goodbye, Lucrio,” he’d say, “I cannot do it.” He would mean what he said: “I am bound by duty to my family, and I cannot abandon them.” Very likely Lucrio would embrace him then, kiss his mouth, and say, “Please.” And how brown his eyes would be, how soft his beard . . . Aqib trembled.
He would always doubt, after tonight, quite what he’d meant to do. He fully intended not to sail away with the Daluçans. And so his answer to Lucrio would have been, “No.” And yet, “Yes”; for what chance that a whisper and kiss wouldn’t have persuaded him otherwise? Could the weak glue of a “No” have held under the pressure of a softly spoken “Please”?
Oh, doubtful, Aqib.
Doubtful.
As he was not going, Aqib didn’t permit himself to pack clothing or pilfer into a pocket any little keepsake from among his effects. He meant to give back the ring, loose about his right thumb, and then come straightaway back to his father’s house.
Skin flush with bliss, chilling in dread, Aqib sat up in the bed. Pressing a hand to his cramping guts, he rose.
A sentimental boy about to fly abroad with his lover would never leave behind these emeralds. He simply couldn’t, a boy of such sentiment. Therefore Aqib made himself stow the jewels back into their box, the box back into its place. Love of the Saints, why hadn’t they extinguished the lamps by the gate yet? Always before, the houseguard had put them out by this hour. Aqib flung off his sumptuous prayer robes and threw on workaday shirt and trousers. Lest his chamber attendant wake, he crept quietly through his apartments, quietly through the house, and out into the front courtyard. When Aqib neared the gate, a shadow detached itself from the abundant dark, and stepped into the lamp-light—stepped into the way: the Reverend Master Sadiqi. “And where are you rushing off to, my son?” said his father. “At this most unhallowed hour of the night?”
Taken by surprise, Aqib loosed a little scream. A sinner might so tremble before the apparition of his Saint. “Oh, Master Sadiqi!” Aqib said, trying for a bright, pleasant tone. “How you startled me! I was just going . . .” Yes, where, Aqib? To go and make wanton, desperate love to your Daluçan for the last time? To cover his lips and cheeks and forehead with kisses and tears? To caress his body from head to toe? To give back the ring you really ought to keep, as his boy, as his lifetime lover: for, here, in this time and place, belated relevation has come to you at last? As long as you live, no better chance for wholly congenial partnership will ever come to you. So flee with your Lucrio—flee! Is that where you’re going, Aqib? “I wanted to . . . I had only thought . . .” His father stood in patient expectancy, as if to see what latest canard should emerge from his son. When Aqib could hit upon no ready alibi, he fell quiet. A good boy can jive and justify only so long before he finds his mouth capable of truth or silence, but no more lies.
“These rumors that come to my ears,” said Master Sadiqi, “are shocking, Aqib. And though one strives to give the gossips no credit, I must say it would greatly aid my efforts—and give vicious tongues ever so much less to talk about—if you retired to your rooms straight after prayers, and slept there”—the master’s voice shading with a suggestion of the vile things boys got up to
when they slept where they oughtn’t—“in your own bed till morning. So, let’s be having you back off to your rooms, then, yes? I’ll just stand here and watch you walk inside, I think. And we’d better set a guard, have the men lock the compound’s gate, and paint it with the Saint-sign, too. For my heart is weighing heavy, Aqib. I fear the Devil walks abroad tonight. I fear lest He enter here, into our own abode, and perhaps carry off some son of ours. So go back to your rooms now, boy. Go!”
But Aqib didn’t go. He stood there, mind wracking itself for any pretext—other than blazing hot sin—on which a wild-eyed seventeen-year-old, all sweaty and in a fret, might rush out of his father’s home in the wee hours of the morning.
Haughty and grand, a king’s-friend and former Cousin of the second order, Master Sadiqi transformed before Aqib’s eyes. From one moment to the next, his father became a quite elderly man, white-headed and weary, a widower whose beloved wife had died birthing this, his favorite child. Which boy was running wild these last few nights, and bringing down all manner of shame upon the house. “Will you not go to your rooms, my son?” said Master Sadiqi sadly.
Aqib felt in his heart that his father, this man, had done right by him all the days of his life, and been kind, too—no matter what Lucrio had said.
“Please, Aqib,” said his father.
Been good and kindly . . . and yet Aqib wanted Lucrio. Did he want him enough to shove past his own father, throwing the old man aside in order to flee . . . ?
Yes!
He made to lunge but then saw the shadows shift. In the greater dark whereoutfrom his father had stepped, Aqib realized the Corporal and two burliest of the houseguard were standing at the ready, tensed to come to the aid of the Reverend Master. There had never been a possibility that Aqib would leave this compound tonight. This is our chance, Lucrio had pled at the Menagerie. Come with me now, if you’ll come at all. Aqib couldn’t remember a single one of his stupid reasons for not going with Lucrio then. He turned without a word and went back to his rooms.
Kneeling beside the bed, he rolled his mother’s emeralds in his hand. Three cabochons, each as big as a thumb pad; Mother had doubtlessly meant them for some finished piece of jewelry. Yet we can but propose, it being for the Saints to dispose. As an infant, Aqib had once been allowed to play with the jewels, and then cried and clung so fiercely that Mother’s emeralds had somehow remained in his holding all these years, though Sister was dowered with all the rest of Mother’s effects. Their monetary value meant nothing to Aqib; their worth lay in power to comfort. To roll the emeralds in his hand as a baby and child, and now as a man, had many times eased insupportable anguish to a hurt he could bear. How would his mother have spoken on all this? For all Aqib knew, it could be that Always-Walking-People, like the Daluçans, had very different taboos. Unconditional acceptance might be had from a mother you’d never known and could only imagine: that was these emeralds’ power. But even these Aqib would throw away, if it meant he might sail off with Lucrio—or even just say goodbye properly, without anger. Aqib knew the history of Lucrio’s signet ring, a last heirloom of his forefathers, and therefore precious beyond price. How faithless would he think Aqib! Never showing up, and yet keeping the ring . . . Only to return it, he’d willingly give up Mother’s emeralds.
Would he?
According to household rumor, the newest of his father’s guardsmen was a raw peasant from the countryside, and miserable here in the City. The man longed to go back home, but owed Master Sadiqi fourteen and a half years on a fifteen-year bond. The plan Aqib hatched was hopeless if that guardsman was on duty tonight. But if free . . . Aqib rose and woke his chamber attendant, sending the menial to fetch the guardsman to him. “And do it quietly, with discretion.”
His attendant showed the man into Aqib’s antechamber. The guardsman arrived rumpled from sleep; and how rough-skinned he was, how painfully thin! The man exhibited that ineffable deficit of health and beauty prevailing in the lowest caste. With a fingersnap, Aqib dismissed the prying eyes and pricked-up ears of his attendant back to a sleeping alcove in a further room. Late-night summons into private quarters perforce evoke a sense of the greatest intimacy. Therewith ill-at-ease, and with the luxe of the surroundings, the nervous guardsman grinned hideously, crouching on his haunches.
“I would ask a great favor,” said Aqib, low-voiced (for it seemed the whole world was always listening in). “And in turn I would do a great favor for you. Whether you say No or Yes to me, either way, no harm shall come to you. Will you hear me, guardsman?”
“Begging your pardon, Racuhzin . . .” The man licked chapped lips, glancing fearfully right and left. “But the Reverend Master Sadiqi, and Racuhzin the Corporal—”
“—must never know we have spoken,” Aqib interrupted. He rolled emeralds round and round in his own nervous hand. “I have heard that you wish to return to your home. That you’d like to see your family again, the friends you love, and the places you know. Well, I am the only one who can help you. There are no others. The rest who can do not care. So, will you hear me, guardsman?”
A frightened grimace, those wretched teeth . . . ! At last, the guardsman nodded.
“I require you to go, tonight, to the Sovereign House. Go to the wing where the Embassy is quartered: go to the western gate. Fear not to meet the king’s men; there will be only Daluçans manning that gate. Say to them that you bear a message for the tricenturion Lucrio Cordius de Besberibus, and the Daluçans will bring that man before you.” Passing fine he will be, too. With brown hair shimmering in the lantern-light. “Say to him that I, Aqib bmg Sadiqi, bid him farewell and safe voyage. Say that I grieve to be unable to come in my own person. Give to him this ring I wear on my hand. And then say . . .” I love you I love you I love you I’m sorry. But no, Aqib: this messenger can say no more than you have already given him. “If you will do this thing for me, I swear I’ll see you come into monies to repay your bond to my father in full. By the blood of All Saints, I swear that even before the Long Rains fall you shall win free of this household, this City, and be on your way home again.”
But the guardsman only crouched and gaped. Thought moving behind men’s eyes ordinarily betrays itself in some glimmer: here, no such light. A vacancy looked back at Aqib—deaf and dumb. Could the proposed subterfuge have so terrified the guardsman, he could not even refuse the errand? Nor would such terror be entirely ill-founded, for Aqib was the very least of powers in this household. The Master’s hand might lie gently, for the most part; but the Corporal’s . . .
Oh, Aqib would have liked to jump up and smash the appointments of his rooms, while railing at life’s injustice. He would have like to be stretched out beside Lucrio, exhausted after love-making, knowing that in the morning the Daluçan ship would bear them both away to whatever new places, new adventures. He would have liked anything better than to be begging this, this . . . Just when Aqib would have given up the gambit and dismissed the houseguard from his chambers, there came a little nod, and the whispered words: “I’ll do it, Racuhzin.”
[89 years old]
Nights had little sleep in them. Aqib would lie down waiting for his eyes to shut, but sleep always came later and more briefly. Regrets would poke him in the darkness, until he got up to wander about his palace and its grounds by touch and squinted gaze. Lately he was going further afield, down into the undercity, the hour of night notwithstanding.
Boss? Old Benj sat up. Where are you going?
Aqib fought, failed and at last managed to rise. For a walk.
Let me go and wake the bitch or her puppy or one of his. Will you not go with someone?
Alone, Aqib said shortly, or with you.
But it’s darkest night, and the nose says storms, maybe.
I would walk; I cannot sleep!
This gallivanting. You’re a weak old hound now, boss, gray and shaky.
Struggling on his robe, Aqib snapped, So are you.
Then have we not earned some rest in these last waning ni
ghts?
Stay here, if you’ve grown too old. I shall go on alone.
Old Benj sighed, and tottered afoot himself. I will always go with you. Whither lions and snakes, into black insipid silence, unto mine ending or past yours.
You old poet. Aqib put down his hand. Best of friends. The very best you are. He would rather have stooped down, to take this kiss on his cheeks and chin not fingers, but Aqib felt sure that all his up-and-downing was finished now. Just once more, and only down.
His household slept, menials and Cousins alike. The guard were at the front gate, not the postern door. For the last time he and Old Benj walked slowly and alone into night.
He awoke in blue gloom, slow to remember (which) self, where (in space), when (in youth, in age) he was. Himself; the Sybil’s cave, poorly lit by weak godslight; soon to celebrate forty years of life. He was in Daluz. This was his life, wherein he’d only known contentment—up until the fierce onset, in the last year or two, of second thoughts.
But where were they now? The anguish and desperation he’d felt earlier this same morning, when he’d begged the Sybil: “Did I choose right? Or should I have stayed in Olorum?” No regrets, now! He wanted no life but the one he’d lived!
“Well?” The Sybil stirred in her glass. “There it is,” she said. “Such life as you’d have lived, if you’d chosen Olorum.” There was no saying how one knew her for female, for the Sybil’s speech was inaudible, of projected image and emotion, of alien thoughts sent into the mind. And dark was the glass of her jar, dim the shape within it; scaled, grotesque, nothing human. “Now you’ve lived to the end of that other path, do you still covet it?”
Aqib made to speak and found, as when one has breathed by mouth the night through, his tongue all pasty, and throat utterly dry. He had to work his tongue awhile to rouse enough spit to answer. “No,” Aqib said. Then he reached out a hand suddenly, grasping at nothing. “My daughter!”
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