Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  Potto snapped, "Why didn't you laugh?"

  "Caldé?" Loris smiled. "Those are our demands. The Prolocutor hasn't freed you from your vows, you said, the implication being that you want him to. Are you willing to resign this caldeship you've never really had as well?"

  "Yes, I'd like nothing better." Silk had been leaning on Xiphias's silver-banded cane; he straightened up as he spoke. "I did not choose to become involved in politics, Councillor. Politics chose me."

  "Good Silk," Oreb explained.

  Loris returned his attention to Maytera Marble. "You heard that. You'll want to tell Oosik what you heard."

  "Unfortunately," Silk continued, "the remainder of your terms are not feasible. Take the second. The people demand that government return to our Charter, the foundation of the law; and the law requires elections to fill the empty seat in the Ayuntamiento."

  "We ought to kill you," Potto told him."I will."

  "In which case you would no longer hold the Caldé. The people-the rioters, as you call them-will choose a new one, no doubt a much better and more effective one than I am, since they could hardly do worse."

  He waited for someone else to speak, but no one did; at length he added, "I'm not an advocate, Councillors-I wish I were. If I were, I could easily imagine myself defending you on nearly every charge that could be brought against you thus far. You suspended the Charter, but I believe there was some uncertainty regarding the wishes of the old Caldé, and it was long ago in any case. You tried to put down the riots, but in that you were doing your duty. You questioned Mamelta and me when we were detained for violating a military area, which could easily be justified."

  "He hit me!" Incus exclaimed. "An augur!"

  Silk nodded. "That is an individual matter, concerning Councillor Potto alone, and I was considering the Ayuntamiento as a whole-or rather, what remains of that whole. But what you say, Patera, is quite right; and it's an indication of the road along which this Ayuntamiento is traveling. I'd like to persuade Councillor Loris, its presiding officer, to turn back before it's too late."

  Loris fixed him with a malevolent stare. "Then you won't to our demands? I can call in the soldiers at once and get this over with."

  Silk shook his head. "I can't accede. Nor can I speak for the Rani of Trivigaunte, obviously; but I can and do speak for Viron; and for Viron all of your demands, except the one for my resignation, are out of the question."

  "Nevertheless," Maytera Marble put in, "General Mint and Generalissimo Oosik may accede to them, in part at least, to save Patera Silk. May I speak to him in private?"

  "Don't be ridiculous!"

  "It isn't ridiculous, I must. Don't you see that General Mint and Generalissimo Oosik and all the rest of them are only acting on the authority of Patera Silk? When I report that I've seen him and tell them you've recognized him as Caldé, they will certainly want to know whether he's willing to agree to your terms. They'll have to know what he wants them to do, but they won't pay the least attention to it unless I can say that he told me in private. Let me talk to him, and I'll go back and talk to Generalissimo Oosik and General Saba. Then, if we're lucky, we'll have real peace in place of this truce."

  "We have not recognized him as Caldé," Loris told her coldly. "I invite you to retract that."

  "But you have! You've called him Caldé several times in my presence, and I could see you congratulating yourselves on having the Caldé. You even called him the key to the crisis. You're threatening to shoot him because he won't agree to your precious five demands. If he's the Caldé, that's only cruel. If he isn't, it's idiotic."

  She raised her hands and time-smoothed face to Loris in supplication. "He's terribly weak. I've been watching him while the rest of us were talking, and if it weren't for his stick I think he would have fallen. Can't you let him sit down? And tell everyone else to leave? A quarter of an hour should be enough."

  Blood rose, swaying a little. "Over here, Patera. Take my seat. This's a good chair, better than the one you had in here that other time."

  "Thank you," Silk said. "Thank you very much. I owe you a great deal, Blood." Chenille, next to him, took his arm; he wanted to assure her he did not need her help, but stumbled on the carpet before he could speak, eliciting an unhappy squawk from Oreb.

  "Get the rest of them out," Loris told Potto.

  Xiphias paused in the doorway, showing Silk both his hands, then twisting one slightly and separating them.

  Chenille kissed his forehead, the brush of her lips the silken touch of a butterfly's wing-and was gone, violently pulled away by Potto, who left with her and shut the door.

  Maytera Marble reoccupied the chair beside the one that had been Blood's. "Well," she said.

  Silk nodded. "Well indeed. You did very well, Maytera. Much better than I. But before we talk about-all of the things we'll have to talk about, I'd like to ask a question. One foolish question, or perhaps two. Will you indulge me?"

  "Certainly, Patera. What is it?"

  Silk's forefinger traced small circles on his cheek. "I know nothing about women's clothes. You must know a great deal more-at least, I hope you do. You got Councillor Loris to bring Chenille her gown?"

  "She was naked under that augur's robe," Maytera Marble explained, "and I refused to talk about anything else until they got her dressed. Bloody called in one of the maids, and she and Chenille went with a soldier to find her some clothes. They weren't gone long."

  Silk nodded, his face thoughtful.

  "It's too small for her, but the maid said it was the largest in the house, and it's only a little bit too small."

  "I see. I was wondering whether it belonged to a woman I met here."

  "You and Bloody were talking about her, Patera." Maytera Marble sounded ill at ease. "He asked you where she was, and you said you'd gotten separated."

  Silk nodded again.

  "I don't want to pry into your personal affairs."

  "I appreciate that. Believe me, Maytera, I appreciate it very much." He hesitated, staring through the open window at the wind-rippled green lawn before he spoke again. "I thought it might be one of Hyacinth's, as I said. In fact, I rather hoped it was; but it couldn't be. It almost fits Chenille, as you say, and Hyacinth's much smaller." The circles, which had ceased to spin, reappeared. "What do you call that fabric?"

  "It's chen… Why, I see what you're getting at, and you're right, Patera! That gown's chenille, exactly like her name!"

  "Not silk?"

  Maytera Marble snapped her fingers. "I know! She must have told the maid her name, and it suggested the gown."

  "She kissed me as she left," he remarked. "I certainly didn't invite it, but she did. You must have seen it."

  "Yes, Patera. I did."

  "I suppose she wanted to signal that she was with us-that she supported us. Master Xiphias made a gesture of the same sort, probably something to do with swordplay. Anyway, her kiss made me think of silk, of the fabric I mean, for some reason. It seemed strange, but I thought perhaps her skirt had brushed my hand. You say it's actually called chenille?"

  "Chenille is silk, Patera. Or anyway the best chenille is, and the other is something else that's supposed to look like silk. Chenille is a kind of yarn, made of silk, that's furry-looking like a caterpillar. If they weave cloth of it, that's called chenille too. It's a foreign word that means caterpillar, and silk threads are spun by silkworms, which are a kind of caterpillar. But I'm sure you know that."

  "I must speak to her!" he said. "Not now, but when we're alone, and as soon as I can."

  "Good girl!"

  "Yes, Oreb. Indeed she is." Silk returned his attention to Maytera Marble. "A moment ago when you spoke to Loris, you didn't want us to leave this room. Would you mind telling me why?"

  "Was I as transparent at that?"

  "No, you weren't transparent at all; but I know you, and if you'd really been so worried about me, you would have asked him to let us talk in a bedroom where I could lie down, and to send for a doctor.
I don't suppose Blood's got one, now that Doctor Crane's dead; but Loris might have been able to supply one, or to send someone for one of the Guard's doctors under a flag of truce, like that white flag next to your chair."

  Maytera Marble looked grave. "I should have asked him to do that. I can still ask, Patera. I'll go out and find him. It won't take a moment."

  "No, I'm fine. By Phaea's favor-" It was too late to call back the conventional phrase. "I'll recover. Why did you want to stay here?"

  "Because of this window." Maytera Marble waved a hand at it. "Bloody had opened it while we were in here by ourselves, and I worried the whole time that someone would get cold and shut it. You must know Mucor, Patera. She said you sent her to me."

  Silk nodded. "She's Blood's adopted daughter."

  "Adopted? I didn't know that. She said she was Bloody's daughter. That was Hieraxday night, terribly late… Do you know Asphodella, Patera?"

  Silk smiled. "Oh, yes. A lively little thing."

  "That's her. I'd done the wash, you see, and I wanted to pour the dirty water on my garden. Plants actually like dirty water with soapsuds in it better than clean. It sounds wrong, I know, but they do."

  "If you say so, I'm sure it must be true."

  "So I was pouring out the water, so much for each row, when Asphodella pulled my skirt. I said what are you doing out so late, child? And she told me she'd gone with the others to fight, but Horn had sent her back-"

  "Cat come!" Oreb warned. Silk looked for it, seeing none.

  "Horn had sent her home, and quite right, too, if you ask me, Patera. So now she wanted to know if there'd be palaestra on Thelxday."

  "Then," Silk said slowly, "her face changed. Is that it, Maytera?"

  "Yes. Exactly. Her face became, well, horrible. She saw I was frightened, as I certainly was, and said don't be afraid, Grandmother. My name's Mucor, I'm Blood's daughter." Maytera Marble paused, not certain that he understood. "Have I told you Bloody's my son, Patera? Yes, I know I did, right after we sacrificed in the street."

  "He was Maytera Rose's," Suk said carefully. "You, I know, are also Maytera Rose-at least, at times."

  "All the time, Patera." Maytera Marble laughed. "I've integrated our software. As far as we sibyls are concerned, I'm your best friend and worst enemy, all in one."

  He stirred uncomfortably in Blood's comfortable chair. "I was never Maytera Rose's enemy, I hope."

  "You thought I was yours, though, Patera. Perhaps I was, a little."

  He leaned toward her, his hands folded over the crook of Xiphias's cane. "Are you now, Maytera? Please be completely frank with me."

  "No. Your friend and well-wisher, Patera."

  Oreb applauded, flapping his wings. "Good girl!"

  She added, "Even if I were entirely Maytera Rose, I'd do all I could to get you out of this."

  Silk let himself fall back. It was astonishing how soft these chairs of Blood's were. He remembered (vividly now) how badly he had wanted to rest in his chair, to sleep in it, when he had talked with Blood in this very room. Yet this one was better, just as Blood had promised: yielding where it should, firm where firmness was desirable. He stroked one wide arm, its maroon leather as smooth as butter beneath his touch.

  "They let me lie down after I was captured," he confided to Maytera Marble. "Sand did. I'd had to walk all the way to this house, and it was a very long way. It had seemed long when Auk and I rode donkeys; and walking with Sand's gun at my back, it seemed a great deal longer; but once we arrived, once we'd climbed up through the hatch into the cellar, he let me lie down on the floor. He isn't a bad man, really-just a disciplined soldier obeying bad men. There's good in Loris, too, and even in Potto. I know you must sense it, just as I do, Maytera; otherwise you'd never have spoken to Potto as you did. That's why-one reason, anyway-I don't feel that this situation from which you're trying to rescue me is as bad as it appears, though I'll always be grateful."

  "Cat! Cat!" Oreb flew from Silk's shoulder to the head of an alabaster bust of Thelxiepeia.

  Maytera Marble smiled. "There's no cat in here, you pretty bird."

  "You were telling me about this room," Slik reminded her, "and meeting Mucor. I wish you'd continue with that. It may be significant."

  "I-Patera, I want to tell you first about meeting you. It won't take long. and it may be more important, maybe a lot more important. You still think about the day you came to our manteion, I know. You've mentioned it several times."

  He nodded.

  "Patera Pike was there, and you loved and respected him, but a man wants a woman to talk to. Most men do, anyway, and you did. You'd been raised by your mother, and we could see how you missed her."

  "I still do," Silk admitted.

  "Don't feel bad about that, Patera. No one should ever be ashamed of love."

  Maytera Marble paused to collect her thoughts; her rapid scan was back, and she reveled in it. "We were three sibyls, I was about to say. Maytera Mint was still young and pretty, but so shy that she ran from you whenever she could. When she couldn't, she would hardly speak. Maybe she guessed what had happened to me long ago. I've sometimes thought that, and you were young and good-looking, as you still are."

  He began a question, but thought better of it.

  "I won't tell you who Bloody's father was, Patera. I've never told anybody and I won't tell now. But I will tell you this. He never knew. I don't think he even suspected."

  Silk filled his lungs with the cool, clean breeze from the window. "I slept with a woman last night, Maytera. With Hyacinth, the woman Blood asked about."

  "I'm sorry you told me."

  "I wanted to. I've wanted-I want so badly, still, to tell people who don't know, although a great many people know already. His Cognizance and Master Xiphias and Generalissimo Oosik."

  "And me." Maytera Marble's forefinger tapped her metal chest through her habit. "I knew. Or rather, I guessed, as anybody would, and I wish that you'd left it like that. Some things aren't improved by talking about them."

  Oreb broke off his inverted examination of Thelxiepeia's features to applaud Maytera Marble. "Smart girl!"

  "We were three sibyls, as I said. But Maytera Mint wasn't there for you Patera, so I was the only ones left. I was old. I don't think you ever grasped how old. My faces had gone long before you were born. You never realized they weren't there, did you?"

  "What are you talking about? Your face is where it ought to be, Maytera. I'm looking at it."

  "This?" She drummed her fingers on it, a quick metallic tap-tap-tap. "This is my faceplate, really. I used to have a face like yours. I would say like Dahlia's, but she was before your time. Like Teasel's or Nettle's, and there were things in it, little bits of alnico, that let me really smile or frown when I moved them with the coils behind my faceplate. But all that's gone except for the coils."

  "It's a beautiful face," Silk insisted, "because it's yours."

  "My other face wasn't, and what it was showed in your own every time you saw it. I resented that, and you resented my resentment and turned to me to ease your loneliness. But we were much more alike than you realized, not that I've ever cared, myself, for machines like this. I never thought they could be people, really, no matter how many times they said they were. Now I'm just a message written on those teeny gold doodads you see in cards. But I'm still me, a person, because I always was."

  Silk fumbled Remora's ruined robe for a handkerchief, and finding none blotted his eyes on his sleeve.

  "I didn't tell you that to make you feel sorry for me, Patera. Neither of me were easy to love, no more than I am now. You were able to love one just the same, and not very many men could have, not even many augurs. I thought that if you knew how you came to love and not like me, it might help you some other time with some other woman."

  "It will, I know." Silk sighed. "Thank you, Maytera. With myself, most of all."

  "Let's not talk about it any more. What do you think of the Ayuntamiento's terms? Still what you told Loris?"


  Silk made a last dab at his eyes, feeling the grit in the cloth, knowing that he was dirtying his already-soiled face and not caring. "I suppose so."

  Maytera Marble nodded. "They're perfectly hopeless. Not a single thing for Trivigaunte, and why should the Guard hand over its senior officers, why should Generalissimo Oosik allow it? But if we offered trials, regular ones with judges-"

  "Man back!" A big hand glittering with rings had appeared on the windowsill. It was followed by a yellow-sleeved arm and a whiff of musk rose.

  "That's why you wanted to stay here." Silk stood up a trifle unsteadily, helped by the cane, and crossed the room to the window. "So your son could join us."

  "Why no, Patera. Not at all."

  Leaning over the sill, Silk spoke to Blood. "Here, hold onto my hand. I'll help you up."

  "Thanks," Blood said. "I should have brought a stool or something."

  "Take mine, too, Bloody." Maytera Marble braced one foot on the sill in imitation of Silk.

  Flushed redder than ever with exertion, Blood's face rose on the other side of the window. With a grunt and a heave, he tumbled into the room.

  "Now for my granddaughter. She'll be easy after Bloody." Bending over the sill again, Maytera Marble clasped skeletally thin hands and lifted in an emaciated young woman with a seared cheek.

  "Poor girl!"

  Silk nodded his agreement as he returned to his chair. "Hello, Mucor. Sit down, please, so that I may sit. We're neither of us strong."

  "Needlers're no good 'gainst the soldiers," Blood puffed. He brushed off the front of his tunic and reached beneath it. "So I'm giving you this, Caldé Silk."

  "This" was an azoth, its long hilt rough with rubies and chased with gold; its sharply curved guard was more elaborate than that of the one Doctor Crane had given him at Hyacinth's urging, and diamonds ringed its pommel.

  Silk resumed his seat. "I should have anticipated that. Doctor Crane told me you had two."

  "Don't you want it?" Blood did not trouble to hide his surprise.

  "No. Not now, at least."

  "It's worth-"