by Gene Wolfe
When he returned, Maytera Mint handed him a needler.
"But I am-er-better, perhaps, with you, eh, General? Your, um, forte."
"That isn't Spider's, it's Guan's," she told him. "Spider said a needler was what he usually used, remember? It didn't really make much of an impression at the time, but afterward, thinking about that poor man who dressed as a woman, it struck me that the other spy-catchers must have done the same thing. They would want some sort of a weapon, and before the rebellion nobody but a Guardsman could walk around the city carrying a slug gun. Then I wondered-this was while we were bringing Hyrax-what they did with them when they got their slug guns. It seemed likely that most of them had simply put them in their waistbands, under their tunics, where they were accustomed to carrying them."
"Most, um, sagacious."
"Thank you, Your Eminence. Anyway, whatever that was we heard wasn't a soldier. Do you agree?"
"I, um, indubitably." Remora stared down at the needler in his hand.
"Or a chem at all, any kind of chem. So a needler should work, and we may need them, just as we may need this meat, for which I haven't yet thanked you. Thank you very much, Your Eminence. It was a great condescension for you to oblige me as you have."
"You must know how to, um, operate? Manage this?" Remora might not have heard her.
"It's not difficult. Push that down," she pointed to the safety catch, "when you wish to shoot. Point it, and pull the trigger. If you want to shoot a second needle, pull it again. I won't show you how to reload now. There isn't time, and we don't have any more needles anyway."
Remora gulped and nodded.
"In your waistband under your robe, perhaps. I believe that's where our Caldé must carry his."
"I-ah. It would be, er, inadvisable, hey? When we return to the-ah-up there."
"I won't tell anyone if you don't." Maytera Mint stooped for a corner of the sheet of synthetic on which Guan's body lay. "We'd better go now, and quickly, or Spider will wonder what delayed us."
At the end of the side tunnel she knelt as she had before, trying to keep her mind upon appropriate petitions to the gods. Guan had kicked her shortly before Spider had locked her away with Remora so that he and his men could sleep; the right side of her thigh was still sore and stiff. She had scarcely given it a thought since it had happened, or so she had convinced herself. Now that Guan was dead, now that Guan lay before her, she found she could not free her mind from the memory of that kick. It was easy to mouth I forgive you, and to ask the gods, Echidna particularly, not to hold the kick against him; yet she felt that her forgiveness did not reach her heart, however hard she tried to bring it there.
The transparent sheet covered Guan as a sister sheet from the parent roll had covered Hyrax, and Maytera Mint got to her feet. What was the third man's name? He had been the quietest of their captors; she had thought him sullen and marked him as potentially the most dangerous. She would never know, now, whether she had been correct.
"How 'bout if you dig for Sewellel, Patera? I'll go back with General Mint here and fetch him."
"Why, ah-"
She saw Remora assure himself that his needler was in place with a touch of his forearm, and said, "He's not going to attack me, Your Eminence. He would like to speak to me in private, I imagine."
Remora managed to smile. "In that, um, circumstances, I shall-ah-comply. With all good will."
"What it really is," Spider told him, "is I want to see if you can do it right. You'll have to dig for me, see? You seen me do it. Now you do for Sewellel and Paca, and that'll be two for each of us. Let's move out, General."
Obediently, she followed him down the side tunnel. "What I told Patera's lily," Spider said as they walked. "You know that word? Means the truth."
"Yes, I do, though I've always considered it children's slang. My pupils use it sometimes."
"But that you said, General. That was the lily too."
She nodded, striving to make her nod sympathetic.
"I'm sorry about the way I talk. Sometimes I swear when I didn't mean to. It's just that I always do."
"I understand, believe me."
He stopped abruptly. "Thing is, I don't believe you. Or him, back there. Patera What'shisface.
"Remora."
Spider waved aside Remora's identity. "Echidna made you a general? She talked to you about it?"
"She certainly did."
"Could you see her like you're seein' me now? Could you make out what she was sayin'? She talked to you out of one of those big glasses they got in manteions?"
"Exactly. I can repeat everything she said, if you wish. I'd be happy to." This was a return to familiar ground, and Maytera Mint felt more confident than she had since she and Remora had passed through the ruined gate of Blood's villa.
"I know somebody that says he couldn't really hear the words. He just knew what she meant."
"He had known woman," Maytera Mint explained, hoping that Spider would understand what she intended by known. "Or else he had… Excuse this, please. The indelicacy."
"Sure thing."
"He had known another man, or a boy, as men know women. That man you told us about? Titi? I should imagine-"
"Yeah, so do I, and the other way, too. Sure he did. Is that the only reason?"
"It is. By Echidna's will, those who have enjoyed carnal knowledge of others may not behold the gods. Nor may they hear them distinctly, though in most cases they understand them. It varies between individuals, and several reasons have been put forward for that. If you don't mind, I won't explain those in detail. They concern the frequency and the specific natures of various sexual relations. You can readily construct them, or similar theories, for yourself."
"Sure, General. You can skip all that."
"I have never known Man. Therefore I saw the face of the goddess exactly as I see yours. More clearly, because her face was very bright. I heard each word she uttered, and can repeat them verbatim, as I said. When I have known Man…"
The guilty words had slipped out; she hurried on, conscious that her cheeks were reddening. "I shall no longer be able to see Echidna. No more than your friend could. In the event that I know Man-I mean, have relations with a-with a husband. My husband. Then I won't be able to repeat the words of the gods any more than you could."
"That was the thing I was wanting to talk to you about."
"The words of the goddess? She said-"
Spider waved Echidna's words aside. "You gettin' married and knowin' a man, like you said. I got to tell you."
Her hand closed about the needler in her pocket. "Do you mean yourself, Spider? No. Not willingly."
He shook his head. "Bison. I'm fly, see? I can tell from how you talk about him. It got you worried when I said I got culls you think's yours. You were scared Bison was one."
"Certainly not!" Maytera Mint took three deep breaths and relaxed her hold on the needler. "I suppose I was, a little."
"Yeah, I know. You kept tellin' yourself it couldn't be like that, on account of stuff he's said to you."
She had taken a step backward; she found that her shoulders were pressed against the tunnel's cold shiprock. "I haven't said anything to him, Spider, nor has he said a single such word to me. Nothing! But I've seen-or believed I saw… And he, Bison, no doubt has-has. Seen me. And heard me, too. My voice. In the same fashion."
"Yeah, I got you, General." To her surprise, Spider leaned against the wall next to her, sparing her the embarrassment of his gaze. "How old are you?"
"That is none of your affair." She made her voice as firm as she could.
"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. How old'd you say I am?"
She shook her head. "Since I decline to confide my age to you, it would be completely inappropriate for me to speculate on yours."
"I'm forty-eight, and that's lily. I'd say you're about thirty-three, thirty-four. If that's queer I'm sorry, but you wouldn't tell me."
"Nor will I now."
"I just want to sa
y it goes awful fast. Life goes by awful fast. You think you know all about that now. The shag you do. I remember all kind of things that happened when I was a sprat."
"I understand, Spider. I know precisely what you mean."
"You just think you do. I've had maybe a hundred women. I wish I'd kept count, but I didn't. There was only two I didn't have to pay, and one was abram once you got to know her."
"It's quite normal for men to think women-" Maytera Mint sought for a diplomatic word. "Irrational. And for women to think men irrational as well."
"Handin' you the lily, I had to pay the other one, too. I didn't give her the gelt, but she cost a shaggy lot more. More than she was worth." Spider shot Maytera Mint a sidelong look. "I got something important to say, but I don't know how to make you believe me."
"Is it true, Spider?"
"Shag, yes! Every word.
"Then I will believe you, even if you don't believe me about the gods. What is it?"
"This isn't it. This's what I should of said back there, see? There was a time when I might of got a woman like you, but that's over. Over and done up, see? Just slipped away. Last year I met one I thought I might like and sort of shaved her a little, you know? And she shaved me back. Then she seen I was gettin' to be serious, and she just froze up. She'd look at me, and her eyes kept sayin' too old, too old. It goes so fast. I didn't feel like I'd got old. I still don't."
For a half-minute or more, his silence filled the tunnel.
"All right, about this buck Bison."
Maytera Mint forced herself to nod.
"I'm goin' to die. Probably it won't be very long at all. Back there where we bury, I kept hopin' they'd shoot me and I'd get to say it before I went cold, 'cause then you'd believe me. But they don't shoot like that. The way my culls got it, you're chilled straight off, so I got to say it right here. He was one of mine, see? Bison was. A dimber hand."
She could not be certain she had spoken; perhaps not.
"He was supposed to check in every night. I'd meet him, see, in this certain place. But he only come the first time, the first night."
It was possible to breathe again.
"So I sent somebody. I sent this cully we're fetchin', Sewellel. Bison, he told him he was out. He wouldn't tell you anything about us, but he wouldn't tell us anything about you, neither. That's the lily, General. That's how it was. I don't blame you if you don't believe it, and in your shoes maybe I wouldn't. But I'm goin' today and know it, and I'd like you to cap for me when I'm cold."
"Pray for your spirit." She was still trying to wrap her understanding about the fact.
"Yeah. So it's lily. I told you I wouldn't tell you who mine was, the ones you thought was yours. But he's not mine any more. That's what I'm tellin' you."
She found herself entering the guardroom again, with no memory of having resumed their walk. "Shall I go back and cut off a piece of synthetic?" she asked. "I forgot entirely that we'd need another one. If you carry Sewellel on your shoulders, you'll have blood all over you."
"I got it right here," Spider told her. He held it up.
"But I have your knife. You gave me that so…"
"I used Guan's, 'fore I wrote for him." Spider smiled, a small, sad smile heart-wrenchingly foreign to his coarse face. "It don't really take three. It don't even take two, see? I been down here by myself and buried a couple times, and that's what I do, 'cause I start by findin' the dead cull's knife."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I'm certain you must have been the only mourner that those men had, more than once." She thrust her hands into her pockets, found his needler and her beads, and at last his knife. "Take it, please. I don't want to bury you, Spider. I won't. I want to save your life, and I'm going to try. I'm going to try very hard, and I'll succeed."
He shook his head, but she forced the rough clasp knife into his hand. "Close the door, please. I think it would be better if we didn't startle His Eminence.
Striding purposefully now, she crossed the guardroom and entered the storeroom. "I should have gone in here before," she told Spider over her shoulder. "I let His Eminence do it both times, and it was cowardly of me. This locker-I suppose that's what you call it-with the sign of addition on it in red. Is this where the stretcher's kept?"
Behind her, Spider said, "Yeah, that's it."
She turned, drawing his needler. "Raise both your hands, Spider. You are my prisoner."
He stared at her, his eyes wide.
"He may be able to see us. I can't be sure. Raise them! Hold them up before he kills you."
As Spider lifted his hands, the front of the locker swung open; a soldier stepped out and saluted, his slug gun stiffly vertical, his steel heels clashing. Maytera Mint said, "You aren't Sergeant Sand. What's your name?"
"Private Schist, sir!"
"Thank you. There's a dead man in the outer room. I take it you killed him?"
"That's right, sir."
"Take the synthetic this man's holding and wrap him-the dead man out there, I mean. Wrap the dead man's body in that. You can carry it for us."
Schist saluted again.
Spider said, "You knew he was in there all the time."
Maytera Mint shook her head, finding herself suddenly weak with relief. "I wish I were that… I don't know what to call it. That godlike. People believe I am, but I'm not. I have to think and think."
She paused to watch Schist through the doorway as he knelt beside Sewellel's corpse. "And even then I ask Bison's advice, and the captain's. Often I find they've seen more deeply into the problem than I have. I suppose it's useless to ask whether you were telling me the whole truth about Bison now. You can put down your hands, I think."
"I was, yeah." From his expression, Spider was relieved as well. "How'd you figure he was in there?"
"From the earth on the spade. There was fresh earth on the blade. Didn't you notice it?"
He shook his head.
From the guardroom, Schist announced, "I got him, sir."
"Good. You'd better walk ahead of us, Spider, and put up your hands again. There are more, you see. They could have rushed you hours ago, but they must have been afraid you'd kill His Eminence and me."
A hundred thoughts crowded her mind. "Besides, if we let you walk behind us, you might decide that your duty to Councillor Potto compelled you to run. Then this soldier would fire."
"I'd hit you, too," Schist said. "I don't miss much." He patted Sewellel's swathed corpse, slung over his left shoulder.
"Can I put my hand down to open the door?"
"Certainly," Maytera Mint told him; and Schist, "Sure."
"I ought to explain that I've spoken with Private Schist's sergeant," Maytera Mint continued as they left the guardroom. "That was on Sphixday, the day after our Caldé was rescued. His name is Sand, and he has come over to our side, to the Caldé's side, with his entire squad. Or rather, with what remains of it, because several were killed by a talus."
"I know how it feels."
"I realize you do, Spider. Neither you nor I, nor Sergeant Sand, created war. What I was going to say is that our Caldé and I, with Sergeant Sand himself and Generalissimo Oosik and General Saba, conferred upon how we might make the best possible use of Schist here and the rest. Of the few soldiers we had. It wasn't a lengthy debate, because all of us found the answer rather obvious. The soldiers knew these tunnels, and none of us did, though our Caldé had spent some time in them. Furthermore, down here they might encounter other soldiers whom they could bring over to our side. Plainly then, the best use that could be made of them was to send them back here to scout the enemy's dispositions, and augment their number if they could."
"All right, but how'd you know he was in there from the dirt on my spade?"
"It was fresh, as I said. Still somewhat damp. I asked about the grave that looked most new, and read the date on the paper, and it wasn't nearly new enough. So somebody else had been burying something. I thought of an ear, as they're called, or something of the sort, though to
the best of my knowledge Sand didn't have one." She fell silent, listening to their echoing footsteps.
"Go on," Spider urged her.
"Eventually I realized that room back there was a better place. A soldier as intelligent as Sand would surely anticipate that we would stop there to eat and talk. He'd want to know what we said, since you might say something that would be of value to him. He was right, because as soon as we arrived I began asking my questions. At any rate, he had Schist hide and listen, and when we left we were going here."
Already, too soon as it seemed to Maytera Mint, they had passed beneath the great iron door, and Remora was staring at Schist. She called, "It's all right, Your Eminence! We have been rescued, and Spider is our prisoner."
The earth around Remora erupted as two more soldiers freed themselves from it.
Chapter 9
A Piece of Pas
Auk pounded on the door of the old manse on Brick Street with the butt of his needler. Behind him, Incus cleared his throat, a soft and apologetic noise that might have issued from a rabbit or a squirrel. Behind Incus, twenty-two men and women murmured to one another.
Auk pounded again.
"He's in there, trooper," Hammerstone declared. "Somebody is, anyhow. I hear him."
"I didn't," Auk remarked, "and I got good ears."
"Not good enough. Want me to bust the door, Patera?"
"By no means. Auk, my son, allow me."
Wearily, Auk stepped away from the door. "You think you can knock better than me, Patera, you go right ahead."
"My knock would be no more effectual than your own, my son, I feel quite confident.Less so, if anything. My mind, however, may yet be of service."
"Patera's the smartest bio there is," Hammerstone told the crowd, "the smartest in the whole Whorl" They edged forward, trying to peer around him.
Incus drew himself up to his full height, which was by no means great. "Blessed be this manse, in the Most Sacred Name of Pass Father of the Gods, in whose name we come. Blessed be it in the name of Gracious Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and their Daughters alike, this day and until Pas's Plan attains fulfillment, in the name of Scylla, Patroness of this Our Holy City of Viron and my own patroness."
