by Gene Wolfe
“No,” Silk said.
“No what?”
Silk shrugged. “Even when we spoke in the street, I never supposed that you were the wealthiest man in the city, although I have no idea who the wealthiest might be. I only thought that you were wealthy, as you obviously are.”
“Well, I’m not the richest,” Blood declared, “and I’m not the crookedest either. There are richer men than I am, and crookeder men than I am, lots of them. And, Patera, most of them aren’t anywhere near as close to the Ayuntamiento as I am. That’s something to keep in mind, whether you think so or not.”
Silk did not reply, or even indicate by any alteration of his expression that he had heard.
“So if you want your manteion back, why shouldn’t you get it from them? The price is twenty-six thousand, like I told you. That’s all it means to me, so they’ve got it just as much as I have, and they’ll be easier, most of them. Are you listening to me, Patera?”
Reluctantly, Silk nodded.
Musk opened the door as he had before and preceded the footman into the room. This time there were two tumblers on the footman’s tray.
Blood accepted one, and the footman bowed to Silk. “Patera Silk?”
Everyone in the household must know of his capture by now, Silk reflected; apparently everyone knew who he was as well. “Yes,” he said; it would be pointless to deny it.
With something in his expression Silk could not fathom, the footman bowed deeply and held out his tray. “I took the liberty, Patera. Musk said I might. If you would accept it as a favor to me…?”
Silk took the drink, smiled, and said, “Thank you, my son. That was extremely kind of you.” For an instant the footman looked radiant.
“If you’re grabbed,” Blood continued when the footman had gone, “I don’t know you. I’ve never laid eyes on you, and I’d never suggest anything like this to anybody. That’s the way it’s got to be.”
“Of course. But now, tonight, you’re suggesting that I steal enough money to buy my manteion from you. That I, an augur, enter these other men’s houses to steal, as I entered yours.”
Blood sipped his drink. “I’m saying that if you want your manteion back, I’ll sell it to you, and that’s all I’m saying. How you get the money is up to you. You think the city asked where I got the price?”
“It is a workable solution,” Silk admitted, “and it’s the only one that has been proposed so far.”
Musk grinned at him.
“Your resident physician tells me that my right ankle is broken,” Silk continued. “It will be quite some time, I’m afraid, before it heals.”
Blood looked up from his drink. “I can’t allow you a whole lot of time, Patera. A little time, enough for a few jobs. But that’s all.”
“I see.” Silk stroked his cheek. “But you’ll allow me some—you’ll have to. During the time you will allow, what will become of my manteion?”
“It’s my manteion, Patera. You run it just like you did before, how’s that? Only you tell anybody that wants to know that I own the property. It’s mine, and you tell them so.”
“I could say you’ve paid our taxes,” Silk suggested, “as you have. And that you’re letting us continue to serve the gods as an act of piety.” It was a lie he hoped might eventually become the truth.
“That’s good. But anything you take in over expenses is mine, and anytime I want to see the books, you’ve got to bring them out here. Otherwise it’s no deal. How much time do you want?”
Silk considered, uncertain that he could bring himself to conduct the robberies Blood was demanding. “A year,” he ventured. A great deal could happen in a year.
“Very funny. I bet they roar when you’ve got a ram for Scylsday. Three weeks—oh, shag, make it a month. That’s the top, though. Will your ankle be all right in a month?”
“I don’t know.” Silk tried to move his foot and found as he had before that the cast immobilized it. “I wouldn’t think it very likely.”
Blood snorted. “Musk, get Crane in here.”
As the door closed behind Musk, Silk inquired, “Do you always have a physician on the premises?”
“I try to.” Blood set aside his tumbler. “I had a man for a year who didn’t work out, then a brain surgeon who only stayed a couple of months. After that I had to look around quite a while before I found Crane. He’s been with me…” Blood paused, calculating, “pretty close to four years now. He looks after my people here, naturally, and goes into the city three times a week to see about the girls there. It’s handier, and saves a little money.”
Silk said, “I’m surprised that a skillful physician—”
“Would work for me, taking care of my whores?” Blood yawned. “Suppose you’d seen a doctor in the city for that ankle, Patera. Would you have paid him?”
“As soon as I could, yes.”
“Which would have been never, most likely. Working for me, he gets a regular salary. He doesn’t have to take charity cases, and sometimes the girls’ll tip him if they’re flush.”
The fussy little man arrived a moment later, ushered in by Musk. Silk had seen a picture of a bird of the crane kind not long before, and though he could not recall where it had been, he remembered it now, and with it Crane’s self-mockery. The diminutive doctor no more resembled the tall bird than he himself did the shimmering fabric from which his mother had taken his name.
Blood gestured toward Silk. “You fixed him up. How long before he’s well?”
The little physician stroked his beard. “What do you mean by well, sir? Well enough to walk without crutches?”
Blood considered. “Let’s say well enough to run fast. How long for that?”
“It’s difficult to say. It depends a good deal on his heredity—I doubt that he knows anything useful about that—and on his physical condition. He’s young at least, so it could be worse.” Doctor Crane turned to Silk. “Sit up straight for a moment, young man. I want to listen to you again, now that you’ve had a chance to calm down.”
He lifted Silk’s torn tunic, put his ear against Silk’s chest, and thumped his back. With the third thump, Silk felt something hard and cold slide into his waistband beneath the horsehair rope.
“Should’ve brought my instruments. Cough, please.”
Already frantic with curiosity, Silk coughed and was rewarded with another thump.
“Good. Again, please, and deeper this time. Make it go deep.”
Silk coughed as deeply as he could.
“Excellent.” Doctor Crane straightened up, letting Silk’s tunic fall back into place. “Truly excellent. You’re a fine specimen, young man, a credit to Viron.” The timbre of his voice altered almost imperceptibly. “Somebody up there likes you.” He pointed jocularly toward the elaborately figured ceiling, where a painted Molpe vied with Phaea at bagatelle. “Some infatuated goddess, I should imagine.”
Silk leaned back in his chair, although the hard object behind his spine made actual comfort impossible. “If that means I get less time from your employer, I would hardly call it evidence of favor, my son.”
Doctor Crane smiled. “In that case, perhaps not.”
“How long?” Blood banged his tumbler down on the stand beside his chair. “How long before it’s as good as it was before he broke it?”
“Five to seven weeks, I’d say. He could run a little sooner than that, with his ankle correctly taped. All this assumes proper rest and medical treatment in the interim—sonic stimulation of the broken bone and so forth.”
Silk cleared his throat. “I cannot afford elaborate treatment, Doctor. All I’ll be able to do is hobble about and pray that it heals.”
“Well, you can’t come here,” Blood told him angrily. “Was that what you were hinting at?”
Doctor Crane began, “Possibly, sir, you might retain a specialist in the city—”
Blood sniffed. “We should’ve shot him and gotten it over with. By Phaea’s sow, I wish the fall had killed him. No specialis
t. You’ll see himself whenever you’re in that part of the city. When is it? Sphigxday and Hieraxday?”
“That’s right, and tomorrow’s Sphigxday.” Doctor Crane glanced toward an ornate clock on the opposite side of the room. “I should be in bed already.”
“You’ll see him then,” Blood said. “Now get out of here.”
Silk told Crane, “I sincerely regret the inconvenience, Doctor. If your employer will only give me a bit more time, it wouldn’t be necessary.”
At the door Crane turned and appeared, almost, to wink.
Blood said, “We’ll compromise, Patera. Pay attention, because it’s as far as I’m willing to go. Aren’t you going to drink that?”
Feeling Musk’s knuckles behind his ears, Silk took a dutiful sip.
“In a month—one month from today—you’ll bring me a substantial sum. You hear that? I’ll decide when I see it whether it’s substantial enough. If it is, I’ll apply it to the twenty-six thousand, and let you know how long you’ve got to come up with the rest. But if it isn’t, you and that tin sibyl will have to clear out.” Blood paused, his mouth ugly, swirling his drink in his hand. “Have you got anybody else living there? Maybe another augur?”
“There are two more sibyls,” Silk told him. “Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint. You’ve met Maytera Marble, I believe. I am our only augur.”
Blood grunted. “Your sibyls will want to come out here and lecture me. Tell them they won’t get past the gate.”
“I will.”
“They’re healthy? Crane could have a look at them when he comes to see you, if they need doctoring.”
Silk warmed to the man. “That’s exceedingly kind of you.” There was always some good to be found in everyone, he reminded himself, the unnoted yet unfailing gift of ever-generous Pas. “Maytera Mint’s quite well, as far as I know. Maytera Rose is as well as could be expected, and is largely prosthetic now in any case, I’m afraid.”
“Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?” Blood leaned forward, interested. “There aren’t too many of those around any more.”
“She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some disease requiring amputations.” It occurred to Silk that he should know more about Maytera Rose’s history—about the histories of all three sibyls—than he did. “They were still easily found then, from what she says.”
“How old is she?”
“I’m not sure.” Silk berated himself mentally again; this was something he should know. “I suppose it’s in our records. I could look it up for you, and I would be happy to do so.”
“Just being polite,” Blood told him. “She must be—oh, ninety, if she’s got a lot of tin parts. How old would you say I am, Patera?”
“Older than you look, I suppose,” Silk ventured. What guess would flatter Blood? It would not do to say something ridiculous. “Forty-five, possibly?”
“I’m forty-nine.” Blood raised his tumbler in a mock toast. “Nearly fifty.” Musk’s fingers had twitched as Blood spoke, and Silk knew with an absolute certainty he could not have defended that Blood was lying: that he was at least five years older. “And not a part in my body that isn’t my own, except for a couple teeth.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Listen, Patera, I could tell you—” Blood waved the topic aside. “Never mind. It’s late. How much did I say? In a month? Five thousand?”
“You said a substantial sum,” Silk reminded him. “I was to bring you as much as I could acquire, and you would decide whether it was enough. Am I to bring it here?”
“That’s right. Tell the eye at my gate who you are, and somebody will go out and get you. Musk, have a driver come around out front.”
“For me?” Silk asked. “Thank you. I was afraid I’d have to walk—that is, I couldn’t have walked, with my leg like this. I would have had to beg rides on farm carts, I’m afraid.”
Blood grinned. “You’re a thirteen thousand card profit to me, Patera. I’ve got to see you’re taken care of. Listen now. You know how I said those sibyls of yours weren’t to come out here and bother me? Well, that still goes, but tell that one—the old one, what’s her name?”
“Maytera Rose,” Silk supplied.
“Her. You tell Maytera Rose that if she’s interested in getting another leg or something, and can raise the gelt, I might be able to help her out. Or if she’s got something like that she’d like to sell, maybe to help you out. She won’t get a better price anywhere.”
“My thanks are becoming monotonous, I’m afraid,” Silk said. “But I must thank you again, on Maytera’s behalf and in my own.”
“Forget it. There’s getting to be quite a market for those parts now, even the used ones, and I’ve got a man who knows how to recondition them.”
Musk’s sleek head appeared in the doorway. “Floater’s ready.”
Blood stood, swaying slightly. “Can you walk, Patera? No, naturally you can’t, not good. Musk, fetch him one of my sticks, will you? Not one of the high-priced ones. Grab on, Patera.”
Blood was offering his hand. Silk took it, finding it soft and surprisingly cold, and struggled to his feet, acutely conscious of the object Crane had put into his waistband and of the fact that he was accepting help from the man he had set out to rob. “Thank you yet again,” he said, and clenched his teeth against a sharp flash of pain.
As his host, Blood would want to show him out; and if Blood were in back of him, Blood might well see the object under his tunic. Wishing mightily for the robe he had left behind in Hyacinth’s bedchamber, half incapacitated by guilt and pain, Silk managed, “May I lean on your arm? I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”
Side by side they staggered into the reception hall. Its wide double doors still let in the night; but it was a night (or so Silk fancied) soon to be gray with shadeup. A floater waited on the grassway, its canopy open, a liveried driver at its controls. The most eventful night of his life was nearly over.
Musk rattled the cast on Silk’s ankle with a battered walking stick, smiled at his wince, and put the stick into his free hand. Silk discovered that he still detested Musk, though he had come, almost, to like Musk’s master.
“… floater’ll take you back there, Patera,” Blood was saying. “If you tell anyone about our little agreement, it’s cancelled, and don’t you forget it. A high stack next month, and I don’t mean a few hundred.”
The liveried driver had left the floater to help. In a moment more, Silk was safely settled on the broad, cushioned seat behind the driver’s, with Doctor Crane’s chilly, angular mystery again gouging at his back. “Thank you,” he repeated to Blood. “Thank you both.” (He hoped that Blood would take his phrase to include Musk as well as Blood himself, though he actually intended Blood and the driver.) “I do appreciate it very much. You mentioned our agreement however. And—and I would be exceedingly grateful…” Tentatively, he put out his hand, palm up.
“What is it now, for Phaea’s sake?”
“My needler, please. I hate to ask, after all you’ve done, but it’s in your pocket. If you’re not still afraid I might shoot you, may I have it back?”
Blood stared at him.
“You want me to bring you several thousand cards—I presume that’s what you mean when you speak of a substantial sum. Several thousand cards, when I can scarcely walk. The least you can do is return my weapon, so that I’ve something to work with.”
Blood giggled, coughed, then laughed loudly. Perhaps only because Silk heard it in the open air for the first time that night, Blood’s laughter seemed to him almost the sound that sometimes rose, on quiet evenings, from the pits of the Alambrera. He was forced to remind himself again that this man, too, was loved by Pas.
“What a buck! He might do it, Musk. I really think he might do it.” Blood fumbled Hyacinth’s little needler out of his pocket and pushed its release; a score of silver needles leaped from its breach to shower like rain upon the closely cropped grass.
Mu
sk leaned toward Blood, and Silk heard him whisper, “Lamp Street.”
Blood’s eyebrows shot up. “Excellent. You’re right. You always are.” He tossed the golden needler into Silk’s lap. “Here you go, Patera. Use it in good health—yours, I mean. We’re going to make a slight charge for it, though. Meet us about one o’clock at the yellow house on Lamp Street. Will you do that?”
“I must, I suppose,” Silk said. “Yes, of course, if you wish me to.”
“It’s called Orchid’s.” Blood leaned over the door of the floater. “And it’s across from the pastry cook’s. You know exorcism? Know how it’s done?”
Silk ventured a guarded nod.
“Good. Bring whatever you’ll need. There’ve been, ah, problems there all summer. An enlightened augur may be just what we need. We’ll see you there tomorrow.”
“Good-bye,” Silk said.
The canopy slid soundlessly out of the floater’s sides as Blood and Musk backed away. When it latched, there was a muffled roar from the engine.
It felt, Silk thought, as if they were indeed floating; as if a flood had rushed invisibly to lift them and bear them off along the greenway, as if they were always about to spin away in the current, although they never actually spun.
Trees and hedges and brilliant flower beds reeled past. Here came Blood’s magnificent fountain, with Soaking Scylla reveling among the crystal jets; at once it was gone and the main gate before them, the gate rising as the long, shining arms of the talus shrank. A dip and a wiggle and the floater was through, blown down the highway like a sere leaf, sailing through an eerie nightscape turned to liquid, leaving behind it a proud plume of swirling, yellow-gray dust.
The skylands still shone overhead, cut in two by the black bow of the shade. Far above even the skylands, hidden but present nonetheless, shone the myriad pinpricks of fire the Outsider had revealed; they, too, held lands unknowable in some incomprehensible fashion. Silk found himself more conscious of them now than he had been since that lifetime outside time in the ball court—colored spheres of flame, infinitely far.
The ball was still in his pocket, the only ball they had. He must remember not to leave it here in Blood’s floater, or the boys would have no ball tomorrow. No, not tomorrow; tomorrow was Sphigxday. No palaestra. The day to prepare for the big sacrifice on Scylsday, if there was anything to sacrifice.
