Nightside the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  “Not too bad.” Blood took Hyacinth’s little needler from his waistband, thumbed off its safety catch, and aimed it carefully at Silk’s chest.

  Musk frowned and touched Blood’s arm.

  Blood chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. I only wanted to see how he’d behave in my place. It doesn’t seem to bother him much.” The needler’s tiny, malevolent eye twitched to the right and spat, and the squat tumbler exploded, showering Silk with shards and pungent liquor.

  He brushed himself with his fingers. “What would you like me to sign over to you? I’ll be happy to oblige. Give me the paper.”

  “I don’t know.” Blood dropped Hyacinth’s gold-plated needler on the stand that had held his drink. “What have you got, Patera?”

  “Two drawers of clothing and three books. No, two; I sold my personal copy of the Writings. My beads—I’ve got those here, and I’ll give them to you now if you like. My old pen case, but it’s still in my robe up in that woman’s room. You could have somebody bring it, and I’ll confess to climbing onto your roof and entering your house without your permission, and give you the pen case, too.”

  Blood shook his head. “I don’t need your confession, Patera. I have you.”

  “As you like.” Silk visualized his bedroom, over the kitchen in the manse. “Pas’s gammadion. That’s steel, of course, but the chain’s silver and should be worth something I also have an old portable shrine that belonged to Patera Pike. I’ve set it up on my dresser, so I suppose you could say it’s mine now. There’s a rather attractive triptych, a small polychrome lamp, an offertory cloth, and so on, with a teak case to carry them in. Do you want that? I had hoped—foolishly no doubt—to pass it on to my successor.”

  Blood waved the triptych aside. “How’d you get through the gate?”

  “I didn’t. I cut a limb in the forest and tied it to this rope.” Silk pointed to his waist. “I threw the limb over the spikes on your wall and climbed the rope.”

  “We’ll have to do something about that.” Blood glanced significantly at Musk. “You say you were up on the roof, so it was you that killed Hierax.”

  Silk sat up straight, feeling as if he had been wakened from sleep. “You gave him the name of the god?”

  “Musk did. Why not?”

  Musk said softly, “He was a griffon vulture, a mountain bird. Beautiful. I thought I might be able to teach him to kill for himself.”

  “But it was no go,” Blood continued. “Musk got angry with him and was going to knife him. Musk has the mews out back.”

  Silk nodded politely. Patera Pike had once remarked to him that you could never tell from a man’s appearance what might give him pleasure; studying Musk, Silk decided that he had never accorded Patera Pike’s sagacity as much respect as it had deserved.

  “So I said that if he didn’t want him, he could give him to me,” Blood continued, “and I put him up there on the roof for a pet.”

  “I see.” Silk paused. “You clipped his wings.”

  “I had one of Musk’s helpers do it,” Blood explained, “so he wouldn’t fly off. He wouldn’t hunt anyhow.”

  Silk nodded, mostly to himself. “But he attacked me, I suppose because I picked up that scrap of hide. We were next to the battlement, and in the excitement of the moment he—I will not call him Hierax, Hierax is a sacred name—forgot that he could no longer fly.”

  Blood reached for the needler. “You’re saying I killed him. That’s a shaggy lie! You did it.”

  Silk nodded. “He died by misadventure while fighting with me; but you may say that I killed him if you like. I was certainly trying to.”

  “And you stole this needler from Hyacinth before she drove you through the window with her azoth—must be about a thirty-cubit drop. Why didn’t you shoot her?”

  “Would you have,” Silk inquired, “if you had been in my place?”

  Blood chuckled. “And fed her to Musk’s birds.”

  “What I have done to you already is surely much worse than anything that Hyacinth did to me; I say nothing of what I intended to do to you. Are you going to shoot me?” If he lunged, Silk decided, he might be able to wrestle the little needler from Blood in spite of his injured leg; and with the muzzle to Blood’s head, he might be able to force them to let him go. He readied himself, calculating the distance as he edged forward in his chair.

  “I might. I might at that, Patera.” Blood toyed with the needler, palming it, flipping it over, and weighing it in his hand; he seemed nearly sober now. “You understand—or I hope you do, anyway—that we haven’t committed any kind of a crime, not a one of us. Not me, not Musk here, not any of my people.”

  Silk started to speak, then decided against it.

  “You think you know about something? All right, I’ll guess. Tell me if I’m wrong. You’ve been talking with Hy, and so you think she’s a whore. One of our guests tonight gave her that azoth. Quite a little present, plenty good enough for a councillor. Maybe she bragged on some of her other presents, too. Have I hit the target?”

  Silk nodded guardedly, his eyes on the needler. “She’d had several … Visitors.”

  Blood chuckled. “He’s blushing, Musk. Take a look at him Yes, Patera, I know. Only they didn’t pay, and that’s what matters to the law. They were my guests, and Hy’s one of my houseguests. So if she wants to show somebody a good time, that’s her business and mine, but none of yours. You came out here to get back your manteion, you tell me. Well, we didn’t take it away from you.” Blood emphasized his point with the needler, jabbing at Silk’s face. “If we’re going to talk about what’s not legal, we’ve got to talk about what’s legal, too. And legally you never did own it. It belonged to the Chapter, according to the deed I’ve got. Isn’t that right?”

  Silk nodded.

  “And the city took it from the Chapter for taxes owed. Not from you, because you never had it. Back last week that was, I think. Everything was done properly, I’m sure. The Chapter was notified and so on. They didn’t tell you?

  “No.” Silk sighed, and forced himself to relax. “I knew that it might happen, and in fact I warned the Chapter about it. I was never informed that it had happened.”

  “Then they ought to tell you they’re sorry, Patera, and I hope they will. But that’s got nothing to do with Musk and me. Musk bought your manteion from the city, and there was nothing irregular about it. He was acting for me, with my money, but there’s nothing illegal about that either, it’s just a business matter between him and me. Thirteen thousand cards we paid, plus the fees. We didn’t steal anything, did we? And we haven’t hurt you—or anybody—have we?”

  “It will hurt the entire quarter, several thousand poor families, if you close the manteion.”

  “They can go somewhere else if they want to, and that’s up to the Chapter anyhow, I’d say.” Blood gestured toward the welts on Silk’s chest with the needler. “You got hurt some, and nobody’s arguing about that. But you got banged up fighting my pet bird and jumping out a window. Hy was just defending herself with that azoth, something she’s got every right in the whorl to do. You aren’t planning to peep about her, are you?”

  “Peep?”

  “Go crying to the froggies.”

  “I see. No, of course not.”

  “That’s good. I’m happy to hear you being reasonable. Just look at it. You broke into my house hoping to take my property—it’s Musk’s, but you didn’t know that. You’ve admitted that to Musk and me, and we’re ready to swear to it in front of a judge if we have to.”

  Silk smiled; it seemed to him a very long time since he had last smiled. “You aren’t really going to have me killed, are you, Blood? You’re not willing to take the risk.”

  Blood’s finger found the trigger of the needler. “Keep on talking like that and I might, Patera.”

  “I don’t believe so. You’d have someone else do it, probably Musk. You’re not even going to do that, however. You’re trying to frighten me before you let me go.”


  Blood glanced at Musk, who nodded and circled behind Silk’s chair. Silk felt the tips of Musk’s fingers brush his ears.

  “If you go on talking to me like you have been, Patera, you’re going to get hurt. It won’t leave any marks, but you won’t like it at all. Musk has done it before. He’s good at it.”

  “Not to an augur. Those who harm an augur in any way suffer the displeasure of all the gods.”

  The pain was as sudden as a blow, and so sharp it left Silk breathless, an explosion of agony; he felt as though his head had been crushed.

  “There’s places behind your ears,” Blood explained. “Musk pushes them in with his knuckles.”

  Gasping for air, his hands to his mastoids, Silk could not even nod.

  “We can do that again and again if we have to,” Blood continued. “And if we finally give up and go to bed, we can start over in the morning.”

  A red mist had blotted out Silk’s vision, but it was clearing. He managed, “You don’t have to explain my situation to me.”

  “Maybe not. I’ll do it whenever I want to, just the same. So to get on with this—you’re right, we’d just as soon not kill you if we don’t have to. There’s three or four different reasons for that, all of them pretty good. You’re an augur, to start with. If the gods ever paid any attention to Viron, they quit a long time ago. Myself, I don’t think there was ever anything in it except a way for people like you to get everything they wanted without working. But the Chapter looks after you, and if it ever got out that we did for you—I mean just talk, because they’d never be able to prove anything—it would get people stirred up and be bad for business.”

  Silk said, “Then I would not have died for nothing,” and felt Musk’s fingers behind his ears again.

  Blood shook his head, and the contingent agony halted, poised at the edge of possibility. “Then too, we just bought your place so that might make some people think of us. Did you tell anybody you were coming?”

  Here it was. Silk was prepared to lie if he must, but preferred to dodge if he could. He said, “You mean one of our sibyls? No, nothing like that.”

  Blood nodded, and the danger was past. “It could get somebody’s attention anyway, and I can’t be sure who’s seen you. Hy has, and talked with you and so on. Probably even knows your name.”

  Silk could not remember, but he said, “Yes, she does. Can’t you trust her? She’s your wife.”

  Musk tittered behind him. Blood roared, his free hand slapping his thigh.

  Silk shrugged. “One of your servants referred to her as his mistress. He thought that I was one of your guests, of course.”

  Blood wiped his eyes. “I like her, Patera, and she’s the best-looking whore in Viron, which makes her a valuable commodity. But as for that—” Blood waved the topic aside. “What I was going to say is I’d rather have you as a friend.” Seeing Silk’s expression, he laughed again.

  Silk strove to sound casual. “My friendship’s easily gained.” This was the conversation he had imagined when he had spied on the villa from the top of the wall; frantically he searched for the smooth phrases he had rehearsed. “Return my manteion to the Chapter, and I’ll bless you for the rest of my life.” A drop of sweat trickled from his forehead into his eyes. Fearing that Musk might think he was reaching for a weapon if he got out his handkerchief, he wiped his face on his sleeve.

  “That wouldn’t be what I’d call easy for me, Patera. Thirteen thousand I’ve laid out for your place, and I’d never see a card of it again. But I’ve thought of a way we can be friends that will put money in my pocket, and I always like that. You’re a common thief. You’ve admitted it. Well, so am I.” Blood rose from his chair, stretched, and seemed to admire the rich furnishings of the room. “Why should we, two of a kind, circle around like a couple of tomcats, trying to knife each other?”

  Musk stroked Silk’s hair; it made him feel unclean, and he said, “Stop that!”

  Musk did.

  “You’re a brave man, Patera, as well as a resourceful one.” Blood strode across the room to study a gray and gold painting of Pas condemning the lost spirits, one head livid with rage while the other pronounced their doom. “If I had been sitting where you are, I wouldn’t have tried that with Musk, but you tried it and got away with it. You’re young, you’re strong, and you’ve got a couple of advantages besides that the rest of us haven’t. Nobody ever suspects an augur, and you’ve had a pretty fair education—a better education than mine, I don’t deny that. Tell me now, as one thief to another, didn’t you know down in the cracks of your guts that it was wrong to try to steal my property?”

  “Yes, of course.” Silk paused to gather his thoughts. “There are times, however, when one must choose among evils. You’re a wealthy man; stripped of my manteion, you would be a wealthy man still. Without my manteion, hundreds of families in our quarter—people who are already very poor—would be a great deal poorer. I found that a compelling argument.” He waited for the crushing pain of Musk’s knuckles. When it did not come he added, “You suggested that we speak as one thief to another, and I assumed that you intended for us to speak freely. To speak frankly, I find it just as compelling now.”

  Blood turned to face him again. “Sure you do, Patera. I’m surprised you couldn’t come up with just as good a reason for shooting Hy. These gods of yours did worse pretty often, didn’t they?”

  Silk nodded. “Worse superficially, yes. But the gods are our superiors and may act toward us as they see fit, just as you could clip your pet’s wings without guilt. I am not Hyacinth’s superior.”

  Blood chuckled. “You’re the only man alive who doesn’t think so, Patera. Well, I’ll leave morality to you. That’s your business after all. Business is mine, and what we have here is a very simple little business problem. I paid the city thirteen thousand for your manteion. What do you think it’s really worth?”

  Silk recalled the fresh young faces of the children in the palaestra, and the tired, happy smiles of their mothers; the sweet smoke of sacrifice rising from the altar through the god-gate in the roof. “In money? It is beyond price.”

  “Exactly.” Blood glanced at the needler he still held and dropped it into the pocket of his embroidered trousers. “That’s how you feel, and that’s why you came out here, even though you must have known there was a good chance you’d get killed. You’re not the first who’s tried to break in here, by the way, but you’re the first who got inside the house.”

  “That is some consolation.”

  “So I admire you, and I think we might be able to do a little business. On the open market, Patera, your place is worth exactly thirteen thousand cards, and not one miserable cardbit more or less. We know that, because it was on the market just a few days ago, and thirteen thousand’s what it brought. So that’s the businessman’s price. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  Silk nodded.

  “I’ve got plans for it, sure. Profitable plans. But it’s not the only possible site, so here’s my proposition. You say it’s priceless. That’s a lot of money, priceless.” Blood licked his lips, his eyes narrowed, their gaze fixed on Silk’s face. “So as a man that takes a lily profit wherever he can find one but never gouges anybody, I say we split the difference. You pay me twice what I paid, and I’ll sell it to you.”

  Silk started to speak, but Blood raised a hand. “Let’s pin it down like a couple of dimber thieves ought to. I’ll sell it to you for twenty-six thousand flat, and I’ll pay all costs. No tricks, and no splitting up the property. You’ll get everything that I got.”

  Silk’s hopes, which had mounted higher with every word, collapsed. Did Blood really imagine that he was rich? There were laymen, he knew, who thought all augurs rich. He said, “I’ve told you what I have; altogether, it wouldn’t bring two hundred cards. My mother’s entire estate amounted to a great deal less than twenty-six thousand cards, and it went to the Chapter irrevocably when I took my vows.”

  Blood smiled. “I’m flash,
Patera. Maybe you’d like another drink?”

  Silk shook his head.

  “Well, I would.”

  When Musk had gone, Blood resumed his seat. “I know you haven’t got twenty-six thousand, or anything close to it. Not that I’m swallowing everything you told me, but if you had even a few thousand you wouldn’t be there on Sun Street. Well, who says that just because you’re poor you’ve got to stay poor? You wouldn’t think so to look at me, but I was poor once myself.”

  “I believe you,” Silk said.

  Blood’s smile vanished. “And you look down on me for it. Maybe that made it easier.”

  “No,” Silk told him. “It made it a great deal harder. You never come to the sacrifices at our manteion—quite a few thieves do, actually—but I was setting out to rob one of our own, and in my heart of hearts I knew that and hated it.”

  Blood’s chuckle promised neither humor nor friendship. “You did it just the same.”

  “As you’ve seen.”

  “I see more than you think, Patera. I see a lot more than you do. I see that you were willing to rob me, and that you nearly brought it off. A minute ago you told me how rich you think I am, so rich I wouldn’t miss four old buildings on Sun Street. Do you think I’m the richest man in Viron?”

  “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?”