“No, never.”
“So what will you do, when you have told us all your stories?”
The storyteller walked beside Clement, sure-footed and precise on the slick paving stones that here and there emerged from ice. “It will not happen.”
“Never? You know, they’re taking bets on how long you can continue without repeating yourself.”
The storyteller seemed unamused. “Your people’s stories will run out, but mine will not.”
Clement protested, “We Sainnites have a long history!”
“No histories,” said Gilly. “Forbidden.”
“By command? Or by the storyteller’s preference?”
“I hear whatever tale people choose to tell,” said the storyteller. “So long as it is new to me.”
“If I told you how I got my flower bulbs,” began Clement.
“No personal tales,” interrupted Gilly.
“I hear whatever tale people choose to tell,” said the storyteller again, in a tone so neutral that a listener might not even notice that she was contradicting Gilly.
Clement said, “But if you heard a story about flower bulbs, that isn’t the kind of story you would then tell, is it?”
When at last Clement turned to see why the storyteller had not answered, she noticed first that the woman continued to find her balance on the slippery stones, as easily and unconsciously as a dancer. Then she noticed that the storyteller was not even looking at her feet, but at her. Her attentiveness and silence both were deeply unsettling.
Clement felt irresistibly compelled to speak. “This kind of story: The fighting had been incessant, and it was the first time I had seen my mother in days. We had just heard that the enemy was coming over the wall. She came to the barracks, took me out into the garden, and we began digging. She wore a coat like this one I’m wearing, with big pockets. We filled her pockets with bulbs—all different kinds—until we couldn’t cram any more in. Then she picked me up, and ran with me. I looked over her shoulder and saw the enemy coming down the road. I could hear my mother gasping for breath. I could feel the great lump of bulbs in her pocket, and I remember hoping that none of them would fall out.”
She stopped. She felt Gilly’s gaze, but did not want to look at him. The general’s Lucky Man had been a child beggar in a ditch when she first met him. There was not much doubt that Cadmar had abused the boy, those first few years. There were many topics that Clement and Gilly never discussed with each other, including both their childhoods.
It was time for one of her listeners to ask a question, to rescue Clement from embarrassment. But Gilly was silent, and the storyteller did not appear to be capable of asking questions, or of engaging in anything resembling a normal conversation. She said, “Your mother’s power came to you through those flower bulbs. Because she loved you, she rescued that power for you in the face of disaster. When I tell this story, I will tell how you rescued that power for yourchild.”
Clement found she had lost her power of speech.
Gilly was gazing intently at the icicle-decorated eaves of a half-built building. He glanced at Clement, finally. To her surprise, his glance was serious, with no mockery at all. He turned to the storyteller and asked the question Clement could not. “How will she do such a thing?”
“When I tell that story,” the woman said, “then we will know how.”
In a crowded, dirty room, a dozen soldiers gathered, all men from the same company, who had come directly from the construction work. They had pulled bread and meat from their pockets and were eating companionably and passing a surreptitious flask as they awaited the storyteller. They leapt up in confusion when Clement entered, and settled down again at her gesture, though now the flask was nowhere to be seen. She could smell forbidden spirits, though, and a stink of dirt and sweat and slightly rancid meat. After Clement and the storyteller had helped Gilly to dismount, he had scarcely been able to walk. But now, as he sat and took a pen from behind his ear, an ink bottle from his pocket, and a roll of paper from inside his coat, he became the very model of grimy officiousness. In fact, of everyone in the room, only the storyteller was truly clean, as though even dirt could not adhere to her.
The soldiers began telling stories almost at once, their order of recitation apparently having been worked out in advance. Half listening, Clement watched the storyteller, whose attention in turn was focused on whoever spoke: an attention the likes of which Clement had never seen, not even in a predator whose life depended on such watchfulness. When one or another speaker began to falter self-consciously, the storyteller would look away, to give him some relief. Every single time, she looked into Clement’s eyes instead. Clement perceived nothing in that glance: not curiosity nor self-consciousness nor weariness nor wonder. Certainly, the storyteller didn’t care that Clement stared at her. In fact, she hardly even seemed to notice.
Gilly, skimming his list, interrupted one man’s story, and then another, to say, “Sorry, that one’s been told.” For other stories, he wrote a few words down on his paper: a title, or a description, Clement supposed. After some mental ciphering, Clement concluded that the woman probably had already told, and been told, well over two hundred stories. And if the storytelling continued to winter’s end, it would easily be more than a thousand. Surely the soldiers were making bets on when the stories would run dry because they had realized, however vaguely, that the storyteller was uncanny, and that she was doing something that should have been impossible. But, apparently, it had occurred to no one, except perhaps to Gilly, that extraordinary events are seldom benign.
The storyteller was in the refectory, being served an early supper so she could be refreshed and ready to perform when the meal bell was rung. Clement and Gilly stood out in the chilly street, both of them on foot now. As always, Gilly crouched over his cane like an old man, but he looked even older in winter, and in the last few years his hair had begun to go gray. Clement took off her hat and brushed a hand self-consciously across her own hair, close-clipped for the helmet she hardly ever wore anymore. Was she also going gray? She tried to think of when she had last looked into a mirror.
“That storyteller is more than strange,” she said. “She is supernatural.”
Gilly gave her that peculiar sideways look of his, but did not speak.
“Is she a witch?” Clement asked.
He said, “I believe she has what the Shaftali call an elemental talent, an unusual ability that gives a remarkable shape to her thinking. If she were a witch, though, she’d be turning her stories into reality.”
“If Cadmar knew about this …”
Gilly looked grimly down at his hand gripping the cane. “The soldiers adore her. I’d hate to take her away from them for no good reason, after such a year as they’ve had to endure.”
“I think,” said Clement, “that you yourself might like her a little.”
He looked sideways at her again. “A monstrous creature like her?”
They were silent until Gilly added, quietly, “She must be aware of what danger she puts herself in by entering these gates. But she seems incapable both of fear and of self-protection.”
“Isn’t she as much a danger to us?”
Gilly said, “You think she’s a Paladin spy? With that memorable face? Dressed in extremely visible flame-red silk? Always the center of attention?”
“Well, if she was lurking about trying to be invisible, she wouldn’t have soldiers blabbing to her for hours every day with official permission.”
“What one thing has she been told today that could be even remotely useful to our enemies?”
“It’s not what they’re telling her that matters,” said Clement. “It’s the habitof telling.”
“Yes,” said Gilly. “The habit of telling. And the novelty of being heard. It matters, yes. But how is it dangerous?”
Clement could not think of when she had felt so unbalanced, so utterly confounded. Gilly’s steadiness, his very seriousness, only contributed to the sensation
. She wanted him to make a joke of the entire afternoon. But he clung to his cane as though he feared he would fall over, frowned distantly at the icy ground, and waited for her to speak.
Surely something the storyteller had said to Gilly had unnerved him also. Perhaps, because of her, he now shared with Clement this lingering sensation that he had overlooked the possibilities of his life. But the sensation would pass, and they would still be what they were.
Clement said, “Well, we can forbid the storyteller to enter the garrison. Or we can arrest her and do to her what we do to witches. Or we can pretend like we haven’t noticed a bloody thing, and let the soldiers hear her tales.” She paused. “Do you think you can make certain she has no other conversations like the one she had with me today? With anyone? Including yourself?”
There was a silence. “Yes,” Gilly said.
“Has Cadmar showed any interest in hearing her tales?”
“None.”
“Let’s make certain he doesn’t.” The bell was ringing. “Shall we go in?” She took his arm, and felt him lean into her.
It was the first time Clement had sat down in that room to watch the storyteller’s performance. The eager soldiers struggled with each other for the best spots, but they had left a seat for Gilly, and Clement sat in the place the storyteller vacated. A soldier said, “Lieutenant-General, you’ve not come here before? You’ll be amazed.”
She turned to the soldier, and found a hard-faced, embittered veteran, who had already turned away from her to look up at the storyteller with an expression of childish anticipation. “Why?” said Clement.
“Oh, she’s good.”The veteran put a ringer to her lips. “This is the best part.”
What followed was a ripple of silence, and the tension of anticipation. The storyteller waited on the stage of the tabletop: poised, taut, intent. Just as Clement thought the performer had waited too long, she spoke. “I am a collector of tales, and I will trade, story for story. This is a tale of the Juras people, who are giants in an empty land, whose voices are so big they sing the light into the stars.”
She told the tale of the grasslion and the buffalo, which Clement thought was about the dangers of underestimating the enemy, or of overestimating oneself, or perhaps of being so stupid as to assume there is no more to be understood about the world. The storyteller told five more tales, and each one was a disappointment to Clement, for none of them was a tale of magical flower bulbs.
“Oh, dear,” Gilly said. “Clem, I fear you are in trouble. Something very odd is happening to you.”
But he added, after a while, “At least get Cadmar’s permission.”
Clement made certain Cadmar was in a jovial mood, which, after so many years with him was not too difficult to engineer. He laughed at her request, which she expected, and then granted it. He liked to think he was generous with his inferiors, especially in matters that were irrelevant to and not inconvenient to him.
Clement rode to Alrin’s house early one cold afternoon, alone and unexpected. Marga must have been out, for the storyteller opened the door and admitted her without comment. She was not wearing her performance clothes, but Alrin’s tailor certainly had been exercising his skills on her: her wool suit was austere, not impractical, and very flattering. Clement had been curious what possessed the courtesan to take in this unconventional lodger, but, watching the uncanny woman go up the stairs to announce Clement’s presence, it occurred to Clement that Akin might simply be indulging in a passion for exotic decoration.
“She asks you to come upstairs,” said the storyteller when she returned.
“You did tell her—?”
“Business. As you said.”
Clement made her own way to Alrin’s room. The courtesan lay in bed, supported by pillows, with the lamp lit and an account book beside her. Her round belly jutted before her. “You’re not well?” Clement said.
Alrin waved a graceful hand. “Oh, it’s nothing. Marga made me see the midwife, and now I must lie abed all day. I’m sure you wish that you might suffer so.”
Clement was particularly glad that she had managed to bring a gift, which she now unpacked from its makeshift wrappings. The pottery cup was no more than a broken discard found outside the refectory. The cup was full of plain water and ordinary stones, but the bulb planted in it had bravely and insouciantly put forth its buds, and just that morning one of the buds had cracked open to release a pale pink flower.
Alrin exclaimed, “Oh, what a scent! How did you convince it to bloom so early?”
“Soldier’s secret.” Clement set the broken cup with its perfumed contents on the nearby table. As she stood at the foot of the bed, watching Alrin breathe in the scent again and again, each time with fresh pleasure, she had the amazed idea that perhaps she had accomplished one worthwhile, though extremely small, thing this year.
“What do you want from me?” Alrin finally asked.
“I would like,” Clement said, “to adopt your child.”
“Surely you are not serious.”
“Very serious.” Clement looked around, found a chair nearby, drew it closer to the bed, and sat in it. “How much will it take?”
“You could start by being a man,” Alrin said.
This directness was new, and very strange. Perhaps, since Alrin’s retirement had been thrust upon her early by this illness, she had begun to practice bluntness in preparation for her new career.
Clement said, “If I had pretended to be acting as Cadmar’s intermediary, you’d give me the child, and never know the money wasn’t his.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Of course not.”
They both were silent. The heady scent of the newly opened flower gradually filled the room.
Alrin finally said, “I’m stunned by this proposal.”
That was when Clement knew she had a chance, for if there had been no hope, Alrin would have simply refused. Clement said, “If I were a man, how much would it take to outbid the other candidates?”
Alrin rather delicately named a sum.
Clement offered substantially more than that.
Alrin looked involuntarily at her closed account book.
Clement stood up. “Let me know when you have made up your mind. I have a journey to make in a few days, and may be gone from the garrison for some time. But Gilly will act as my agent in my absence, and he has access to my funds.”
Alrin said in some surprise, “Is he your brother?”
Clement felt rather blank. But surely it should have been a simple question? She finally answered, “Gilly is what I have.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
On any night, Garland might open his eyes to the glow of Medric’s candle, a red blur behind the curtain that divided the attic. Medric’s pen might be scratching, or he might be steadily, rhythmically turning the pages of a book, or he might be mixing a new batch of ink. Sometimes he muttered to himself, and Garland might wonder sleepily how anyone could possibly work in such cold. One night, though, Garland awakened to Medric’s voice, raised in excitement, and Emil’s voice, moderately responding. Garland got up, and peered cautiously through the curtain. Emil sat on the edge of the bed with a sheaf of papers on his knees. Medric, lenses aglow with candlelight, talked wildly, his long, thin fingers flickering in the cold air.
Emil spotted Garland and said wryly, “Sometimes we have nights like this. There’s no point in begging him to be quiet.”
“Oh, my brother!” Medric cried. “It’s finished! And you can read it, too!”
Garland said groggily, “I stillcan’t read.” For although he had been sharing Leeba’s alphabet lessons, he suspected he had quite a distance to go.
“But Emil will read it to you. He’s a fine reader.”
Emil tugged at the tangle of blankets. “Do get in the bed, Garland, and listen for a while. I would consider it a great favor.”
The effort of getting the bedding straightened out was enough to wake Garland up completely. “Blessed day
,” Emil grumbled, shivering in his underclothes. “How did these blankets get to be such a mess? And Medric, why must you and I always be condemned to the one room without a fireplace?”
“It’s for the books, really,” said Medric. “They like it airy.”
“But why must we sleep with them? A man might be forgiven for wishing he might occasionally be just a little comfortable.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Medric admonished him. “Not a little, not even for a moment! Shaftal is a discomforting mistress!”
Garland got rather self-consciously under the blankets, which were extremely heavy but not at all warm, and Emil tucked a stale-smelling pillow under his head. “That was a remarkable thing you did with that fowl tonight,” he said. Beyond him, Medric bounced excitedly on his toes, apparently trying to jump out of his skin. “I have to say,” continued Emil, “it’s a pleasure to see Karis finally putting on that weight she lost from being sick this spring. She was looking an awful lot like a smoke addict again, and I was finding it unsettling. Present miseries are bad enough, without always being reminded of past ones.”
Garland said, “Karis used to look like a smoke addict? Why?”
“Because she was one.” Emil got under the blankets beside Garland, and muttered, “Well, thatwas hardly worth the effort. Do you think we have even a hope of becoming warm?”
Garland, trying and failing to imagine Karis as one of those numbed, obsessed, starved, shadow-people that in the last few years had become increasingly rare in Shaftal, replied rather vaguely, “No hope at all.”
“What is the matter, Medric?” said Emil innocently.
Medric pushed the sheaf of papers at him. “I beg you! Read! In your clear, compelling, quavering—”
“—candid, cantankerous—” said Emil.
“—querulous voice!”
Smiling, Emil picked up the first page and held it at an angle to capture the candle light. “A History of My Father’s People,” he read. “Being an Account of the Sainnites, and How They Came to Shaftal, a Discussion of How to Understand Them, and Why They are Doomed.”
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