Return to the Whorl tbotss-3

by Gene Wolfe

  "We were friends for years, and after his wife died there was nobody but me. If it hadn't been for me, he would never have got to be what he did." She sighed; she has eyes the color of a blue china plate in a large, round face, and at the moment it held no more expression than the plate. "He'd still be with us." I asked her to explain, but she would not. "There's no mending it. You were a friend of his?"

  "He was the chief of the committee of five who sent me for Patera Silk, and he certainly befriended me afterward."

  "The one who was calde when we left?"

  "Yes, exactly."

  "Did you bring him?"

  I shook my head. "I tried, and failed. Please understand meI'm not looking for a reward. I'm entitled to none. But I have the seed corn we needed and would like to turn it over to someone who will make good use of it. I had supposed that when I returned I would make my report to Marrow. Learning that he had passed away, I tried to report to Gyrfalcon. I was unable to see him, and it occurred to me that Marrow might have left instructions for me, some message."

  "Do you need money? I might let you have a little." She rose with the help of a thick black stick and went to a cabinet.

  "No. I've more than enough for my needs, and my family's."

  I had risen because she had; she motioned for me to resume my seat. "What was your name again?"

  "Horn."

  "I see."

  "We live on Lizard-Marrow and the others came there the first time we talked."

  She said nothing. She is a large woman, quite stout, with a small mouth and a great deal of white hair.

  "I should not have gone. I know that now. At the time I thought it my duty."

  "What were you going to make from it?"

  "Money?" I shook my head. "I didn't expect any, though I would have taken it if it had been offered, I suppose. But you're right, there was something I wanted-I wanted to see Silk again, and speak with him."

  "Do you need a handkerchief?"

  She produced one, small and trimmed with lace, and I was reminded poignantly of the big, masculine-looking handkerchiefs Maytera Marble used to carry in her sleeves. I shook my head again and wiped my eyes. "It's the wind, I suppose, or too much writing. I've been writing a lot, mostly by lamplight."

  "That's where I write letters." She pointed to a little damaskwood desk. "See how the light from the window falls?"

  I acknowledge that it seemed a good arrangement.

  "Only I don't write a lot of them. You could come here and use it sometime if you wanted to."

  I thanked her, and asked again whether she had found any mention of me in Marrow's papers.

  "There's a lot of stuff." Her eyes were vague. "I haven't gone through everything yet. I'll look. Maybe you could come back tomorrow?"

  "Yes, I'd be happy to."

  "You're sure you wouldn't like something to eat?"

  "No, but it's very kind of you."

  "I would." She rang a bell. "If there's something for you, I'll have to make sure you're really Horn."

  I nodded and assured that I understood her caution and applauded it.

  "You must have been just a sprat on the lander."

  I admitted it, adding that I had thought myself a man.

  "Seems like a real long time ago to you. It don't to me. I must be, oh, a couple years older. I'd like to give you some money, too. But I have to know."

  "I don't need it, as I told you; but as for identification, my brother Calf lives here. He'll vouch for me, I'm sure."

  A slave girl entered, bowing. Capsicum told her to serve tea and to send in "the boy."

  When the slave girl had gone, Capsicum unlocked her cabinet and got out two cards. "Real ones, like we used to have back home. The Chapter will give you four gold ones for each of these."

  She seemed to expect me to challenge her assertion, so I said, "Patera Remora, you mean? I feel sure he won't, since they're not mine."

  A boy of about ten joined us, and she introduced him as her grandson. "You have to go to the shop of a man named Calf, Weasel. This gentleman will tell you how to get there. Ask Calf to come here, please, and identify the gentleman for me. The gentleman says Calf is his brother."

  My knowledge of these streets is somewhat limited, but I directed Weasel to the best of my ability and he nodded as though he understood. "Do you have a magic bird?"

  I laughed and tried to explain that I had a pet bird, not a magic one. To confess the truth, I had not the heart to tell the little fellow there were no magic birds.

  "Where is it?"

  "I sent him to my wife, to let her know that our son Hoof is returning to her, and that the rest of us-our son Hide and his betrothed, and our daughter and I-will return to her soon."

  Capsicum smiled at the prospect of a wedding. "Marrow'd have married me after his wife died, but I wouldn't let him."

  I said I was sorry to hear it.

  "Get along, Weasel. You go and ask the gentleman to come like we told you to, this don't concern you. We would've fought like a old dog and a old cat, Patera. I've never been sorry I said no."

  "I'm not an augur. I realized that this is an augur's robe, but I'm not."

  "You've got a wife, you said."

  "Yes, I do. Augurs have wives, occasionally, however."

  "Patera Silk did. I heard that before we left."

  The slave girl came in, staggering under the weight of a tray loaded with tea and wine, cups, saucers, and wineglasses, and enough little sandwiches and cakes to feed a palaestra. I drank tea (and to please Capsicum a glass of wine) and ate a sandwich, which was excellent.

  We talked about Viron for a time. I told her about the devastation that was the Sun Street Quarter, which she had supposed would have been rebuilt long since. "I don't think I'd have come, Patera, if it hadn't been for that. I had a nice place, the whole top floor in a real nice house, and my rent paid for half a year. Only it burned, and I thought, he's going away and I've lost everything, and if I don't go with him I'll lose him too. So I went."

  She toyed with the cards she had taken from her cabinet, then laid them down; clearly they recalled Viron, and the rooms there she had lost. "Why are people so mean?"

  "Because they separate themselves from the Outsider." I had not thought about it in those terms before and said what I did without reflection; but as soon as I had spoken, I realized that what I had said was true.

  "Who's that?" she asked.

  "A god." I was suddenly afraid of saying too much, of pushing too hard or too far.

  "Just a god?" She took another sandwich.

  "Isn't that enough for you, Capsicum? Godhead?"

  "Well, there's a lot of them, and sometimes it seems like they're as mean as we are."

  "Because they, too, have separated themselves from him. Nor are there really many gods, or even two. Insofar as they're gods at allwhich isn't far, in most cases-they are him."

  "I don't follow that." She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  "You have a walking stick. Suppose it could walk by itself, and that it chose to walk away from you."

  She laughed; and I understood what had drawn Marrow to her years ago; she did not laugh for effect, as women nearly always do, but as a child or a man might.

  "You see," I said, "if the Outsider were to make a walking stick, it would be such a good walking stick that it could do that." I held up the staff Cugino had cut for me. "But if it chose to walk away from him, instead of coming to him when he called to it, it would no longer be a walking stick at all, only a stick that walked. And when someone tending a fire saw it go past, he would break it and toss it onto the coals."

  She studied me as she chewed her sandwich, and I added, "I myself have walked away from him any number of times; he's always come after me, and I hope he always will."

  "It's only a walking stick when I walk with it." She held up her own thick black stick. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

  "Exactly."

  Dusting crumbs from her hands, she picked up the c
ards and tossed them into my lap. "These are for you."

  "I don't need them, as I told you."

  "Maybe you will." Her right hand scratched her left palm, a gesture I did not (and do not) comprehend.

  "Wouldn't it be better to wait until I've established that I am who I say I am?"

  "Horn, the man Marrow sent to bring back Silk."

  "Yes. Precisely."

  She shook her head. "That's for what Marrow left. This's mine, and I want you to have it. Did he say why he wanted Silk?"

  "Certainly. There was a great deal of disorder here, a great deal of lawlessness. Marrow and some others had tried to set up a government; but they could not agree on a calde, and most felt that if they had, the townspeople would not accept him. They would accept Silk, however, and the five who met with me had agreed to accept him, too."

  "We don't need one anymore." Capsicum's voice was bitter. "We've got Gyrfalcon."

  "Since I failed to bring Silk, that's all to the good."

  She said nothing, regarding me over the top of her glass.

  "You think he killed Marrow, don't you?"

  "I didn't say so, and I won't."

  "But you think it." I hesitated, scrambling for words that would make my meaning tolerable, if not acceptable. "I don't know that. I returned here only a few days ago."

  She nodded.

  "Let us suppose, however, that I did-that I knew beyond question that Marrow, who fought beside me in the tunnels and did everything he could to assist me in the mission he gave me, had been murdered, and that the new calde here was his murderer." I laid the cards she had given me on the tray. "Even knowing that, I would have to consider what would happen to the town if he were stripped of power and tried. It would be difficult to overturn a mountain-I believe you will agree with that. But it would be easier to overturn a mountain than to replace it."

  When she did not speak, I said, "I am giving you back your cards. It wouldn't be right for me to keep them."

  The boy Weasel returned and reported that Calf would not come but had given him a note. Capsicum broke the seal, unfolded the note, and read it twice. I asked whether I might read it too, since it concerned me.

  She shook her head, carried the note to her cabinet, and locked it in a drawer. "It says you're who I thought you were, Horn. Only there's some personal stuff in there I wouldn't want anybody else to see unless Calf said it was all right. You've been hoping Marrow left a letter for you or something?"

  "Yes. Did he?"

  "No. Or anyway I haven't found it. He did leave you something, though. A boat."

  My face must have shown my surprise.

  "He wanted to give you something, I guess. Probably he thought a boat wouldn't be any use to me, and I'd just sell it. I would have, too, if it hadn't been on the list to keep for you. I don't know much about them."

  We went to the harbor to see her, walking slowly through cold sunshine, accompanied by her grandson and another boy of the same age. Wavelily is the name across her stern. It reminds me painfully that "Lily" was the name of Tongue's daughter, who was murdered during my absence; I will rename the boat Seanettle. She is a yawl (a rig I had not sailed before) with a tall mast forward and a small one aft.

  "You think you can handle her alone?" Capsicum asked. "I won't be much help."

  I was surprised she wanted to sail at all, and said so.

  "I've been down to look at her a couple of times." Almost defensively she added, "It's what I'm supposed to do. Marrow wanted me to look after all this."

  "Of course."

  She turned study the yawl, her heavy black stick thumping the warped planks of the pier. "When I was younger… "

  I pointed to Weasel and his friend, who were already on board. "Would you like to take her out?"

  She is wider in beam than my old sloop, I would say, and perhaps a trifle shorter; but she handles every bit as well and rides the waves like a duck, and that is what matters. I had Capsicum take the tiller, cautioned her against putting it over too fast, and saw to the sails with the help of the boys, setting the big gaff mainsail, the little threecornered jigsail that was furled on the mizzen boom and is probably the only sail the mizzen has, and a jib. (There is a flying jib as well, a square sail that can be set on the topmast, and two as yet unexplored bags in the sail locker.) It was obvious she could have carried more, but on a strange boat I thought it wise to be cautious. With that sail, we churned right along; the boys were delighted, and so I believe was Capsicum.

  "I swore when I came here that I would never sail again in winter if I could help it," I told her, "but I maintain that I have kept my oath. This is spring sailing, really."

  She nodded, her cheeks red, her nose running, and her big, round face radiant. "There's floatflowers in this wind."

  A small hand tugged at my coatsleeve. "Is he coming back?"

  "Is who coming back?"

  "Weasel says you told him to talk to somebody else."

  "Oh. Oreb. Yes, I did. I sent him to talk to my wife." I was watching the draw of the mainsail, and not paying a great deal of attention to the small solemn face before me.

  "Is he coming back?"

  "I hope so. He always has, though he was gone for nearly a year once."

  Capsicum patted the gunwale beside her and shooed the boys away. "You're in danger. Do you know that?"

  I sat. "Not from those children. At sea, one is always in some danger; but at the moment, that's not at all severe. From Gyrfalcon, is that what you mean?"

  She nodded.

  "Then I know nothing of the kind. I know you thought I might be when we talked about his becoming calde-your tone and expression made that plain. But Gyrfalcon was a member of the committee that sent me after Silk. He can hardly object to my having tried to carry out his instructions, and if he punishes me for failing…" I shrugged.

  "You said they thought that if one of them got to be calde the people wouldn't agree."

  It was not precisely what I had said, but I nodded.

  "But they'd be happy with you. I think you're right." She looked pensive.

  "I said nothing of the kind. I said that it was thought they might accept Calde Silk."

  She remained silent after that, I believe until I had put the yawl about and started back to New Viron. Then she began to talk about the possibility that Gyrfalcon might be overthrown. "He'll kill you, Patera, if you give him time."

  "New Viron's sickness is not Gyrfalcon," I told her. "It was a cruel and lawless place without him, and it seems to me that it's better with him, if anything. A bad horse needs a big whip, as the saying goes. We overthrew the judges of Dorp. Possibly you've heard."

  She was silent. The two boys drew nearer to listen.

  "It was easy-so easy that a young friend and I ordered the judge presiding over my trial to convict me, because the uprising I planned might not have taken place if he had not. He wanted to dismiss the charges against me, you see, because he was afraid. Keep your heading, please. You're letting us drift downwind."

  I took the tiller myself and corrected our course.

  "I got to know the people of Dorp," I told her. "They're good people-brave, hardworking, and much cleaner than we. Shrewd traders, but kind and basically honest. The judges had taken advantage of their good qualities, and so the judges had to go; if I had not removed them, the people themselves would have within a few years. Gyrfalcon isn't taking advantage of the good qualities of the people, from what I've seen. He's taking advantage of their bad ones. If they are too quarrelsome to unite against him, and so violent that they'll willingly pay his taxes to be protected from one another, they have no reason to complain."

  When she still appeared unconvinced, I told her, "Dorp was like Viron-it needed a better government. New Viron needs better people."

  The harbor was in sight, and I instructed Weasel and his friend in lowering the mainsail, then had them stand by its halyards. A black speck in the distance caught my eye, and I waved to it before resuming my seat o
n the gunwale. "In its present state," I told Capsicum firmly, "New Viron couldn't be governed by a good person-by General Mint, for example."

  "Or Silk."

  "Or by Silk. You're quite correct. Either would have to grow worse, or give the tiller to someone else."

  * * *

  Oreb reached our boat (I should have mentioned this when I wrote yesterday evening) shortly after we dropped the mainsail, and was soon announcing, "Bird back!" and "Good Silk!" and pulling my hair as usual. All his nonsense.

  14. LUNCHEON AT THE CALDE'S PALACE

  Do all of you wish to see the calde?" Bison's clerk inquired doubtfully.

  Pig said, "Aye," and rose; Hound nodded, cleared his throat, and said, "Y-yes." Oreb, who had taken a dislike to the clerk, spat, "Bad man!"

  "I'll have to see about it," the clerk informed them, and disappeared for the second time behind the heavy door of carved oak.

  Perhaps to conceal his nervousness, Hound said, "I suppose this has changed a lot since the last time you were here, Horn?"

  He shook his head. "It seems very much the same. This is a new carpet, but it seems very like the one that was here when I carried a message to Calde Silk. That is certainly the door I remember, and I'd guess that these chairs were here then."

  The clerk returned, nodded, and motioned to him; and he told Pig, "We're to go in now. Watch out for the lintel."

  "Nae muckle a wait, bucky." Pig took his arm.

  "No. I would call it very gracious."

  The paneled room beyond held more chairs and two desks, both littered with papers; a second door larger than the first yielded smoothly but slowly to the clerk's tug at its massive handle of molded brass. A tall, narrow window overlooking the city showed through the widening crevice; beside it the edge of a functioning glass, blank but shimmering with dove-and-silver promise. A burly, smiling man appeared to assist the clerk with the heavy door. His beard was streaked with gray, and his dark hair had receded from his temples. Seeing him, Hound swallowed audibly.