Gene Wolfe - On Blue's waters

There were five besides Gyrfalcon’s sailors, who had been brought along to work die boat. Perhaps I ought to list all five now and describe them, since Netde may want to show diis to others. You would do everything much better, darling, I know, working in the descriptions cleverly as you did when we wrote The Book of Silk ; but it is a skill I have never possessed to die same degree.

No doubt you remember them better dian I, as well.

Gyrfalcon is fat, with busy eyes, a noble face, and a mop of sinknut-brown hair just starting to turn gray. It was his boat, and he let us know that the moment diat he came ashore. Do you remember?

Eschar is tall and stooped, with a long, sad face, slow to speak until his passions are roused. He was on our lander, of course, just as Marrow and Remora were.

The woman came later, perhaps on Gyrfalcon’s lander. Her name is Blazingstar. She has humor, as you do, a rare thing in a woman. I know you liked her, and so did I. She talked about her farms, so she must own at least two in addition to her trading company.

Marrow is large and solid, not so fat as he was at home, but balder even than I was then. When we were children, he owned a greengrocery as well as his fruit stall in the market. He still deals in vegetables and fruits mostly, I believe. I have never known him to cheat anyone, and he can be generous; but I would like to meet the man who can best him in a bargain. Marrow was the only one of the five who helped me after I was robbed in New Viron.

His Cognizance Patera Remora is of course the head of the Vironese Faith-quite tall but not muscular, with lank gray hair he wears too long. He was at one time coadjutor in Old Viron (as we say it here). A good and a kind man, not as shrewd as he believes, prone to be too careful.

They were too many for our little house. Hoof and Hide and I made a rude table on the beach, laying planks across boxes and barrels and bales of paper. Sinew carried out all the chairs, I brought the high and low stools I use in the mill, and you spread the planks with cloths and set what little cheer we had before our uninvited guests. And so we managed to entertain all five, and even Gyrfalcon’s sailors, with some show of decency.

Marrow rapped the makeshift table, calling us to order. Our sons and the sailors were sitting on the beach, nudging one another, whispering, and tossing shells and pebbles into the silver waves. I would have sent them all away if I could. It did not seem to be my place to do so, and Marrow let them stay.

“First let me thank you both for your hospitality,” he began. “You owe us no favors, since we have come to ask you for a big one-”

Gyrfalcon interrupted, saying, “To grant you a privilege.” From the way he spoke, I felt sure that they had argued about this already.

Marrow shrugged. “I should have begun by explaining who we are. You know our names now, and even though you live so far from town, it’s likely that you also know we’re its five richest citizens.”

Remora cleared his throat. “Not, um, so. No-ah-intent to, um, contradict, but not, er, I.”

“Your Chapter’s got more gelt than any of us,” Eschar remarked dryly.

“Not mine, hey? Custodian-um-solely.” The sweet salt wind ruffled his hair, making him look at once foolish and blessed.

Blazingstar spoke first to you, Nettle; then to me. “We are the five people who have jockeyed most successfully for money and power, that’s all. We wanted them, we five, and we got them. Now here we are, begging you two to keep us from cutting our own throats.”

“Not, um-”

“He’ll deny it,” she told us, “but it’s the gods’ own truth just the same. Our money belongs to us, mine to me, Gyrfalcon’s to him, and so on. Patera here is going to insist that his isn’t really his, that it belongs to the Chapter and he only takes care of it.”

“Brava! Quite-um-ah… Precisely the case.”

“But he’s got it, and as Eschar said he’s probably got more than any of us. He’s got bravos, too, buckos to break heads for him whenever he wants.”

Stubbornly, Remora shook his own. “There are many men of- ah-high heart amongst the faithful. That I, um, concede. However, we-ah-none-”

“He doesn’t have to pay his,” Blazingstar explained. “We pay ours.”

Eschar asked Remora, “If it isn’t so, what are you doing here?”

Marrow rapped the table again. “That’s who we are. Do you understand now?”

You looked at me then, Nettle darling, inviting me to speak; but all I could think of to say was. “I don’t think so.”

Marrow said, “You don’t know why we’re here, naturally. We haven’t told you. That will come soon enough.”

Gyrfalcon snapped, “New Viron needs a caldé. Anybody can see it.”

You nodded then, Nettle darling. “It’s become a terrible place.”

“Exactly. We came here to escape the Sun Street Quarter, didn’t we? The Sun Street Quarter and the Orilla.” Gyrfalcon chuckled. “But we carried them with us.”

“It isn’t just crime,” Blazingstar declared, “though there’s much too much of that. The wells are polluted and there’s filth everywhere.”

Gyrfalcon chuckled again. “Just like home.”

“Worse. Filth and flies. Rats. It isn’t just that the people want a caldé, though they do. We do. We’re businesspeople at base, all of us. Traders and merchants. Sharpers, if you like.”

“I must-ah,” Remora began.

“All right, all except His Cognizance, who never hedges the truth even a finger’s width. Or so he says.” Blazingstar gave Remora a scornful smile. “But the rest of us need to carry on our businesses, and it’s become almost impossible to do that in New Viron.”

Marrow added, “And getting worse.”

“Getting worse. Exactly.”

You asked, “Can’t one of you be caldé?”

Gyrfalcon laughed aloud at that; he has a good, booming laugh. “Suppose one of us became caldé tomorrow. How about old Marrow there? He wants it.”

“I feel sure it would be a wonderful improvement.”

Marrow thanked you. “For you and your family it would be, Nettle. What do think it would be for them?” He glanced around at Gyrfalcon, Remora, Eschar, and Blazingstar.

“An improvement, too, I think.”

“Not a bit of it.” Marrow had rapped the table before; now he struck it with his fist, rattling our mugs and plates. “I would take everything I could get. I would do my best to ruin them, and if you ask me I would succeed.” He smiled, and glanced around at the woman and the three men I had believed were his friends. “They know it well, my dear. And, Nettle, they would do the same to me.”

Eschar told you, “We need Caldé Silk here. I was the first to suggest it.”

“He’s still in the Whorl , isn’t he? And… I don’t like to say this.”

“Then I will.” Blazingstar reached across the table we had made to cover your hand with her own. “He may be dead. I left sixteen years ago, and by this time it’s certainly possible.”

“Hem!” Remora cleared his throat. “Theocracy, hey? I have suggested it, but they will, er, won’t. Not if-ah-me. But, um, Patera Silk, eh? Yes. Yes, to that. Third party. Still an augur, eh? Indelible-ah-consecration. So, um. Modified? A mitigated theocracy. We, um, two in concert. I concur.”

Gryfalcon summed up, “It’s that or we fight, and a fight would destroy the town, and all of us, too, in all probability. Show them the letter, Marrow.”

Hari Mau and I have formalized the court. Up until now, it seems, litigants have simply done whatever they could to come before the rajan (as their ruler was called at home) and made their cases. Witnesses were or were not called, and so forth. We have set up a system-tentative, of course, but it is a system-in a situation in which any system at all will surely be an improvement. Unless they choose otherwise, Nauvan will represent all the plaintiffs, and Somvar all the defendants. It will be their duty to see that evidence, witnesses, and so forth are present when I hear the case. In criminal cases, I will assign one or the other to prosecute, depending.