Gene Wolfe: The Sword of the Lictor

“You are here, Master Torturer. I did not hear you come in.”

“I am only a journeyman, Archon.”

He smiled and seated himself on the sill, his back to the drop. His face was coarse, with a hook nose and large eyes rimmed with dark flesh, but it was not a masculine face; it might almost have been the face of an ugly woman. “Charged by me with the responsibility for this place, you remain a mere journeyman?”

“I can be elevated only by the masters of our guild, Archon.”

“But you are the best of their journeymen, judging from the letter you carried, from their choosing you to send here, and from the work you’ve done since you arrived. Anyway, no one here would know the difference if you chose to put on airs. How many masters are there?”

“I would know, Archon. Only two, unless someone has been elevated since I’ve been gone.”

“I’ll write them and ask them to elevate you in absentia .”

“I thank you, Archon.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, and turned to stare out the embrasure as though the situation embarrassed him. “You should have word of it, I suppose, in a month.”

“They will not elevate me, Archon. But it will make Master Palaemon happy to hear you think so well of me.”

He swung around again to look at me. “We need not be so formal, surely. My name is Abdiesus, and there is no reason you should not use it when we’re alone. You’re Severian, I believe?”

I nodded.

He turned away again. “This is a very low opening. I was examining it before you came in, and the wall hardly reaches above my knees. It would be easy, I’m afraid, for someone to fall out of it.”

“Only for someone as tall as yourself, Abdiesus.”

“In the past, were not executions performed, occasionally, by casting the victim from a high window or from the edge of a precipice?”

“Yes, both those methods have been employed.”

“Not by you, I suppose.” Once more he faced me.

“Not within living memory, so far as I know, Abdiesus. I have performed decollations — both with the block and with the chair — but that is all.”

“But you would have no objection to the use of other means? If you were instructed to employ them?”

“I am here to carry out the archon’s sentences.”

“There are times, Severian, when public executions serve the public good. There are others when they would only do harm by inciting public unrest.”

“That is understood, Abdiesus,” I said. As sometimes I have seen in the eyes of a boy the worry of the man he will be, I could see the future guilt that had already come (perhaps without his being aware of it) to settle on the archon’s face.

“There will be a few guests at the palace tonight. I hope that you will be among them, Severian.”

I bowed. “Among the divisions of administration, Abdiesus, it has long been customary to exclude one — my own — from the society of the others.”

“And you feel that is unjust, which is wholly natural. Tonight, if you wish to think of it in that way, we will be making some restitution.”

“We of the guild have never complained of injustice. Indeed, we have gloried in our unique isolation. Tonight, however, the others may feel they have reason to protest to you.”

A smile twitched at his mouth. “I’m not concerned about that Here, this will get you onto the grounds.” He extended his hand, holding delicately, as though he feared it would flutter from his fingers, one of those disks of stiff paper, no bigger than a chrisos and lettered in gold leaf with ornate characters, of which I had often heard Thecla speak (she stirred in my mind at the touch of it), but which I had never before seen.

“Thank you, Archon. Tonight, you said? I will try to find suitable clothing.”

“Come dressed as you are. It’s to be a ridotto — your habit will be your costume.” He stood and stretched himself with the air, I thought, of one who nears the completion of a long and disagreeable task. “A moment ago we spoke of some of the less elaborate ways that you might perform your function. It might be well for you to bring whatever equipment you will require tonight.”

I understood. I would need nothing beyond my hands, and told him so; then, feeling I had already been remiss in my duties as his host, I invited him to take what refreshment we had.

“No,” he said. “If you knew how much I am forced to eat and drink for courtesy’s sake, you’d know how much I relish the company of someone whose hospitable offers I can refuse. I don’t suppose your fraternity has ever considered using food as a torment, instead of starvation?”

“It is called planteration, Archon.”

“You must tell me about it sometime. I can see your guild is far ahead of my imagination — no doubt by a dozen centuries. After hunting, yours must be the oldest science of them all. But I cannot stay longer. We will see you at evening?”

“It is nearly evening now, Archon.”

“At the end of the next watch then.”

He went out; it was not until the door closed behind him that I detected the faint odor of the musk that had perfumed his robe.

I looked at the little circle of paper I held, turning it over in my hand. Pictured on the back were a falsity of masks, in which I recognized one of the horrors — a face that was no more than a mouth ringed with fangs — I had seen in the Autarch’s garden when the cacogens tore away their disguises, and a man-ape’s face from the abandoned mine near Saltus.

I was tired from my long walk as well as from the work (almost a full day’s, for I had risen early) that had preceded it; and so before going out again I undressed and washed myself, ate some fruit and cold meat, and sipped a glass of the spicy northern tea. When a problem troubles me deeply, it remains in my mind even when I am unaware of it. So it was with me then; though I was not conscious of them, the thought of Dorcas lying in her narrow, slant-ceilinged room in the inn and the memory of the dying girl on her straw bound my eyes and stopped my ears. It was because of them, I think, that I did not hear my sergeant, and did not know, until he entered, that I had been taking up kindling from its box beside the fireplace and breaking the sticks with my hands. He asked if I were going out again, and since he was responsible for the operation of the Vincula in my absence I told him I was, and that I could not say when I would return. Then I thanked him for the loan of his jelab, which I said I would not need again.

“You are welcome to it anytime, Lictor. But that was not what concerned me. I wanted to suggest that you take a couple of our clavigers when you go down to the city.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But it is well policed, and I will be in no danger.”

He cleared his throat. “It’s a matter of the prestige of the Vincula, Lictor. As our commander, you should have an escort.”

I could see he was lying, but I could also see that he was lying for what he believed to be my good, and so I said, “I will consider it, assuming you have two presentable men you can spare.”

He brightened at once.

“However,” I continued, “I don’t want them to carry weapons. I’m going to the palace, and it would be insulting to our master the archon if I were to arrive with an armed guard.”

At that he began to stammer, and I turned on him as though I were furious, throwing down the splintered wood so that it crashed against the floor. “Out with it! You think I am threatened. What is it?”

“Nothing, Lictor. Nothing that concerns you, particularly. It is just…”

“Just what?” Knowing he was going to speak now, I went to the sideboard and poured us two cups of rosolio.

“There have been several murders in the city, Lictor. Three last night, two the night before. Thank you, Lictor. To your health.”