Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

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 on 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.

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.