Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

"You'll tell me where Silk is, and help me persuade him?"

Bison stood. "Maybe, and maybe not. I haven't decided. It's lunchtime, gentlemen, and you're invited to lunch at my palace. Will you do me the honor of dining with my wife and me? We can talk about all this some more while we eat."

Bison and Pig sat on the wide rear seat of Bison's floater, the others on jump seats facing them. "I go home for lunch just about every day," Bison told them as the floater glided forward. "Generally I tell people it's because I like my cook's food."

He paused, fingering his beard. "That's true, I do. But that's not really why I go home to eat. It's because I want to talk to my wife about whatever has come up that morning. Now I want to talk to her about this. For one thing, she knows Silk better than I do."

He said, "You must mean Maytera Mint. In a book we wrote, we-my wife Nettle and I-tried to imply that you and Maytera Mint might marry; but we couldn't be certain that such a marriage would actually take place."

"Good girl!"

Bison laughed. "Don't call her Maytera, please. She isn't a sibyl anymore and doesn't like to be reminded of it. Call her General, or just Mint. She doesn't mind either one of those."

When no one else spoke, Pig muttered, "Bonny ride, bucky. Traveled far, aye, an' h'every way but flyin'. This's best. Feel a' h'it."

"I had almost forgotten about these, but I rode in the calde's once or twice before we left." He was looking out at the city through the transparent dome. "Willet was the driver, and he promised to teach me to drive, too. That was the day before we went up to the airship, and I've wondered sometimes whether he-well, never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Ter yer, bucky."

Bison told his own driver to go slower, then spoke to Pig, first touching his knee. "Do you know about my wife?"

"Nae had ther honor."

"Then I should tell you. She's in a wheelchair. It's not that she can't walk. She can, but it's painful. So she uses the chair, mostly. I thought you ought to know. Horn does already, I'm sure."

He turned from the contemplation of empty shops. "No, I didn't. What happened?"

"Someone tried to kill her."

Hound said, "I remember people talking about it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. He was killed himself a few seconds after he fired." Bison lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "If it weren't for your friend here, I wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Poor man," Oreb muttered. It was not clear whether he intended Bison or the assassin. "Poor girl."

Their floater, already moving slowly, slowed more, then settled to the wide, smooth paving stones before the Calde's Palace. With the whisper of one who betrays a secret, its transparent dome vanished into its gleaming sides. The driver sprang from his seat to open one side for them; from his green uniform, he was a hoppy, a member of the Calde's Guard.

Two more Guardsmen threw back the wide front doors of the Calde's Palace.

Pig had taken his arm. "Braw place, bucky? Feels sae."

"Handsome? Is that what brave means? It is indeed, with a door you won't have to duck through. Mind the steps, though."

The questing tip of Pig's sheathed sword found the first.

"I kept you waiting outside my office," Bison explained as he went up, "because I wanted to get my wife on the glass and ask about inviting you. She doesn't always feel up to entertaining, and it seemed better to find out how she was today in private. Frankly, I was amazed. She's eager to see you."

Hound was already wide-eyed. "I just wish Tansy were here. That's my own wife. She would be so thrilled…"

"If you live near here-" Bison began.

"Oh, no. It's-we live in Endroad. And she'd have to dress and everything. To tell you the truth, she probably wouldn't come, because she doesn't have a dress good enough."

Bison's wife Mint was waiting for them in the big dining room in which Silk had once entertained Generalissimo Siyuf. Bison hurried over to her. "My dear, I would like to present Horn, a visitor from Blue, and his friends Hound and Pig."

"Know girl!" Oreb proclaimed.

Mint smiled at all four; and although her face was pale and drawn, her smile was bright. "Welcome. Welcome, all of you. Horn, you can't have forgotten me. You used to be my runner."

He smiled and saluted. "Of course not, General."

"It's good to see you again. No, it's better than good. Wonderful, in fact. Have we been feeding you here in Viron?"

"Bountifully."

Hound said, "We breakfasted at our inn, just down the street. There was lots of very good food, but he kept giving his to Pig."

"Bird eat!"

"And to Oreb, though Oreb didn't eat as much."

"We have plenty for him here." She gestured toward the table. "For all of you. Sit down, please. I'm seated already, and we don't stand on ceremony here, or not till shadelow. My dear, would you push me?"

Bison did.

"There, that's better." From one end of the long table, Mint regarded the silver serving dishes with satisfaction. "I've put you all on one side because I had to. We can't pass, unless there are at least three on a side. The calde and I have to sit at a corner when we eat in here by ourselves."

She rapped her glass three times with back of a table knife, and told the maid who appeared, "We're ready, I believe. You may-no, we're not. We ought to have an invocation. Would you do it, Horn?"

He shook his head ruefully. "You think I've become an augur. I have not. I have no right to this robe."

"Better a false augur than none. If you don't do it, I'll have to ask the calde. He'll send to the Prolocutor's Palace, and it will be time for dinner before we have our lunch."

"I-"

"Please, Horn. For me."

He rose and made the sign of addition. "Gracious Outsider, I, who learned so many prayers at the urging of this good woman, do not know the proper one to make you on such an occasion. We offer our thanks to you-inadequate thanks, yet all we have to give-for good food and for bringing us together in hospitality and friendship."

He sat, and Bison murmured, "Phaea bless our feast."

Mint picked up a platter. "Here is squab salad, Pig. It's a specialty here, or so we like to think. May I give you some?"

"Thank yer kin'ly."

She heaped his plate. "You're the most reticent of our guests. You've hardly spoken a word since you came, so it is my duty as hostess to draw you out."

"Pig talk!"

"Thank you, Oreb. Hound, you're not eating. Give him some of that salmon and caper mixture, dear, before Honeysuckle brings in the hot meats.

"Now you must help me, Pig. I'm not very good at this, so you have to pretend that I've very cleverly made you relax and babble like a brook."

"Nae sae guid meself, mistress."

"He's a difficult case," Mint told her husband. "These overgrown boys are often like that. It's hard to get them to contribute in class, but one must persevere."

"Let me try. Pig, I know why Horn came to see me this morning. He wants Calde Silk, and thinks I can give him to him. I take it you're a friend of his. Of Horn's, I mean."

"Aye."

"Did you come with him simply to provide moral support? Or do you have some request of your own?"

"Me een."

Bison looked back to his wife; and Hound said hurriedly, "This is my fault, Calde. I told him I thought there might be a doctor here who could help him."

Pig coughed, a self-conscious little sound that might have proceeded from an unusually mannerly mountain. "There's nae. Yer neednae say h'it. Auld Pig knows h'it."

"Then I won't, and for all I know there may be someone here who can help you. I'll make inquiries."

"Nae. Save yer pother. Yer guid wife would nae be crouchy an' sae guid a leech yer ha'." Although Pig's shaggy head did not turn, his hand brushed Mint's arm with claw-tipped fingers nearly as thick as that arm itself. "Yer sees an' Pig walks. 'Tis ther better part. A ghaist told me ter stick wi' bucky ter get me cen back. If auld Pig's ter see, yer might skelp yet."