Gene Wolfe - In Green's Jungles

Second, he wished me to see (and to smell and touch) those bodies. He might have freed me in many ways, and made me the leader of my fellow prisoners in many ways, too. But I cannot think of any other way in which he could have been half so effective. The horror of the inhumi that I had when I set out from the Lizard had been blunted by living with Krait on the sloop. If the Neighbor wanted to renew it as much as it could be renewed, he chose the most effective possible way of doing it.

I believe, however, that his true goal was to give me a realistic understanding of what we faced.

Before moving ahead, I ought to double back to the time after Mora left me. I've written nothing about that.

When I received the letters, it struck me that if I was going to ride out here with Mora and Fava it would be of value to know at what time their palaestra ended. I asked directions and walked over to it, and fin ding the coachman already waiting for them, I wrote Inclito a note thanking him for his invitation and saying that I could not come that day but hoped to come the next, and asked him to tell his coachman to allow me to ride with Mora and her friend.

The owner of the stationery store had invited me to share his supper; it was a simple meal of bread and soup, and I surprised and pleased him and his wife by eating little of either and amusing them with stories of my journey to Viron with Pig and Hound. Before we ate (as! should have said in the beginning) they asked me to invoke the gods. I blessed our meal in the name of the Outsider, making the sign of addition as solemnly as I would have when I was a boy, and talked about him for a few moments afterward. There is a great hunger for the gods here on Blue, I believe; but without their presence it lacks a focus.

Onorifica came back, perspiring from her bread-making but with her hair in better order. She had appeared frightened when she carried my tray in, her eyes darting around the room; I had thought that she was afraid of Oreb and had assured her that he was gone. This time she seemed more resolute; I made her sit down and offered her one of her own tarts.

"Cook was like to die at me for that, sir." She sat gingerly, picked up a tart in both hands, and nibbled at it like a fat squirrel.

I remained silent.

"She's afraid of you, sir. Swears she won't show her face in the kitchen door as long as you're here."

Of course I said that she had no reason to be, although I wondered how true it was; it seemed barely possible that his cook was the spy Inclito felt certain he was harboring.

"They're afraid of you in town, too, sir. Terrible afraid's what I hear."

I asked whether she had been there, and when she said she had not, how she knew.

"Coachman says, sir." She paused, worried (I believe) that she might be getting her informant into trouble. "He's got to come straight back after he drops them off in the morning, sir, and he does."

"But in the afternoon he has time to-" Gossip clearly would not do. "Talk to people there, assuming that he arrives a little early."

"That's right, sir."

"When I rode out here, Onorifica, Mora and Fava told me that their teachers had been quizzing them about me all day."

She chewed and swallowed. "I think so, sir."

"They also said that they'd given me a good character, and told everyone I was perfectly harmless. That last is quite true, and I'd like to think that the first is, too-though I know better."

"Is that all they said, sir?"

I shook my head. "They said quite a lot, Fava particularly. But that's all they told me that they had told their teachers."

"Mora wouldn't lie to you, sir."

"I'm delighted to hear it." I would have been even more delighted if I had believed it.

"But that Fava! Don't you trust her, sir."

I promised I would not.

"Looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Well, Master don't trust her, let me tell you. I've heard him jawing away sometimes, and she come in the room and that's the end. After that he talks about as much as a sti-" As Onorifica spoke, she caught sight of the staff that Cugino had cut for me. In a markedly different tone she asked, "Does your stick talk, sir?"

I smiled and said that it had not done so recently.

"It has that little face on it, though, don't it, sir?"

"Does it really? Show it to me."

"I'd rather not to touch it, sir, if it's-would you want me to fetch it, sir?" Her eyes pleaded with me to refuse, so I got up and got it myself.

She pointed, her trembling finger a good cubit from the wood. "Right here, sir."

There was a small hole where a knot had come out. Above it, a minute protuberance that might be called a nose, and over that two small, dark markings, that could-with a cartload of imagination-be taken for eyes. I rubbed this "face" with my thumb, dislodging a few dry scraps of inner bark. "Do you mean this, Onorifica?"

"Don't touch it, please, sir." The color left her cheeks. "Don't make it talk."

Suppressing a smile, I promised not to.

"What I got to ask you about, sir, is-is… " Her lips twitched soundlessly.

"Whether I really am a strego, as your mistress calls them? A magic worker?"

Her expression told me I had missed the mark, but her head bobbed.

"No, Onorifica, I'm not. No one is."

I waited for her to speak.

"Nobody is. There is no such thing as magic, in the way you mean it. Things we don't understand, ghosts and sudden storms for instance, make us think that there might be. But ghosts are merely the spirits of the dead, and though I don't know what causes sudden storms, I know they aren't raised by magic. It's true that certain people can predict the future, but they do it by drawing upon insights that they don't know they have, or because they're informed by the gods."

I smiled again, trying to reassure her. "Long ago I was the friend of someone who became a sort of god, an aspect of Pas. He gave me a lot of information and advice, and all of it was valuable. But wise as he was, he taught me no magic. He couldn't have, even if he had considered such a thing desirable."

"Like tonight, sir."

I thought she was referring to Fava's story. "Strange things happen, Onorifica. Nevertheless, it is no explanation to call them magic." There was a tap at the windowpane, and I got up and opened the window to let Oreb in.

"Good girl?" He eyed the good girl (who seemed on the verge of fainting) doubtfully.

"A very good girl, " I assured him.

"I told him we shouldn't with you in the house, " the good girl blurted, showering me with crumbs.

"Bad thing, " Oreb warned me.

I started to ask whom she intended by "him, " thinking that there might be an inhumu here, then realized the true state of affairs. Speaking very softly I said, "The friend to whom I referred was spied upon once when he was shriving a young woman. He told me that because the young woman had kept her voice very low, the spy had learned little or nothing." More loudly I concluded, "We should do the same."

"Yes, Master Incanto." From her expression, Onorifica had not the least idea what I was talking about.

"You happened to pass my room tonight on your way back to the kitchen, and very kindly asked whether I needed anything. And I, without in the least meaning to, frightened you by asking where you slept. Isn't that so?"

She seemed almost afraid to move her head, but managed a nod.

"I have no business interfering in my host's affairs, save those in which he has asked my help, and no business interfering in yours at all."

In a hoarse whisper she asked, "Are you going to do anything to me?"

"Punish you? I can't. And wouldn't if I could. He's given you a ring, anyway."

"Only we're not, you know, sir, married."

"You couldn't be, since there are no proper augurs here. My wife and I were united by Patera Remora, who is an augur, so we're really married. Without one, giving a ring is about as much as anyone can do. You might have a child, however. Have you thought about that?"