Gene Wolfe: In Green's Jungles

"Yes. Quite a few women, and some men as well. And more children than all of the men and women combined. Please accept my very sincere condolences, however belated, upon the death of your wife."

Inclito was silent for a moment; then he inquired, "Where's your bird?"

"I have no idea. Scouting out the countryside, I imagine. He'll return when and if it suits him."

"It's better, maybe, that he's gone. That way my mother won't think you're a strego. That's a witch, it's what she calls them." Inclito smiled as he spoke, teeth flashing in his dark face; but I sensed that what he said was to be taken seriously.

"Your mother lives with you?"

He nodded. "I was going to tell who's in the house and who I can trust. So right off, my mother and my daughter. Maybe there's a spy, huh? But if there is, he's not them. You see my house?"

"If I'm looking at the correct one." It was not a single house, but a clutter of low, whitewashed buildings, half screened by a colonnade of graceful trees.

"I got good land when we come." Inclito's broad shoulders rose and fell. "They feel sorry for me because my Zitta dies. Then I help out everybody whenever I can. I help the town in a war, and after a while the corpo votes me some more. I can't use it, it's too far, so I trade with my neighbor. Two for one. He gets twice as much as he gives me." Inclito grinned for a moment. "Not a good bargain I make, huh? Always I'm a easy one when I do these things."

Feeling that I understood, I said, "Was it good land that you got from him?"

"Sure. Just like mine. Over there." He pointed. "What I give, it's not so good. A long way from Blanko, too, so I don't like it."

I said nothing, listening to the stillness of the night and waiting for him to continue.

"Back in Grandecitta we got a wise saying. You must know a lot of them."

"A few, perhaps."

"Maybe this is one. We say, if work's a good thing, why don't the rich tat c it? But I'm a rich man now, and I do. As much as I can, huh?" Inclito rattled the reins and the horses ambled forward. "You still want to know who's in my house? Who do I trust?"

"Yes, if you'll tell me."

"The family is me, my mother, and my daughter. I said that."

"You didn't say that was everyone."

"It is. Everybody that's related to me. There's a friend of Mora's that's staying with us for now. Her father's away."

"Mora is your daughter?"

"That's right. Her friend is Fava. She'll be at the table with us. Seems like a nice girl."

"Yet you suspect her?"

Inclito raised both hands, still grasping the reins. "I got to suspect somebody. But maybe there's nobody. You want the rest? All the names?"

"Just tell me who they are, for the present. I'll learn their names later as I require them."

"All right. I got three men to help. One's the coachman we been talking about. He's the oldest. A^fito. He's only a coachman when I want him to drive this for me. It's for my mother, mostly. She wants to go, or Mora, he gets cleaned up and takes her. He's not a smart man, but he's good with the horses. Like now. You see these horses, how wet?"

I nodded.

"I drive too hard, too fast. Affito goes a little slower, he's got more left at the end. The other two is his nephews, Affito's brother's sprats. They're born out here, not like you and me."

I nodded again.

"Like I got the three men, my mother's got three women that help her, only she's really got five, because Mora and Fava help sometimes."

I asked what the three women servants did.

"A woman to cook and two girls to help around the house. One helps in the kitchen, mostly. That's Onorifica. The other one washes floors and make up the beds, huh?"

"I believe I understand. Where do the three men sleep?"

"Where do they sleep?"

"Yes. It's no great secret is it? Do they sleep in the house?"

Inclito shook his head, more in wonder, it seemed to me, than in denial. "In back, in the big barn. They got a place like a little house in there that's just for them. I'll show you if you want to look."

"After dinner, perhaps. We'll see. What about the three women? Where do they sleep?"

"Not in there. That what you're thinking?"

"I'm not thinking at all, " I told him. "I simply want to know."

"The cook in the kitchen. That's her bedroom, too, so I got to knock on the door if I want something late at night. Sometimes one of the girls sleeps in there with her. Or sometimes one will sleep with my mother. If she's afraid she'll maybe be sick or need something, one will sleep in her room on a little bed we got in there. Or my daughter will, or even Fava."

I said, "Suppose that your daughter is to sleep with your mother, and that the cook doesn't require company in the kitchen. Where would the other three sleep then?"

Laying aside his whip, Inclito wiped the sweat from his big, smoothly curved head with one large hand; he is almost totally bald, as I should have said much earlier. "You want to stay with us tonight? There's two empty rooms. Torda can fix up a bed for you."

"I'm not hinting, merely trying to find out how well placed each of these three women is to overhear your talk, to read your letters, and so forth, " I explained. "Your coachman might overhear you talk with some friend, while he drove you, for example. But-"

"Hardly ever."

"Exactly. Though he might conceivably hear your mother tell a friend of hers something you had told her, so we can't rule him out altogether. The other two men seem even less likely thus far. You believe that I may be Patera Silk. May I tell you something the real Silk once said?"

Inclito nodded. "That's a big thing, huh? I'd like to hear it."

"It's in the book you mentioned. Since you've read it, you presumably read this in it. Councilor Potto said that he loved mysteries, and Patera Silk said that he did not, that he tried to put an end to them whenever he could. I've tried to be like him all my life. Also, you say you want my advice concerning the war you fear is about to start."

Inclito nodded silently.

"I'll give you some right now. Find out who the spy is, if there is one. Do that as fast as you possibly can. Then turn that spy, if it's feasible to do so. Use that spy to get false information to the Duko."

"All right, we'll try, Incanto. You and me. You got questions? Ask me anything?"

"You indicated that there would be five of us at dinner, if I heard you right-you, your mother, your daughter, your daughter's friend Fava, and me. Who will serve it? Bring out our food?"

"The girls."

"Onorifica and Torda?"

"Uh huh. Sometimes Decina will bring out the roast, if it's a special one. Sometimes my mother will come help her if she's feeling good."

Decina was the cook. But by that time we were almost at his door, and I really must sleep.

It is about the middle of the afternoon, I should judge, and I have had an unexpected visitor here at my barrel. I tried to make her as comfortable as I could; she did not complain, and in fact left me a little medallion she says is pure gold. I can still smell her perfume.

But I should not rush ahead of events like this.

I remember the Calde's Palace in Old Viron very vividly, and so I found Inclito's house less impressive than many people must. To set down the truth here (as I must be careful to do in every instance whatsoever) it was less impressive than my own palace in Gaon as well, a palace and a manner of living that I am doing my utmost to forget. The core of the house is the ruin of a building of the Vanished People, and is of stone. The remainder is of brick, of which Inclito is extremely proud. Outside, both stone and brick have been covered with stucco and whitewashed; inside one sees the ancient gray stones and the new red bricks. To give the house its due, all the rooms I saw are large and possess a multitude of big windows; the outer walls are curved, for the most part; the interior walls are generally straight. I got the impression that many had been exterior walls in their time, and that new and bigger rooms had been added as the whim seized the owner, or as funds became available.