Gene Wolfe - In Green's Jungles

Blanko, as I have said, is the only walled city I have as yet seen here. Qarya was a walled village; I had seen such villages on Green before, but their walls had been no more than rough palisades of pointed stakes, scarcely more than fences. Qarya's palisade was surrounded by a wide, water-filled ditch; it surmounted a wall of earth faced with brick, and every lofty paling was thicker than a man's body.

"Impressive," I told Hide.

"I'd rather have stone walls like they do in Blanko."

"So would they, I'm sure-and they will have them soon."

Jahlee, clinging to my free arm, looked up quizzically. "What good is all this, when inhumi can fly?"

Half a dozen older men were sitting or lounging by the gate; thinking that they might have overheard her, I changed the subject as quickly as I could. "I have never seen you so beautiful, and I owe it to you to tell you that. The sun is very strong here, and I would have said that no woman's face could endure it without revealing some slight imperfections; but yours does."

She smiled at that, her beautiful, even teeth flashing in the brilliant light.

The oldest man there, a man as white-bearded as I, who sat his rough stool as if it were the throne of Gaon, spat. "She's no inhuma, miralaly, and the lad here's no inhumu. But what about you?"

"I am a man, exactly as you are."

"Push back those big sleeves and show your wrists."

I did, giving my staff to Hide and turning my hands this way and that, by no means certain what it was that he wanted to see.

One of the others, gray and lame, pointed to Jahlee. "This your wife?"

"Certainly not," I told him; she whispered in my ear, "You need only ask, Incanto darling."

"The boy's wife?"

"He's my son. His name is Hide, and he is not yet married. My own name is Horn. This woman is a friend, nothing more and nothing less. Her name is Jahlee."

The white-bearded man hawked portentously and spat, clearly a signal for the others to be quiet. "That's an evil name for any woman."

"Then I'll change it," she told him. "What would you like it to be?"

He ignored her. "What do you want here?"

"We've come to see another son of mine, Hide's older brother Sinew." There was a slight stir as I said this. "He lives here, I believe, and if someone will just tell us the way to his house, we'll trouble you no further."

"You're Sinew's father?"

I nodded.

The white-bearded man eyed the circle of onlookers and selected one. He made a gesture of command, and the man he had designated hurried away.

I started to follow him, but a fat man with an oily black beard blocked my path, saying, "Sinew's the rais-man here. You know that?"

I shook my head. "I didn't, but I'm delighted to hear it. Will he come when that man asks him to?"

"He's not going to. He's going to the maliki-woman by the well. That's the women's place. She'll talk to your woman."

Jahlee laughed as though she were at a party. "You had better be nice to me, Incanto, or I'll tell her all sorts of fascinating lies about you, beginning with the time you ate all those mice."

"Better you told the truth about him-" the black-bearded man began.

Hide drew me to one side, whispering, "He won't know you, or I don't think so."

"Then I'll have to prove that I'm who I say I am, as I did when you and I met."

Jahlee touched my arm. "I think this must be the whatever-they-said woman coming. Do you really want me to talk to her?"

"At first, at least."

She was taller than most women and stiffly erect, hatchet faced and hawk-nosed. The white-bearded old man made her a seated bow, to which she replied with a frigid smile and an inclination of her head.

"We saw them coming, Maliki," he said. "They had something big flying right over them. Didn't seem like a inhumu, but big enough for a little one. It didn't like our looks in Qarya, and headed back to the jungle 'fore they come to our gate."

Jahlee curtsied. "That was Incanto's pet bird, Maliki. He lets it fly free and come and go as it wants. It's quite harmless, I promise you."

Maliki surveyed us; something about her iron-gray hair, straight and drawn back so tightly that it resembled a helmet, woke a spark of memory that flickered and died.

She turned to Jahlee. "Is Incanto the young one or the old one?"

"The old one, Maliki."

The lame man muttered, "He's Sinew's pa, he says."

She motioned for him to be silent. "What is the young one's name?"

"Cuoio, Maliki."

"It's Hide really," Hide told her, "and my father's name is really Horn."

Maliki did not so much as glance at him. "Are you lying to me, girl? What is your own name?"

"No, Maliki. Cuoio was the name he gave me when we met. I wouldn't lie to you, Maliki."

"You would lie to anyone." Coming nearer, Maliki stroked her hair. "You're very beautiful indeed, and a born troublemaker. I've seen a thousand like you, though most weren't half as good-looking. Where did you sleep last night?"

The question took Jahlee off guard. "Last night? Why, uh…

"Tell me the truth. I'll know if you're lying."

"Bad thing!" Oreb croaked from the shingles of one of the blockhouses flanking the gate. "Bad thing! Thing fly."

Jahlee seized her opportunity. "That's Incanto's bird, Maliki. The one I told you about? It's a talking bird, but what it says doesn't make much sense."

She glanced up at Oreb. "I've never seen one like that. Where did you get him?"

"I didn't, Maliki. He doesn't even like me. He belongs to Incanto."

"Is he Sinew's father?"

"Incanto? I think so. He says he is, and he's, well, he's more truthful than I am."

"Most are." Maliki raised an eyebrow. "Do you love him?"

"Oh, yes!"

"What about his son Cuoio?"

"He's a hateful, ungrateful, vindictive little boy!" Jahlee seemed ready to spit like a cat.

"But a fair judge of women, I would say. Why are you here?"

"You-" Jahlee's eyes flashed. "I don't have to talk to you!"

"You're mistaken. Here we tie a long rope to a girl's feet and drop her in the well. When we pull her up, we generally find her cooperative. Or dead. If she is neither," Maliki smiled like a crocodile, "we throw her in again."

She turned to me. "You're Incanto? Why were you talking to these men?"

"They wouldn't allow us to proceed, and we hoped that they would show us where my son lives, or send someone to bring him here."

"Your son Sinew?" The eyebrow rose again.

"That's right."

"Your real name is…?"

"Horn, as my son Hide told you."

"You were born in the Long Sun Whorl. Don't deny it. What city?"

"I don't. In Viron."

Maliki nodded, mostly to herself it seemed.

"Sinew isn't here, though we expect him back shortly. His family affairs are his own, and it isn't my job to settle them. Come with me, all of you."

We followed her as meekly as three sheep down a narrow, dust-soft street lined with thatched log houses not greatly different from most of the houses in New Viron, until we came to a small square in which women sat talking in pairs or stood talking in groups.

"That's the well we'll throw your redhead down." Maliki pointed to the coping. "The water's high at this time of year, so it's not much of a drop. We'll probably have to throw her in several times."

Jahlee shook her head. "Incanto won't let you."

"Incanto – who says his name is Horn – has nothing to do with it. Out of common decency I should warn you that this water isn't safe. It's good enough for washing clothes and watering gardens, but we have to boil it before we can drink it, so try not to swallow any more than you can help."

As we started off again, I asked where she was taking us.

"To Sinew's house. Isn't that where you wanted to go?"

"Yes. Certainly."