Gene Wolfe - CALDE OF THE LONG SUN

help imagining smelled of the tunnels, soap and rinse them, and rub

them dry with a dish towel.

"You'll want to wash up a bit, too, Captain. Please do so while I

change upstairs."

The stair was steeper than he remembered; the manse, which he

had always thought small, smaller than ever. Seated on the bed that

he had left unmade on Molpseday morning, he lashed its wrinkled

sheets with Doctor Crane's wrapping.

He had told the crowd he would burn his tunic and loose brown

trousers, but although soaked and muddy they were still practically

new, and of excellent quality; washed, they might clothe some poor

man for a year or more. He pulled the tunic off and tossed it into the

hamper.

The azoth he had filched from Hyacinth's boudoir was in the

waistband of the trousers. He pressed it to his lips and carried it to

the window to examine it again. It had never been Hyacinth's, from

what Crane had told him; Crane had merely had her keep it, feeling

that her rooms were less likely to be searched than his own. Crane

himself had received it from an unnamed Idlanum in Trivigaunte

who had intended it as a gift for Blood. Was it Blood's, then? If so,

it must be turned over to Blood without fail. There must be no more

theft from Blood; he had gone too far in that direction on Phaesday.

On the other hand, if Crane had been authorized to dispose of it

(as it seemed he had), it was his, since Crane had given it to him as

Crane lay dying. It might be sold for thousands of cards and the

money put to good use--but a moment's self-examination convinced

him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to

it.

Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him

standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other,

and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined

Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon

worth a company of the Civil Guard--the weapon with which he had

slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him

with when he would not lie with her.

Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make

him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he

recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him

by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night

for a few cards--that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of

some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower.

He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions.

So he had been taught.

An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for.

An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had

already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought

Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought

Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with

its bolted doors and barred windows?

He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his

beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even

than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their

color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that

augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on

the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it

made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains

that could not be washed out.

His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked,

followed them into the hamper.

Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there

was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity

toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such

as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better

than the people they represented before the gods and still represent

them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes

of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.

Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As

be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty

of coquetry, she simpered, "This isn't the first time I've seen you

with no clothes on."

He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was

not there.

"I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were

going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother

you any more."

By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts

from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. "I wasn't.

I hoped that I wouldn't have to."

From beyond the bedroom door: '_My Calde?_"

"I'll be down in a moment, Captain."

"_I heard voices, My Calde. You are in no danger?_"

"This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for

yourself if you like."

Mucor tittered. "Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?"

"To a monitor, you mean?" He had been thinking of one; could

she read his thoughts? "Yes, it's very much like this. You must have

seen them."

"They don't look the same to me."

"I suppose not." With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled

on clean black trousers.

"I thought I'd be one for you."

He nodded in recognition of her consideration. "Just as you use

your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought

of the parallel, but I should have."

Unreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. "I

wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock

my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to,

and he said he would."

The Ayuntamiento had learned that he was alive and in the city,

clearly; it would learn that he was here soon, if it had not already. It

would send loyal members of the Guard, might even send soldiers.

"So it doesn't matter. My body will die soon anyway, and I'll be

free like the others. Do you care?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. Very much. Why will your body die?"

"Because I don't cat. I used to like it, but I don't any more. I'd

rather be free."

Her face had begun to fade. He blinked, and nothing but the

hollows that had been her eyes remained. A breath of wind stirred

the curtains, and those hollows, too, were gone.

He said, "You must eat, Mucor. I don't want you to die." Hoping

for a reply, he waited. "I know you can hear me. You have to eat."

He had intended to tell her that he had wronged her and her father.

That he would make amends, although Blood might kill him

afterward. But it was too late.

Wiping his eyes, he got out his last clean tunic. His prayer beads

and a handkerchief went into one trouser pocket, Hyacinth's

needler into the other (He would return it when he could, but that

problematic moment at which they might meet again seemed

agonizingly remote.) His waistband claimed the azoth; it was

possible that augury would provide some hint of what he ought to do

with it. He considered selling it again, and thought again of the

howling face that had been so like Mucor's in his minor, and

shuddered.

Clean collar and cuffs on his second-best robe would have to do.

And here was the captain, waiting at the foot of the stair and

looking nearly as spruce as he had in that place--what had it been

called? In the Rusty Lantern in Limna.

"I was concerned for your safety, My Calde."

"For my reputation, you mean. You heard a woman's voice."