Gene Wolfe - CALDE OF THE LONG SUN

from you whenever she could. When she couldn't, she would hardly

speak. Maybe she guessed what had happened to me long ago. I've

sometimes thought that, and you were young and good-looking, as

you still are."

He began a question, but thought better of it.

"I won't tell you who Bloody's father was, Patera. I've never told

anybody and I won't tell now. But I will tell you this. He never

knew. I don't think he even suspected."

Silk filled his lungs with the cool, clean breeze from the window.

"I slept with a woman last night, Maytera. With Hyacinth, the

woman Blood asked about."

"I'm sorry you told me."

"I wanted to. I've wanted--I want so badly, still, to tell people

who don't know, although a great many people know already. His

Cognizance and Master Xiphias and Generalissimo Oosik."

"And me." Maytera Marble's forefinger tapped her metal chest

through her habit. "I knew. Or rather, I guessed, as anybody would,

and I wish that you'd left it like that. Some things aren't improved

by talking about them."

Oreb broke off his inverted examination of Thelxiepeia's features

to applaud Maytera Marble. "Smart girl!"

"We were three sibyls, as I said. But Maytera Mint wasn't there

for you Patera, so I was the only ones left. I was old. I don't think

you ever grasped how old. My faces had gone long before you were

born. You never realized they weren't there, did you?"

"What are you talking about? Your face is where it ought to be,

Maytera. I'm looking at it."

"This?" She drummed her fingers on it, a quick metallic _tap-tap-tap_.

"This is my faceplate, really. I used to have a face like yours. I

would say like Dahlia's, but she was before your time. Like Teasel's

or Nettle's, and there were things in it, little bits of alnico, that let

me really smile or frown when I moved them with the coils behind

my faceplate. But all that's gone except for the coils."

"It's a beautiful face," Silk insisted, "because it's yours."

"My other face wasn't, and what it was showed in your own every

time you saw it. I resented that, and you resented my resentment

and turned to me to ease your loneliness. But we were much more

alike than you realized, not that I've ever cared, myself, for

machines like this. I never thought they could be people, really, no

matter how many times they said they were. Now I'm just a message

written on those teeny gold doodads you see in cards. But I'm still

me, a person, because I always was."

Silk fumbled Remora's ruined robe for a handkerchief, and

finding none blotted his eyes on his sleeve.

"I didn't tell you that to make you feel sorry for me, Patera.

Neither of me were easy to love, no more than I am now. You were

able to love one just the same, and not very many men could have,

not even many augurs. I thought that if you knew how you came to

love and not like me, it might help you some other time with some

other woman."

"It will, I know." Silk sighed. "Thank you, Maytera. With myself,

most of all."

"Let's not talk about it any more. What do you think of the

Ayuntamiento's terms? Still what you told Loris?"

Silk made a last dab at his eyes, feeling the grit in the cloth,

knowing that he was dirtying his already-soiled face and not caring.

"I suppose so."

Maytera Marble nodded. "They're perfectly hopeless. Not a single

thing for Trivigaunte, and why should the Guard hand over its

senior officers, why should Generalissimo Oosik allow it? But if we

offered trials, regular ones with judges--"

"Man back!" A big hand glittering with rings had appeared on the

windowsill. It was followed by a yellow-sleeved arm and a whiff of

musk rose.

"That's why you wanted to stay here." Silk stood up a trifle

unsteadily, helped by the cane, and crossed the room to the

window. "So your son could join us."

"Why no, Patera. Not at all."

Leaning over the sill, Silk spoke to Blood. "Here, hold onto my

hand. I'll help you up."

"Thanks," Blood said. "I should have brought a stool or something."

"Take mine, too, Bloody." Maytera Marble braced one foot on the

sill in imitation of Silk.

Flushed redder than ever with exertion, Blood's face rose on the

other side of the window. With a grunt and a heave, he tumbled into

the room.

"Now for my granddaughter. She'll be easy after Bloody."

Bending over the sill again, Maytera Marble clasped skeletally

thin hands and lifted in an emaciated young woman with a seared

cheek.

"Poor girl!"

Silk nodded his agreement as he returned to his chair. "Hello,

Mucor. Sit down, please, so that I may sit. We're neither of us

strong."

"Needlers're no good 'gainst the soldiers," Blood puffed. He

brushed off the front of his tunic and reached beneath it. "So I'm

giving you this, Calde Silk."

"This" was an azoth, its long hilt rough with rubies and chased

with gold; its sharply curved guard was more elaborate than that of

the one Doctor Crane had given him at Hyacinth's urging, and

diamonds ringed its pommel.

Silk resumed his seat. "I should have anticipated that. Doctor

Crane told me you had two."

"Don't you want it?" Blood did not trouble to hide his surprise.

"No. Not now, at least."

"It's worth--"

"I know what it's worth, and how effective a weapon it can be in a

strong hand like yours. At the moment, I don't have one, though

that's the least of my reasons for refusing."

Silk settled back in his chair. "I asked your daughter to sit down,

and she was good enough to oblige me. I can't invite you to sit in

your house, and I'm very aware that I'm occupying your former

seat; but there are many others."

Blood sat.

"Thank you. Maytera--"

"Cat come!"

It did, almost before Oreb's agitated whoop, springing lightly

over the windowsill to land noiselessly in the middle of the room and

glare at Blood with eyes like burning amber. Maytera Marble

gathered her skirts as if it were a mouse; Silk asked, "Is that Lion? I

seem to remember him."

The lynx turned its glare on him and nodded.

"Patera's been making everybody sit," Maytera Marble told

Mucor. "It would be nicer if you had your big kitty sit too, Darling. I

wouldn't mind him so much then."

Lion lay down obediently, dividing his attention between Blood

and Oreb.

"Sphigx bless you." Maytera Marble traced the sign of addition.

"I--it's rather amusing now that I come to think of it, the sort of thing

the children enjoy. Patera thought I wanted this window open so

your Papa could come in, and I said, no, I hadn't even thought of it,

which was the plain truth. I wanted it opened because you told me

the first time, Darling, not to stay in rooms with the doors and

windows shut, because you might have to drop in again, and that

would make it harder. So I was happy when he opened this one, and

now you've come in through it, and your long-legged kitty, too."

"I didn't know she could take over an animal like that." Blood had

his thumb on the demon. "We didn't know she had any power left till

Lemur taped the calde talking to Crane, but it sounds like she's

been paying visits to both of you."

"Sneaking outside the window, Bloody? You shouldn't do that."

"I didn't."

"A listening device." Silk sighed. "I'm disappointed. I'd thought

there might be a secret door behind one of these big paintings.

When I was a sprat, boys' books were full of them, but I've never