Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

He turned his attention to her. "I should tell you that Auk has already helped me-with advice, at least. I don't think he'll mind my saying that to you."

Auk nodded.

"And now both you and I require it. I'm sure he'll be as generous with us as he has been with me."

"Auk has always been . . . very good to me. Patera? He always asked for me. Since . . . spring?"

She clasped Auk's free hand in her own. "I won't be at Orchid's anymore, Auk. I want to live someplace else, and not . . . You know. Always asking men for money. And no more rust. It was . .. nice. Sometimes when I was afraid. But it makes girls too brave? After a while it owns you. With no rust, you're always so down. Always so scared. So you take it, take more, and get pregnant. Or get killed. I've been too brave. Not pregnant. I don't mean that. Patera will tell you. Auk?"

Auk said, "This sounds good. I like it. I guess you two got together after the funeral, huh?"

"That's right." Chenille kissed him again. "I started thinking. About dying, and everything, you know? There was Orpine and she was so young and healthy and all that? Am I talking better now, Patera Silk? Tell me, and please don't spare my feelings."

Oreb poked his brightly colored head from the half-dead grape leaves to declare, "Talk good!"

Silk nodded, hoping that his face betrayed nothing. "That's fine, Chenille."

"Patera's helping me sound more . . . You know. Uphill? Auk. And I thought Orpine could be me. So I waited. We had a big talk last night, didn't we, Silk? And I stayed with the sibyls." She giggled. "A hard bed and no dinner, not a bit like Orchid's. But they gave me breakfast. Have you eaten breakfast, Auk?"

Auk grinned and shook his head. "I haven't been to bed. You heard what the goddess said yesterday, didn't you, Jugs? Well, look here."

Taking his arm from her shoulders and half standing, Auk groped in his pocket. When his hand emerged, it coruscated with white fire. "Here you go, Patera. Take it. It's not any shaggy twenty-six thousand, but it ought to bring three or four, if you're careful where you sell it. I'll tell you about some people I know." When Silk did not reach for the proffered object, Auk tossed it into his lap.

It was a woman's diamond anklet, three fingers wide. "I really can't-" Silk swallowed. "Yes, I suppose I can. I will because I must. But, Auk-"

Auk slapped his thigh. "You got to! You were the one that could understand Lady Kypris, weren't you? Sure you were, and you told us. No fooling around about having to get the word from somebody else first. All right, she said it and I believed it, and now I got to let her know I'm the pure keg, too. They're all real. You look at them all you want to. Get some nice sacrifices for her, and don't forget to tell her where they come from."

Silk nodded. "I will, though she will know already, I'm sure."

"Tell her Auk's a dimber cull. Treat him brick and he treats you stone." Taking Chenille's hand, Auk slipped a ring onto her finger. "I didn't know you were going to be here, but this's for you, Jugs. Twig that big red flare? That's what they call a real blood ruby. Maybe you scavy you seen 'em before, but I lay five you didn't. You going to sell it or keep it?"

"I couldn't ever sell this, Hackum." She kissed him on the lips, so passionately that Silk was forced to avert his eyes, and so violently that they both nearly fell from the little wooden bench. When they parted, she added, "You gave it to me, and I'm going to keep it forever."

Auk grinned and wiped his mouth and grinned again, wider than ever. "Sharp now. If you change your mind don't do it without me with you."

He turned back to Silk. "Patera, you got any idea what shook last night? I'd bet there was a dozen houses solved up on the Palatine. I haven't heard yet what else went on. The hoppies are falling all over themselves this morning." He lowered his voice. "What I wanted to talk to you about, Patera-what'd she say to you exactly? About coming back here?"

"Only that she would," Silk told him.

Auk leaned toward him, his big jaw outthrust and his eyes narrowed. "What words?"

Silk stroked his cheek, recalling his brief conversation with the goddess in the Sacred Window. "You're quite right. I'm going to have to report everything she said to the Chapter, verbatim, and in fact I should be writing that report now. I pleaded with her to return. I can't give you the precise words, and they aren't important anyway; but she replied, 'I will. Soon.' "

"She meant this manteion here? Your manteion?"

"I can't be absolutely-"

Chenille interrupted him. "You know she did. That's just what she meant. She meant that she was going to come right back to the same Window."

Silk nodded reluctantly. "She didn't actually say that, as I told you; but I feel-now, at least-that it must have been what she intended,"

"Right..." Chenille had found a patch of sunlight that drew red fire from the ring; she watched it as she spoke, turning her hand from side to side. "But we've got to tell you about Crane, Auk. Do you know Crane? He's Blood's pet doctor."

"Patera might've said something last night."

Auk looked his question to Silk, who said, "I did not actually tell Auk, although I may have hinted or implied that I believe that Doctor Crane may have presented an azoth to a certain young woman called Hyacinth. Those cost five thousand cards or more, as you probably know; and thus I was quite ready to believe you when you suggested that it might be possible to extort a very large sum from him. If he did give such a thing to Hyacinth-and I'm inclined to think he did-he must control substantial discretionary funds." Compelled by an inner need, Silk added, "Do you know her, by the way?"

"Uh-huh. She does what I used to do, but she's working for Blood direct now, instead of Orchid. She left Orchid's a couple weeks, maybe, after I moved in."

Reluctantly, Silk dropped the gleaming anklet into the pocket of his robe. "Tell me everything you know about her, please."

"Some of the other dells know her better than I do. I like her, though. She's-I'm not quite sure how to put it. She's not always saying, well, this one's good but that one's bad. She takes people the way they come, and she'll help you if she can, even if you haven't always been as nice to her as you ought to be. Her father's a head clerk in the Juzgado. Are you sure you want to hear this, Silk?" "Yes, indeed."

"And one of the commissioners saw her when she was maybe fourteen and said, 'Listen, I need a maid. Send her up and she can live at my house'-they had eight or nine sprats, I guess-'and she can make a little money, too, and you'll get a nice promotion.' Hy's father was just a regular clerk then, probably.

"So he said all right and sent Hy up on the Palatine, and you know what happened then. She didn't have to work much-no hard work, just serve meals and dust, and she started to get quite a bit of money. Only after a while the commissioner's wife got really nasty. She lived for a while with a captain, but there was some sort of trouble. . . . Then she came to Orchid's." Chenille blew her nose into Silk's handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Patera. It's always like this if you haven't had any for a day or so. My nose will run and my hands will shake until Tarsday, probably. After that everything ought to be all right."

For Auk's sake as well as his own, Silk asked, "You're not going to use rust anymore? No matter how severe your symptoms become?"

"Not if we're going to do this. It makes you too brave. I guess I said that. Didn't I? It's great to have a sniff or a lipful... . Some people do that too, but it takes more when you're scared practically to death. But after a while you find out that it was what you ought to have been scared of. It's worse than Bass or even Musk, and a lot worse than the cull that looked so bad out in the big room. Only by that time it's got you. It has me, and it has Hy, too, I think. Silk?"