Long Sun - Nightside The Long Sun Part 50

238.

Gene Wolfe

decent respect for the holy calling of augur, a calling-like that of we sibyls-established by Our Sacred Scylla herself. I continue that effort to this day. I try, as I have always tried, to teach every student entrusted to my care to respect the cloth, regardless of the man or woman who wears it."

"A lesson to us all." Silk sighed. "Very well, I'll talk to him when I can. But I'm leaving in a few minutes, and I may not be back until late. That was what I wanted to tell you-to tell Maytera Mint particularly."

She look up, a question in her melting brown eyes. "I'll be engaged, and I can't say how long it may take. You remember Auk, Maytera. You must. You taught him, and you told Maytera Marble about him yesterday, I know." "Oh, Patera, I do indeed." Maytera Mint's small, not uncomely face glowed.

Maytera Rose sniffed, and Maytera Mint dropped her eyes again.

"I spoke to him last night, Maytera, very late." "You did, Patera?"

Silk nodded. "But I'm forgetting something I should tell you. I'd seen him earlier that evening, and shriven him. He's trying, quite sincerely I believe, to amend his life."

Maytera Mint looked up again, her glance bright with praise. "That's truly wonderful, Patera!"

"It is indeed; and it's far more your doing, and Patera Pike's, than it is mine. What I wanted to say, Maytera, is that when I last spoke with him, he indicated that he might come here today. If he does, I'm sure he'll want to pay his respects to you."

He waited for her to confirm it She did not, sitting with folded hands and downcast eyes.

"Please tell him that I'm anxious to see him. Ask him to wait, if he can. I doubt that he'll come before supper. If I haven't returned, tell him that I'll be back as soon as possible."

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Spreading rich yellow b.u.t.ter on another golden roll, Maytera Rose said, "Last night you had gone already by the time Horn had finished working for his father. I'll tell him that he'll have to wait, too."

"I'm certain you will, Maytera. Thank you both." Silk stood up, wincing when he put too much weight on his injured ankle. For a formal exorcism he would need the Chrasmologic Writings from the manteion, and images of die G.o.ds-of Pas and Scylla particularly. And of Sphigx the patroness of the day. The thought reminded him that he had never completed her prayers; hardly the way to gain favor.

He would take the triptych his mother had given him; her prayers might follow it As he tramped upstairs again, more conscious of his ankle than he had been since before Crane's visit, he reflected that he had been trained only in dealing with devils who did not exist He recalled how startled he had been when he had realized that Patera Pike credited them, and even spoke with gruff pride of personal efforts to frustrate diem.

Before he reached the top of the stair, he regretted leaving Blood's walking stick in the sellaria. Sitting on his bed, he unwound the wrapping; it was distinctly cool to the touch. He dashed it against the wall as violently as he could and replaced it, then removed his shoe and put on a clean stocking.

Blood would meet him at the yellow house on Lamp Street Musk, or someone as bad as Musk, might come with Blood. Silk folded up the triptych, laid it in its baize-lined teak case, buckled the straps, and pulled out its folding handle. This and the Writings, which he would have to get before he left; Pas's gammadion was about his neck already, his beads in his pocket It might be prudent to take a holy lamp, oil, and other things as well. After considering

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and rejecting half a dozen possibilities, he got the key from beneath his water jug.

With the young eagle on his gauntleted left arm, Musk stood on the spattered white pavement by Scylla's fountain and looked about him, his head as proudly poised, and his back as straight, as any Guardsman's. They were watching from the deep shade of the portico: Blood, Councillor Lemur and his cousin Councillor Loris, Commissioner Simuliid, and half a dozen others. Mentally, Musk shook the dice cup.

The eagle had been trained to wrist and to the lure. It knew his voice and had learned to a.s.sociate it with food. When he removed its hood, it would see the fountain, flowing water in a countryside hi which water of any kind was now a rarity. The time had come for it to leam to fly-and he could not teach it that. It would return for the lure and the hackboard. Or it would not Time to throw the dice.

Blood's voice came to him faintly through the plas.h.i.+ng of the fountain. "Don't rush him."

Someone had asked what he was waiting for. He sighed, knowing he could not delay much longer. To hold on to this moment, in which the bird that he might never see again was still his.

The sky was empty or seemed so, the skylands invisible behind the endless, straight glare of the sun. Fliers, if there were any, were invisible too. Above the tops of the trees on the other side of the wall, distant fields curved upward, vanis.h.i.+ng in a blue haze as they mounted the air. Lake Limna seemed a fragment of mirror set into the whorl, like a gaud into a cheap picture frame.

Time to throw.

As though it knew what was about to happen, the young

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eagle stirred. Musk nodded to himself. "Come back to me," he whispered. "Come back to me."

And then, as if somebody else (an interfering G.o.d or Blood's mad daughter) controlled it, his right arm went up. Self-willed, his hand grasped the scarlet-plumed hood and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

The young eagle lifted its wings as though to fly, then folded them again. He should have worn a mask, perhaps. If the eagle struck at his face now, he would be scarred for life if he was not killed; but his pride had not permitted it.

"Away, Hawk!" He lifted his arm, tilting it to tip the bird into the air. For a split second he thought it was not going to fly at all.

The great wings seemed to blow him back. Slowly and clumsily it flew, its wingtips actually brus.h.i.+ng the lush gra.s.s at every downstroke-out to the wall and left, past the gate and left again up the gra.s.sway. For a moment he thought it was returning to him.

Into the portico, scattering the watchers there like quail. If it turned right at the end of the wing, mistook the cat pen for the mews-

Higher now, as high as the top of the wall, and left again. Left until it pa.s.sed overhead, its wings a distant thunder. Higher now, and higher still, still circling and climbing, riding the updraft from the baking lawn and the scorching roofs. Higher the young eagle rose and higher, black against the glare, until it, like the fields, was lost in the vastness of the sky.

When the rest had gone Musk remained, shading his eyes against the pitiless sun. After a long while, Hare brought him binoculars. He used them but saw nothing.

Chapter 10.

THE CAT WITH THE RED-HOT TAIL.

Lamp Street was familiar and safe once more, stripped of the mystery of night Silk, who had walked it often, found that he recognized several shops, and even the broad and freshly varnished door of the yellow house.

The corpulent woman who opened it in response to Crane's knock seemed surprised by his presence. "It's awfully early, Patera. Just got up myself.'' She yawned as if to prove it, only tardily concealing her mouth. Her pink peignoir gaped hi sympathy, its vibrant heat leaving the bulging flesh between its parted lips a deathly white.

The air of the place poured past her, hot and freighted with a hundred stale perfumes and the vinegar reek of wasted wine. "I was to meet Blood here at one o'clock," Silk told her. "What time is it?"

Crane slipped past them into the reception room beyond.

The woman ignored him. "Blood's always late," she said vaguely. She led Silk through a low archway curtained with clattering wooden beads and into a small office. A door and a window opened onto the courtyard he had imagined the night before, and both stood open; despite them, the office seemed hotter even than the street outside.

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"We've had exorcists before." The corpulent woman took the only comfortable-looking chair, leaving Silk an armless one of varnished wood. He accepted it gratefully, dropping his bag to the floor, laying the cased triptych across his thighs, and holding Blood's lioness-headed stick between his knees.

"I'll have somebody fetch you a pillow, Patera. This is where I talk to my girls, and a hard chair's better. It keeps them awake, and the narrow seat makes them think that they're getting fat, which is generally the case."

The memory of his fried tomatoes brought Silk a fresh pang of guilt, well salted with hunger. Could it be that some G.o.d spoke through this blowsy woman? "Leave it as it is," he told her. "I, too, need to learn to love my belly less, and my bed."

"You want to talk to all the girls together? One of the others did. Or I can just tell you."