Nightside the Long Sun

THE BOARDER ON THE LARDER

As they sped across a field of stubble the driver inquired, “Ever ridden in one of these before, Patera?”

Drowsily, Silk shook his head before he realized that the driver could not see him. He yawned and attempted to stretch, brought up sharply by pain from his right arm and the gouged flesh of his chest and belly. “No, never. But I rode in a boat once. Out on the lake, you know, fishing all day with a friend and his father. This reminds me of that. This machine of yours is about as wide as the boat was, and only a little bit shorter.”

“I like it better—boats rock too much for me. Where are we going, Patera?”

“You mean…?” The road (or perhaps another road) had appeared again. Seeming to gather its strength like a horse, the floater soared over the wall of dry-laid stones that had barred them from it.

“Where should I drop you? Musk said to take you back to the city.”

Silk edged forward on the seat, knowing himself stupid with fatigue and struggling against it. “They didn’t tell you?”

“No, Patera.”

Where was it he wanted to go? He recalled his mother’s house, and the wide, deep windows of his bedroom, with borage growing just beyond the sills. “At my manteion, please. On Sun Street. Do you know where it is?”

“I know where Sun Street is, Patera. I’ll find it.”

Here was a cartload of firewood bound for the market. The floater dipped and swerved, and it was behind them. The man on the cart would be first at the market, Silk thought; but what was the point of being first at the market with a load of firewood? Surely there would be wood there already, wood that had not sold the day before. Perhaps the man on the cart wanted to do a little buying of his own when he had disposed of his cargo.

“Going to be another hot one, Patera.”

That was it, of course. The man on the cart—Silk turned to look back at him, but he was gone already; there was only a boy leading a mule, a laden mule and a small boy whom he had never noticed at all. The man on the cart had wanted to avoid the heat. He would sell what he had brought and sit drinking till twilight in the Cock or someplace like it. In the coolest tavern he could find, no doubt, and spend most of the money his wood had brought him, sleep on the seat of his cart as it made its slow way home. What if he, Silk, slept now on this capacious seat, which was so tantalizingly soft? Would not the driver, would not this old half-magical floater take him where he wanted to go in any event? Would the driver rob him while he slept, find Blood’s two cards, Hyacinth’s golden needler, and the thing that he still did not dare to look at, the thing—he felt he had guessed its identity while he still sat in that jewel box of a room to one side of Blood’s reception hall. Would he not be robbed? Had the man upstairs, the man asleep in the chair near the stair ever gotten home, and had he gotten home safely? Many men must have slept in this floater, men who had drunk too heavily.

Silk felt that he himself had drunk too heavily; he had sipped from both drinks.

Blood was certainly a thief; he had admitted as much himself. But would Blood employ a driver who would rob his guests? It seemed unlikely. He, Silk, could sleep here—sleep now in safety, if he wished. But he was very hungry.

“All right,” he said.

“Patera?”

“Go to Sun Street. I’ll direct you from there. I know the way.”

The driver glanced over his shoulder, a burly young man whose beard was beginning to show. “Where it crosses Trade. Will that be all right, Patera?”

“Yes.” Silk felt his own chin, rough as the driver’s looked. “Fine.” He settled back in the soft seat, almost oblivious of the object beneath his tunic but determined not to sleep until he had washed, eaten, and wrung any advantage that might be gained from his present position. The driver had not been told he was Blood’s prisoner; that was clear from everything he said, and it presented an opportunity that might not come again.

But in point of fact he was a prisoner no longer. He had been freed, though no fuss had been made about it, when Blood and Musk had taken him to this floater. Now, whether he liked it or not, he was a sort of factor of Blood’s—an agent through whom Blood would obtain money. Silk weighed the term in his mind and decided it was the correct one. He had given himself wholly to the gods, with a holy oath; now his allegiance was inescapably divided, whether he liked it or not. He would give the twenty-six thousand cards he got (if indeed he got them) not to the gods but to Blood, though he would be acting in the gods’ behalf. Certainly he would be Blood’s factor in the eyes of the Chapter and the whorl, should either the Chapter or the whorl learn of whatever he would do.

Blood had made him his factor, creating this situation for his own profit. (Thoughtfully, Silk stroked his cheek, feeling the roughness of his newly grown beard again.) For Blood’s own personal profit, as was only to be expected; but their relationship bound them both, like all relationships. He was Blood’s factor whether he liked it or not, but also Blood’s factor whether Blood liked it or not. He had made good use of the relationship already when he had demanded the return of Hyacinth’s needler. Indeed, Blood had acknowledged it still earlier when he had told Doctor Crane to look in at the manteion.

Further use might be made of it as well.

A factor, but not a trusted factor to be sure; Blood might conceivably plan to kill him once he had turned over the entire twenty-six thousand, if he could find no further use for him; thus it would be wise to employ this temporary relationship to gain some sort of hold on Blood before it was ended. That was something more to keep in mind.

And the driver, who no doubt knew so many things that might be of value, did not know that.

“Driver,” Silk called, “are you familiar with a certain house on Lamp Street? It’s yellow, I believe, and there’s a pastry cook’s across the street.”

“Sure am, Patera.”

“Could we go past it, please? I don’t think it will be very much out of our way.”

The floater slowed for a trader with a string of pack mules. “I can’t wait, Patera, if you’re going to be inside very long.”

“I’m not even going to get out,” Silk assured him. “I merely wish to see it.”

Still watching the broadening road, the driver nodded his satisfaction. “Then I’ll be happy to oblige you, Patera. No trouble.”

The countryside seemed to flow past. No wonder, Silk thought, that the rich rode in floaters when distances were too great for their litters. Why, on donkeys this had taken hours!

“Have a good time, Patera? You stayed awfully late.”

“No,” Silk said, then reconsidered. “In a way I did, I suppose. It was certainly very different from everything I’m accustomed to.”

The driver chuckled politely.

“I did have a good time, in a sense,” Silk decided. “I enjoyed certain parts of my visit enormously, and I ought to be honest enough to admit it.”

The driver nodded again. “Only not everything. Yeah, I know just what you mean.”

“My view is colored, no doubt, by the fact that I fell and injured my ankle. It was really quite painful, and it’s still something of a discomfort. A Doctor Crane very kindly set the bone for me and applied this cast, free of charge. I imagine you must know him. Your master told me that Doctor Crane has been with him for the past four years.”

“Do I! The old pill-pounder and me have floated over a whorl of ground together. Don’t make much sense sometimes, but he’ll talk you deaf if you don’t watch out, and ask more questions than the hoppies.”

Silk nodded, conscious again of the object Crane had slipped into his waistband. “I found him friendly.”

“I bet you did. You didn’t ride out with me, did you, Patera?”

Blood had several floaters, obviously, just as he had implied. Silk said, “No, not with you. I came with another man, but he left before I did.”

“I didn’t think so. See, I tell them about Doc Crane on the way out. Sometimes they get worried about the girls and boys. Know what I mean, Patera?”

“I think so.”

“So I tell them forget it. We got a doctor right there to check everybody over, and if they got some kind of little problem of their own … I’m talking about the older bucks, Patera, you know? Why, maybe he could help them out. It’s good for Doc, because sometimes they give him something. And it’s good for me, too. I’ve had quite a few of them thank me for telling them, after the party.”

“I fear I have nothing to give you, my son,” Silk said stiffly. It was perfectly true, he assured himself; the two cards in his pocket were already spent, or as good as spent. They would buy a fine victim for Scylsday, less than two days off.

“That’s all right, Patera. I didn’t figure you did. It’s a gift to the Chapter. That’s how I look at it.”

“I can give you my blessing, however, when we separate. And I will.”

“That’s all right, Patera,” the driver said. “I’m not much for sacrifice and all that.”

“All the more reason you may require it, my son,” Silk told him, and could not keep from smiling at the sepulchral tones of his own voice. It was a good thing the driver could not see him! With Blood’s villa far behind them, the burglar was fading and the augur returning; he had sounded exactly like Patera Pike.

Which was he, really? He pushed aside the thought.

“Now this here, this feels just like a boat, and no mistake. Don’t it, Patera?”

Their floater was rolling like a barrel as it dodged pedestrians and rattling, mule-drawn wagons. The road had become a street in which narrow houses vied for space.

Silk found it necessary to grasp the leather-covered bar on the back of the driver’s seat, a contrivance he had previously assumed was intended only to facilitate boarding and departure. “How high will these go?” he asked. “I’ve always wondered.”

“Four cubits empty, Patera. Or that’s what this one’ll do, anyhow. That’s how you test them—run them up as high as they’ll go and measure. The higher she floats, the better shape everything’s in.”

Silk nodded to himself. “You couldn’t go over one of these wagons, then, instead of around it?”

“No, Patera. We got to have ground underneath to push against, see? And we’d be getting too far away from it. You remember that wall we cleared when I took the shortcut?”

“Certainly.” Silk tightened his grip on the bar. “It must have been three cubits at least.”

“Not quite, Patera. It’s a little lower than that at the place where I went over. But what I was going to say was we couldn’t have done it if we’d been full of passengers like we were coming out. We’d have had to stay on the road then.”

“I understand. Or at any rate, I think I do.”

“But look up ahead, Patera.” The floater slowed. “See him lying in the road?”

Silk sat up straight to peer over the driver’s liveried shoulder. “I do now. By Phaea’s fair face, I hope he’s not dead.”

“Drunk more likely. Watch now, and we’ll float right across him. You won’t even feel him, Patera. Not no more than he’ll feel you.”

Silk clenched his teeth, but as promised felt nothing. When the prostrate man was behind them, he said, “I’ve seen floaters go over childen like that. Children playing in the street. Once a child was hit in the forehead by the cowling, right in front of our palaestra.”

“I’d never do that, Patera,” the driver assured Silk virtuously. “A child might hold up his arm and get it in the blowers.”

Silk hardly heard him. He attempted to stand, bumped his head painfully against the floater’s transparent canopy, and compromised on a crouch. “Wait! Not so fast, please. Do you see that man with the two donkeys? Stop for a moment and let me out. I want a word with him.”

“I’ll just put down the canopy, Patera. That’ll be a little safer.”

Auk glanced sourly at the floater when it settled onto the roadway beside him. His eyes widened when he saw Silk.

“May every god bless you tonight,” Silk began. “I want to remind you of what you promised in the tavern.”

Auk opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

“You gave me your word that you’d come to manteion next Scylsday, remember? I want to make certain you’ll keep that promise, not only for your sake but for mine. I must talk to you again.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Auk nodded. “Maybe tomorrow if I’m not too busy. Scylsday for sure. Did you…?”

“It went precisely as you had predicted,” Silk told him. “However, our manteion’s safe for the time being, I believe. Good night, and Phaea bless you. Knock at the manse if you don’t find me in the manteion.”

Auk said something more; but the driver had overheard Silk’s farewell, and the transparent dome of the canopy had risen between them; it latched, and Auk’s voice was drowned by the roar of the blowers.

“You better watch your step, talking to characters like that, Patera,” the driver remarked with a shake of his head. “That sword’s just for show, and there’s a needier underneath that dirty tunic. Want to bet?”

“You would win such a bet, I’m certain,” Silk admitted, “but no needier can turn a good man to evil. Not even devils can do that.”

“That why you want to see Orchid’s place, Patera? I kind of wondered.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.” Crane’s mystery had just given Silk a particularly painful job. He wiggled it into a new position as he spoke. Deciding that it would be harmless to reveal plans Blood knew of already, he added, “I’m to meet your master there tomorrow afternoon, and I want to be certain I go to the correct house. That’s the yellow house, isn’t it? Orchid’s? I believe he mentioned a woman named Orchid.”

“That’s right, Patera. She owns it. Only he owns it, really, or maybe he owns her. You know what I mean?”

“I think so. Yes, of course.” Silk recalled that it was Musk, not Blood, whose name appeared on the deed to his manteion. “Possibly Blood holds a mortgage upon this house, which is in arrears.” Clearly Blood would have to protect his interest in some fashion against the death of the owner of record.

“I guess so, Patera. Anyhow, you talked about devils, so I thought maybe that was it.”

The hair at the back of Silk’s neck prickled. It was ridiculous (as if I were a dog, he said to himself later) but there it was; he tried to smooth it with one hand. “It might be useful if you would tell me whatever you know about this business, my son—useful to your master, as well as to me.” How sternly his instructors at the schola had enjoined him, and all the acolytes, never to laugh when someone mentioned ghosts (he had anticipated the usual wide-eyed accounts of phantom footsteps and shrouded figures after Blood’s mention of exorcism) or devils. Perhaps it was only because he was so very tired, but he discovered that there was not the least danger of his laughing now.

“I never seen anything myself,” the driver admitted. “I hardly ever been inside. You hear this and that. Know what I mean, Patera?”

“Of course.”

“Things get messed up. Like, a girl will go to get her best dress, only the sleeves are torn off and it’s all ripped down the front. Sometimes people just, like, go crazy. You know? Then it goes away.”

“Intermittent possession,” Silk said.

“I guess so, Patera. Anyhow, you’ll get to see it in a minute. We’re almost there.”

“Fine. Thank you, my son.” Silk studied the back of the driver’s head. Since the driver thought he had been a guest at Blood’s, it would probably do no harm if he saw the object Crane had conveyed to him; but there was a chance, if only a slight one, that someone would question the driver when he returned to Blood’s villa. Satisfied that he was too busy working the floater through the thickening stream of men and wagons to glance behind him, Silk took it out.

As he had suspected, it was an azoth. He whistled on a small footlight he had noticed earlier, holding the azoth low enough to keep the driver from seeing it, should he look over his shoulder.

The demon was an unfacetted red gem, so it was probably safe to assume it was the azoth he had taken from Hyacinth’s drawer and she had snatched out of the coiled rope around his waist. It occurred to Silk as he examined the azoth that its demon should have been a blue gem, a hyacinth. Clearly the azoth had not been embellished in a style intended to flatter Hyacinth, as the needler in his pocket had been. It was even possible that it was not actually hers.

Rocking almost imperceptibly, the floater slowed, then settled onto the roadway. “Here’s Orchid’s place, Patera.”

“On the right there? Thank you, my son.” Silk slid the azoth into the top of the stocking on his good foot and pulled his trousers leg down over it; it was a considerable relief to be able to lean back comfortably.

“Quite a place, they tell me, Patera. Like I said, I’ve only been inside a couple times.”

Silk murmured, “I very much appreciate your going out of your way for me.”

Orchid’s house seemed typical of the older, larger city houses, a hulking cube of shiprock with a painted façade, its canary arches and fluted pillars the phantasmagoria of some dead artist’s brush. There would be a courtyard, very likely with a dry fishpond at its center, ringed by shady galleries.

“It’s only one story in back, Patera. You can get in that way, too, off of Music Street. That might be closer for you.”

“No,” Silk said absently. It would not do to arrive at the rear entrance like a tradesman.

He was studying the house and the street, visualizing them as they would appear by day. That shop with the white shutters would be the pastry cook’s, presumably. In an hour or two there would be chairs and tables for customers who wished to consume their purchases on the spot, the mingled smells of maté and strong coffee, and cakes and muffins in the windows. A shutter swung back as Silk watched.

“In there,” the driver jerked his thumb at the yellow house, “they’ll be getting set to turn in now. They’ll sleep till noon, most likely.” He stretched, yawning. “So will I, if I can.”

Silk nodded weary agreement. “What is it they do in there?”

“At Orchid’s?” The driver turned to look back at him. “Everybody knows about Orchid’s, Patera.”

“I don’t, my son. That was why I asked.”

“It’s a—you know, Patera. There’s thirty girls, I guess, or about that. They put on shows, you know, and like that, and they have a lot of parties. Have them for other people, I mean. The people pay them to do it.”

Silk sighed. “I suppose it’s a pleasant life.”

“It could be worse, Patera. Only—”

Someone screamed inside the yellow house. The scream was followed at once by the crash of breaking glass.

The engine sprang to life, shaking the whole floater as a dog shakes a rat. Before Silk could protest, the floater shot into the air and sped up Lamp Street, scattering men and women on foot and grazing a donkey cart with a clang so loud that Silk thought for a moment it had been wrecked.

“Wait!” he called.

The floater turned almost upon its side as they rounded a corner, losing so much height that its cowling plowed the dust.

“That might be a—whatever the trouble is.” Silk was holding on desperately with both hands, pain and the damage the white-headed one had done to his arm forgotten. “Go back and let me out.”

Wagons blocked the street. The floater slowed, then forced its way between the wall of a tailor shop and a pair of plunging horses.

“Patera, they can take care of it. It’s happened there before, like I told you.”

Silk began, “I’m supposed—”

The driver cut him off. “You got a real bad leg and a bad arm. Besides, what if somebody saw you going in there—a place like that—at night? Tomorrow afternoon will be bad enough.”

Silk released the leather-covered bar. “Did you really float away so quickly out concern for my reputation? I find that difficult to believe.”

“I’m not going to go back there, Patera,” the driver said stubbornly, “and I don’t think you could walk back if you tried. Which way from here? To get to your manteion, I mean.” The floater slowed, hovered.

This was Sun Street; it could not have been half an hour since they had floated past the talus and out Blood’s gate. Silk tried to fix the Guard post and soiled statue of Councillor Tarsier in his memory. “Left,” he said absently. And then, “I should have Horn—he’s quite artistic—and some of the older students paint the front of our manteion. No, the palaestra first, then the manteion.”

“What’s that, Patera?”

“I’m afraid I was talking to myself, my son.” They had almost certainly been painted originally; it might even be possible to find a record of the original designs among the clutter of papers in the attic of the manse. If money could be found for paint and brushes as well—

“Is it far, Patera?”

“Another six blocks perhaps.”

He would be getting out in a moment. When he had left Blood’s reception hall, he had imagined that the night was already gray with the coming of shadeup. Imagination was no longer required; the night was virtually over, and he had not been to bed. He would be getting out of the floater soon—perhaps he should have napped upon this soft seat after all, when he had the opportunity. Perhaps there was time for two or three hours sleep in the manse, though no more than two or three hours.

A man hauling bricks in a handcart shouted something at them and fell to his knees, but whatever he had shouted could not be heard. It reminded Silk that he had promised to bless the driver when they parted. Should he leave this walking stick in the floater? It was Blood’s stick, after all. Blood had intended for him to keep it, but did he want to keep anything that belonged to Blood? Yes, the manteion, but only because the manteion was really his, not Blood’s, no matter what the law, or even the Chapter, might say. Patera Pike had owned the manteion, morally at least, and Patera Pike had left him in charge of it, had made him responsible for it until he, too, died.

The floater was slowing again as the driver studied the buildings they passed.

Silk decided that he would keep the manteion and the stick, too—at least until he got the manteion back. “Up there, driver, with the shingled roof. See it?” He gripped the stick and made sure its tip would not slide on the floor of the floater; it was almost time to go.

The floater hovered, “Here, Patera?”

“No. One, two, three doors farther.”

“Are you the augur everybody’s talking about, Patera? The one that got enlightened? That’s what somebody told me back at the estate.”

Silk nodded. “I suppose so, unless there were two of us.”

“You’re going to bring back the caldé—that’s what they say. I didn’t want to ask you about it, you know? I hoped it would sort of come up by itself. Are you?”

“Am I going to restore the caldé? Is that what you’re asking? No, that wasn’t in my instructions at all.”

“Instructions from a god.” The floater settled to the roadway and its canopy parted and slid into its sides.

Silk struggled to his feet. “Yes.”

The driver got out, to open the door for him. “I never thought there were any gods, Patera. Not really.”

“They believe in you, however.” Aided by the driver, Silk stepped painfully onto the first worn shiprock step in front of the street entrance to the manteion. He was home. “You believe in devils, it seems, but you do not believe in the immortal gods. That’s very foolish, my son. Indeed, it is the height of folly.”

Suddenly the driver was on his knees. Leaning on his stick, Silk pronounced the shortest blessing in common use and traced the sign of addition over the driver’s head.

The driver rose. “I could help you, Patera. You’ve got a—a house or something here, don’t you? I could give you a hand that far.”

“I’ll be all right,” Silk told him. “You had better go back and get to bed.”

Courteously, the driver waited for Silk to leave before restarting his blowers. Silk found that his injured leg was stiff as he limped to the narrow garden gate and let himself in, locking the gate behind him. By the time he reached the arbor, he was wondering whether it had not been foolish to refuse the driver’s offer of help. He wanted very badly to rest, to rest for only a minute or so, on one of the cozy benches beneath the vines, where he had sat almost every day to talk with Maytera Marble.

Hunger urged him forward; food and sleep were so near. Blood, he thought, might have shown him better hospitality by giving him something to eat. A strong drink was not the best welcome to offer a man with an empty stomach.

His head pounded, and he told himself that a little food would make him feel better. Then he would go up to bed and sleep. Sleep until—why, until someone woke him. That was the truth: until someone woke him. There was no power but in truth.

The familiar, musty smell of the manse was like a kiss. He dropped into a chair, pulled the azoth from his stocking, and pressed it to his lips, then stared at it. He had seen it in her hand, and if the doctor was to be believed, it was her parting gift. How preposterous that he should have such a thing, so lovely, so precious, and so lethal! So charged with the forgotten knowledge of the earlier world. It would have to be hidden, and hidden well, before he slept; he was by no means sure that he could climb the steep and crooked stair to the upper floor, less sure that he could descend it again to prepare food without falling, but utterly certain that he would not be able to sleep at all unless the azoth was at hand—unless he could assure himself, whenever he was assailed by doubts, that it had not been stolen.

With a grunt and a muttered prayer to Sphigx (it was certainly Sphigxday by now, Silk had decided, and Sphigx was the goddess of courage in the face of pain in any event), he made his way slowly up the stair, got the rusty and utterly barren cash box that was supposed to secure the manteion’s surplus funds from beneath his bed, locked the azoth in it, and returned the key to its hiding place under the water jug on his nightstand.

Descending proved rather easier than he had expected. By putting most of his weight on the stick and the railing, and advancing his sound foot one step at a time, he was able to progress quite well with a minimum of pain.

Giddy with success he went into the kitchen, leaned the stick in a corner, and after a brief labor at the pump washed his hands. Shadeup was peeping in through every window, and although he always rose early it was an earlier and thus a fresher morning than he had seen in some time. He really was not, he discovered with delight, so very tired after all, or so very sleepy.

After a second session with the pump, he splashed water over his face and hair and felt better still. He was tired, yes; and he was ravenously hungry. Still, he could face this new day. It might even be a mistake to go to bed after he had eaten.

His green tomatoes waited on the windowsill, but surely there had been four? Perplexed, he searched his memory.

There were only three there now. Might someone have entered the garden, intent upon the theft of a single unripe tomato? Maytera Marble cooked for the sibyls. Briefly Silk visualized her bent above a smoking pan, stirring his tomato into a fine hash of bacon and onions. His mouth watered, but nothing could possibly be less like Maytera Marble than any such borrowing.

Wincing with every step and amused by his own grimaces, he limped to the window and looked more closely. The remains of the fourth tomato were there, a dozen seeds and flecks of skin. Furthermore, a hole had been eaten—bored, almost—in the third.

Rats, of course, although this did not really look like the work of a rat. He pared away the damaged portion, sliced the remainder and the remaining pair, then belatedly realized that cooking would require a fire in the stove.

The ashes of the last were lifeless gray dust without a single gleam, as it seemed to Silk they always were. Others spoke of starting a new fire from the embers of the previous one; his own fires never seemed to leave those rumored, long-lived embers. He laid a few scraps of hoarded waste-paper on top of the cold ashes and added kindling from the box beside the stove. Showers of white-hot sparks from the igniter soon produced a fine blaze.

As he started out to the woodpile, he sensed a furtive movement, stopped, and turned as quickly as he could manage to look behind him. Something black had moved swiftly and furtively at the top of the larder. Too vividly he recalled the white-headed one, perched at the top of a chimney; but it was only a rat. There had been rats in the manse ever since he had come here from the schola, and no doubt since Patera Pike had left the schola.

The crackling tinder would not wait, rats or no rats. Silk chose a few likely-looking splits, carried them (once nearly falling) inside, and positioned them carefully. No doubt the rat was gone by now, but he fetched Blood’s stick from its place in the corner anyway, pausing by the Silver Street window to study the indistinct, battered head at the end of the sharply angled handle. It seemed to be a dog’s, or perhaps …

He rotated the stick, holding it higher to catch the grayish daylight.

Or perhaps, just possibly, a lioness’s. After a brief uncertainty, he decided to consider it the head of a lioness; lionesses symbolized Sphigx, this was her day, and the idea pleased him.

Lions were big cats, and big cats were needed for rats, vermin too large and strong themselves for cats of ordinary size to deal with. Without real hope of success, he rattled the stick along the top of the larder. There was a flutter, and a sound he did not at once identify as a squawk. Another rattle, and a single black feather floated down.

It occured to Silk then that a rat might have carried the dead bird there to eat. Possibly there was a rat hole in the wainscotting up there, but the bird had been too large to be dragged through it.

He paused, listening. The sound he had heard had not been made by a rat, surely. After a moment he looked in the waste bin; the bird was no longer there.

If his ankle had been well, he would have climbed up on the stool; as things (and he himself) stood, that was out of the question. “Are you up there, bird?” he called. “Answer me!”

There was no reply. Blindly, he rattled Blood’s stick across the top of the high larder again; and this time there was a quite unmistakable squawk. “Get down here,” Silk said firmly.

The bird’s hoarse voice replied, “No, no!”

“I thought you were dead.”

Silence from the top of the larder.

“You stole my tomato, didn’t you? And now you think I’ll hurt you for that. I won’t, I promise. I forgive you the theft.” Silk tried to remember what night choughs were supposed to eat in the wild. Seeds? No, the bird had left the seeds. Carrion, no doubt.

“Cut me,” the bird suggested throatily.

“Sacrifice you? I won’t, I swear. The Writings warned me the sacrifice would be ineffectual, and I shouldn’t have tried one after that. I’ve been punished very severely by one of your kind for it, believe me. I’m not such a fool as to try the same sacrifice again.”

Silk waited motionless, listening. After a second or two, he felt certain that he could hear the bird’s stealthy movements above the crack of whips and rumble of cartwheels that drifted through the window from Silver Street.

“Come down,” he repeated.

The bird did not answer, and Silk turned away. The fire in the stove was burning well now, yellow flame leaping from the cook hole. He rescued his frying pan from the sink, wiped it out, poured the remaining oil into it—shaking the last lingering drop from the neck of the cruet—and put the pan on the stove.

His tomatoes would be greasy if he put them into the oil while it was still cold, unpleasantly flavored if he let the oil get too hot. Leaning Blood’s stick against the door of the larder, he gathered up the stiff green slices, limped over to the stove with them, and distributed them with care over the surface of the pan, rewarded by a cloud of hissing, fragrant steam.

There was a soft cluck from the top of the larder.

“I can kill you whenever I want, just by banging around up there with my stick,” Silk told the bird. “Show yourself, or I’ll do it.”

For a moment a long crimson bill and one bright black eye were visible at the top of the larder. “Me,” the night chough said succinctly, and vanished at once.

“Good.” The garden window was open already; Silk drew the heavy bolt of the Silver Street window and opened it as well. “It’s shadeup now, and it will be much brighter soon. Your kind prefers the dark, I believe. You’d better leave at once.”

“No fly.”

“Yes, fly. I won’t try to hurt you. You’re free to go.”

Silk watched for a moment, then decided that the bird was probably hoping that he would lay aside Blood’s stick. He tossed it into a corner, got out a fork, and began turning the tomato slices; they sputtered and smoked, and he added a pinch of salt.

There was a knock at the garden door. Hurriedly, he snatched the pan from the fire. “Half a minute.” Someone was dying, surely, and before death came desired to receive the Pardon of Pas.

The door opened before he could hobble over to it, and Maytera Rose looked in. “You’re up very early, Patera. Is anything wrong?” Her gaze darted about the kitchen, her eyes not quite tracking. One was pupilless, and as far as Silk knew, blind; the other a prosthetic creation of crystal and fire.

“Good morning Maytera.” Awkwardly, the fork and the smoking pan remained in Silk’s hands; there was no place to put them down. “I suffered a little mishap last night, I’m afraid. I fell. It’s still somewhat painful, and I haven’t been able to sleep.” He congratulated himself—it was all perfectly true.

“So you’re making breakfast already. We haven’t eaten yet, over in the cenoby.” Maytera Rose sniffed hungrily, a dry, mechanical inhalation. “Marble’s still fooling around in the kitchen. The littlest thing takes that girl forever.”

“I’m quite certain Maytera Marble does the best she can,” Silk said stiffly.

Maytera Rose ignored it. “If you want to give me that, I’ll take it over to her. She can see to it for you till you come back.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary.” Sensing that he must eat his tomatoes now if he was to eat them at all, Silk cut the thinnest slice in two with his fork. “Must I leave this instant, Maytera? I can hardly walk.”

“Her name’s Teasel, and she’s one of Marble’s bunch.” Maytera Rose sniffed again. “That’s what her father says. I don’t know her.”

Silk (who did) froze, the half slice of tomato halfway to his mouth. “Teasel?”

“Her father came pounding on the door before we got up. The mother’s sitting with her, he said. He knocked over here first, but you didn’t answer.”

“You should have come at once, Maytera.”

“What would have been the use when he couldn’t wake you up? I waited till I could see you were out of bed.” Maytera Rose’s good eye was upon the half slice. She licked her lips and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Know where she lives?”

Silk nodded miserably, and then with a sudden surge of wholly deplorable greed thrust the hot half slice into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He had never tasted anything quite so good. “It’s not far. I suppose I can walk it if I must.”

“I could send Marble after Patera Pard when she’s done cooking. She could show him where to go.”

Silk shook his head.

“You’re going to go after all, are you?” A moment too late, Maytera Rose added, “Patera.”

Silk nodded.

“Want me to take those?”

“No, thank you,” Silk said, miserably aware that he was being selfish. “I’ll have to get on a robe, a collar and so forth. You’d better get back to the cenoby, Maytera, before you miss breakfast.” He scooped up one of the smaller slices with his fork.

“What happened to your tunic?”

“And a clean tunic. Thank you. You’re right, Maytera. You’re quite right.” Silk closed the door, virtually in her face, shot the bolt, and popped the whole sizzling slice into his mouth. Maytera Rose would never forgive him for what he had just done, but he had previously done at least a hundred other things for which Maytera Rose would never forgive him either. The stain of evil might soil his spirit throughout all eternity, for which he was deeply and sincerely sorry; but as a practical matter it would make little difference.

He swallowed a good deal of the slice and chewed the rest energetically.

“Witch,” croaked a muffled voice.

“Go,” Silk mumbled. He swallowed again. “Fly home to the mountains. You’re free.”

He turned the rest of the slices, cooked them half a minute more, and ate them quickly (relishing their somewhat oily flavor almost as much as he had hoped), scraped the mold from the remaining bread and fried the bread in the leftover liquid, and ate that as he once more climbed the stair to his bedroom.

Behind and below him, the bird called, “Good-bye!” And then, “Bye! Bye!” from the top of the larder.