Return to the Whorl (The Book of the Short Sun #3)

Return to the Whorl (The Book of the Short Sun #3) Page 53

"No. For us a little point of light in the sky will brighten, then fade until at last it vanishes."

"You will be happy in Gaon, Rajan."

Oreb clucked unhappily.

"No doubt I will. Certainly I will try to be. What about you, Hari Mau? Will you be happy, too?"

"Delighted, Rajan. Elated." Hari Mau's tone left no room for doubt. "I will be the one who found you, who brought you to our town. You will be our foremost citizen, and I will be second only to you. We will be respected and admired, and all of us will live in peace and justice for the rest of our lives. It is not a small thing to be second in a such a town."

"No," he agreed, "it isn't. Indeed, it may well be better than being first."

Hari Mau laughed. He had a warm laugh, full of joy. "You would not talk like that, Rajan, if you could see the house we are building for you. The work had begun before we left, and it will be finished by now. We have been in Gaon only fourteen years. Perhaps I told you?" He paused, counting on his fingers. "Fifteen now. It became fifteen while we were looking for you in the foreign city."

"You mean Viron?"

"Yes. We were there only eleven days. Were we not fortunate to find you so quickly?"

The man he called Rajan looked mildly surprised. "Why no."

"But we were, Rajan. Not fortunate, to find you so quickly out of so many thousands? Echidna favored us greatly."

Oreb cocked his head. "Good luck?"

"Certainly not, Oreb-or at least it wasn't lucky as luck is usually reckoned." His master turned back to the bronzed young hero beside him. "First of all, you were not lucky because you did not find the man you were looking for. I know you think I'm Silk; many people do. Nevertheless, I'm not. I've stopped objecting where your friends may overhear me, but I know who I am."

Hari Mau started to protest, but was silenced by a gesture.

"Second, because it was carefully arranged that you should find me and take me away. I believe Calde Bison must have had a hand in it, and quite certain His Cognizance the Prolocutor did."

"Are you sure, Rajan? If you are, Gaon owes them much."

"Gaon owes them nothing, because they were not concerned to benefit it. They wanted me out of the way, and being decent men at base were happy to accomplish their end without murder. They thought I was Silk, you see, just as you do; and as Silk I was an embarrassment, an encroachment on their authority. Calde Bison, I would guess, sent the merchant who conveniently offered my friend Hound candles at a bargain price."

"Rajan...?"

He sighed. "I sincerely hope they carried through their ruse, and Hound actually got the candles to take back to Tansy and her mother in Endroad. What is it?"

"Your temple. Trumpeters were sent through the city to announce that you would offer many beasts to the gods there. It cannot be that they were not proud of you."

"Did they? I hadn't heard about that. It was while I was talking with His Cognizance and General Mint, I suppose. In that case, Calde Bison's involvement-"

"Bad man!"

"Is quite certain. The Chapter doesn't have trumpeters, but the Calde's Guard does. No, he isn't, Oreb. That's what I've been telling you. A bad man would have had me killed. Councilor Potto would have been delighted to arrange it, and giggled over it afterward."

"If they wished you away, Rajan, why pay you such honors?"

"So they would not be blamed for my disappearance, to begin with." He laughed, and there was something of a gleeful child in that laughter. "We plot and plan so very hard to do the Outsider's will, Hari Mau. We think ourselves, oh, so wise! I understood at the end. Have I told you?"

"No, Rajan." Hand together, Hari Mau made him a little seated bow. "I would be pleased to learn."

"They took away Hound, you see. Or at least Bison did, and it's even possible his wife helped, though I doubt it. They left me Pig, thinking he would be easy for you to deal with. Because he was blind, he would be no protection to me."

"Nor was he, Rajan."

"I didn't want protection, I wanted Pig's sight restored, and I knew that if the Fliers said it could be done at the West Pole, it could be. Most people have never spoken to a Flier, but I knew one once. They are Crew, and know a great deal we do not." He paused, chuckling. "Patera Gulo came to Ermine's to warn me. I'm sure I haven't told you about that."

Hari Mau shook his head.

"I didn't think so. Patera Gulo was my acolyte long ago. Pardon me-I misspoke. He was Silk's acolyte. I don't know how I came to make such a mistake."

Hari Mau said, "One that I can easily forgive, Rajan."

"He was Silk's acolyte, but he's coadjutor now. I supposed in my stupidity that His Cognizance had sent him, and was quite surprised that he would use the such a high-ranking prelate for a mere errand. Normally he would have sent a page with a note, or his prothonotary.

"The truth of the matter, as I came to understand afterward, was that Gulo had come on his own. He owed his high position to his past association with Silk. When His Cognizance learned of his little visit-as he surely did very soon-he saw to it that it wasn't repeated, and claimed credit for it. He even went so far as to warn me about you and your Gaonese, as Bison did. Neither, of course, took steps to prevent your taking me. Did you have much trouble finding me in the sacristy, Hari Mau?"

"One of your priests told us where you were, and pointed it out to us when we told him we desired to speak to you. But, Rajan, you would not think they had treated you ill if you could see your house. It will be the biggest in Gaon. A house, a garden, and a fountain, all beautiful. Your wives will choose the furnishings."

"My wives?" He stared.

"Only four when we left, Rajan, but the most beautiful in Gaon, and we have suggested to other towns that they send their daughters. Most will. That is what Rajya Mantri thinks, and he is wise in such matters. Besides why would-"

"You must send them back!"

"No girl?" Oreb inquired sleepily.

"No. No, indeed. In the first place, Hari Mau, I have a wife already. In the second I have never even seen these women. Nor have they seen me."

"You will disgrace them, Rajan. No one wants a cast-off wife. Besides, you must have wives to cook and clean."

Sitting in the little horse-drawn tonga, he recalled that conversation. From the way the men running ahead (they were good runners here) were pointing, this was certainly it, this three-storied stucco structure with turrets and peculiarly shaped windows, behind this low plastered wall. The gray-bearded man with the big scarlet head-cloth, bowing as soon as the Rajan's eye fell upon him, was presumably Rajya Mantri.

The curtain of one of the upper windows was twitched aside just long enough to reveal two lovely, laughing faces with frightened eyes, then let fall again.

Chapter 19. THE LAST TIME

Juganu and Scylla wanted to go back to the Red Sun Whorl right away; but Father said there was no point in going from the boat and most likely we would end up back on the river boat if we did, which was not where we wanted. What we needed was a nice safe house where things would be all right the whole time we were gone. That meant we had to go back to New Viron, and what with bad wind and no wind it took three days. Juganu did not like it, but there was nothing we could do about it.

I thought we would go to Uncle Calf's, but Father decided on another place instead, in a good big house that belonged to a lady named Capsicum. Hide had met her already and she never did get over thinking I was him. But she was a nice old lady.

Father explained what we wanted, and she said she had just the place, it was a guest room that only had one window but there were two beds in it. We went in there, and it was a big window but there were bars on it. She did not call them bars and they were twisted around pretty to make a flower in the middle, but they were bars. I grabbed hold and tried to pull them out, and I could not even get them to bend a little.

She went away, and we shut the door and bolted it, and lay down on the beds, Father and me on one and Juganu on the other. After that I stared at the ceiling for a long time and nothing happened. It was about two o'clock and the sunshine in there was pretty bright. It was an interesting ceiling, because somebody had painted it like you were upside-down and looking down at a garden. There was a fountain with Green reflected in it, and those big white flowers that bloom at night, and even a bat. But after a while I got pretty tired of it.

I guess Father did too, because he said, "What are you thinking about Juganu? You're fighting me in some way."

Juganu said he was not, and they talked about that awhile. The bird started to talk, sometimes on its own and sometimes Scylla. I did not like that, and I think Father must have seen it, because he told it to be still. Then he said for Juganu to come over and lie down where I was, and for me to lie down in his bed. I did not like that either, because I was naturally worried about Father. But I did it.

Then he started talking to Juganu about the place we were trying to go to. I never heard him talk like that before, or anybody. I am going to write down all I can remember, but I do not think I can make you hear it the way I did, lying on my back looking at the bat and watching how the room got dark.

"Think of a whorl so old that even its seasons have worn out," Father said, "a whorl on which they had jungles like yours once, with wide-leafed plants and many flowers and huge trees. It is too cold for that in our time, and when the people of that whorl speak of the present they intend five hundred years.

"The sun is red. Shadeup is always cold, and it is cool even when the red sun is at its highest. You can see the stars all day long, unless they are hidden by clouds. Think of a whorl where beggars kill stray dogs for their pelts."

He talked a lot more, and then he said, "What fills your mind's eye, Juganu? Where do your thoughts fly? Be honest with me."

"I was thinking about the whorl you described," Juganu said, "about the whorl we visited, and the boat of the winged woman."

"What else?"

"That I'll be a man like you there, a better man than you, Rajan, because I'll be younger and stronger, as young and strong as your son, and I won't have to feed from him to make me strong. Do you know how we breed, Rajan? We of The People?"

"I know that your eggs must be hatched in sun-warmed water. Nothing beyond that."

The bird said, "Not man. People? Never! No Whorl," and I knew it was Scylla. "No there. Good! Bad things!"

Juganu sat up. "We were there! They brought us! We're everywhere!"

Father made him he back down and told Scylla to be quiet if she wanted to do what the Great Scylla had told her to. She did not say much after that. Maybe not anything.

"How do you breed, Juganu? If it's not too personal, I would be interested to know."

"The man must build a hut for decency's sake," Juganu began in his old, cracked voice. "He selects a good place, a private place where the sun you call short kisses the water. He builds it of little green branches woven together. Weaving is difficult for us but we can do it, and if a man wishes to mate that is what he must do."

Father said, "This is on Green."

"Always on Green. Your waters aren't warm enough for us, and haven't the right life in them. There must be life of the right kind in the water, or the children will starve.

"He builds the hut and trims it with flowers, and he goes away for a day. When he returns there is no one, perhaps, and his flowers have wilted. He takes them far away and throws them into the water, and in the morning he gathers fresh ones, more than before, and trims the hut again. Once again he goes away.

"At evening he returns. The flowers he picked that morning have faded, and the leaves of the green branches from which he built his hut are flaccid and yellow. He destroys it, and carries the withered branches far away to throw in the water. Next morning he begins a new hut, higher and longer and more cunningly woven than the first. Its building requires a day. Next day he trims it with flowers both inside and out. And then he goes away."

I was about ready to go away myself by then, but Father was lying there very quietly waiting to hear more. Their bed was only about two cubits from mine, and he was lying on the side nearest me. So I could see his face pretty good just by turning my head, and he looked like he was hearing something important.

"This time a woman has come," Juganu said. "She is lying in his hut. How does he know? By a thousand signs, and none. Perhaps some small plant that he spared for the beauty of its foliage has been trodden upon. Perhaps she has taken a single blossom from his hut to wear.

"He knows. He reshapes himself then, becoming a man both young and strong. Within-"

I said, "You can't do that." It got me a look from Father.

"She has made herself such a woman as young men dream of. You have told me about your daughter Jahlee, how lovely she was. Your son has told me, too. That is how the woman looks when he sees her in the dimness of the hut he built and made beautiful for her. All these things, you understand, are their promises to each other. Their promises concerning the children they will have. You, Rajan, will understand what I mean by this. Your son will not, and should not."

Father said, "Yes, I understand. Please continue."

"In his hut they love as men and women love. There is a game they play. I think, Rajan, that you can guess what that game is."

His pet said, "Tell bird."

"He is a human man for her, and she is a human woman for him. He tells her that he came to Green on a lander, as human men do, and she tells him that she ran away from her father's house and happened upon his beautiful hut. It is not a lie."

I wanted to say that it was, but Father said, "No, it isn't. I understand. It is a drama."

"Exactly. They are the audience as well as the actors. I have been an actor, Rajan."

Father said, "I understand," again.