Nightside the Long Sun (10 page)

Silk tasted his brandy again, finding it difficult to continue. “Tonight I intend to commit a major crime, or try to. I may be killed, in fact I rather expect it. Maytera Marble or Maytera Mint could have shriven me, of course; but I didn't want either of them to know. Then Maytera Marble mentioned you, and I realized you'd be perfect. Will you shrive me, Auk? I beg it.”

Slowly, Auk relaxed; after a moment he laid his right hand on the table again. “You don't go the nose, Patera, do you?”

Silk shook his head.

“If this's a shave, it's a close one.”

“It's not a shave. I mean exactly what I say.”

Auk nodded and stood. “Then we'd better go somewhere else, like you want. Too bad, I was hoping to do a little business tonight.”

He led Silk to the back of the dim cellar room, and up a ladder into a cavernous night varied here and there by pyramids of barrels and bales; and at last, when they had followed an alley paved with refuse for several streets, into the back of what appeared to be an empty shop. The sound of their feet summoned a weak green glow from one corner of the overlong room. Silk saw a cot with rumpled, soiled sheets; a chamber pot; a table that might have come from the tavern they had left; two plain wooden chairs; and, on the opposite wall, what appeared to be a still-summonable glass. Planks had been nailed across the windows on either side of the street door; a cheap colored picture of Scylla, eight-armed and smiling, was tacked to the planks. “Is this where you live?” he asked.

“I don't exactly live anywhere, Patera. I've got a lot of places, and this is the closest. Have a seat. You still want me to shrive you?”

Silk nodded.

“Then you're going to have to shrive me first so I can do it right. I guess you knew that. I'll try to think of everything.”

Silk nodded again. “Do, please.”

With speed and economy of motion surprising in so large a man, Auk knelt beside him. “Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to Pas and to other gods.”

His gaze upon the smiling picture of Scylla—and so well away from Auk's heavy, brutal face—Silk murmured, as the ritual required, “Tell me, my son, and I will bring you his forgiveness from the well of his boundless mercy.”

“I killed a man tonight, Patera. You saw it. Kalan's his name. Gurnard was set to stick Gib, but he got him…”

“With his skittlepin,” Silk prompted softly.

“That's lily, Patera. That's when Kalan come out with his needler, only I had mine out.”

“He intended to shoot Gib, didn't he?”

“I think so, Patera. He works with Gurnard off and on. Or anyway he used to.”

“Then there was no guilt in what you did, Auk.”

“Thanks, Patera.”

After that, Auk remained silent for a long time. Silk prayed silently while he waited, listening with half an ear to angry voices in the street and the thunderous wheels of a passing cart, his thoughts flitting from and returning to the calm, amused and somehow melancholy voices he had heard in the ball court as he had reached for the ball he carried in a pocket still, and to the innumerable things the owner of those voices had sought to teach him.

“I robbed a few houses up on the Palatine. I was trying to remember how many. Twenty I can think of for sure. Maybe more. And I beat a woman, a girl called—”

“You needn't tell me her name, Auk.”

“Pretty bad, too. She was trying to get more out of me after I'd already given her a real nice brooch. I'd had too much, and I hit her. Cut her mouth. She yelled, and I hit her again and floored her. She couldn't work for a week, she says. I shouldn't have done that, Patera.”

“No,” Silk agreed.

“She's better than most, and high, wide and handsome, too. Know what I mean, Patera? That's why I gave her the brooch. When she wanted more…”

“I understand.”

“I was going to kick her. I didn't, but if I had I'd probably have killed her. I kicked a man to death, once. That was part of what I told Patera Pike.”

Silk nodded, forcing his eyes away from Auk's boots. “If Patera brought you pardon, you need not repeat that to me; and if you refrained from kicking the unfortunate woman, you have earned the favor of the gods—of Scylla and her sisters particularly—by your self-restraint.”

Auk sighed. “Then that's all I've done, Patera, since last time. Solved those houses and beat on Chenille. And I wouldn't have, Patera, if I hadn't of seen she wanted it for rust. Or anyhow I don't think I would have.”

“You understand that it's wrong to break into houses, Auk. You must, or you wouldn't have told me about it. It is wrong, and when you enter a house to rob it, you might easily be killed, in which case you would die with the guilt upon you. That would be very bad. I want you to promise me that you will look for some better way to live. Will you do that, Auk? Will you give me your word?”

“Yes, Patera, I swear I will. I've already been doing it. You know, buying things and selling them. Like that.”

Silk decided it would be wiser not to ask what sorts of things these were, or how the sellers had gotten them. “The woman you beat, Auk. You said she used rust. Am I to take it that she was an immoral woman?”

“She's not any worse than a lot of others, Patera. She's at Orchid's place.”

Silk nodded to himself. “Is that the sort of place I imagine?”

“No, Patera, it's about the best. They don't allow any fighting or anything like that, and everything's real clean. Some of Orchid's girls have even gone uphill.”

“Nevertheless, Auk, you shouldn't go to places of that kind. You're not bad looking, you're strong, and you have some education. You'd have no difficulty finding a decent girl, and a decent girl might do you a great deal of good.”

Auk stirred, and Silk sensed that the kneeling man was looking at him, although he did not permit his own eyes to leave the picture of Scylla. “You mean the kind that has you shrive her, Patera? You wouldn't want one of them to take up with somebody like me. You'd tell her she deserved somebody better. Shag yes, you would!”

For a moment it seemed to Silk that the weight of the whole whorl's folly and witless wrong had descended on his shoulders. “Believe me, Auk, many of those girls will marry men far, far worse than you.” He drew a deep breath. “As penance for the evil you have done, Auk, you are to perform three meritorious acts before this time tomorrow. Shall I explain to you the nature of meritorious acts?”

“No, Patera. I remember, and I'll do them.”

“That's well. Then I bring to you, Auk, the pardon of all the gods. In the name of Great Pas, you are forgiven. In the name of Echidna, you are forgiven. In the name of Scylla, you are forgiven…” Soon the moment would come. “And in the name of the Outsider and all lesser gods, you are forgiven, by the power entrusted to me.”

There was no objection from Auk. Silk traced the sign of addition in the air above his head.

“Now it's my turn, Auk. Will you shrive me, as I shrove you?”

The two men changed places.

Silk said, “Cleanse me, friend, for I am in sore danger of death, and I may give offense to Pas and to other gods.”

Auk's hand touched his shoulder. “I've never did this before, Patera. I hope I get it right.”

“Tell me…” Silk prompted.

“Yeah. Tell me, Patera, so that I can bring you the forgiveness of Pas from the well of bottomless mercy.”

“I may have to break into a house tonight, Auk. I hope that I won't have to; but if the owner won't see me, or won't do what a certain god—the Outsider, Auk, you may know of him—wishes him to do, then I'll try to compel him.”

“Whose—”

“If he sees me alone, I intend to threaten his life unless he does as the god requires. But to be honest, I doubt that he'll see me at all.”

“Who is this, Patera? Who're you going to threaten?”

“Are you looking at me, Auk? You're not supposed to.”

“All right, now I'm looking away. Who is this, Patera? Whose house is it?”

“There's no need for me to tell you that, Auk. Forgive me my intent, please.”

“I'm afraid I can't, my son,” Auk said, getting into the spirit of his role. “I got to know who this is, and why you're going to do it. Maybe you won't be running as big of a risk as you think you are, see? I'm the one that has to judge that, ain't I?”

“Yes,” Silk admitted.

“And I see why you looked for me, 'cause I can do it better than anybody. Only I got to know, 'cause if this's just some candy, I got to tell you to go to a real augur after you scrape out, and forget about me. There's houses and then there's Houses. So who is it and where is it, Patera?”

“His name is Blood,” Silk said, and felt Auk's hand tighten on his shoulder. “I assume that he lives somewhere on the Palatine. He has a private floater, at any rate, and employs a driver for it.”

Auk grunted.

“I think that he must be dangerous,” Silk continued. “I sense it.”

“You win, Patera. I got to shrive you. Only you got to tell me all about it, too. I need to know what's going on here.”

“The Ayuntamiento has sold this man our manteion.”

Silk heard Auk's exhalation.

“It was bringing in practically nothing, you realize. The income from the manteion is supposed to balance the loss from the palaestra; tutorage doesn't cover our costs, and most of the parents are behind anyway. Ideally there should be enough left over for Juzgado's taxes, but our Window's been empty now for a very long while.”

“Must be others doing better,” Auk suggested.

“Yes. Considerably better in some cases, though it's been many years since a god has visited any Window in the city.”

“Then they—the augurs there—could give you a little something, Patera.”

Silk nodded, remembering his mendicant expeditions to those solvent manteions. “They have indeed helped at times, Auk. I'm afraid that the Chapter has decided to put an end to that. It's turned our manteion over to the Juzgado in lieu of our unpaid taxes, and the Ayuntamiento has sold the property to this man Blood. That's how things appear, at least.”

“We all got to pay the counterman come shadeup,” Auk muttered diplomatically.

“The people need us, Auk. The whole quarter does. I was hoping that if you—never mind. I intend to steal our manteion back tonight, if I can, and you must shrive me for that.”

The seated man was silent for a moment. At length he said, “The city keeps records on houses and so on, Patera. You go to the Juzgado and slip one of those clerks a little something, and they call up the lot number on their glass. I've done it. The monitor gives you the name of the buyer, or anyhow whoever's fronting for him.”

“So that I could verify the sale, you mean.”

“That's it, Patera. Make sure you're right about all this before you get yourself killed.”

Silk felt an uncontrollable flood of relief. “I'll do as you suggest, provided that the Juzgado's still open.”

“They wouldn't be, Patera. They close there about the same time as the market.”

It was hard for him to force himself to speak. “Then I must proceed. I must act tonight.” He hesitated while some frightened portion of his mind battered the ivory walls that confined it. “Of course this may not be the Blood you know, Auk. There must be a great many people of that name. Could Blood—the Blood you know—buy our manteion? It must be worth twenty thousand cards or more.”

“Ten,” Auk muttered. “Twelve, maybe, only he probably got it for the taxes. What's he look like, Patera?”

“A tall, heavy man. Angry looking, I'd say, although it may only have been that his face was flushed. There are wide bones under his plump cheeks, or so I'd guess.”

“Lots of rings?”

Silk struggled to recall the prosperous-looking man's fat, smooth hands. “Yes,” he said. “Several, at least.”

“Could you smell him?”

“Are you asking whether he smelled bad? No, certainly not. In fact—”

Auk grunted. “What was it?”

“I have no idea, but it reminded me of the scented oil—no doubt you've noticed it—in the lamp before Scylla, in our manteion. A sweet, heavy odor, not quite so pungent as incense.”

“He calls it musk rose,” Auk said dryly. “Musk's a buck that works for him.”

“It is the Blood you know, then.”

“Yeah, it is. Now be quiet a minute, Patera. I got to remember the words.” Auk rocked back and forth. There was a faint noise like the grating of sand on a shiprock floor as he rubbed his massive jaw. “As a penance for the evil that you're getting ready to do, Patera, you got to perform two or three meritorious acts I'll tell you about tonight.”

“That is too light a penance,” Silk protested.

“Don't weigh feathers with me, Patera, 'cause you don't know what they are yet. You're going to do 'em, ain't you?”

“Yes, Auk,” Silk said humbly.

“That's good. Don't forget. All right, then I bring to you, Patera, the pardons of all the gods. In the name of Great Pas, you're forgiven. In the name of Echidna, you're forgiven. In the name of Scylla, of Molpe, of Tartaros, of Hierax, of Thelxiepeia, of Phaea, of Sphigx, and of all the lesser gods, you're forgiven, Patera, by the powers trusted to me.”

Silk traced the sign of addition, hoping that the big man was doing the same over his head.

The big man cleared his throat. “Was that all right?”

“Yes,” Silk said, rising. “It was very good indeed, for a layman.”

“Thanks. Now about Blood. You say you're going to solve his place, but you don't even know where it is.”

“I can ask directions when I reach the Palatine.” Silk was dusting his knees. “Blood isn't a particular friend of yours, I hope.”