Litany of the Long Sun (43 page)

His voice seemed nonexistent. His tongue and lips had moved, and air had passed them, but no trumpeter could have made himself heard above the din.

Silk raised his hands and looked at the Sacred Window again. It was a shimmering gray, as empty as if no goddess had ever spoken through it. Yesterday in the yellow house on Lamp Street, the goddess had told him that she would speak to him again soon, repeating soon.

She kept her word, he thought.

Almost idly it occurred to him that the registers behind the Sacred Window would no longer be empty, as he had always seen them. One would show a single one, now; the other would display the length of the goddess's theophany, in units that no living person understood. He wanted to look at them, to verify the reality of what he had just seen and heard.

"All of you are entitled to hear-" His voice sounded weak and reedy, but at least he could hear it.

All of you are entitled to hear yourselves speaking when you could not hear yourselves at all, he thought. All of you are entitled to know how you felt and what you said to the goddess, or wanted to say-though most of us never will. The tumult was subsiding now, falling like a wave on the lake. Strongly, Silk told himself, from the diaphragm. They had praised him for this at the schola.

"You are entitled to know what the goddess said, and the name that she gave. It was Kypris; and that is not a name from the Nine, as you know." Before he could stop himself, he added, "You are entitled to know as well, that Kypris has previously appeared to me in a private revelation."

She had told him not to speak of that, and now he had; he felt sure that she would never forgive him, as he would never forgive himself.

"Kypris is mentioned seven times in the Writings, where it is said that she always takes an interest in-in-in young women. Women of marriageable age, who are young. No doubt she took an interest in Orpine. I feel sure she must have."

They were almost quiet now, many listening intently; but his mind was still whelmed by the wonder of the goddess, and barren of cohesive thought.

"Comely Kypris, who has so favored us, is mentioned upon seven occasions in the Chrasmologic Writings. I think I said that before, though some of you may not have heard it. White doves and white rabbits are to be offered her, which was why we had those doves. The doves were supplied by her mother-I mean by Orpine's mother, by Orchid."

Providentially, he remembered something more. "In the Writings she is honored as the most favored companion of Pas among the minor gods."

Silk paused and swallowed. "I said you were entitled to hear everything that she said. That is what is called for by the canon. Unfortunately, I cannot adhere to that canon as I would wish. A part of her message was directed to the chief mourner alone. I must deliver that in private, and I'll try to arrange to do that as soon as I am finished here."

The sea of faces stirred. Even the mutes were listening with wide eyes and open mouths.

"She-I mean Comely Kypris-said three things. One was the private message that I must deliver. She said also that she would prophesy, in order that you would believe. I don't think there's anyone here who does not, not now. But possibly some of us might question her theophany later. Or possibly she intended our whole city, all of us in Viron.

"Her prophesy was this: there will be a great crime, a successful one, here in Viron. She spreads her mantle above the-the criminals, and because of it they will succeed."

Shaken and trying frantically to collect his wits, Silk fell silent. He was rescued by a man sitting near Auk, who shouted, "When? When'll it be?"

"Tonight." Silk cleared his throat. "She said it would be tonight."

The man's jaw snapped shut, and he stared about him. "The third was this: that she would come again to this Sacred Window, soon. I asked her-you must have heard me, some of you. I implored her to come back, and she said she would, and soon. That-that's everything I can tell you now."

He saw Maytera Marble's bowed head, and sensed that she was praying for him, praying that he would somehow receive the strength and presence of mind that he so clearly needed. The knowledge itself strengthened him.

"And now I must request that the chief mourner come up here. Orchid, my daughter, please join me. We must retire to-to a private place, in order that I can deliver the goddess's message to you."

He would take her out the side door and into the garden, and thinking of the garden reminded him of the heifer and the other victims. "Please remain where you are, all of you. Or leave if you like, and let others join in the sacred meal. That would be a meritorious act. As soon as I have conveyed the goddess's message, we will proceed with Orpine's rites."

He had left Blood's lioness-headed walking stick behind the Sacred Window; he retrieved it before they started down the stair to the side door. "There are seats in the arbor, outside. I have to take off this thing around my leg and-and beat it against something. I hope you won't mind."

Orchid did not reply.

It was not until he stepped out into the garden that Silk realized how hot it had been in the manteion, near the altar fire. The whole place seemed to glow; the rabbits lay on their sides gasping for breath, and Maytera Marble's herbs were wilting almost visibly; but to him the hot, dry wind felt cool, and the burning bar that was the midday sun, which should have struck him like a blow, seemed without force.

"I ought to have something to drink," he said. "Water, I mean. Water's all we have. No doubt you should, too."

Orchid said, "All right," and he led her to the arbor and limped into the kitchen of the manse, pumped and pumped until the water came, then doused his head in the gushing stream.

Outside again, he handed Orchid a tumbler of water, sat down, and filled another for himself from the carafe he had brought. "It's cold, at least. I'm sorry I don't have wine to offer you. I'll have some in a day or two, thanks to you; but there wasn't time this morning."

"I have a headache," Orchid said. "This's what I need." And then, "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"The goddess? Oh, yes! She was-she's lovely. No artist-"

"I meant Orpine." Orchid had emptied her tumbler; as she spoke she held it out to be refilled, and Silk nodded as he tilted the carafe.

"Don't you think that was one reason why this goddess came? I'd like to think so anyhow, Patera. And it might be true."

Silk said, "I had better give you the goddess's message now-I've already waited too long. She said that I was to tell you that no one who loves something outside herself can be wholly bad. That Orpine had saved you for a while, but that you must find something else to save you now. That you must find something new to love."

Orchid sat silent for what seemed to Silk a long while. The white heifer, lying beneath the dying fig tree, moved to a more comfortable position and began to chew her cud. The people waiting in Sun Street, on the other side of the garden wall, were chattering excitedly among themselves. Silk could not understand, though he could easily guess, what they were saying.

At last she murmured, "Does love really mean more than life, Patera? Is it more important?"

"I don't know. I think it may be."

"I would've said I loved a lot of other things." Her mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "Money, just for starters. Only I gave you a hundred cards for this, didn't I? Maybe that shows I don't love it as much as I thought."

Silk groped for words. "The gods have to speak to us in our own language, a language that we are always corrupting, because it's the only one we understand. They, perhaps, have a thousand words for a thousand different kinds of love, or ten thousand words for ten thousand; but when they talk to us, they must say 'love,' as we do. I think that at times it must blur their meaning."

"It won't be easy, Patera."

Silk shook his head. "I never imagined it would be, nor do I think that Kypris believed it would. If it were going to be easy, she wouldn't have sent her message, I feel sure."

Orchid fingered her jet beads. "I've been wondering why somebody-Kypris or Pas or whatever-didn't save her. I think I've got it now."

"Then tell me," Silk said. "I don't, and I would like to very much."

"They didn't because they did. It sounds funny, doesn't it? I don't think Orpine loved anybody except me, and if I'd died before she did…" Orchid shrugged. "So they let her go first. She was beautiful, better looking than I ever was. But she wasn't as tough. I don't think so, anyhow. What do you love, Patera?"

"I'm not certain," Silk admitted. "The last time that we talked, I would have said this manteion. I know better now, or at least I think I do. I try to love the Outsider-I'm always talking about him, just as Auk said-but sometimes I almost hate him, because he has given me responsibility, as well as so much honor."

"You were enlightened. That's what somebody told me on the way here. You're going to bring back the Charter and be Caldé yourself."

Silk shook his head and rose. "We'd better go inside. We're keeping five hundred people waiting in that heat."

She patted his shoulder when they parted, surprising him.

WHEN THE LAST sacrifice had been completed and the last morsel of the sacred meal that it had provided parceled out, he cleared the manteion. "We will lay Orpine in her casket now," he explained, "and close the casket. Those who wish to make a final farewell may do so on the way out, but everyone must leave. Those of you who will accompany the casket to the cemetery should wait outside on the steps."

Maytera Rose had left already, to wash his gauntlets and the sacrificial knife. Maytera Mint whispered, "I'd rather not watch, Patera. May I…?"

He nodded, and she hurried off to the cenoby. The mourners were filing past, Orchid waiting so as to be last in line. Maytera Marble said, "Those men will carry it, Patera. That's why they were here. Yesterday I happened to think that there would have to be someone, and the address was on the draft. I sent a boy with a note to Orchid."

"Thank you, Maytera. As I've said a thousand times, I don't know what I'd do without you. Have them wait at the entrance, please."

Chenille was still in her seat. "You should go, too," he told her, but she appeared not to have heard him.

When Maytera Marble returned, they lifted Orpine's body from its bed of ice and laid it in the waiting casket. "I'll help you with the lid, too, Patera."

He shook his head. "Chenille wishes to speak with me, I believe, and she won't as long as you're here. Go to the entrance, please, Maytera, where you won't overhear us if we keep our voices down." To Chenille he added, "I'm going to fasten the lid now. You can talk to me while I do it, if you like." Her eyes flickered toward him, but she did not speak.

"Maytera must remain, you see. There must be two of us, so that each can testify that the other did not rob the body or molest it." Grunting, he lifted the heavy lid into place. "If you stayed to ask whether I've confided anything that you told me in your shriving to anyone else, I have not. You probably won't believe this, but I've actually forgotten most of it already. We make an effort to, you see. Once you've been forgiven, you're forgiven; that part of your life is over, and there's no point in our retaining it."

Chenille remained as before, staring straight ahead. Her wide, rounded forehead gleamed with perspiration; while Silk studied her, a single droplet trickled into her left eye and out again, as though reborn as a tear.

The casket builder had provided six long brass screws, one for each corner. They were hidden, with the screwdriver from the palaestra's broom closet, under the black cloth that draped the catafalque. Holes had been bored to receive each screw. As Silk got them out, he heard Chenille's slow steps in the aisle and glanced up. She was looking toward him now, but her motions seemed almost mechanical.

He told her, "If you'd like to say good-bye to Orpine, I can remove the lid. I haven't started the first screw yet."

She made an inarticulate noise and shook her head.

"Very well, then." He forced himself to look down at his work. He had not realized she was so beautiful-no, not even when they had sat talking in her room at Orchid's. In the garden, he had begun to say that no artist could paint a face half so lovely as Kypris's. Now it seemed to him that the same thing might almost be said of Chenille, and for a moment he imagined himself a sculptor or a painter. He would pose her beside a stream, he thought, her face up-tilted as though she were watching a meadowlark…

He sensed her proximity before he had tightened the first screw. Her cheek, he felt certain, was within a span of his ear. Her perfume filled his nostrils; and though it was in no way different from any other woman's, and stronger than it ought to have been, though it was mingled with perspiration, the inferior scents of face and body powders, and even the miasma of a woolen gown that had been stored for most of this protracted summer in one of the battered old trunks he had seen in her room, he found it intoxicating.

As he drove the third screw, her hand came to rest on his own. "Perhaps you'd better sit down," he told her. "You're not supposed to be in here, actually."

She laughed softly.

He straightened up and turned to face her. "Maytera's watching. Have you forgotten? Go and sit down, please. I have no desire to exert my authority, but I will if I must."

When she spoke, it was with mingled wonder and amusement. She said,
"This woman's A spy!"

COMPANY

T
hough he had been in the old cemetery often, Silk had never ridden the deadcoach before-or rather, as he told himself sharply, the deadcoach had been Loach's wagon. They always walked behind it in procession, as custom demanded, on the way there; and Loach nearly always invited him to ride back to the quarter, sitting beside Loach on the weathered gray board that was the driver's seat.

This was a real deadcoach, however, all glass and black lacquered wood, with black plumes and a pair of black horses, the whole rented for a staggering three cards from the maker of Orpine's casket. Silk, who had scarcely been able to limp along by the time they reached the cemetery, had been relieved when the liveried driver had offered him a ride, and utterly astonished to find that the deadcoach seat had a back, both seat and back stylishly upholstered in shiny black leather, like a costly chair. The seat was very high as well, which afforded him a fresh perspective on the streets through which they passed.