Epiphany of the Long Sun (16 page)

Maytera Marble was sitting in the arbor just as he had left her. Pushing aside the vines, he handed her the tumbler, saying, "Would you like me to bless this for you, Maytera?"

"It won't be necessary, Patera."

Water spilled from the lip; rills laced her fingers, and rain panered upon the black cloth covering her metal thighs. She smiled.

"Does that make you feel better?" he asked,

"Yes, much better. Much cooler, Patera. Thank you."

"I'll be happy to bring you another, if you require it."

She stood. "No. No, thank you, Patera. I'll be all right now, I think."

"Sit down again, Maytera, please. I'm still worried about you, and I have to talk to you."

Reluctantly, she did. "Aren't there others hurt? I seem to remember others-and Maytera Rose, her coffin,"

Silk nodded. "That's a part of what I must talk to you about. Fighting has broken out all over the city."

She nodded hesitantly. "Riots."

"Rebellion, Maytera. The people-some at least-are rising against the Ayuntamiento. There won't be any burials for several days, I'm afraid; so when you're feeling better, you and I must carry Maytera's coffin into the manteion. Is it very heavy?"

"I don't think so, Patera."

"Then we should be able to manage it. But before we go, I ought to tell you that Villus and an old woman named Cassava are in the manse with His Cognizance. I can't stay here, nor will he be able to, I'm sure; so I intend to ask him to allow you to enter to care for them."

Maytera Marble nodded.

"And our altar and Window are still out in the street. I doubt that it will be possible for you to get enough help to move them back inside until the city is at peace. But if you can, please do."

"I certainly will, Patera."

"I want you to stay and look after our manteion, Maytera. Maytera Mint's gone; she felt it her duty to lead the fighting, and she answered duty's call with exemplary courage. I'll have to go soon as well. People are dying-and killing others-to make me Caldé, and I must put a stop to that if I can."

"Please be careful, Patera. For all our sakes."

"Yet this manteion is still important, Maytera. Terribly important." (Doctor Crane's ghost laughed aloud in a corner of Silk's mind.) "The Outsider told me so, remember? Someone must care for it, and there's no one left but you."

Maytera Marble's sleek metal head bobbed humbly, oddly mechanical without her coif. "I'll do my best, Patera."

"I know you will." Refilled his lungs. "I said there were two things I had to tell you. You may not recall it, but I did. When you began to speak, I found there were a great many more. Now I must tell you those two, and then we'll carry Maytera into the manteion, if we can. The first is something I should have said months ago. Perhaps I did; I know I've tried. Now I believe-I believe it's quite likely I may be killed, and I must say it now, or be silent forever."

"I'm anxious to hear it, Patera." Her voice was soft, her metal mask expressionless and compassionate; her hands clasped his, hard and wet and warm.

"I want to say-this is the old thing-that I could never have stood it here if it hadn't been for you. Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint tried to help, I know they did. But you have been my right arm, Maytera. I want you know that."

Maytera Marble was staring at the ground. "You're too kind, Patera."

"I've loved three women. My mother was the first. The third…" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You don't know her, and I doubt that I'll ever see her again." A pillar of swirling dust rose above the top of the garden wall, to be swept away in a moment.

"The second thing, the new one, is that I can't remain the sort of augur I've been. Pas-Great Pas, who ruled the whole Whorl like a father-is dead, Maytera. Echidna herself told us. Do you remember that?"

Maytera Marble said nothing.

"Pas built our whorl, as we learn from the Writings. He built it, I believe, to endure for a long, long time, but not to endure indefinitely in his absence. Now he's dead, and the sun has no master. I believe that the Fliers have been trying to tame it, or perhaps only trying to heal it. A man in the market told me once that his grandfather had spoken of them, saying their appearance presaged rain; so all my life, and my mother's, and her parents', too, have been lived under their protection, while they wrestled the sun."

Silk peered through the wilting foliage overhead at the dwindling golden line, already narrowed by the shade. "But they've failed, Maytera. A flier told me yesterday, with what was almost his final breath. I didn't understand then; but I do now, or at least I believe I may. Something happened in the street that made it unmistakable. Our city, and every other, must help if it can, and prepare for worse times than we've ever known."

Quetzal's tremulous old voice came from outside the arbor. "Excuse me, Patera. Maytera." The wilting vines parted, and he stepped inside. "I overheard what you said. I couldn't help it, it's so quiet. You'll pardon me, I hope?"

"Of course, Your Cognizance." Both rose.

"Sit down, my daughter. Sit, please. May I sit beside you, Patera? Thank you. Everyone's hiding indoors, I imagine, or gone off to join the fighting. I've been upstairs in your manse, Patera, and I looked out your window. There isn't a cart in the street, and you can hear shooting."

Silk nodded. "A terrible thing, Your Cognizance."

"It is, as I overheard you say earlier, Patera. Maytera, you are, from all I've heard and read in our files, a woman of sound sense. A woman outstanding for that valuable quality, in fact. Viron's at war with itself. Men and women, and even children, are dying as we speak. They call us butchers for offering animal blood to the gods, though they're only animals and die quickly for the highest of purposes. Now the gutters are running with wasted human blood. If we're butchers, what will they call themselves when it's over?" He shook his head. "Heroes, I suppose. Do you agree?"

Maytera Marble nodded mutely.

"Then I ask you, how can it be ended? Tell me, Maytera. Tell us both. My coadjutor fears my humor, and I myself fear at times that I overindulge it. But I was never more serious."

She muttered something inaudible.

"Louder, Maytera."

"Patera Silk must become our Caldé."

Quetzal leaned back in the little rustic seat. "There you have it. Her reputation for good sense is entirely justified, Patera Caldé."

"Your Cognizance!"

Maytera Marble made Quetzal a seated bow. "You're too kind, Your Cognizance."

"Maytera. Suppose I maintain that yours isn't the only solution. Suppose I say that the Ayuntamiento has governed us before and can govern us again. We need only submit. What's wrong with that?"

"There'd be another rebellion, Your Cognizance, and more riots." Maytera Marble would not meet Silk's eyes. "More fighting, new rebellions every few years until the Ayuntamiento was overthrown. I've watched discontent grow for twenty years, Your Cognizance, and now they're killing, Patera says. They'll be quicker to fight next time, and quicker again until it never really stops. And-and…"

"Yes?" Quetzal motioned urgently. "Tell us."

"The soldiers will die, Your Cognizance, one by one. Each time the people rise, there will be fewer soldiers."

"So you see." His head swung about on its wrinkled neck as he spoke to Silk. "Your supporters must win, Patera Caldé. Stop wincing when I call you that, you've got to get used to it. They must, because only their victory will bring Viron peace. Tell Loris and the rest they can save their lives by surrendering now. Lemur's dead, did you know that?"

Swallowing, Silk nodded.

"With Lemur gone, a few smacks of your quirt will make the rest trot anywhere you want. But you must be Caldé, and the people must see you are."

"If I may speak, Your Cognizance?"

"Not to tell me that you, an anointed augur, will not do what I, your Prolocutor, ask you to, I trust."

"You've been Prolocutor for many years, Your Cognizance. Since long before I was born. You were Prolocutor in the days of the last Caldé."

Quetzal nodded. "I knew him well. I intend to know you better, Patera Caldé."

"I was a child when he died, Your Cognizance, a child just learning to walk. A great many things must have happened then that I've never heard of. I mention it to emphasize that I'm asking out of ignorance. If you would prefer not to answer, no more will be said about the matter."

Quetzal nodded. "If it were Maytera here inquiring, or your acolyte, let's say, or even my coadjutor, I might refuse exactly as you suggest. I can't imagine a question asked by our Caldé that I wouldn't feel it was my duty to answer fully and clearly, however. What's troubling you?"

Silk ran his fingers through his hair. "When the Caldé died, Your Cognizance, did you-did anyone-protest the Ayuntamiento's decision not to hold an election?"

Quetzal nodded, as if to himself, and passed a trembling hand across his hairless scalp, a gesture similar to Silk's yet markedly different. "The short answer, if I intended nothing more than a short answer, would be yes. I did. So did various others. You deserve more than a short answer, though. You deserve a complete explanation. In the meantime, that lucky young man's body lies half consumed on the altar. I saw it from your window. You indicate that you're not inclined to plead your office to excuse disobedience. Will you follow me into the street and help me do what can be done there? When we're finished, I'll answer you fully."

Crouched behind the remaining wall of a fire-gutted shop, Maytera Mint studied her subordinates' faces. Zoril looked fearful, Lime stunned, and the big, black-bearded man (she found she had forgotten his name, if she had ever heard it) resolute. "Now, then," she said.

Why it's just like talking to the class, she thought. No different at all. I wish I had a chalkboard,

"Now then, we've just had news, and it's bad news, I don't intend to deny that. But it isn't unexpected news. Not to me, and I hope to none of you. We've got Guards penned up in the Alambrera, where they're supposed to pen up other people."

She smiled, hoping they appreciated the irony. "Anyone would expect that the Ayuntamiento would send its people help. Certainly I expected it, though I hoped it wouldn't be quite so prompt. But it's come, and it seems to me that we can do any of three things." She held up three fingers. "We can go on attacking the Alambrera, hoping we can take it before they get here." One finger down. "We can withdraw." Another finger down. "Or we can leave the Alambrera as it is and fight the reinforcements before they can get inside." The last finger down. "What do you suggest, Zoril?"

"If we withdraw, we won't be doing what the goddess said for us to."

The black-bearded man snorted.

"She told us to capture the Alambrera and tear it down," Maytera Mint reminded Zoril. "We've tried, but we haven't been able to. What we've got to decide, really, is should we go on trying until we're interrupted? Or rest awhile until we feel stronger, knowing that they'll be stronger too? Or should we see to it that we're not interrupted. Lime?"

She was a lank woman of forty with ginger-colored hair that Maytera Mint had decided was probably dyed. "I don't think we can think
only
about what the goddess said. If she just wanted it torn down, she could have done it herself. She wants us to do it."

Maytera Mint nodded. "I'm in complete agreement."

"We're mortals, so we've got to do it as mortals." Lime gulped. "I don't have as many people following me as the rest of you, and most of mine are women."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Maytera Mint assured her. "So am I. So is the goddess, or at least she's female like us. We know she's Pas's wife and seven times a mother. As for your not having lots of followers, that's not the point. I'd be happy to listen to somebody who didn't have any, if she had good, workable ideas."

"What I was trying to say-" A gust of wind carried dust and smoke into their council; Lime fanned her face with one long, flat hand. "Is most of mine don't have much to fight with. Just kitchen knives, a lot of them. Eight, I think it is, have needlers, and there's one who runs a stable and has a pitchfork."

Maytera Mint made a mental note.

"So what I was going to say is they're feeling left out. Discouraged, you know?"

Maytera Mint assured her that she did.

"So if we go home, I think some will stay there. But if we can beat these new Hoppies that're coming, they could get slug guns. They'd feel better about themselves, and us, too."

"A very valid point."

"Bison here-"

Maytera Mint made another note: "Bison" was clearly the black-bearded man; she resolved to use his name whenever she could until it was fixed in her memory.

"Bison thinks they won't fight. And they won't, not the way he wants them to. But if they had slug guns, they'd shoot all day if you told them to, Maytera. Or if you told them to go someplace and Hoppies tried to stop them."

"You're for attacking the relief column, Lime?"

Lime nodded.

Bison said, "She's for it as long as somebody else does the fighting. I'm for it, too, and we'll do the fighting."

"The fighting among ourselves, you mean, Bison?" Maytera Mint shook her head. "That sort of fighting will never bring back the Charter, and I'm quite sure it isn't what the goddess intended. But you're in favor of attacking the relief column? Good, so am I! I'm not sure I know what Zoril wants, and I'm not sure he knows. Even so, that's a clear majority. Where would you suggest we attack it, Bison?"

He was silent, fingering his beard.

"We'll lose some stragglers. I realize that. But there are steps we can take to keep from losing many, and we might pick up some new people as well. Zoril?"

"I don't know, Maytera. I think you ought to decide."

"So do I, and I will. But it's foolish to make decisions without listening to advice, if there's time for it. I think we should attack right here, when they reach the Alambrera."

Bison nodded emphatically.

"In the first place, we don't have much time to prepare, and that will give us the most."