Shadowbridge (21 page)

He sat against the rail and watched. He had nothing, said nothing, and no one paid him much mind. As people got something, they deserted the beam, but there were many who, now that a visitation had occurred, decided to sit and wait for another. It would all begin again. It
must.

Because of the “blessed” event, there would for a time be more people on the beam and in the hexagonal bowl on any given day, more abusers of children, more who resented his presence here, never mind that he was a prisoner and would gladly have left if they’d freed him. For a while everyone would anticipate the next visitation, until this one faded into memory and most of the cormorants drifted away, back to whatever routine had filled their days before.

He rocked in place, furiously frustrated by the stupidity of people. After a while different ones came and took the madman with the white hair by the arms, stood him up, and walked him down the beam. One glanced his way, and the boy said, “Please, take me, too.” The two paused. They contemplated him as if considering whether he was worth the effort; but he didn’t notice them any longer because he realized that he had spoken. He had spoken and it had
made sense.
Thoughts inside his head were making sense. He was observing the world around him and it was making sense—or at least the nonsense of it all was suddenly comprehensible to him
as
nonsense. For the first time in his life, he recognized and understood the motives of others.

The madman took notice of him and began to laugh. The two handlers dismissed the boy and hurried on with their charge.

He was aware! He stared up at the sky, at clouds and birds and sun. Whatever the gods had done for everyone else, they had given him the gift of himself.

He was still marveling at his transformation when the woman returned some hours later. She told him, “Well, I’ve found someone to take you off my hands, and that’s what I’m going to do.” She unlocked the chain from the bollards but not from his ankle. She let him get to his feet, but then pulled him along, and he had to hop to keep up.

They arrived back on the span. He wanted to run off, he wanted to shout at her for how she had treated him, but he did neither. He pretended to be the idiot she saw. His skinny legs trembled from disuse. It had been so long since he had walked anywhere beyond the length of the chain, and he was starved. He intended to bide his time, to see what she had in mind. While he now had the gift of thought, he still didn’t know much about the world or how it worked.

She led him through twisting alleys and small rough streets, avoiding the main thoroughfares, where his situation might have proved inconvenient for her, and finally came to the very end of the span. The great wall of the tower rose up before them; but instead of taking him into the tower and off the span, she turned and walked down the narrowest of lanes with the tower wall on the left and the fronts of houses on the right, so close that he could have climbed in their windows even on the chain. The lane was a cul-de-sac, but near the end of it a dark doorway had been carved out of the tower wall.

The woman banged on the door, and it opened almost immediately. A slender but round-faced man with darting eyes stood there, dressed in an embroidered robe that was belted slackly at his waist, revealing a hairy abdomen above loose trousers. He beamed at the woman. She handed him the chain. He looked the boy up and down. “He ain’t much,” he said. “Looks like a skellington, he does.”

“I told you, Bogrevil, he’s been living on the bowl, waiting for the gods.”

“I heared they come last night. They talk to you, boy?”

The boy kept his mouth closed and acted as if the question had been directed at Mother Kestrel.

“He’s mute?” Bogrevil asked.

“Yes, as I told you, he’s an idiot,” she replied testily. “You don’t want him, that’s fine, I’ll be on my way.” She reached for the chain, but Bogrevil drew it out of her reach, which tugged the boy inside the doorway.

Bogrevil said, “If he’s been visited by the gods, then I get whatever he’s got. You don’t.”

The woman looked at the boy, but he stared dumbly at the ground as if unaware of his circumstances. She snorted with laughter. “Oh, I’ll agree to that. He’s got anything from here on, it’s yours to keep, including vermin.”

Bogrevil reached out and dropped three coins into her hand then. “Excellent,” he said and drew the boy closer to him. “And if you find yourself with any other boys to be rid of, you know where to find me, m’dear. I’m always in need of stock.” He reeled the boy through the doorway and shut the door with the kick of one foot.

“There’s an end to that,” said Bogrevil. Outside the door, the woman was expressing a similar opinion, though with a curious pang of regret. She had foolishly put her faith in that boy simply because he hadn’t died. She’d let herself become sentimental. Never again, she swore. Never again.

In the dusty and dimly lit foyer Bogrevil took him by the shoulders and pressed them back, tilted his chin up, then stepped away from him. “You’re skinny as fishbones, but that’s from her feeding you on air and dreams. Otherwise you’re well turned out, or will be when you’ve had sommit to eat. Waste of talent, though. None of my clients will want to inhale an idiot. Still, we’ll find a use for you. See if you can juggle a tray, hmm?” When the boy did not respond, Bogrevil patted his cheek and released him. “Well, come on, then, follow me.” He threw back a curtain, and light from a distant source below him splashed his shadow across the ceiling of the foyer. “We’ll get you fed and bathed and into some whole clothes.” He started down a steep stairwell. The boy had forgotten about the chain, and nearly stumbled as it snapped tight and pulled him to the edge of the steps.

“I wonder what the gods gave you,” Bogrevil said as he descended. “Many’s the time I’ve said the gods are capricious. Sometimes they give us what we need, and sometimes they offer so much that it drives us mad. Sometimes they see the greed inside and they curse us for it. Sometimes the gifts don’t mean nothin’ at all.”

They went down into the belly of the tower.

True to his word, Bogrevil had the boy fed. It was more food than he’d seen in a single serving ever. After the near starvation on the dragon beam, he couldn’t eat half of it. All the while he watched the other boys sizing him up. They seemed envious of the attention being paid him, though it was no more than had been paid to them upon arriving. He kept his eyes on nothing and focused on the meal. The other boys took this to mean that he was harmless and ignored him.

After the meal, Bogrevil had one of the other boys pick the lock on the cuff and removed the chain from his ankle. Two older boys led him to a steamy chamber, stripped him of his clothing, and dropped him into a large bathing pool. A dozen others swam in it, a few laughing and squealing but most just floating, withdrawn, it seemed to him. He luxuriated in the warmth. He had no memory of anything like it. Finally, to his shock, a woman waded into the pool. She headed straight for him and took hold of him by one biceps. As naked as the boys, she might have been ten years his senior, but she wasn’t much larger than he. However, she proved to be a good deal stronger. She caught hold of him, and then scrubbed him with a brush so hard that he thought she was flaying him, but he couldn’t squirm out of her grip. A couple of the boys hooted at his predicament but stayed beyond the woman’s reach while they did. She poured something into his hair that she worked in. Whatever it was, it burned terribly, and he struggled furiously to get free of her and dunk his head. She must have expected it, for she wrapped her legs around his belly to keep him in place. Finally, when he thought his hair must be sizzling, she shoved his head underwater, then hauled him up again. He spluttered and spat, sure that his scalp had been burned away. Without a word the woman let go of him and stalked one of the jeering boys, who hadn’t been far enough away after all. The other squealers scrambled naked out of the pool for their lives, while the rest watched her and the goings-on in the water as if none of it mattered. The boy patted his head and was surprised to find that he still had hair.

Later, the same woman lifted him out by the arm and wrapped him in a great cloth. She was wearing one, too. He saw that she had an odd, dark birthmark on one shoulder. She said, “I hope you have the sense to bathe yourself, because I’m
not
going to do this for you every day.”

Bogrevil came in while the other boys were dressing. “How is he, Eskie?” he asked her.

“Clean,” she replied, and pushed the end of the cloth through his hair. “I rid him of his lice, though it peeled the skin from my fingertips.”

“Good.” Again Bogrevil lifted his chin and studied him. “How old you think he is?”

“Old enough, I’m sure. He has hair, hasn’t he? But he’s been underfed so very long, it could be he is seventeen or more and simply looks twelve. He does not know?”

“Not likely. Anyway, doesn’t matter, he’s not on the menu.”

“He has the looks for…the menu. Fill him out a little and an attractive enough body will appear.”

“Don’t need attractive to clean and serve. Can’t sell half-wits anyhow. Most clients are superstitious enough to think it’s contagious—an idiot’s essence will make them the same.”

“Mmmm,” she replied. “I’m not afraid. Or else it’s too late for me.” She fluttered a hand in front of her face as if to cool her fevered brow.

Bogrevil chortled. “You think you can get a rise out of him, my Eskie?”

“Is that a request?” She shook her head. “I am only saying that he’s a pretty one, though starved.” She snatched the drying cloth off him, left him standing naked while she retrieved clothes for him from a table. “Come, then, give us your arm,” she said as she drew a white tunic on him. “Come,” when she wanted him to raise a foot. Her fingers touched him everywhere, but didn’t linger. She buttoned the tunic down his chest. Its stiff collar nearly reached his chin. Her hazel eyes studied him closely. He blushed at the way she looked at him: He couldn’t help it. She noticed the color in his cheek, and her careless gaze became curious; but she said nothing. Her fingers brushed his hair from his forehead. “A proper server,” she commented and stepped back to let Bogrevil see the boy dressed in white finery, loose silk trousers, and a slender jacket.

“He wears the clothes well enough, don’t he? Superb, Eskie, superb. Now we must find out if he can balance a tray.”

She considered him. “I shall be surprised if he cannot.”

Bogrevil turned to leave. “Oh,” he said and raised a finger. “We have to give him a name. Can’t keep calling him
boy.
If I were to call out
Come here, boy,
whenever I wanted him, I’d be crushed by the onslaught.”

“He has no name?”

“I don’t know. His former keeper didn’t bother to assign him one, and
he
can’t tell me, if he even knows.”

She put a finger to her lips and tapped them. “Let’s call him…something like
divers.
”

“What?”

“Because he is different.”

“Diverus,” he repeated, mispronouncing what she’d said. “Yes, we got others like that, don’t we—Delicatus and Draucus. Like a—what, lineage, yes.”

Rather than correct him—never a good idea with Bogrevil—she concurred. “Diverus, then.” It was not a bad name in any case.

“Different. Oh, yes, he is. Nice job, Eskie. I can always rely on you an’ your upbringing.” She bowed her head at the compliment. “You go take him to his room, show him about. Maybe some of it’ll stick. We’ll try him out tonight if he can balance a tray.” He went off to see to the rest of his “merchandise.”

 . . . . . 

Eskie had put on a long white robe. Her black hair cascaded down the back of it. She wore bangles on her wrists and a small chain of bells on her ankles, so that her every movement tinkled and chimed as she led him through a warren of rooms and tunnels. Something about the sound created odd warmth in his belly.

The main parlors of the paidika—there were three—had intricate tapestries hung upon the walls. Two had carpets on the floor, and pillows strewn upon the carpets. The room farthest from the stairs had a square pedestal in the center, and small, backless cushioned chairs ringing the sides of it, as if a show of some sort was about to begin. Lamps and candles of various sizes and shapes filled every corner, and lanterns dangled from the ceilings. Bowls containing some sort of aromatic herbs floating in liquid stood off to each side of the doorways. Their entering the room swirled spice around them. The rooms were not occupied.

Leading from the parlors were narrow halls. The one she led him along opened onto a wider corridor lined with curtained doorways, with leather settees in between them.

Eskie saw him trying to peer into the rooms, and she stepped up to one and drew the curtain back. It was sumptuously decorated, though small and dark. The central feature of the room was an immense sinuous hookah, the cap of which nearly reached the ceiling. Two hoses depended from the side of it and snaked around the bulbous base, mouthpieces resting on pillows as if the smokers had just left the room. In the shadowy recess behind it lay a peculiar lacquered box big enough for someone to lie in. Curving tines of bone like the rib cage of a monster as big as the hookah rose from the side of the box and curled over it toward the center. Symbols painted in the lacquer were meaningless to him. Along the rest of the walls were shelves and niches that held candles, small lamps, and assorted odd objects—tiny silver pillboxes, a few statuettes of fish and other creatures, some carved from wood, others blown from colored glass, and more things he couldn’t identify. When he’d had a good look, Eskie dropped the curtain again.

Owing to the nature of the paidika’s business, she said, the boys generally slept the day through. She led him down another hall and a short flight of steps, taking them even farther from the public part of the paidika. At the end of yet another hall, a set of double doors barred their way. She opened one quietly and ushered him in.

The stone walls of the dormitorium bore brown water stains in jagged rills. The smell in the room reminded him of the underspan itself. High up near the ceiling he saw a grate, no larger than his head, which let in all the light there was, and he imagined that if he could climb up to it he might find himself looking out upon the same makeshift platforms and hovels from which he’d been removed.