The Rat and the Serpent (23 page)

I knew I could never go back. What remained unclear to me was whether I would meet Raknia again, but as soon as that thought occurred to me I realised the danger that any separation would put me in. I had to find her records. I could always leave a note under her door. Then, perhaps, we could be together again.

Back at home, sleep remained a distant prospect. With the horror of the bath, the peril of document theft and the prospect of my candidacy to come, I had too much to think about for any chance of slumber.

I returned to the Forum of Constantine on the following dawn, in a determined mood. As before there was no sign of occupation, but this time I checked some of the small chambers near the document store; and this time I used my rat hearing to pick the lock of the door that before had thwarted me. The room behind was long and thin, with many doors leading off it, but fortunately these doors were numbered, and I knew from the form of the figures that they must relate to dates. I found myself in the unusual position of thanking the Mavrosopolis for being so logical.

I slipped the latch on the door marked with the year of Raknia’s expulsion, then entered, closing the door behind me so that from the outside it would look as if nothing had happened. As I had expected, all the scrolls, parchments and boxes were laid out with precision, labelled according to month and district. This was typical of the bureaucratic excess so enjoyed by the clerks and scribes of the citidenizenry, and again I gave thanks for it. Guessing that Raknia had been made a citidenizen in Seraglio, I began with the scrolls of that district, narrowing down the month by checking the summary of names attached to each record. It took me an hour to find the right document, but it was present.

It was a single grey scroll. I took it to a table, where I sat down to unroll it. I found Raknia’s entry, then read.

‘Raknia, of Kozkopper’s Tower, Kutkugun Street, Gulhane. Record of those events surrounding the election of two counsellords.’

I stopped breathing for a moment as I re-read this opening sentence.

‘Raknia and twenty eight other citidenizens of the district of Seraglio put themselves forward for the office of counsellord according to the rules of Stamboul. A contest was waged as normal. (Two places were available.) Both Raknia and the other leading citidenizen, Luto of Mimarmehmet Street, were ahead from the start, with twelve citidenizens dropping out before the final act of tallying in the Hippodrome. Luto and Raknia were noted as having the most support and they were put forward as new counsellords of Seraglio. However, a routine test on the night afterwards revealed that Raknia had used her shamanistic abilities to distort the feelings of the crowds to which she spoke, making her seem far more attractive, more entrancing, even, than was actually the case. It was judged that she had erred so much that she should be ejected from the citidenizenry (there was of course no possibility of her rising to the position of counsellord). She protested, and there was much unpleasantness. The candidate with the third largest support, Kuhgunerune of the lighthouse, ascended alongside Luto. In the end, Garakoy allocated Raknia a home in a tower at the edge of the Gulhane Gardens (see his record) where she was judged to be a nogoth. I declare this a true record of the events of the day. Vurshuner of F. Constantine.’

I sat back, my mind’s eye returning to the night at the inn, where I had used a shamanistic spell to understand the desires of the people. I had made the same mistake as Raknia. If I did become a counsellord I would be returned to the streets the night after.

Shock departed to leave me feeling sick. There was no going back on a shamanistic spell since the power to perform it came from a being immortal; the smell of its effect would be with me until I died. I had failed, then; and by accident. Suddenly I felt exhausted, as if failure allowed everything I had been holding within myself to seep out—all the effort, all the thought, all the horror and misery. Failure turned me into a tired, old man. I slumped back into the chair, the scroll left to dangle from my hand.

I could not become a counsellord.

I closed my eyes. Sickness changed to sadness, then to dull anger at my bad luck. All the negative thoughts that I had suppressed now welled up into my mind, shadows and shame only too happy to reduce me to the nobody that I had once been.

But there was another voice wondering if there might be a way out of my dilemma. I would have to take a risk. I sat up, slammed both hands on the table before me and shouted, “I will be a counsellord!”

I stood up. In moments I was back in the corridor, then out of the Forum. Divan Yolu Street was a short walk away. I pulled up my hood, flitted between shadows, took an alternative route into Blackguards’ Passage, before, with a look up and down the alley, I hurried down the metal stairs to Astarta’s cellar.

I spoke to her about my problem without preamble. “Mother, I need your advice more than ever before. When I became a shaman...”

“When you were a boy.”

“Yes, when I was a boy, I remember the het-man saying that rat magic could never be undone, that you were stuck with it.”

“All your life.”

“Is that true?”

She grinned, showing teeth, and holes between teeth. “There might be a way of washing off the stink of sorcery.”

“Tell me how!” I pleaded.

“What’s it worth?”

I sat back. “What is it
worth?
”

“You think I’m going to tell you for nothing?”

“But I am your son.”

Astarta chuckled, as did the other mothers, and I realised that I had not been looking at the bargain from their point of view. Somehow, the sound of their amusement was as menacing as anything I had heard in Raknia’s bath chamber.

“But I am your
son,
” I repeated.

“You’re a citidenizen, no son of mine,” Astarta replied, in as cold a voice as I had ever heard her use. “I don’t believe nogoths can have citidenizen sons, can they?”

“Mother,” I said, “I am taking a huge risk coming here. Please tell me how to get rid of the aura of this little listening spell.”

“For...?”

I decided it was time to lie outright. “I will bring food here,” I said, knowing that I would have to go back on my word as soon as I left the cellar.

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“What kind of food?”

I described the last few meals I had eaten. “I will come at dawn when there is nobody about,” I added. “I won’t come in, I’ll just leave packages at the top of the steel steps.”

The mothers seemed pleased, murmuring to themselves, whining and grinning as they imagined the feasts to come. Then Astarta took my wrist in one bony hand and whispered, “You have to bathe in the Phosphorus. It’s a sorcerous river. You have to bathe in it and let it wash away the smell of rat. Head under—everything. Don’t wear clothes.” She chuckled. “You’ll freeze, you will.”

“How does it work?” I asked, suspicious of this answer.

“How should I know? But that’s the way—I heard about it when I was a girl.” She sighed. “So many years ago.”

“But this method still works?”

“You’ll have to find out. So you used rat senses to listen, eh?”

“Yes,” I said, “and now I wish I hadn’t.”

Astarta laughed again, then descended into a choking cough. “Better make sure you get in a good supply of hats,” she remarked.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nuthin’.”

Angered by her wheedling, I left the cellar. I strode down Divan Yolu Street then traversed the Gulhane Gardens to find myself on Sahil Yolu Street, which I crossed to reach the river shore. I had arrived at a place unknown to me, but here the bank was a strip of sand and gravel, perfect for bathing.

I sat on the shore, my chin on my knees, my hands by my ankles. Though I knew I must remove the rat spell, I did not trust my mother, who had told me what seemed a folk story from her childhood. Yet I had no other option. Looking around to see if I was being watched, I saw that I was alone. Muffled Stamboul sounds drifted over the edge of the bank; the Phosphorus lapped at its shore, while, far off, invisible to me, boats clunked together and bells tinkled. With a grunt of frustration I pulled off my boots and breeches, then my coat and my shirt. I looked down at my rat leg, then again scanned the shore for watchers. Nobody.

I ran into the water. It was cold. For a moment I had to stop and catch my breath, then make the decision to carry on. I waded out into the black water until I was waist deep, then turned to look back at the shore. It seemed further away than it should have been, my clothes the faintest smudge of black against the moon-pale sand. I looked up. No soot tonight, just stars.

I held my nose with thumb and forefinger, took a last breath, then submerged myself.

Sounds deepened, became reverberated as if I was inside a hall, and yet there was illumination underwater, rays and beams spiralling up from the depths, changing ink to grey water, twinkling when they caught flakes and sand, transforming fishes into flashing streaks of silver. Then a single, dark shape rose up from the depths to circle around me at speed, so fast I could not twist around to see what it was. There was a rush of bubbles, a hint of black against grey, a touch on my head like the fingers of a mermaid, then all was gone: darkness and cold, pain in my lungs and throat. I thrashed my feet and hands to propel myself to the surface, where I broke water and gasped for breath.

Like a child that has lost its parents I splashed towards the shore, breathing fast and swimming in random bursts, until my feet touched ground and I was able to wade back, and at last crawl out onto dry land. My clothes lay undisturbed. Nobody had seen me. I lay panting, recovering from my ordeal, before I stood up and used my shirt to dry myself. Minutes later I was dressed—though still uncomfortable—and wondering what food I had at home.

My hearing was deadened from the water in my ears. I cocked my head to one side and tried to shake it out, then bent it to the other side. No change. I put a hand to the side of my head and patted.

It felt different.

I stood straight, both hands raised to the side of my head.

My ears had gone.

I stood silent in shock. I could still hear, albeit not so well as before, but my ears were missing. I turned to face the sorcerous Phosphorus. Had a bargain been set by my desire to have the spell washed away? I had listened to conversations at the inn that would be my downfall were I to become a counsellord. Now part of my natural listening had been taken away.

An ear for an ear.

5.9.595

To fail is not necessarily to encounter failure. There is an ancient saying: it is not necessary to win every battle if you win the war. I despise this martial rhetoric, but it encapsulates what I now know. Failure is but a stone on the bright path, a dark one indeed, but still only a stone. Alas, however, that I tried to become a counsellord.

Where lies my future? Some days I know peace. I walk in the wondrous Gulhane Gardens and I see the beauty of pale blooms draped like corpse hands over sooty foliage—blooms whose periods of coming and going follow the phases of the moon, is that not extraordinary?—and then I stroll on down to the banks of the Phosphorus, with my cane in one hand and a light parasol in the other, wearing my agreeable cloak and my comfortable knee-boots. At the Phosphorus I peer out into the gloom to view a serene beauty, albeit steeped in sombre tokens—the boats and ships that ply the Propontis and the Black Sea. The moon is fabulous high and the stars are bright. Only the certainty of soot to come spoils this entertainment.

But these are all philosophical entities. Even a man as high-minded as myself cannot live on ethereal wonder forever. (I would starve!) I live in a society that I cannot ignore.

So it is that on some days I know turmoil and frustration. I see the massive architecture of the bureaucracy that runs the citidenizenry—the bureaucracy supported and even designed by the counsellords over immense periods of time. I hate this bureaucracy, I despise it for its tedium, its mechanistic character, its unforgiving nature. I see hundreds of citidenizens going about their business—that they have been assigned to by their superiors, rather than having chosen themselves—and I hate their narrow minds.

Do I admit the possibility of others like me, keeping quiet, saying nothing out of fear of rejection, scared of a return to the gutter? I do not know. It is an intractable problem with which I have wrestled for years. It seems absurd that no other man has dared to countenance the possibility of change. Why am I the leader in this field? Am I so good and true a thinker?

Too many questions, like flies buzzing around my head, distracting me. Be quiet!

And this question of
erasure.
I really think that it is at the heart of my dilemma. Why is the Mavrosopolis so frightened of erasure? I do not know enough about sorcery to check my theory that it is related to the anti-erasure stance, yet I cannot question those few sorcerers that I do know because they will not tell me the secrets of their art. This is most unfair, and not a little frustrating. I am not a man to take frustration calmly, as that poor ney flute discovered to its cost.

There is only one answer. I must climb higher. Only height will enable me to see. I must make every effort to become a counsellord. I must bend my will to this task, I must take advantage of every opportunity, so that, be it next year or on my fiftieth birthday, I am raised up into the ranks of the ruling class. Then, and I suspect only then, will I discover what I need to know.

Failure, then, is an option, one from which I must learn, but it is not my final goal. That goal is success.

I must first learn the arts of orator. If I am honest with myself, and there is no point in being otherwise, I was not the best speaker of the thirteen candidates. I was perhaps half up and half down. Approximately. I did not realise that a crowd can be won over by passionate speech, that fine words tumbling out of the mouth of the speaker, as these words tumble now from my mind, can sway the emotions and the minds of the listeners, so that they follow the path set out by that speaker. This art I will learn. One of my many tasks will be to create phrases that the listener will not forget.