“Who is there?” said a thin, high, wavering voice.
He kept his silence, kneeling on the floor of the dark hall. Don’t come out and see me. Stay where you are, go to sleep, die. Let me pass.
“Answer. You know it makes my sister angry when you don’t answer.”
The last thing Orem wanted was to make a sister angry. In the name of God, Orem said silently, don’t be angry at me. “I fell,” he said.
“The voice of a child, yes? The voice of a clumsy child, yes? The voice of a boy who was charged four coppers and given nothing. But think, but think, she took nothing from you either. For the price of just four coppers, you’re still a lake undrained by any stream.” And then a slight laugh that angered him. His whore had been too loud; they knew his failure.
“Come in,” said the voice.
No.
“Must I come get you?” He got to his feet and walked weakly forward, turned at their door. The single eye of the one face was looking at him, but if he looked away, the only place for his gaze was the other, the blank flesh, the steady trickle of drool. He forced himself to look about the room. There was a single chair besides the ones they sat in, old and frail and ready to break. There was a small loom, with a cloth half-finished in it, a ragged cloth which was also rotting, and the loom was so strung and clotted with webs and dust that it was plain it had not been used in years. And then the rug on the floor, just like the rug where he had lain helplessly with his whore: only this rug glowed in the light, and Orem realized it was woven with gold thread.
“Sit down.”
He did not try the chair, but sat on the floor.
“Four coppers. Was the sight of sagging teats worth the price?” Was that a smile on her deformed face? “She’s an old gom of a rutter—you must be fresh in the city not to have known.” The one-eyed woman looked at her placid sister. “How old do you think he is?”
To Orem’s horror the lipless mouth tried to answer. A moan, a modulated moan like a song of pain, and the one-eyed sister nodded. “Yes, fifteen, but scrawny of body. My sister says your will is stone—you may crumble under the hammer, but long after the hammer has rusted away, you will remain. Isn’t that pretty? What’s your name?”
“Orem.” He still had not learned to lie.
“Orem. Do you want your four coppers back?”
It had not occurred to him that it was possible. “Yes.”
“Then you must entertain us.”
“How?”
“Tell us a tale of two sisters, who were both twins of the flesh, joined at the face, and who by magic and prayers and surgery were separated, the one with a single eye, and the other with no face at all except a mouthhole that drools constantly and leaves a trail of spittle between her breasts down to her belly.”
“I—I don’t—I can’t tell you that tale—”
“Oh, we won’t believe it, mind you. Such a thing could not be. Tell us what these pathetic women are doing in a whorehouse.”
“They—sit. In a room upstairs.”
“And what do these women do while they sit?”
“They—listen.”
“And what do you think they hear?’
“The sounds of—of—”
“Love?”
Orem nodded. The one-eyed sister shook her head.
“Not love,” Orem said.
“What then?”
“The sound of—of birds.”
“Yes, birds. And above the birds, what?”
What was above the birds? What was this tale supposed to mean? “The sound of wind across the roof of the house.”
The blank one moaned, and the other hooted with laughter. “Yes, he knows, he knows, he has many many ears inside his head, yes, and what else do they hear?”
He understood now. It was a game, like the riddles and puzzles of the manuscripts. “The sound of the sun rising and falling. The sound of the stars as they pass overhead. The sound of God closing his eyes upon the world. The sound of the Hart as it shakes its head and tosses the planets.”
The one eye opened wide; the hole of the mouth emphatically stopped drooling for a moment, so that the mucous spittle broke in midstring, and the top of the thread was drawn up into her mouth like the body of a dangling spider.
“The mouth opens and it speaks,” said the one-eyed sister.
“Nnnnnnng,” said the other.
“We are bound about with magic,” said the one-eyed woman, “yet he speaks with our tongues. Beauty has silenced us, yet our own gifts come from the boy’s mouth. Ah, Hart, you have more wit than we.”
“What does it mean?” Orem asked.
“Nothing to you, forget, forget, tell no one what you have seen, for it is no favor, you are just an ordinary boy.”
His stomach clenched with fear at the force of her words.
“We are whores, too, did you know that? We left our father’s house and came here because we knew that without faces we had only our bodies. Do you know what it costs to take us? A thousand of gold or a hundred acres of farmland. For a single night. And we are busy twenty nights a year. Oh, we are rich, we twins of the flesh, we sisters of beauty. We are blessed. And not all who come to us are men. There are women who come and spend the night exploring us, trying to discover what makes us so beautiful. They cannot guess. But you know, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t.”
“That’s right. You cannot know if you think that you know. We hear another thing, we listen to another thing, not just the stars. Not just the heartbeat of the great thousand-horned Hart who holds the worlds on the points of his horns. Not just the great eruption of the sun that ejaculates its gusts of light to inseminate the world. We hear this also:”
And she stopped.
And after a long, long silence, in which Orem heard nothing but his own heavy breathing, she said, “Did you hear it, too?”
“No.”
“That is why they pay so much to have us.”
The one with the eye opened a small chest beside her. It was filled with jewels that glistened in the torchlight like a thousand tiny fires.
And the one whose face was as featureless as fog, she stood and made a single motion with her hand. Abruptly she was naked, and her face glowed like the sun itself; there was no hair on her body, and her skin was deep as amber, and she was so beautiful that Orem could not keep his eyes from flowing with tears so he could no longer see.
“It is as I thought,” said the one who could speak. “His eyes cannot be closed except by his own weeping and his own trust.”
The blank-faced woman was sitting again, as suddenly as she had stood; how could she have clothed herself so quickly?
“Hunnnnnnng,” she moaned. “Ngiiiiiunh.”
“Four coppers, says my sister, and a kiss.”
It was not for the coppers that he kissed them, but for fear of them. He kissed their mouths, such as they were, and the coppers fell into his hand, and he fled the room.
As he ran along Whore Street he could hear for the first time in his life the song that his mother had loved best: the steady hissing of the sap up the trees, the song of capillarity, ah, it was beautiful, and he wept until the spittle of the fog-faced woman’s mouth had dried upon his lips.
A cot at the Spade and Grave cost only a copper for two nights, not as expensive as he had feared. He lay for some time with both hands pressed between his legs, because of the great ache at the base of his belly. He could hear the sap flowing also in himself. Why have I come to Inwit? he cried to himself. But he knew that the question itself was a lie. He had not come at all. He was shoved.
That is why Orem was a virgin when Beauty needed him.
13
Thieves
How Orem learned what life was worth in Beauty’s city.
THE SONG IN THE CISTERN
Orem awoke on the top bunk of the backmost bed in the Spade and Grave. The ceiling was inches from his face, but after the cramped cells of the House of God he had no fear of such s
mall places. He slid carefully to the edge of the splintery board and clambered down the seven tiers of beds. The reek of vomit was strong. Each of his steps bowed the board of some other sleeper; some moaned; one cursed and slapped out at him.
As he passed the innmaster the fellow tossed him a chit. Orem looked at it. “I don’t want to carry this all day.”
The innmaster shrugged. “As you like. But I warn you, I’ll cheat you if you let me.”
Orem put the chit in his bag. “Thanks. Will every thief in Inwit be so thoughtful as to warn me?”
The innmaster regarded him calmly. “I’m a Godsman. I only cheat them as want to be cheated.”
Nothing in Orem’s life had prepared him for the daytime streets of Inwit. The flow of the crowds led him to the Great Market, and for some time he was swept back and forth in the eddies of the buying and selling. In all his life before he had never seen so many people as were in the marketplace that day, rags and velvets, uniforms and livery, all bumping together in the battle to get much for little. Orem gawked, and so marked himself as an easy target for thieves.
A boy brushed up against him and a small hand reached under his shirt, and as fast as Orem could realize what was happening his coppers were out of his wrap. Without a thought Orem swung out and caught the child a blow on the chin. The boy fell soundlessly, and as silently scrambled to his feet—but Orem had learned to be quick in the House of God. He had the boy by an ankle before he was fairly afoot. The child kicked viciously at Orem’s face. Was the battle worth an eye? Orem’s few coins were his life and hope here, and so he struggled on despite the blows.
No one seemed to notice the cruel battle going on in the street, except to leave a space for them to roll in the sand. At last Orem got the thief in a coward’s hold, legs bent painfully and Orem’s hand firmly tucked into the boy’s crotch, ready to inflict that irresistible pain.
“I want the coppers, little bastard,” Orem said.
“Coppers!”
“Or in Sister’s name I’ll have your balls off.”
“God’s name, I haven’t got your money!” The boy’s wail was loud and pitiful. Now that the fighting was done, people began to take notice.
“Leave be,” said a voice in the crowd. “It’s a coward who takes down a little child.”
The little swine was winning sympathy. Orem leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear. “I’m a farmer, boy, and I’ve made bulls into steers with my bare hands before.” It was enough. The boy’s eyes went wide and he spat four coppers into the dust.
Orem released the boy and quickly grabbed up the coins. From the corner of his eye he saw the thief moving in a way that he feared might be an attack—what, a kick? Yes. Orem dodged out of the way just in time, then leaped to his feet to prepare for the next onslaught.
There wasn’t one. The child looked at him with eyes all innocent and laughed.
“Don’t you know all pissers keep them in the same place? And half of them have soil in their wraps, it’s filthy work to put them in my mouth.”
“If you don’t like it,” Orem said, holding his coppers tightly, “find another line of work.”
“You hire me as soon as you find work.”
It stung Orem that the boy assumed that he would fail. “I will hire you,” Orem said disdainfully. “I’ll have a job in days, and take you on.”
“Oh, yes, and the Queen wears a codpiece.” The boy whirled around and flipped up his shirt to show his buttocks to Orem for a moment. Then he was gone in the crowd.
Orem wandered north, where the Great Market empties into Queen’s Road. He marveled at the great houses, he gaped at the spider-wheeled carriages, he stared at ladies as naked as they could decently be above the waist and gentlemen as naked as fashion required below it. And he stood at the base of the hundred-stepped pyramid that led upward to Faces Hall, where Palicrovol had stood and ravished the little daughter of Nasilee, spilt her inmost blood and so became her husband and so became the King and then cast her away. The start of all the woes of the world, there at Faces Hall.
“Damn your liver to be eaten by the eagles!” A guard had him by the shoulder, shaking him. “Didn’t they tell you at the gate to stay off Queen’s Road? The Stone Road? Are you deaf? Have you the brain of a pudding?” More kicks and blows as the guard took him down an alley, bashing him against one wall and then another, until Orem gratefully fell on his face in the dust of a back street. “And don’t come back on Queen’s Road or I’ll have you hung by your ears till they tear!” Orem lay in the street listening to the footsteps as the guard left. He hurt everywhere, yet he was not so much angry as glad that it had stopped. Even glad that it hadn’t been worse. He winced and gingerly got to his feet.
“Gentle, an’t they?”
Orem turned painfully to meet the face that went with the voice. It was the child who had robbed him, smiling cocky as you please, hands on hips, legs spread, like God astride the world.
“You look pretty poor, you know.” The boy smiled at him maliciously. “Had me by the balls and you were rich and fine.”
“You were taking all I had,” Orem said dully. He winced at the pain of breathing in.
“And you took all I had.”
“But it was mine.”
“Not while I had it.”
It was an argument that would get nowhere, Orem could see. “Where am I?”
“What’s it worth to you to know?”
“Nothing.” Orem looked around. All he could see were the backs of common buildings on one hand and on the other the high garden walls of the great houses, with their cruel spear-topped iron ridges. Except for the alley to Stone Road, there was only one way to go, so Orem set out along the dirt street. The thief padded behind him.
“Get away from me,” Orem said.
“I followed you all this way.”
“You’ll never get my coppers.”
“You said you’d hire me.”
“If I get a job.” But suddenly the boy was not so neatly catalogued as a clever thief. “You believed me?”
“You look too stupid to lie.”
“Then what makes you think I’ll get a job?”
“Because you wouldn’t let me go when I kicked your face.” The boy giggled. “You’re a bad fighter, you know. A girl could beat you.”
Orem felt himself flush with anger, but he said nothing. The road was widening, and now there were some sleazy shops fronting on the street. In the middle of the road was a short round wall like a well housing, made of crumbly bricks. Orem made to go around it, but heard a sound. Like singing, coming from the well. He stopped.
“It’s the cistern,” said the boy. “All the time singing. Means nothing. Cistern’s empty.”
“Why? Drought?”
“They’re for a siege. There’s never a siege of Inwit. Besides, you’d drown the voices.”
Orem stepped to the cistern rim and leaned over to listen. Along with the sound he was greeted by a smell so fetid that he reeled backward and gasped and choked.
“Since it’s empty,” said the boy, “everybody dumps their slops in. And shits quite direct.” As if to demonstrate, the boy jumped up and sat perilously on the wall, his backside leaning far over the edge. Unceremoniously he defecated, then waited with his head cocked. “Hear the splash? It must be half a mile down.”
“What about the voices?”
“Probably a choir of rats. They live fine on manure. Aren’t you a farmer? Don’t you know about the magical properties of manure?” While he talked, the boy wiped himself with his left hand, then spat on it and rubbed it in the dirt till it was dry. “Here,” he said, gesturing at Orem’s bag. “Let us have a little water.”
Orem shook his head.
“Oh, won’t share even water, is that it?”
“It’s from my father’s spring. For the fountain at Little Temple.”
“What are you, a pilgrim? You have a priest’s face. Like a hungry rat.”
“I studied with prie
sts.”
“That’s it, then.” The boy nodded wisely. “I knew you could read. I can read a little. Taught myself.”
“The voices from the cistern. How long have they been going on?”
The boy shrugged. “All my life.”
Orem recited the Seventh Warning of Prester Zenzil: “Do not learn the songs of voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.”
The boy looked at him quizzically. “You can’t learn them. They got no words. An’t no one understands them, anyway.”
Orem pulled his wrap halfway down and hoisted himself to the lip of the cistern to empty himself. The voices came more clearly, an echo of wails and high singing that suddenly filled him with fear. Why should I be afraid? he wondered. Then he looked at the young thief and thought he saw murder in his eyes. Yes, murder, and what better time than now, with Orem helplessly over a pit that went deep into the earth where no one would find the corpse even if anyone bothered to look for a scrawny young man with a pauper’s pass. The boy could just run up and push him and he’d be dead. And there—yes, the boy was poised, wasn’t he? And leaning in! “Stay back, or by God—” And then his bowels opened and emptied and he sprang from the cistern wall and backed away from the thief.
“Just a fancy,” the boy said, smiling. “Didn’t mean nothing. Meant just to put a scare in you.”
Orem did as the boy had done, wiped himself and then his hand in the dirt. Then he pulled up his wrap. He was trembling. Not just because the child had thought to kill him, but because the voice in the cistern had seemed to warn him so. Was this, perhaps, a touch of true magic? For the first time in his life had a spell touched him?
“I’m sorry,” said the boy, watching Orem’s face. “It was a joke.”
Orem said nothing, just walked from the cistern and out into the road. Only a few steps and he knew where he was, Piss Road, with Piss Gate at the western end of it.