“You don’t have to tell me all this, Calde.”
“Yes, I do. Not for your book — which you will probably never complete or even begin — but for guidance in your own life. Who was that captain? Would you care to guess?”
Horn shook his head.
“I think I can. He was very formal with her, but I saw his eyes — particularly when he stopped our horse. I don’t believe he meant much to her; he was a protector and provider when she needed one. She meant a great deal to him, however — no doubt she always will.”
Horn whispered, “She’s climbing back up,” and pointed.
Silk scrambled halfway down the crater to meet and assist her. “I won’t say I’m not delighted to see you — I’m always overjoyed to see you, Hyacinth, you know that. But Horn and I were about to join you down there.”
Entering the crater from the tunnel, Nettle called, “You wouldn’t believe all the people down here, Calde. Half the quarter. Marrow the greengrocer, and Shrike the butcher, and even the new augur that was with us on the airship. Moly’s here, and he’s making her wear his robe. The Prolocutor made everybody sit down.”
Horn offered his hand to Hyacinth, and the other to Silk. “My mother, and my brothers and sisters. That’s what I care about, only…” Something caught in his throat. “Only that sounds like I don’t care about my father.”
“But you do,” Hyacinth muttered. “I know how it is.”
“Yeah, I guess so. He made me work in the shop every day after palaestra, and — and we’d fight about that, and lots of other stuff.”
“I understand.”
“I’m the oldest,” Horn said, as though that accounted for everything.
Silk called, “If half the quarter’s down there, what about our manteion? The congregation, I mean, the people who came to sacrifice on Scylsday and the children from the palaestra?”
“They’re just about all here,” Nettle told him. “Not some of the men, they’re off fighting for General Mint. But, oh, Goldcrest and Feather and Villus, and my friend Ginger. Wait, let me think. Teasel is, and her sisters and brothers and her mother. And Asphodella and Aster. And Kit — he’s Kerria’s little brother, and she’s there too. And Holly and Hart. He’s wounded. And the catsmeat woman, and that old man that sells ices in the summer, and a whole lot more.”
Silk nodded, then smiled at Hyacinth. “I’ve done it — saved it from the dissolution of the whorl. Or at least I will have when we reach the new one. I was to save our manteion; and that is the manteion, all of those people coming together to worship. The rest was trimming, very much including me.”
Hyacinth could not look at him.
“When you came back up, I was explaining to Horn that in the end it is only love that matters. The Outsider once told me that though he’s not Kypris, she cannot help becoming him. The more she becomes a goddess of love in truth, the more they will unite — it was before we met in Ermine’s by the goldfish pool.” He smiled again. “Where Thelx holds up a mirror.”
Hyacinth nodded; and Horn saw that her eyes were filled with tears. He asked, “Did you really see him there, Calde? The Outsider?”
“Yes, in a dream, standing upon the water. I had only this left Horn, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t say it now, or that Hyacinth and Nettle shouldn’t hear it. It is that love forgets injuries. I know that Hyacinth would never betray me, just as you know that Nettle would never betray you; but if she did — if she did a thousand times — I would still love her.”
Almost violently, Hyacinth pushed herself away from the crater. “I can’t listen to any more of this. I don’t want to, and I won’t.” She stood up.
Silk said, “Then let us go,” and began to climb down to the break in the tunnel wall.
“I’m not going!” Hyacinth shouted. Her lovely face was savage. “You told me about that place, and I’ve seen it, and it’s horrible! All the landers are broken, you said, not like Auk’s, and you’re just hoping to fix them. And you’re giving up the whole city!” She turned and dashed away, vanishing in the swirling snow before she had taken five strides.
Silk tried to scramble back, but in his haste set off a slide that carried him almost to Nettle, who followed him when he began to climb again.
When he reached the surface and started after Hyacinth, Horn and Nettle went with him. A bomb burst near enough to shake the earth beneath their feet, and he stopped. “You have to go, both of you, and you must go together.”
His eyes flashed even in that snowy twilight. “Nettle, do you understand? Do you, Horn? I’ll find her, and enough cards to repair another lander. Get down there, find His Cognizance, and tell him. We’ll meet you at the landers, if we can.”
Nettle took Horn’s hand, and Silk said, “Make him go. By force, if you must.” He offered her his needler, but she drew her own, the one that had been Saba’s. He nodded, put his back in his waistband, and disappeared into the snow like a ghost. Overhead, the harsh voice of his bird sounded again and again: “Silk? Silk? Silk?”
For a score of poundings of their hearts, Nettle and Horn stood together, staring after him and wondering what the future held for them; until at length they smiled as one, she gave him Saba’s needler, and hand-in-hand they returned to the crater and scrambled down to the opening that a bomb had made in the tunnel wall, and went into the tunnel, where Horn’s mother was waiting for them.
My Defense
With the account you have now read, I had intended to conclude The Book of Silk, for we never saw him again. I am adding this continuation in response to criticisms and questions directed to us by those who read the earlier sections, sections which Nettle has corrected, and transcribed in a hand clearer than mine.
Many of you urge me to tell the story in my proper person, relating only what I saw, and in effect making myself my own hero. I reply that any of you might write such an account. I invite you to do so.
My purpose is not (as you wish) merely to describe the way in which we who were born in Viron reached Blue, but to recount the story of Patera Silk, who was its calde at the time we left and was the greatest and most extraordinary man I have known. As I have indicated, I had planned to call my account The Book of Silk, and not Starcrossers’ Landfall or any of the other titles (many equally foolish) that have been suggested. In the event, it has become known as The Book of the Long Sun, because it is much read by young people who do not recall our Long Sun Whorl, or were born after Landing Day. I do not object. You may call it what you wish as long as you read it.
To our critics, I say this: Patera Silk was personally known to Nettle and me; I recall his look, his voice, and his gait to this day, and when young I was punished for imitating him too well, as you have read. Nettle knew him as well as I.
We knew Maytera Marble (who also employed the names Moly, Molybdenum, Maggie, and Magnesia, the last being her original name) at least as well. Until we reached our teens, she was our instructress in the palaestra on Sun Street, as Maytera Mint and Maytera Rose were subsequently. Silk loved her and confided in her; in fact, I have often thought that she had been given the child she longed for, although she was not conscious of it. She in turn confided in us during the time we worked in the Calde’s Palace under her direction, during the time we were together on the airship, and during our passage through the abyss, and here on Blue. To prevent confusion, I have called her Maytera Marble throughout my account. There was never a more practical woman, nor a better one.
On the flight to Mainframe, we had many opportunities to see and hear Auk, though he was not generally communicative. Chenille, with whom we had worked at the Calde’s Palace, often spoke of him as well. Silk did not, as some readers assume, confide to us the content of Auk’s shriving, although he told me that he had shriven him upon meeting him in the Cock. That Auk had kicked a man to death was known throughout the quarter, and it seems probable that it was one of the offences of which he was shriven. Chenille confided to Nettle that he had struck her on two occasions, and described them.