The end of the mews was walled off with netting. The big bird sat its roweled perch there, immobile as the falcon, still immature but showing in every line a stength that made the falcon seem a toy.

Musk untied the netting and stepped in. He could not have said how he knew that the big bird was awake, and yet he did. Softly he said, "Ha, hawk."

The big bird lifted its hooded head, its grotesque crown of scarlet plumes swaying with the motion.

"Ha, hawk," Must repeated as he stroked it with a turkey feather.

Chapter 8.

THE BOARDER ON THE LARDER.

As they sped across a field of stubble the driver inquired, "Ever ridden in one of these before, Patera?"

Drowsily, Silk shook his head before he realized that the driver could not see him. He yawned and attempted to stretch, brought up sharply by pain from his right arm and the gouged flesh of his chest and belly. "No, never. But I rode in a boat once. Out on the lake, you know, fishing all day with a friend and his father. This reminds me of that This machine of yours is about as wide as the boat was, and only a little bit shorter."

"I like it better-boats rock too much for me. Where are we going, Patera?"

"You mean . . .?" The road (or perhaps another road) had appeared again. Seeming to gather its strength like a horse, the floater soared over the wall of dry-laid stones that had barred them from it.

"Where should I drop you? Musk said to take you back to the city."

Silk edged forward on the seat, knowing himself stupid with fatigue and struggling against it. "They didn't tell you?"

"No, Patera."

194Gene Wolfe

Where was it he wanted to go? He recalled his mother's house, and the wide, deep windows of his bedroom, with borage growing just beyond the sills. "At my manteion, please. On Sun Street. Do you know where it is?"

"I know where Sun Street is, Patera. I'll find it."

Here was a cartload of firewood bound for the market. The floater dipped and swerved, and it was behind them. The man on the cart would be first at the market, Silk thought; but what was the point of being first at the market with a load of firewood? Surely there would be wood there already, wood that had not sold the day before. Perhaps the man on the cart wanted to do a little buying of his own when he had disposed of his cargo.

"Going to be another hot one, Patera."

That was it, of course. The man on the cart-Silk turned to look back at him, but he was gone already; there was only a boy leading a mule, a laden mule and a small boy whom he had never noticed at all. The man on the cart had wanted to avoid the heat. He would sell what he had brought and sit drinking till twilight in the c.o.c.k or someplace like it. In the coolest tavern he could find, no doubt, and spend most of the money his wood had brought him, sleep on the seat of his cart as it made its slow way home. What if he, Silk, slept now on this capacious seat, which was so tantalizingly soft? Would not the driver, would not this old half-magical floater take him where he wanted to go in any event? Would the driver rob him while he slept, find Blood's two cards, Hyacinth's golden needier, and the thing that he still did not dare to look at, the thing-he felt he had guessed its ident.i.ty while he still sat in that jewel box of a room to one side of Blood's reception hall. Would he not be robbed? Had the man upstairs, the man asleep in the chair near the stair ever gotten home, and had he gotten home safely? Many men must have slept in this floater, men who had drunk too heavily.

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195.

Silk felt that he himself had drunk too heavily; he had sipped from both drinks.

Blood was certainly a thief; he had admitted as much himself. But would Blood employ a driver who would rob his guests? It seemed unlikely. He, Silk, could sleep here- sleep now in safety, if he wished. But he was very hungry.

"All right," he said.

"Patera?"

"Go to Sun Street. I'll direct you from there. I know the way."

The driver glanced over his shoulder, a burly young man whose beard was beginning to show. "Where it crosses Trade. Will that be all right, Patera?"

"Yes." Silk felt his own chin, rough as the driver's looked. "Fine." He settled back in the soft seat, almost oblivious of the object beneath his tunic but determined not to sleep until he had washed, eaten, and wrung any advantage that might be gained from his present position. The driver had not been told he was Blood's prisoner; that was clear from everything he said, and it presented an opportunity that might not come again.

But in point of fact he was a prisoner no longer. He had been freed, though no fuss had been made about it, when Blood and Musk had taken him to this floater. Now, whether he liked it or not, he was a sort of factor of Blood's-an agent through whom Blood would obtain money. Silk weighed the term in his mind and decided it was the correct one. He had given himself wholly to the G.o.ds, with a holy oath; now his allegiance was inescapably divided, whether he liked it or not. He would give the twenty-six thousand cards he got (if indeed he got them) not to the G.o.ds but to Blood, though he would be acting in the G.o.ds' behalf. Certainly he would be Blood's factor in the eyes of the Chapter and the whorl, should either the Chapter or the whorl learn of whatever he would do.

196Gene Wolfe

Blood had made him his factor, creating this situation for his own profit. (Thoughtfully, Silk stroked his cheek, feeling the roughness of his newly grown beard again.) For Blood's own personal profit, as was only to be expected; but their relationship bound them both, like all relationships. He was Blood's factor whether he liked it or not, but also Blood's factor whether Blood liked it or not. He had made good use of the relationship already when he had demanded the return of Hyacinth's needier. Indeed, Blood had acknowledged it still earlier when he had told Doctor Crane to look in at the manteion.

Further use might be made of it as well.

A factor, but not a trusted factor to be sure; Blood might conceivably plan to kill him once he had turned over the entire twenty-six thousand, if he could find no further use for him; thus it would be wise to employ this temporary relationship to gain some sort of hold on Blood before it was ended. That was something more to keep in mind.

And the driver, who no doubt knew so many things that might be of value, did not know that.

"Driver," Silk called, "are you familiar with a certain house on Lamp Street? It's yellow, I believe, and there's a pastry cook's across the street."

"Sure am, Patera."

"Could we go past it, please? I don't think it will be very much out of our way."

The floater slowed for a trader with a string of pack mules. "I can't wait, Patera, if you're going to be inside very long."

"I'm not even going to get out," Silk a.s.sured him. "I merely wish to see it."

Still watching the broadening road, the driver nodded his satisfaction. "Then I'll be happy to oblige you, Patera. No trouble."

The countryside seemed to flow past. No wonder, Silk

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thought, that the nch rode in floaters when distances were too great for their litters. Why, on donkeys this had taken hours!

"Have a good time, Patera? You stayed awfully late."

"No," Silk said, then reconsidered. "In a way I did, I suppose. It was certainly very different from everything I'm accustomed to."

The driver chuckled politely.

"I did have a good time, in a sense," Silk decided. "I enjoyed certain parts of my visit enormously, and I ought to be honest enough to admit it."

The driver nodded again. "Only not everything. Yeah, I know just what you mean."