"Then I promise. May Great Pas judge me if I harm him or permit others to do so."

"No cut?" croaked the bird. "No stick?"

"Correct," Silk declared. "I will not sacrifice you, or hurt you in any other fashion whatsoever."

"Pet bird?"

"Until your wing is well enough for you to fly. Then you

may go free." "No cage?" Crane nudged Silk's arm to get his attention, and shook

his head.

"Correct. No cage." Silk took the cage from the table and raised it over his head, high enough for the bird to see it. "Now watch this." With both hands, he dashed it to the floor, and slender twigs snapped like squibs. He stepped on it with his good foot, then picked up the ruined remnant and tossed it into the kindling box.

Crane shook his head. "You're going to regret that, I imagine. It's bound to be inconvenient at times."

With its sound wing flapping furiously, the black bird fluttered from the top of the larder to the table.

"Good bird!" Crane told it. He sat down on the kitchen stool. "I'm going to pick you up, and I want you to hold still for a minute. I'm not going to hurt you any more than I have to."

"I was a prisoner myself for a while last night," Silk remarked, more than half to himself. "Even though there was no actual cage, I didn't like it."

Crane caught the unresisting bird expertly, his hands gentle yet firm. "Get my bag for me, will you?"

Silk nodded and returned to the sellaria. He closed the garden door, then picked up the dark bundle that Crane had displayed to him. As he had guessed, it was his second-best robe, with his old pen case still in its pocket; it had been wrapped around his missing shoe. Although he had no stocking for his right foot, he put on both, shut the brown medical bag, and carried it into the kitchen.

The bird squawked and fluttered as Crane stretched out its injured wing. "Dislocated," he said. "Exactly like a dislocated elbow on you. I've pushed it back into place, but I want to splint it so he won't pop it out again before it heals. Meanwhile he'd better stay inside, or a cat will get him."

"Then he must stay in on his own," Silk said.

"Stay in," the bird repeated.

"Your cage is broken," Silk continued severely, "and I certainly don't intend to bake in here with all the windows shut, merely to keep you from getting out."

"No out," the bird a.s.sured him. Crane was rummaging in his bag.

"I hope not." Silk pulled the blanket from the garden window, threw it open, and refolded the blanket.

"What time are you supposed to meet Blood at the yellow house?"

"One o'clock, sharp." Silk carried the blanket into the aellaria; when he returned, he added, "I'm going to be late,

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Gene Wolfe

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233.

I imagine; I doubt that he'll do anything worse than complain about it."

"That's the spirit. He'll be late himself, if I know him. He likes to have everybody on hand when he shows up. I doubt if that'll be before two."

Stepping across to the Silver Street window, Silk took down the dishrag and the dish towel and opened it as well. It was barred against thieves, and it occurred to him that he was caged in literal fact, here in this old, four-room manse he had taught himself to call home. He pushed away the thought. If Crane's litter had been on Silver Street, it was gone now; no doubt Maytera Marble had performed her errand and it was waiting on Sun Street.

"This should do it." Crane was fiddling with a small slip of some stiff blue synthetic. "You'll be ready to go when I

get back?"

Silk nodded, then felt his jaw. "I'll have to shave. I'll be

ready then."

"Good. I'll be running late, and the girls get cranky if they can't go out and shop." Crane applied a final strip of almost invisible tape to keep the little splint in place. "This will fall right off after a few days. When it does, let him fly if he wants to. If he's like the hawks, you'll find that he's a pretty good judge of what he can and can't do."

"No fly," the bird announced.

"Not now, that's for sure. If I were you, I wouldn't even move that wing any more today."

Silk's mind was elsewhere. "It's diabolic possession, isn't it? At the yellow house?"

Crane turned to face him. "I don't know. Whatever it is, I hope you have better luck with it than I've had."

"What's been happening there? My driver and I heard a scream last night, but we didn't go inside."

The little physician laid a finger to his nose. "There are a thousand reasons why a girl might scream, especially one

of those girls. Might have been a stain on her favorite gown, a bad dream, or a spider."

A tiny needle of pain penetrated the protection of the wrapping; Silk opened the cabinet that closed the kitchen's pointed north corner and got out the stool Patera Pike had used at meals. "I doubt that Blood wants me to exorcise his women's dreams."

Crane snapped his medical bag shut. "No one except < p="">

$ With a last look at the injured bird, Crane rose. "So they - really do teach you people something besides all that gar-

*& Silk nodded. "It's called logic."

- "So it is." Crane smiled, and Silk discovered to his own JBrprise that he liked him. "Well, if I'm going to look in on ilfais sick girl of yours, I'd better scoot. What's the matter i*fth her? Fever?"

J "Her skin felt cold to me, but you're a better judge of diseases than I."

"I should hope so." Crane picked up his bag. "Let's Jce-through the front room there for Sun Street, isn't it? llaybe we can talk a little more on our way to Orchid's telace." ^, "Look at the back of her neck," Silk said.

Crane paused in the doorway, shot him a questioning ice, then hurried out

234 Gene Wolfe