Nightside the Long Sun

Silk nodded ruefully. “The odd thing was that I found a scrap of—of cats’ meat, I suppose you’d call it, down my neck afterward. It stank.”

Auk laughed softly, a deep, pleasant laugh that made Silk like him.

“I thought it an awful humiliation at the time,” Silk continued. “It happened on a Thelxday, and I thanked her on my knees that my poor mother wasn’t alive to hear about it. I thought, you know, that she would have been terribly hurt, just as I was myself at the time. Now I realize that she would only have teased me about it.” He sipped from the graceful little glass before him; it was probably brandy, he decided, and good brandy, too. “I’d let Scleroderma paint me blue and drag me the whole length of the Alameda, if it would bring my mother back.”

“Maytera Mint was the nearest to a real mother I ever had,” Auk said. “I used to call her that—she let me—when we were alone. For a couple of years I pretended like that. She tell you?”

Silk shook his head, then added, “Maytera Marble said something of the sort. I’m afraid I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to it.”

“The Old One brought up us boys, and he raised us hard. It’s the best way. I’ve seen a lot that didn’t get it, and I know.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Every so often I tell myself I ought to stick my knife in her, just to get her and her talk out of my head. Know what I mean?”

Silk nodded, although he could not be certain that the burly man across the table could see it. “Better than you do yourself, I think. I also know that you’ll never actually harm her. Or if you do, it won’t be for that reason. I’m not half as old as Patera Pike was, and not a tenth as wise; but I do know that.”

“I wouldn’t take the long end of that bet.”

Silk said nothing, his eyes upon the pale blur that was Auk’s face, where for a moment it seemed to him that he had glimpsed the shadow of a muzzle, as though the unseen face were that of a wolf or bear.

Surely, he thought, this man can’t have been called Auk from birth. Surely “Auk” is a name he’s assumed.

He pictured Maytera Mint leading the boy Auk into class on a chain, then Maytera Mint warned by Maytera Rose that Auk would turn on her when he was grown. He sipped again to rid himself of the fancy. Auk’s mother had presumably named him; the small auks of Lake Limna were flightless, thus it was a name given by mothers who hoped their sons would never leave them. But Auk’s mother must have died while he was still very young.

“But not here.” Auk’s fist struck the table, nearly upsetting it. “I’ll come Scylsday, day after tomorrow, and you can shrive me then. All right?”

“No, my son,” Silk said. “It must be tonight.”

“Don’t you trust—”

“I’m afraid I haven’t made myself entirely clear,” Silk interposed. “I haven’t come here to shrive you, though I’d be delighted to do it if you wish, and I’m certain it would make Maytera Mint very happy when I told her I had. But you must shrive me, Auk, and you must do it tonight. That is what I’ve come for. Not here, however, as you say. In some more private place.”

“I can’t do that!”

“You can, my son,” Silk insisted softly. “And I hope you will. Maytera Mint taught you, and she must have taught you that anyone who is himself free of deep stain can bring the pardon of the gods to one who is in immediate danger of death.”

“If you think I’m going to kill you, Patera, or Gib over there—”

Silk shook his head. “I’ll explain everything to you in that more private place.”

“Patera Pike shrove me one time. Maytera got after me about it, so I finally said all right. I told him a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”

“And now you’re wondering whether he told me something of what you told him,” Silk said, “and you think that I’m afraid you’ll kill me when I tell you that I told someone else. No, Auk. Patera told me nothing about it, not even that it took place. I learned that from Maytera Marble, who learned it from Maytera Mint, who learned of it from you.”

Silk tasted his brandy again, finding it difficult to continue. “Tonight I intend to commit a major crime, or try to. I may be killed, in fact I rather expect it. Maytera Marble or Maytera Mint could have shriven me, of course; but I didn’t want either of them to know. Then Maytera Marble mentioned you, and I realized you’d be perfect. Will you shrive me, Auk? I beg it.”

Slowly, Auk relaxed; after a moment he laid his right hand on the table again. “You don’t go the nose, Patera, do you?”

Silk shook his head.

“If this’s a shave, it’s a close one.”

“It’s not a shave. I mean exactly what I say.”

Auk nodded and stood. “Then we’d better go somewhere else, like you want. Too bad, I was hoping to do a little business tonight.”