The Garments of Caean

Mast’s ex-sidekick eventually parked the runabout in a mews that could not be seen from the street, and took Peder to a windowless room buried deep within the shapeless mass of an adjoining centuries-old building. The room, lit by a yellow glow-bulb, smelling foully of Castor’s habitation, contained a dirty palliasse without covers, a drab armchair and begrimed table. The walls were poorly painted with a cheap distemper which was peeled and soiled. A curtain hanging over part of one wall hid a cooking closet and larder.

‘You just take it easy here for a while,’ Castor said softly. ‘I’m going out now. Is there anything I can get you?’ He stared at Peder, his lips stretched in a parody of a smile.

‘I just want to get some sleep,’ Peder replied.

‘Sleep? Sure. You sleep!’ With alacrity bordering on eagerness Castor leaped to a sliding panel and opened it to reveal a wall cupboard. Inside was a set of brand new clothes hangers. ‘You can hang your gear up here, see? Huh –’ He floundered for a moment, looking about the room wildly, then came up with a dusty mat-like counterpane from the floor of the cupboard. ‘Here’s something to cover yourself with.’

‘This is all right, thanks.’ Peder lay down fully clothed on the palliasse, leaving Castor fingering the counterpane, his expression unreadable.

Eventually Castor dropped the counterpane on the floor and shut the cupboard. As he slouched from the room, Peder’s eyes closed.

*

His host’s return awakened Peder some hours later. Castor smelled of drink and swayed slightly on his feet. He carried in both arms a bulky package which he unrolled and erected into a low travelling bed, placing it against the wall opposite Peder. He had also brought two clean coverlets which, though thin, were scarcely needed in the heated room.

‘Just like old times, huh?’ he reminded Peder in an attempt at camaraderie. ‘Remember the Kyre junket? Aboard the Costa?’ He chuckled, then rounded solicitously on Peder.

‘Hungry?’ he said vaguely. ‘Want something to eat?’

‘Just some sugar,’ Peder answered weakly.

‘Sugar? Just sugar? How much sugar you want?’

‘All you’ve got.’ Peder felt ill. The unnatural drain on his body’s energy had been severe.

Castor shuffled to the larder and returned with a carton of sugar and a spoon. He sat watching Peder eat it.

‘Has there been any news today?’ Peder asked between mouthfuls.

‘News?’

‘I thought you might have seen a newscast.’

‘No. What would be in the news? There won’t be anything about you, if that’s what you mean. The security police don’t work in a blaze of publicity.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Still wondering if he had killed the Third Minister, Peder licked up the last of the sugar.

‘Thanks.’

He lay back on the palliasse, trembling slightly with his exhaustion. Castor flung him a coverlet. ‘You always sleep in your clothes?’ he said, speaking hesitantly. ‘You’ll rumple that fancy suit you’ve got.’

‘I’m all right,’ Peder murmured.

‘Oh.’

Busying himself for sleep, Castor stripped to grey underwear, carefully laying his own dishevelled suit suggestively on the back of a chair. Settling down on the travelling bed, he turned his face to the wall. Soon Peder heard deep breathing.

The weight of his own form on the palliasse was burdensome to Peder. There was little life in him. The suit seemed to be quiescent. Perhaps it was letting him recuperate.

He shouldn’t be sleeping in it, at that, he thought. He was misusing it. When a man slept, his suit should hang.

He rose shakily and undressed. To prevent Castor from stealing his wallet he tucked it in the waistband of his underpants. He draped the suit in the wall cupboard, leaving the panel open so that it continued to look down on him, a reassuring psychological glyph.

He turned out the light and quickly dropped back asleep.

The stealthy sounds that, some time later, impinged blurrily on his consciousness might not have woken him at all had not a dreadful feeling of loss been simultaneously tugging at his mind, expressing itself in doleful, disturbing dreams. The main light was still dead, but a dim hand-torch flickered by the wall cupboard, where a manlike shadow moved and shuffled.

Peder sat up and rubbed his eyes. He saw that his suit no longer hung in the recess. Instantly he leaped from the palliasse and switched on the ceiling light.

Wearing an acid, frowning expression, the stealthy figure by the cupboard turned to face him.

Castor was wearing the Frachonard suit. Since he was considerably smaller than Peder it looked ludicrously illfitting on him. The jacket and waistcoat hung loose, the sleeves flopping over his hands. The trouser legs were rucked up over the tops of his shoes.

Castor’s face twitched. His eyes glittered. As Peder stepped forward a twinkling sliver-knife appeared in his sleeve-enfolded hand.

‘Watch it, Forbarth.’

‘My suit,’ Peder snarled.

‘Done you real good, hasn’t it? Now let somebody else have a go.’