He was smiling by the time he finished this list, and I was laughing. “And though you remind me of the old man’s kestrel, that sat on a perch for twenty years and then flew off in all directions, I hope you achieve these things. But I trust you realize that it is possible — just barely possible, perhaps, but possible — that one or two of them may get in the way of four or five of the others.”
“What you’re saying is very true,” I admitted. “I’m striving to do all those things, and although you won’t credit it, I am giving all my strength and as much of my attention as can be of any benefit to all of them. Yet I have to admit things aren’t going as well as they might. My divided ambitions have landed me in no better place than the shade of this tree, where I am a homeless wanderer. While you, with your single-minded pursuit of one all-powerful objective… look where you are.”
In such talk we passed the watches of late afternoon. Birds twittered overhead, and it was very pleasant to have such a friend as Jonas, loyal, reasonable, tactful, and filled with wisdom, humor, and prudence. At that time I had no hint of his history, but I sensed that he was being less than candid about his background, and I sought, without venturing direct questions, to draw him out. I learned (or rather, I thought I did) that his father had been a craftsman; that he had been raised by both parents in what he called the usual way, though it is, in fact, rather rare; and that his home had been a seacoast town in the south, but that when he had last visited it he had found it so much changed that he had no desire to remain.
From his appearance, when I had first encountered him beside the Wall, I had supposed him to be about ten years my elder. From what he said now (and to a lesser extent from some earlier talks we had had) I decided he must be somewhat older; he seemed to have read a good deal of the chronicles of the past, and I was still too naive and unlettered myself, despite the attention Master Palaemon and Thecla had given my mind, to think that anyone much below middle age could have done so. He had a slightly cynical detachment from mankind that suggested he had seen a great deal of the world.
We were still talking when I glimpsed the graceful figure of the Chatelaine Thea moving among the trees some distance away. I nudged Jonas, and we fell silent to watch her. She was coming toward us without having seen us, so that she moved in the blind way people do who are merely following directions. At times a shaft of sunlight fell upon her face, which, if it chanced to be in profile, suggested Thecla’s so strongly that the sight of it seemed to tear at my chest. She had Thecla’s walk as well, the proud phororhacos stalk that should never have been caged.
“It must be a truly ancient family,” I whispered to Jonas. “Look at her! Like a dryad. It might be a willow walking.”
“Those ancient families are the newest of all,” he answered. “In ancient times there was nothing like them.”
I do not believe she was near enough to make out our words, but she seemed to hear his voice, and looked toward us. We waved and she quickened her pace, not running yet coming very rapidly because of the length of her stride. We stood, then sat again when she had reached us and seated herself upon her scarf with her face toward the brook.
“You said you had something to tell me about my sister?” Her voice made her seem less formidable, and seated she was hardly taller than we.
“I was her last friend,” I said. “She told me they would try to make you persuade Vodalus to give himself up to save her. Did you know she was imprisoned?”
“Were you her servant?” Thea seemed to weigh me with her eyes. “Yes, I heard they took her to that horrible place in the slums of Nessus, where I understand she died very quickly.”
I thought of the time I had spent waiting outside Thecla’s door before the scarlet thread of blood came trickling from under it, but I nodded. “How was she arrested — do you know?”
Thecla had told me the details, and I recounted them just as I had got them from her, omitting nothing.
“I see,” Thea said, and was silent for a moment, staring at the moving water. “I have missed the court, of course. Hearing about those people and that business of muffling her with a tapestry — that’s so very characteristic — calls up the reasons I left it.”
“I think she missed it sometimes too,” I said. “At least, she talked of it a great deal. But she told me that if she were ever freed she would not go back. She spoke about the country house from which she took her title, and told me how she would refurnish it and give dinners there for the leading persons of the region, and hunt.”
Thea’s face twisted in a bitter smile. “I have had enough of hunting now for ten lifetimes. But when Vodalus is Autarch, I will be his consort. Then I shall walk beside the Well of Orchids again, this time with the daughters of fifty exultants in my train to amuse me with their singing. Enough of that; it is some months off at least. For the present I have — what I have.”
She looked somberly at Jonas and me, and rose very gracefully, indicating by a gesture that we were to remain where we were. “I was happy to hear something now of my half-sister. That house you spoke of is mine now, you know, though I can’t claim it. To recompense you, I warn you of the supper we will soon share. You didn’t seem receptive of the hints Vodalus flung you. Did you understand them?” When Jonas said nothing, I shook my head.
“If we, and our allies and masters who wait in the countries beneath the tides, are to triumph, we must absorb all that can be learned of the past. Do you know of the analeptic alzabo?”
I said, “No, Chatelaine, but I have heard tales of the animal of that name. It is said it can speak, and that it comes by night to a house where a child has died, and cries to be let in.”
Thea nodded. “That animal was brought from the stars long ago, as were many other things for the benefit of Urth. It is a beast having no more intelligence than a dog, and perhaps less. But it is a devourer of carrion and a clawer at graves, and when it has fed upon human flesh it knows, at least for a time, the speech and ways of human beings. The analeptic alzabo is prepared from a gland at the base of the animal’s skull. Do you understand me?”
When she had gone, Jonas would not look at me, nor I at his face; we both knew what feast it was we were to attend that night.
Chapter 11
THECLA
After we had sat, so it seemed to me, for a long time (though it was probably no more than a few moments), I could tolerate what I felt no longer. I went to the margin of the brook, and kneeling there on the soft earth spewed out the dinner I had eaten with Vodalus; and when there was nothing more to come forth, I remained where I was, retching and shivering, and rinsing my face and mouth, while the cold, clear water washed away the wine and half-digested meat I had brought up.
When at last I was able to stand, I returned to Jonas and told him, “We must go.”
He looked at me as though he pitied me, and I suppose he did. “Vodalus’s fighting men are all around us.”
“You were not sick, I see, the way I was. But you heard who their allies are. Perhaps Chuniald was lying.”
“I’ve heard our guards walking among the trees — they’re not as silent as all that. You have your sword, Severian, and I have a knife, but Vodalus’s men will have bows. I noticed that most of those who sat with us at table did. We can try to hide behind the trunks like alouattes…”
I understood what he meant, and said, “Alouattes are shot every day.”
“Still, no one hunts them by night. It would be dark in a watch or less.”
“You will go with me if we wait until then?” I thrust out my hand.
Jonas clasped it. “Severian, my poor friend, you told me of seeing Vodalus — and this Chatelaine Thea and another man — beside a violated grave. Didn’t you know what it was they planned to do with what they got there?”