“Can any of them walk? Crawl?”
She shook her head, making a sour mouth at me. “Each thing in its time. After they learn one thing, then we will teach another. Those in the next building are learning to crawl.”
“Ah. And when they have learned to crawl, what then?”
She seemed doubtful. “We have one or two in the building by the stream. They learned to crawl long ago and now are learning to feed themselves with their hands. It would be easier if they were not so frail.”
“Frail?”
“Well . . .” She looked around herself, whispering, “There are only two. And one of them is over eighty years old. She has forgotten her toilet training now, but I have refused to bring her back here.” One evidently did not discuss the age of their charges; to do so required a whisper.
I said nothing. I could say nothing. Back in Stoneflight Demesne I had had a neutered fustigar named Grompozzle. Grommy for short. It had taken me exactly six days to house-train him. He had known how to feed himself from birth. I looked at the beds around me, stinking again, the odor permeating the very stones of the place. I thought I very much wished to meet Father.
The day went on. It went on in the same way. Sister Therapist sat by Bobby, grunting whenever she smelled him. Sister Rejoice cleaned shit and pee out of endless bedsheets. Sister Someone Else spooned gruel into mouths that would not open or would not shut, down throats that would not swallow. I watched as long as I could, then went out into the forest to hit trees. I waited for Ganver, but Ganver didn’t come.
Nighttime did. Along toward dusk, a bell rang, and the Sisters left the buildings in procession, single file, winding through the woods toward a tall lamplit building with an arrangement of bell tower and chapel to one side. I followed them and filed in behind them, me being invisible as taught by the seven. To no avail, for one of the hawk-eyed men who sat in the tall chair at the front of the place saw me in the instant. His face was lean, very handsome, very stern. His eyes gleamed like a wereowl’s sighting prey when he sighted me.
The Sisters sang, not very tunefully. I couldn’t blame them. They were tired, dispirited, and they smelled. No matter how clean they tried to be, the poor things couldn’t help it. They did smell.
The tallest Father preached. He stood before us in robes of gleaming white, surrounded by the smoke of sweet incense, fondling his groin from time to time as he talked of St. Phallus. St. Phallus loomed behind the altar, erect, massive, as though ready to rape the world. It was not the first such monument I had seen. Wherever men were ignorant and hungry for power, I had seen these things, though never one as large as this. Father fondled his groin and preached.
“Holy fruit of St. Phallus,” he said.
“Clean seed planted in filthy ground,” he said.
“Corrupted by dirty woman-wombs,” he said.
“Sisters atone for being women by being Servants,” he said. The Sisters nodded, a few of them weeping. I wondered how old they had been when they were brought here. After the service, I asked Sister Servant Rejoice. She thought she had been around eight years old.
“Why did you decide to come to the Sanctuary?” I asked, wondering why anyone would.
“I didn’t decide,” she said, astonished. “Oh, no, I was only a filthy woman-child. Father decided. He took me from my people; he brought me here. He saved me. Oh, I fought him, too. Threatened to run away. Father had to tie me up for a long, long time. He had to whip me before I would settle to my duty. Bless Father.”
“Oh, yes,” I agreed. “Bless Father indeed.”
From behind us in the clean, sweet-smelling place, Father watched me walk away, his intention clear in his face. I went in the front door of the other building, down to the kitchen to get my pack, and out the back door. Jinian was young and strong. Jinian could be tied up and whipped until she, too, settled to her duty. Jinian had no intention of allowing that to happen.
In the woods, from a high ridge of stone behind some bushes, I watched the place. Sure enough, it was not long before Father and two or three of his ilk came along, one of them carrying what looked very much like shackles. What was it Ganver had said, “Watch and learn”?
Learn what? What question had I asked? Ah, yes. I had asked what the star-eye means.
So I settled there upon the ridge, listening with some curiosity to the shouting going on below, the running about, the muffled scream of some Sister as she was slapped for letting me get away. I sat staring at the star pendant Tess Tinder-my-hand had given me. A star. With an eve in the center.
An eye. Looking out.
A star shape. With an eye, looking out. Looking away.
Away from its own shape. Toward . . . ?
For a moment I thought I had it, but then it eluded me. I knew it was there, in the shape, in the lesson, but I couldn’t quite reach it. I struggled for a long time, chasing the thought as I might a fish in shallows, but each time it slipped through my fingers.
Then, because I felt great sorrow for the Sister Servants and pity for the flesh they tended, which mercy would not have kept alive, I did Inward Is Quiet upon all the mindless creatures that lay in the beds in those buildings below. Inward Is Quiet in the imperative mode. Forever. They would not need to be cleaned or fed again.
