She ran her finger down the columns, flipped pages, clicked her tongue on her pearls.
Then she spoke the Law, and the slaves wrote down each order. After this, messengers (slaves) of the Wolf Tower, carry the orders to the lucky persons concerned.
The messages of the Law were frightful, though.
Some man (number 903, I think) had to leave his house and go and live on the street as ‘best he could’. (Incredible.) And number 5,334, a little girl, was to be made to wear the disguise of a snail, complete with shell.
I forget the others. They weren’t so bad. No, one was. I don’t even want to write it.
But I will write it. I don’t remember the number, or who. But they had to dive into the river, and swim up and down. They might rest on islands, or the banks, for a few minutes when ‘exhausted’. Their relatives might bring them food and ‘comforts’.
There was no indication when this punishment would end. If it ever would. It wasn’t called a punishment.
And this – this – is the Law.
They live here, and some people can go their whole lives without ever the Dice summoning up their numbers and names, so they need never do anything but enjoy themselves. Or they might be told to do something rather stupid, but not unnice, like going and buying a new shirt.
Or they might be told they must have a baby, before a year has passed.
Or that they must stand naked on a wall. Or go into the desert and fight a lion.
And I’m going to have to find this out from the Dice. And I’m then going to have to tell them. I’m going to be Wolf’s Paw. To be her.
She said, I’d grow old here.
If I don’t learn, God knows what they’ll do to me. And I won’t be able to.
But I don’t want to be able to. I don’t want to hurt people, make fools of them, blight their lives like this, and smiling as I do it, as she does.
My rooms are large. There’s a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room. Brocades and furs and fireplaces and lamps.
One wall with dresses thick with gold and jewels. I hate them.
Five slaves to wait on me.
When I take her place, I’ll have more. I’ll have everything I ‘want’.
Except I must always be available for when the Dice mechanically turn, to read the books and interpret the Law. And give it.
That night, after the midnight Dice, I made believe I’d gone to sleep in the luxurious white satin bed.
I got up in blind darkness, and tried to go out.
But the slaves were there, leaping up to ‘serve’ me.
And their eyes are like the eyes of the moon alligators in the marsh. Cold and blind. Without a mind or heart.
Sometimes the Wolf’s Paw goes out in a procession, she’d told me. Next day I asked to go walking.
No obstacle. Except the five slaves who walked with me. And that man in a white uniform, with the rifle.
Very few people passed us. Most were carried in chairs by slaves.
None of the slaves have faces. Well they do, but they might as well be made of paper. They don’t seem human.
The buildings soar into the never changing rainy gloom.
I prowl these rooms. The windows have cute lattices of gilded iron, and anyway are ten man-heights from the ground, or more. I’m a prisoner.
Well, I have considered various tricks – the sort you read of in books. Giving slaves the slip, running very fast, pretending to be ill in case they then relax their watchfulness, assuming they are watchful … which they are, aren’t they? But somehow, I don’t think this will work, any of it. I mean, they are always there. And the City itself does watch. Not crystals, like Peshamba, black poking things, like guns, turning to follow you on the streets.
Everyone’s name is in those boxes, even mine, now, and hers.
I’m so afraid I don’t even feel loss. And when she lectures me on the mathematics in the precious books, she seems to think I understand – and I don’t, of course I don’t. I was never educated. Two and two make three.
Is she mad? Or just so old – she asks questions and I attempt to answer, I bluff or I say nothing, and she doesn’t fault me. She nods.
I haven’t seen anyone else for some time. Only the slaves, and the guard in white. And occasionally people passing far below on the paved streets of this doomy City. And her.
The Law is a game. I mean, they play a game, and call it a law, and failure to obey it is death.
And Ironel is keeper of the Law until I learn the rules. And then I’m the keeper. (And when I think, the Rituals of the House used to annoy me.)
Nemian seems like someone I made up. Argul does too. And you – well, I did make you up. But oh, you, you, help me – tell me what to do – help, help me, you’re the only one I can turn to. And obviously, you can’t answer.
How curious. It was as if I heard you, calling. All sorts of words and voices. And it did help me.
Thank you …
Thank you.
WOLVES
She’s ill.
She did the dawn Law today – I don’t have to be there for those – then went back to bed.
A slave told me, and I had to go and visit her. Another slave handed me one of those red flowers to give her. Apparently that’s a polite way to show her I think she’ll soon get better.
(Would have
