No matter where we go in the floodplain of the Stashik, and all around the coast of the sea, someone has been there before, layer on layer of ancient building. But that doesn’t happen in O.”
“You can’t tell me that those buildings in the port are thousands of years old!” scoffed Rigg. “The timbers would be ten thousand years of rotten by now, so close to the river.”
“Oh, I’m not talking about the wooden structures, yes, those are built and replaced. But the stone buildings and the great wall-they’re the original. Every thousand years or so the great buildings fall into such decay that they have to be rebuilt. And when they do it, they find there’s nothing under the foundations. When the city walls and the great white buildings were originally built, they were on virgin ground. It’s here in O that we feel all the eleven thousand years of history.”
Then, suddenly, the general’s grip on Umbo’s hand tightened a little and Umbo looked up to find the general gazing at him-but with a slight smile. Of mockery? Or sympathy? “Your young friend, Master Rigg, seems uninterested in history.”
“He’s a year older than I am.”
Umbo waited for the general to make some comment about his height. Instead, the man said, “Eleven thousand years of history, that’s what we have. To be precise, 11,191 years plus eleven. They say there’s a stone at the base of the Tower of O which, when you pull it out of place during repairs, bears an inscription: ‘This stone laid in the year 10999.’ Of course it’s in a language that only scholars can read, but that’s what they say.”
“So the world was only 192 years old when the stones of the tower were laid?” asked Rigg.
The general was silent again for a few moments. “So it seems. The oldest building in the world.”
“The tour guides are missing a bet not to tell folks that,” muttered Umbo.
“They’d say it, I’m sure, if they knew. But only a few people care enough about the deep past to root through the old records and learn the ancient languages and then write new books about old things, and only a few of us bother to read them. No, the only history that matters these days is the story of how wonderful our lives are since the People’s Revolution deposed the royal family, and how rapacious and cruel the royal family were when they ruled the World Within the Walls.”
“And how happy we all are that they were deposed,” said Rigg.
The general stopped walking. “I’m trying to decide if your tone was sarcastic.”
To which Rigg’s only answer was to make the identical statement with the identical intonation-which is to say, no discernible intonation at all. “And how happy we all are that they were deposed.”
The general chuckled. “Now I see what that asinine banker meant about you. By the Fixed Star, my boy, it’s as if you were a bird singing the same song, over and over, never varying.”
“I know nothing about the royal family, sir,” said Rigg, “or perhaps I would have known that there was something wrong with the name my father said was mine in his will.”
“There we are,” said the general.
Umbo looked around-they didn’t seem to be anywhere in particular.
“Not literally, my young friend,” said the general to Umbo. “I mean to say, this is the crux of the matter. This is why I was sent to arrest Master Rigg and bring him back to Aressa Sessamo. Yes, he had the jewel and when that fool tried to convert it into cash, all he accomplished was to alert the People’s Revolutionary Council. Did he really think a royal artifact could be sold without attracting the notice of powerful people? Did you think it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rigg. “I did indeed. To me, it was a stone that seemed likely to have some great value. I did not expect Cooper’s exorbitant response to it, recognizing it as an ancient jewel. Nor did I expect to raise the sums of money he immediately talked about. My father left it in the care of a friend, to be given to me when he died. Then he died. The friend gave it to me, and here we are.”
“Come now, Master Rigg, do you expect me to believe that you were well enough educated to know enough about finance and contract law to run rings around a sharp dealer like Banker Cooper, and yet you did not recognize the name ‘Rigg Sessamekesh’?”
“My name is Rigg,” said Rigg. “My father never mentioned a last name. So I recognized the prenomen, but not the gens.”
The general chuckled. “And since you have iron control of your vocal intonation, your gestures, your facial expressions, how can I know whether you lie or tell the truth? But it’s a stupid lie, if it’s a lie, because everyone knows the name Rigg Sessamekesh.”
“I never did,” said Umbo, “and I went to school lots more than Rigg. Nobody talks about the royal family. It’s against the law to care about them.”
“Well, well,” said the general. “I had no idea. That the law was actually followed, at least upriver. In the city- and when I speak of ‘the city,’ I don’t mean O-in the city the name and story are so widely known, and the law against speaking about the royal family is so little regarded, that I never thought that perhaps in the hinterlands people might still avoid uttering the forbidden names. Have you eaten?”
It took a moment for Umbo to realize that the subject had changed.
“I’m not famished at the moment,” said Rigg, “though Umbo is always hungry. But you, sir, are better situated to know when our next opportunity to eat might be. If you’re offering a meal now, I’ll accept it gladly and do my best to make it worth your while.”
“You’re offering to pay?” asked the general.
“I don’t know, sir, whether I have access to any of my funds. From what Cooper said, I would guess that everything is impounded.”
“It is indeed,” said the general. “But under the People’s Law, you are not yet guilty. So the money is still yours, even if you don’t have the free use of it. I, however, have complete access to your funds-provided I have your consent.”
“Then you have my consent up to the full price of a very nice meal.”
“A very quick meal, I think you meant to say.”
“‘Quick’ depends on what we do with the food, sir; ‘very nice’ depends on what the cooks do with it.”
“You’ve been here for several weeks. Is there any food along the remainder of our route that is worth stopping for?”
“If you tell me our destination,” said Rigg, “I’ll choose a shop that lies on our route.”
“The boat, of course. The one you already engaged to take you to Aressa Sessamo. I thought you heard me say that. Since you already paid for it, the People’s Republic will save money by using it to transport you.”
“I leapt to the conclusion that it was our boat that we were bound for, but then you only really said that was where our companion was to be brought if they happen to find him.”
“Let’s have it out right now, Master Rigg. Are you Rigg Sessamekesh?”
“That name means something to you. You speak of a story that everyone in Aressa Sessamo knows. But I do not know it, so I cannot say whether I am that person. It seems unlikely to me. I only learned the name after my father was dead. Was it some joke of his? A trick to arrange for me to meet you? My father was an enigmatic man, and I can’t guess what he meant by it. I only know that I had to show his letter to Cooper in order to prove I had the right to my father’s funds and possessions. He didn’t seem to recognize the name-he only paid attention to a valuable jewel. So until your arrival here today, I really didn’t think anything of the name. My father never called me by it.”
The general chuckled again. “Oh, you’re a player, you’re a player. Don’t assert, don’t deny. You could be an innocent passerby, for all you admit.”
“I tell you the simple truth,” said Rigg. “If what I say represents a move in a game, then the player is my father, sir, not me. I am as intrigued as anyone to learn the implications of what my father wrote in that letter. It seems he was determined to further my education from beyond the grave.”
“Your ‘father,’” said the general. “If he really is your father, then you can’t possibly be Rigg Sessamekesh.”
“Father never told me the circumstances of my birth. Others from Fall Ford say that my father went away on a long trip and came back with a baby. I’m sure he never explained and no one dared to ask. He never said more than he wanted others to know, and people didn’t pry into his affairs.”
“Everybody thinks he’s a bastard that the Wandering Man got on some woman,” said Umbo. “And the Wandering Man brought him to Fall Ford to raise.”
“It’s all right, Master Rigg, that your friend calls you a bastard?” asked the general.
Umbo started to protest that he hadn’t meant to call him that at all, but Rigg smiled at him, silencing him.
