“What chance do children of their class have now?”
He shook his head angrily, and would have liked to paw the ground.
“Such things have happened before, Patera. The Chapter will find new manteions for us. Better manteions, I think, because it would be difficult to find worse ones. I’ll go on teaching and assisting, and you’ll go on sacrificing and shriving. It will be all right.”
“I received enlightenment today,” Silk said. “I’ve told no one except a man I met in the street on my way to the market and you, and neither of you have believed me.”
“Patera—”
“So it’s clear that I’m not telling it very well, isn’t it? Let me see if I can’t do better.” He was silent for a moment, rubbing his cheek.
“I’d been praying and praying for help. Praying mostly to the Nine, of course, but praying to every god and goddess in the Writings at one time or another; and about noon today my prayers were answered by the Outsider, as I’ve told you. Maytera, do you…” His voice quavered, and he found that he could not control it. “Do you know what he said to me, Maytera? What he told me?”
Her hands closed upon his until their grip was actually painful. “Only that he has instructed you to preserve our manteion. Please tell me the rest, if you can.”
“You’re right, Maytera. It isn’t easy. I had always thought enlightenment would be a voice out of the sun, or in my own head, a voice that spoke in words. But it’s not like that at all. He whispers to you in so many voices, and the words are living things that show you. Not just seeing, the way you might see another person in a glass, but hearing and smelling—and touch and pain, too, but all of them wrapped together so they become the same, parts of that one thing.
“And you understand. When I say he showed me, or that he told me something, that’s what I mean.”
Maytera Marble nodded encouragingly.
“He showed me all the prayers that have ever been said to any god for this manteion. I saw all the children at prayer from the time it was first built, their mothers and fathers too, and people who just came in to pray, or came to one of our sacrifices because they hoped to get a piece of meat, and prayed while they were here.
“And I saw the prayers of all you sibyls, from the very beginning. I don’t ask you to believe this, Maytera, but I’ve seen every prayer you’ve ever said for our manteion, or for Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint, or for Patera Pike and me, and—well, for everyone in this whole quarter, thousands and thousands of prayers. Prayers on your knees and prayers standing up, and prayers you said while you were cooking and scrubbing floors. There used to be a Maytera Milkwort here, and I saw her praying, and a Maytera Betel, a big dark woman with sleepy eyes.” Silk paused for breath. “Most of all, I saw Patera Pike.”
“This is wonderful!” Maytera Marble exclaimed. “It must have been marvelous, Patera.” Silk knew it was impossible, that it was only their crystalline lenses catching the light, but it seemed to him that her eyes shone.
“And the Outsider decided to grant all those prayers. He told Patera Pike, and Patera Pike was so happy! Do you remember the day I came here from the schola, Maytera?”
Maytera Marble nodded again.
“That was the day. The Outsider granted Patera Pike enlightenment that day, and he said—he said, here’s the help that I’m—that I’m…”
Silk had begun to weep, and was suddenly ashamed. It was raining harder now, as if encouraged by the tears that streaked his cheeks and chin. Maytera Marble pulled a big, clean, white handkerchief out of her sleeve and gave it to him.
She’s always so practical, he thought, wiping his eyes and nose. A handkerchief for the little ones; she must have a child sobbing in her class every day. The record of her days is written in tears, and today I’m that sobbing child. He managed to say, “Your children can’t often be as old as I am, Maytera.”
“In class, you mean, Patera? They’re never as old. Oh, you must mean the grown men and women who were mine when they were boys and girls. Many of them are older than you are. The oldest must be sixty, or about that. I was—didn’t teach until then.” She called her memorandum file, chiding herself as she always did for not calling it more often. “Which reminds me. Do you know Auk, Patera?”
Silk shook his head. “Does he live in this quarter?”
“Yes, and comes on Scylsday, sometimes. You must have seen him. The large, rough-looking man who sits in back?”
“With the big jaw? His clothes are clean, but he looks as if he hasn’t shaved. He wears a hanger—or perhaps it’s a hunting sword—and he’s always alone. Was he one of your boys?”
Maytera Marble nodded sadly. “He’s a criminal now, Patera. He breaks into houses.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Silk said. For an instant he had a mental picture of the hulking man from the back of the manteion surprised by a householder and whirling clumsily but very quickly to confront him, like a baited bear.
“I’m sorry, too, Patera, and I’ve been wanting to talk to you about him. Patera Pike shrove him last year. You were here, but I don’t think you knew about it.”
“If I did, I’ve forgotten.” To quiet the hiss of the wide blade as it cleared the scabbard, Silk shook his head. “But you’re right, Maytera. I doubt that I knew.”
“I didn’t learn about it from Patera myself. Maytera Mint told me. Auk still likes her, and they have a little talk now and then.”
Blowing his nose in his own handkerchief, Silk relaxed a trifle. This, he felt certain, was what she had wanted to speak to him about.
“Patera was able to get Auk to promise not to rob poor people any more. He’d done that, he said. He’d done it quite often, but he wouldn’t any more. He promised Patera, Maytera says, and he promised her, too. You’re going to lecture me now, Patera, because the promise of a man like that—a criminal’s promise—can’t be trusted.”
