Silk nodded.
“Then you’re going to have to shrive me first so I can do it right. I guess you knew that. I’ll try to think of everything.”
Silk nodded again. “Do, please.”
With speed and economy of motion surprising in so large a man, Auk knelt beside him. “Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to Pas and to other gods.”
His gaze upon the smiling picture of Scylla—and so well away from Auk’s heavy, brutal face—Silk murmured, as the ritual required, “Tell me, my son, and I will bring you his forgiveness from the well of his boundless mercy.”
“I killed a man tonight, Patera. You saw it. Kalan’s his name. Gurnard was set to stick Gib, but he got him…”
“With his skittlepin,” Silk prompted softly.
“That’s lily, Patera. That’s when Kalan come out with his needler, only I had mine out.”
“He intended to shoot Gib, didn’t he?”
“I think so, Patera. He works with Gurnard off and on. Or anyway he used to.”
“Then there was no guilt in what you did, Auk.”
“Thanks, Patera.”
After that, Auk remained silent for a long time. Silk prayed silently while he waited, listening with half an ear to angry voices in the street and the thunderous wheels of a passing cart, his thoughts flitting from and returning to the calm, amused and somehow melancholy voices he had heard in the ball court as he had reached for the ball he carried in a pocket still, and to the innumerable things the owner of those voices had sought to teach him.
“I robbed a few houses up on the Palatine. I was trying to remember how many. Twenty I can think of for sure. Maybe more. And I beat a woman, a girl called—”
“You needn’t tell me her name, Auk.”
“Pretty bad, too. She was trying to get more out of me after I’d already given her a real nice brooch. I’d had too much, and I hit her. Cut her mouth. She yelled, and I hit her again and floored her. She couldn’t work for a week, she says. I shouldn’t have done that, Patera.”
“No,” Silk agreed.
“She’s better than most, and high, wide and handsome, too. Know what I mean, Patera? That’s why I gave her the brooch. When she wanted more…”
“I understand.”
“I was going to kick her. I didn’t, but if I had I’d probably have killed her. I kicked a man to death, once. That was part of what I told Patera Pike.”
Silk nodded, forcing his eyes away from Auk’s boots. “If Patera brought you pardon, you need not repeat that to me; and if you refrained from kicking the unfortunate woman, you have earned the favor of the gods—of Scylla and her sisters particularly—by your self-restraint.”
Auk sighed. “Then that’s all I’ve done, Patera, since last time. Solved those houses and beat on Chenille. And I wouldn’t have, Patera, if I hadn’t of seen she wanted it for rust. Or anyhow I don’t think I would have.”
“You understand that it’s wrong to break into houses, Auk. You must, or you wouldn’t have told me about it. It is wrong, and when you enter a house to rob it, you might easily be killed, in which case you would die with the guilt upon you. That would be very bad. I want you to promise me that you will look for some better way to live. Will you do that, Auk? Will you give me your word?”
“Yes, Patera, I swear I will. I’ve already been doing it. You know, buying things and selling them. Like that.”
Silk decided it would be wiser not to ask what sorts of things these were, or how the sellers had gotten them. “The woman you beat, Auk. You said she used rust. Am I to take it that she was an immoral woman?”
“She’s not any worse than a lot of others, Patera. She’s at Orchid’s place.”
Silk nodded to himself. “Is that the sort of place I imagine?”
“No, Patera, it’s about the best. They don’t allow any fighting or anything like that, and everything’s real clean. Some of Orchid’s girls have even gone uphill.”
“Nevertheless, Auk, you shouldn’t go to places of that kind. You’re not bad looking, you’re strong, and you have some education. You’d have no difficulty finding a decent girl, and a decent girl might do you a great deal of good.”
Auk stirred, and Silk sensed that the kneeling man was looking at him, although he did not permit his own eyes to leave the picture of Scylla. “You mean the kind that has you shrive her, Patera? You wouldn’t want one of them to take up with somebody like me. You’d tell her she deserved somebody better. Shag yes, you would!”
For a moment it seemed to Silk that the weight of the whole whorl’s folly and witless wrong had descended on his shoulders. “Believe me, Auk, many of those girls will marry men far, far worse than you.” He drew a deep breath. “As penance for the evil you have done, Auk, you are to perform three meritorious acts before this time tomorrow. Shall I explain to you the nature of meritorious acts?”
“No, Patera. I remember, and I’ll do them.”
“That’s well. Then I bring to you, Auk, the pardon of all the gods. In the name of Great Pas, you are forgiven. In the name of Echidna, you are forgiven. In the name of Scylla, you are forgiven…” Soon the moment would come. “And in the name of the Outsider and all lesser gods, you are forgiven, by the power entrusted to me.”
There was no objection from Auk. Silk traced the sign of addition in the air above his head.
“Now it’s my turn, Auk. Will you shrive me, as I shrove you?”
The two men changed places.
Silk said, “Cleanse me, friend, for I am in sore danger of death, and I may give offense to Pas and to other gods.”
Auk’s hand touched his shoulder. “I’ve never did this before, Patera. I hope I get it right.”
“Tell me…” Silk prompted.
“Yeah. Tell me, Patera, so that I can bring you the forgiveness of Pas from the well of bottomless mercy.”
“I may have to break into a house tonight, Auk. I hope that I won’t have to; but if the owner won’t see me, or won’t do what a certain god—the Outsider, Auk, you may know of him—wishes him to do, then I’ll try to compel him.”
“Whose—”
“If he sees me alone, I intend to threaten his life unless he does as the god requires. But to be honest, I doubt that he’ll see me at all.”
“Who is this, Patera? Who’re you going to threaten?”
“Are you looking at me, Auk? You’re not supposed to.”
“All right, now I’m looking away. Who is this, Patera? Whose house is it?”
“There’s no need for me to tell you that, Auk. Forgive me my intent, please.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, my son,” Auk said, getting into the spirit of his role. “I got to know who this is, and why you’re going to do it. Maybe you won’t be running as big of a risk as you think you are, see? I’m the one that has to judge that, ain’t I?”
“Yes,” Silk admitted.
“And I see why you looked for me, ’cause I can do it better than anybody. Only I got to know, ’cause if this’s just some candy, I got to tell you to go to a real augur after you scrape out, and forget about me. There’s houses and then there’s Houses. So who is it and where is it, Patera?”
“His name is Blood,” Silk said, and felt Auk’s hand tighten on his shoulder. “I assume that he lives somewhere on the Palatine. He has a private floater, at any rate, and employs a driver for it.”
Auk grunted.
“I think that he must be dangerous,” Silk continued. “I sense it.”
“You win, Patera. I got to shrive you. Only you got to tell me all about it, too. I need to know what’s going on here.”
“The Ayuntamiento has sold this man our manteion.”
Silk heard Auk’s exhalation.
“It was bringing in practically nothing, you realize. The income from the manteion is supposed to balance the loss from the palaestra; tutorage doesn’t cover our costs, and most of the parents are behind anyway. Ideally there should be enough left over for Juzgado’s taxes, but our Window’s been empty now for a very long while.”