The bowl-bearing man turns to the audience.
‘In their great fairness the Council have pardoned this Dreamer,’ he says. ‘He is free to walk the world and leave the island at dawn. In the name of the Council!’
‘In the name of the Council!’ the crowd yells in return. The words leave my lips too before I even know I have formed them.
‘And now we shall together swear an oath of loyalty to the Council, who in their wisdom pilot the island through all storms,’ the bowl-bearer says.
The words of the oath begin to flow from me with the choir of voices. They who raised the Tower with their own hands and watch the city from atop of it, to them I am faithful.
The Dreamer who drew the long stick is walked down from the dais and led away from sight behind the museum. The guards guide the seven other Dreamers into a cage on wheels, which they begin to transport towards the large black gondola of the House of the Tainted. The oath pours past me like water.
They who feed us and clothe us and make us strong, to them I am faithful.
The wheels of the cage clatter on the stones of the square.
They who drove sickness away from the island and purged our sleep forever, to them I am faithful.
One of the Dreamers in the cage throws herself against the bars, the old woman with an eyepatch.
‘Lies!’ she shouts. ‘It’s all lies!’
If the stones of the streets crumbled from under me and the canals escaped their confines, I would place my life in their hands and be faithful to them.
Two guards wrench the door of the cage open and tear the woman out.
‘Lies!’ she yells again. ‘Ask yourselves why—’
One of the guards hits the woman so hard she goes quiet and begins to weep with pain. The guard ties a scarf to cover the woman’s mouth. I see a red stain spreading on the scarf.
If the sea climbed over my doorstep, I would let their ships carry me to safety and I would be faithful to them.
The City Guards drag the woman into the crowd and I do not see her again. Somewhere another gondola is waiting, a narrower and more enclosed one, and aboard it is a cage covered with black fabric. I think of the woman inside it. I think of the longer stick that she might have drawn from the bowl, and of the man who did draw it: of the ship he will be taken to in the faint light of dawn that will carry him somewhere with a strange language and jobs different from those he is used to. I think of the man looking back towards the island from aboard the ship for the last time, knowing he can never return.
Above everything the Council stands quiet, does not raise a hand, does not move.
The oath comes to an end and my lips are still moving, but my voice has faded away.
CHAPTER THREE
I am seated on a hard, wooden chair in Weaver’s study. It is the one she offers when she wants to scold someone in private. She has another one for visitors, a high-backed, cushioned chair she has upholstered again every few years; but that one is pushed into the far corner, and she is sitting on it herself.
Two City Guards are facing me across the long table. This room is usually brighter than any other in the house, the Halls of Weaving included. But today the lattice of the large window in the corner only filters dark grey and dim white. The fog rests thick and still in the furrows of the city below, and the glow-glass pipes emit but little light despite the fast flow of the water. The lack of light makes the guards’ faces look hollow, as if they could be removed to reveal something else underneath. Or perhaps nothing at all.
‘And you do not know this girl?’ one of the guards asks for the third time.
The chill of the room wraps itself around me and strangles. The Council watches us from a large painting on the wall. I anchor my gaze on the tapestries hanging behind the guards, use them to build a wall between myself and the questions. In them, Our Lady of Weaving holds every thread in her multitude of hands, and waves and clouds and stars behind the clouds obey her will.
‘No, I don’t,’ I answer. Again.
The guards look at each other. One of them introduced himself as Captain Biros, the other as Captain Lazaro. I am not entirely sure which one is which. They are about the same height, and they both have deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows, although one of them is more robust than the other.
Captain Biros, or perhaps Lazaro, nods. Captain Lazaro, or perhaps Biros, writes something in his notebook.
‘And you were on night-watch the night she came to the house?’
‘Yes, I was,’ I say. Again.
‘Are you certain you did not steal away to the city between your rounds without anyone noticing?’
This question is new.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Besides, it would have been impossible. The air gondola would have been too noisy. By foot, it would have taken too long. And someone in the house would have raised alarm when they noticed movement in the web-maze in the middle of the night.’
‘Yes, we have heard about the extraordinary system,’ says Biros. Or maybe it is Lazaro. ‘Of course, it would help our investigation if we knew how it works…’
‘That is secret information.’ The voice from the shadows belongs to Weaver. The words are quiet, yet they cut the air clear.
‘Of course.’ Biros closes his mouth. Lazaro scribbles in his notebook. Or perhaps it is the other way round.
Lazaro, if it is not Biros, lifts his eyes from the page he is filling. The sound of the pen is cut short.
‘Did anyone raise alarm when the girl moved through the maze towards the house?’ he asks.
‘Eventually, yes,’ Weaver says. ‘But she made it all the way to the house before she was found. It was as if she knew the way. Yet she is not one of our weavers, Captain Lazaro.’
The guards glance at each other again. They probably arrived by air gondola. Visitors usually do. If they had walked through the maze, they would have needed a guide, and they know it.
‘Biros,’ Biros says. ‘Interesting.’
‘Fascinating,’ Lazaro says. He turns to look at me. ‘And you say you don’t know this girl, and you have never seen her before, and you don’t know why your name is tattooed on her?’
A draught passes through the room, waves knotted from threads move under the eyes of Our Lady of Weaving.
‘I don’t, and I haven’t.’
‘In invisible ink,’ Biros says.
I think of the letters glowing on the girl’s skin and of the scar-handed man in the Museum of Pure Sleep, of the tattoo that appeared and vanished.
‘It means nothing to me,’ I say. ‘I didn’t even know invisible tattoos existed.’
Biros and Lazaro wait. When I do not continue, Biros whispers something to Lazaro. Lazaro whispers something back. They speak in a low voice which blends their words into a soft hiss. I only discern one among them: Dreamer.
A cold current passes through me. Above them, Our Lady of Weaving reaches in all directions and not one strand comes loose from her grip.
Biros and Lazaro nod at each other and turn to me.
‘Fascinating,’ Biros says.
‘Interesting,’ Lazaro says. He closes his notebook and slips it into his pocket together with the pen.
‘We will look into it,’ Biros says.
‘And we will let you know,’ Lazaro says.