The Sword of the Lictor

IV

In the Bartizan of the Vincula

“YOU HAVE COMPANY, Lictor,” the sentry told me, and when I only nodded to acknowledge the information, he added, “It might be best for you to change first, Lictor.” I did not need then to ask who my guest was; only the presence of the archon would have drawn that tone from him.

It was not difficult to reach my private quarters without passing through the study where I conducted the business of the Vincula and kept its accounts. I spent the time it took to divest myself of my borrowed jelab and put on my fuligin cloak in speculating as to why the archon, who had never come to me before, and whom, for that matter, I had seldom even seen outside his court, should find it necessary to visit the Vincula — so far as I could see, without an entourage.

The speculation was welcome because it kept certain other thoughts at a distance. There was a large silvered glass in our bedroom, a much more effective mirror than the small plates of polished metal to which I was accustomed; and on it, as I saw for the first time when I stood before it to examine my appearance, Dorcas had scrawled in soap four lines from a song she had once sung for me:

Horns of Urth, you fling notes to the sky, Green and good, green and good. Sing at my step; a sweeter glade have I. Lift, oh, lift me to the fallen wood!

There were several large chairs in the study, and I had anticipated finding the archon in one of them (though it had also crossed my mind that he might be availing himself of the opportunity to go through my papers — something he had every right to do if he chose). He was standing at the embrasure instead, looking out over his city much as I myself had looked out at it from the ramparts of Acies Castle earlier that afternoon. His hands were clasped behind him, and as I watched I saw them move as if each possessed a life of its own, engendered by his thoughts. It was some time before he turned and caught sight of me.

“You are here, Master Torturer. I did not hear you come in.”

“I am only a journeyman, Archon.”

He smiled and seated himself on the sill, his back to the drop. His face was coarse, with a hook nose and large eyes rimmed with dark flesh, but it was not a masculine face; it might almost have been the face of an ugly woman. “Charged by me with the responsibility for this place, you remain a mere journeyman?”

“I can be elevated only by the masters of our guild, Archon.”

“But you are the best of their journeymen, judging from the letter you carried, from their choosing you to send here, and from the work you’ve done since you arrived. Anyway, no one here would know the difference if you chose to put on airs. How many masters are there?”

“I would know, Archon. Only two, unless someone has been elevated since I’ve been gone.”

“I’ll write them and ask them to elevate you in absentia.”

“I thank you, Archon.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, and turned to stare out the embrasure as though the situation embarrassed him. “You should have word of it, I suppose, in a month.”

“They will not elevate me, Archon. But it will make Master Palaemon happy to hear you think so well of me.”

He swung around again to look at me. “We need not be so formal, surely. My name is Abdiesus, and there is no reason you should not use it when we’re alone. You’re Severian, I believe?”

I nodded.

He turned away again. “This is a very low opening. I was examining it before you came in, and the wall hardly reaches above my knees. It would be easy, I’m afraid, for someone to fall out of it.”

“Only for someone as tall as yourself, Abdiesus.”

“In the past, were not executions performed, occasionally, by casting the victim from a high window or from the edge of a precipice?”

“Yes, both those methods have been employed.”

“Not by you, I suppose.” Once more he faced me.

“Not within living memory, so far as I know, Abdiesus. I have performed decollations — both with the block and with the chair — but that is all.”

“But you would have no objection to the use of other means? If you were instructed to employ them?”

“I am here to carry out the archon’s sentences.”

“There are times, Severian, when public executions serve the public good. There are others when they would only do harm by inciting public unrest.”

“That is understood, Abdiesus,” I said. As sometimes I have seen in the eyes of a boy the worry of the man he will be, I could see the future guilt that had already come (perhaps without his being aware of it) to settle on the archon’s face.

“There will be a few guests at the palace tonight. I hope that you will be among them, Severian.”

I bowed. “Among the divisions of administration, Abdiesus, it has long been customary to exclude one — my own — from the society of the others.”

“And you feel that is unjust, which is wholly natural. Tonight, if you wish to think of it in that way, we will be making some restitution.”

“We of the guild have never complained of injustice. Indeed, we have gloried in our unique isolation. Tonight, however, the others may feel they have reason to protest to you.”

A smile twitched at his mouth. “I’m not concerned about that Here, this will get you onto the grounds.” He extended his hand, holding delicately, as though he feared it would flutter from his fingers, one of those disks of stiff paper, no bigger than a chrisos and lettered in gold leaf with ornate characters, of which I had often heard Thecla speak (she stirred in my mind at the touch of it), but which I had never before seen.

“Thank you, Archon. Tonight, you said? I will try to find suitable clothing.”

“Come dressed as you are. It’s to be a ridotto — your habit will be your costume.” He stood and stretched himself with the air, I thought, of one who nears the completion of a long and disagreeable task. “A moment ago we spoke of some of the less elaborate ways that you might perform your function. It might be well for you to bring whatever equipment you will require tonight.”

I understood. I would need nothing beyond my hands, and told him so; then, feeling I had already been remiss in my duties as his host, I invited him to take what refreshment we had.

“No,” he said. “If you knew how much I am forced to eat and drink for courtesy’s sake, you’d know how much I relish the company of someone whose hospitable offers I can refuse. I don’t suppose your fraternity has ever considered using food as a torment, instead of starvation?”

“It is called planteration, Archon.”

“You must tell me about it sometime. I can see your guild is far ahead of my imagination — no doubt by a dozen centuries. After hunting, yours must be the oldest science of them all. But I ca

“It is nearly evening now, Archon.”

“At the end of the next watch then.”

He went out; it was not until the door closed behind him that I detected the faint odor of the musk that had perfumed his robe.

I looked at the little circle of paper I held, turning it over in my hand. Pictured on the back were a falsity of masks, in which I recognized one of the horrors — a face that was no more than a mouth ringed with fangs — I had seen in the Autarch’s garden when the cacogens tore away their disguises, and a man-ape’s face from the abandoned mine near Saltus.

I was tired from my long walk as well as from the work (almost a full day’s, for I had risen early) that had preceded it; and so before going out again I undressed and washed myself, ate some fruit and cold meat, and sipped a glass of the spicy northern tea. When a problem troubles me deeply, it remains in my mind even when I am unaware of it. So it was with me then; though I was not conscious of them, the thought of Dorcas lying in her narrow, slant-ceilinged room in the i