The Urth of the New Sun

I told him I had never had any notion of why it had fallen.

“This coast is quake prone, as the old records indicate clearly enough — praise to our monarch, by the way, for having them brought here — but there hasn’t been one since the river changed its course, so most of these fools think there’ll never be another.” He chuckled. “Though after last night a few have changed their minds, I imagine.”

He was already on his way out as he spoke. The journeyman banged my door closed and locked it again.

I thought of Dr. Tabs’s play, in which the ground shakes and Jahi says: “The end of Urth, you fool. Go ahead and spear her. It’s the end for you anyway.”

How little I had talked with him upon the World of Yesod.

Chapter XXXVII — The Book of the New Sun

AS IN MY time, we prisoners were fed twice a day and our water carafes replenished at the evening meal. The apprentice carried my tray, gave me a wink, and returned when the journeyman was no longer about, with cheese and a loaf of fresh bread.

The evening meal had been as scanty as the morning one; I began to eat what he had brought me, while I thanked him for it.

He squatted in front of my cell door. “May I talk to you?”

I said I did not govern his acts, and he was likely to know the rules of the place better than I.

He flushed, his dark cheeks growing darker still. “I mean, will you talk with me?”

“If it won’t get you a beating.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any trouble, at least not now. But we ought to keep our voices down. Some of the others are probably spies.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Because you killed her, of course. The whole place is turned upside down. Everybody’s glad she’s dead, but there’s sure to be an investigation and no telling who’ll be sent to take her place.” He paused, seeming to think deeply about what he would say next. “The guards say you said you might be able to bring her back.”

“And you don’t want me to.”

He waved that away. “Could you have? Really?”

“I don’t know — I’d have to try. I’m surprised they told you.”

“I wait around and listen to them talk, shine boots or run errands for money.”

“I have none to give you. Mine was taken from me by the soldiers who arrested me.”

“I wasn’t after any.” He stood up and dug in one of the pockets of his ragged trousers. “Here, you better take these.”

He held them out; they were worn brass tokens of a design unfamiliar to me.

“Sometimes you can get people to bring you extra food or whatever.”

“You brought me more food, and I gave you nothing.”

“Take them,” he said. “I want to give them to you. You might need them.” When I would not extend my hand, he tossed them through the bars and disappeared down the corridor.

I picked up his coins and dropped them into one of my own pockets, as puzzled as I have ever been in my life.

Outside, afternoon had become chill evening with the port still open. I pushed the heavy lens shut and dogged it down. Its broad, smooth flanges, of a shape I had never considered, had clearly been intended to hold the void at bay.

As I finished my bread and cheese, I thought of our passage back to Urth on the tender and my exultation aboard Tzadkiel’s ship. How marvelous it would be to send this old Matachin Tower hurtling among the stars! And yet there was something sinister about it, as about all things perverted from a noble purpose to a shameful one. I had grown to manhood here feeling nothing of that.

The bread and cheese gone, I wrapped myself in the cape the officer had given me, shut out the light with one arm, and tried to sleep.

Morning brought more visitors. Burgundofara and Hadelin arrived, escorted by a tall journeyman who saluted them with his weapon and left them outside my door. My surprise was no doubt written on my face.

“Money can do wonders,” Hadelin said; his twisted mouth showed how painful the amount had been, and I wondered whether Burgundofara had concealed the wages she had brought from the ship, or if he considered that money his own now.

Burgundofara told me, “I needed to see you one last time, and Hadelin arranged it for me.” She wanted to say more, but the words caught in her throat.

Hadelin said, “She wants you to forgive her.”

“For leaving me for him, Burgundofara? There’s nothing to forgive; I had no right to you.”

“For pointing you out when the soldiers came. You saw me. I know you saw me.”

“Yes,” I said, remembering.

“I didn’t think — I was afraid—”

“Afraid of me.”

She nodded.

Hadelin said, “They’d have got you just the same. Somebody else would have pointed you out.”

I asked him, “You?”

He shook his head and stepped back from the bars.

When I had been Autarch, supplicants had often knelt before me; now Burgundofara knelt, and it seemed hideously inappropriate. “I had to talk to you, Severian. One last time. That was why I followed the soldiers to the wharf that night. Won’t you forgive me? I wouldn’t have done it, but I was so afraid.”

I asked whether she remembered Gu

“Oh, yes, and the ship. Except that it seems like a dream now.”

“She was you, and I owe her a great deal. For her sake — your sake — I forgive you. Now and at every other time. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” she said; and instantly she was happy, as if a light had been kindled in her. “Severian, we’re going down the river to Liti. Hadelin goes there often, and we’ll buy a house where I’ll live when I’m not with him on Alcyone. We want to have children. When they come, can I tell them about you?”

Although I believed at the time that it was only because I could see Hadelin’s face as well as hers, a strange thing took place as she spoke: I grew conscious of her future, as I might have been of the future of some blossom that Valeria had plucked in the gardens.

I told her, “It may be, Burgundofara, that you will have children as you wish; if you do, you may tell them anything you like about me. It may also be that in a time to come you’ll want to find me again. If you look, you may. Or you may not. But if you look, remember you aren’t looking because I’ve told you to, or because I’ve promised you’ll find me.”

When they had gone, I thought for a moment about her and about Gu

Yet how strange that Gu

Another visitor soon came — but was no visitor at all, since I could not see his face. A whisper that seemed to originate in the empty corridor asked, “Are you the theurgist?”

“If you say it,” I answered. “But who are you, and where are you?”

“Canog, the student. I’m in the cell next to you. I heard the boy talking to you, and the woman and the captain just now.

I asked, “How long have you been here, Canog?” hoping he might advise me upon certain matters.

“Nearly three months. I’m under sentence of death, but I don’t think it’ll be carried out. Usually they’re not, after such a long time. Probably the old phrontiserion has interceded for her erring child, eh? At least, I hope so.”