The Claw of the Conciliator

Chapter 26 PARTING

Where the path crossed another, four people sat on the ground around a tiny fire. I recognized Jolenta first — her aura of beauty made the clearing seem a paradise. At almost the same moment, Dorcas recognized me and came running to kiss me, and I glimpsed Dr. Talos’s fox-like face over Baldanders’s massive shoulder.

The giant, whom I ought to have known at once, was changed almost out of recognition. His head was swathed in dirty bandages, and in place of the baggy black coat he had worn, his wide back was covered with a sticky ointment that resembled clay and smelled like stagnant water.

“Well met, well met,” Dr. Talos called. “We’ve all been wondering what became of you.” Baldanders indicated with a slight inclination of his head that it was actually Dorcas who had been wondering, which I think I might have guessed without the hint.

“I ran,” I said. “So did Dorcas, I know. I’m surprised the rest of you weren’t killed.”

“We very nearly were,” the doctor admitted, nodding.

Jolenta shrugged, making the simple movement seem an exquisite ceremony. “I ran away too.” She cupped her huge breasts in her hands. “But I don’t think I’m well suited to running, do you? Anyway, in the dark I soon bumped against an exultant who told me I would have to run no farther, that he would protect me. But then some spahis came — I would like to have their animals harnessed to my carriage someday, they were very fine — and they had with them a high official of the sort that cares nothing for women. I hoped then that I would be taken to the Autarch whose pores outshine the stars themselves — the way it nearly happens in the play. But they made my exultant leave, and instead it was back to the theater where he,” she gestured toward Baldanders, “and the doctor were. The doctor was putting salve on him, and the soldiers were going to kill us, although I could see they didn’t really want to kill me. Then they let us go, and here we are.”

Dr. Talos added, “We found Dorcas at daybreak. Or rather, she found us, and we have been traveling slowly toward the mountains ever since. Slowly, because ill though he is, Baldanders is the only one of us with the strength to carry our baggage, and though we have discarded much of it, there remain certain items we must keep.”

I said I was surprised to hear Baldanders was merely ill, since I had been certain he was dead.

“Dr. Talos stopped him,” Dorcas said. “Isn’t that right, Doctor? That’s how he was captured. It’s surprising that both of them weren’t killed.”

“Yet as you see,” Dr. Talos said, smiling, “we yet walk among the living. And though we are somewhat the worse for wear, we are rich. Show Severian our money, Baldanders.”

Painfully, the giant shifted his position and took out a bulging leather purse. After looking at the doctor as though for additional instructions, he loosened the strings and poured into his huge hand a shower of new-minted chrisos. Dr. Talos took one of the coins and held it up so it caught the light. “How long do you think a man from one of the fishing villages about Lake Diuturna would build walls for that?”

I said, “At least a year, I should imagine.”

“Two! Every day, winter and summer, rain or shine, provided we dole it out in bits of copper, as we shall. We’ll have fifty such men to help rebuild our home. Wait until you see it next!”

Baldanders added in his heavy voice, “If they will work.”

The red-haired doctor whirled on him. “They’ll work! I’ve learned something since last time, let me tell you!”

I interposed. “I assume that a part of that money is mine, and that a part belongs to these women — does it not?”

Dr. Talos relaxed. “Oh, yes. I had forgotten. The women have already had their shares. Half of this is yours. After all, we wouldn’t have had it without you.” He scooped the coins out of the giant’s hand and began to create two stacks on the ground before him.

I supposed that he meant only that I had contributed to the success of his play, such as it was. But Dorcas, who must have sensed that something more lay behind the credit he had given me, asked, “Why do you say that, Doctor?”

The fox-face smiled. “Severian has friends in high places. I own I have thought so for some time — a torturer wandering the roads like a vagrant was a bit too much even for Baldanders to swallow, and I have, I fear, an excessively narrow throat.”

“If I have such friends,” I said, “I am unaware of them.”

The stacks were level now, and the doctor pushed one toward me and the other back to the giant. “At first, when I found you abed with Baldanders, I thought you might have been sent to warn us against performing my play — in some respects it is, as you may have observed, at least in appearance critical of the Autarchy.”

“Somewhat,” Jolenta lisped sarcastically.

“Yet surely, to send a torturer from the Citadel to frighten a couple of strolling mountebanks would be an absurd overreaction. Then I realized that we, by the very fact that we were staging the play, served to conceal you. Few would suspect that a servant of the Autarch would associate himself with such an enterprise. I wrote in the Familiar’s part so that we should hide you better by giving your habit a reason for existence.”

“I know nothing of this,” I said.

“Of course. I have no desire to force you to violate your trust. But as we were setting up our theater yesterday, a highly placed servant from the House Absolute — an agamite, I think, and they are always close to the ear of authority — came asking if our troupe was the one in which you performed, and if you were with us. You and Jolenta had absented yourselves, but I answered in the affirmative. He asked then how great a share you had of what we made, and when I told him, said that he was instructed to pay us now for the night’s performance. Very fortunate that proved since this great ninny went charging out into our audience.”

It was one of the few times I saw Baldanders appear hurt by his physician’s jibes. Though it clearly cost him pain to do so, he swung his big body about until he faced away from us.

Dorcas had told me that when I had slept in Dr. Talos’s tent, I had slept alone. Now I sensed that the giant felt so; that for him the clearing held only himself and certain small animals, pets of whom he was tiring.

“He has paid for his rashness,” I said. “He looks badly burned.”

The doctor nodded. “Actually, Baldanders was fortunate. The Hierodules dialed down their beams and tried to turn him back instead of killing him. He lives now through their forbearance, and will regenerate.”

Dorcas murmured, “Heal, you mean? I trust so. I feel more pity for him than I can say.”

“Yours is a tender heart. Too tender, perhaps. But Baldanders is still growing, and growing children have great recuperative powers.”

“Still growing?” I asked. “His hair is partly gray.”

The doctor laughed. “Then perhaps he is growing grayer. But now, dear friends,” he rose and dusted his trousers, “now we have come, as some poet aptly puts it, to the place where men are pulled apart by their destinations. We had halted here, Severian, not only because we were fatigued, but because it is here that the route toward Thrax, where you are going, and that toward Lake Diuturna and our own country diverge. I was loath to pass this point, the last at which I had hopes of seeing you, without making a fair division of our gains — but that is accomplished now. Should you communicate again with your benefactors in the House Absolute, will you own that you have been equitably dealt with?” The stack of chrisos was still on the ground before me.

“There is a hundred times more here than I ever expected to receive,” I said. “Yes. Certainly.” I picked up the coins and put them into my sabretache.

A glance passed between Dorcas and Jolenta, and Dorcas said, “I am going to Thrax with Severian, if that is where Severian is going.”

Jolenta held up a hand to the doctor, obviously expecting that he would help her to rise.

“Baldanders and I will be traveling alone,” he said, “and we will walk all night. We will miss all of you, but the time of parting is upon us. Dorcas, my child, I am delighted that you will have a protector.” (Jolenta’s hand was by this time on his thigh.) “Come, Baldanders, we must be away.”

The giant lumbered to his feet, and though he made no moan, I could see how much he suffered. His bandages were wet with mingled sweat and blood. I knew what I had to do, and said, “Baldanders and I must speak privately for a moment. Could I ask the rest of you to move off a hundred paces or so?”

The women began to do as I had asked, Dorcas walking down one path and Jolenta (whom Dorcas had helped up) down another; but Dr. Talos remained where he was until I repeated my request that he go.

“You wish me to leave as well? It’s quite useless. Baldanders will tell me anything you tell him as soon as we are together again. Jolenta! Come here, dear.”

“She is leaving at my request, just as I asked you to.”

“Yes, but she’s going the wrong way, and I cannot have it. Jolenta!”

“Doctor, I only wish to help your friend — or your slave, or whatever he is.”

Quite unexpectedly, Baldanders’s deep voice issued from beneath his swirl of bandages. “I am his master.”

“Exactly so,” said the doctor, as taking up the stack of chrisos he had pushed toward Baldanders, he dropped it into the giant’s trousers pocket.

Jolenta had hobbled back to us with tears streaking her lovely face. “Doctor, can’t I go with you?”

“Of course not,” he said as coolly as if a child had asked for a second slice of cake. Jolenta collapsed at his feet.

I looked up at the giant. “Baldanders, I can help you. A friend of mine was burned as much as you are not long ago, and I was able to help him. But I won’t do it while Dr. Talos and Jolenta look on. Will you come with me, only a short way, back down the path toward the House Absolute?”

Slowly, the giant’s head swung from side to side.

“He knows the lenitive you offer,” Dr. Talos said, laughing. “He himself has provided it to many, but he loves life too much.”

“Life is what I offer — not death.”

“Yes?” The doctor raised an eyebrow.

“Where is your friend?” The giant had picked up the handles of his barrow.

“Baldanders,” I said, “do you know who the Conciliator was?”

“That was long ago,” Baldanders answered. “It does not matter.” He started down the path Dorcas had not taken. Dr. Talos followed him for a few strides, with Jolenta clinging to his arm, then stopped.

“Severian, you have guarded a good many prisoners, according to what you’ve told me. If Baldanders were to give you another chrisos, would you hold this creature until we are well gone?”

I was still sick with the thought of the giant’s pain and my own failure; but I managed to say, “As a member of the guild, I can accept commissions only from the legally constituted authorities.”

“We will kill her then, when we are out of your sight.”

“That is a matter between you and her,” I said, and started after Dorcas. I had hardly caught up with her before we heard Jolenta’s screams. Dorcas halted and grasped my hand more tightly, asking what the sound was; I told her of the doctor’s threat.

“And you let her go?”

“I didn’t believe he meant it.”

As I said that, we had turned and were already retracing our way. We had not gone a dozen strides before the screams were succeeded by a silence so profound we could hear the rustling of a dying leaf. We hurried on; but by the time we reached the crossing, I felt certain we were too late, and so I was, if the truth be known, only hurrying because I knew Dorcas would be disappointed in me if I did not.

I was wrong in thinking Jolenta dead. As we rounded a turn in the path we saw her running toward us, her knees together as if her legs were hampered by her generous thighs, her arms crossed over her breasts to steady them. Her glorious red-gold hair fell across her eyes, and the thin organza shift she wore had been slashed to tatters. She fainted when Dorcas embraced her. “Those devils, they’ve beaten her,” Dorcas said.

“A moment ago we were afraid they would kill her.” I looked at the welts on the beautiful woman’s back. “These are the marks of the doctor’s cane, I think. She’s lucky he didn’t set Baldanders on her.”

“But what can we do?”

“We can try this.” I fished the Claw from my boot-top and showed it to her. “Do you remember the thing we found in my sabretache? That you said was no true gem? This is what it was, and it seems to help injured people, sometimes. I wanted to use it on Baldanders, but he wouldn’t let me.”

I held the Claw over Jolenta’s head, then ran it along the bruises on her back, but it flamed no brighter and she seemed no better. “It isn’t working,” I said. “I’ll have to carry her.”

“Put her over your shoulder, or you’ll be holding her just where she’s been hurt worst.”

Dorcas carried Terminus Est, and I did as she suggested, finding Jolenta nearly as heavy as a man. For a long while we trudged thus beneath the pale green canopy of the leaves before Jolenta’s eyes opened. Even then she could hardly walk or stand without help, however, or so much as comb back that extraordinary hair with her fingers to let us better see the tear-stained oval of her face. “The doctor won’t let me come with him,” she said.

Dorcas nodded. “It seems not.” She might have been talking to someone far younger than herself.

“I will be destroyed.”

I asked why she said that, but she only shook her head. After a time she said, “May I go with you, Severian? I don’t have any money. Baldanders took away what the doctor had given me.” She shot a sidelong glance at Dorcas. “She has money too — more than I got. As much as the doctor gave you.”

“He knows that,” Dorcas said. “And he knows any money I have is his, if he wants it.”

I changed the subject. “Perhaps both of you should know that I may not be going to Thrax, or at least, not directly. Not if I can discover the whereabouts of the order of Pelerines.”

Jolenta looked at me as if I were mad. “I’ve heard they roam the whole world. Besides, they accept only women.”

“I don’t want to join them, only to find them. The last news I had was that they were on the way north. But if I can find out where they are, I’ll have to go there — even if it means turning south again.”

“I’m going where you go,” Dorcas declared. “Not to Thrax.”

“And I’m going nowhere,” Jolenta sighed.

As soon as we no longer had to support Jolenta, Dorcas and I drew somewhat ahead of her. When we had been walking for some time, I turned to look back at her. She was no longer weeping, but I hardly recognized the beauty who had once accompanied Dr. Talos. She had held her head proudly, and even arrogantly. Her shoulders had been thrown back and her magnificent eyes had flashed like emeralds. Now her shoulders drooped with weariness and she looked at the ground.

“What was it you spoke of with the doctor and the giant?” Dorcas asked as we walked.

“I’ve already told you,” I said.

“Once you called out so loudly that I could hear what you said. It was ‘Do you know who the Conciliator was?’ But I couldn’t tell if you didn’t know yourself, or were only seeking to discover if they knew.”

“I know very little — nothing, really. I’ve seen pictures that are supposed to be of him, but they differ so much they can hardly be of the same man.”

“There are legends.”

“Most of them I’ve heard sound very foolish. I wish Jonas were here; he would take care of Jolenta, and he would know about the Conciliator. Jonas was the man we met at the Piteous Gate, the man who rode the merychip. For a time he was a good friend to me.”

“Where is he now?”

“That’s what Dr. Talos wanted to know. I don’t know, and I don’t wish to speak of it. Tell me about the Conciliator, if you want to talk.”

No doubt it was foolish, but as soon as I mentioned that name, I felt the silence of the forest like a weight. The sighing of a little wind somewhere among the uppermost branches might have been the sigh from a sickbed; the pale green of the light-starved leaves suggested the pallid faces of starved children.

“No one knows much about him,” Dorcas began, “and I probably know less than you do. I don’t even remember now how I learned what I know. Anyway some people say he was hardly more than a boy. Some say he was not a human being at all — not a cacogen, but the thought, tangible to us, of some vast intelligence to whom our actuality is no more real than the paper theaters of the toy sellers. The story goes that he once took a dying woman by the hand and a star by the other, and from that time forward he had the power to reconcile the universe with humanity, and humanity with the universe, ending the old breach. He had a way of vanishing, then reappearing when everyone thought he was dead — reappearing sometimes after he had been buried. He might be encountered as an animal, speaking the human tongue, and he appeared to some pious woman or other in the form of roses.”

I recalled my masking. “Holy Katharine, I suppose, at her execution.”

“There are darker legends, too.”

“Tell them to me.”

“They frightened me,” Dorcas said. “Now I don’t even remember them. Doesn’t that brown book you carry with you make any mention of him?”

I drew it out and saw that it did, and then, since I could not comfortably read while we walked, I thrust it back in my sabretache again, resolving to read that section when we camped, as we would have to soon.