Part 8 (1/2)

48 Gene Wolfe

”Knowing the Plan of Pas, as I said, the Chrasmatists knew what would best serve us each time this book would be opened-what would most firmly set your feet and mine upon the Aureate Path.”

Silk paused again to study the youthful faces before him; there was a flicker of interest here and there, but no more than a flicker. He sighed.

”Now we return to the lines themselves. The first, 'Are ten birds to be had for a song?' bears three meanings at least. As you grow older and learn to think more deeply, you'll learn that every line of the Writings bears two meanings or more. One of the meanings here applies to me personally. I'll explain that meaning in a moment. The other two have application to all of us, and I'm going to deal with them first.

”To begin, we must a.s.sume that the birds referred to are of die singing kind. Notice that hi the next line, when the singing kind isn't intended, that is made plain. What then, is signified by these ten singing birds? Children in cla.s.s- that is to say yourselves-provide an obvious interpretation, surely. You're called upon to recite for the good sibyls who are your teachers, and your voices are high, like the twitterings of songbirds. To buy something for a song is to buy it cheaply. The meaning, as we see, is: is this mult.i.tude of young scholars to be sold cheaply ? And the answer is clearly, no. Remember, children, how much Great Pas values, and tells us over and over again that he values, every living creature in the whorl, every color and kind of berry and b.u.t.terfly-and human beings above all. No, birds are not to be sold for a song; birds are precious to Pas. We don't sacrifice birds and other animals to the immortal G.o.ds because they are of no value, do we? That would be insulting to the very G.o.ds.

” 'Are ten birds to be had for a song?' No. No, you children are not to be sold cheaply.”

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He had their interest now. Everyone was awake, and many were leaning forward in their seats. ”For the second, we must consider the second line as well. Notice that ten singing birds might easily produce, not ten, but tens of thousands of songs.” For a moment the picture filled his mind as it had once, perhaps, filled that of die long-dead Chrasmologic author a patio garden with a fountain and many flowers, its top covered with netting-bulbuls, thrushes, larks, and goldfinches, their voices weaving a rich fabric of melody that would stretch unbroken through decades and perhaps through a century, until the netting rotted and the birds flew free at last.

And even then, might they not return at times? Would they not surely return, darling through rents in the ruined netting to drink at that tinkling fountain and nest in the safety of the patio garden, their long concerto ended yet continued beyond its end, as the orchestra plays when the audience is leaving a theater? Playing on and on for the joy of the music, when the last theater-goer has gone home, when the yawning ushers are snuffing the candles and the guttering footlights, when the actors and actresses have washed away their makeup and changed back into the clothing they ordinarily wear, the plain brown skirts and trousers, drab blouses and tunics and coats worn to the theater, worn to work as so many other drab brown garments, as plain as the bulbuls' brown feathers, were worn to work?

”But if the birds are sold,” Silk continued (actors and actresses, theater and audience, garden, fountain, net, and songbirds all banished from his consciousness), ”how are songs to be had? We, who were so rich in songs, are now left poor. It will not help us, as the foreknowing authors point out in the next line, to daub a raven, smearing a black bird with the delicate beauties of the lark or the decent brown

50 Gene Wolfe

of the bulbul. Not enough, even, to gild it like a goldfinch. It is still a raven.”

He drew a deep breath. ”Any ignorant man, you see, my children, may find himself in a position of veneration and authority. Suppose, for example, that some uneducated man-let us say an upright and an honorable man, one of you boys in Maytera Marble's cla.s.s taken from her cla.s.s and brought up with no further education-were by some chance to be dirust into the office of His Cognizance the Prolocutor. You would eat and sleep in His Cognizance's big palace on the Palatine. You would hold die baculus and wear the jeweled robes, and all the rest of us would kneel for your blessing. But you could not provide us with the wisdom that it would be your duty to supply. You would be a croaking raven daubed with paint, with gaudy colors.”

While he counted silently to three, Silk stared up at the manteion's dusty rafters, giving the image time to sink into the minds of his audience. ”I hope that you understand, from what I've said, why your education must continue. And I hope, too, that you also understand that though I took my example from the Chapter, I might just as easily have taken it from common life, speaking of a trader or a merchant, of a chief clerk or a commissioner. You have need of learning, children, in order that the whorl will someday have need of you.”

Silk paused once more, both hands braced upon the old, cracked stone ambion. The tarnished sunlight that streamed through the lofty window above the wide Sun Street door was perceptibly less brilliant now. ”Thus the Writings have made it abundantly clear that your palaestra will not be sold-not for taxes, or any other reason. I've heard that there is a rumor that it will be, and that many of you believe it. I repeat, that is not the case.”

For a moment he basked in their smiles.

”Now I'll tell you about the meaning that this pa.s.sage

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holds for me. It was I who opened the Writings, you see, and so there was a message for me as well as for all of us here. Today, while you were studying, I went to market. There I purchased a fine speaking bird, a night chough, for a private sacrifice-one that I shall make when you have gone home.

”I've already told you how, when I bought the lambs you enjoyed so much, I hoped that a G.o.d, pleased with us, would come to this Window, as G.o.ds appeared here in the past And I tried to show you how foolish that was. Another gift, a far greater gift, was given me instead-a gift that all the lambs in the market could not buy. I've said dial I'm not going to tell you about it today, but I will tell you that it wasn't because of my prayers, or the sacrifices, or any other good work of mine that I received it. But receive it I did.”

Old Maytera Rose coughed, a dry, sceptical sound from the mechanism that had replaced her larynx before Silk had spoken his first word.

”I knew that I, and I alone, must offer a sacrifice of thanks for dial, though I had already spent all of the money that I had on the lambs. I would like very much to explain to you now that I had some wise plan for dealing with my dilemma-with my problem-but I didn't. Knowing only that a victim was necessary, I dashed off to the market, trusting in the merciful G.o.ds. Nor did they fail me. On the way I met a stranger who provided me with the price of an excellent victim, the speaking night chough I told you about earlier, a bird very like a raven.