Part 4 (1/2)

Skrit appeared to consider it for a time, although it's difficult to know whether he really considered it, or just paused a good long time to make it look as if he was giving it serious deliberation.

I realized that Skrit was afraid of him. But not being willing to admit that, Skrit suddenly squared his shoulders and, for just a moment, I thought he was going to go after the newly arrived Tacit. Instead, however, he snorted derisively and said, ”If you want to be pals with some crippled wh.o.r.e's son, ain't no never mind to me. You ain't worth wasting the skinned knuckles on.”

It was an elegant means of saving face. If Tacit had pressed the issue, of course, Skrit would have had to run for it. But Tacit did no such thing, instead simply standing there, fists remaining c.o.c.ked until Skrit and his cronies had swaggered off. Then Tacit turned to me and looked down. ”Can you walk?”

”Kind of,” I said.

He hauled me to my feet. I was amazed at the strength in the slim arm; it was as if I had no weight, he pulled me up so easily. ”I'm Tacit,” he said.

”I know,” I said, partly leaning against him as I steadied myself. ”I'm Apropos.”

”What did you do to get on Skrit's bad side there, Po?” Tacit was the first person to call me by anything resembling a nickname. There was an implied instant friendliness there that I found appealing.

”I'm not entirely sure,” I admitted. ”He called my mother a wh.o.r.e.”

”Oh,” Tacit said sympathetically. ”That got you angry?”

”Not especially. She is a wh.o.r.e. But when I called his mother a wh.o.r.e, that got him angry. I guess it's not good to be a wh.o.r.e, huh?”

”Well . . . that depends who you talk to,” Tacit said thoughtfully, scratching his chin. ”If you ask a man who needs a wh.o.r.e, then it's probably a pretty good thing to be. Anyone else . . .” And he shrugged as if the sentiment wasn't worth pursuing. ”Where do y'live?”

”Stroker's.”

”Come on, then.” He looked at my leg in fascination. ”What's wrong with your leg?”

”I dunno. Born that way.”

”Oh.”

He guided me back to the tavern, and when we arrived there, Madelyne let out a shriek and-for a moment-thought that Tacit was the one who had been responsible for the beating I'd taken. I quickly set her straight on that, but when she asked me what sort of words had pa.s.sed between the bullies and me, I found that I couldn't tell her. I sensed-correctly, I think-that she would have been hurt by it. So I said, ”They made fun of my limp.” I caught Tacit's eye, but it wasn't really necessary. He was fast enough off the mark to know that utter candor with my mother wasn't a necessity.

Stroker, who was behind the counter pouring out mead, called out, ”Well, you better get used to it! And where's my mug! The one you were supposed to bring from the silversmith, d.a.m.n your eyes!”

Before I could explain that I'd never quite made it there, Tacit stepped in. ”I'll fetch it for you, sir,” he said, and he was out the door before Stroker could utter another word.

Madelyne, bandaging my bruises and clucking over my ruined nose, looked out the open door through which Tacit had just pa.s.sed and said in admiration, ”What a nice lad. You were very fortunate, Apropos, that he stepped in to help you.”

”I know, Ma,” I said.

She wiped away the blood with a cool, wet cloth. ”Making sport of a child's imperfections. Children can be so cruel.”

”I know, Ma.”

”Well . . . don't you make mind of none of them,” she told me firmly. ”Because you . . . you're a child of destiny. You're going to accomplish great things, Apropos. Great things.”

”I know, Ma.”

But I was looking at her with different eyes that day. From the things that the others had said . . . even from the tone that Tacit had adopted . . . I knew that somehow my mother was lower in the eyes of people than other women were. Lower because of what she did. It was as if my eyes had been opened, even as they'd swelled shut. I watched over the next few days the way that others treated her and truly saw it for the first time as degrading. I felt anger beginning to swell within me . . . but oddly enough, not for those that were doing the treatment, but rather her for letting it be done to her.

A week later, matters came to a head one night when my mother was entertaining a customer. I'd taken to sleeping in the stables, claiming that the room was a bit too cold for me, and I found greater warmth covered with straw and drawing warmth from the bodies of the animals that were cl.u.s.tered about. Madelyne thought it odd, but didn't press the point. Consequently, I wasn't there when her bed collapsed in, I presume, mid-coitus. But I heard about it not too long afterward when I heard her angry voice calling, ”Apropos!” I wasn't used to hearing that tone from her. There was generally very little I could do that got her truly angry. ”Where are you?”

”Over here, Ma,” I called from the pile of hay I'd staked out.

She approached me, waving one of the legs that I recognized as having been from her bed. For a moment I thought she was going to use it to club me. Then she pointed to one end of it. ”What is this?” she asked, her voice steady.

”I dunno.”

”It's the leg of my bed, Apropos.”

”If you knew, then why did you ask?”

”It's about three-quarters sawed through. And now it broke. Why do you think it broke, Apropos?”

I stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. ”It broke because it was three-quarters sawed through. You just said so, Ma.”

”The point is, who sawed it?”

”I don't know.”

”I think you do.” She tapped it gently into her open palm. ”I think you sawed it, Apropos.”

I shook my head so vigorously that the room seemed to spin around me.

As if I hadn't even offered protest, she continued calmly, ”Why did you do it, honey?”

I started to tell her that I hadn't, but I found that I wasn't able to look her in the eyes as I did so. It is a rather disconcerting and annoying thing to discover that one cannot lie to one's parent. ”I felt like it,” I said, which was certainly true enough.

”All right, you felt like it. Why did you feel like it?”

”Because when you're with those men in bed, you're a wh.o.r.e, and you shouldn't be a wh.o.r.e because that's a bad thing.”

Slowly she put the wooden leg down. I wasn't sure, as the words had all come spilling out of me, how she was going to react. I antic.i.p.ated anger, or hurt. But she just seemed a bit sad. ”Why do you think it's a bad thing?”

”Because . . .” I hadn't actually been able to wrap myself around the concept fully, and so I fell back on having my world defined by peer groups. ”Because the other boys say so.”

”I see. And do you always believe what the other boys say?”

”If they believe it enough to beat me up over it, I kind of do.”

She shook her head sadly and sat down on the straw next to me. ”And that's why you're sleeping out here now.” It wasn't a question, and I nodded my head. ”Apropos, you're going to have to learn sooner or later that you can't just let other people decide what the world around you should and shouldn't be.”

”Why?”

”Because you have to make of the world what you want to make of it.”

”Why?”