Come now, Manet, it’s just the two of us girls. What are you doing all the way down here in the Heights? You know I’m so curious I could just cut my wrists on the table! No? Nothing? Not even if I promised to sew my lips shut after? You’re a cruel thing, a cruel thing. Pirhum is lucky to be rid of you!
Oh please, four glasses isn’t enough for you to find a sense of humor? How about five, then? Probably just as well; I’d like to be faintly sober before I head to the pipe.
What a happy surprise this was! Let’s do something again soon; you know I’m free all the rest of the Jubilee. You still remember my address? Forgive me, what a foolish question.
(6): Mother Anu
9:35 PM
Welcome, welcome, and once more welcome; take a seat and tell Mother Anu your cares. Money? A concern for all who labor on this side of the divide. Love? Beauty is no safeguard against heartbreak, is it, my child? I can help, whatever you need. Not for free, of course, but for a reasonable sum, more than reasonable, meager even, when measured against what I offer. I am a proper augur, as it says above the door, versed in all thirty-seven methods of prognostication. Palmistry is quickest, though least reliable. The bones take only a few minutes longer but are more accurate, in matters of business especially. If it’s a question of love I would have you hold a candle as still as possible for a full minute, then scatter the wax against a bit of folding paper. But if you have the time and the inclination, I suggest the tea leaves. It is the most expensive service that I offer—two mina, as mandated by the guild. No reputable augur would charge any less.
Excellent. Just a moment then, I’ll set a kettle. Black or green? It makes no difference in the reading. Green it is then, better for the stomach. You’d best put your shawl above the door! Wet clothes lead to a bad cold; you can have that for free.
* * *
Amanuensis . . . this is quite an honor, to play host to one of Ba‘l Melqart’s slaves. I had not expected . . . but I suppose there is no reason why a recorder would be any less interested in her future than the rest of us.
That noise will be the tea. One moment.
You are . . . very blunt. Is this a demand of your order? It is true that there are many who claim foreknowledge, and some who are foolish enough to believe them. But I am fully credentialed, a member in good standing of the Sodality of Vaticinators. My dues are in order, my papers signed and sealed. My trade is a legal and honorable one, my prices set out by the common agreement of the guild. Of course I am not always right in my predictions; doctors are not always right with their diagnoses, but we still have hospitals. The future is not stone. The future is a trail of ivy or a budding rose—a skilled gardener might predict which way it will grow, suggest ways to improve its flowering, but they can do nothing if you choose to tear the plant out by the roots, or if some great flood comes and washes your farm away. I am right more of the time than I would like, does that satisfy you?
Now, you are halfway through your tea and have not yet said what it is you wish to discuss, nor have you offered your payment. Two mina. The tea is complimentary.
* * *
Take back your silver. I have no idea who is in your keepsake and would not tell you if I did. How strange, for I have always understood that the last and highest perfection was that of memory, and yet it seems that you have forgotten everything I’ve so far said. Do I call your craft into question? Do I dispute with you between a high C and a low? Do I quibble with your rhythm, or suggest that your recollection is anything but infallible? You could as well do me the same courtesy. I read the future, girl. That is my craft, that is my calling, that is the work Ba‘l Melqart allows me. You ask about the past, and the past is a slippery thing, best left alone.
Amanuensis or no, you are drunk and talking foolishness. Do you know what the most difficult part of my job is? It is not the work itself; I have always had an easy knack for teasing out the strands. It is knowing when to stay silent, when to lie outright. They do not come to me to know what will happen to them. Most already know. You are a carpenter today? You will be one tomorrow. Your husband drinks and is cruel to you? Men are brutal and rarely mend their ways. Your daughter coughs scarlet in late autumn? She will be dead before the spring. Life continues without purpose or meaning, then ends abruptly.
But they do not come to Mother Anu for hard truth. They come to hear that everything will turn out well, that they are not fat or foolish, that happiness awaits round the next bend if only they can hold out that long.
I have no idea who is in your keepsake. I cannot give you that answer, and neither could any of my colleagues along the row, though some of the less honest might tell you otherwise.
But then, not everyone is affiliated with the guilds. There are powers older than Ba‘l Melqart, there are things that even he does not know, or at least of which his servants remain ignorant. You are very brave to threaten a woman with the heavy hand of the High Chapel. If you were a bit braver, I might know someone who can tell you who is in your locket.
That will be a full talent. The guild does not set the price for secrets, and I charge you extra because you can afford it. And because you are rude, and rude needlessly.
The coin first.
Head north, until the shops are replaced with cheap taverns. Then east, until these too end and you come to empty houses and houses in which no one ought to live. When you find yourself nearing the great bridge, search carefully for an old track leading downward. At the bottom of that ravine, beneath the bridge where it is always night, there is a shack. In that shack there is someone who can answer any question you care to put to them.
I do not know her name. She has forgotten it or traded it or tossed it away. I cannot tell you her price either. It will be more than the two mina for the tea, that much I can say.
If you are wise you will not go tonight. The cliffs would be dangerous if the ground was flat and level, understand? If you are wise you will wait to sober up. If you are wise you will not go at all; but then, wisdom is not among your seven perfections, is it?
Leave your cup where it is. I do not need to read your leaves to know your future. You head toward a ledge at a dead sprint.
(7): Sweetness and the Crone
10:15 PM
You’re right, Sweetness, she does look like a rat! Staring at some morsel from cover and making up her mind whether to snatch it. Or a cockroach! Or a cockroach! No, a rat. Yours was better.
Will she cower there all night? It makes no difference to us. For us it is morning and the cock has just crowed. We have naught to do but wobble on our wobbler and puff out our puff, perhaps natter down and look at the spray. Has she seen the black waves roll against the black beach? All black beneath the bridge, in the shade. Does she know there are different colors of black? You are the one who taught us that, Sweetness. Yes, you did. Yes, you did.
Ooooh, she comes! See her skitter, Sweetness, see her run! She is a brave little rat! Or is she hungry? Hard to tell with a rat. Hard to tell with a girl. She looks sleek; a girl’s hunger is not a rat’s hunger. Sit, sit, little rat.
Or do not sit, it is all the same to us. Is she hungry? The soup bubbles. There are men on the shore who leave us little presents—stonefish head and squid tail. For the knife, you see, for the bowl. Do not fear, there is plenty.
As she likes. As she likes.