ERROL COULD THINK OF NOTHING TO SAY to the young monk—“Nyree,” she had introduced herself—who sat beside him at a polished table in the outer vault room. She was the same monk who had tied the stag to the fence, led them to the abbot, and now she was with him in a bizarre assembly of monks and street fighters, all of whom had some interest in the spikes Errol was to deliver. It was impossible to pay attention to her when Null and Pollux, the publican and henchman, carried Jago into the room in a barred crate, covered by a tarp.
Errol gave distracted replies (the spican guild, an eternity) when she asked him where he was from and how long he had been in the streets.
He was suspicious of her. On his way from the abbot’s offices to here, he had asked her to direct him to the bog pots. She had hesitated for a moment, knowing her orders. She had taken him there and waited outside the door.
In Thebes the bogs were purely practical, and they smelled of overuse. Here, there was a long, opaline pool of perfumed salt water, with a cloud of steam over it. The knobs, faucets, and tiles of the walls had been cast and painted to appear as the branches of oak trees. A variety of birds, painted on the tiles, hid in the oak leaves. Painted fish swam in the pool. Errol found he could tap a dozen different perfumes and a dozen more varieties of soap from the plumbing. He had kept Nyree waiting.
And now, in the vault room, it was impossible for him to pay attention to her, or anything but Jago’s crate.
Utlag had slunk into the room after they had all arrived, and kept on his furs and hoods although they were all sweltering under the extreme temperature given off by the door to the vault in the floor.
Had Errol seen Utlag in a corridor of Thebes, he might have thought he’d seen a guilder who had once been something to look at but was ill now and ready for the morgues. A black fluid seeped from the corners of Utlag’s lips, which he wiped constantly with a rag as he sucked and gnawed some meat from a bowl the monks had given to him. His elbows bent both forward and backward. He perched on the chair next to the abbot, who kept shifting to put distance between them. They looked something like each other, Errol noticed. When Utlag caught Errol staring at him, he crossed his eyes.
“We don’t get any foundlings from Thebes, in the streets,” Nyree was saying.
“Why would we send our foundlings to the streets?” Errol said, still distracted. “Pardon me.” Then, to Utlag, “Pass me that quill, will you?”
Utlag stopped with his bowl in midair.
“The quill,” said Errol, holding out his hand.
Utlag’s eyes shifted to the table, which was so highly polished it reflected the lights on the ceiling like a mirror. Someone had left a cup full of quills. Under his breath, Utlag whispered, “Conflict!”
The abbot had stopped talking, had taken an interest in this exchange. Once more Errol put forward his request; once again, Utlag would not move. The abbot sighed and reached across the table and pushed the cup of quills to Errol. “There you have it.”
Nyree continued, “But we do have foundlings from Bamako House, so we get word about Thebes. Tell me about that foundling in Thebes who is responsible for the others. She educates the others from books, teaches them to fight with swords and also to dance. I’ve been curious. Is she merely a legend?”
“In Thebes? I know the guild well and there is no such foundling.”
“I was bringing food to one of the foundlings Bamako dropped to the streets and she, in turn, relayed to me the stories this Thebes foundling had told her, of Shirazad.”
Why was this monk so insistent?
“Foundlings cannot read. And they certainly don’t train for war, or dance for that matter. If someone told you all the stories of Shirazad, she could not have been a foundling. And all of Shirazad’s thousand and one tales would have filled a very long winter.”
“It was our best winter,” said the monk. “We are without books.”
Errol caught the irritation in Nyree’s tone. It occurred to him that she might not take the abbot’s side on all matters. He studied her for a moment, then leaned over and whispered, “Why are the foundlings in gaol?”
Nyree said abruptly, “Thank you. Indeed, yes, please tell me one of Shirazad’s stories.” Errol felt the abbot’s eyes on them.
The last thing on his mind were the tales of Shirazad, the bard who kept a murderous prince calm for a thousand and one nights.
“I’ll tell one of those tales, if you don’t mind my telling it exactly as you heard it.”
“Do tell it. I’m sure everyone would love it,” she said.
“Remember that it is exactly the same as the tale you know,” he said again. “You won’t be bored with that?”
“Not in the least. Go on,” she said.
“Exact.”
“I heard you.” She looked at him as though he were insane.
“The king of a faraway country,” Errol began, and everyone turned to listen, “was an irritable man, with a mercurial temper and a quick finger to point.” Utlag wiped his face. “A good woman came to the palace to stay with the king and queen. When the queen was doing her laundry one afternoon on the roof of the castle, which was full of songbirds and a pleasant place, the queen said to the good woman, ‘Watch my jewels while I launder these clothes.’ The woman laid the jewels on her little rug, closed her eyes for one moment to say her prayers, and the jewels disappeared.”
Nyree had a confused expression on her face.
“So the rug was the thief?” said Utlag. And there was that clicking sound again.
“Wait,” said Errol. “The king was furious about the jewels and had to blame someone. He had the woman dragged into court and accused her of theft, terrifying her with threats and finally beating her to get her to confess—which she would not do.”
“Tiresome,” said the abbot. “I’d have gotten the confession.”
“The king sent the woman to prison. Two years later, he was sitting in his rooftop gardens with the queen, watching a crow fly back and forth from its nest in a cedar tree, clearing out last year’s wood shavings and carrying in fresh. He watched, still, as the crow pulled the queen’s necklace from the nest and flung it to the ground. The king cried out to the guards, ‘Fetch that woman from prison so I may beg forgiveness and restore what is left of her life.’ For although he was a brutal man, he liked to think of himself as just. And that was that.”
The abbot cleared his throat. “Why, I wonder, tell such a story of thievery on a day such as this one?”
“I’m heaping tale upon story, as we do in the guilds,” said Errol. “The black-iron spikes were stolen and returned, so we tell tales of loss to examine every side.”
Nyree had gotten up and was backing away from the table. “Thank you for the telling. With all the details intact.” She excused herself abruptly and said she was off to make tea.
There was a contract to sign. While Errol was waiting for the parchment to come around, he got up and went around the table and stood with Rip.
“You’re an idiot,” said Rip. “That bit in the abbot’s office with the irfelaf, that demanding call for a quill you didn’t use, and now this carrying on about Shirazad. Just give them the spikes.”
“I don’t have them,” said Errol. Rip turned fast to him. Errol took the pen but moved the papers forward without signing.
“Where are they?” Rip said.
The abbot was droning, “And here is where we clasp hands with one another, to show we harbor no ill will. Let us rise to do that.” Everyone held up empty hands, and many were hands of the streets, some still with blood on them, and all with grime.
But when Errol reached over the table to grasp Utlag’s hand, Utlag did not move. “Utlag?” said the abbot. “Utlag.” Nothing. “Well, all right, let’s step over here by the vault instead—”
But Utlag plunged his hands over the table and grabbed for Errol. The hands were clammy and dry, and their thick fingernails dug into the wound on Errol’s hand. Utlag’s lips curled back, off his teeth, and he nodded toward the table. Errol looked down. He could see the reflection of the monks who flanked Utlag: the details of their hair; their robes; their topknots. He looked up at Utlag and down again at the table. Utlag’s furs were reflected. The hood. But where Utlag’s face should have been, there was no reflection.
Utlag made that clicking sound again and said, “Now there’s a story.”