11.

The King at Home

Requiem City — AGH 40

Clavadin pulled his chair a little nearer the workroom doorway. From there he could see Sidony’s table and the street beyond the sitting-room window.

“Is that where it’s going to stay?” she asked.

“For the moment.”

“Then leave room behind it.”

He looked over his shoulder. There was room. There would be rather less if someone carried a coat on a hanger, which was what Sidony had in her hand.

He shifted the chair sideways, giving her the width of the hanger.

The cushion had slipped. He set it higher, behind his shoulders, and waited for the short effort to stop occupying his chest. On the little table beside him stood a jug, two cups and a plate which Sidony had expressly said was for the visitor. He had taken only a broken piece.

He and Sidony Linturn had chosen this smaller house when he left the palace. He had given the Crown to their daughter the year before; Sidony’s costume work had come with them, taking the larger room. He liked being able to hear her working without asking anyone where she had gone. Now she was making a space between the worktable and a square-backed chair, lifting lengths of cloth clear of its arms.

“Who’s coming?”

“Someone who needs to sit down without tearing a sleeve.”

“I can advise on that.”

“You can keep the doorway clear.”

She went back for the coat. It was dark green, with long cuffs and enough buttons to suggest a learned profession. Clavadin watched her lay it over the chair. Then he heard Dain Corbel’s voice outside and reached for the jug.

A household attendant came to take it.

“I have it,” Clavadin said.

He poured before the attendant could decide whether that was a sufficient answer. A little water ran down the jug’s lip. He wiped it with the corner of the cloth beneath the cups and turned as Dain came in.

“There you are. You’ve found us.”

“Your Majesty.”

“Dain.”

The merchant smiled and came farther into the room. A clerk followed him with a flat packet under one arm. Clavadin had not expected the clerk, but there was another chair, and Dain seemed pleased to have found the house without being sent round to a second entrance.

“It’s much shorter from the street,” Dain said.

“It is the street.”

“I meant the walk once you’re inside.”

Clavadin gave him the cup. “Sit. Have one of those before I’m accused of eating them.”

From the next room Sidony said, “I haven’t accused you of anything yet.”

Dain took a biscuit. He asked after her work, and she held the green sleeve through the doorway for him to see.

“Does somebody have to fight in it?”

“Worse. Sit and listen.”

“That should keep it clean.”

“It might, if he could stay awake.”

She withdrew the sleeve. Dain laughed and settled back in the chair.

For a while they talked about the smaller house. Dain remembered a wet afternoon during the rebuilding when suppliers had been kept outside a meeting room while their names were written down.

“You came out and asked why we were all looking so miserable.”

“I asked why you were outside.”

“After you’d asked that.”

“Had you brought the stone?”

“The roofing felt. The stone people were under the awning. They wouldn’t move.”

Clavadin remembered the awning. He also remembered an official insisting that the waiting would last only a few minutes, while rain dripped from the edge onto a man’s open account book. He had taken the suppliers into the room before anyone had finished recording who they were.

“You came in without the book,” he said.

“It was soaked. I’d left it on a chair to dry.”

“And then spent the meeting telling us the figures from memory.”

“Badly. I charged for the same load twice.”

“You corrected it.”

“You noticed.”

“Yes, but you corrected it.”

Dain put the last of his biscuit into his mouth. Clavadin liked that he remembered the roofing felt. Most people brought him a version of his life in which he was forever entering a hall at the decisive moment. Dain had brought him rain, a bad awning and an account that had taken much longer to settle than it ought.

The merchant brushed a crumb from his coat.

“I’ve a difficulty with a roof again, as it happens.”

“Here?”

“My store. We’ve had to take most of it off.”

Dain glanced at the clerk. The packet came out from under the clerk’s arm.

“I thought you might tell me whether I’m being unreasonable.”

“That would depend what you’d done.”

“Rented somewhere dry.”

It was a second store, close enough for the stock to be moved between them as the roof came off. The first building was still Dain’s responsibility; the second had to be paid for until he could bring everything back. He had expected both those expenses. Then the notices for the new assessment had arrived, one for each address.

“They’ve assessed both as stores in use.”

“Are both in use?”

“The stock’s in the second. There are empty racks in the first, and men walking about above them.”

“None of the stock remains?”

“A few things in the covered end. Things we can move before they get to that part.”

Clavadin put his cup down. “Let me see.”

His hand went a little beyond the chair-arm, palm low. Two fingers lifted once. He left the hand there while the clerk loosened the packet.

Dain took out the first notice and laid it beneath the waiting fingers. The folded petition remained in his lap; the clerk kept the other notice.

Clavadin read the address, the description of the premises and the amount.

“How long do they expect the roof to take?”

“If the timber arrives when they say it will, I can begin moving back next month.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“I keep paying for the second place.”

He explained the space he had taken. It had an awkward loading door, but the rent was lower than the alternatives. He could not bring the stock back beneath an unfinished roof merely to show that he had ceased using the temporary store. Nor could he leave the first building out of use indefinitely. He gave Clavadin the rent, then the roofers’ charge, and stopped before adding them together.

Clavadin asked about the covered end, the order in which the roof was being stripped, the date on the second notice. Dain drew his chair closer. The clerk stood beside it, ready with the paper.

“If they charged me for one during the work,” Dain said, “I could meet that. I’m not asking to pay nothing.”

“No.”

“It’s the same stock.”

“I understand that.”

Dain began to unfold his petition.

*   *   *

By the time Sidony’s customer arrived, the clerk was standing between the two rooms. The attendant had come back with a tray and was waiting to see whether Clavadin had finished his cup. Dain had spread the petition across his knees.

The performer stopped just inside the sitting room.

“Am I early?”

“No,” Sidony said. “Come through.”

The clerk stepped sideways, into the attendant’s path. The tray lifted. For a moment everyone remained where they were.

“The other notice,” Clavadin said.

He kept his eyes on the first and put out his hand again, fingers raised just enough to summon the missing sheet. The clerk slipped it into place. When Clavadin looked up, the performer was watching the hand.

Sidony fetched the green coat from the chair and came to the doorway.

“This way. We’ll use the chair.”

The performer followed her, glancing once at Dain’s open petition. Clavadin could see why they had hesitated. The people around him were all waiting to be told what to do next.

Sidony helped the performer into the coat and drew the sleeves down. She checked the shoulder line, then the fall at the back.

“You’ve brought the shoes?”

The performer lifted a foot. Sidony nodded.

“Sit as you will in the play.”

Clavadin could see the chair through the doorway. It had broad wooden arms ending in little rounded projections. The performer settled into it, pulled an imaginary paper close and bent over it with great attention.

After a few moments the head sank.

It came up suddenly. At the same time one arm swept out, the hand turned, and the performer offered an elaborate greeting to somebody who was not there.

The cuff caught beneath the end of the chair-arm.

“Oh, there,” Sidony said. “Leave it.”

The performer held still with the arm halfway raised.

“That’s what it does. In rehearsal I lost the whole greeting.”

“I can see.”

“I had to stand up.”

Clavadin leaned enough to see the caught cloth. “Why are you greeting somebody with your eyes shut?”

“They’re open by then.”

“They weren’t.”

“The scholar’s fallen asleep. He wakes and makes it look as though he was only waiting for the right moment to acknowledge the room.”

“Does anyone believe him?”

“They’re all looking at the person making the speech.”

“Then why make them look at you?”

The performer considered that. Sidony freed the cuff.

“First we’ll stop the coat holding you down,” she said. “Do it slowly.”

The arm moved again. Sidony caught the low edge before it reached the wooden projection and marked the cloth with chalk. The outer fold could stay long; the trouble was underneath, where it hung below the wrist.

Dain had stopped speaking.

Clavadin turned back. “You were saying.”

“Only that I’ve set it all out here.” Dain held up the petition. “The dates. Both rents. When the work began.”

“Have you taken it in?”

“I asked what they wanted. They said the notices and an account of how the two places are being used.”

“That is what you’ve brought.”

“Yes.” Dain looked toward the workroom, then lowered his voice. “But a line from you would make them look at it properly.”

Dain passed him the petition. Clavadin read the opening. It was clear and restrained. There was no abuse of the assessors, no suggestion that paying for public work was an indignity peculiar to Dain Corbel. The requested relief occupied the final paragraph.

“To whom?” he asked, although he knew.

“To the queen. Privately. Not an order.”

Through the doorway the performer’s head sank again.

“Not so far,” Clavadin called. “You’ve lost sight of your paper already.”

The head came up. Sidony looked round from her crouch beside the chair, still holding the cuff away from the performer’s wrist. The performer waited for him to finish.

Dain waited too.

Clavadin looked from the coat to the three sheets before him. It would take very little writing. He could set the matter out more briefly than Dain had, with no demand at all, merely a name and the circumstances and his hope that Isolde would give them her attention. Dain would sit back again. They could finish the biscuits and perhaps remember something else about that wet afternoon. He knew how carefully such a letter would be read.

Sidony shifted her grip on the cloth.

“Go on,” he said to the performer.

“From the beginning?”

“Yes. No—from where you were.”

He set the two notices together and turned his chair a little toward Dain.

*   *   *

“I won’t write to Isolde about this,” he said.

Dain glanced at the papers. “There’s no need to put it formally.”

“I mean I won’t send the note.”

“You think the assessment is right?”

“I think you’re paying for a roof, a place to keep the stock and two assessments while you wait for one of the places to be usable. I haven’t said that’s right.”

“Then tell her that.”

Clavadin laid the notices on top of the petition. He could hear Sidony asking for the arm to be lowered.

“The office on this notice can receive your appeal. Take them the account you’ve shown me.”

“I know where to take it.”

“Yes.”

“I came because you know what these things cost before anybody’s finished deciding whether they ought to.”

Clavadin did know. There would be bills that could not be held back until the assessment was settled. He could still have asked an official to attend to a man he knew, and the official would still have found time. That was part of the difficulty.

“The Crown is Isolde’s now,” he said. “I won’t give you a second answer from this room.”

“I’m not asking for a second answer. I haven’t had a first.”

“You’re asking me to have her change the assessment for you.”

“During the repairs.”

“During the repairs.”

Dain looked toward the door. The clerk had stepped back out of the way and was holding the empty packet.

“You let us come straight to you then.”

“I did.”

“You knew who we were.”

“I know who you are now.”

Clavadin wished the words had done more. Dain’s cup stood untouched beside the plate.

“Then what were all the questions for?” the merchant asked.

He had drawn his chair close because Clavadin had asked him to explain. He had supplied the figures, waited through the interruptions and watched the old hand reach for another paper.

“I wanted to understand it.”

“You do understand it.”

“Yes.”

Dain waited.

Clavadin held out the petition with the notices folded inside.

“I should have told you sooner that I wouldn’t write.”

The merchant took the papers but did not pass them to his clerk immediately. He checked that both notices were there, though he had seen Clavadin put them together.

“Will they allow it?”

“I don’t know.”

“They may tell me the two addresses are enough.”

“They may.”

Dain pressed the folded edge against his palm.

Clavadin wanted to offer him something else. A different introduction, perhaps, or a name to ask for at the office. Dain would have understood the usefulness of that too.

“Let me give you more to drink before you go,” he said.

“No, thank you. I ought to get back.”

The clerk opened the packet. Dain placed the papers inside it himself.

At the door he turned and bowed. Clavadin had hoped he might say something about the house again, but he only said goodbye.

After they had gone, the attendant took away the cups. There was a pale crumb on the chair where Dain had sat. Clavadin brushed it onto the plate and found he had no appetite for the remaining biscuits.

From the workroom came the slow rub of cloth against wood.

“Again,” Sidony said.

The performer lifted the arm. This time she held the cuff clear herself, watching where it would fall.

“That’s the amount,” she said. “Take it off. I can have you try it again this evening.”

“Before or after rehearsal?”

“After. I need the sleeve without you in it.”

The performer took off the green coat and put on their own. Sidony laid the garment flat, with the chalked underside of the cuff uppermost.

Clavadin watched the performer go. He had not found out whether the scholar ever managed to stay awake. He nearly called the question after them.

Sidony drew a chair up to the worktable. He could hear her picking out stitches. After a while he closed his eyes.

*   *   *

Isolde came while the light was still on the worktable. She put her head round the sitting-room door, saw that Clavadin was awake and came in.

“Mother says you’ve been giving directions to a scholar.”

“He needed them.”

“Did he ask?”

“He was caught on a chair.”

“That does sound serious.”

She set a small writing case on her knee. At twenty-eight, their daughter had already acquired a way of opening papers that told him whether he was being visited by Isolde or by the queen. This time she took out only one sheet.

“I wanted to ask you about the supply yard during the rebuilding. The one with the narrow entrance.”

“There were several.”

“The accounts say they put a second checking clerk at the gate and the queue got worse.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we were getting the loaded carts in more quickly.”

“Faster than they could unload?”

“No. They unloaded. Then they needed to get out.”

“Through the queue.”

“There was nowhere else. A cart would come up to the gate just as an empty one tried to leave. Then somebody had to back. We’d made the checking quicker and given them more carts to back around.”

Isolde looked at her sheet.

“Did the second clerk stay?”

“He went to the far end and held the empties until there was room to let them out together. That helped more than reading the same docket at twice the speed.”

“Our yard has two gates.”

“What’s outside the second?”

“A lane.”

“Can a cart turn out while another comes in?”

“I’ll have to ask.”

He began to describe the corner at the old yard, then stopped. That entrance had been altered since he had last used it. He did not know the dimensions of the one Isolde was dealing with, or how many carts it received.

“Have them show you,” he said. “I can tell you where ours stopped. I don’t know where yours will.”

She wrote a few words and put the sheet away.

It would have been easy to say Dain’s name now. Easier than writing it. She was sitting close enough that he need not even raise his voice.

Isolde took a biscuit from the plate the attendant had brought with the fresh tea.

“You’re not going to put that in there,” Clavadin said.

She dipped it in her cup.

“That was why I took it.”

“It was quite good before.”

“It’s quite good now.”

“You don’t know. You haven’t tasted it.”

She took a bite and held the rest over the cup.

“Still good.”

He broke one of his own. It snapped satisfactorily.

Isolde looked at it. “That one’s gone everywhere.”

“It’s meant to break.”

“So’s mine.”

Sidony laughed from the worktable. Clavadin looked through the doorway and saw her holding the green sleeve up to the light.

“How much longer?” Isolde asked.

“Nearly ready for the second try.”

“Then I’ll be out of the way.”

“You’re not in my way,” Sidony said.

Isolde stayed to finish her tea. When she went, Clavadin gave her the last unbroken biscuit to take with her, and she promised to eat it in a manner that would cause him no distress.

He did not believe her.

*   *   *

The performer returned as Sidony was cutting the end from a thread.

Clavadin had rested again. His chair now stood at the edge of the workroom, clear of the route to the door. Sidony had moved it there while he was up, and from it he could see both the test chair and the coat without leaning.

The performer put the coat on. Sidony settled the shoulder and smoothed the sleeve.

“The whole movement first. Slowly.”

The performer sat, bent over the imaginary paper and let the head drop. The waking jerk became the outward sweep. Cloth slid past the wooden end of the chair-arm.

Sidony crouched to look.

“Again.”

The hand went out more quickly. The cuff cleared.

“There,” she said. “Now you can be as grand as you like.”

The performer did the greeting once more at its full size. The chin rose with the hand; the whole upper body joined in the recovered dignity. Clavadin could see the exact instant at which the scholar had ceased to be asleep and begun pretending he had never been.

“It’s too much,” he said.

“The greeting?”

“You’re trying to avoid being noticed. You’d hardly announce that you were awake.”

“I’ve got to do something with the jump.”

“Make it look as if you meant to look up.”

The performer tried lifting the head without the large sweep. One hand began the greeting, faltered and settled on the chair-arm.

“Now I look as though I’ve forgotten what I wanted.”

“You have. You were asleep.”

“Yes, but I’m trying not to know that.”

Clavadin smiled. He liked the seriousness with which the performer was willing to consider this foolish man.

“A little acknowledgment,” he said. “You’ve heard enough. You’re allowing them to go on.”

He raised a hand just above the arm of his own chair, turned the palm out slightly and let two fingers incline toward the imaginary speaker. The movement barely disturbed his sleeve.

The performer tried it.

“Too friendly,” Sidony said.

“It’s not meant to be friendly.”

“It is when you do it.”

Clavadin repeated it without the smile.

The performer watched, then bent over the imaginary paper once more. The head sank. At the waking jerk, the chin rose and the hand came off the chair-arm, the wrist drooping, two fingers curling once toward an absent attendant. It stayed there, waiting. The scholar’s eyes went back to the place where the page ought to be.

Sidony laughed.

The performer remained perfectly still, the hand waiting for a paper which no one had brought.

“That,” Clavadin said, “wasn’t what I showed you.”

“No. That was earlier.”

“What was?”

“When you wanted the other notice.”

Sidony’s laugh broke out again. She covered her mouth with the hand that did not hold the scissors, then set the scissors down.

“I did not do that.”

The performer lowered the hand.

“I thought you did.”

“I asked him to pass me something he was holding.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve made it look as though I expected it to arrive by itself.”

The performer considered the empty hand, then looked at Sidony. Clavadin disliked how promising they both seemed to find this distinction.

“You have to look at the person,” he said.

“You were reading.”

“For a moment.”

He put his hand out to demonstrate. There was no need for the lifted chin the performer had added, or for that vacant air of waiting upon the universe. He kept his head level, his palm flatter and his fingers quiet. Then he raised two fingers, once, and waited.

Sidony turned toward the worktable, laughing.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“You haven’t even seen the difference.”

“I saw.”

“No. You turned away.”

The performer was looking at his hand. Without moving the rest of the body, they copied it. This time the scholar glanced briefly toward the missing page, then returned to the imaginary speech with an expression of patient disappointment.

Clavadin began to laugh himself. That was good. It was quite wrong about him, but it was good.

“Keep it there,” Sidony said.

He did.

“Not you.”

He looked down. His hand was still extended above his chair-arm. He withdrew it.

Sidony went to the performer and checked the fall of the cuff.

“Lower your wrist a little. Yes. Now lift it the way you did before.”

The cloth moved freely. She ran a finger beneath the altered edge, making sure it had not twisted.

“Take it off once more. I’ve the end of this seam to close.”

The performer rose and slid out of the coat.

“I’ll use that,” they said.

“Which?”

“The second one.”

“The one I actually showed you?”

The performer looked at Sidony, who was threading her needle.

“The one after.”

“There wasn’t a one after.”

“There was,” Sidony said.

Clavadin opened his hand, then closed it again. He was not going to provide further material until they had learned to distinguish what they had already been given.

The performer laid the agreed fee on the cleared end of the worktable and waited while Sidony finished the seam. She turned the cuff right side out and brushed away the remaining chalk.

This time the coat went on without instructions. The performer sat and tried the broad greeting, then the small waiting hand. Both cleared the chair.

“Good,” Sidony said.

The performer looked at Clavadin.

He nodded. “Mind you let the person finish speaking before you go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think he does.”

“No,” Clavadin said. “I don’t suppose he would.”

The coat left on its owner. Sidony gathered the loose thread into her palm and put the scissors away.

Clavadin had enjoyed himself enough to forget how long he had been sitting forward. He settled back against the cushion and let his breathing find its easier pace. Sidony finished clearing the table. He watched her fold the cloth that had been beneath the coat and lay it ready for another day’s work.

When she brought her chair beside his, he had almost decided to leave the matter alone.

For a while they sat without speaking. Someone in the street called to someone farther away; a door closed, and a little later the reply came from below the window.

Clavadin lifted his hand.

“Watch.”

Sidony looked at him.

“This is what they did.”

He gave the fingers a small impatient curl and let the wrist sag.

“And this—”

He leveled the hand. The fingers rose with perfect deliberation. He held them there, allowing her to appreciate the difference.

Sidony began to laugh.

“Wait,” he said, delighted. “You haven’t seen it properly.”

He made the second gesture again, even more carefully, and she laughed harder.