Long Sun - Nightside The Long Sun Part 56

*Tni not. I've been wanting to tell somebody about it since Sphigx was a cub. You already know, so it can't [any harm. Besides, she's-she's-" >ne," Silk supplied.

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Orchid shook her head. "Dead. The only one alive, and I'll never have any more now. You know how places like this work, Patera?"

"No, and I suppose I should."

"It's pretty much like a boarding house. Some places, the girls are pretty much like in the Alambrera. They don't hardly ever let them out, and they take all their money. I was in a place like that once for almost two years."

"I'm glad that you escaped."

Orchid shook her head again. "I didn't. I got sick and they kicked me out-it was the best thing that ever happened to me. What I wanted to say, Patera, is I'm not like that here. My girls rent their rooms, and they can go anytime. About the only thing they can't do is bring in a buck without his paying. Are you with me?"

"I'm not sure I am," Silk admitted.

"Like if they meet him outside. If they bring him back here, he has to pay the house. So do those that come here looking. Tonight, we'll have maybe fifty or a hundred come. They pay the house, and then we show them all the girls that aren't busy, downstairs in the big room."

"Suppose that I were to come," Silk said slowly. "Not dressed as I am now, but in ordinary clothes. And I wanted a particular woman."

"Chenille."

Silk shook his head. "Another one."

"How about Poppy? Little girl, pretty dark."

"All right," Silk said. "Suppose I wanted Poppy, but she didn't want to take me to her room?"

"Then she wouldn't have to," Orchid said virtuously, "and you'd have to pick somebody else. Only if she did that very often, I'd kick her out."

"I see."

"Only she wouldn't, Patera. Not to you. She'd jump at you. Any of these girls would."

Orchid smiled, and Silk, confronted by the effect of her bruises, wanted to strike Blood. Hyacinth's azoth was under his tunic-he thrust the thought away.

Orchid had seen and misinterpreted his expression; her smile vanished. "I didn't get to finish telling you about Orpine, Patera. All right if I go on about her?" Silk said, "Certainly, if you wish." "I found her on die street, like I told you. That's some-' thing I do sometimes, go around looking for somebody if .- I've got an empty room. She said her name was Pine-you don't hardly ever get a straight name out of them-and she was fifteen, and it never hit me. It just didn't." j "I understand," Silk said.

*y "Somebody dusted her dial, you know what I mean? So 4 I said, listen, lots of girls live with me, and n.o.body lays a ^ finger on them. You come along, and we'll give you a good '* > hot meal, free, and you'll see. So she said she didn't have

*, t.i.tle rent money, like they always do, and I said I'd trust her ^ for the first month. That's what I always say.

"After she'd been here nearly a year, she ducked out of j , the big room. I said what's wrong, and she said her father %had come in and he'd made her do certain things for him

t*"- when she was little, and that was why she'd run out on him. You know what I mean, Patera?" Jfe, Silk nodded, his fists clenched.

Jrs**-

"She told me his name, and I went out and looked at him again, and it was him. So then I knew who she was, and by and by I told her all about it." Orchid smiled; it seemed strange to Silk that the identical word should indicate her Heartier expression as well.

I'm glad I did it now. Real glad. I told her not to expect favors, and I didn't give her any. Or at least, not very Often. What I did, though-what I did-" Silk waited patiently, his eyes averted. "What I did was start having cake on the birthdays, so we

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could have it on hers. And I called her Orpine instead of Pine, and pretty soon everybody did." Orchid daubed at her eyes with the hem of the pink peignoir. "All right, that's it. Who told you?" "Your faces, to begin with."

Orchid nodded. "She was beautiful. Everybody said so." "Not when I saw her, because there was something in her face that didn't belong there. Still it struck me that her face was a younger version of your own, although that could have been coincidence or my imagination. A moment later I heard her name-Orpine. It sounds a great deal like yours, and it seemed to me that it was such a name as a woman named Orchid might choose, especially if she had lost an earlier daughter. Did you? You don't have to tell me about it."

Orchid nodded.

"Because orpines, which only sound like orchids, have another name. Country people call them live-forevers; and when I diought of that other name, I said, more or less to myself, that she had not; and you agreed. Then when Blood suggested that she might have stolen the dagger that killed her, you burst into tears and I knew. But to tell you the truth, I was already nearly certain."

Orchid nodded slowly. "Thanks, Patera. Is that all? I'd like to be alone for a little while."

Silk rose. "I understand. I wouldn't have disturbed you if I hadn't wanted to let you know that Blood's agreed that your daughter should be buried with the rites of the Chapter. Her body will be washed and dressed-laid out, as the people who do it say-and carried to my manteion, on Sun Street. We'll hold her service in the morning."

Orchid stared at him incredulously. "Blood's paying for this?"

"No." Silk actually had not considered the matter of expenses, though he knew only too well that some of those

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connected with the final offices of the dead could not be avoided. His mind whirled before he recalled Blood's two cards, which he had set aside for the Scylsday sacrifice in any event. "Or rather, yes. Blood gave me-gave my manteion, I should say, a generous gift earlier. We'll use that." "No, not Blood. "Orchid rose heavily. 'Til pay it, Patera. How much?"

Silk compelled himself to be scrupulously honest. "I should tell you that we often bury the poor, and sometimes they have no money at all. The generous G.o.ds have always seen to it-"

"I'm not poor!" Orchid flushed an angry red. "I been pretty flat sometimes, sure. Hasn't everybody? But I'm not flat now, and this's my sprat The other girl, I had to-Oh, s.h.a.g you, you s.h.a.ggy butcher! How much for a good one?" Here was opportunity. Not merely to save the manteion the cost of Orpine's burial, but to pay for earlier graves bought but never paid for; Silk jettisoned his scruples to seize the moment. "If it's really not inconvenient, twenty cards?"

"Let's go into the bedroom, Patera. That's where the book is. Come on."

She had opened the door and vanished into the next room before he could protest. Through the doorway he could see a rumpled bed, a cluttered vanity table, and a chaise longue half buried in gowns.

"Come on in." Orchid laughed, and this time there was real merriment in the sound. "I bet you've never been in a woman's bedroom before, have you?"

"Once or twice." Hesitantly, Silk stepped through the doorway, looking twice at the bed to a.s.sure himself that no one lay dying there. Presumably Orchid diought of it as a place for rest and l.u.s.t, and possibly even for love. Silk could only too easily imagine his next visit, in ten years or twenty. All beds became deathbeds at last.

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"Your mama's. You've gone into your mama's bedroom, I bet." Orchid plumped herself down before the vanity table, swept a dozen colored bottles and jars aside, and elevated an ormolu inkstand to the place of honor before

her.