My setting out came eventually, after much learning on my part; yet when my setting out came, I was still without knowledge, I perceived, very much a lad looking for a man. In fact, when Lily’s father asked me why I had sold the house of my inheritance, my father’s house, where my childhood was lived, to go to a country I could not name, I had no answer. None at all.
“I suppose,” I had said, “I suppose that I am not going somewhere more than I am leaving somewhere.”
“I suppose,” he replied immediately, “that I will send you with my brother. I have an errand for him in the north country, and he is a man, one who oversees children going away from somewhere.”
This last bit—the tone of his voice I could not perceive; it was obscured by his accent. At that very moment, guilt rose up to tell me that he spat that last bit. Later, under a cup of his wine, something else patted guilt down, and I began to think that perhaps it was pity.
Pity in a man who lives and breathes in a pitiless world, especially taking from it his wealth to create his home, property, his life and his family, finds no direct path from the heart to expression. Instead, it is sliced and mangled, filtered through a network of anguish. Concern and disdain, concern and control are always battling in such a man. That is, if this man was trying to express pity. After all, a man showing pity is singular, notable.
I saw my father once show pity. Possibly. We had goats. One goat was particularly long-lived, and she was getting old, but she was still producing milk. She had never had a disease which affected her or her milk. She was always sweet-tempered, and her milk had always been sweet and rich; it made the most distinctive quick cheese. Even after the way of nanny-goats ceased with her so that she was producing no more milk for us, she endeared herself to Mother, becoming like another child to her.
Mother spent time daily holding the goat on her lap close to her bosom, nestling her and cooing to her the songs a mother might sing to her newborn child. The goat acquiesced; Father said she was humoring Mother, but his appraisal was tested. Weakness overcame the goat: she became blind and a little lame. All of us, father included, were exhausted from that day’s work, and we simply never considered that Mother’s beloved nanny-goat could, in the first place, walk any distance at all from the house, and, in the second place, that she would break her leg in a small crevice about twenty yards away.
Father would not slaughter her himself. He sent me to fetch the butcher from the marketplace.
Was it for the goat my father pitied? He spoke very gently to her, trying to calm her, but to no avail: she did not recognize him, and only panicked in her broken estate, bleating for Mother. The slaughter, needless to say, was noisy, bloody, and more than unpleasant. Mother had gone to town.
When she returned, she had nothing, and she wept over the goat. Father spoke very gently to her. Mother was never the same; I think the nanny-goat’s death changed the way she showed tenderness to her own children. Fortunately, we were nearly adults by this time, so it didn’t matter.
Was Lily’s father speaking tenderly to me? Or was he disgusted with me? A great sadness washed beneath the happiness that Lily had created in me, a sadness from time, from that place outside her father’s house where the sun does set, where summer is endlessly striking our brows until the winter kills everything. I was a child, and I was supposed to be an adult. It was a wave of sadness borne up by a tide of guilt.
I lay awake that first night, at complete peace and wholly restless. The satisfaction of eating that evening meal was desperately struggling against my natural unease. Pleasant sights and sounds and smells were reaching deep within me to strangle suspicion and mistrust, those paralyzing enemies of a man. The color of the day which had gained entry into my mind’s eye forced the night to yield up its darkness. I wonder: does the earth struggle against the plowman?
And then, fortunate eyes mine, Lily appeared. The couch to which I had been assigned according to the same manner of invitation as for dinner was near the hearth. It was still producing heat from the day’s meal preparations; I think that was part of the reason I was still awake: it was just becoming cool enough to pull a cover over myself. Far be it from me to have dared move the couch that night! Nevertheless, Lily appeared, glowing amber with the hearth coals, dressed in white, just like a dream, dressed to struggle against me.
She did not touch me; she whispered, “You are awake, I’m sure.”
“Yes. My stomach is warm.” That said just about everything.
“You should have something cool to drink, then.”
“Oh,” I said. “No more wine. That only seems to make me warmer.”
“Perhaps some water, then?” She said. I was flummoxed. Water?
“Why are you awake?” I asked her.
“I came to see if you had any needs.” With that, she took my hand and led me to her father’s little river. The darkness stole her from my view, and so I was led by her hand toward the water, which sounded its place to us.
“Stop here,” she bade me. I did so. Her fingers traveled from my hand up my arm to my shoulder, with a course toward my chin. At that point, I drew back a step, according to a reflex deep within. “Please hold still,” she requested in her mother’s voice. And so I did, but I was thoroughly discomforted, and my muscles stiffened from head to toe. She touched my lips and made a further command that I should remain motionless.
She let go completely, then warned me once more. I heard the sound of the water vary. A moment later, I felt cool water touch my lips. “Drink!” she said. She was holding water in the cup of her hands, and I was drinking cool water from her fingertips. Was she smiling with delight or furrowing in concentration? Darkness would not allow for an answer. She captured more water, and as she reached up to my lips a second time, I reached for her arms. Water was coursing downward along her arms, past her elbows toward her shoulders, the water cooling her. My hands held her shoulders. Strength had found its escape away from me into the darkness, along with sight of her and the answers to a thousand-thousands inquiries.
“Is that better?” She inquired.
“Yes,” I replied, because it was better, “but how am I supposed to sleep now?”
Her quiet laughter made it even better than better. “Do you like my home?”
“It is like the dream of heaven.” I thought of the bird we had for the evening meal, how perfect it was.
She laughed again. “Then you do not need sleep.” She reached for my hand, then drew herself near to me, but to move past me, turning me toward the house interior and leading me back to the couch. The glow of the hearth allowed for her shape to reappear. “Father,” she whispered, “will care for you as though you were his own.”
Suddenly, drowsiness crept over me. Once more I felt her hand as she pulled my cover over me, and I could not ask why her father would desire to do such a thing. Why should he care for me, an orphan of family and of thought? Why should he consider me his own, something just above a cur? What had just happened at his little river? Did he know? Did I?
It was Lily’s pillow under my head, and whatever oils and perfumes she used made their way into my sleep so that I dreamed of her forever for the remainder of that night. What is it about certain dreams? They have the power to reach beyond the sun into eternity, somehow, reflecting into a small pool the entirety of the cosmos, without history. Morning broke, and I awakened to Lily’s home enlightened by the morning sun.
The occasion of morning allowed me to investigate the route of our nighttime excursion. This little river of Lily’s father was quite an extravagant invention, I discovered. I could not perceive the mechanism, but the cistern was of several parts that somehow moved the water slowly in a circle, with a course around and through the charcoal bits, then filling up to an exit. Lily’s hands had caught the water there, after the cistern mechanism, so she could offer me water to drink from the river, thinking of it in reverse, that way. This water was for drink, food, and cleansing, and it came from the river to this man’s house, directly to his back doorstep. I touched a little of the water to my eyes.
We were about to break the fast of night. The goatherder had come and gone with a greeting that grew as bright as the sun, especially when Lily’s father requested more volume to their daily order. That was for my portion. As refreshing as sleep had proven to be for me, complete with the dreams from beyond antiquity, the goatherder brought back from the hills those questions which had disappeared into the darkness last night. They were swirling around without any direction or goal, but they could take their time because milk was swirling around with eggs in a bowl next to a hot skillet.
The hand of Lily’s mother took salt, sprinkling it into the bowl of eggs, then thyme, then commenced beating with a fork. Lily took a large, shallow pot from the oven and walked to the table. Butter began to cook furiously in the skillet. From the pot Lily took shortbread mounds and placed them into a basket on the table. Turning my head back and forth to watch the stagecraft made me dizzy. The hand of Lily’s mother suddenly poured the eggs into the skillet while Lily took dates out of the pot and put them into a bowl next to the shortbread. The hand of Lily’s mother took up the skillet, and while she walked toward the table, first one hand shook the skillet, then the other hand, then the other again, then both. At the last, with both hands Lily’s mother suddenly flipped the contents of the skillet into the air—high into the air. Lily and her mother cried out “Whoa, yai-ee!” following the main course of our breakfast from skillet to ceiling to skillet, laughing like little girls. By the time Lily’s mother had made the trek from kitchen to table, the eggs had finished cooking, and they were plated onto a warm stone near the head of the table. Lily’s father simultaneously appeared at the table, and we were all seated, saying a morning prayer:
“Heavenly Father, we thank you for keeping us this night, during which you watched us with the sun of your sight, and we pray that this food nurture us for doing good this day, during which you guide us with the same sun.”
What a magnificent prayer: short. My stomach had expressed the desire to be filled when the thyme, eggs, and milk had joined together with high heat on metal. That was only a few seconds ago, thanks to the mercy of Lily’s father and, apparently, his father in heaven. It said quite a bit, the prayer, that is, in a few words. At any rate, the prayer was hanging in the air, and, with a smile, Lily’s father was dividing up the eggs into four equal parts, distributing those short bread mounds and passing around the bowl of dates. They were soft and warm, yet the short bread was light and crispy on the outside, except on the bottom, where juice from the dates had soaked into them, to the delight of my fingertips and tongue. The crispy outside gave way, with just a bit of effort, to the inside of the shortbread, where short and bread joined together to create an oven of taste.
For drink was a cooked herbal of some sort, something Lily’s mother had created from mint and something else I could not identify but knew was bitter (bitterwort?), sweetened with a perfect measure of honey and cooled. It was invigorating. What else was hidden behind that pantry door?
“I shall return at midday today,” Lily’s father announced as he approached the door. “Dear bride, you do know that my brother is due to arrive. He may arrive here or he may arrive at the store, depending on his route to the city.”
“You do know, dear husband,” his bride returned, “that we are excited for his arrival.”
He looked at me. “Stay here, boy.” And he departed.
For the second time in my life, I was not free. I did not like that. Well, I was indeed free. His command was not binding to me. We had no contract, he and I, that I should obey him. What was this? Not a full day before had I been on my way to ultimate freedom, with a pile of money to my name, my dog at my heels, and easy adventures before me on an open and wide road between the Brother and Sister rivers. No family detained me, no responsibility to kin, no tax, no service, no work, no employer, no employee. Some tears, not shed by me, an invitation to dinner, a nice evening with the lovely goddess Lily—that is all! Now I was an obedient dog to this towering foreigner, collared by his word. Where was my will? Poisoned to death by that little river, no doubt, given unto me by the goddess herself, her father and her mother. All three.
When I considered a little more carefully, it occurred to me that my easy adventures were still ahead of me. I pictured myself trotting along with a pack, a stick, and Rescue, my dog, with the occasional random leap into the air as I clicked my heels together in joyous freedom. That remained a certain future. Additional time with the goddess—suspicious as I was of Lily’s father: did he trust me so near to his bright star? Additional time with Lily made my new slavery tolerable. I would retain my freedom again, eventually.
“You will go to the market for me,” declared Lily’s mother, and it was so.
The market I hated, whitewashed walls stretching upwards as far as the eye could see, crowding in all those people. Well, that’s not quite fair. The market was hidden from view, really, indistinguishable from the surrounding houses, warehouses, government buildings, prisons, workshops and alehouses, until you entered the doorway, which, for some reason, was only wide enough for my shoulders until I arrived at them. Only then was it wide enough for me and a couple of carts to pass through. No oxen were allowed beyond the doors, and livery costs were extravagant; therefore, many merchants pulled their carts themselves, or had children pull them in exchange for a taste of fruit or bread or perhaps some beads.
Angular was the marketplace’s description: none of the walls were plumb or square. Instead, they joined at odd angles and leaned inward, so that they could oversee all the transactions. A tradition persisted among the merchants that a previous king long-forgotten by those living, but remembered in libraries throughout the world, had caused the construction of all the buildings that formed the boundaries for the market, and he had made them so that his agents actually did record every transaction through little peepholes strategically located in rooms above the marketplace. From these records a tax-policy was created, one which also leaned into the lives of all who did retail business. “The Great Famine,” the very old men called it, recalling their fathers’ stories of a great deal of unhappiness, a poverty that included great stockpiles of food which people were unable to purchase. I considered it all nonsense because this marketplace was not even the main marketplace of the city. The Great Marketplace outside the tower had so much more open space and could be accessed from all quarters of the city with equal ease. Besides which, oxen were allowed within the Great Marketplace; therefore, the larger merchants were more inclined to do large-volume business, keeping prices and, therefore, taxes down. More than all that, the tax agents at the Great Marketplace answered directly to the King’s accountant; it was the King’s marketplace, which he himself owned, and which he himself licensed out to merchants. Security was not an issue, neither for the King’s tax agents nor for the merchants. Costs were low, prices were low, commerce was high. I loved the Great Marketplace (and the big, clean taverns nearby, all with the King’s seal on them), but it was a half-day’s walk there and back to my house at the edge of the city. A few beers made it a full-day’s walk, especially when laden with the goods I had come for.
Smoke filled the entire market arena, hanging low and gray. I was mystified how it did not darken those white walls. Smoke from the smiths and bakers and smelters drifted along the ground, moving along in little clumps like rodents of some dislikable type. Occasionally, some fast moving merchant or child or waif stirred one of the smoke rats up into my throat, squeezing out a cough in an uncomfortable spasm. Lily’s mother, however, knew the marketplace quite well, and she knew the merchants, and she knew their goods. She knew which was merchandise for sale and which were goods for her use; I was charged to obtain goods for use and avoid merchandise for sale.
Look for pears with a uniform color and a uniform softness, but look only at the third fruit merchant from the door—and so help you, turn right as you walk through the entryway, not left toward the cart decorated with colors and curvy shapes. Or was it left? It had to be right. She said right. Indeed, the cart decorated with colors and the shapes of the female was on the left. What was being sold here? I had never seen it there before, yet Lily’s mother had forewarned me of its pull, as if she knew it would be there as a snare, preventing me from accomplishing my task for her.
My head was caught in the shapes of that cart, twisting to the left while I walked to the right, twisted as though someone were twisting the head off an unfortunate fowl. Finally, I could walk no further: I encountered a cart with my shoulder, knocking a nice-looking basket to the ground under the glare of a very forgiving middle-aged lady. Pears, I said, I was looking for pears. She glared to my right. Yes, I would be stopping by the taverns before I returned from market. No, I had not visited them beforehand. What was at that female figure cart of curves and colors?
Pears, I ordered, on the account of Fieldstone, five of them.
I have seen fine stone before, in a palace-mansion of a royal person. It was white, glistening in window light, polished to a mirror shine, pure. If that stone were edible... Because he honored the account so much, the fruit merchant sliced a pear for me to taste. It was pure white fruit, glistening with honey-nectar, and the flesh was firm, but it melted in my mouth, absolute sweetness, pleasure, and delight. As for the fruit-merchant, he delivered a slice to his own mouth, and then yielded the other half of pear to two little children wandering nearby. They ate it standing still, without a sound. He smiled watching them even though they did not. It was impossible to smile; does anyone smile while experiencing ecstasy?
Those walls, I mentioned, stretched up to the sky, corralling all us people, making us into a crowd, squeezing us into a population of uncomfortable and suspicious strangers, quite different from when we were beyond the marketplace walls, where we were loose and agreeable friends, comfortably spaced, presenting ourselves to each other over the course of some considerable seconds and with outstretched hands. Here we were the same individuals, but a different people. I felt the eyes of every passer-by search my own person, looking for the slightest hint of dishonesty or malice in my own eyes. This searching I could not endure because I knew the truth; even though I had no evil intention at all, dishonesty and malice were at my core. A stranger so close had the advantage of distance and time: too close for defending and too short for reacting. I had my pears; I needed to make my escape before someone signaled to a guard to pull one of those leaning walls down upon me. I looked up at the sky, what little was available to see.
I had heard of fellows who soaked discomfort with beer and wine; I had a tendency to do the same, so I resolved to pause for a moment, breathe deep, and relax before I occupied a seat at the tavern. Some good men occupy a seat at the tavern far too long, accelerating the coming horizon to occupy a hole in the ground. It was tempting to me to do likewise, but I just didn’t see it. I preferred to speak nonsense and behave oddly at times than to completely drench—
“Would you like a nice hide?”
I turned to see a sweet-looking middle-aged woman smiling at me; she was holding out a nice hide. “Do I look like a traveler?”
Her smile broadened a tad: “A sky-traveler, at the very least.” She had seen me staring into the sky. “A marketplace is a wonderful place to start any travel; this hide is tanned to the highest quality standards, ready for preparation as a travel garment, a blanket-roll, or as a floor-covering at the hearth.”
“It smells wonderful, too,” I remarked. I winced on the inside.
She laughed and said, “Fifty Red for me, five Red for the King and five Red for my landlord equals one Mark.”
I reached into my belt. Perhaps I could recover the high ground: “I have the fifty Red for you,” I said, “but I’d like to give the other ten to the local tavern.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “That will never do. Rent and taxes are rent and taxes. Expenses are expenses.”
I paused, thinking to reach into my belt for the rest of the money, but she added, “But beer is beer, isn’t it? I can help you with that!” She handed me a token, then said, “One Mark of the Sun, please.”
It was a polished clay token marked with the name of the tavern: “Market Makers.” It wasn’t a terribly original name, but it was a token for a free beer.
“Oh,” I exclaimed. “Ten Red buys more than one beer.”
She immediately handed me another one. I quickly did the math, was satisfied, and delivered over a silver piece. She returned the copper pieces and placed the silver piece on her scales, which were marked plainly with the King’s inscriptions. Today’s values were clearly displayed at the scales, strictly according to regulations; I could see why beer had become so expensive: barley was trading at a pretty high value, according to the King. My silver piece was a bit heavy, so she weighed out one and a half pieces of copper.
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“Oh,” I exclaimed, “keep those for yourself.”
She handed me another token. “I happen to know the tavern owner,” she smiled. “Enjoy!” The nice hide was rolled onto a nice wooden dowel and delivered over to me. The transaction was complete.
“I’m going north,” I exclaimed, hoisting the hide onto my shoulder. “I should think I’ll need this for warmth.”
A different, though not unpleasant, look came over her face, and she said, “You are a traveler, indeed, if you are going north. That hide will serve you, I’m sure.”
I saluted, found the doorway, and exhaled. The hide really did smell wonderful. I held it pressed close against my head so that every step I took produced a breath of that aroma in my nostrils. Well, the marketplace wasn’t such a bad place after all! I was glad to be done with it, on my way to the tavern for three free beers. Something pale?
Pale, for some reason, I always mistook for “light,” as in “not strong,” as in “I can drink as many of these as I want and I won’t become a stumbling idiot.” And, for some reason, I mistook the time of the day to be mid-morning or mid-afternoon, as in, just after a meal, as in, not an empty stomach. Not only that, but the experience of the market left me in a thoroughly unpleasant mood.
So I marched directly to the “Market Makers” tavern. It was, essentially, a huge room, completely populated by hungry marketeers, tucked around support beams and in many corners, all of them eating the same meal being served to them by two thin boys with no smile. The tavern maker was completely the opposite of his two boys (which he continuously called them: “Boys, do this for that table; boys, this other table needs another serving,” and so forth. Of course, I could only hear him because he was shouting above the mirth of a gigantic crowd; when I say “tucked” I mean folded and tucked, but with absolute joy, it seemed), a rotund gentlemen, blessed with cheeks as red as beets, like one of those great big men who wandered in from the northern mountains every now and again, but this man was on the short side (perhaps that’s why he himself wandered down: to make a living doing something other than killing and whatever else it is the mountain men are supposed to do), and he was jolly, truly jolly. He knew, it seemed, every individual of this laughing crowd by name, and he knew what they were drinking. He was the tavern master.
I saw two different kinds of beers (the pale one looked quite delicious), strong wine, winewater, nectar wine, goat’s milk (for the children and bearing women), and a few waters scattered here and about (no doubt by order of physician; although I had heard of some peculiar religious types who drank only water. I thanked God again that I did not belong to such an order or had made such an oath).
A plump little lady about my age approached me: “Follow me, please; for one?”
I shouted something in assent, and followed her hips with my eyes, truly because she was a professional at making space in this mass with them, as any professional hostess would do. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant thing, following her hips. I’m sure everyone else did the same thing. With one last bump she paused and turned, completing her service to me with a question: “What will you be drinking?”
“The pale beer,” and I handed her one of the tokens.
She made a pathway to the tavern master, where he paused from his shouting and laughing for a second to glance at the token. Without a second glance he commenced his shouting and laughing again, pouring my beer. A thin girl, sister to the two boys, no doubt, delivered the refreshment to me. She made no eye contact.
I raised the cup above my face a bit, in a feigned toast to no one in particular, to my own health and to the health of everyone, then drank. I was thirsty, so I drank deeply. It was, as I had anticipated, a delicious beer. I held up a second token so that the thin girl could make her way to me—she had a more difficult time making a path with her hips; she was nothing of a professional, but she was thin—to fetch me a second beer while I was finishing the first.
She did notice me after a minute, and I smiled. She smiled the smile of a beer maiden who is about to be tired, and started toward me. There was an outburst of ruckus at one of the tables. A clatter of dishes, and the raising of voices was heard above all things, laughing, talking, joking, shouting, jostling, eating, drinking, declaring in fabricated anger that the cook should make his immediate appearance:
“By the God of this city,” he paused, while a few luncheon merrymakers finished their shouting to hear his. “By the God of this city,” and he paused again, this time for effect. “And by the God of this tavern,” and he paused for the twitter of laughter at his cleverness, and so that he could find his cup, which had been filled a few times, it appeared. “I declare this to be the best buffalo stew I’ve eaten this week!” A cheer went up, and a plate was deposited onto my table by one of those thin boys, who hustled away, but not without drawing the orator’s attention to me. “To you, my friend,” he shouted even louder, so that I could hear that his lifted cup was to me. “This, the best buffalo stew to be eaten this week!” I could feel my face flush.
I lifted my cup at the very moment the thin girl arrived, replacing in my hand, in a perfect coincidence of timing, the empty cup with a new beer, which brought a wave of laughter from my fellow-patrons. He continued with his erudition: “And this, the worst buffalo stew to be eaten this week!” At that, the men began to chant, “Cook, cook, cook, cook, cook,” all together. The women laughed, singing, “We want the cook! We want the cook!” And we all banged on the table with our cups, fists, bowls, “We want the cook! We want the cook! Cook, cook, cook, cook, cook…”
“Yeah hey!” Went up the cry of satisfaction, for there he was! A grimy little fellow with a broad smile, waving a towel over his head in time with “cook, cook, cook, cook,” marching toward the original orator, giving him a playful swat with the towel, turning and returning to his lair whence he produced his stew.
Everyone was self-satisfied and resumed shouting at each other.
What was this concoction which caused men and women to drink and laugh and talk? It was a buffalo stew, molded from an exquisitely tough animal. Fortunately, our premier chef had enough skill to pour a cask of wine over it, along with enough onions and leeks and peppercorns to kill any of the leftover mud and silt flavorings that pervaded the flesh of this gentle grazing beast. Upon further inspection, it appeared that he was skillful enough indeed to have added to his stew a rodent of some sort, perhaps a squirrel or hare, to give his stew some much needed texture. The bread, on the other hand, was devoid of any skill of his, so I ate it. I held up my third token. This was a tavern first, not an inn. The lentils I ignored altogether. The cheese, to be sure, went perfectly with the beer.
A third beer hastened to take the place of my second; I ordered a fourth forthwith on the condition that she watch the progress of the third beer to my advantage. Too early a delivery makes a waste of both the savory bottom of a beer in declining age and the froth of a newborn beer. A comfortable heaviness established itself in the lobes of my brain, and I sat back in my chair, ignoring the bits of gristle that remained of the mud buffalo stew with rat-hare, delicious though they might have been. The beer was doing its job, the other patrons were raucous with lunchtime joy, delaying their return to the market, where they would make their livings, and I was in no hurry to do anything whatsoever. The fourth beer arrived, perfectly timed, my copper pieces were taken in exchange, and I savored this final draught.
The center of attention was our man who had called for the cook parade. He sat at the head of a larger table, surrounded by what appeared to be a combination of confidants and sycophants, all of whom were laughing at nearly every sentence from this man’s mouth. How he could chew bread, drink beer, tell jokes and laugh all simultaneously I could not fathom. He must have been a miracle-worker at the market place.
At other tables alternated lower-class families and younger couples. The lower-class families were those who ran errands for market makers; they had a tough demeanor about them, grandfather, mother, and child, all a bit like the cook, grimy and cheerful, dark complected, I think from the cheap clothing. The younger couples were those who were buying into the market, trying to make a profit enough to pay debts while having a bit of fun in the meantime. They had a finer clothing, lighter fitting, but their smiles were held down by different kinds of cares.
In one corner was just such a couple, a man and a woman about my age. She was leaning over the table, with her legs crossed, while he sat way back in his chair, muttering something (muttering being a relative term for shouting at a lower volume) silly and sarcastic. She touched her wine goblet to her chin and laughed, saying something clever, he replying with something intelligent, both of them gazing at each other eye to eye, whispering to each other in that way; there was no need for shouting, for even if she had shouted to him what she was saying to him, no one would have understood the words. The language was easily comprehended, of course, but it was now their language. Her foot extended to make a perfect line with her shin, which she had pulled close to her other leg, pressing calf against calf, toe hovering just above ankle. She had her hair pulled back so that she looked quite tall and lithe. They were on an adventure together, and they were dressed for it, prepared for it, enjoying every moment of it, living life within those angular walls, departing only to go home somewhere a few streets over, and to come here for a meal or two every day. Buying and selling from a warehouse owner was life on the ocean for them, sending a runner to the bank with a note and some change, setting prices for the public, arguing with the King’s men (about what, I wonder), and then chasing away vendors from all points, receiving only the very best (in their minds) salespeople. I heard that even when a market maker lost everything, whether in a series of bad trades, bad market conditions, or whatever, the adventure continued the next day, with new inventory, a new line of credit at the bank, and a fresh look on the market, perhaps with new merchandise, new suppliers, or an entirely different target demographic. I mean, free beers appealed to me, that’s for sure.
There were no unhappy people at Market Makers, a remarkable quality of the place. That is, until the center of attention stood up, which was a signal to immediately end festivities. Men, women and children finished their last bits of bread and drink, and even though they continued in their conversation and laughter, the volume was much subdued. After all, work is work, routine, no matter the adventure, much as for a sailor on the ocean. Unhappy to leave Market Makers, happy to make the market happen.
As for me, I was neither happy nor unhappy to leave Market Makers. The patronage was all fixed, and I was an outsider: they were there to socialize; I was there to not socialize. What’s more, that fourth beer was laying a heavy load on my body in more than one way. An uphill climb with a heavy leather roll—probably, I figured, the outside of that stew we just ingested—along with those five pears, which had grown into melons while I was sitting there, not to mention the desire of at least one of those beers to escape my body. This was a cause for unhappiness. I began my journey up the hill to my house.
My house? No. To the house of the goddess; my house was sold, whose new owners had not made themselves known. What had he put in that fourth beer: a fifth beer? I knew from experience that this path was graded uniformly uphill, but this afternoon it seemed to pitch every now and again, straight down, then up. It was one thing to catch the earth coming toward me, or to try to find the earth as it sped away from me, but worst of all, the path suddenly pitched side to side, as though the path itself were trying to throw me into the ditches on either side. I was on my own adventure upon the ocean.
“Next time,” I reminded myself. “Pale does not mean light.”
“What does it mean?” a nearby stranger prodded.
“Drunk,” I said. “On my way to see a great big man with great big hands that go, that go, that go…” and I gesticulated despite the sack of pears and the roll of hide.
“Oh, I gather,” he said, grinning. “Crush your skull.”
I thought about it for a second: “Yes. Crush my skull. Why, oh why, did I have that fifth beer?”
“Brother,” he said, “that’s not my problem. But don’t worry about the next time.”
“Why not?”
“There won’t be one,” he said.
“Oh, no…” I groaned. “Don’t say that. This man, with his eyes, can make a glare so that the sun smites your brain, setting it on fire from the inside, and while you’re writhing in pain, he uses his hands to go smash!”
“You need to get home,” said the stranger, “before you cannot.”
“No home,” I said. “No home I sold it to drink beer for the rest of my life somewhere on the highways.” And I cleared my head to walk up the hill. I wished I had stayed at Market Makers for a sixth beer. At least I would never see that stranger ever again.
I found that I constantly had to check my hands to make sure I still had the five pears and the one roll of hide because I could not, for reasons obvious, control my fingertips. The lovely heaviness that had taken up residence in my skull had passed its way in a slow march from my head to the rest of my body, and I regretted, now, the celerity of my polydipsous spirit. Indeed, normally, I enjoyed that I lived on top of a great rise on the edge of the city, but the interminability of this journey home, and the prolonged agony of anticipation of sure punishment at the hands of that foreigner—curses! The path lurched out from beneath my feet yet again, completely expected but completely unanticipated.
Drunk: the goddess would see me drunk in the middle of the day. It was decided: I could not fail to return with haste (now especially) because I had the five pears. Those had to be delivered. I could not lie because I did not do so. I was as I was. I would not voluntarily confess that I was drunk; if someone else inquired, I would admit that, yes, perhaps I had imbibed a fair amount, but I would not admit to any shame. After all, free men have no shame. Was I free, or was I freed? Is there a difference? I turned to look for a moment toward the city and its tower which was always under construction.
The Wise Men, my father said, caused the tower to be built according to a sign of the stars, and when the stars and planets are lined up properly, the tower is oriented directly beneath one of the constellations (whose name I cannot remember). He said that the building of the tower had commenced before he was born, and that it had borne many different shapes and colors, and that it had always increased in size and height. There were occasions (and I remember some, too) when the tower was not under construction, but those were times when the King was being enthroned; that is to say, when the Wise Men had made deals with the priests and the chief financiers and other important people such that they subsequently found another sign in the stars to elect a new King after the old one had become inactive for a time. According to the Wise Men, there was only one King for all people for all time, and every once in a while his office had to be renewed to remind the people of their allegiance and sacred duty.
According to lesser men, such as my father, it was an oddity that God himself needed to raise an army, raise a tower, raise taxes, raise hell, and otherwise intrude into the lives of men to remain God, and that the “renewal” always included large exchanges of favors and patronage among fat old men who would be dead and forgotten, at least as soon as whatever building they caused to be built would crumble, hopefully sooner, or that same building would be renovated and thus renamed after another fat old man who had a transient interest in the eternal royal one sitting on his throne with his chin in his hand as he heard one complicated case of corporate law after one complicated case of tax law after one complicated case of divorce law, the King. My father, when I was younger, was a terrible bore about such things (We had three enthronements while we were children. They were rather exciting. Mother, especially, prevailed against Father that we should go down to the tower to see the enthronement. The entire city was crowded with merchants, court musicians, foreigners, puppet shows, dismountable theaters, fish mongers, fried dough purveyors, and street musicians. Everything was free, paid for by the King. And then great fires, tremendous speakers, and crowds and crowds of people roaring at times when they all thought appropriate. Finally, a chorus would drone, a priest and a Wise Man would rise, beckon to another man, who would rise, then give a token to one and to the other, who would then cause him to kneel, whereupon they would, one with the left hand and one with the right hand, place a crown upon his brow. That was always the signal to Father that it was time to go home, but as I grew older and less inclined to work to pay the King’s man for coming around to collect from my wages, my father became more interesting to me. His death was a particularly liberating circumstance for me).
Free or freed? Or not free at all? For certain, I was drunk, and the goddess would encounter me drunk.
Encountering her was a sobering moment. Dark clothing clung to her in those special ways; the cut of them—her form was hidden beneath a cloud of dark linen; yet her form was perfectly visible beneath a congeries of light sources: the sun, the moon, the stars, especially the twilight, when all the bodies gaze upon Lily.
I have a vague memory of an excursion with my father into the countryside to a great falls, a place where a river spread itself out over some large flat stones set high in a bluff. We camped beside it that day, setting a small tent as our shelter; it was the end of a perfect day with my father.
We had hunted some exotic bird with a net; I have forgotten how it worked. But we walked further from the city than I had ever remembered being, until we came to this promontory. We then fished until the sun began to set and a chill came up off the water. The water was speaking to us, anyway, burbling as such water does before it tips over in a roar of delight down such an unfathomable distance. Somewhere down in the abyss more drops of water than stars shouted back up to us and anyone who would hear that all is well in violence. So we built a fire and had a bird or two and a fish or two. He had brought salt along and had burdened me with a small flask of oil. Some weed-of-the-dragon was growing in a clump nearby, so we had that as our herb on the meat. A purple shade was placed upon the forest on the bluffs above the water. Behind this purple shade the sun was going to its rest, reaching with myriad orange lines to grasp at a few dark clouds patrolling in the air just above the gorge. Stars began their nightly dance around the barest sliver of the moon, and the planets spun in their untraceable courses around the stars, all of these actors putting together a performance that was marvelous in its intricacy, requiring the ages to perfect, but offered only this night. The next night’s performance would be radically different, planets spinning elsewise and elsewhere in the sky, stars dancing around a different moon, but a performance no less intricate and practiced. Everything was perfectly visible, stark, unmistakable, a universe of beauty and order moving into impending darkness, oblivious to the failing of the light. This was Lily, moving all her members around and about within the nightfall of her shroud of dark linen clothing.
It was sobering to see her; after all, I had drunk only four beers. When she put her arms around my neck, I could only stand there making a heroic effort to keep a hold of my hide in its roll on my shoulder. I did manage to gently set the precious cargo of five pears onto the ground.
“You brought back the pears, then?” she asked. She was smiling, and she was so close to me with her smile I tried to pull away to see more of her: I wanted to see her face inside her hair and on her neck. I did not pull away because I was like a sponge, heavy with her touch. I never imagined my breath having a scent of honey and human life, but hers was just so, in all truth. Who could escape her grasp? Life awakened inside of me.
“Yes,” I replied.
She looked at me for a moment, as though she were waiting for more information. I didn’t know what to say. Even if I had something to say, I would not have been able to say it sensibly. I thought it better to say nothing. She began to laugh. Of course, when she began to laugh, my own self had to adjust to this new experience. She still had her arms around my neck, and she was still very close to me, and she was still shrouded in dark linen (which, as an aside, was a fine linen, not like the kind commonly available in the market. This linen came from somewhere else and had some other skill), but she somehow had moved her body closer to mine, which paralyzed me further for some reason, while moving her head back so that I could, indeed, see her face in its proper frame. This was an incredible experience, having this goddess clinging to me, a wretched do-nothing. The smell of a spectacular spice of some sort—all this mystery—made its way into my senses; I think it was the same smell that made me dream of timelessness, the scent of Lily.
“Are you going to tell me about your wooden dowel?” she asked.
It took me just a second to understand what she was referring to. “Oh!” I exclaimed, pulling away from her to hoist my new hide off my shoulder, “It’s my hide; I bought it today. At the market. Near the same place where I got the peaches.”
“Pears.”
“What did I say?”
“You said,” she said, still laughing, “table settings and wood shavings.”
Did I? I thought for sure I had said pears. I looked at her and shook my head, wondering what I should say. The default, I found, was best to avoid competing for the reputation of local idiot, the default being, of course, to say nothing and merely look like the local idiot. Would that I could loosen my tongue like the heroes portrayed in tavern stage shows!
More laughter, that kind of laughter which is not in mockery, but in delight, turned her toward the house after she knelt down to fetch the sack of the five pears. “Follow me,” she said. “It’s time to prepare these for after dinner.”
I did follow her, first with my eyes, then with my body, with my mind following my eyes and body with many questions, most of which wondered what kind of slavery and imprisonment I had committed to with that fateful drink of water last night. Life was unfair that way. All of a sudden, it occurred to me that I was about to enjoy another meal of Lily and her mother.
Lily’s uncle, I called to mind, was due for the evening meal. Another thought began to arise into my brain during this dawn of sobriety: the stranger along the pathway up. He was faceless in my mind’s eye, merely a voice of unhelpful advice. I was certain, now, that I had encountered the brother of Lily’s father. This was going to be a complicating factor. I felt in my mind hinges creak and wings flap in an effort to determine the best course for navigating these new canal works. Alas, nothing came immediately to mind, so I decided to steer the simple course, as from beforehand, and hope that I could still remain near the goddess.
Naturally, as soon as the feathers of my underfed farm birds began to settle, Lily’s uncle appeared on the pathway up. At the same moment, Lily’s father appeared in the doorway to his home. I had forgotten that he had announced that he would be home at midday. All the blood drained from my face, and I did what I do best: I froze. Foolishness is akin to ice in this way. I suppose I could have ducked, but no one had thrown anything at me. Perhaps I could have run, but what direction? Away? My only other alternative was to have made threatening gestures, but that was utter silliness, and I laughed to myself while I remained frozen in foolishness.
Unfortunately, Lily’s uncle drew nearer, and my self-comforting laugh was extinguished. A face was put to the stranger’s voice, in a great way. Here was a man who was a carved icon of his brother, except that he was a head shorter than Lily’s father. And every other feature was exaggerated. Where Lily’s father had a distinguished nose, a foreign nose, his brother had a great nose, a weapon in its own right. Where Lily’s father had a brow which crowned his eyes, his brother had a great overhang of furrowed flint. Great ears, great beard, and great gray hair sprouted from his head. Gray hair sprouted from everywhere, in fact, from within his great ears and great nose and between his great eyes and from beneath his clothing. He was foreign, an eyeful of man.
His voice, however, was not great. Well, it was a spectacular voice, but one would suppose that such a robust man, shorter, thicker, and loaded with great physical attributes, would have been given also a great robust voice. Instead, he spoke with a voice which rang out, a tenor, to be sure, as sure and fine as any cast metal. This was a voice which could be distinguished above any din and could order from afar. His vocabulary, nevertheless, matched his stature:
“Ho!” he shouted to his brother (I thought). “Ho, I see you have fetched the man, brother!” Yes, he was speaking to his brother.
“You passed him along the way, did you not?” Lily’s father inquired, puzzled.
“Indeed,” he shouted in reply. “But I did not recognize him according to Lily’s portraiture, and I, thus addlepated, continued along the way until a kind impecunious wretch alerted me to my transgression. My deepest apologies,” he continued in a louder register yet, almost overpowering, and approaching me, “to you, O Lily, for I have aggrieved you, I’m sure. This man is according to your description almost exactly, now that I have drawn near to our subject a second time.”
He held out his hand in greeting. Why did I perceive a wink where there was none? Suddenly, his hand was upon my shoulder, and because it was, naturally, a great hand, it was also upon the back of my neck. I was frozen before; now I was utterly powerless. At least a statue resists, and ice melts over time, but I was a kid led by his mother. I may as well have begun bleating.
I laughed again.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“I have a kinship with this kind of mirth,” he replied.
To this I had no response. Nevertheless, this evening was beginning on less an ominous pathway than I had anticipated. On the other hand, Lily’s uncle brought no comfort to me, not in the sense that I was going to be comfortable anytime soon. He had taken possession of me in an instant, but not as property. What was it? Kinship? Even if it was kinship, I wanted no part of a relationship of any kind, whether slave or employee or kin.