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Whipster 3

BLURRED LINES

Dusk Peterson

The year 450, the fourth month.
 
 

In response to my position that a desire to avoid all that was "tough" [i.e. young men who engage in immoral acts] meant to walk only in the paths of smug self-seeking and personal improvement leading straight into the pit of self-righteousness and petty achievement and was exactly what the Settlement did not stand for, they contended with much justice that ambitious young people were obliged for their own reputation, if not for their own morals, to avoid all connection with that which bordered on the tough, and that it was quite another matter for the Hull-House residents who could afford a more generous judgment. It was in vain I urged that life teaches us nothing more inevitably than that right and wrong are most confusingly confounded; that the blackest wrong may be within our own motives, and that at the best, right will not dazzle us by its radiant shining and can only be found by exerting patience and discrimination. They still maintained their wholesome bourgeois position, which I am now quite ready to admit was most reasonable.

—Jane Addams: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1912)

CHAPTER ONE

"Anything interesting in the newsie?"

Janus Roe, sitting in a chair as he transferred a pile of brightly colored suits into a box destined for a steam-laundry, shook his head in reply. He glanced at the open newspaper on the table beside him as he said, "Nothing much. My cousin is engaged to be married." He read further down the column, snorting. "That girl? He must have debts to pay."

"You know her?" Pausing, Michael looked up from his stand where he was sorting currency into piles.

"Distantly. I met her at the King's Grounds once, at a tea party. Francis must be marrying her for her family's money."

"Is that legal?"

Janus looked up, puzzlement deepening the few lines in his face. "What do you mean?"

"The Pleasure House Act of 382 makes it illegal for any man in his majority to whore himself."

Janus snorted again and returned to his newspaper. The suits, carelessly folded, continued to drop into the box one by one. After a while, Michael said, "Try to fold them more tightly. We pay the laundresses by the box."

Janus looked down at the clothes, then up at Michael. "Are matters that bad?"

In response, Michael wordlessly gestured to the small pile of currency bills in front of him.

Janus frowned. "Where are the drafts?"

"I don't accept them any more. You'd be surprised how many gentlemen find it amusing to write us drafts to bank accounts that no longer exist. Their honor would prevent them from cheating any other tradesmen, but we, of course, deserve such treatment." Michael wrote down a number, then brought out his bill holder and stuffed the money into it. The bill holder barely bulged.

"What about credit?" asked Janus as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves further; he was already stripped down to his vest. "Do we still accept that?"

"Only Archy's. And only because he hasn't paid his debt for three months."

"You should stop him from coming here till he pays."

"Do you remember the last time we did that? Evan wailed each night till I relented."

Janus sighed as he began pulling the clothes out of the box. His gaze drifted back to the newspaper.

The house was quiet; most of its inhabitants were gone for the day, visiting temple or theater. Janus found himself glancing now and then at a small bell strung above the door to the stairwell. The bell remained still. Janus hoped this was only because the dweller in that room was sleeping. He looked back at his newspaper.

Several minutes later, Michael said, "What are you making those approving noises about?"

"I don't make approving noises, do I?"

"Of course you do. And you growl when you read an article you don't like, and you go 'hem, hem' when you see something on a new topic. Watching you read is like watching a play. Which article do you like?"

"An item on the editor's page, by a new contributor. He writes about the terrible effects of prostitution. 'I truly believe that half the ills in the Kingdom of Vovim can be traced to the effects of this nefarious practice . . .'"

"Ah." Michael's voice was dry. "I don't suppose he gives his address so that we can ask him to contribute to a fund for ameliorating the effects of prostitution on one particular boy."

Janus glanced at the top of the article. "There's no indication of who he is. Just a byline: 'I. Truly.'"

"A pen name. What courage he shows." Michael returned his attention to the account book. After a minute he brought it over to Janus.

Janus scanned the proffered page quickly, winced, and nodded his approval. The account book closed; Michael stepped away.

"Shall I read you the article?" Janus asked.

"Don't bother; I can summarize its contents for you. Immoral women and boys, dragging down our society by their depraved ways, must be reformed or drowned in the river lest our kingdom fall under the wrath of Hell . . ."

Janus scanned the article quickly. Ignoring the reference in it to Hell, he said, "To be fair to him, he doesn't blame the boys and women. He blames the men who sell them."

"Oh, that's much better," said the whoremaster as he picked up his pencil again.

Janus let the final, emerald-green boys' suit fall into the box. "Michael, you have to admit that the world would be a better place if there were no houses of prostitution. Your own experience should tell you that."

"You know," said Michael conversationally, looking down at his papers, "no one listening to you would believe that you're part owner of a whorehouse."

A long pause followed. Then Janus said stiffly, "And I often wish that this and every other pleasure house in the kingdom would burn down. You know that."

Michael leaned on one elbow, placing the pencil behind his ear. His eyes rose from the papers to meet Janus's. "You remember how my parents apprenticed me to Outram's?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you know what would have happened to me if they'd been unable to find an apprenticeship for me?"

There was a silence, unbroken by any disturbance. As usual, the Riverbend district was deathly still during the daytime, with most of its population working in the manufactories at the west end of the district, while most of the remainder of its population slept off the effects of the previous night.

Janus said hesitantly, "Surely not."

"I was the eldest child, eleven years of age. I might have been able to survive on the streets. If my parents had continued to care for me at home, it's likely one of my younger brothers or sisters would have died of starvation."

"You don't know for certain that your parents sold you to Outram out of poverty. You don't remember; you only have Outram's word to trust."

"I heard enough of the other whore-boys' tales to know that it's a likely story. Some boys came to Outram's shedding tears of gratitude that they'd have shelter at night."

Janus sighed heavily and turned his attention to binding the box shut. A spring breeze slipped in through the open window and nudged the newspaper beside him. The inner walls of the house reverberated as the alleyway door was opened and shut, doubtless by some of the boys returning from Theater Avenue. A small dog yipped on the other side of the house. Very faintly came the sound of a squeaking floorboard.

After twenty months of dwelling in this house, Janus knew the nature of every sound in it. He rose, newspaper in hand, and began looking round to see where he had placed his jacket.

Michael said, "Don't bother to answer the door. Our regular patrons know that we're closed on feast-day afternoons, and anyone new should read the plaque of our hours."

"If he knocks, Lann might hear and try to get out of bed."

"The patron's most likely gone by now." Michael drifted toward the window overlooking the porch. Janus sighted his jacket and reached toward it.

His hand jerked as the newspaper was snatched from it. With his breath still caught by surprise, Janus looked round just in time to see Michael seat himself in the chair in the corner and stare down at the newspaper with apparent concentration.

Janus was still trying to make sense of this when he heard another squeak, this one of hinges. He looked at the door to the entrance hall; it was open. "Hello?" he said. "Is someone there?"

For a minute there was no reply, and Janus thought the intruder had left. Then he heard slow steps, and a moment later a young man appeared at the doorway. He was collarless, and the cap he pulled from his head was smoke-smudged. "Hello, Mr. Roe. Or can I call you Janus now?"

"Hasan!" Janus's voice was weak from the shock. "What a surprise to see you."

He looked over at Michael. The whoremaster continued to appear deeply absorbed in the newspaper. Janus wondered whether Hasan noticed that the newsie was upside down.

"Where's Lann?" asked Hasan, still standing at the doorway. "I figured on seeing him at his post."

"He's in bed," said Janus.

"Ah." Hasan's expression grew more somber. "I had mind you were staying him alive with that drug from Yclau."

"We ran short of money." Janus glanced at Michael, but the other man showed no sign of interest in taking part in the conversation. "Come in, Hasan. Forgive our ill welcome," he added, flicking another glance at Michael. "We didn't expect to see you here in the middle of the day."

"Aye, well, the manufactories are all closed today, so I figured I'd come and let the boys have knowing of I was still alive." He gave a quirk of a smile at his jest, then looked past Janus to the man in the chair. "Hello, Michael," he said.

Michael mumbled something indistinct and did not raise his eyes.

Janus, sensing that strong measures were needed to deal with this situation, came forward and guided Hasan into the room with a hand against the young man's back. Hasan shifted his gaze away from Michael long enough to greet Janus with a light kiss upon the cheek. "Is Lann bad?" he asked.

Janus shrugged helplessly as Hasan seated himself on the deep sill of the window that spanned the outer wall of the office. Hasan fingered his cap for a minute before saying, "Why don't you give tale to Archy? It may be he can help."

"Archy?" said Janus incredulously. "The man won't even pay his debt to us. How can he help us pay for an expensive drug?"

"Well, he has connections. It may be he has knowing of some folk who owe a favor to his mam and would be willing to help you buy the drug cheap."

Janus stared blankly at the youth at the window. In the corner of the room, Michael carefully turned the newspaper right side up and continued staring at it.

Hasan looked from Michael to Janus. "You mean you two aren't knowing?"

"Knowing what?" Janus replied.

"Why, that Archy's a prince."

Michael, in the process of turning a page, suddenly went still. After several seconds more, Janus asked, "Prince of what?"

"Yclau. His full name is Archbold Othman Emeric Ubald, Earl of Darkmoor and Prince of Yclau."

Another silence ensued, broken only by the laughter of boys in the courtyard. Then from the corner of the room came Michael's voice. "Which of those is his surname?"

"The Yclau royal family doesn't have one," said Janus slowly. "Archy hinted as much when he first met us. Hasan, are you sure this is true? Where did you hear it?"

"Why, 'tis common talk on Theater Avenue. You have knowing that Archy play-acts for the Theater of Mercy and Hell—"

"The temple theater. Yes."

"Well, 'tis the royal theater too. They say that, on the nights when the King comes to performances, he goes backstage after the play to speak with Archy about his family. And when visiting big-wigs come from Yclau, they go to Archy's plays and applaud loud-like when he walks on stage. Not because they have knowing of anything about good play-acting – they're Yclau, after all – but they're craving that he'll put in a good word about them to his mam, the Queen. I've caught tale that this annoys Archy no end."

"But what in the names of Hell and Mercy is a prince doing play-acting on Theater Avenue?" cried Janus.

"Oh, the tale that's told is that he saw a touring company from Vovim when he was young, and he was sick with theater fever from then on. Since there's no theater to speak of in Yclau, he moved to our kingdom."

"But he's heir to the throne?" Michael had now abandoned the newspaper to his lap.

"No, his sister is," replied Janus. "Yclau's monarchy follows the female line. Besides, there's no throne left for him to inherit. . . . Hasan, this can't be true! Archy is always claiming he has no money!"

Hasan shrugged as he placed his feet up on a box holding containers of sheaths and lubricant. "He's most like giving tale the truth. The tale told is that his mam was hot in heart about him growing to be a player, and they had battle over him moving to Vovim. Now he won't draw any money from his family, just the occasional gift. But he's got high connections in Yclau – despite everything, his title still means something in that country. It may be he can find a cheaper supplier for Lann's drug, if you and Janus ask him." He looked at Michael.

The whoremaster suddenly seemed to remember the newspaper in his lap; he dived into it, making no reply. After an awkward pause, Hasan rose slowly to his feet, saying, "I should say greetings to Lann while I'm here. He's still in his ground-storey room?"

Janus nodded, rising as Hasan did. "He's probably sleeping, but don't be afraid to wake him – he wouldn't want to miss your visit. Nor would the rest of us." He gave a pointed look at Michael, who did not respond.

Hasan moved toward the door to the entrance hall. He had just reached it when Janus thought to ask, "Which manufactory are you working in now, Hasan?"

Hasan turned. His familiar bright smile was his most distinctive feature on an otherwise plain face, but the smile seemed oddly brittle. "You are knowing Vovim's old dungeon?"

Janus, who had never been fully able to follow Hasan's trains of thought, said cautiously, "I know of it from the history books."

"Aye, well, there's a tale among the whore-boys of Theater Avenue that the dungeon is still hidden away somewhere, and that any full-grown man arrested for whoring himself is sent there so as he can be killed a painful death. I've decided not to test the tale."

Janus felt his stomach lurch without warning. He swallowed the sickness in his throat and said, "You haven't been able to find a job?"

Hasan shrugged. "'Tis just a matter of time, I expect. I'll find the right place for me in the end." His gaze grazed the corner of the room, where a man sat bowed over his newspaper, and then Hasan stepped away. A moment later, his voice could be heard in the courtyard, greeting the boys there.

Michael slammed the newspaper to the floor. He rose swiftly, took several strides forward, and ended up at the window overlooking the porch. He pressed his fist hard against his mouth as he gazed out with smoldering eyes upon the deserted Riverbend street.

And Janus, who knew that all of the above actions and expressions had been undertaken for his own benefit, so that he would know something of the thoughts that ran through Michael's mind, felt once more a familiar ache in his heart.

Michael sat in the darkness of the closet that served as his bedroom, peering down at the candlelit page and trying to ignore the words being spoken in the office nearby.
 

At his first words the color had left her face, and she had slipped to the opposite side of the fire, and stood watching him with horrified eyes.

"But you are not like that!" she protested.

"Yes," he continued, "and but for the gods' help I shall always be like that. It is an awful pull, and the gods only know how I struggle. I never quite saw the use of it all, until I met you six months ago; then I realized that the past two years had been given me in which to make a man of myself."

"We've said everything there is to say. I didn't even mean to come in today. I was just aiming to let Lann be knowing how I was, so as he could spread the word to the other boys, in case of anyone was asking about me."

"He misses you, Hasan."

"Can he miss me?"
 

As he finished speaking he saw, for the first time, that she was crying. He sprang forward, but she shrank away. "No, no, don't touch me! I'm so terribly disappointed, and hurt, and – stunned."

"But you surely don't love me the less?"

A sigh. "Janus, he doesn't have knowing of what it is to miss someone or long for someone or desire someone. He's incapable of feeling that – of feeling anything."

"It's not his fault, Hasan!"

"I never gave tale 'twas his fault."

"Then stay with him. He's trying to change—"

"Is he?" The voice was cool. "I've seen no sign of a change."
 

She was very young, with the stern, uncompromising standards of girlhood; life was black or white to her, and time had not yet filled in the canvas with the myriad grays that blend into one another until all lines are effaced . . .

A pause. Then: "I'm hot in heart. I'm not hot in heart at him. Leave lie, Janus; there's no point in us giving speech any more to each other."

"If you could hear how he talks of you—"

"Janus, the best thing I can do for him is abide away from him."
 

"You are mistaken," he cried. "Just because you have seen me in that condition, you have no right to draw such a conclusion. I am weak, nobody could deny it; but what can you know of the struggle I make, of my eagerness to do better, of the fight that I am constantly making with myself?"

His words fell on deaf ears.

"He's got no heart, Janus. That's the point. Have you ever seen him cry?"

"Hasan . . ."

"No, leave lie, Janus. I shouldn't have come, and I'm going now. Goodbye."
 

He held the door open as she passed out. His face was cold, calm, inscrutable; not a quiver of the mouth, not a flutter of the lids, but the light went out of his eyes and hope died within.

She was crying . . .

He let his left leg fall open. Raising his arm, he brought the hunting crop down, hard and precise, onto the tender skin of his inner thigh.

The first lash was not enough; he brought the crop down a second time and a third, until he felt the water prick at his eyes. His body was trembling now. He dropped the crop into his lap and bowed his head over his knee, feeling the hot tears trail down his face, until the burning pain on his leg eased enough that the tears were taken from him.
 

CHAPTER TWO

"My mother?" snapped Archy. "Don't speak to me of my mother. She's a flesh-eating demon."

"Those are hard words," observed Janus, who had been known to apply words like that to his own mother, though only in his thoughts.

Archy snorted as he leaned over to examine a suit that was roughly the color of the city's river when sewage had been cast into it. "You'd need to meet my mother to understand. She eats souls for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner, leaving nothing but a few cracked bones. . . . Is this the best you can give me?" he asked the old woman standing nearby, who was chewing greens that looked suspiciously like silver pot-herb.

She grunted and mumbled something about more suits in the wardrobe.

"Well, what good are they doing anyone back there?" Archy asked, throwing down a pea-green suit. "Fetch them, if you will."

The old woman rather looked as though she wouldn't, but after a minute during which she and Archy exchanged level glares, she heaved herself heavily around and shuffled through a dark doorway.

"Splinters of bones," said Archy, as though there had been no interlude. "The woman wouldn't be satisfied if she was reborn as Mercy. Though Hell is more her style. Do sit down," he added with a wave of the hand.

Janus looked round. As far as he could tell, there was no place to sit in this dusty corner of the backstage except the piles of clothes. When he looked again, he saw that Michael, more enterprising than himself, had cleared out a crate holding scraps of discarded cloth, had upended it, and was sitting cross-legged upon it. Janus came over and sat on the edge next to him, placing his walking stick and hat across his lap.

"Look you," said Archy, still frowning over the pea-green suit on the floor, "I was six years old when the revolutionaries broke through the palace defenses. Everyone had been predicting beforehand that there'd be a bloodbath, like there was here in Vovim when the last king of the old monarchy was finally overthrown. My father had died when the defenses crumpled, trying to hold back the rebel forces. The rest of us were in the throne room, awaiting our rebirth into a better life. I remember my sister urging me to hide under a table, but I refused – not because I wanted to die, but because my mother was scowling at me, obviously dissatisfied that I should live while she died. —Bloody blades, no!" The final words were spoken with horror as the old woman returned and hung up three additional suits on a rack. "This isn't a comic pantomime, woman!"

She shrugged. "I'll have to make them, then. What d'you need?"

"A single-breasted sacque suit. Black. Not green or gold or this sickening shade of mauve. Just plain black. Try not to make me into a spectacle for the hooligans in the gallery to throw rotten fruit at."

"What about the final act?"

"I haven't read that far yet."

"Well, I hope you don't expect me to be sewing on performance evening." She folded her hands over one another and looked triumphant at this lapse on Archy's part.

He sighed and reached into his jacket to pull out a roll of papers. "I'll let you know," he promised.

Still sniffing triumphantly, the old woman shuffled out, bearing her burdens back into the dark. Archy, glancing around in vain for a chair, settled himself down upon the sawdust-strewn floor and began flipping through the pages, saying, "When the rebels finally broke through, they were as polite as can be. Offered my mother and sister their arms as they escorted us out, if you can believe it. That would be old Bainbridge's influence, no doubt."

"Bainbridge?" said Michael, who was wearing an expression of polite interest on his face. Janus wished that a theater critic were present. He imagined a review in the newspapers that began, "The outstanding performance of the evening was by Mr. Michael, a young player who has proved himself to be of exceptional skill in improvising an expression of polite interest . . ."

He pulled himself back into the present in order to say, "Bainbridge was founder of the Commoners' Guild in Yclau. He was still living at that time."

"Myself, I was satisfied," said Archy, frowning as he ran his finger down a page. "They'd left us alive, which was more than we deserved, given the manner in which my mother had bungled her rulership since ascending the throne. They even gave us a respectable-sized house to live in, servants to tend us, and an allowance to see my mother and sister through to old age and myself to manhood. All incredibly generous. But of course my mother, that demon, wasn't satisfied. She wanted her throne." His finger stopped at mid-page. In the next moment Archy had bounded to his feet, giving a wordless roar. He looked round frantically and caught sight of a young man strolling by, busy biting into a sweet-bun.

"Hackerson!" Archy called. "I need someone to fetch Morris. . . ."

The young man looked Archy up and down, as though inspecting his fitness for continued existence. "Fetch her yourself," he replied. "Who do you think you are, giving me orders? I'm your fellow player, not your whore-boy."

"Certainly you aren't him," said Archy mournfully. "If you were my whore-boy, there's much less chance that you'd do as I asked."

The young man, who had been about to continue his lunchtime stroll, paused in his tracks, evidently disconcerted by this reply. In a wheedling voice, Archy said, "Please, Hackerson. I have guests to tend to." He waved his hand toward the crate where Michael and Janus sat.

The young man glanced briefly at them before turning his eyes away. Then his gaze snapped back. Janus was unsurprised to see that he, in his gentleman's suit, was not the focus of the young man's renewed interest.

"Well," the young man said, "as a favor to you." His gaze remained fixed upon Michael as he spoke. Michael gazed back, all expression drained from his face.

The young man shook himself after a moment, as though waking from a dream, and began to hurry toward the left wing, stumbling as he did so because he kept looking back over his shoulder. Archy waited until he was out of earshot before saying, "Dear Michael, I don't know how you do it. No other man I've met draws those kinds of looks from Vovimian men."

"He's barely out of his boyhood," Michael observed, still motionless in his cross-legged pose.

"Doesn't make a difference. I've seen sixty-year-old patrons goggle when you walked into your courtyard. You'd think that you'd suddenly transformed your house into Yclau territory."

"Well, we're not in Yclau," said Janus, "so could you keep your voice down, please?" He was acutely conscious of half a dozen men on a beam several yards above them, fixing the stage lights and occasionally casting curious glances down upon them.

Archy laughed. "Janus, this is the theater! In no other place in the world is there such freedom to talk. We can discuss anything here: whipstering, drilling animals, grown men sleeping together . . ."

The young man reappeared in the doorway leading out of the wing. He halted there and reported, "Mistress Morris is in conference with the property master. She says that if it's another problem with the script, you're to talk to Mr. Roycroft."

"She always says to talk to Roycroft!" cried Archy, but the young man had already turned away, rushing to join a group of young women who had entered the backstage – obviously tourers from the provinces, judging from the manner in which they stared with open-mouthed fascination at the theater trappings.

Archy sighed and gathered together his papers. Once again pretending there had been no interval between the acts, he said, "From that day forward, my mother's sole goal in life was to win back her throne. Not for herself – fortunately, her few remaining supporters were able to convince her that she had no hope of regaining the throne on her own behalf. Instead, she announced that the throne belonged to her heir, and she further stated that anyone who claimed allegiance to the new Common Council was a traitor deserving to be racked to death.

"You can imagine how that made her popularity soar among the commoners. She paid no attention to the fact that her only supporters were a group of disenfranchised lords. She acted as though the rebels had not moved with the support of the majority of Yclau citizens. Fortunately, my sister proved to be more tactful; otherwise, we'd have been lynched before I reached manhood. —What kind of bloody script is this?" He glared down at the pages he was sorting and rose to his feet.

"Problems with the management?" Michael asked. The expression of polite interest had returned to his face.

"Isn't there always?" Archy replied with a sigh. "Mind you, anything I endure here is small in comparison to what I went through as a child. I was supposed to be my father's successor, you see – the man who would lead the royal army in victory over the seditious rebels. The fact that the royal army no longer existed and that the Common Council was proving its worth to the world was of no interest to my mother. Nor did my mother care about the fact that I had neither talent nor love for soldiering. We fought about that for five years. Then she decided on a new tactic: she would win another powerful ally to her cause by marrying me off to an influential family. And so, at the tender age of eleven, I began to be placed on display to every elite family left in Yclau, groomed for my role as royal stud. Every eligible girl, beautiful or ugly, was forced into my company, and I was expected to show delight with each girl whom my mother had selected as my wife."

"I expect," said Janus, trying to show sympathy, "that you grew tired of girls after a while."

"Oh, would that I had. That would have been the better ending to the story. Instead, I grew obsessed with girls – dreamt of them nightly. Began searching out whorehouses as soon as I was old enough to bluff my way past the doorkeepers. I was like a cat in heat. Fortunately, it was around then that I found the theater and discovered that there are higher activities in life than spending one's every week-break rutting in bed."

"Indeed," said the whoremaster whose house Archy visited every week-break. "So you turned your attention to drama?"

"With such screaming from my mother as can be imagined. I had to wait until I was in my majority before I could take my first acting job. Fortunately, I was able to find a position with one of Yclau's better touring companies. The manager liked my looks," he added with a smile.

Janus, who had been craning his neck to stare up again at the lighting-men, felt his breath go in at the wrong moment. As Michael patted him on his back to stop his choking, Archy said with amusement thick in his voice, "Dear Janus, it's not such a thing as to be shocked at. It's a time-honored tradition in Yclau for the youngest member of the company to be trained by the most experienced member. And I was eighteen then, an adult by Yclau law. There was nothing illegal about our entering into such an arrangement."

"Was your training thorough?" Nothing in Michael's expression revealed whether he meant this as a joke.

"Well, I certainly hoped it would be on the night I first went to my manager's bedroom. Can you credit it, I was still a virgin to males at that time? It was my mother's damnable influence on me. Smothered amidst all the girls she had paraded my way, I had never thought to so much as kiss another boy. So I was prepared to have all the riches of an unknown play presented to me. And would you believe it? We had no sooner started the first act when it became obvious that I . . . could . . . not . . . perform!"

The last words were delivered in a voice such as Archy must have used on performance nights, for the end of his speech reverberated through the backstage, causing the touring girls to stare admiringly at the broad-chested man nearby. The young man, who was now serving as their escort, glowered at Archy. The lighting-men, who were the only witnesses to have heard Archy's earlier words, were openly laughing. Janus felt his face grow hot. He looked over at Michael, who seemed not to notice that anything was amiss. Then Michael glanced up at the lighting-men, took their cue from them, and emitted a belated chuckle.

Archy was busy glaring at the lighting-men, as though they had eavesdropped on a private residence. He looked down to say, "I'd best tackle Roycroft before he breaks for lunch. Come, we can finish talking afterwards." He beckoned them up from the crate.

"But your manager eventually taught you to perform?" asked Michael as they rose.

"Oh, yes, I learned in the end, but not from my old manager. I had to go to a mind healer for that."

"A mind healer?" said Janus. "What is that?"

"Ah, I forgot; you won't have heard of mind healers. They're not well known outside of Yclau. —Mind the wires," he added in the moment before Janus, hurrying to catch up with him, would have tripped and fallen flat on his face.

Michael was already ahead of Janus, taking a wide detour of a freshly painted canvas that was being lugged by four men onto the stage. As the canvas was set down, the man directing the work shouted up at the lighting-men, "Lights! No, higher! No, higher than that! No, it's no good, the colors are too faint. This will have to be redone."

"What?" shouted the outraged scenery painter standing beside him.

Janus made his way past this new crisis and past a knot of messenger boys who were playing with guns – stage properties, Janus hoped – as they idly watched the activity taking place at the far end of the stage. A cluster of men and women stood there, some with their backs to the theater seats in order to be able to read the scripts in their hands under the faint electric lights above. Most, though, were empty-handed and were looking toward a two-tiered box-stand at the farthest end of the stage. On the top tier stood a man stripped down to his trousers and shirt under the heat of the lights. On the step below him, swinging her legs and chewing on gum, was a girl of about fourteen; she was staring intently at a script.

One of the women who was empty-handed said, in a high, dramatic voice, "How quiet it is tonight—"

Her words were cut off by a fury of hammering from the carpenters nearby, who were in the process of building a set of stairs on the stage. The man on the box raised his voice to say, "'How quiet it is.' Yes, go on."

The woman, frowning over her shoulder at the carpenters, did not appear to want to continue pursuing this particular train of thought. The man beside her, dressed in a gentleman's suit, said, "Mr. Roycroft!"

"Yes, Mr. Parnploy?" The stage manager had to raise his voice yet again as a group of property laborers began to drag in a set of potted trees.

"I hardly want to criticize a fellow player's promptings from the gods," shouted the man in the gentleman's suit, "but it seems to me that Mistress Wilkins is not being sufficiently passionate in her lovemaking to me—"

The final words rang out clearly throughout the theater as the carpenters and the property laborers conspired together to abruptly stop their noise at the same moment. The messenger boys began to roll on their backs in laughter. The player in the gentleman's suit turned red.

"Thank you, Mr. Parnploy," the stage manager said serenely. "What is the direction for this scene again?"

"Katerina reveals the full passion of her love to Edwin,'" read the gum-chewing girl without looking up from the script.

"Mistress Wilkins, can you explain to Mr. Parnploy why the gods compel you to play the scene this way?" asked the stage manager.

"Well, I don't know," said the woman, looking flustered at having to justify her performance. "It's not so much the gods' calling that makes me do it. I mean, this is how men and women make love, isn't it? Through making commonplace remarks to one another?"

"Mistress Wilkins," said Mr. Parnploy in a heavy voice, "I do not wish to question your experience in such matters, but—"

At this unfortunate juncture, as Mistress Wilkins was raising herself up to her full height of five feet, the girl acting as prompter reached up and tugged at the stage manager's trousers. With his mouth still open to quell the riot that appeared ready to erupt, the stage manager looked down at the girl, then followed her pointed gesture toward the player with folded arms, who was standing outside the small circle of rehearsal.

"Oh. It's you." The stage manager's voice was flat. "What do you want?"

For reply, Archy held up the script.

The stage manager sighed.

"Take the matter to the manager, please."

"She told me to come to you."

"Then speak with the playwright."

"You are the playwright!" roared Archy, possibly in an effort to be heard above the rising voices of Mr. Parnploy and Mistress Wilkins.

"Quiet, please," the stage manager said severely to the quarrelling couple, and they shut their mouths, though Mistress Wilkins looked ready to poke her parasol into Mr. Parnploy's eye.

"Lord Archbold," the manager said carefully to the other fuming player, "that is next month's play. Kindly allow me to finish this month's play first."

"No!" roared Archy, in a louder voice than he had used before. "I have the costume keeper breathing against my back, demanding to know what my costume for the last act will be. What the bloody blades am I supposed to tell her?"

The stage manager sighed again as he climbed down the box to stage level. "Mr. Johnson!" he called, and the man who had been directing the scenery placement turned round. Mr. Roycroft beckoned to him, then addressed the rehearsers, who had now joined forces to glare at Archy. "Attend to the assistant stage manager, please."

Archy had already leapt down to the privacy of the orchestra. Janus was searching for the nearest stairs when he realized that Michael was no longer beside him. He looked round and finally sighted Michael standing in the commoners' pit, with his back to the stage.

Janus found the stairs to the auditorium and hurried down them. Behind him, the rehearsal had started again. To the left of him, Archy was saying, "What do you mean, it's a perfectly good play? Listen to this, man. 'Mistress Clementine reveals to Mr. Aides that she has broken faith with him. Mr. Aides replies in anger.'"

"If you can't improvise to those directions—" the stage manager began.

"Of course I can improvise to those directions! I could do that part in my sleep! But listen to what comes next. 'Act Six. Resolution.' Resolution? Resolution? What kind of bloody stage direction is that? How am I supposed to resolve the play without knowing what the resolution is?"

The stage manager sighed heavily. "Lord Archbold, sometimes I think you've forgotten you've left Yclau. The resolution is determined by your performance in Act Five. Once the gods of the players have guided you to the end of Act Five on the day of your performance, you'll know what to do in Act Six. In the meantime, you rehearse the play in the various ways it might go on the day of the performance—"

"And what in the names of all the players' gods am I supposed to tell the costume keeper? 'Make me a bridegroom's suit in case I marry her, and make me a mourner's suit in case I kill her'?"

"You think you might kill her?" The stage manager's voice was filled with curiosity. "Have you discussed this possibility with Mistress Wilkins? You don't want to spring that type of scene on her unprepared, even in rehearsal . . . ."

Michael had his arms folded against his chest; he was staring up at the empty gallery, with a face equally empty. Janus saw that his fists were clenched.

"Michael?" Janus said uncertainly.

"I feel a bit sick," said Michael, his gaze still upon the gallery. "I think it's due to the smell of all that scenery paint. Let's wait for Archy outside."

They had passed the box office and had just slipped out the main entrance when a man on the street, walking energetically toward the south, bumped into Michael. The man put out a hand to Michael to catch his fall, then allowed the hand to linger. "Michael!" he exclaimed. "What a pleasure to see you, my boy." There was a very slight emphasis on the word "my."

"Outram." Michael managed to slip out of his old whoremaster's grasp without seeming to do so, but was trapped between Outram and the theater door. Janus, standing beside him, quickly stepped between the two men, using his walking stick as a bar to force Outram beyond reach.

The whoremaster took no notice of him. "I'm so very glad to meet you today," he said to Michael, smiling. "I wanted to be the one to tell you: The Guild of Municipal Pleasure Houses has petitioned parliament to offer our support of a bill to amend the Pleasure House Act. The bill would outlaw all pleasure houses that do not meet the minimal standards for municipal or provincial sponsorship. It is the first time our guild has ever voted in favor of an amendment to the act, so we expect that our petition will be favorably received by the members of parliament."

"Oh?" Michael's voice was as colorless as clear water. "Such an amendment would require the signature of the prime minister, I believe – or am I incorrect, Mr. Roe?"

"No, you're right," said Janus, taking his cue from Michael. "I'm surprised to hear about this. My uncle failed to mention the petition when I breakfasted with him this morning. Did you deliver the petition directly to him, sir?" he asked Outram, who was beginning to turn scarlet.

"No doubt the petition is working its way through the committees," suggested Michael.

"I suppose so. If you would care to tell me which clerk filed your petition, sir, I would be glad to check about it with my uncle the next time we—"

Outram, now purple in face, turned away abruptly. His umbrella point slammed down upon the sidewalk as though it were a hammer. Janus, biting his lip to hold back laughter, watched the man stride off in the direction of his municipal pleasure house.

"You two," said Archy from behind them, "are wasted in a whorehouse."

They turned; the player was just closing the door into the theater. He smiled at them. "That was the finest bit of theater I've seen in a long while."

Janus, conscious that a passing gentleman had stared their way at the sound of the word "whorehouse," quickly asked, "Are you to kill her or to marry her?"

Archy snorted as he pulled on his cap. "According to Roycroft, the gods will gift me with that knowledge on the performance night. I told him that, if he wanted to go back to the days when plays were entirely improvised, he would need to rid the theater of rehearsals, costumes, and above all, bloody stage managers!"

He shouted the last at the top of his lungs. Barely anyone passing them took notice. Theater Avenue was, as usual, a strange mixture of commoners, mid-class folk, and ladies and gentlemen. Only the ladies and gentlemen were quiet. The rest of the inhabitants of the street were talking at the top of their lungs, or hawking ballad lyrics by singing them, or shouting out how much their goods or their bodies were worth. Raising his voice over the din, Archy said, "Let's go for a refreshment."

"Janus doesn't drink," Michael responded, before Janus could speak.

Archy smiled at Janus. "Dear Janus, I wouldn't think of subjecting you to the type of rough folk who visit Theater Avenue saloons. There's a very nice dairy lunch-room just opened down the street. We'll be able to buy coffee there."

They started travelling in the direction of the King's Bridge, following the route Outram had taken. Janus had walked this avenue with Michael before, so he was not particularly surprised to find that heads turned as the three of them passed people on the sidewalk. Janus had never been sure whether Michael's looks were what attracted people's attention, or whether it was his white suit. They passed a young prostitute, evidently released from his imprisonment long enough to carry out some errand. He wore a white cloak, and he grinned up at Michael in a comradely fashion.

Michael followed the boy with his eyes as the youth scurried across the street, narrowly avoiding being trampled by the hooves of a passing bus. "Archy," he said abruptly, "do you think you could get Hasan a position at your theater?"

Janus looked round with surprise at Michael, but Archy was shaking his head. "Dear, I already did, last winter. It didn't work out."

"If it was because he was once a prostitute—" started Janus.

"Nonsense!" replied Archy firmly. "Janus, the one place in the world where no classes exist is in the theater. Absolutely no one there cares whether you started your life as a prince or as a whore. All they care about is whether you can do your job. Certainly my manager was agreeable to hiring him – well, she could hardly be otherwise, given how she started her own acting career."

"So where did the trouble lie?" asked Michael as they began to ascend the hill to where Theater Avenue ended, meeting with the King's Road.

Archy sighed. "The problem, Michael, is that Hasan wasn't just a whore – he was a Theater Avenue whore. Outram's is a popular place for players on week-breaks, you know, when the gentlemen stay away from the whorehouses to attend temple, and the avenue whorehouses offer lower prices to attract customers from the other classes. I don't suppose there was a single man in our company who hadn't been to Outram's at one time or another, and a number of them were already acquainted with Hasan. Oh, most did their best to welcome him into the company – snobbery has no place in the stage business. But it can't have been easy for Hasan, trying to maintain polite conversation with a man whom he remembered drilling him when he was twelve. . . . Well, he made the mistake of punching Parnploy, who's one of our principal players. The man's nose was so swollen that we had to cancel his next performance. It was the opening night performance, and since Parnploy's understudy had come down with influenza, that meant cancelling an entire month's worth of plays. The opening night is the key night, you see," he added to Michael, evidently taking his blank expression as an admission of ignorance. "That's the night when we improvise. All the nights after that, we simply copy our initial performance, for the sake of audience members unlucky enough to have missed the real performance. So if a principal player or his understudy isn't there on the opening night, the play can't go on without him.

"We lost a fortnight's income, until we were able to scrape together a new performance in a hurry. So of course my manager said that Hasan had to go. I tried to find the young man a job at another theater, but . . . Well, he nipped out on me. If you see him again, tell him there's still a chance I can find him work."

A slight crease appeared in Michael's forehead, as though he were contemplating this possibility. Janus waited, but Michael said nothing, so Janus told Archy, "That doesn't sound like Hasan. He isn't the violent sort."

"Ah, well, that's what lack of work will do to a man," replied Archy as they reached the point in the road where they could see the towers of the bridge rising high above the ground. "My theater went dark for a six-month soon after I joined it, back in my young days. It was undergoing a redecoration, and all of us in the company had to find work in the meantime. I was still almost unknown in those days; I remember the weeks of trudging from one theater to another. 'No, Lord Archbold, I'm afraid I don't have anything for you today. Try again next week – or better yet, the week after.' That sort of experience wears down a man's soul. It only takes a single remark by someone you despise – a hint that you're not good enough for your work – to bring you to the breaking point. . . . Mind you, Hasan looked to me as though he had other concerns on his mind. Other matters wearing him down." He glanced at Michael.

Janus found himself wondering how much Archy knew, but his thoughts were broken as they reached the spot where Theater Avenue, travelling south, met the King's Road rising north, just before the King's Road swung east on its way through the Parkside district to the King's palace.

The intersection was even worse clogged than usual. The trouble, Janus saw as he and his companions came closer, was a hansom cab, which had been driving west along the King's Road and had become stuck between the trolley rails that ran along Theater Avenue and on down to the King's Bridge. With its rear wheel imprisoned, the cab was blocking both lanes of traffic on Theater Avenue, as well as the lane of the King's Road that led to the King's Bridge.

Shouts of outrage could be heard from all sides, especially from a trolley-car driver who appeared to consider the cab's obstruction of his rails to be a personal affront. The sole passenger in the cab, a young woman wrapped in silks, was too much of a lady to shout, but she reached out and poked the driver pointedly with her sunshade.

Down at the bridge, the soldiers had been alerted to the problem; several of them were approaching at a run. The cab driver, seeing this arrival of authority, gave renewed effort to persuading his horses to drag the cab out of its trap. He was apparently new to his job, though, for his whip, ill-aimed, spun high over the horses, and its crack was lost amidst the shouts. The horses, lacking direction, evidently decided that their best course of action amidst the turmoil was to stay put.

Janus caught a glimpse of all this as they reached the intersection; then he turned to follow Archy down a side street to the west. A moment later, though, he turned back, realizing that once again he had lost Michael.

He sighted him almost immediately, a white-clothed figure darting across the road, nimbly side-stepping a cyclist who was trying to squeeze his way round the small gap left by the cab. As Michael reached the side of the cab, he leapt onto the step of it, ignoring the lady who was still poking the driver. She opened her mouth in outrage, then looked up at Michael. Her mouth stayed open as she stared.

The driver had paused his efforts in order to lean his head down toward Michael. For a brief interval during which the shouts subsided somewhat, he listened to what Michael had to say. Then he nodded and drew back his arm once more.

The whip landed perfectly this time, startling the horses into movement. Michael waited until the cab had reached the curve where the King's Road turned south; then he dropped off the step and made his way back to join Janus. He made no comment on what had happened, simply increasing his pace to catch up with Archy, who was far ahead of them.

Janus, stealing a glance at Michael's empty expression, felt his mind slide back to thoughts of the player named Parnploy. Had he been one of Michael's old patrons also? Was the sight of him the reason Michael had grown suddenly sick? In their eleven years as friends, Janus had never known Michael to so much as catch a cold. He had no time to figure out a tactful way to question Michael, for they had now reached Archy, who was waiting for them before a building fronted with high glass windows.

The lunch-room, Janus saw with relief as they entered, was far enough into the mid-class district that it attracted a better class of customers: not only were there respectable women here, but there were children as well. Not all of the children were respectable; Janus could see a gang of messenger boys in the corner, sharing a sweet-bun between themselves and eyeing every new customer as he entered. But enough families sat here that Janus felt at home. He took off his hat and looked round for the waitresses.

He could see none; there was only the cashier in her cage, and a counter piled high with food and drink. Archy had disappeared, going over to talk to an aproned woman standing in the corner. Janus followed Michael up to the cashier in time to hear him order two coffees and two sandwiches.

In exchange for Michael's money, the cashier presented him with eight checks, four of which Michael handed to Janus. These proved to be checks for the sandwiches and coffee, Janus discovered when they reached the food counter and handed over their orders to the woman there. Michael himself, to Janus's surprise, ordered the higher priced milk, as well as a boiled egg, a refined-flour roll, and a side-order of navy beans.

The reason for this became clear as they reached their table and Michael carefully put down the white milk, the white egg, the white roll, and the white beans. When he had seated himself in front of all this in his white suit, the effect was electric. The messenger boys were now nudging each other and pointing. Everyone else in the lunch-room was pretending not to notice.

"Michael," Janus hissed under his breath, "you did that deliberately."

"Of course I did," Michael murmured as he raised his glass. "Watch now."

Within a minute, one of the boys grew bold enough to saunter toward them. Leaning over to place his elbows on the table, he said in a voice that strove to be casual, "Whatcha advertising, mister? Are you from a circus?"

Raising his voice to be heard over the clatter of dishes being collected at a table nearby, Michael told them what business he ran. A few seconds after the beginning of his speech, an exodus began in the lunch-room: family men, frowning, abandoned their lunches, beckoning their wives and children to follow them. Within a short time, all of the women and children were gone, but for the messenger boys, who were now clustered in a circle round the table. Some men, passing by the lunch-room and seeing this unusual sight, began to crowd into the doorway to discover what the attraction was. The lunch-room, Janus saw with a sinking heart, increasingly resembled a saloon.

The boys were too absorbed in firing questions at Michael to notice the change. One of them, who had apparently listened closely to the gossip on Theater Avenue, asked eagerly, "Are your boys whipstered, mister?"

"Some of them," said Michael, raising his voice yet further. There was no need for him to do so; only a few of the men in the room were still pretending that they were not listening. "Only the ones who request to be whipstered. That's one of the house rules: our boys can't be forced to do anything they haven't agreed to do beforehand."

This announcement caused a variety of reactions from the audience members, depending on whether they liked their whore-boys smiling or crying. Michael waited a minute as several of the men started toward the door. Then, as they reached the threshold, he added, "We're better known for the skill of our whipster boys."

The men paused. The messenger boy asked with excitement, "Do you train them yourself?"

For answer, Michael reached into his jacket. Janus saw that the women standing behind the counter were craning their necks to get a better look, though the cashier had a cross expression. Then oohs and aahs began amidst the boys as Michael laid his hunting crop onto the table.

For a moment, it looked as though the stiff whip would be snatched away and passed from hand to hand, but Michael took firm hold of it and only allowed the boys to touch its sleek leather surface. Another boy asked, "Who learned you how to whipster, mister?"

"No one taught me." Michael raised his voice yet further. "I taught myself, when I was eleven. I was the first boy whipster in this kingdom."

This statement caused the last remaining conversation to die in the lunch-room. All eyes were on the whoremaster now. Michael brought the conversation to a quick end by handing out small piles of his visiting cards to each boy present. Within seconds, the enterprising boys were selling the cards to the lunch-room customers, for a penny a card.

Janus gave Michael a deprecating look, which Michael met with carefully calculated dancing eyes. Janus sighed. He well knew that their house's main drawing power – possibly the only thing that kept them in business – was their whipstering. Other pleasure houses, following the fashion that Michael had set, now offered boy whipsters to their patrons. But Michael's House was the only whorehouse which could boast that all of its boy whipsters were personally trained by the man who had begun that art when he was a whore himself.

Suddenly Archy was beside them again, leaning over the table. "It's getting a bit crowded in here," he said, glaring at the nearby men, as though his own guest had not attracted the crowd. "Let's take our food out back." He leaned further toward them and added in a whisper, "They serve beer here if you're willing to pay the price for their private accommodations. Just in case either of you are in the mood for something stronger." He looked with contempt upon the cup of coffee awaiting him.

The "private accommodations" turned out to be a lovely garden in the back, whose high walls were nearly obscured by the shade trees. Under these trees stood tables, two of which were already occupied with mid-class couples. Janus looked nervously at the men, wondering whether either of them would be enough attracted by Michael's outfit to come and ask him the prices at his house. But neither of the couples took notice of them as they sat down under a willow oak.

"And now," said Archy, "I'll get us something decent to eat." He stared with disdain at the sandwiches.

Janus was silent, fingering the pocket which held his bill holder. He knew that the holder was empty; Michael carried all of the money that the two of them possessed, and they had already spent more on this meal than they should.

"A treat from me," Archy added. "In thanks for you rescuing me from the stifling confines of my theater on this beautiful spring day." He walked back toward the door to the lunch-room before any response could be made.

They had surely reached the depths of poverty, Janus thought, if they must take charity from their poorest patron. Janus looked over at Michael, who nodded minutely. Pride might be warranted with another patron, but not with Archy, who cheerfully gave and who just as cheerfully demanded whenever he thought he could wheedle a gift from them.

The rest of the lunch arrived: mock turtle soup, creamed oysters on toast, smoked ham, cold slaw, peach sherbet, and cream puffs. Janus, trying not to gobble as he swallowed the first meat he had eaten in weeks, barely heard as Archy said, "Now, about Lann . . . My sister has told me all about this drug he's taking. Apparently it's having a miraculous effect on victims of the Damnation in Yclau—"

"You correspond with your sister about the Damnation?" Janus kept his voice low, hoping that Archy would take the hint. Janus had noticed a nervous twitch from one of the nearby men.

The wrinkles next to the player's eyes deepened. "She thought I might have need of the information. My sister worries about me. So tell me, how much are you paying for the drug now?"

Michael, whose memory was far better than Janus's, recited the amount at once. Archy gave a sharp whistle that caused one of the women to look over her shoulder, frowning. "Dears, I hate to report this," said Archy, "but your healer has been bamboozling you."

Janus and Michael exchanged looks. "She's been bamboozled by her supplier, more likely," Michael said, with no sign in his voice of what he thought of this news. "She's had trouble in the past with people taking advantage of her, because she's female."

"Lann trusts her," Janus added.

"Ah. Well, then, there is presently a very satisfied supplier in this city, making plans to retire on his wealth. Not to worry; tell your healer that I can get the drug for her at cost. I'll make sure it's sent by government courier, to save you the import taxes."

"Won't a government courier be expensive?" Janus asked. He caught sight of Michael's eye upon him and felt himself flush even before Archy gave a slight smile.

"Privileges of birth, dear Janus," Archy said in a voice far softer than the one he had used when speaking of the sexual disease. "The rebels didn't strip me of everything."

There was something about the way in which he spoke that made Janus realize that Archbold Othman Emeric Ubald, Earl of Darkmoor and Prince of Yclau, did not regard the loss of his royal power as lightly as he had implied before. Which made it all the more remarkable, Janus thought, that Lord Archbold was able to transform himself into a theatrical player who befriended two owners of a pleasure house. As on the day of their first meeting, Janus had the feeling that he had badly underestimated Archy.

"So," said Archy, turning his attention back to his beer. "What else shall we discuss?"

"The mind healer," Michael said promptly. He was munching delicately on a sandwich, reserving the riches of the banquet for Janus. "You hadn't yet finished telling us about him."

"Ah, yes," said Archy. "Well, I was in a terrible state as a youth. You can just imagine what horror I felt to discover that I was only capable of being attracted to a single sex of the human race."

Michael caught Janus's eye as Janus choked on his ginger-beer. "How very tragic," said Michael solemnly, his eyes dancing.

Fortunately, Archy was too absorbed in his tale to notice their reaction. "So I hunted down the best mind healer I could find—"

"You still haven't explained what a mind healer is," Janus said, wiping his face clean with a napkin.

"Oh, yes, I forgot that they're scarce to the ground here in Vovim. Mind healers are an Yclau invention, actually. A couple of centuries ago, some healers realized that their patients' ailments were connected with their states of mind, so they began specializing in treating the mind as well as the body. It was a primitive science, though, until the Eternal Dungeon offered up its riches."

"The Eternal Dungeon?" Janus frowned. "What does a prison of torturers have to do with healing?"

Archy smiled at him over his beer. "I take it that all you know of the Eternal Dungeon are the ballads about its first High Seeker."

"Has there been more than one High Seeker?" Janus asked.

This time it was Archy who choked, sending beer splattering over the white tablecloth. "Oh, dear," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I see that I'm going to have to start this tale from the beginning."
 

CHAPTER THREE

At the end of the fourth century, the Queendom of Yclau had reached a state of crisis. The initial cause of the crisis arose from a scientific article.

The Guild of Healers, which had shown increasing interest in societal health, had released a highly publicized report that confirmed what concerned observers had been thundering for a decade: the queendom's morals were in sharp decline. In the past, such a fact would have created a call by the higher classes for more prisons and harsher punishments for the commoner miscreants. The unfortunate fact that the healers revealed, though, was that many of the people who had acquired ill morals were from the mid-class. The remainder of the mid-class, who put a high premium on respectability, issued an urgent request for ways in which to reform the characters of society members who had "gone astray."

None of the solutions offered, however, served to diminish the rise of vice and consequent crime. Neighborhoods that had been safe for centuries were now inhabited by people of questionable character. Even elite members of the Queen's government were rumored to have strange goings-on in the palace's private quarters.

The commoners had their own concerns, and these men and women were less genteel than the mid-class in how they voiced their demands. The Commoners' Guild, which had increased in power during the four decades of its existence, was now poised to achieve its goals by violent means if the guild members could not be satisfied through peaceful concessions. Though it was widely considered that the guild had little chance of overcoming the trained soldiers of the royal army, neutral observers expressed regret that the Queen of Yclau treated the guild representatives as if they were nothing more than rabble, unworthy of her attention. What few talks did take place occurred in secret, between the guild representatives and a handful of the Queen's more foresightful councillors.

The guild, which had made public education universal, forced the legalization of strikes by workers, and changed the system of selection for city officials from a hereditary method to elections in which commoners were permitted to vote, had turned its attention to what it considered to be the heart of the queendom's corruption: the prison system, in which elite and mid-class prisoners were rarely sentenced to punishment, but most commoner prisoners were sentenced to life in prison or execution.

At the center of the guild's concern was the Eternal Dungeon. Little was known about this two-hundred-year-old underground prison housed beneath the Queen's palace. Portions of the dungeon's Code of Seeking had been published in recent decades, but the Code's idyllic image of a dungeon in which its Seekers acted in the best interests of their prisoners was dismissed by the commoners as mere propaganda. More widely believed were the bloody ballads sung about the atrocities that took place in the Eternal Dungeon. Most of these ballads were focussed on the first High Seeker, the torturer who, earlier in that century, had decided to mask the dungeon's cruel floggings and rackings under the innocent word of "seeking." Many tales were told about the High Seeker's dark deeds in his youth, and of the horrible fates met by prisoners who fell into his hands. Oddly enough, many ballads were also sung about his gentle love-mate's undying devotion to him.

Leaving romantic fripperies aside, the Commoners' Guild demanded to know what was going on in the Eternal Dungeon. Why did such a high percentage of its prisoners confess to their crimes, even though their confessions would lead to their executions? Why were the few remaining survivors oddly reluctant to talk about what had taken place during their imprisonment? What was the Queen's government hiding from her people?

To these questions, the Queen's councillors merely answered flatly that there had been abuses in the past, but that these had been erased by reforms. Racking had been banned for a quarter of a century, and the only prisoners now beaten were those who used violence during their imprisonment.

The guild asked to inspect the dungeon and to question its prisoners. The councillors refused. The guild asked to have independent observers sent to examine the dungeon. The councillors refused. The guild asked for a public statement from the Codifier, the man said to be in charge of the dungeon's ethical oversight, but who was generally believed to be a mere lackey for the Queen. The councillors refused.

At this juncture, as commoner households throughout the queendom began the grim task of stockpiling weapons, fate intervened in the form of a Seeker. Though still living in the Eternal Dungeon, he was ninety years of age and was retired from his work due to chronic illness. He had written a compassionate biography of the first High Seeker some years before. This had been regarded by most of its reviewers as a sycophantic fairy tale. Furious, the Seeker had begun the work of collecting all the letters and other documents written by the High Seeker during his lifetime, as well as gathering statements about the High Seeker from men and women who had known him. The Queen, though, had refused to allow publication of these papers, as they revealed many of the secrets of the Eternal Dungeon.

As it happened, the retired Seeker had been born a commoner. Sympathetic to the demands of the Commoners' Guild, he made the decision to go ahead with publication, reasoning that the worst that could happen to him was that he would die of execution a year or two before he would likely have died of his illness in any case. He began sending sections of the manuscript in small parcels to his publisher, his mailings unnoticed except by the first High Seeker's successor. Fortunately, the second High Seeker was himself a man of progressive thought; he therefore turned a blind eye to what was happening.

The publisher was successful in keeping the nature of the Seeker's book secret until the day of publication. When the book finally appeared in the early months of the year 400, the publisher's summary of its contents was spread to the far ends of the queendom within minutes by telegraph and newspaper and word of mouth. By the end of the day, the capital was in an uproar.

The first High Seeker's papers, it turned out, revealed that abuses had indeed taken place in the Eternal Dungeon over the decades, abuses committed by the first High Seeker and by other Seekers and guards. But the papers also revealed that the Code of Seeking was no fanciful propaganda. It represented the actual attempt of Seekers to bring reform to their prisoners' characters and to assist the guilty prisoners in recognizing the evil of their crimes. What abuses had taken place in the dungeon had been mainly the abuses of idealists, men who were so concerned with the welfare of their prisoners that they sometimes failed to recognize when their ideals brought greater harm to those prisoners. Yet, to a surprisingly large degree, the ideals had worked, and this success owed not a little to the first High Seeker, a man whose own dark past helped him to penetrate the souls of prisoners and pull them back from their darkness. His love-mate's devotion, it now became apparent, was not entirely misplaced.

In the end, it was not tales of abuse that caused the downfall of the Yclau monarchy. What roused the people's anger – most especially the anger of the mid-class – was the knowledge that all this information had been kept hidden from them for two centuries. Why had the world not been permitted to learn more than a tiny portion of the techniques that the Seekers used in order to reform human character? During a period when mid-class boys and girls were more and more inclined to turn to criminal ways, why had Yclau's Queen considered this valuable art of seeking to be something that her people should not know? It was as though the people of Yclau, starving for lack of food, had discovered that their ruler was privately hoarding a treasury of wealth that could have fed every man, woman, and child.

In the summer of 400, the commoners arose, backed by supporters from the other classes. Whereas Vovim's old monarchy had fought a civil war for a decade before being defeated, Yclau's monarchy ended in the space of a single week.

Strangely, virtually the only elite institution to survive the revolution was the Eternal Dungeon. New ballads would be composed of what happened when the revolutionaries, intending to free the dungeon's prisoners and to sack the dungeon as they had already sacked the palace, arrived at the Eternal Dungeon's gates to find their way blocked by the unarmed Seekers, as well as by a handful of guards and prisoners.

Yes, prisoners. The Seekers had freed their prisoners earlier in the day, lest the imprisoned commoners become victims in the violent battle that was expected to take place. But some of the prisoners had elected to stay to fight for the future of the Eternal Dungeon. And so the revolutionaries allowed the dungeon to live.

Amidst the turmoil of the emerging new world, no one in Yclau took notice of the mind healers. These men had their own turmoil to confront, for the High Seeker's papers made clear that the science they had carefully built up over the years was nothing more than a transitory sand castle such as a child might build. There, in the Eternal Dungeon, the true science of mind healing had taken place, and the healers, reeling from their combined misfortune and fortune, began the painful work of rebuilding their art into a true science. In tribute to the first High Seeker's powers, they dubbed their new science "soulology."

"Psychology?" said Janus, running his tongue over the unfamiliar Yclau word. "And that's why you went to the mind healer?"

Archy nodded as he leaned back in his chair. He was now sipping the coffee he had scorned earlier. "Some of these mind healers specialize in sexual disorders. I'll admit I was nervous on my first visit. I was afraid that the healer would try to turn me into the model husband that my mother wanted me to be. But the man I went to said it was quite natural that I wouldn't want to confine my attraction to one sex alone, and so he set about helping me to recover my sexual leanings to what they had been before my mother twisted me. And I succeeded," he added with a certain smugness.

"We'd gathered that," replied Janus dryly. "Archy, about your latest account—"

But Michael unexpectedly interrupted. "So the mind healers are able to expand people? Do they only expand men's feelings toward other men, or can they expand people in other ways?"

There was a pause as Archy peered over his cup at Michael. Then the player said cheerfully, "Oh, I believe they work with patients who have a variety of sexual dysfunctions. Actually, a few mind healers work in this city and in the nearby provincial towns. They were trained in Yclau, but they've tried to integrate their Yclau training with this kingdom's native traditions in medicine."

"I imagine, " said Janus, "that they're expensive." He was fingering his empty bill holder again.

"Well, yes, under ordinary circumstances. But I tell you what I have in mind. There's a healer in this city that my old healer recommended to me when I first moved here, in case I should need any additional help while living in Vovim. You go to him and tell him to send the account to me. What he'll actually do, if experience tells me anything, is send the account to my mother, who will pay it and then rain down upon me a series of missives telling me how I'm driving her to ruin with my immoral ways, and how I ought to come home where she can keep an eye on me and find a nice, high-ranked woman for me to marry. And in exchange for that extended headache . . . Well, I'll find a way in which you can pay back your debt to me." He smiled at Michael.

Janus, envisioning another long, unpaid account, looked quickly over at Michael, only to find that Michael was looking at him. A pause ensued, during which Janus was able to hear the nearby traffic, overladen by the singing of birds in the garden trees. Then Janus said, "We'll have to think about it."

Archy sighed in an overly dramatic manner as he rose to his feet. "Janus, you two are like conjoined twins. I can never get an answer from Michael without him consulting you first. Well, I should be returning to work. Let me just settle with our hostess." He turned back toward the lunch-room.

"Michael," Janus said softly as the player stepped away, "why do you want to—"

But Michael was paying no heed to him. Following Michael's gaze, Janus saw that the whoremaster was looking at the thick clump of elderberry bushes nearby. A moment later, a man stepped out of the bushes.

Janus tensed. From the state of the man's clothes, it appeared that he had entered the garden by climbing over its wall, and from the state of his appearance, it was clear that he had no business here. His hair was matted and his beard was long and straggly; the palms of his hands were cracked, and he had dirt under his fingernails. He was stripped down to his shirt and trousers, like a dockyard laborer, and he had no shoes.

The man approached the nearest table. The woman there shrank back, and the man at the table said something in a furious tone. The half-dressed man did not respond; he merely made his way to the second couple. This couple listened to what he had to say, but they shook their heads and turned back to their conversation. The intruder made his way to the third table and stood looking down at Michael and Janus.

"Money for the deserving poor, sirs," he said; lacking a cap, he held out his hand. He spat the words, as though they were an insult, and his angry eyes suggested that any gift from them would be ill-received.

Janus remembered the days when, meeting a beggar, he would readily drop a coin in the man's cap. Those days were gone, partly because he had discovered that the city was filled with thousands of homeless beggars, and mainly because he and Michael were busy rescuing some of the youthful beggars from the streets and giving them a home. Janus and Michael could not afford to give money to strangers when they could barely feed their own boys.

Janus had opened his mouth to explain this when Michael, in a swift gesture, brought out his bill holder and proceeded to dump the contents on the table, within reach of the beggar.

Janus was startled out of speech. The beggar stared at the pile of bills, then raised his eyes to look at Michael. His expression held something between bewilderment and suspicion.

Michael was in the process of returning his bill holder to his jacket pocket. "Rovner's?" he asked in a conversational manner. "Or Levitt's?"

There was a moment's silence as the beggar's gaze drifted slowly over Michael's white suit. Then he said, in the same hoarse voice with which he had spoken before, "McCormick's. And you?"

Janus had recovered his power of speech, but he found he could not say anything. He had finally taken in the fact that the beggar before them, with his cracked skin and gnarled beard, was no older than Michael or himself. Twenty-two? Twenty-three? The young man looked as though he had been living on the streets for years.

"Outram's," Michael replied. "But I had luck in my path." He pointed his thumb at Janus.

The beggar's gaze drifted over to Janus, and then to the gold-tipped walking stick leaning against Janus's chair. "Aye," said the young man in a dull voice. "That's how I should have done it. Found myself a patron to take care of me after." Then he scooped up the bills. Before Janus could recover himself to correct the misapprehension, the beggar turned and walked away, his left foot limping.

"Michael," Janus whispered as he leaned forward, "that's all the money we have in the world! How are we to pay for food for the rest of the month?"

Michael said nothing. His gaze had not wavered from the ex-prostitute since the young man had left the table. Turning to look, Janus caught a final glimpse of the beggar's eyes before the young man disappeared back into the bushes.

Then he understood. Angry eyes. Hasan's eyes, as Janus had last seen them.

Janus kept his eyes closed, smelling the fresh river-water and the acrid steam from the boats passing below. The smell of sewage sludge was faint but discernible, an ever-present reminder of the manufactories on the southern shore of the river. He opened his eyes and looked down. Nothing could be seen of the sludge in the midday sparkle of light on the river, but he knew that it was there.

He remembered how many times he had thought to himself over the years that Vovim and Yclau were very much alike. Both countries had undergone the pains of industrial revolution, both countries were traditionally ruled by monarchs, both countries had experienced divisive war in the last century and had emerged from war with new societal structures in place. There were slight differences: Yclau had given birth to the industrial revolution, while Vovim, slower to discard her past, had delayed embracing industry and still permitted a king to exist alongside its new parliament. But the two countries, Janus had always thought, bore a brotherly resemblance to one another.

It had been the same with him and Michael. That Michael had been born a commoner and himself a gentleman's son was an accident of fate. They were both intelligent, well-read, and – despite what people might think of the whoremaster – filled with concern for others. It had seemed obvious that Michael's fortunes would go the same way as Janus's.

And then there was Hasan. Less self-educated than Michael, Hasan was still a clever young man and talented in discerning people. Janus had assumed that the prostitute's inability to find new work was a strange quirk of fortune. He had even thought sometimes that Hasan's problems were due to excessive pride that prevented the young man from taking suitable jobs.

Now, with a few words from Archy and a brief meeting with a beggar, Janus's view of the world had reversed itself.

Michael had warned him. He had told Janus over and over that the boys in their house would have difficulty finding their way back into respectable society – that the youths might not even find a place for themselves in the highly unrespectable societies of Riverbend and Theater Avenue. Janus had paid little heed to these warnings. But now, with a chill, he saw the world as Michael had always seen it.

Thousands of beggars in the city. How many of them were former boy prostitutes, unable to find work? If Janus had not given Michael the money he needed to start his own business, would Michael also be on the streets, begging for money? Janus found that impossible to imagine; even under the worst circumstances, Michael would not beg. More likely he would have died by now of starvation.

And Hasan? Once his savings gave out, would he lower his pride enough to beg?

These new images would have been enough to send coldness through Janus that was far chillier than the wind which blew at him on the bridge. But there was more.

He had always assumed that Vovim was like Yclau. But Vovim's civil war had been fought between different parties of aristocrats; the commoners' wishes had not been consulted. Here in Vovim, the lives of commoners were no better than they had been a century ago – indeed, the commoners' lives had been worsened by the introduction of manufactories. No Commoners' Guild existed here, and no commoners' army had been formed.

Yet.

Janus hugged his arms around himself, staring at the bright water below. "Virtually the only elite institution to survive . . ." Archy's words echoed in his head. How many of the elite had survived the revolution in Yclau? Janus had often wondered why Archy had chosen to wear a commoners' cap rather than live a mid-class life as most players did. Now he thought he knew. Archy had been in Yclau the day the commoners arose. The prince knew what could happen to anyone thought to be a gentleman, on such a day of uprising.

And here in Vovim, hundreds upon hundreds of angry-eyed young men continued to be thrown out of pleasure houses onto the streets each year. Thousands upon thousands, if one counted the provincial pleasure houses. Thousands of men just awaiting a leader like Bainbridge – or perhaps a leader worse than Bainbridge, someone who would not give orders that ladies and their children be escorted to safety amidst the battle.

He thought of his mother then, and of his aunt, and of his cousin's fiancée and the children she might give birth to. And even if they should survive, what of his father and his cousin? In the gods' names, what would happen to his uncle? If any man was destined for a bloody death at the hands of the commoners, it was the prime minister of Vovim.

Beside him, Michael asked, "What Outram said about the bill – is it true?"

Janus turned his head to look at the other man. Michael was leaning far over the railing of the King's Bridge, watching a ferry below that was taking to the southern shore a group of gentlemen too high-class to contemplate walking the distance of the King's Bridge. Perhaps some of the gentlemen were planning to visit the independent pleasure houses in Riverbend. Janus had a sudden impulse to shout to them, "Find a way to save the young prostitutes, before you're killed by the revolutionaries!" No doubt the gentlemen would laugh.

"It's true," he told Michael. "It goes further even than Outram said. There are two versions of the bill: one that would shut down the independent houses, and another that would shut down all pleasure houses. My uncle wrote both versions of the bill, but for form's sake he's having other men propose the legislation. He says that his ultimate goal is to shut down every house of prostitution in this kingdom, but resistance to that action is so great that he may have to take the intermediate step of shutting down the houses without municipal or provincial sponsorship."

"Ah," said Michael. "So Outram's House is unlikely to be shut down soon, but ours is. No wonder Outram is pleased."

His voice was neutral, and he did not take out his crop to tap his thigh, as he sometimes did in moments of tension. It was Janus who slammed his fist down upon the railing, causing a river-bird who was sitting on a suspension chain to fly away with a startled squawk.

"My uncle is short-sighted!" Janus cried. "Shutting down the independent houses would accomplish nothing except to make thousands of boys homeless! They'd have nowhere to go – if they had somewhere to go, they wouldn't be in pleasure houses. And shutting down the houses of prostitution would cause no hardship to the patrons. They'd simply buy the boys on the streets, without need to show the minimum of restraint they're required to show in a pleasure house!"

Michael raised his right eyebrow, then his left eyebrow, as though trying to remember the proper gesture. "Spoken like the true owner of a whorehouse. Did you say all this to your uncle?"

"I tried to," Janus muttered. "He didn't understand . . ." His voice trailed off. He himself had not understood. He had thought he was fighting only for the lives of the boys in Michael's House. He had not realized that he was fighting for his uncle's life as well.

"I wouldn't worry overly much," said Michael. "It may be that neither of the bills will pass. I could tick off for you a lengthy list of my old patrons who have seats in parliament. Our more immediate trouble is how to pay our bills this month, now that I've so thoughtlessly tossed away our money."

Another river-bird swooped low, circling round the boats below in hope of a feeding. Michael's gaze did not follow the bird; it remained fixed on the sky.

Janus said, "I'm glad that you gave all our money to the beggar."

Michael turned his head. He was blinking rapidly, which was the closest he ever came to a natural expression. "You are?"

"Yes." Then, seeing that Michael still did not understand, Janus said carefully, "It wasn't a reasonable thing to do, but it was the right thing. Sometimes, in order to do right, you can't be rational. It's called following your heart."

"Oh." Michael turned back to gaze at the sky. After a while he said, "Thank you. I thought I was just being stupid."

Janus felt the ache start in his heart again. How many times over the years had this sort of exchange occurred between the two of them? And not until last autumn had he understood the meaning of it all, of why Michael turned to him continually for advice on what seemed to Janus to be extremely elementary matters.

He had not known until last autumn how great Michael's debt to him was. And now Janus knew that Michael held a second debt to him: Janus had saved him from starving on the streets.

It made Janus uneasy. He had never thought of their friendship as a relationship in which one of them held more power and the other submitted. He had always thought of the two of them as equals, bound together in egalitarian brotherhood. Now, it seemed, he had been thrust into the position of playing gentleman to a commoner. This made him deeply unhappy, as though the essential purity of their friendship had been marred.

His thoughts were broken by the sound of boys' voices. Turning, he saw that a group of young commoner boys had gathered nearby, climbing up on the bridge railing and hanging the upper halves of their bodies over the water. He wondered for a moment whether the boys would throw rocks down at the boats, but the children seemed content to wave at the passengers below. One of the boys had his arm curled round another boy's waist, for both boys were still too young to be self-conscious at this gesture. In any case, such an act hardly mattered at their age.

Janus returned his gaze to Michael. He could not question him about Hasan, not directly. Instead he asked, "Why do you want to visit a mind healer?"

Michael did not reply in words. Instead, he drew his crop out of his jacket and laid it upon his palms. It stood out starkly against the day-bright waves below.

Janus looked down at it, feeling a familiar unease. "The extension of my arm," Michael had once jokingly called it. Janus wondered whether Michael realized the truth behind his statement. The crop was always in his hand, or within easy reach, from rising to bed. Janus sometimes had a terrible vision of Michael sleeping curled around the crop, as though it were a childhood toy.

"Hasan told me last autumn that he'd be glad to let me bind and beat him if he thought it would help me," Michael said quietly. "It made me wonder afterwards – is that all I could offer him? No wonder he has grown angry."

"I don't think he's angry at you," Janus said quickly.

Michael's hands closed around the crop. "It doesn't matter. He's gone now, so that part of it isn't a living issue. But Hasan reminded me of something else that's important. He said that, on the day when he first saw me, I showed my feelings, and the second time he saw me, I had no feelings and was beating my bed as though it were Outram. Something happened to me in Outram's bedroom that stripped my emotions from me and shaped me into a whipster. I think there's a connection between the two events. I think that my whipstering is the key to why I have no feelings, only thoughts."

The boys were now calling down greetings to the passengers in the loudest voices they could manage. Ignoring this, Janus said, "So that's what you meant when you talked about expanding yourself? You meant acquiring emotions?"

Michael turned his head. A moment later – delayed by the thought required to make the decision – Michael's brow puckered as a sign of puzzlement. "Of course," he said. "What did you think I meant?"

Janus dared not voice his thought; speaking it might make it true. "And this mind healer – he was trained in Yclau?"

"So Archy says. Archy also told me as we were leaving the lunch-room that the man's a gentleman-turned-healer, like your great-grandfather was. Of impeccable reputation, in other words."

Janus said nothing. Michael's gaze narrowed. It was not quite as successful a performance as the puckered brow; he looked only as though he was narrowing his eyes against the wind. "Does the fact that he was trained in Yclau bother you?"

"No," replied Janus. "Actually, it reassures me." Then, afraid that Michael would ask what he meant, he added quickly, "So you don't like the fact that you're a whipster?"

Michael raised an eyebrow. It peaked for precisely the right moment of time before he lowered it again. "Did you think I was fond of this part of me?"

"You told me two years ago that you only beat your old patrons because they received pleasure from it."

"Did I?" asked Michael blankly. For once, the blankness sounded appropriate. The whoremaster turned his head toward the sky again. No clouds broke the blue expanse; the spring sky was perfect, like a robin's egg unhatched.

Michael said, "I wasn't the first whipster whore, you know, only the first boy whipster. The women-whores have been doing that for centuries. Outram had several female whipsters working for him when I was there. One of them, by the name of Dora, had worked as the owner of a chemist's shop in the mid-class district for a few years. She told me that her main customers for relaxation drugs were other business owners – mainly men who owned manufactories on the south shore. They used to flock to her, burdened at the end of each day by the weight of their responsibilities, the knowledge that they were the ones who gave orders and issued punishments to lax workers. She said that she began to believe that the only way she could truly relieve the pain of such men was by taking their responsibilities away for a while – commanding them and giving them punishments. So she went to Outram and asked him to train her as a whipster."

Janus was glad that Michael still had his gaze turned toward the sky, for Janus was struggling not to show through his expression how appalled he was by this tale of a mid-class girl degrading herself to practice perverse sexual acts in a house of prostitution. He strove to keep his voice neutral as he said, "And that's how it was for you? You were trying to relieve the men's pain?"

Michael flicked a glance at him. Then, apparently deciding that it would be more tactful not to watch Janus at this moment, Michael looked back at where the river met the horizon. "Do you remember," he said softly, "that tale I told you, about the patron who stopped visiting me suddenly?"

Janus remained silent. Below them, a steamer that was nearly as tall as the bridge celebrated its safe passage under the span by giving out a sizzle of steam. The steam rose and became mist surrounding them, to the delight of the boys. Janus waited until the air was clear again before saying, "So you're worried about the fact you're a whipster."

"Yes."

Janus sighed as he leaned onto the railing, holding his derby to keep it from tumbling into the water as he looked down. "Then I think you should go to the mind healer. I wouldn't have said this if you hadn't decided to go on your own, but your whipstering has always bothered me."

"I know." Michael's voice was soft. He turned his head. His eyes locked with his partner's. And at that moment, Janus knew that Michael was doing this as much for Janus's sake as for Hasan's.

The chatter of the boys and the ringing of a nearby bell faded in Janus's consciousness. He was aware only of Michael's eyes, naked in their neutrality, and of Michael's arm brushing his. He thought of the commoner prisoners standing shoulder to shoulder with the elite Seekers in order to protect the Eternal Dungeon. That was how it was with Michael and himself. If the day of revolution ever came, he and Michael would stand side by side to protect the boys of their house. If the King's soldiers attacked Michael because he was a commoner, Janus would risk his life to save Michael, and if the commoners attacked Janus because he was a gentleman, Michael would risk his life to save Janus.

All his thoughts of power and submission had been an illusion, he decided. It had never been that way between them; both of them gave fully and sacrificed fully for the other person. As Michael had once said, it was not a matter of submission but of love.

As though his mind was so linked with the other man's that he had heard Janus's thoughts, Michael said, "Janus . . . When you realized that you couldn't sway your uncle from outlawing the whorehouses, how did the conversation end?"

"I told him," said Janus, "that if he planned to arrest all the owners of independent pleasure houses who refused to shut their houses down, then he'd best prepare my parents for my arrest, because I won't leave you and the boys."

The wind whistled across the bridge, joining in harmony with the ringing bell. Michael was motionless, looking at Janus. Usually he had an expression ready for every important occasion, but this time he seemed unable to paint his face with make-up that would be adequate to the words Janus had spoken. Their silence stretched between them like two hands linked together.

"Hoi!" A loud voice broke into their link, causing Janus to jump back from the railing. Michael, less easily startled, simply turned his head to look at the newcomer, who was one of the bridge guards. "You!" said the guard, pointing his finger at Michael. "Didn't you hear the warning bell? Get off the bridge now! No slacking!" Then he turned to Janus and said, in a changed voice, "Excuse me, sir, but I'll need to ask you to make your way to the end of the bridge. A tall steamer is coming through, and we're required to draw up the bridge for it." He tipped his hat and continued on in the direction of the commoner boys. His voice was raised in an angry shout before he had even reached the boys.

Janus looked at Michael, standing at the railing in his commoner's suit. For a moment they said nothing. Then they both began to laugh. Michael's laughter was without the smile he had not yet learned to achieve, but it did not matter. Their laughs had a brotherly resemblance to one another.

"Some things in life," said Michael, "are so absurd that the only response you can make is to laugh at them."

Janus put an arm across Michael's shoulders, eliciting a startled glance from a passing gentleman who was keeping a gentlemanly distance between himself and his male companion. Janus paid no heed. He had taught himself to do this the previous autumn, when he had realized how great a sacrifice Michael had made for his sake.

"Come," he said to his friend. "Let's go home."
 

CHAPTER FOUR

"I will give you some words," said Healer Braun. "I would like you to state the first word of emotion that comes to you when I speak the word. I do not ask that you actually have experienced such an emotion yourself," he added as Michael opened his mouth. "I only ask that you associate the word of emotion with the word I speak. The first word that comes to you, please, and do not spend a great deal of time dwelling on the matter. You understand?"

Michael nodded.

"Sex."

"Ass-– I mean, tailside."

"An emotion, please."

Michael thought a moment, then said, "Pain."

"Love."

"What sort of love?"

"Let us start with romantic love."

"Sadness," Michael said after a short pause.

"Friendship."

"Hope." There was no hesitation this time.

"Desire."

"What sort of desire?"

"Let us say, sexual desire."

A long pause, and then, "I'm sorry, nothing comes to me."

"Ah."

Michael looked over at the mind healer, who was walking beside him. It was always difficult for Michael to read the emotions of other people, doubly so when the person was a stranger. This had never been a problem for him when he was a whore; the reactions of his patrons' bodies to what he said and did told him all he needed to know. He wondered what the healer would think if Michael said, "Take off your clothes, please, so that I can know what you're feeling."

As though following the same line of thought, the healer said, "You mentioned that you find it difficult to feel desire for this young man you are drawn toward—"

"I feel no sexual desire for Hasan at all."

Healer Braun nodded. "And when you were at your work, as a boy – did you feel desire for the men you served?"

He hesitated. It had always been a point of pride to him that he never revealed what took place between himself and his patrons. Consideration of his patrons' feelings had not entered into his policy of secrecy; it was simply that, if he must serve as a whore, he was determined to do so in the most professional manner possible.

But healers, like whores, were sometimes privy to men's secrets. "This is confidential?" he said.

"Of course," Healer Braun responded immediately. "My oath as a healer requires that I not gossip about patients."

Still Michael hesitated. The healer, pausing as they reached a fork in the gently curving passage, wordlessly gestured to their surroundings: the dark, empty corridors, the dark, empty cells they passed. There were holes in the ceiling, letting in dusk-light, but these must be in the quiet Parkside district, for he could hear few voices from above, all of them soft.

Michael said, "No, I felt no desire for my patrons. In the particular work I did with them, it was not necessary for me to penetrate them with my member."

He hoped that was the right way to phrase it. Though he had taught himself to speak like a gentleman, he had never tried to learn the proper euphemisms for sexual matters. His patrons had found it exciting when he spoke in raw language to them.

Healer Braun, though, seemed unfazed by this information. "And have you ever had an inflammation of the flesh when you slept?"

"Yes," said Michael, "and I can create such an inflammation through touch if need be—"

"To zenith?" Healer Braun interrupted.

It took Michael a moment to translate the polite word; then he said, "If need be. I sometimes do that when I must teach one of my boys how to perform a particular act."

"But not at other times?"

"No."

"You do not find the sensation pleasant?"

He thought about that a while, as their footsteps echoed softly against the curving stone walls. Finally he said, "It is pleasant in the way that running down Riverbend Hill can be pleasant. But it's exhausting – it takes far more energy out of me than it returns in pleasure. I've never wanted to go out of my way to do it."

Healer Braun nodded, making no comment. Michael wondered when the mind healing portion of this session would begin. The types of questions that Healer Braun had asked him so far were no different from the types of questions that a body healer might ask. Michael had long known that he was capable of spurting his whammer – Outram had taught him that. He had long known that he had no interest in doing so. Outram had taught him that as well.

Healer Braun, passing through a section of the corridor unlit by holes aboveground, said suddenly, "You associate friendship with hope. Why is that?"

"Hasan said last year that Janus was my only hope for recovering what I used to be. I've always thought of Janus as my hope, even before I realized what I'd lost."

The healer nodded. "I believe you're right about that. We've learned in my profession that the people our patients associate with can have a deep effect on their states of mind. Parents above all, of course, because most of us know our parents from the time we are born. But friends as well. And you have had the good fortune to become acquainted with a gentleman of beneficial influence, one who desires to improve your welfare and may have the background with which to assist you."

The comments made his thoughts pause in unease. "Because he's a gentleman, you mean?"

Healer Braun chuckled. "I meant nothing so simple. Anyone working in the healing profession knows that gentlemen and ladies are just as inclined to stray in health as commoners. No, your own words have advised me as to the nature of your friend's character."

Michael nodded, satisfied. They passed another open doorway, and Michael found that his steps were slowing. Healer Braun obligingly halted and lifted the electric lantern that he had been carrying all this while but had not yet used. As he flicked the switch, the lantern crackled to life, casting light throughout the cramped stone cell. The cell, unlike the corridor outside it, had no hole above it for light. Any furniture in it had disappeared long ago, except for a stone slab at the far end. The slab might have served as the foundation for a bed, but it looked more like the base for a funeral pyre.

"How old is this?" Michael asked.

"Five thousand years? Ten thousand? The archaeologists are still arguing it out. We know that this is older than the sacred plays, which make mention of places like this. The image of the maze in 'The Making of Hell' – you recall that?"

Michael shook his head. "I've never read the sacred plays."

"Nor seen them performed? No, I suppose not; the performances tend not to draw many commoners. Which is a shame. A place like this" – he lifted his lantern higher, so that the dark pool of water on the floor glistened – "would be better understood by the commoners than by today's higher classes. Now, let's see, which way was I going?" He swung back to look at the fork in the path ahead of them.

"Left," said Michael, "then two rights and another left."

The healer raised his eyebrows. "You've worked out the pattern."

Michael nodded. After eleven years of teaching himself to memorize thousands of voice tones and gestures and facial expressions, and to correlate them with dozens of emotions, his memory was like a well-honed knife. This came in handy during his work; he always remembered his house's patrons and their tastes, without having to look up the information. But he recorded the information in any case. He had never been quite sure whether his memory could be relied upon. It had already failed him once, disastrously.

They stepped forward again, their feet echoing against the stones, the trickle of water behind them replaced by the trickle of water ahead. The air was damp and musty and cool, though the early evening air in the world overhead had been warm. The sound of voices on the streets above remained faint.

He had expected the unexpected when he arrived at the healer's office in the Parkside district, but he had still been taken aback when the secretary indicated to him that Healer Braun's office was in the cellar. The "cellar" turned out to be an extension of the great underground vaults that lay beneath Temple Avenue and the rest of the oldest part of the city. Michael had always known these existed; the boys at Outram's had often joked about digging a hole down to the vaults and escaping that way. No one had seriously considered doing so. The vaults were a sacred place, an extension of the temples that had lined Theater Avenue until the end of the previous century. Janus attended one of the two remaining temples on Theater Avenue and had offered once to give Michael a tour of the temple and the underlying vaults. Michael had refused without explanation. He had not wanted to tell Janus, "I'm uncertain what the effect will be on me if I see Hell's altar."

Yet now Michael and the healer were making their way through the maze leading past the cells where the hermits of southern Vovim had once lived, when they travelled this far north.

Michael knew the story from the books Janus had lent him when he was young. The southern hermits, seeking a new home, had crossed paths with a warrior tribe from the east, who originally wished to conquer and enslave the hermits. So the hermits performed them a play. The eastern tribal folk, seeing the deeds of the hermits' god and goddess enacted as though the acts were taking place, were filled with wonder at this eruption of the sacred into daily life. They immediately adopted the hermits into their tribe, joining their polytheistic worship in huts with the hermits' duotheistic worship in caves. The result, as time went on, was two forms of worship: temple prayer services aboveground and sacred theater performances in the artificial caves that the hermits had built underground. This fit nicely with the hermits' devotion to an underground god and an aboveground goddess, and so Hell and Mercy became the chief deities of the eastern tribal folk as well. In time, the two communities merged into one, the theater performances moved aboveground, and the vaults lay abandoned except to curious students of history.

"This maze may seem mysterious," Healer Braun said, "but in fact, if you look at the plan of it, you realize that it had a rational purpose. This was the only layout that would allow the hermits to cluster their cells close together, yet permit them the privacy of having their own stretches of corridor, unshared with their neighbors." He and Michael turned left, and the lantern-light brought another doorway into view. The corridor was becoming darker now; the dusk-light was fading, the holes to the world above were spaced further apart, and each turning of the corridor came more quickly.

The word "rational" hovered in Michael's mind, reminding him faintly of a conversation he had held with Janus during the previous month. This in turn brought thoughts of a neglected duty. He automatically labelled these thoughts "feelings of guilt" and waited to see whether the feelings would arise. They did not, but the thought remained.

"Sir," he said, "about the fee for your services—"

"Oh, we can discuss that later," said the healer blithely.

Michael stopped in his tracks with the abruptness of a boy slammed against the wall. The healer's words were familiar to him: he and every other whore at Outram's had been trained to speak them when enticing a patron out of the foyer. "We can discuss the price later," the boy or woman would say in a sultry voice. "Just come and see what I have to offer, and then you can decide whether it's worth your while to buy me." Any whore who was even half-trained could turn such a lure into a three-hour session, with Outram waiting outside afterwards to collect the hefty fee.

Healer Braun, hearing Michael stop, turned round. Michael did not have Hasan's gift for reading faces, but it seemed to him that Healer Braun's look of surprise was genuine, if only because the healer strove to hide it quickly. "My apologies," Healer Braun said. "It's been a while since I took a commoner as a patient. Of course you would be concerned about the monetary aspect of your visit."

"You've counselled commoners before?"

"Oh, yes. In fact I've counselled a number of former prostitutes in the past – it's not at all unusual for men and women in your situation to seek help. My former patients and I were always able to come to an understanding over the payment of the fee. In your case . . ."

Healer Braun swung the lantern lightly in his hand, causing the electricity to waver in strength. Michael waited to see whether, as he suspected, this would prove to be the end of his meeting with the healer. He and Janus had survived the previous month only because, on the day after Michael gave their money to the beggar, Archy had sent them the money for his debt, paid in full. Michael was sure this was no coincidence. Discussing this episode, he and Janus had agreed that they could not permit themselves to become indebted to a patron, even if that patron was a friend. So Michael had made quiet enquiries to track down the healer whom Archy had mentioned. This quest proved to be easy, as only one mind healer worked in this city. He was, as Archy had said, a member of that rare breed, a gentleman-turned-healer, and he was mentioned favorably in the best magazines for the high-born.

Healer Braun continued, "I suppose I should explain that, since we healers are not permitted by our code to advertise our services, we depend heavily on referrals. Because mind healing is not yet widely known in Vovim, many of my referrals come from Yclau mind healers, who learn about my work primarily through the articles I write for the International Journal of Mind Healing. Your case, I think, would be likely to attract a great deal of attention if I wrote about it. Of course I would suppress all identifying information about you and the people of whom you speak," he added swiftly.

Michael thought about this as water chimed its way down the wall near him. He could see no problem with such an arrangement; but then, he often could not see problems that existed. That was why he was here. "I'll need to discuss this with my business partner," he said.

"Of course," Healer Braun replied in a matter-of-fact manner. "And if Mr. Roe wishes to meet with me before offering his advice to you, I'll be glad to talk with him. In any case, since you have not yet agreed to become my patient, this is merely an introductory session and will cost you nothing."

After a minute, Michael nodded. He found the reference to Janus reassuring. He had known when he arrived here that this would be the first time since he left Outram's that he would be placing himself under the power of anyone besides Janus. The thought of submitting to a stranger had made him uneasy; the thought of a possible power struggle between Janus and the healer had been worse. This course was proving to be smoother than he had anticipated.

They continued on their way through the increasingly narrow corridors. The cells were growing smaller too, Michael realized as the lantern-light offered him a brief glimpse; the artificial caves were barely large enough now for a man to lie down in. They reminded him of his own bedroom.

"Do the temple representatives know that you come here?" he asked.

He realized belatedly that his question sounded accusatory, but the healer merely responded, "Oh, certainly. They welcome my lease money, and they are grateful to see this place put to use once more. It has lain empty for too long, they say. Apparently, the temple theater tried holding performances here several years ago, but the experiment didn't work out. Most of the audience members got lost on their way to the theater. —Here we are."

As he spoke, he turned out of the corridor, and suddenly Michael found himself in an enormous room, as large as Outram's foyer. Like the maze, the room was circular, and as Healer Braun raised the lamp in the air, Michael saw that, in the night-dark center of the room, something stony and curved rose above the ground. Words whispered above it.

After a moment, Michael asked softly, "Is that a stage, sir?"

"So the archeologists believe. According to them, this was the world's first stage. The hermits had no need of stages back when they lived in what is now southern Vovim, for everyone then was a player. There was no audience to those plays. But when the hermits met the residents of Eastern Vovim, they had an audience for the first time, and so they built this platform so that all of the eastern tribal folk could witness their plays." He glanced over at Michael; then his gaze lingered. "Is something the matter?"

Michael shook his head as he tried to swallow back the bile. He imagined himself saying, "Stages always make me sick, because they remind me of the romantic dramas that the boys in Outram's whorehouse used to perform." He had no need of a healer to reveal to him why the performance of lovemaking made him uncomfortable.

The healer gazed at him a moment more but apparently was too tactful to pursue the matter. "Well," he said, "we have arrived. If you'll just come this way . . ."

Michael took several steps forward, then stopped. As Healer Braun brought the lamp closer to the stage, a great black shape began to form in the dark, looming like a crouched animal. The healer's light came still closer to it, and Michael saw that it was some sort of table. From where he stood, below eye level, he could tell little about it except that the side facing him was straight and long, and the table was hollow beneath. The healer reached the stage, lightly climbed some wooden steps that had been constructed next to the platform, and crossed the stage without hesitation. Then he placed the lamp upon the table, went to the other side of the table, and sat down in a chair there. He gestured to Michael in invitation.

Michael wondered what Janus would think if he were here. Most likely he would be aghast merely at the sight of Healer Braun climbing onto the stage; seeing what use the healer put to the stage might make Janus pass out. Michael, more inured to acts of blasphemy, asked cautiously, "Is that an altar, sir?"

"An altar? Mercy's Grace, no – the archaeologists think it was a higher platform for the principal players. If it were an altar, there would be two of them, you see." He smiled, implicitly excusing Michael's lack of knowledge of temple customs.

Michael moved slowly forward. The closer he came, the more he could hear the voices, speaking in stilted rhythms, but distantly, as though the words had been spoken long ago. And the closer he came, the more clearly he could see the table. He put one foot on the steps to the stage; then another foot. And then he was sure.

Michael slowly looked up toward the ceiling. There, barely discernable in the lantern-light, was the hole in the middle of the ceiling. The space within the hole was black, but no doubt, when this room was built, it would have been blue. Of course there were not two altars here – Mercy did not dwell underground. Only one god made his dwelling in this place.

He looked again at the stone table. It was not rectangular, like the altars in the pictures he had seen of modern temples. What had appeared to be a rectangle from below stage level was merely the base of a triangle that pointed away from him. A second triangular block rose on the other side of the stage, where the healer calmly waited, patient with Michael's hesitancy. The first triangle overlapped with the second, their points cutting into one another.

Michael slowly crossed the stage till he reached the side of the table, which was at hip-level. Then, trying not to be conspicuous, he ran his hand across the central portion of the side facing him. Yes, there – that notch was where the axle had been attached to the table. And further down, on both sides of the notch, were the curved indentations of the rim of the wheel. He wondered how the archaeologists had explained them. Presumably, the archaeologists were not well versed in the history of torture.

The only advantage Michael had ever received from being dragged into Outram's bed was that Outram's room was decorated with tastefully framed etchings of Vovim's old Hidden Dungeon. Michael would examine them whenever Outram was called away suddenly to deal with an emergency in his whorehouse. The etchings had been made during the previous century, before the dungeon was abolished by decree of the new parliament – or had simply hidden itself more effectively, some commoners said, awaiting a king who would once again issue orders to his torturers. In the meantime, the tales went, the prisoners who had been condemned to a lingering death by the last king of the old monarchy had had their lives extended by unnatural means. Perhaps by invocations to Hell, who blessed the work of all torturers.

Michael let his eye travel over the double-triangled table. He had never expected to come this close to one of these; everyone had said that all of them were destroyed during the civil war. A few were kept in Yclau museums as examples of the barbarities of earlier days, but the ones that had been manufactured in Yclau were of a different design. Michael had to resist the impulse to ask Healer Braun to check to see whether there was evidence of a second wheel on his side. Michael had never been able to tell from the etchings in Outram's room.

He had made good use of what he learned in that room. His patrons at Outram's, believing him to be nothing but an ignorant whore-boy, would gasp in shock as he revealed knowledge that only someone educated in the history of Vovim's dark past should have known. By the time he told them that he was one of the Hidden Dungeon's apprentice torturers, whose life had been extended as a gift from Hell, they were half ready to believe him. Then he would tighten the chains and tell them what he did to prisoners on the rack.

He ran his gaze once more over Hell's altar, trying to envision what role this object had played in the sacred performances. Janus had told him once that, in the early years of the previous century, condemned criminals had acted willingly in theater performances, even though they knew that the plays would end with their executions. Had these sacred deaths been the last, lingering shadows of an earlier time when the hermits had acted out plays about Hell by willingly submitting to torture? He could well imagine that the eastern tribal folk would have been impressed by such a play. He thought of Outram again, and of a sacred play the whoremaster had told him about one night, in which Mercy, incarnated as a boy, was stretched upon Hell's rack and drilled by him. . . . Michael had not spent much time back then wondering whether the account was true or whether it simply arose from Outram's fertile imagination. His mind had been too much on his legs and arms. Outram always stretched him too tightly.

Healer Braun, seeing him glance up once more at the light-hole above the altar, mistook the cause and said, "Don't worry about the noise. We're in the basement of a theater—"

"The temple theater," said Michael. Then, as the healer raised his eyebrows, he explained, "I recognize the voice of one of the players."

"Ah." Healer Braun leaned back in his chair, placing his fingers steeple-fashion against one another. "Well, you needn't worry that they'll hear us during their rehearsal. They're far above us. Come, sit down."

Michael dragged forward the chair that awaited him, wondering whether he ought to say, "You know, your office is Hell's torture cell, and your desk is his rack." He supposed not; it was unlikely that any of Healer Braun's patients would have the background to guess. But he could not imagine how he was going to tell this tale to Janus.

The healer had his palms laid against one another now as he waited for Michael to speak. Seating himself, Michael asked, "Why did you choose this place as your office?"

"Many of my patients find the dim light and the privacy to be soothing," Healer Braun replied. "One of my patients said he felt as though he had returned to his mother's womb."

The sight of the rack just inches from him was having a far from soothing effect on Michael. In an endeavor to push back the images crowding into his mind, he asked, "Did I offer the right answers to the words you gave me before?"

"Oh, there are no right answers," Healer Braun explained, smiling. "I just wanted to see how far you understood the concept of emotions. You say you haven't experienced them, yet you seem to have grasped their nature quite well."

Michael thought about this. He had not tried, since his arrival here, to shape his face into any expression. It had seemed more important to show the healer his natural state. If Healer Braun found this alarming in any way, he was doing a good job at hiding his distress. Michael wondered whether healers, like himself, trained themselves to play-act.

"Most of what I know about feelings comes from reading novels," Michael said finally. "I can understand what feelings are to a certain extent. For example, when a character falls in love, the writer will say things such as, 'His thoughts dwelt on her all the day long,' or, 'When she was not in his presence, he yearned for her.' That has happened to me – at least, I think it has. My thoughts are often of wanting to be with Hasan. That's as close as I can come to longing."

Healer Braun nodded. "So what is missing?"

"Everything else. The physical reactions are missing, to begin with. 'His heart pounded when he saw her.' 'He felt sweat cover him at the sight of her.' 'His loins burned at the thought of her.' None of that happens to me when I think of Hasan or see him. And then there's a third thing, the emotion itself. I have little idea what it's like to undergo a feeling, because the writers are so vague in their descriptions. They will say something like, 'His heart swelled with love for her,' but they won't tell what the feeling of love is like. I suppose it must be some sort of swelling feeling, but I can't imagine what it's like to experience that."

Healer Braun nodded and appeared to contemplate Michael's words for a minute. Upstairs, the exchange of voices had momentarily halted. Michael heard a single voice speaking, and he wondered whether the speaker was the stage manager. Had the hermits possessed stage managers? Archy had said not. How, then, had they been able to play-act, without anyone to tell them what to do?

"Have you ever had a physical reaction to any thought whatsoever?" Healer Braun asked abruptly.

"Yes." His answer was equally quick; he had asked himself this question long ago. "Sometimes, when I was with a patron as a boy, my heart would pound. Not from sexual desire, but my heart would race as though I'd been beaten myself."

"And what were your thoughts at that time?"

"Destruction. That was my only thought when I was with my patrons: to destroy them as completely as I could."

"But you did not destroy them," the healer suggested.

"Only because there was no safe way in which I could have done so. Outram would have torn me to pieces if I'd hurt the patrons in any way they did not desire. I had to be subtle; I did my best to break them down in small ways that wouldn't be obvious." He was silent a minute, thinking of the patron who had stopped visiting him suddenly. He had heard a rumor that the patron had taken his own life. Michael could not be sure that he himself was the reason. Even Janus had said that.

Healer Braun said, "You always practiced whipstering with your patrons?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever do it to yourself?"

He began to shake his head, then stopped. "Not until recently," he said slowly.

He explained then about Hasan's visit, and about what had followed from it. "That was the start," he said. "And since then . . . Janus thought I might be able to regain my feelings by practicing greater sympathy toward other people. He thought this could lead to empathy. So I spend every spare minute I have in the day talking to the boys, asking them about their lives before they came to my house. The stories they tell are often tragic – I know that with my mind. But I cannot feel the sadness. I try all day to feel, and then, at the end of the day, I go into my room and lock the door and beat myself. And after a while I can cry and tremble and feel my heart pound and do all the things I know I ought to have done in response to the boys' stories. I can act normal for a while."

He looked over at the healer. In the dimness of the electric lamp, all that Michael could see was that Healer Braun did not appear to be shocked. The man seemed to have the type of nerves that would have allowed him to work in a whorehouse.

"What I've been doing isn't normal, is it?" Michael said.

"Normal? No. Given your circumstances, though, I would call it natural. You are severely ill, and people who are severely ill sometimes take extreme measures in an attempt to cure themselves. Such measures are usually not wise, but they are understandable."

Michael considered this as the sound of the rehearsal began again upstairs. He had heard Evan sing "The Madness of the High Seeker" so many times now that he had spent much of the walk here wondering whether the healer's first act, upon hearing what his problem was, would be to call for the King's patrol to take him away to an asylum for the insane. Healer Braun, though, seemed to be treating him so far as though everything he had done was a logical response to the situation he found himself in. He asked cautiously, "Is losing all memory of one's early childhood a natural act as well?"

"In your particular case? I would have called it an example of the miraculous ability of the mind to adapt itself to horrific events. You say that you have some memory of what you were like before your present condition began."

"Very little," Michael replied. "I have no memory of my family or of what my life was like before I came to Outram's. My first memory is of Outram throwing my rubber ball out the window. I remember that it hurt me when he did that, even though he hadn't yet touched me. I began to cry, and he slapped me, and I grew afraid then. I remember what fear felt like. Then he closed the door to his room and—"

He stopped. Even after twelve years, it was still difficult to speak of what came next. Healer Braun said quietly, "And then he raped and tortured you for a week."

"Yes. He was teaching me to be whipstered. I don't remember much of that except the pain."

"Was it pain of the body, or was it pain such as you experienced when Outram threw away your ball, a pain that went beyond the body?"

He thought for several minutes on this, his eyes now blind to the altar in front of him. Finally he said, "It was both at the start, I think. At the end, it was only pain of the body."

"Ah." The note of satisfaction in Healer Braun's voice was so striking that Michael was startled out of his faint memories. He looked over at the healer, who smiled at him. "That is the clue we need," Healer Braun said.

Michael's thoughts entered into the state that he sometimes labelled "impatience." He wanted to get beyond the elementary questions to the heart of the matter. He already knew that he had lost his emotions during Outram's first rape of him – he had both his own memory and Hasan's to tell him that. He reminded himself that his old patrons had often found his own actions to be trite until they understood what he fully intended. "What sort of clue, sir?" he asked politely.

"The clue as to what your mind's intentions were when it cut off your emotions. Minds are intelligent creatures, you see. They do not act irrationally, even when they bring illness. Their actions are always an effort to save us from greater disaster. For example, a mind may choose to pull a man into madness because his outward circumstances have become so unbearable that the only way in which the mind can protect him is by taking him into a world of illusion."

Laughter drifted through the hole that had once provided light. Michael supposed that the players must be rehearsing the romantic drama whose script Archy had deprecated during the previous month. He could hear Archy's voice now, confident and sure, speaking once more in the stilted fashion that Michael guessed must be modern drama's idea of natural speech.

He said, "And you think that's what my mind did? Created a madness?"

"It created a protection for you, certainly. But let us start back at the beginning. This thing which we call 'emotion' is not nearly as complicated as you have led yourself to believe. If, for example, I grow angry at you, two things will happen. I will have thoughts of anger – thoughts of your destruction, perhaps. Then I will have some physical accompaniment to those thoughts – perhaps a pounding heart. And that is all. That is anger."

His thoughts stopped as abruptly as though Outram had brought a single-tail down upon him full-force. After a minute of the mental equivalent of holding his breath, he said, "You mean I have experienced feelings?"

"One feeling, it appears. You have experienced anger. As for the other feelings you lost, it would be more accurate to say that you have kept one-half of each feeling. You are able to listen to a sad story, and you are able to know that is it is sad. I'm not sure you understand how great an accomplishment this is. Many boys, having undergone the trauma that you underwent at so young an age, would have closed themselves so far off from the world that they would have lost all ability to sympathize with other people's pain."

"That happened to me for a while," Michael said slowly.

"But you retrained yourself, thanks to your association with Mr. Roe. And fortunately you met Mr. Roe less than a year after you came to work for Mr. Outram. If another year or two had passed, it's quite possible that your mind would not have been able to recover the ability to understand and have compassion for other people's emotions. As it was, you have become skilled at sympathy and all other normal thought patterns that constitute the mental portion of feeling. The only missing item now is the physical half of emotion, the half that governs such actions as smiling and weeping. Do you understand why you have lost this half of your emotions?"

He thought a minute and said, "The mind took the madman away from pain. That's what happened to me?"

"Yes, and in a far more creative manner. You were in great danger, you know, of losing your mind's connection with this world altogether during that first time with Mr. Outram – of going mad, as we call it. Instead, your mind showed itself to be more imaginative and resilient. It decided that, since your problem was too much pain, it would cut off your ability to feel mental pain, as well as the physical reactions that accompany mental pain. Unfortunately, by this point in your tragedy, your mind had come to associate pain with emotion, so it severed the bond between your emotions and all other thoughts – you underwent the mental equivalent of having a nerve severed. Even your memories of past emotions were taken from you. Your mind took everything from you which might cause you mental pain, so that in the future you would be unable to feel any pain other than externally administered physical pain."

"But I can feel mental pain now?" It felt odd to say the word "feel" after so many years of thinking himself a liar whenever he applied the word to himself.

"Yes, you managed to retrain your mind to partially undergo emotions once more. But because you did not fully understand what your mind had done, you were unable to recover the physical reactions that normally accompany the mental portion of emotions. That is what is missing from your life, and that is what we must seek to recover."

A distant thunderclap of applause startled Michael away from his thoughts. From the calls of "Well played!" and "The gods guide you!" that accompanied the storm of foot-pounding, he realized that he was listening, not to a rehearsal, nor to one of the later performances, but to the opening-evening improvisation. He became aware again that he was sitting on a ten-millennia-old stage in near darkness with an instrument of torture directly in front of him and a gentleman healer waiting expectantly for him to make comment.

It was one of the few times in his life that he was grateful he was incapable of hysterical laughter. Pitching his voice to contain a mixture of appropriate gratitude and solemnity, he asked, "How do you advise that I proceed, sir?"

From the manner in which Healer Braun's eyebrows lifted abruptly, Michael gathered that he had just put in a particularly fine performance himself. The healer made no comment on his play-acting, however. He simply replied by asking, "Do you know why it is that your mind left you with the ability to feel anger?"

He thought upon this. Upstairs, the applause had died down, and the play continued. A female player was speaking now, her voice sweet and sorrowful, lifting the stilted rhythm of the words above what they might have been.

Michael said slowly, "I've always thought that I became a whipster in order to have revenge on Outram. But I think now that it was more complex than that. It was my way of protecting myself against further pain. I think my mind decided that the only way to keep myself from being hurt in the future was to inflict pain on others. As it happened," he said, adding a note of dryness to his voice, "I was only partially successful. I wasn't able to stop Outram from using me. But I think that plan was why my mind allowed the anger to remain. Anger was a useful emotion; it could help me to cause pain to others. The other feelings . . . They made me vulnerable?"

He ended on a questioning note, though Healer Braun was already smiling. "You could have trained as a mind healer," the other man said. "You have the ability to analyze the workings of a mind. So what is then the solution to the problem you're faced with?"

He spent less time on thought before speaking again. "The whipstering is the key, as I'd suspected. I became a whipster in order to avoid pain – in order to avoid feelings of any sort, since my mind had come to identify feelings with pain. As long as I remain a whipster, I still have one outlet for my feelings, my anger. But if I take that outlet away, if I do not permit my feelings to run through that single, narrow channel . . . Perhaps the dam will burst, and my other feelings will return?"

He looked enquiringly at Healer Braun. The healer did not smile or frown this time; he simply asked, "Is that what you want to do?"

Michael looked at the smooth surface of the rack. The stone was worn down in the middle, where bodies had lain. He could imagine Hasan there, willingly offering himself up as the hermits had done to their god, giving himself over to pain of body and mind for Michael's sake.

And then he thought of the last morning he had spent at Outram's. He had awoken to find Hasan lying beside him, smiling. The other boy had leaned over and given him a kiss on the cheek in honor of his feast-day.

"Yes." He was surprised at how firm his voice was. "That's what I want. Even if my feelings never return to me, I don't wish to be a whipster. That's not what I am; that's what Outram made me into. I want to go back to what I really am. I want to find the light at the heart of the darkness."

The play paused. There was no sound in the chamber except for the occasional crackle of the electric lamp. The darkness waited.

Finally Healer Braun broke the silence. "I am glad to hear you say that, for I fear I would not have been able to assist you otherwise. We mind healers in Vovim meet periodically to discuss issues related to our ethical conduct toward our patients, and at our latest meeting we agreed that it would not be right for us to advise or assist our patients to retain abnormal forms of sexual leanings, even if the patients believed that such forms benefitted them. You realize, of course, that whipstering is abnormal and leads to destruction of both the person who practices it and the person on whom he practices it?"

This universal statement made his mind pause. He tried to apply the words to Dora, but finally abandoned the effort, saying only, "I know that this is true for me."

Healer Braun seemed satisfied with this answer. "So," he said, "we will try to bring you back to what you were before your mind was twisted by your former employer. Such changes are never easy. A century ago, mind healers were overly optimistic and believed that it was possible to change people's sexual leanings in all cases. We've since learned this isn't so. In cases where the patient's sexuality developed at a very early age, when the person was still under the close care of his or her parents, there is little or no chance of changing the person's abnormal sexual leanings. In your case, however, you lived as a normal boy for eleven years before you became a whipster; you were exposed to normal forms of sexual leanings. All that we need do, then, is find the path back to your sexuality before Mr. Outram corrupted you."

Michael frowned. He did so out of politeness; now that Healer Braun understood his situation, Michael thought he should provide the expressional clues to his thoughts that he provided to all other people he valued. "You speak of my sexual leanings, but I receive no sexual pleasure from whipstering," he said.

"I think you do, though at a level not likely to be obvious. Sexual leanings, you must understand, are as much a matter of the mind as of the body. Your mind's sexual leanings are turned to whipstering, even if your mind has cut off all bodily responses to your emotions. So." The healer's voice became suddenly brisk. "How to proceed is clear enough. We must turn your sexual leanings back to what they were when you were a boy and expand your sexual responses so that you receive mental as well as physical pleasure from sexual desire. Once your body has learned that it is possible to receive pleasure from the emotions that accompany reaching your zenith, your mind will realize that emotions can bring pleasure as well as pain. This will in turn cause your mind to free your other feelings and permit them to return."

This calm pronouncement was so utterly logical and clear that Michael was suspended for a moment in admiration of an artisan whose skills, it now seemed, matched his own, though in a very different arena. Michael leaned forward, almost oblivious to the fact that he was now leaning upon the altar. "I would appreciate any guidance you can give me in how to accomplish this, sir."

"We will be exploring the best paths to take in the coming sessions. But to start with our foundation . . . You said before that you have never formed intimate relations with any woman."

He was startled by this change of topic but answered readily, "The only women I've had more than passing contact with, other than the healer who tends one of our boys, were the female whores at Outram's. I exchanged information with them about dealing with patrons, but we never got to know one another better than that. . . . I know that Mr. Roe has been concerned about the fact that I've never had a female friend, but he and I agree that to create such ties would be impossible under my present circumstances."

"Because you would run the risk of ruining the woman's reputation, due to the work you do. Yes, I see. That is unfortunate, but I have had cases like this before and have no qualms about recommending the alternative. So, we will endeavor to alter your sexual leanings so that you are attracted to boys. Once that is done—"

"Wait." He was snatched by the thought he often encountered with Janus, that his own ignorance concerning human emotions had caused him to miss some vital part of the conversation. He mentally traced the discussion backwards but still could not see when the leap had occurred. Perhaps he had simply not made his situation clear enough?

"Sir," he said carefully, "I agree with you that I must turn my attractions back to the path they would have taken if Outram had not raped me, but there is no need to do that by selecting boys as my object of attraction. I am already in love. I have the mental half of feelings of love," he added for clarity's sake.

Healer Braun leaned back further in his chair, placing his hands in his lap. "But I understood from what you said that he has left you."

Another pause ensued. The female player continued to speak; Archy had been silent for quite a long time now. Perhaps he had reached the portion of the play where the heroine revealed her faithlessness.

"He did so for my sake," Michael said finally. "He left me because he believed that, if he stayed away from me, I would no longer be reminded of Outram's and would be able to turn back to what I was." He was no longer sure this was the true reason Hasan had left, but to say otherwise would be to break faith with Hasan's declaration of love the previous autumn.

Healer Braun did not answer immediately. His gaze had wandered toward the ceiling, as though he were listening to the play. Then he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the altar.

"I know this will be difficult for you to understand," he said slowly, as though speaking to a child, "but I would ask that you give full consideration to what I say. When you first fell in love with this young man, he was a boy like yourself. Well, such things happen; they may be part of the normal process of growing. But since Hasan came of majority last year, your mind has classified him as a man, and you have been drawn to him, not because you love him, but because your sexual leanings were twisted when you were a boy to make you wish to require men to submit to you. This is not the normal way in which sexual leanings operate. Under normal circumstances, your instincts as a boy would have been to submit to a man, and once you had grown, your instincts would have been to accept the willing submission of a woman or boy. That is the purpose of a full-grown man's sexual leanings – to protect and care for those who are weaker than himself, either because of their gender or because they are still young. But your sexual leanings were corrupted, so that you have endeavored to force men to submit sexually to you, both as a boy and as a man. This longing you feel for another man is nothing more than a manifestation of your whipstering. If you wish to abandon whipstering, you must learn to direct your sexual love toward women or boys rather than men."

Incongruously, the sense of irony entered his mind that usually demanded he laugh for the benefit of the other person. He imagined himself saying to Janus, "I went to the mind healer for help to stop whipstering, and he advised me to drill boys." Then the irony in his mind faded as he recognized that Janus already feared this was what Michael wanted. This was why Janus had taken such care to ask after the healer's background.

"I understood that you were educated in Yclau, sir," he said aloud.

Healer Braun did not pretend ignorance of the implication behind the statement; he acknowledged Michael's remark with a nod. "I am greatly indebted for my training there. We mind healers who are Vovimian, however, try not to let our debt to Yclau blind us to certain deficiencies in the Yclau understanding of sexual leanings. We are all agreed that sexual or romantic attraction between grown men is an abnormality and should not be encouraged."

It was one of those moments when all Michael could do was try to think of what Janus would want him to say. Fortunately, the answer was ready at hand; he experienced the mental relaxation of relief. "Sir," he said, "I understand why you would not normally encourage your patients who are men to be in love with other men, but you must understand that it would be ethically wrong for me to try to develop a sexual attraction to boys. I am the proprietor of a pleasure house for boys. One reason I have been able to run the house in a manner beneficial to the boys is that I am not attracted to them and therefore do not seek to attach them to me, either sexually or romantically. I have no wish to find myself in a position where I am tempted to form sexual bonds with any of my house's boys, and I'm sure that my business partner shares my views on this."

"Ah." Healer Braun's voice was quiet. "Well, that makes matters more difficult, but I honor you for your desire to conduct yourself in the highest ethical manner possible. In that case, we are left with only one possibility. It is a difficult goal, but it can be accomplished, as the hermits once demonstrated."

Michael stayed silent as the relaxation of his certainty disappear. He imagined himself saying to Janus, "I believe that I should remain chaste for the remainder of my life, no longer permitting myself to be in love with anyone." He could see Janus smiling and nodding. Then he imagined himself saying, "I believe that I should remain faithful in love to Hasan, even if I never see him again." He could see Janus smiling and nodding to that as well.

He stared at the fork in the path, unable to determine which way he should take. He wished that Janus were here; Janus would know what he should do. Michael felt suddenly naked without the aid of his friend's wisdom.

Healer Braun leaned further forward, saying, "I would not press this upon you if you had not already indicated that you wish to stop yourself from being a whipster. I realize that I am asking you to make what must seem like an impossible sacrifice. But I think that, if you contemplate the path we have followed in this discussion, you will realize that this is the only rational manner in which to proceed. It is the only path that will bring you peace from your present distress."

The female player paused, waiting for the hero's response to her speech. The hero did not seem to be in any rush to give it. He allowed the pause to lengthen to the breaking point.

"It's not rational," Michael said.

Healer Braun raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"What you said before, about the maze being made for rational reasons." Michael heard his voice distantly; the words were coming to him without him making any effort to formulate them himself. "I don't believe that the hermits built the maze for rational reasons. I think there's more to it than that."

"Oh?" The healer seemed patient with Michael's attempt to avoid the topic of their conversation. "What do you believe that reason was?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps it was because they hoped that any unworthy person who tried to enter this theater would become lost in the maze and die."

A pause. Still the hero had not spoken; he seemed to be using silence as a weapon. Healer Braun folded his hands, one over the other.

"Well," he said, "that is an interesting theory. Tell me, why do you associate the words of guidance I have spoken with images of becoming lost and dying?"

He had risen to his feet before he knew it. "I need to leave now."

The healer was skilled at hiding his surprise swiftly. He leaned back, took his watch from his vest pocket, and peered at it, saying, "That is just as well. I fear that our time for today has finished."

From where Michael stood, he could see the hands on the watch and knew that the healer was being polite. Healer Braun pocketed the watch, stood up, and said, "It was a pleasure to have a chance to talk with you today. . . ." He reached out his arm toward Michael.

Michael hesitated; then he leaned over the altar to shake arms in farewell to the healer. And at that moment, the player gave his response.

It was not the hero's speech; that much was clear in an instant. Gone were the stilted rhythms of the modern drama. Now the player's voice was rolling thunderously in the high waves of poetic speech, which oddly enough sounded more natural than the prose that had come before. Michael did not need to hear the words to know that this speech came from one of the sacred plays. Nor did he need to guess which character was being played. Whether from boredom or perverse pleasure or an unexpected bidding from the gods, Archy's voice had taken on the harsh, cutting tones of the god below.

Michael's hand was still grasping the healer's arm, though their shake of farewell had ended. He could feel the flesh and bone beneath the cloths of the suit and shirt and undersuit. The healer, patient as always, waited for him to remove his hand. The dark god in the theater continued his baneful denunciation.

Michael knew then that he had made a very great mistake. He should not have allowed this discussion to be conducted in seclusion; above all, he should not have allowed it to be conducted in this place. He wished that he had brought Janus with him. Janus would have known; Janus always knew when Michael was about to enter into danger.

He looked at the healer's eyes. The man appeared slightly puzzled now, though he still did not pull back from Michael's grasp. He was leaning over the altar further than Michael was. He was almost off-balance. Only one wrench would be needed; surprise would do the rest. Michael had learned that when he was eleven, with his first patron.

Michael was touching the altar with the fingers of his free hand; he could feel how cold it was. It would be colder still upon a naked body. He saw it all in his mind, heard the words he would speak and knew the deeds he would do. He had no tools with which to do this, but that did not matter. He had not had any tools when he began with his first patron. All he needed were his nails and his teeth and the power of his words to bind a man in fear.

In his mind's eye, the man reached the zenith of his pain and screamed. They always screamed at the end. This time, Outram would not be waiting outside; there was only the secretary, and she could be dealt with somehow. Perhaps he could make the man tell her to go home. Michael was skilled at making men beg for their own punishment.

The words of the god continued to roll like endless black waves, pounding and pulverizing. No one had spoken to stop the speech. How long had the plays in this theater lasted? Hours? Days? He had never had anyone for days; that would be something new. And there was no reason why he should leave the man his pleasure. No reason why he should leave the man his life.

"Is something wrong?" asked the healer. He still had not removed his arm, but his brows were creased with concern now.

No reason. He had given only his first name when requesting an appointment; the secretary was unlikely to remember him well enough to be able to identify him among the hundreds of dark-skinned men in the capital named Michael. No one knew he had come here except Janus—

Janus. The word broke into Michael's thoughts like a rock breaking the path of waves, though the waves continued to tumble on. The thoughts of destruction remained in Michael's mind, but so did the word. Above him, the god's voice cried out with coldness.

He released the healer's arm. "Thank you for your time, sir," he heard himself say.

"Not at all," replied Healer Braun. "I realize that you need to think about what we have said and to discuss it with Mr. Roe. I'll just show you out."

"There's no need. I know my way back."

"Well, then, you can make an appointment with my secretary for our next meeting. I'm glad we had this chance to talk." He smiled.

Michael turned when he reached the doorway to the maze. Healer Braun had reseated himself and had taken out a small notebook. He was jotting down notes with his pencil now, the lead running rapidly over the paper as he recorded all that had taken place. Above him, faintly, the god's voice screamed its fury.

"I wish you had someone like Janus to help you," Michael murmured.

The healer did not hear him. Michael turned and entered the maze, leaving Healer Braun alone in Hell's dwelling place.

Michael had reached Theater Avenue and was halfway to the King's Bridge when he remembered. He stood motionless a moment, uncertain. The cap could easily be replaced, albeit with money he did not possess. On the other hand . . .

He was relieved to find, when he arrived back, that the secretary had disappeared from the upper office. He made his way over to the hat-and-stick rack. He had just touched his cap when he heard the healer's voice, sliding its way up the stairs that led from the vaults.

"It happens every time, Maggie," Healer Braun told his secretary. "These ex-prostitutes turn up at my office and swear by all the sacred relics that they wish to be healed of their illness. Except that, if I please, I should not touch this one special part of their illness that they treasure. No, not even if the sickness spreads further – they cannot abide the knife to save their life. What their treasure is varies, but each time the tale is the same. And so these men and women go away, clinging to their treasure like misers, and in time I learn that they have been lost to the depths of their illness."

Healer Braun's voice was coming closer. Michael carefully picked up his hunting crop from where it lay next to an umbrella, tucked it under his jacket, and silently left the office.
 

CHAPTER FIVE

Michael's House had twenty-four chimneys. All of them were working chimneys, built in the days before gas stoves and cooking ranges. The house's present owners could not afford to fuel every room that possessed a hearth, but during the winter, many of the rooms would send smoke up merrily, marking the whorehouse on Riverbend Hill as clearly as an advertising banner.

Hasan's room had a mirror above the mantel, placed in such a manner that it tilted to reflect whomever sat or lay in front of the hearth. It had been paid for by a patron with romantic notions, who enjoyed watching himself as he drilled Hasan on a cat-skin rug beside the fire. Hasan, who was less romantic, had once said that it was no doubt easier for the patron to enjoy such sessions, since he was not squashed onto the hard floor by the weight of the man above him.

The mirror was a valuable commodity. Michael had known, when Hasan left, that he ought to immediately install another boy here and charge patrons to this room twice the usual amount. But he had not done so. Since Hasan's departure, Michael had found himself wandering up to the room several times a day. He would sit on the windowsill overlooking the river or stare into the empty hearth.

The hearth was filled with fire now. The flames stretched high, feeding on kindling and on the objects he fed into the fire: cloth and leather and iron. The iron did not burn, but he placed the objects in there anyway, watching the carefully polished metal blacken.

He picked up a chain, felt its smooth, heavy weight upon his palms, and placed it in the fire. The fire ate it. He waited a while, then added a pair of cloth manacles. The fire eagerly flared to greet it.

Only one object was left now; it had not left his hand since he entered this room. It had scarcely left his hand for two years, and before that there had been another like it, dating back a further ten years. He looked down at the object, and felt its familiar pattern against his palm.

A creaking floorboard made him look up. From where he sat, he could see the figure reflected in the mirror above him – only the bottom half of the figure, but he needed no more for identification. He looked back down at the object in his hand. After a minute, the figure stepped forward.

It stopped just behind him. "Hello, Michael."

He kept his eyes lowered. "Did Janus draw you here again? Or did you come to give tale to the boys of how you're doing?"

"Neither." Hasan took another step forward and crouched down beside him, staring at the half-burnt objects in the fire. Since Michael had seen him last, Hasan had lost his jacket and vest; in his half-dressed state, his slender brown chest was visible through the white shirt, punctuated by the darker buds of his nipples. Hasan said, still staring at the fire, "I met Thaw the other day. You are knowing he has grown to be a guard for Outram?"

"Aye. 'Twas luck in his path." He did not insert irony into his voice. They both knew that any ex-whore who found work at a pleasure house was more fortunate than most of the rest of his comrades.

"He says word in the trade is that you've banned whipstering from your house. The city bookies won't draw new wagers on you; the odds are now near on one to one that you'll be out of business 'fore the end of spring."

He said nothing, keeping his eye on a scarf that had once served as a blindfold. It had fallen short of the flames, but the fire was creeping toward it.

"I saw Janus. He gives tale you went to a mind healer."

"I won't be returning."

"Aye. Janus gave tale that the mind healer was willing to help you, but only if you agreed to halt loving me."

He said nothing. The flames reached the scarf, leapt with joy, engulfed it. It was eaten within seconds.

Hasan sighed and sat down on the floor cross-legged. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael could see that Hasan's hair was far too long; it looked as though the younger man had attempted to cut the hair with something dull. If so, the attempt had failed.

"I've had mind of Janus all these months," said Hasan. "About how much he hates whoring. How he wants nothing more than to see all the whoring in the world screeched to a stop. And how he yielded you money to start a whorehouse and abided with you to help you run it."

Michael felt the crisscross pattern of overlapping leather strips under his fingers, worn to a shine by his hand.

"Michael, I can't love you like as Janus does—"

"No one could."

He had spoken the words without thinking, but Hasan merely smiled. It was a tired smile. "Nay, I couldn't try to be him. But he fills me with shame. I gave tale to myself that I was leaving you for your own sake, to help you find yourself, but the longer I was gone, the less sense that made. And there was Janus in my mind, standing by you through it all, letting the world be knowing that he, the prime minister's nephew, worked in a whorehouse. . . . I can't be Janus. But there must be something about me you find a gift, or you'd not have answered the mind healer like as you did."

"Aye." It was the only word he could think of to say. As often was the case, he was lost in the mystery of trying to follow Hasan's path of thought.

Hasan leaned back against his hands, the firelight showing the marks of dirt upon his face. "So what will you do now, if you'll not return to the mind healer?"

He gestured wordlessly toward the objects in the fire.

Hasan nodded as he reached out and touched the hunting crop in his hand. "Shall I put that in?"

"Nay," he replied. "I must be the one."

"Then we'll do it together." Hasan's hand slid back and enfolded Michael's. He did not push Michael's hand forward; he simply waited. Michael could feel the warmth of Hasan's blood upon his hand.

He moved slowly, accompanied by Hasan's palm over his hand. When he reached the heat of the fire, he forced his hand open. The hunting crop dropped. The flames, which had begun to die low, made their way cautiously over its surface, touching it, tasting it. They began to lick it.

Something moved on the edge of his vision; then he became aware of what was happening. He had just time enough to see his own reflection in the mirror – a face devoid of all warmth – before Hasan kissed him.

He put his arms around Hasan. He closed his eyes. He pressed his lips harder against Hasan's lips. All of this was in the novels; he had practiced it long ago in his imagination, in case it should ever be needed. The feel of Hasan's warmth against him was pleasant.
 

For a moment neither spoke. And then, his heart swelling with feelings of love, he took her in his arms, and kissed away the time of grief and separation.

It was fortunate, he thought, that he had no heart. If he did, his heart would surely break.

Janus stood contemplating the closed door that was at the other end of the second-storey balcony from his own. Michael and Hasan had been inside Hasan's bedroom for an hour now, and no sound had yet emerged. Janus supposed this only meant that the two men were passionately kissing or whatever else it was that reconciled love-mates were supposed to do. He tried to tell himself that it was only his continued discomfort over this type of relationship that was making him feel uneasy.

He scrutinized the courtyard below, crowded with boys and with patrons drawn out of their businesses for sport on this warm spring day. Having assured himself that all was well below, he made his way restlessly to the staircase next to his room.

At the foot of the stairs, he hesitated. The door to Michael's bedroom was ajar; without knowing why he did so, Janus walked forward to the tiny closet.

Inside, everything was as it always was. It was a room presentable to Janus's parents, if Mercy should ever send them this way: Michael always kept the unpresentable items, such as his crop, safely hidden under his bed. Still restless, Janus walked forward and tugged the blankets closer to the head of the bed. As he did so, his knuckles touched something.

He paused a moment, not really wanting to know what Michael kept under his pillow; then he pulled the object out. To his surprise, it was a book. In fact, it was the same novel he had given Hasan last fall as a going-away present. Frowning in puzzlement, Janus opened the volume and saw his own name neatly written in a child's hand on the first page.

He remembered then. This was one of the books he had lent to Michael in their early years – had lent it so often that he had finally told Michael that the other boy could keep the book. Janus picked up the volume, and as he did so, the book opened naturally to a pair of much-perused pages.

Frowning now in concentration, Janus carried the book out of the dim light of the closet, past the dimmer light of the corridor adjoining the stairs and kitchen, and into the brightness of Michael's office. He made his way to the window overlooking the square and stood with his back to it, in order to see best the words on the page. The light fell unimpeded through the open window.
 

For a moment neither spoke. And then, his heart swelling with feelings of love, he took her in his arms, and kissed away the time of grief and separation.

Janus quickly laid the book on the windowsill and came forward to grasp Lann's arm. Lann did not protest as the man guided him to a chair next to the window. Janus knew this was a bad sign. He glanced out the window, saw that Lann had posted another boy at the door in his place, and spent a minute assessing whether Lann could keep upright on his own. Then he went to the bathroom and drew water from the pump.

Lann was already looking better by the time he took the glass from Janus's hand. It appeared that he had received no more than a momentary spell of dizziness. Janus took heart from this, knowing that, in the past, Lann's faintness usually led him to weeks in bed. Lann gulped down the water; then, apparently trying to return matters to normal, he asked, "What are you reading, Mr. Roe?"

Janus gazed down at the book; the words there danced under the lazy light. He switched his gaze to the young ex-prostitute before him, the boy's face pale from the ravages of what he had undergone. Then Janus looked at the doorway leading to the balcony stairs. Still no sound.

He stared down at the book again. "Unrealistic fancies," he muttered and carefully closed the novel.

Lann was scrutinizing him by the time he looked up. Janus reminded himself that the boy was far too skilled at reading people; he forced himself to smile. "Have you read any of the sacred plays?" he asked.

Lann hesitated before replying, "I think we had them in school. I don't really remember."

For a minute Janus was silent, regarding the boy who had been doing his best to forget everything that had occurred to him before he came to live at this house. Then Janus pushed the novel away and settled his backside onto the ledge, saying, "One of my tutors told me that, beneath all their veneer of fancy, the sacred plays are the most realistic writings in the world. Let me tell you one of the stories, about a young man who was captured by the High Master of hell and forced to live in the High Master's dungeon for a century and a day until his patience broke Hell like a rack, whereupon the god released the young man into Mercy's care. . . ."

He spoke on, covering up the silence from the room above, as nearby Pye welcomed another patron to Michael's House for Boys.

Michael emerged from Hasan's room eventually. No sign lay on his face of what had occurred.

Janus quickly sent Lann away, then waited. Michael looked around the office, as though searching for something. His face remained blank. "What are you doing?" the whoremaster asked.

"I was telling Lann stories from the sacred plays."

"Oh." Michael continued to stare around, rubbing his fingers together. "I suppose they teach boys that in school?"

For a moment, Janus was so aghast that he could not speak. At last he said, "You've never read the sacred plays? Have never even seen them performed?"

"Not that I remember." Michael's thumb was moving in the air now, as though he were stroking something. His tone was as flat as prairie land in the west.

"Then it's time that I took you to a performance," Janus said firmly.

"Isn't it a bit late for that? I've been playing Hell for twelve years. I suppose," Michael added as he rubbed his fingers, "that I could offer Archy pointers on his performances."

Janus swallowed away his sickness. He had recognized finally what Michael was doing; the whoremaster was stroking the crop he no longer possessed.

"I'm sorry," Michael said.

"Why?"

"Because I can't be what I should be. I can't give you that." After the space of a minute, he added, "I can't give Hasan that."

Janus took in a breath, held it, and finally asked, "Did you burn the crop?"

"Yes."

"Will you buy another one?"

Michael stared down at his hands, as though noticing their movement for the first time. "No."

"Why not, if you're so sure that you've failed?"

Michael said nothing. His face continued to hold no expression, as though he had given up even his play-acting.

Finally Michael said, "I told Healer Braun that you were my hope. You're still here. As long as you're here . . ."

His voice trailed off. Janus caught himself in time from saying that Michael should not place his hopes in any mortal man. Michael did not have the sort of vision that would allow him to see past the setting of the immediate world in order to sense the gods standing backstage. If Michael regarded Janus as serving in the gods' place . . . Well, it would not be the first time that a mortal man had been forced to serve as the gods' messenger.

Without warning, Hasan popped his head round the doorway to the servants' wing. "Interrupting, am I?"

"No," replied Janus. The relief in his voice came as much from Hasan's expression as from his arrival. There was no sign of hopelessness or anger in the young man's face.

Michael, after looking at Hasan, finally settled into an expression: he puckered his forehead in the semblance of puzzlement. "You're still here?"

"Where else would I be?" asked Hasan cheerfully as he settled down in the office chair.

Michael's brow remained puckered. Janus said, "Hasan and I have more faith in you than you seem to have in yourself."

"See now, it takes time for some folk to change." Hasan smiled up at Michael. "I'm minding what you were like when first we met. Different than you are now, aye? But it took some days for that change to fall. And me, I'm figuring that, as long as you've got Janus to help you . . ."

Being venerated by Michael was one thing; having Hasan place all his hope in Janus was quite another. "Now, wait a minute," Janus protested. "I'm just an ordinary man—"

Hasan looked at Michael, his lips quirking. "He has mind he's just ordinary."

"An ordinary nephew to the prime minister." Michael's brow had smoothed out.

"An ordinary nephew to the prime minister who 'came best mate to a whore," Hasan added.

"An ordinary nephew to the prime minister who befriended a whore and is devoting his life to rescuing homeless boys," Michael concluded.

They both looked at Janus, whose face had turned warm. Hasan, shaking his head, got to his feet. "Aye, well, I'm surrounded by sacks of folk who have mind they're smaller than they are. You and Michael . . . you'd best have me around to give mind to you what you are in truth. —Am I in time for supper?"

Janus, feeling the warmth in his face extend to his neckline, said, "I'm in the mood for something cool. There's an ice cream parlor on Theater Avenue, and it lowers its prices off-season. I think we could afford it, as a treat to celebrate Hasan's return."

"Can I be joining you two, then?" asked Hasan.

Janus stared, but Hasan gave no sign that he was joking. Janus looked at Michael. Michael was awaiting his reply.

Janus felt the tension he had not realized was inside him unknot as the last of his fears disappeared that Hasan's arrival would change the nature of Michael's friendship with Janus. Trying for humor, he said, "This isn't how it happens in the romantic novels. In the romantic novels, the man and his beloved travel far away when they've joined together, leaving behind family and friends."

Hasan snorted. "I never had mind those romance scribblers were knowing much about love. Anyhow, they'd not met you and Michael."

Michael had opened the door to the speaker's stand and was peering into the contents of the cash-box there. "None of those novelists ran a whorehouse either. Shall we bring the boys with us? I don't suppose most of them have ever been to an ice cream parlor."

"Why not?" As he spoke, Janus felt his spirits lift, as though Mercy had walked into the room. He had no doubt that troubles would continue to lie in the path ahead – if nothing else, he had not reconciled himself to Michael offering the boys up for prostitution. But if he was to continue to be Michael's hope – and also Hasan's hope, it seemed . . .

"It's likely to be a hard year," Janus said as he went over to help Michael into his jacket. "Let's celebrate our good fortunes before we learn what trials the gods have laid before us in the coming months."

¶ Historical Note

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