Northshore by Sheri S. Tepper Page B

thought reproaches gained anything? He fingered in his purse for the smallest coin possible, summoning a servitor. ‘Give this to the singer.’ He smiled. ‘Tell him his song is pretty, but boring.’
    He stayed to see the message delivered, delighting in thebonelike pallor that suffused the boy’s face and the tears swimming in his eyes. Stupid. He would end as a living worker, a felonious boy-lover brought to justice. Ilze considered turning him in. No. Not yet. Perhaps later, when he needed amusement.
    The boy picked at his instrument, sang again, sadly:
    ‘When we are sunk so deep
    in madness’ sleep
    Who, who shall be our Awakeners? …’
    After lunch there was pretty little Seesa, the fish merchant’s wife. The fish merchant had been one of those who moved away in a tavern while making some ostentatious statement about the odor in the place. He and his wife had since learned how dangerous such an impudence could be. Now they took no license with Ilze whatsoever, though the lesson had taken them some time to learn – an interesting time for Ilze. Seesa’s submissiveness bored him now. Soon he would find another woman or another boy. What he needed he could not find among colleagues in the Tower – that is, not yet. When Pamra came to senior status, perhaps then. With her naivete she would not know she was allowed to refuse him. Until she learned that, perhaps he could enjoy her. In anticipation of that day, he had never whipped her, though the thought of her body tied to the stake made him grunt explosively at odd times, his penis twitching in spasms almost like orgasm.
    He returned to the Tower very late. There were no juniors at the trough, none who had been with the workers enough to need the cold ritual bath, and it was not required of seniors. He passed it by, humming, not dissatisfied with the day, a little puzzled at the unusual buzz of conversation in the junior dining hall, the air of mystery. The puzzlement gave way to amazement and then to baffled anger as he learned that Pamra seemed to be involved in some strange occurrence. Pamra! Obedient as any dog from the first day, with only that dazzling beauty to make him hold his hand! Never even whipped, and now this?
    No one seemed to know what had happened. She had not returned from the forest, and the worker pit was empty. No one had known about the workers until late in the day. Each Awakener had assumed that other juniors, rising earlier, had taken what workers there were. There were shortages from time to time when the people of Wilforn obstinately refused to die. Or, as Pamra would have said, ‘when most of those who died were good ones who were Sorted Out.’ Ilze snorted, remembering, a slow, hot anger beginning to build in him. It was very late, unexplainably late, and she had not returned. No one had seen her.
    By morning it was assumed Pamra and the missing workers were connected. There were only half a dozen new workers in the pit, scarcely enough to keep one Awakener busy. The work at the Tower would be disrupted for weeks. There was a feeling of unease in the place, a whispered buzz of conjecture and secretive hissing of words like heresy and conspiracy. The day wore slowly on, and the Superior did not put in an appearance.
    Ilze received the message at the evening meal. It was delivered by the Superior’s own servant, veiled, silent Threnot, she who spoke no word except what she was told to say by the Superior. ‘Now?’ asked Ilze. Threnot gestured toward the stairs. He laid his napkin down and followed her, feeling a twitch of fear, an uncustomary emotion, one he did not like.
    They stood outside the heavy door at the head of the stairs, waiting for a response to Threnot’s tapping. Though he had spoken often with the Superior in her office on the ground floor of the Tower, Ilze had been summoned to the Superior’s personal rooms only three times before. Once to receive senior status from her hands. Once to be commended for zeal in