Sword & Citadel by Gene Wolfe Page B

as I saw him once from the scaffold, with his mouth open and his eyes …”
    She stirred uncomfortably. “Yes, those eyes—I saw them tonight. Dead eyes, though I suppose I shouldn’t be the one to say that. A corpse’s eyes. You have the feeling that if you touched them they would be as dry as stones, and never move under your finger.”
    â€œThat isn’t it at all. When I was on the scaffold in Saltus and looked down and saw him, his eyes danced. You said, though, that the dull eyes he has at most times reminded you of a corpse’s. Haven’t you ever looked into the glass? Your own eyes are not the eyes of a dead woman.”
    â€œPerhaps not.” Dorcas paused. “You used to say they were beautiful.”
    â€œAren’t you glad to live? Even if your husband is dead, and your child is dead, and the house you once lived in is a ruin—if all those things are true—aren’t you full of joy because you are here again? You’re not a ghost, not a revenant like those we saw in the ruined town. Look in the glass as I told you. Or if you won’t, look into my face or any man’s and see what you are.”
    Dorcas sat up even more slowly and painfully than she had risen to drink the wine, but this time she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and I saw that she was naked under the thin blanket. Before her illness Jolenta’s skin had been perfect, with the smoothness and softness of confectionery. Dorcas’s was flecked with little golden freckles, and she was so slender that I was always aware of her bones; yet she was more desirable in her imperfection than Jolenta had ever been in the lushness of her flesh. Conscious of how culpable it would be to force myself on her or even to persuade her to open to me now, when she was ill and I was on the point of leaving her, I still felt desire for her stir in me. However much I love a woman—or however little—I find I want her most when I can no longer have her. But what I felt for Dorcas was stronger than that, and more complex. She had been, though only for so brief a time, the closest friend I had known, and our possession of each other, from the frantic desire in our converted storeroom in Nessus to the long and lazy playing in the bedchamber of the Vincula, was the characteristic act of our friendship as well as our love.
    â€œYou’re crying,” I said. “Do you want me to leave?”
    She shook her head, and then, as though she could no longer contain the words that seemed to force themselves out, she whispered, “Oh, won’t you go too, Severian? I didn’t mean it. Won’t you come? Won’t you come with me?”
    â€œI can’t.”
    She sank back into the narrow bed, smaller now and more childlike. “I know. You have your duty to your guild. You can’t betray it again and face yourself, and I won’t ask you. It’s only that I never quite gave up hoping you might.”
    I shook my head as I had before. “I have to flee the city—”
    â€œSeverian!”
    â€œAnd to the north. You’ll be going south, and if I were with you, we would have courier boats full of soldiers after us.”

    â€œSeverian, what happened?” Dorcas’s face was very calm, but her eyes were wide.
    â€œI freed a woman. I was supposed to strangle her and throw her body into the Acis, and I could have done it—I didn’t feel anything for her, not really, and it should have been easy. But when I was alone with her, I thought of Thecla. We were in a little summerhouse screened with shrubbery, that stood at the edge of the water. I had my hands around her neck, and I thought of Thecla and how I had wanted to free her. I couldn’t find a way to do it. Have I ever told you?”
    Almost imperceptibly, Dorcas shook her head.
    â€œThere were brothers everywhere, five to pass by the shortest route, and all of them knew me and knew of