The Child Eater (20 page)

He wasn't there long, for the principal, it appeared, didn't really want to talk to him. He stared at Simon from behind his big metal desk. The wall behind him was crowded with pictures, some of his wife and kids but mostly photos of himself in a baseball uniform. Simon waited for the principal to say something until it struck him that Mr. Chandruhar was afraid of him. Ms. Bowden must have called him and told him what Simon had done, and he was scared Simon would do it to him, too. Simon cast his eyes down, as if looking up might tempt him. “I'm sorry,” he said, and had to fight a grin.

“It's a little late for that, don't you think?” Mr. Chandruhar said. “I've called your father.”

“What? No!
Please
.”

“He's coming to pick you up.”

“I'll be good. I promise. I swear. On . . . on my mother.” Simon had heard kids say things like that, and even though he didn't know what it meant he knew it was supposed to be serious.

“You can wait in the detention room until he gets here.”

“Please—”

“Go. Now.”

All the way back to the Academy, Matyas thought about money and his careless promise to pay Lahaylla twenty florins. The obvious wealth of so many of the Masters derived, no doubt, from selling their services to lords and bankers. And Veil—how she made him work and work, and paid him exactly nothing. Nothing! Kitchen slave. Whatever he learned, whatever spells he could do, that was all he was to her, all he'd ever be.

And what about Royja? She'd probably never even seen twenty florins at one time in her whole life. With her dirt-streaked face, her broken fingernails, her filthy shapeless dresses, she was worth ten of this—this
night flower
.

As he was walking up the long hill to the Academy, he suddenly felt dizzy, nauseous. He stopped and leaned against a building and could not help but notice how people moved away from him. Light-headed, wasn't that what people called this strange state? He wondered what Florian would make of the odd expression, and suddenly his anger dispersed, smoke in a gust of wind, as he imagined the great Master with her head transformed into radiant light, endless color streaming from her eyes and mouth, even her nose and ears.

He found Veil by the window, looking out at whatever Veil looked at. “I want some money,” he said.

She turned to face him, something she did not always do. “Very well. How much?”

“It's not right. I've worked for you for years. Done everything. Even now. I'm a Master”—he felt foolish saying it, but it was too late, so he pushed on—“and all I get is scraps of food. It's not right.”

“Matyas,” she said, “I did not object to paying you. I would think that asking you how much you needed should have signaled my willingness.”

“Then why have you never paid me?”

“Why have you never asked me?”

He was about to denounce her for answering a question with a question when he realized that the answer was the same to both. He'd never needed money before. But now he was a Master, and everything had changed. He said, “I want twen—thirty florins.”

Veil nodded, and walked in that purposeful way of hers to a pile of books of such varied sizes they looked like they'd topple over at any moment. They'd been there, stacked on the floor, for as long as Matyas could remember. Reaching behind them, she lifted up a plain black wooden box about the size of a large roasted turkey, then set it down on the floor. Now she looked around and found a small bag made of chamois cloth and set that down near the box. When she opened the lid, Matyas stared in amazement. It was full of coins—pigeons, donkeys (half-florins, decorated with a bad engraving of a horse) and silver dukes (ducats), the coins Medun had left at the Hungry Squirrel.

As Veil counted out florins, Matyas could not contain himself. “Why do you have all that money?” he said.

Veil put the money in the bag and carefully tied the string. “How else could I give you thirty florins? Should I stand in the market and sell my books?”

“I don't know,” Matyas said. “I thought—” He stopped.

“What? That I could turn cheese into gold? And not only gold, but actual coins stamped with the king's face?”

He didn't answer.

“I have lived a long time, Matyas. Once, like you, perhaps, I considered money beneath me, unworthy of a wizard. I saw others, those who courted patronage and cast spells for the rich, and I swore never to debase my calling. And then came a time when I needed money—it doesn't matter for what—and I had none. Since then I have occasionally done things, tasks worthy of your respect, I would hope, for those
able to pay something. As you have done for me. Here.” She held out the bag.

He took it, felt the weight in his hand, noticed a strange desire to open the bag, spread the coins on the floor and count them and recount them and inspect each one to make sure it was genuine. Suddenly, without plan, he said, “I want to fly. Teach me to fly.”

“That again? I've told you, Matyas—”

“Yes, yes, no one can fly. But I saw it. I was there.”

“And I was not. I confess, I do not understand what you saw, but I assure you, I hide no special knowledge, no secret text or spell. If you wish to duplicate this marvel you witnessed, you will have to seek it elsewhere.” She sat down in her white rocker and clasped her hands in her lap. “Now I suggest you put your twenty, excuse me, your
thirty
florins somewhere safe so they do not fall from your jacket into the hands of some market pickpocket.” A moment later, her eyes took on the blank look that signified he could say whatever he liked, she would not answer, perhaps not even hear him.

Matyas thought more and more about his appointment with Lahaylla. He tried to convince himself it was the robe that excited him, but it was her he saw whenever he thought of the approaching day. Several times he had to stop himself from rushing to her street, just in case she needed to ask him anything, maybe consult him on some detail of the design.

When the morning finally came, he woke early, made porridge for himself and Veil, then announced, “I have to go out.” Veil nodded. “To the library,” he added, instantly annoyed with himself for the lie. Veil said nothing. Matyas hoped she didn't notice him slip the pouch of coins into his jacket pocket. The night before, he'd laid them all out, then put them all back, then took out five, then finally another five. Lahaylla had asked for twenty—it might insult her to give more. He thought how his father would try to get “every last cent” from each guest, rich or poor, and told himself Lahaylla would never do that. He set them all out one more time, to choose the twenty whose gold shone the brightest, put these back, and hid the other ten under his thin mattress.

Lahaylla opened the door almost the instant he'd knocked, as if she'd been waiting with her hand on the latch. She wore a long, orange linen dress with wooden buttons all down the front of it. “Come in,” she said, smiling brighter than the Sun. “It's finished.” He reached out, as if to
touch her arm, but she didn't notice as she rushed to her work bench to pick up the robe. “I hope you like it,” she said. “I've never done anything like this before.” She laughed lightly. “I wanted to run up and down the street and tell everyone.”

“You told people?”

“No, no,” she said. “Well, I had to tell my teacher. So she could help me with some of the stitches. For the pictures. But I made her swear secrecy, I promise.”

Anger surged up in him—everyone on the street would be staring at him—only to subside as soon as she held up the robe. The blue silk fluttered slightly, the light breeze from the open window enough to bring it to life. Despite the dim room, it shone brightly, as if lit by an inner flame. He could hardly imagine what it would look like in the sunshine. Or under the grand array of magical globes that lit up the Masters' dining hall.

As perfect as the body of the robe was, the designs were the thing that froze Matyas with his mouth open. Precisely rendered (how many hours did she work on it?) in purple and gold along the chest and back and down the wide arms, there were geometric forms and planetary sigils mixed with flowing water and bursts of flame, and a tree whose trunk ran up the chest and opened into branches that flowed along the arms, only to change into shimmering snakes. All these were images any of the initiated might display, though Matyas could not imagine them rendered more gracefully in even the richest guildhalls on Lokara Street. Worked into them, however, concealed within the sigils and woven into the tree branches, were the secret marks of Florian, the signs that could open the trained mind to transcendent worlds of color and sound.

He stared at it, unable to speak, until Lahaylla nervously asked, “Is it good? Did I do what you wanted?”

“Oh yes,” Matyas said. He tried to make his voice firm, and deep, as he added, “You did good work. Very well done.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Would you like to try it on? Is that allowed? I don't know much—well, anything, really—about . . . about Masters.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said, suddenly eager to reassure her. “This is very special.” Then, “Do you mean I should put it on here?”

She nodded, and the slight movement caused the robe to shimmer. “If you would like.”

He looked down at his tunic and pants. “I'd have to . . . we don't wear anything . . . I mean, we don't wear the robe over other clothes.”

Her smile widened. “Oh, of course. I promise not to look. Really. I wouldn't want the sight of a Master to blind me. Or turn me into a pillar of salt.”

“No, no,” he said. “I didn't mean . . . nothing would happen, I just—” He stopped, seeing laughter build in her. Maybe he
should
turn her into a block of salt, he thought, but forgot about it when she moved the robe toward him.

“Put out your arms,” she said, and when Matyas obeyed she laid the robe across them.

It was like holding sunshine and wind. Lahaylla watched him stare at it a moment, then said, “You can set it down—when you're ready, of course—and then change and let me know when it's safe to look.”

He wondered if it would ever really be safe for someone untrained to look at him in this robe, but all he said was, “You're staying in the room?”

She smiled. “I'm afraid it's the only room I have. I could go up and down the street, but then you'd have to step outside to find me.” When he still looked hesitant, she said, “I promise I won't peek.”

Carefully Matyas set the robe on the bench. As he stripped down to his singlet and loincloth, he thought how no one, not Veil, not his parents, not even Royja, had seen him like this since he was a little child. Finally he took a deep breath, lifted the robe and put it on over his head to let it flow down his body.

For a moment it was like that day in the courtyard, when the true world opened before him, for he appeared to dissolve into light, color beyond color, music unheard since the Creation. He heard, became, the song, the voice of the High Prince of the Kallistochoi. Then the room returned, and he let out a long breath. “You can look now,” he said. He added, “It's safe,” and immediately wished he hadn't.

“I'm sure it must—” she started, turning, only to stop, her mouth open, frozen in midsentence. “Oh,” she said finally. “Oh! You're so beautiful.” Not
it
, not the robe. She reached out her hand, then pulled it back. “May I? Is it allowed?”

Matyas wanted to say no, wanted to run away. Instead, he just nodded. Her finger traced the pattern of the tree on his chest. “Oh,” she said again, and Matyas shook like an actual sapling in the wind. Her
hand hesitated, and then Matyas realized she was about to take it away, so he reached out to place his own hand over hers. They were touching just where the branches opened up, and Matyas knew that she could feel the beat of his heart shaking the tree. When she kissed him it was lightning.

He wrapped his arms around her, not so much an embrace as to anchor himself, as if they might lift right off the floor and crash through the ceiling. Was this it, then? The secret to flying? So obvious, and yet of course Veil couldn't give it to him! It had to be Lahaylla, soft, golden Lahaylla.

She stepped back from him and he worried that he'd hurt her in some way, misused her beauty. But all she did was look at him a moment, then down at her hand as it touched the top button of her dress. “Should I—?” she said. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. Like a child, he added, “Please.”

She smiled at this but he knew it was all right, she wasn't making fun of him. As she unbuttoned the polished bits of wood, Matyas began to lift up the robe. “No,” she said, then, “I mean, please. Keep it on.” She looked away. “Is that—?”

“Yes,” Matyas said. “It's good.”

Lahaylla let her dress fall to the floor. Underneath she wore only a white chemise, sleeveless, with tiny lace flowers worked into the top. She left it on and walked toward him.

Under the chemise her breasts rose and fell. Matyas wondered if they were large or small as breasts went. Sometimes he heard the other—the
apprentices
—talking about girls, about things they'd done to some servant, or some woman from the streets, and he knew that the size of the breasts was important, but he could never understand why. And he didn't know if Lahaylla's were the right size, though he thought they were perfect, like the proportions of the Sun and Moon that Florian discovered when she climbed into the sky. Then his mind had to add,
Larger than Royja's
, but the thought of Royja made him twitch so he banished the unwelcome memory.

Lahaylla arched her back slightly so that her breasts rose toward him underneath the thin cloth. He pressed his hands against them but she winced, and he realized it was too hard. He shifted the pressure, and yes, she smiled now, and sighed, and yes, he could feel their curve,
and that was better, wonderful, he could feel her nipples in his palms. It was like . . . like holding the planetary spheres, the way the Creator must have held them.

They kissed again, longer, wilder. He stepped back to reach under his robe and untie his loincloth, letting it fall to the floor. Lahaylla appeared not to notice as she lifted off her chemise then brought Matyas' face down to her breasts, first the left, which was the Moon, and then the Sun on the right. For didn't Florian teach that every woman “recapitulated” the First Body, her breasts the Sun and Moon, her eyes the Fountains of Light, her cleft the gateway to the Ocean of Life? But it was one thing to know such truths and another to
know
them. Matyas had thought himself so wise, so learned. He'd never known anything.

Lahaylla shook and gasped as Matyas moved his hands down her body, along her belly and then between her legs. A wind pulled him to her—no, of course not, her hands had reached out, lifted his robe to reach behind him and pull him toward her.