The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [55]
If they turn out to be divine emissaries, it’s best to give them food and wine and the use of a woman if required, to listen respectfully to their messages, and then to let them go on their way. Otherwise, they should be stoned to death and their possessions confiscated. You may be sure that all travellers, magicians, strangers or beggars who find themselves in the vicinity of the People of Desolation take care to provide themselves with a stash of obscure parables – cloud words, they’re called, or knotted silk – enigmatic enough to be useful on various occasions, as circumstances may dictate. To travel among the People of Joy without a riddle or a puzzling rhyme would be to court certain death.
According to the words of the flame with eyes, the city of Sakiel-Norn has been marked out for destruction on account of its luxury, its worship of false gods, and in especial its abhorrent child sacrifices. Because of this practice, all the people in the city, including the slaves and the children and maidens destined for sacrifice, are to be put to the sword. To kill even those whose proposed deaths are the reason for this killing may not seem just, but for the People of Joy it isn’t guilt or innocence that determines such things, it’s whether or not you’ve been tainted, and as far as the People of Joy are concerned everyone in a tainted city is as tainted as everyone else.
The horde rolls forward, raising a dark dust cloud as it moves; this cloud flies over it like a flag. It is not however close enough to have been spotted by the sentries posted on the walls of Sakiel-Norn. Others who might give warning – outlying herdsmen, merchants in transit, and so forth – are relentlessly run down and hacked to pieces, with the exception of any who might possibly be divine messengers.
The Servant of Rejoicing rides ahead, his heart pure, his brow furrowed, his eyes burning. Over his shoulders is a rough leather cloak, on his head is his badge of office, a red conical hat. Behind him are his followers, eyeteeth bared. Herbivores flee before them, scavengers follow, wolves lope alongside.
Meanwhile, in the unsuspecting city, there’s a plot underway to topple the King. This has been set in motion (as is customary) by several highly trusted courtiers. They’ve employed the most skilful of the blind assassins, a youth who was once a weaver of rugs and then a child prostitute, but who since his escape has become renowned for his soundlessness, his stealth, and his pitiless hand with a knife. His name is X.
Why X?
Men like that are always called X. Names are no use to them, names only pin them down. Anyway, X is for X-ray – if you’re X, you can pass through solid walls and see through women’s clothing.
But X is blind, she says.
All the better. He sees through women’s clothing with the inner eye that is the bliss of solitude.
Poor Wordsworth! Don’t be blasphemous! she says, delighted.
I can’t help it, I was blasphemous from a child.
X is to make his way into the compound of the Temple of the Five Moons, find the door to the chamber where the next day’s maiden sacrifice is being kept, and slit the throat of the sentry. He must then kill the girl herself, hide the body beneath the fabled Bed of One Night, and dress himself in the girl’s ceremonial veils. He’s supposed to wait until the courtier playing the Lord of the Underworld – who is, in fact, none other than the leader of the impending palace coup – has come, taken what he has paid for, and gone away again. The courtier has paid good coin and wants his money’s worth, which doesn’t mean a dead girl, however freshly killed. He wants the heart still beating.
But there’s been a foul-up in the arrangements. The timing has been misunderstood: as things stand, the blind