15. Yarrow Has a Drink

Inside, the place was furnished with the same dusty, decaying grandeur as Grey House. She and the ape were walking through what might once have been a sitting room, its furniture mostly threadbare damask and careworn walnut. A portrait on the wall showed a man with long white hair and fingers like scallions. The ape saluted it in passing with the automatic, perfunctory observance familiar to Yarrow from daily life in the house, where ritual was inscribed on the very bones of the inhabitants.

The ape led her into a short passage and then out a wooden door into a stone-paved courtyard. In the center was a stinking green pool fed by a sluggish fountain. Dozens of other apes were already there, each in a scholar's robe and chaperon. Two of them were grooming each other. One was defecating. All of them turned to look at Yarrow, then went back to what they were doing, except the defecating one. It kept its eyes on her absently while it finished its business. She stared back. At last it broke eye contact and waddled off to a sunnier corner of the courtyard, where it sat down with its feet in front of it and its long arms lying at strange angles like a broken doll, an expression of witless contentment on its face.

Yarrow's ape seemed to think its task was done. Surely she was not expected to drink the scum in the fountain's pool. It reeked of rot, and gnats flitted around it.

"Water?" she said. Then, more loudly and very hoarsely, "Water?"

"Oh my," said another voice. "Oh my ."

From a door on the other side of the courtyard stepped an elderly, owlish person with a staff of pampas grass stalks. They looked about with slow eagerness, their wrinkled head turning nearly all the way around to take in every angle of the yard. They wore a dark blue robe with huge bell sleeves and a high, rigid collar that nearly swallowed their skull. From within the edifice of this robe their thin wrists, thin bare feet, and thin neck protruded. They were bald, except for tufts of flour-white hair in two curling points on either side of their head, and their nose was flat and thin, coming to a delicate beaky point just above their upper lip. Thick saucer-sized spectacles magnified their golden eyes, which were already quite large and round, until their face seemed to be all eyes. When they saw Yarrow, their eyes became even wider, threatening to absorb the nose and mouth entirely.

"You're not one of mine," said the owlish person. Their teeth were very small and white. The tufts of hair quivered with some emotion, as did the knobby hand which clutched the staff, and the tufts atop the grass stalks quivered in their turn, until the entire person vibrated in the stiff blue shell of their robe, which itself remained unmoved. "I did think—" said the person. "For a moment—" they said. "But no ."

They snaked their hand into their robe and took out a brass bell, which they rang three times. The apes all came to some sort of attention, though it did not stop them scratching themselves or eating each other's lice. At a second set of three rings, they shuffled into the door behind the owlish person.

"How dare you," said the person, quivering, quivering. "How dare you!" They struck the ground with their staff, and their eyes were wet with rage.

Yarrow curtseyed very deeply. "My apologies," she said, keeping her eyes on the stones. "I am Yarrow LXXVI, Mother of Grey House."

"I am Jasper, the Last Schoolmaster," said the owlish person. He chopped each syllable between the little adzes of his teeth. "And I say how dare you."

"If I have given offense, I am truly sorry, and ask how I may rectify it," said Yarrow.

"I thought they had finally spoken," said Jasper. "You made me think they had spoken. My life's work, achieved at last. But no ."

"You're teaching the apes to talk?" said Yarrow.

"Why not?" Jasper frowned. "I taught them to write."

"I had thought—" Yarrow paused, coughing. "May I have some water? I've been on a long journey, and I have none."

Jasper sucked his lips into his mouth and chewed them for a moment. Then he nodded once, grudgingly, and put the bell back in his robe. "Come inside."

She followed him. When he moved, the bell tolled softly within his clothes. They came into a large room with walls of white plaster and tall windows that opened on the courtyard. The apes all sat at wooden desks, parchment scrolls open before them, writing industriously with quill pens—except one, which was chewing on its hat.

"What are they doing?" said Yarrow.

"None of your business," said Jasper. As if to punctuate his reply, one ape farted loudly.

As they passed the hat-chewing ape, Jasper whacked it soundly across the head with his staff, and the ape left off chewing and picked up a pen. As they passed the farting ape, Jasper tweaked its ear, and it hooted. On the other side of the room was a second courtyard, much smaller, with a fountain of bright water in a clear pool.

"You may drink," said Jasper grandly, and stepped aside.

Imagine! A clean running fountain. Yarrow tore off her wimple and plunged her entire head in. The water was cold and pure, and she drank until her lungs burned for air. She surfaced, gasped for breath, and returned to the water. At last she was satisfied, and seated herself on the basin's edge to let her hair dry in the sun.

Jasper regarded her with something like curiosity. "Did you say you were from Grey House?"

"Yes," said Yarrow, wiping her dripping lips with the back of her hand.

"Hmph," said Jasper. "Didn't know anyone still lived in that ruin."

"People from Blue and Black and Red know of us," said Yarrow grandly, or as grandly as she could with her breath still coming in harsh lumps and water streaming from her hair.

"Perhaps it's as you say," said Jasper. "News passes me by; I am so busy with my work."

"Work?" said Yarrow. "You mean the apes—writing?"

"Writing is the first step," said Jasper.

"And speaking is second?"

Jasper sighed. There was a three-legged stool near the fountain, and he went to it. His robe enveloped it completely, and did not bend with him when he sat. It stayed rigid and tall, so his nose and eyes peered out from the lower edge of his collar, and his hands hung, caught in the armholes. There must have been some framework in side it, or perhaps it was starched to a degree not even Servant could manage.

"I am the Last Schoolmaster of Yellow Tower," said Jasper. "There were many before me. There will be many after me, as long as the palace endures."

"But if you are the last—"

"Silence, child. I am the Last Schoolmaster because when you leave the tower and pass east toward Grey, there are no schoolmasters beyond me. There have been no children in this district for many a long year. But a schoolmaster must teach."

"So you took on apes as pupils," said Yarrow.

Jasper's magnified eyes turned into angry yellow slits. "Have the goodness not to interrupt."

"I apologize," said Yarrow.

"As you say, I took on apes as pupils. But this was not on a whim. I teach them so they may, in turn, teach me." He paused, keeping his narrowed eyes on her to see if she would interrupt, then went on. "One day in my youth, as I bemoaned the lack of students for my school, I was walking on Cleric's Bridge, between Ramshead and the Maid, and I saw there an ape in a nest of ivy. It was a gibbon of the rufous sort, and it sat with immense gravity in its leafy nest, with one hand upraised. And upon its upraised hand was an upraised finger. And upon the upraised finger was a white butterfly of exquisite beauty, which it watched with dark eyes."

Jasper shut his own eyes as if the image were engraved on the inner skin of his lids. "I saw upon the ape's face a contentment and peace that I have never known. It is not to be found on the faces of the people in Yellow, nor those I have seen from Blue or Black or Red, and I see it is not to be found on yours, O Mother of Grey House. The ape, I believed, must know the secret of happiness.

"For a time I thought that, in order to find happiness, I must live as the apes do. I ran wild among the bridges and rooftops of the West Passage, sleeping in nests at night, foraging among the stones in daylight. This brought me nothing except splintered fingernails and cold nights. So the secret must not be how the apes lived, but something deep within them, some innate quality of the ape which I lacked."

A large tear spotted the edge of the collar. Jasper tried to wipe his eyes on his sleeve but could not move his hand far enough to reach. Yarrow took her own handkerchief and held it to his face.

"Much obliged," he said, and blew his nose, though she had only intended to mop up his tears. "Anyway, my time was not entirely wasted, for I befriended those noble creatures. There are many of them in this part of the palace: not just gibbons, as you can see, but the chimpanzee, the orangutan, even the gorilla, all live along the rim of Yellow. I soon learned that they can be taught to do simple tasks. From there I was able to teach them to wear clothes and make signs to indicate what they wanted. At first I feared I would corrupt their beautiful peace, but they kept it no matter what they learned. That is when I knew they had a secret, and they might be able to tell me if they could only speak."

"So you taught them to write?" said Yarrow. It seemed backward, since she had learned to speak but never to write, but you couldn't say that to someone so obviously learned.

"Yes. The first ones did not take to it as I had hoped, but their children learned more easily, and the grandchildren of my first students are now able to form simple sentences now and then. Though, sadly, I must admit that they largely produce gibberish."

"And soon they'll learn to speak?"

"That is my hope." Jasper sniffled. "And it is why I am still angry with you. Can you imagine what it is like to have one dream for decades, and believe for one glorious moment that it has been fulfilled, only to have it dashed by a dusty little intruder?"

"I can," said Yarrow, thinking obscurely of Arnica leaving.

"I no longer need to imagine," said Jasper. "It happened to me."

The peevish tone of him! She rose. "I feel I needn't trouble you any longer. Thank you for your hospitality. Can you direct me to Black Tower, please? And then I'll be gone."

Jasper's eyebrows executed a complicated sequence of movements. "Leave?" he said, his voice suddenly high and querulous.

"Yes," said Yarrow. She pinned her wimple around her still-damp hair. "I'm on an important mission for Grey House, but I've become turned around in the passages. If you could help…"

"But you—" Jasper began, then snipped the sentence with his thin lips and thought. "I can't tell you the way," he said, in his former dusty tone. "I know the rooms and mansions around Yellow well enough, but I have never ventured out beyond the rim, certainly not all the way to Black. I can tell you the names of all things vegetable, animal, and mineral within the palace walls; I can describe the movements of the forty-seven constellations; I can spell every word you know and a great deal you don't; but I cannot tell you the way to Black Tower."

"Then how am I to get there?" said Yarrow, the tone of her voice becoming more polite to counteract her rising anger.

"In a week or two, Peregrine will be along," said Jasper. "He can tell you, or even take you."

"And who is Peregrine?" said Yarrow.

"A Black Tower trader—one of the Butlers Itinerant—who makes a circuit of the palace every month." Jasper drew himself up proudly. "It is an ancient privilege of the Last Schoolmaster to be supplied with one bottle of mead per mensis from Black's cellars."

"And of the Mothers of Grey House as well," said Yarrow. Jasper's hand gripped the staff more tightly; her words may not have been tactful. "You did mean each year, correct?"

"No, little fool," said Jasper. "Each month." His hand relaxed. "It is a reward for a service performed to the Lady of Yellow back in the Thistle Era."

"I can't wait for this butler," said Yarrow. "Winter's fallen on us out of season, and Grey will starve before long. I must get to Black Tower."

"I expect Peregrine within one week," said Jasper. "I promise you that if you leave here without guidance, you'll be lost in the palace halls until some footman finds your bones in a cobwebby corner and sweeps you up with a broom. How much use will you be to the house then?"

He maneuvered himself back into a standing position, as slowly and with as much crackling as if he needed to move each bone individually. "In the meantime, you can help me with the apes in exchange for room and board."

Yarrow's shoulders sagged. "A week?"

"Or less," said Jasper.

"All right," said Yarrow.

"Excellent." Jasper and his architectural robe moved away from the stool. In its center was a gleaming white egg. He picked it up and handed it to her. The warm, damp shell stuck to her fingers. "Then you can put that in the kitchen with the others. Everything else you need should be there. The apes and I prefer breakfast at ten o'clock in the west parlor."