Free Nightside the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

as old as I am, Maytera.”
    â€œIn class, you mean, Patera? They’re never as old. Oh, you must mean the grown men and women who were mine when they were boys and girls. Many of them are older than you are. The oldest must be sixty, or about that. I was—didn’t teach until then.” She called her memorandum file, chiding herself as she always did for not calling it more often. “Which reminds me. Do you know Auk, Patera?”
    Silk shook his head. “Does he live in this quarter?”
    â€œYes, and comes on Scylsday, sometimes. You must have seen him. The large, rough-looking man who sits in back?”
    â€œWith the big jaw? His clothes are clean, but he looks as if he hasn’t shaved. He wears a hanger—or perhaps it’s a hunting sword—and he’s always alone. Was he one of your boys?”
    Maytera Marble nodded sadly. “He’s a criminal now, Patera. He breaks into houses.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” Silk said. For an instant he had a mental picture of the hulking man from the back of the manteion surprised by a householder and whirling clumsily but very quickly to confront him, like a baited bear.
    â€œI’m sorry, too, Patera, and I’ve been wanting to talk to you about him. Patera Pike shrove him last year. You were here, but I don’t think you knew about it.”
    â€œIf I did, I’ve forgotten.” To quiet the hiss of the wide blade as it cleared the scabbard, Silk shook his head. “But you’re right, Maytera. I doubt that I knew.”
    â€œI didn’t learn about it from Patera myself. Maytera Mint told me. Auk still likes her, and they have a little talk now and then.”
    Blowing his nose in his own handkerchief, Silk relaxed a trifle. This, he felt certain, was what she had wanted to speak to him about.
    â€œPatera was able to get Auk to promise not to rob poor people any more. He’d done that, he said. He’d done it quite often, but he wouldn’t any more. He promised Patera, Maytera says, and he promised her, too. You’re going to lecture me now, Patera, because the promise of a man like that—a criminal’s promise—can’t be trusted.”
    â€œNo man’s promise can be trusted absolutely,” Silk said slowly, “since no man is, or can ever be, entirely free from evil. I include myself in that, certainly.”
    Maytera Marble pushed her handkerchief back into her sleeve. “I think Auk’s promise, freely given, can be relied on as much as anybody’s, Patera. As much as yours, and I don’t intend to be insulting. That was the way he was as a boy, and it’s the way he is as a man, too, as well as I can judge. He never had a mother or a father, not really. He—but I’d better not go on, or I’ll let slip things that Maytera’s made me promise not to repeat, and then I’ll feel terrible, and I’ll have to tell both of them that I broke my word.”
    â€œDo you really believe that I may be able to help this man, Maytera? I’m surely no older than he is, and probably younger. He’s not going to respect me the way he respected Patera Pike, remember.”
    Rain dripping from the sparkling leaves dotted Maytera Marble’s skirt; she brushed at the spots absently. “That may be true, Patera, but you’ll understand him better than Patera Pike could, I think. You’re young, and as strong as he is, or almost. And he’ll respect you as an augur. You needn’t be afraid of him. Have I ever asked a favor of you, Patera? A real favor?”
    â€œYou asked me to intercede with Maytera Rose once, and I tried. I think I probably did more harm than good, so we won’t count that. But you could ask a hundred favors if you wanted to, Maytera. You’ve earned that many and more.”
    â€œThen talk with Auk, Patera, some Scylsday. Shrive him if he asks you to.”
    â€œThat