Calde of the Long Sun

Chapter 5 -- Mail

They had insisted she not look for herself, that she send one of them

to do it, but she felt she had already sent too many others. This time

she would see the enemy for herself, and she had forbidden them to

attend her. She straightened her snowy coif as she walked, and held

down the wind-tossed skirt of her habit--a sibyl smaller and younger

than most, gowned (like all sibyls) in black to the tops of her worn

black shoes, out upon some holy errand, and remarkable only for

being alone.

The azoth was in one capacious pocket, her beads in the other;

she got them out as she went around the corner onto Cage Street,

wooden beads twice the size of those Quetzal fingered, smoothed

and oiled by her touch to glossy chestnut.

First, Pas's gammadion: "_Great Pas, Designer and Creator of the

Whorl, Lord Guardian of the Aureate Path, we_--"

The pronoun should have been _I_, but she was used to saying them

with Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble; and they, praying together

in the sellaria of the cenoby, had quite properly said "we." She

thought: But I'm praying for all of us. For all who may die this

afternoon, for Bison and Patera Gulo and Bream and that man who

let me borrow his sword. For the volunteers who'll ride with me in a

minute, and Patera Silk and Lime and Zoril and the children.

Particularly for the children. For all of us, Great Pas.

"_We acknowledge you the supreme and sovereign_..."

And there it was, an armored floater with all its hatches down

turning onto Cage Street. Then another, and a third. A good big

space between the third and the first rank of marching Guardsmen

because of the dust. A mounted officer riding beside his troopers.

The soldiers would be in back (that was what the messenger had

reported) but there was no time to wait until they came into view,

though the soldiers would be the worst of all, worse even than the

floaters.

Beads forgotten, she hurried back the way she had come.

Scleroderma was still there, holding the white stallion's reins. "I'm

coming too, Maytera. On these two legs since you won't let me have

a horse, but I'm coming. You're going, and I'm bigger than you."

Which was true. Scleroderma was no taller, but twice as wide.

"Shout," she told her. "You're blessed with a good, loud voice. Shout

and make all the noise you can. If you can keep them from seeing

Bison's people for one second more, that may decide it."

A giant with a gape-toothed grin knelt, hands clasped to help her

mount; she put her left foot in them and swung into the saddle, and

although she sat a tall horse, the giant's head was level with her

own. She had chosen him for his size and ferocious appearance.

(Distraction--distraction would be everything). Now it struck her

that she did not know his name. "Can you ride?" she asked. "If you

can't, say so."

"Sure can, Maytera."

He was probably lying; but it was too late, too late to quiz him or

get somebody else. She rose in her stirrups to consider the five

riders behind her, and the giant's riderless horse. "Most of us will be

killed, and it's quite likely that all of us will be."

The first floater would be well along Cage Street already, halted

perhaps before the doors of the Alambrera; but if they were to

succeed, their diversion would have to wait until the marching men

behind the third floater had closed the gap. It might be best to fill

the time.

"Should one of us live, however, it would be well for him--or her--to

know the names of those who gave their lives. Scleroderma, I

can't count you among us, but you are the most likely to live. Listen

carefully."

Scleroderma nodded, her pudgy face pale.

"All of you. Listen, and try to remember."

The fear she had shut out so effectively was seeping back now.

She bit her lip; her voice must not quaver. "I'm Maytera Mint, from

the Sun Street manteion. But you know that. You," she pointed to

the rearmost rider. "Give us your name, and say it loudly."

"Babirousa!"

"Good. And you?"

"Goral!"

"Kingcup!" The woman who had supplied horses for the rest.

"Yapok!"

"Marmot!"

"Gib from the Cock," the giant grunted, and mounted in a way

that showed he was more accustomed to riding donkeys.

"I wish we had horns and war drums," Maytera Mint told them.

"We'll have to use our voices and our weapons instead. Remember,

the idea is to keep them, the crews of the floaters especially, looking

and shooting at us for as long as we can."

The fear filled her mind, horrible and colder than ice; she felt sure

her trembling fingers would drop Patera Silk's azoth if she tried to

take it from her pocket; but she got it out anyway, telling herself

that it would be preferable to drop it here, where Scleroderma could

hand it back to her.

Scleroderma handed her the reins instead.

"You have all volunteered, and there is no disgrace in reconsidering.

Those who wish may leave." Deliberately she faced forward, so

that she would not see who dismounted.

At once she felt that there was no one behind her at all. She

groped for something that would drive out the fear, and came upon

a naked woman with yellow hair--a wild-eyed fury who was not

herself at all--wielding a scourge whose lashes cut and tore the gray

sickness until it fled her mind.

Perhaps because she had urged him forward with her heels,

perhaps only because she had loosed his reins, the stallion was

rounding the corner at an easy canter. There, still streets ahead

though not so far as they had been, were the floaters, the third

settling onto the rutted street, with the marching troopers closing

behind it.

"For Echidna!" she shouted. "The gods will it!" Still she wished for

war drums and horns, unaware that the drumming hooves echoed

and re-echoed from each shiprock wall, that her trumpet had shaken

the street. "Silk is Calde!"

She jammed her sharp little heels in the stallion's sides. Fear was gone,

replaced by soaring joy. "_Silk is Calde!_" At her right the giant

was firing two needlers as fast as he could pull their triggers.

"_Down the Ayuntamiento! Silk is Calde!_"

The shimmering horror that was the azoth's blade could not be

held on the foremost floater. Not by her, certainly not at this

headlong gallop. Slashed twice across, the floater wept silvery metal

as the street before it erupted in boiling dust and stones exploded

from the gray walls of the Alambrera.

Abruptly, Yapok was on her right. To her left, Kingcup flailed a

leggy bay with a long brown whip, Yapok bellowing obscenities,

Kingcup shrieking curses, a nightmare witch, her loosed black hair

streaming behind her.

The blade again, and the foremost floater burst in a ball of orange

flame. Behind it, the buzz guns of the second were firing, the flashes

from their muzzle mere sparks, the rattle of their shots lost in

pandemonium. "Form up," she shouted, not knowing what she

meant by it. Then, "_Forward! Forward!_"

Thousands of armed men and women were pouring from the

buildings, crowding through doorways and leaping from windows.

Yapok was gone, Kingcup somehow in front of her by half a length.

Unseen hands snatched off her coif and plucked one flapping black sleeve.

The shimmering blade brought a gush of silver from the second

floater, and there were no more flashes from its guns, only an

explosion that blew off the turret--and a rain of stones upon the

second floater, the third, and the Guardsmen behind it, and lines of

slug guns booming from rooftops and high windows. But not

enough, she thought. Not nearly enough, we must have more.

The azoth was almost too hot to hold. She took her thumb off the

demon and was abruptly skyborn as the white stallion cleared a slab

of twisted, smoking metal at a bound. The guns of the third floater

were firing, the turret gun not at her but at the men and women

pouring out of the buildings, the floater rising with a roar and a

cloud of dust and sooty smoke that the wind snatched away, until

the blade of her azoth impaled it and the floater crashed on its side,

at once pathetic and comic.

To Silk's bewilderment, his captors had treated him with consideration,

bandaging his wound and letting him lie unbound in an

outsized bed with four towering posts which only that morning had

belonged to some blameless citizen.

He had not lost consciousness so much as will. With mild surprise,

he discovered that he no longer cared whether the Alambrera had

surrendered, whether the Ayuntamiento remained in power, or

whether the long sun would nourish Viron for ages to come or burn

it to cinders. Those things had mattered. They no longer did. He

was aware that he might die, but that did not matter either; he

would surely die, whatever happened. If eventually, why not now?

It would be over--over and done forever.

He imagined himself mingling with the gods, their humblest

servitor and worshipper, yet beholding them face-to-face; and found

that there was only one whom he desired to see, a god who was not

among them.

"Well, well, well!" the surgeon exclaimed in a brisk, professional

voice. "So you're Silk!"

He rolled his head on the pillow. "I don't think so."

"That's what they tell me. Somebody shoot you in the arm, too?"

"No. Something else. It doesn't matter." He spat blood.

"It does to me: that's an old dressing. It ought to be changed." The

surgeon left, returning at once (it seemed) with a basin of water and

a sponge. "I'm taking that ultrasonic diathermic wrapping on your

ankle. We've got men who need it a lot more than you do."

"Then take it, please," Silk told him.

The surgeon looked surprised.

"What I mean is that 'Silk' has become someone a great deal

bigger than I am--that I'm not what is meant when people say,

'Silk.'"

"You ought to be dead," the surgeon informed him somewhat

later. "Your lung's collapsed. Probably better to enlarge the exit

wound instead of going in this way. I'm going to roll you over. Did

you hear that? I'm going to turn you over. Keep your nose and

mouth to the side so you can breathe."

He did not, but the surgeon moved his head for him.

Abruptly he was sitting almost upright with a quilt around him,

while the surgeon stabbed him with another needle. "It's not as bad

as I thought, but you need blood. You'll feel a lot better with more

blood in you."

A dark flask dangled from the bedpost like a ripe fruit.

Someone he could not see was sitting beside his bed. He turned his

head and craned his neck to no avail. At last he extended a hand

toward the visitor; and the visitor took it between his own, which

were large and hard and warm. As soon as their hands touched, he

knew.

You said you weren't going to help, he told the visitor. You said I

wasn't to expect help from you, yet here you are

The visitor did not reply, but his hands were clean and gentle and

full of healing.

* * *

"Are you awake, Patera?"

Silk wiped his eyes. "Yes."

"I thought you were. Your eyes were closed, but you were crying."

"Yes," Silk said again.

"I brought a chair. I thought we might talk for a minute. You

don't mind?" The man with the chair was robed in black.

"No. You're an augur, like me."

"We were at the schola together, Patera. I'm Shell--Patera Shell

now. You sat behind me in canonics. Remember?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. It's been a long time."

Shell nodded. "Nearly two years." He was thin and pale, but his

small shy smile made his face shine.

"It was good of you to come and see me, Patera--very good." Silk

paused for a moment to think. "You're on the other side, the

Ayuntamiento's side. You must be. You're taking a risk by talking

to me. I'm afraid."

"I was." Shell coughed apologetically. "Perhaps--I don't know,

Patera. I--I haven't been fighting, you know. Not at all."

"Of course not."

"I brought the Pardon of Pas to our dying. To your dying, too,

Patera, when I could. When that was done, I helped nurse a little.

There aren't enough doctors and nurses, not nearly enough, and

there was a big battle on Cage Street. Do you know about it? I'll tell

you if you like. Nearly a thousand dead."

Silk shut his eyes.

"Don't cry, Patera. Please don't. They've gone to the gods. All of

them, from both sides, and it wasn't your fault, I'm sure. I didn't see

the battle, but I heard a great deal about it. From the wounded, you

know. If you'd rather talk about something else--"

"No. Tell me, please."

"I thought you'd want to know, that I could describe it to you and

it would be something that I could do for you. I thought you might

want me to shrive you, too. We can close the door. I talked to the

captain, and he said that as long as I didn't give you a weapon it

would be all right."

Silk nodded. "I should have thought of it myself. I've been

involved with so many secular concerns lately that I've been getting

lax, I'm afraid." There was a bow window behind Shell; noticing that

it displayed only black night and their own reflected images, Silk

asked, "Is this still Hieraxday, Patera?"

"Yes, but its after shadelow. It's about seven thirty, I think.

There's a clock in the captain's room, and it was seven twenty-five

when I went in. Seven twenty-five by that clock, I mean, and I

wasn't there long. He's very busy."

"Then I haven't neglected Thelxiepeia's morning prayers."

Briefly, he wondered whether he could bring himself to say them

when morning came, and whether he should. "I won't have to ask

forgiveness for that when you shrive me. But first, tell me about the

battle."

"Your forces have been trying to capture the Alambrera, Patera.

Do you know about that?"

"I knew they had gone to attack it. Nothing more."

"They were trying to break down the doors and so on. But they

didn't, and everybody inside thought they had gone away, probably

to try to take over the Juzgado."

Silk nodded again.

"But before that, the government--the Ayuntamiento, I mean--had

sent a lot of troopers, with floaters and so on and a company of

soldiers, to drive them away and help the Guards in the Alambrera."

"Three companies of soldiers," Silk said, "and the Second Brigade

of the Guard. That's what I was told, at any rate."

Shell nearly bowed. "Your information will be much more accurate

than mine, I'm sure, Patera. They had trouble getting through

the city, even with soldiers and floaters, although not as much as

they expected. Do you know about that?"

Silk rolled his head from side to side.

"They did. People were throwing things. One man told me he was

hit by a slop jar thrown out of a fourth-floor window." Shell

ventured an apologetic laugh. "Can you imagine? What will the

people who live up there do tonight I wonder? But there wasn't

much serious resistance, if you know what I mean. They expected

barricades in the street, but there was nothing like that. They

marched through the city and stopped in front of the Alambrera.

The troopers were supposed to go in while the soldiers searched the

buildings along Cage Street."

Silk allowed his eyes to close again, visualizing the column

described by the monitor in Maytera Rose's glass.

"Then," Shell paused for emphasis, "General Mint herself charged

them down Cage Street, riding like a devil on a big white horse.

From the other way, you see. From the direction of the market."

Surprised, Silk opened his eyes. "_General_ Mint?"

"That's what they call her. The rebels--your people, I mean."

Shell cleared his throat. "The fighters loyal to the Calde. To you."

"You're not offending me, Patera."

"They call her General Mint and she's got an azoth. Just imagine!

She chopped up the Guard's floaters horribly with it. This trooper I

talked to had been the driver of one, and he'd seen everything. Do

you know how the Guard's floaters are on the inside, Patera?"

"I rode in one this morning." Silk shut his eyes again, striving to

remember, "I rode inside until the rain stopped. Later I rode on it,

sitting on the... Up on that round part that has the highest buzz

gun. It was crowded inside, not at all comfortable, and we'd put the

bodies in there--but it was better than being out in the rain, perhaps."

Shell nodded eagerly, happy to agree. "There are two men and an

officer. One of the men drives the floater. He was the one I talked

to. The officer's in charge. He sits beside the driver, and there's a

glass for the officer, though some don't work any more, he said. The

officer has a buzz gun, too, the one that points ahead. There's

another man, the gunner, up in the round thing you sat on. It's

called the turret."

"That's right. I remember now."

"General Mint's azoth cut right into their floater and killed their

officer, and stopped one of the rotors. That's what this driver said.

It had seemed to me that if an azoth could do that, it could cut right

through the doors of the Alambrera and kill everyone in there, but

he said they won't. That's because the doors are steel and three

fingers thick, but a floater's armor is aluminum because it couldn't

lift that much. It couldn't float at all, if it were made out of iron or

steel."

"I see. I didn't know that."

"There was cavalry following General Mint. About a troop is what

he said. I asked how many that was, and it's a hundred or more. The

others had needlers and swords and things. His floater had fallen on

its side, but he crawled out through the hatch. The gunner had

already gotten out, he said, and their officer was dead, but as soon

as he got out himself, someone rode him down and broke his arm.

That's why he's here, and without the gods' favor he would've been

killed. When he got up again, there were rebels--I mean--"

"I know what you mean, Patera. Go on, please."

"They were all around him. He said he would have climbed back

in their floater, but it was starting to burn, and he knew that if the

fire didn't go out their ammunition would explode, the bullets for

the buzz guns. He wasn't wearing armor like the troopers outside,

just a helmet, so he pulled it off and threw it away, and the--your

people thought he was one of them, most of them. He said that

sometimes swords would cut the men's armor. It's polymeric, did

you know that, Patera? Sometimes they silver it, private guards and

so on do, like a glazier silvers the back of a mirror. But it's still

polymeric under that, and the troopers' is painted green like a

soldier."

"It will stop needles, won't it?"

Shell nodded vigorously. "Mostly it will. Practically always. But

sometimes a needle will go through the opening for the man's eyes,

or where he breathes. when it does that, he's usually killed, they

say. And sometimes a sword will cut right through their armor, if it's

a big heavy sword, and the man's strong. Or stabbing can split the

breastplate. A lot of your people had axes and hatchets. For

firewood, you know. And some had clubs with spikes through them.

A big club can knock down a trooper in armor, and if there's a spike

in it, the spike will go right through." Shell paused for breath.

"But the soldiers aren't like that at all. Their skin's all metal, steel

in the worst places. Even a slug from a slug gun will bounce off a

soldier sometimes, and nobody can kill or even hurt a soldier with a

club or a needler."

Silk said, I know, I shot one once, then realized that he had not

spoken aloud. I'm like poor Mamelta, he thought--I have to

remember to speak, to breathe out while I move my lips and tongue.

"One told me she saw two men trying to take a soldier's slug gun.

They were both holding onto it, but he lifted them right off their feet

and threw them around. This wasn't the driver but a woman I talked

to, one of your people, Patera. She had her washing stick, and she

got behind him and hit him with it, but he shook off the two men

and hit her with the slug gun and broke her shoulder. A lot of your

people had gotten slug guns from troopers by then, and they were

shooting at the soldiers with them. Somebody shot the one fighting

her. She would've been killed if it hadn't been for that she said. But

the soldiers shot a lot of them, too, and chased them up Cheese

Street and a lot of other streets. She tried to fight, but she didn't

have a slug gun, and with her shoulder she couldn't have shot one if

she'd had it. A slug hit her leg, and the doctors here had to cut it

off."

"I'll pray for her," Silk promised, "and for everyone else who's

been killed or wounded. If you see her again, Patera, please tell her

how sorry I am that this happened. Was Maytera--was General

Mint hurt?"

"They say not. They say she's planning another attack, but

nobody really knows. Were you wounded very badly, Patera?"

"I don't believe I'm going to die." For seconds that grew to a

minute or more, Silk stared in wonder at the empty flask hanging

from the bedpost. Was life such a simple thing that it could be

drained from a man as red fluid, or poured into him? Would he

eventually discover that he held a different life, one which longed

for a wife and children, in a house that he had never seen? It had not

been his own blood--not his own life--surely. "I believed I was, not

long ago. Even when you came, Patera. I didn't care. Consider the

wisdom and mercy of the god who made us so that when we're about

to die we no longer fear death!"

"If you don't think you're going to die--"

"No, no. Shrive me. The Ayuntamiento certainly intends to kill

me. They can't possibly know I'm here; if they did, I'd be dead

already." Silk pushed aside his quilt.

Hurriedly, Shell replaced it. "You don't have to kneel, Patera.

You're still ill, terribly ill. You've been badly hurt. Turn your head

toward the wall, please."

Silk did so, and the familiar words seemed to rise to his lips of

their own volition. "Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to

Pas and to other gods." It was comforting, this return to ritual

phrases he had memorized in childhood; but Pas was dead, and the

well of his boundless mercy gone dry forever.

"Is that all, Patera?"

"Since my last shriving, yes."

"As penance for the evil you have done, Patera Silk, you are to

perform a meritorious act before this time tomorrow." Shell paused

and swallowed. "I'm assuming that your physical condition will

permit it. You don't think it's too much? The recitation of a prayer

will do."

"Too much?" With difficulty, Silk forced himself to keep his eyes

averted. "No, certainly not. Too little, I'm sure."

"Then I bring to you, Patera Silk, the pardon of all the god--"

Of _all_ the gods. He had forgotten that aspect of the Pardon, fool

that he was! Now the words brought a huge sense of relief. In

addition to Echidna and her dead husband, in addition to the Nine

and truly minor gods like Kypris, Shell was empowered to grant

amnesty for the Outsider. For all the gods. Hence he, Silk, was

forgiven his doubt.

He turned his head so that he could see Shell. "Thank you, Patera.

You don't know--you can't--how much this means to me."

Shell's hesitant smile shone again. "I'm in a position to do you

another favor, Patera. I have a letter for you from His Cognizance."

Seeing Silk's expression, he added quickly, "It's only a circular

letter, I'm afraid. All of us get a copy." He reached into his robe.

"When I told Patera Jerboa you had been captured, he gave me

yours, and it's about you."

The folded sheet Shell handed him bore the seal of the Chapter in

mulberry-colored wax; beside it, a clear, clerkly hand had written:

"Silk, Sun Street."

"It's a very important letter, really," Shell said.

Silk broke the seal and unfolded the paper.

_30th Nemesis 332_

To the Clergy of the Chapter,

Both Severally and Collectively

Greetings in the name of Pas, in the name of Scylla, and in

the names of all gods! Know that you are ever in my

thoughts, as in my heart.

The present disturbed state of Our Sacred City obliges us

to be even more conscious of our sacred duty to minister to

the dying, not only to those amongst them with whose recent

actions we may sympathize, but to all those to whom, as we

apprehend, Hierax may swiftly reveal his compassionate

power. Thus it is that I implore you this day to cultivate the

perpetual and indefatigable--

Patera Remora composed this, Silk thought; and as though Remora

sat before him, he saw Remora's long, sallow, uplifted face, the tip

of the quill just brushing his lips as he sought for a complexity of

syntax that would satisfy his insatiate longing for caution and

precision.

The perpetual and indefatigable predisposition toward

mercy and pardon whose conduit you so frequently must be.

Many of you have appealed for guidance in these most

disturbing days. Nay, many appeal so still, even hourly.

Most of you will have learned before you read this epistle of

the lamented demise of the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento.

The late Councillor Lemur was a man of extraordinary

gifts, and his passing cannot but leave a void in every heart.

How I long to devote the remainder of this necessarily

curtailed missive to mourning his passing. Instead, for such

are the exactions of this sad whorl, the whorl that passes, my

duty to you requires that I forewarn you without delay

against the baseless pretexts of certain vile insurgents who

would have you to believe that they act in the late Councillor

Lemur's name.

Let us set aside, my beloved clergy, all fruitless debate

regarding the propriety of an intercaldean caesura spanning

some two decades. That the press of unhappy events then

rendered an interval of that kind, if not desirable, then

unquestionably attractive, we can all agree. That it represented,

to judgements not daily schooled to the nice discriminations

of the law, a severe strain upon the elasticity of

our Charter, we can agree likewise, can we not? The

argument is wholly historical now. O beloved, let us resign it

to the historians.

What is inarguable is that this caesura, to which I have had

reason to refer above, has attained to its ordained culmination.

It cannot, O my beloved clergy, as it should not,

survive the grievous loss which it has so recently endured.

What, then, we may not illegitimately inquire, is to succeed

that just, beneficent and ascendant government so sadly

terminated?

Beloved clergy, let us not be unmindful of the wisdom of

the past, wisdom which lies in no less a vehicle than our own

Chrasmologic Writings. Has it not declared, "_Vox poputi,

vox dei_"? which is to say, in the will of the masses we may

discern words of Pas's. At the present critical moment in the

lengthy epic of Our Sacred City, Pas's grave words are not to

be mistaken. With many voices they cry out that the time has

arrived for a precipitate return to that Charteral guardianship

which once our city knew. Shall it be said of us that we

stop our ears to Pas's words?

Nor is their message so brief, and so less than mistakable.

From forest to lake, from the proud crown of the Palatine to

the humblest of alleys they proclaim him. O my beloved

clergy, with what incommunicable joy shall I do so additionally.

For Supreme Pas has, as never previously, espoused for

our city a calde from within our own ranks, an anointed

augur, holy, pious, and redolent of sanctity.

May I name him? I shall, yet surely I need not. There is

not one amongst you, Beloved Clergy, who will not know

that name prior to mine overjoyed acclamation. It is Patera

Silk. Again I say, Patera Silk!

How readily here might I inscribe, let us welcome him and

obey him as one of ourselves. With what delight shall I

inscribe in its place, let us welcome him and obey him, for he

is one of ourselves!

May every god favor you, beloved clergy. Blessed be you

in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in that

of Gradous Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and

their Daughters alike, this day and forever, in the name of

their eldest child, Scylla, Patroness of this, Our Holy City of

Viron. Thus say I, Pa. Quetzal, Prolocutor.

As Silk refolded the letter, Shell said, "His Cognizance has come

down completely on your side, you see, and brought the Chapter

with him. You said--I hope you were mistaken in this, Patera, really

I do. But you said a minute ago that if the Ayuntamiento knew you

were here they'd have you shot. If that's true--" He cleared his

throat nervously. "If it's true, they'll have His Cognizance shot too.

And--and some of the rest of us."

"The coadjutor," Silk said, "he drafted this. He'll die as well, if

they can get their hands on him." It was strange to think of Remora,

that circumspect diplomatist, tangled and dead in his own web of

ink.

Of Remora dying for him.

"I suppose so, Patera." Shell hesitated, plainly ill at ease. "I'd call

you--use the other word. But it might be dangerous for you."

Silk nodded slowly, stroking his cheek.

"His Cognizance says you're the first augur, ever. That--it came

as a shock to--to a lot of us, I suppose. To Patera Jerboa, he said.

He says it's never happened before in his lifetime. Do you know

Patera Jerboa, Patera?"

Silk shook his head.

"He's quite elderly. Eighty-one, because we had a little party for

him just a few weeks ago. But then he thought, you know, sort of

getting still and pulling at his beard the way he does, and then he

said it was sensible enough, really. All the others, the previous--the

previous--"

"I know what you mean, Patera."

"They'd been chosen by the people. But you, Patera, you were

chosen by the gods, so naturally their choice fell upon an augur,

since augurs are the people they've chosen to serve them."

"You yourself are in danger, Patera," Silk said. "You're in nearly

as much danger as I am, and perhaps more. You must be aware of it."

Shell nodded miserably.

"I'm surprised they let you in here after this."

"They--the captain, Patera. I--I haven't..."

"They don't know."

"I don't think so, Patera. I don't think they do. I didn't tell them."

"That was wise, I'm sure." Silk studied the window as he had

before, but as before saw only their reflections, and the night. "This

Patera Jerboa, you're his acolyte? Where is he?"

"At our manteion, on Brick Street."

Silk shook his head.

"Near the crooked bridge, Patera."

"Way out east?"

"Yes, Patera." Shell fidgeted uncomfortably. "That's where we are

now, Patera. On Basket Street. Our manteion's that way," he

pointed, "about five streets."

"I see. That's right, they lifted me into something--into some sort

of cart that jolted terribly. I remember lying on sawdust and trying

to cough. I couldn't, and my mouth and nose kept filling with

blood." Silk's index finger drew small circles on his cheek. "Where's

my robe?"

"I don't know. The captain has it, I suppose, Patera."

"The battle, when General Mint attacked the floaters on Cage

Street, was that this afternoon?"

Shell nodded again.

"About the time I was shot, perhaps, or a little later. You brought

the Pardon to the wounded. To all of them? All those in danger of

death, I mean?"

"Yes, Patera."

"Then you went back to your manteion--?"

"For something to eat, Patera, a bite of supper." Shell looked

apologetic. "This brigade--it's the Third. They're in reserve, they

say. They don't have much. Some were going into people's houses,

you know, and taking any food they could find. There's supposed to

be food coming in wagons, but I thought--"

"Of course. You returned to your manse to eat with Patera

Jerboa, and this letter had arrived while you were gone. There

would have been a copy for you, too, and one for him."

Shell nodded eagerly. "That's right, Patera."

"You would have read yours at once, of course. My copy--this

one--it was there as well?"

"Yes, Patera."

"So someone at the Palace knew I had been captured, and where

I'd been taken. He sent my copy to Patera Jerboa instead of to my

own manteion in the hope that Patera Jerboa could arrange to get to

me, as he did. His Cognizance was with me when I was shot; there's

no reason to conceal that now. While my wounds were being

treated, I was wondering whether he had been killed. The officer

who shot me may not have recognized him, but if he did..." Silk

let the thought trail away. "If they don't know about this already--and

I think you're right, they can't know yet, not here at any rate--they're

bound to find out soon. You realize that?"

"Yes, Patera."

"You must leave. It would probably be wise for you and Patera

Jerboa to leave your manteion, in fact--to go to a part of the city

controlled by General Mint, if you can."

"I--" Shell seemed to be choking. He shook his head desperately.

"You what, Patera?"

"I don't want to leave you as long as I can be of--of help to you.

Of service. It's my duty."

"You have been of help," Silk told him. "You've rendered

invaluable service to me and to the Chapter already. I'll see you're

recognized for it, if I can." He paused, considering.

"You can be of further help, too. On your way out, I want you to

speak to this captain for me. There were two letters in a pocket of

my robe. They were on the mantel this morning; my acolyte must

have put them there yesterday. I haven't read them, and your giving

me this one has reminded me of them." Somewhat tardily, he thrust

the letter under his quilt. "One had the seal of the Chapter. It may

have been another copy of this, though that doesn't seem very

likely, since this one has today's date. Besides, they wouldn't have

sent this to Patera Jerboa this evening, in that case."

"I suppose not, Patera."

"Don't mention them to the captain. Just say I'd like to have my

robe--all of my clothes. Ask for my clothes and see what he gives

you. Bring them to me, my robe particularly. If he mentions the

letters, say that I'd like to see them. If he won't give them to you, try

to find out what was in them. If he won't tell you, return to your

manteion. Tell Patera Jerboa that I, the calde, order him to get

himself and you--are there sibyls, too?"

Shell nodded. "There's Maytera Wood--"

"Never mind their names. That you and he and they are to lock up

the manteion and leave as quickly as possible."

"Yes, Patera." Shell stood, very erect. "But I won't go back to our

manteion straight away, no matter what the captain says. I--I'm

coming back. Back here to see you and tell you what he said, and try

to do something more for you, if I can. Don't tell me not to, please,

Patera. I'll only disobey."

To his surprise, Silk found that he was smiling. "Your disobedience

is better than the obedience of many people I've known,

Patera Shell. Do what you think right; you will anyway, I feel

certain."

Shell left, and the room seemed empty as soon as he was out the

door. Silk's wound began to throb, and he made himself think of

something else. How proudly Shell had announced his intention to

disobey, while his lip trembled! It reminded Silk of his mother, her

eyes shining with team of joy at some only too ordinary childhood

feat. _Oh, Silk! My son, my son!_ That was how he felt now. These

boys!

Yet Shell was no younger. They had entered the schola together,

and Shell had sat at the desk in front of his own when an instructor

insisted on alphabetical seating; they had been anointed on the same

day, and both had been assigned to assist venerable augurs who

were no longer able to attend to all the demands of their manteions.

Shell, however, had not been enlightened by the Outsider--or

had not had a vein burst in his head, as Doctor Crane would have

had it. Shell had not been enlightened, had not hurried to the

market, had not encountered Blood...

He had been as young as Shell when he had talked to Blood and

plucked three cards out of Blood's hand, not knowing that somewhere

below a monitor was mad and howling for want of those cards--as young

or nearly, because Shell might have done it, too. Again

Silk smelled the dead dog in the gutter and the stifling dust raised by

Blood's floater, saw Blood wave his stick, tall, red faced, and

perspiring. Silk coughed, and felt that a poker had been plunged

into his chest.

Somewhat unsteadily, he crossed the room to the window and raised

the sash to let in the night wind, then surveyed his naked torso in the

minor over the bureau, a much larger one than his shaving mirror

back at the manse.

A dressing half concealed the multicolored bruise left by Musk's

hilt. From what little anatomy he had picked up from the victims he

had sacrificed, he decided that the needle had missed his heart by

four fingers. Still, it must have been good shooting by a mounted man.

With his back to the mirror, he craned his neck to see as much as

possible of the dressing on his back; it was larger, and his back hurt

more. He was conscious of a weak wrongness deep in his chest, and

of the effort he had to make to breathe.

Clothing in the drawers of the bureau: underwear, tunics, and

carelessly folded trousers--under these last, a woman's perfumed

scarf. This was a young man's room, a son's; the couple who owned

the house would have a bedroom on the ground floor, a corner

room with several windows.

Chilled, he returned to the bed and drew up the quilt. The son

had left without packing, otherwise the drawers would be half

empty. Perhaps he was fighting in Maytera Mint's army.

Some part of Kypris had entered her, and that fragment had made

the shy sibyl a general--that, and Echidna's command. For a

moment he wondered what fragment it had been, and whether

Kypris herself had known she possessed it. It was the element that

had freed Chenille from rust, presumably; they would be part and

parcel of the same thing. Kypris had told him she was hunted, and

His Cognizance had called it a wonder that she had not been killed

long ago. Echidna and her children, hunting the goddess of love,

must soon have learned that love is more than perfumed scarves and

thrown flowers. That there is steel in love.

A young woman had thrown that scarf from a balcony, no doubt.

Silk tried to visualize her, found she wore Hyacinth's face, and

thrust the vision back. Blood had wiped his face with a peach-colored

handkerchief, a handkerchief more heavily perfumed than

the scarf. And Blood had said...

Had said there were people who could put on a man like a tunic.

He had been referring to Mucor, though he, Silk, had not known it

then--had not known that Mucor existed, a girl who could dress her

spirit in the flesh of others just as he, a few moments before, had

been considering putting on the clothes of the son whose room this

was.

Softly he called, "Mucor? Mucor?" and listened; but there was no

phantom voice, no face but his own in the mirror above the bureau.

Closing his eyes, he composed a long formal prayer to the Outsider,

thanking him for his life, and for the absence of Blood's daughter.

When it was complete, he began a similar prayer to Kypris.

Beyond the bedroom door, a sentry sprang to attention with an

audible clash of his weapon and click of his heels.

Shadeup woke Auk, brilliant beams of the long sun piercing his

tasseled awnings, his gauze curtains, his rich draperies of puce

velvet, and the grimed glass of every window in the place, slipping

past his lowered blinds of split bamboo, the warped old boards

someone else had nailed up, his colored Scylla, and his shut and

bolted shutters; through wood, paper, and stone.

He blinked twice and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "I feel better," he

announced, then saw that Chenille was still asleep, Incus and Urus

both sleeping, Dace and Bustard sound asleep as well, and only big

Hammerstone the soldier already up, sitting crosslegged with Oreb

on his shoulder and his back against the tunnel wall. "That's good,

trooper," Hammerstone said.

"Not good," Auk explained. "I don't mean that. Better. Better

than I did, see? That feels better than good, 'cause when you're

feeling good you don't even think about it. But when you feel the

way I do, you pay more attention than when you're feeling good.

I'm a dimberdamber nanny nipper." He nudged Chenille with the

toe of his boot. "Look alive, Jugs. Time for breakfast!"

"What's the matter with _you?_" Incus sat up as though it had been

he and not Chenille who had been thus nudged.

"Not a thing," Auk told him. "I'm right as rain." He considered the

matter. "If it does, I'll go to the Cock. If it don't, I'll do some

business on the hill. Slept with my boots on." He seated himself

beside Chenille. "You too? You shouldn't do that, Patera. Bad on

the feet."

Untying their laces, he tugged off his boots, then pulled off his

stockings. "Feel how wet these are. Still wet from the boat. Wake

up, old man! From the boat and the rain. If we had that tall ass

again, I'd make him squirt fire for me so I could dry 'em. Phew!" He

hung the stockings over the tops of his boots and pushed them away.

Chenille sat up and began to take off her jade earrings. "Ooh, did

I dream!" She shuddered. "I was lost, see? All alone down here, and

this tunnel I was in kept going deeper both ways. I'd walk one way

for a long, long while, and it would just keep going down. So I'd

turn around and walk the other way, only that way went down, too,

deeper and deeper all the time."

"Recollect that the _immortal gods_ are always with you, my

daughter," Incus told her.

"Uh-huh. Hackum, I've got to get hold of some clothes. My

sunburn's better. I could wear them, and it's too cold down here

without any." She grinned. "A bunch of new clothes, and a double

red ribbon. After that, I'll be ready for ham and half a dozen eggs

scrambled with peppers."

"Watch out," Hammerstone warned her, "I don't think your

friend's ready for inspection."

Auk rose, laughing. "Look at this," he told Hammerstone, and

kicked Urus expertly, bending up his bare toes so that Urus's ribs

received the ball of his foot.

Urus blinked and rubbed his eyes just as Auk had, and Auk

realized that he himself was the long sun. He had awakened himself

with his own light, light that filled the whole tunnel, too dazzlingly

bright for Urus's weak eyes.

"The way you been carrying the old man," he told Urus, "I don't

like it." He wondered whether his hands were hot enough to burn

Urus. It seemed possible; they were ordinary when he wasn't

looking at them, but when he did they glowed like molten gold.

Stooping, he flicked Urus's nose with a forefinger, and when Urus

did not cry out, jerked him to his feet.

"When you carry the old man," Auk told him, "you got to do it like

you love him. Like you were going to kiss him." It might be a good

idea to make Urus really kiss him, but Auk was afraid Dace might

not like it.

"All right," Urus said. "All right."

Bustard inquired, How you feelin', sprat?

Auk pondered. "There's parts of me that work all right," he

declared at length, "and parts that don't. A couple I'm not set about.

Remember old Marble?"

Sure.

"She told us she could pull out these lists. Out of her sleeve, like.

What was right and what wasn't. With me, it's one thing at a time."

"I can do that," Hammerstone put in. "It's perfectly natural."

Chenille had both earrings off, and was rubbing her ears. "Can

you put these in your pocket, Hackum? I got no place to carry them."

"Sure," Auk said. He did not turn to look at her.

"I could get a couple cards for them at Sard's. I could buy a good

worsted gown and shoes, and eat at the pastry cook's till I was ready

to split."

"Like, there's this dimber punch," Auk explained to Urus. "I

learned it when I wasn't no bigger than a cobbler's goose, and I

always did like it a lot. You don't swing, see? Culls always talk

about swinging at you, and they do. Only this is better. I'm not sure

it still works, though."

His right fist caught Urus square in the mouth, knocking him

backward into the shiprock wall. Incus gasped.

"You sort of draw your arm up and straighten it out," Auk

explained. Urus slumped to the tunnel floor. "Only with your weight

behind it, and your knuckles level. Look at them." He held them

out. "If your knuckles go up and down, that's all right, too. Only it's

a different punch, see?" Not as good, Bustard said. "Only not as

good," Auk confirmed.

I kin walk, big feller, he don't have to carry me, nor kiss me

neither.

The dead body at his feet, Auk decided, must be somebody else.

Urus, maybe, or Gelada.

Maytera Marble tried to decide how long it had been since she had

done this, entering _roof_ and when that evoked only a flood of

dripping ceilings and soaked carpets, _attic_.

A hundred and eighty-four years ago.

She could scarcely believe it--did not wish to believe it. A

graceful girl with laughing eyes and industrious hands had climbed

this same stair, as she still did a score of times every day, walked

along this hall, and halted beneath this odd-looking door overhead,

reaching up with a tool that had been lost now for more than a century.

She snapped her new fingers in annoyance, producing a loud and

eminently satisfactory clack, then returned to one of the rooms that

had been hers and rummaged through her odds-and-ends drawer

until she found the big wooden crochet hook that she had sometimes

plied before disease had deprived her of her fingers. Not these

fingers, to be sure.

Back in the hall, she reached up as the girl who had been herself

had and hooked the ring, wondering whimsically whether it had

forgotten how to drop down on its chain.

It had not. She tugged. Puffs of dust emerged from the edges of

the door above her head. The hall would have to be swept again.

She hadn't been up there, no one had--

A harder tug, and the door inclined reluctantly downward,

exposing a band of darkness. "Am I going to have to swing on you?"

she asked. Her voice echoed through all the empty rooms, leaving

her sorry she had spoken aloud.

Another tug evoked squeals of protest, but brought the bottom of

the door low enough for her to grasp it and pull it down; the folding

stair that was supposed to slide out when she did yielded to a hard pull.

I'll oil this, she resolved. I don't care if there isn't any oil. I'll cut

up some fat from that bull and boil it, and skim off the grease and strain

it, and use that. Because this _isn't_ the last time. It is _not_.

She trotted up the folding steps in an energetic flurry of black bombazine.

Just look how good my leg is! Praise to you, Great Pas!

The attic was nearly empty. There was never much left when a

sibyl died; what there was, was shared among the rest in accordance

with her wishes, or returned to her family. For half a minute,

Maytera Marble tried to recall who had owned the rusted trunk next

to the chimney, eventually running down the whole list--every sibyl

who had ever lived in the cenoby--without finding a single tin trunk

arnong the associated facts.

The little gable window was closed and locked. She told herself

that she was being foolish even as she wrestled its stubborn catch.

Whatever it was that she had glimpsed in the sky while crossing the

playground was gone, must certainly be gone by this time if it had

ever existed.

Probably it had been nothing but a cloud.

She had expected the window to stick, but the dry heat of the last

eight months had shrunk its ancient wood. She heaved at it with all

her strength, and it shot up so violently that she thought the glass

must break.

Silence followed, with a pleasantly chill wind through the window.

She listened, then leaned out to peer up at the sky, and at last

(as she had planned the whole time, having a lively appreciation of

the difficulty of proving a negative after so many years of teaching

small boys and girls) she stepped over the sill and out onto the thin

old shingles of the cenoby roof.

Was it necessary to climb to the peak? She decided that it was,

necessary for her peace of mind at least, though she wondered what

the quarter would say if somebody saw her there. Not that it

mattered, and most were off fighting anyhow. It wasn't as noisy as it

had been during the day, but you could still hear shots now and

then, like big doors shutting hard far away. Doors shutting on the

past, she thought. The cold wind flattened her skirt against her legs

as she climbed, and would have snatched off her coif had not one

hand clamped it to her smooth metal head.

There were fires, as she could see easily from the peak, one just a

few streets away. Saddle Street or String Street, she decided,

probably Saddle Street, because that was where the pawnbrokers

were. More fires beyond it, right up to the market and on the other

side, as was to be expected. Darkness except for a few lighted

windows up on Palatine Hill.

Which meant, more surely than any rumor or announcement, that

Maytera Mint had not won. Hadn't won yet. Because the Hill would

burn, would be looted and burned as predictably as the sixth term in

a Fibonacci series of ten was an eleventh of the whole. With the

Civil Guard beaten, nothing--

Before she could complete the thought, she caught sight of it, way

to the south. She had been looking west toward the market and

north to the Palatine, but it was over the Orilla... No, leagues

south of that, way over the lake. Hanging low in the southern sky

and, yes, opposing the wind in some fashion, because the wind was

in the north, was blowing cold out of the north where night was new,

because the wind must have come up, now that she came to think of

it, only a few minutes before while she had been in the palaestra

cutting up the last of the meat and carrying it down to the root

cellar. She had come upstairs again and found her hoarded wrapping

papers blown all over the kitchen, and shut the window.

So this thing--this huge thing, whatever it might be--had been

over the city or nearly over it when she had glimpsed it above the

back wall of the ball court. And it wasn't being blown south any

more, as a real cloud would be; if anything, it was creeping north

toward the city again, was creeping ever so slowly down the sky.

She watched for a full three minutes to make sure.

Was creeping north like a beetle exploring a bowl, losing heart at

times and retreating, then inching forward again. It had been here,

had been over the city, before. Or almost over it, when the wind had

risen--had been taken unawares, as it seemed, and blown away over

the lake; and now it had collected its strength to return, wind or no wind.

So briefly that she was not sure she had really seen it, something

flashed from the monstrous dark flying bulk, a minute pinprick of

light, as though someone in the shadowy skylands behind it had

squeezed an igniter.

Whatever it might be, there was no way for her to stop it. It would

come, or it would not, and she had work to do, as she always did.

Water, quite a lot of it, would have to be pumped to fill the wash

boiler. She picked her way back to the gable, wondering how much

additional damage she had done to a roof by no means tight to begin with.

She would have to carry wood in, enough for a big fire in the

stove. Then she could wash the sheets from the bed she had died in

and hang them out to dry. If Maytera Mint came back (and Maytera

Marble prayed very fervently that she would) she could cook

breakfast for her on the same fire, and Maytera Mint might even

bring friends with her. The men, if there were any, could eat in the

garden; she would carry one of the long tables and some chairs out

of the palaestra for them. Luckily there was still plenty of meat,

though she had cooked some for Villus and given more to his family

when she had carried him home.

She stepped back into the attic and closed the window.

Her sheets would be dry by shadeup. She could iron them and put

them back on her bed. She was still senior sibyl--or rather, was

again senior sibyl, so both rooms were hers, though she probably

ought to move everything into the big one.

Descending the folding steps, she decided that she would leave

them down until she oiled them. She could cut off some fat and boil

it in a saucepan while the wash water was getting hot; the boiler

wouldn't take up the whole stove. By shadeup, the thing in the air

would be back, perhaps; if she stood in the middle of Silver Street

she might be able to see it quite clearly then, if she had time.

Auk felt sure they had been tramping through this tunnel forever,

and that was funny because he could remember when they had

turned off the other one to go down this one that they had been

going down since Pas built the Whorl, Urus spitting blood and

carrying the body, himself behind them in case Urus needed

winnowing out, Dace and Bustard so they could talk to him, then

Patera with the big soldier with the slug gun who had told them how

to walk and made him do it, and last Chenille in Patera's robe, with

Oreb and her launcher. Auk would rather have walked with her and

had tried to, but it was no good.

He looked around at her. She waved friendly, and Bustard and

Dace had gone. He thought of asking Incus and the soldier what had

become of them but decided he didn't want to talk to them, and she

was too far in back for a private chat. Bustard had most likely gone

on ahead to look things over and taken the old man with him. It

would be like Bustard, and if Bustard found something to eat he'd

bring him back some.

Pray to Phaea, Maytera Mint instructed him. Phaea is the food

goddess. Pray to her, Auk, and you will surely be fed. He grinned at

her. "Good to see you, Maytera! I been worried about you." May

every god smile upon you, Auk, this day and every day. Her smile

turned the cold damp tunnel into a palace and replaced the watery

green glow of the crawling light with the golden flood that had

awakened him. Why should you worry about me, Auk? I have

served the gods faithfully since I was fifteen. They will not abandon

me. No one has less reason to worry than I. "Maybe you could get

some god to come down here and walk with us," Auk suggested.

Behind him, Incus protested, "_Auk_, my son!"

He made a rude noise and looked around for Maytera Mint, but

she was gone. For a minute he thought she might have run ahead to

talk to Bustard, then realized that she had gone to fetch a god to

keep him company. That was the way she'd always been. The least

little thing you happened to mention, she'd jump up and do it if she

could.

He was still worried about her, though. If she was going to

Mainframe to fetch a god, she'd have to pass the devils that made

trouble for people on the way, telling lies and pulling them off the

Aureate Path. He should have asked her to go get Phaea. Phaea and

maybe a couple pigs. Jugs would like some ham, and he still had his

hanger and knife. He could kill a pig and cut it up, and dish up her

ham. Shag, he was hungry himself and Jugs couldn't eat a whole pig.

They'd save the tongue for Bustard, he'd always liked pig's tongue.

It was Phaesday, so Maytera would most likely bring Phaea, and

Phaea generally brought at least one pig. Gods generally brought

whatever animal theirs was, or anyhow, pretty often.

Pigs for Phaea. (You had to get them all right if you wanted to

learn the new stuff next year.) Pigs for Phaea and lions or anyhow

cats for Sphinx. Who'd eat a cat? Fish for Scylla, but some fish

would be all right. Little birds for Molpe, and the old 'un had limed

perches for 'em, salted 'em, and made sparrow pie when he'd got

enough. Bats for Tartaros, and owls and moles.

Moles?

Suddenly and unpleasantly it struck Auk that Tartaros was the

underground god, the god for mines and caves. So this was his

place, only Tartaros was supposed to be a special friend of his and

look what had happened to him down here, he had made Tartaros

shaggy mad at him somehow because his head hurt, his head wasn't

right, something kept sliding and slipping up there like a needler

that wouldn't chamber right no matter how much you oiled it and

made sure every last needle was as straight as the sun. He reached

under his tunic for his, but it wasn't right at all--was so wrong, in

fact, that it wasn't there, though Maytera Mint was his mother and

in need of him and it.

"Poor Auk! Poor Auk!" Oreb circled above his head. The wind

from his laboring wings stirred Auk's hair, but Oreb would not

settle on his shoulder, and soon flew back to Chenille.

It wasn't there any more and neither was she. Auk wept.

The captain's salute was much smarter than his torn and soiled

green uniform. "My men are in position, My General. My floater is

patrolling. To reinforce the garrison by stealth is no longer possible.

Nor will reinforcement at the point of the sword be possible, until

we are dead."

Bison snorted, tilting back the heavy oak chair that was temporarily his.

Maytera Mint smiled. "Very good, Captain. Thank you. Perhaps

you had better get some rest now."

"I have slept, My General, though not long. I have eaten as well,

as you, I am told, have not. Now I inspect my men at their posts.

When my inspection is complete, perhaps I shall sleep another hour,

with my sergeant to wake me."

"I'd like to go with you," Maytera Mint told him. "Can you wait

five minutes?"

"Certainly, My General. I am honored. But..."

She looked at him sharply. "What is it, Captain? Tell me, please."

"You yourself must sleep, My General, and eat as well. Or you

will be fit for nothing tomorrow."

"I will, later. Please sit down. We're tired, all of us, and you must

be exhausted." She turned back to Bison. "We have a principle in the

Chapter, for sibyls like me and augurs like Patera Silk. Discipline,

it's called, and it comes from an old word for pupil or student. If

you're a teacher, as I am, you must have discipline in the classroom

before you can teach anything. If you don't, they'll be so busy

talking among themselves that they won't hear a thing that you say,

and draw pictures instead of doing the assignment."

Bison nodded.

Recalling an incident from the year before, Maytera Mint smiled

again. "Unless you've _told_ them to draw pictures. If you've told

them to draw, they'll write each other notes."

The captain smoothed his small mustache. "My General. We have

discipline also, we officers and men of the Civil Guard. The word is

the same. The practice, I dare say, not entirely different."

"I know, but I can't use you to patrol the streets and stop the

looting. I wish I could, Captain. It would be very convenient, and no

doubt effective. But to many people the Guard is the enemy. There

would be a rebellion against our rebellion, and that's exactly what

we cannot afford."

She turned back to Bison. "You understand why this is needed,

don't you? Tell me."

"We're robbing ourselves," he said.

His beard made it difficult to read his expression, but she tried

and decided he was uncomfortable. "What you say is true. The

people whose houses and shops are being looted are our people,

too, and if they have to stay there to defend them, they can't fight

for us. But that isn't all, is it? What else did you want to say?"

"Nothing, General."

"You must tell me everything." She wanted to touch him, as she

would have touched one of the children at that moment, but decided

it might be misconstrued. "Telling me everything when I ask you to

is discipline as well, if you like. Are we going to let the Guard be

better than we are?"

Bison did not reply.

"But it's really more important than discipline. Nothing is more

important to us now than my knowing what you think is important.

You and the captain here, and Zoril, and Kingcup, and all the rest."

When he still said nothing, she added, "Do you want us to fail, so

you won't be embarrassed, Bison? That is what is going to happen if

we won't share concerns and information: we will fail the gods and

die. All of us, probably. Certainly I will, because I will fight until

they kill me. What is it?"

"They're burning, too," he blurted. "The burning's worse than the

looting, a lot worse. With this wind, they'll burn down the city if we

don't stop them. And--and..."

"And what?" Maytera Mint nibbled her underlip. "And put out the

fires that are raging all around the city already, of course. You're

right, Bison. You always are." She glanced at the door. "Teasel? Are

you still out there? Come in, please. I need you."

"Yes, Maytera."

"We're telling one another we should rest, Teasel. It seems to be

the convention of this night. You're not exempt. You were quite ill

only a few days ago. Didn't Patera Silk bring you the Peace of Pas?"

Teasel nodded solemnly; she was a slender, pale girl of thirteen,

with delicate features and lustrous black hair. "On Sphixday,

Maytera, and I started getting better right away."

"Sphixday, and this is Hieraxday." Maytera Mint glanced at the

blue china clock on the sideboard. "Thelxday in a few hours, so we'll

call it Thelxday. Even so, less than a week ago you were in

imminent danger of death, and tonight you're running errands for

me when you ought to be in bed. Can you run one more?"

"I'm fine, Maytera."

"Then find Lime. Tell her where I am, and that I want to see her

just as soon as she can get away. Then go home and go to bed.

_Home_, I said. Will you do that, Teasel?"

Teasel curtsied, whirled, and was gone.

"She's a good, sensible girl," Maytera Mint told Bison and the

captain. "Not one of mine. Mine are older, and they're off fighting

or nursing, or they were. Teasel's one of Maytera Marble's, very

likely the best of them."

Both men nodded.

"Captain, I won't keep you waiting much longer. Bison, I had

begun to talk about discipline. I was interrupted, which served me

right for being so long-winded. I was going to say that out of twenty

boys and girls, you can make eighteen good students with discipline.

I can, and you could too. In fact you would probably be better at it

than I am, with a little practice." She sighed, then forced herself to

sit up straight with her shoulders back.

"Of the remaining, two one will never be a good student. He

doesn't have it in him, and all you can do is stop him from unsettling

the others. The other one doesn't need discipline at all, or at least

that's how it seems. Pas's own truth is that he's already disciplined

himself before you ever called the class to order. Do you understand me?"

Bison nodded.

"You're one of those. If you weren't, you wouldn't be my

surrogate now. which you are, you know. If I am killed, you must

take charge of everything."

Bison grinned, big white teeth flashing in the thicket of his black

beard. "The gods love you, General. Your getting killed's one thing

I don't have to worry about."

She waited for a better answer.

"Hierax forbid," Bison said at last. "I'll do my best if it happens."

"I know you will, because you always do. What you have to do is

find others like yourself. We don't have enough time to establish

real discipline, though I wish very much that we did. Choose men

with needlers, won't need slug guns for this--older men, who won't

loot themselves when they're sent to stop looters. Organize them in

groups of four, designate a leader for each group, and have to tell--

"Don't forget this, it's extremely important. Have them tell

everyone they meet that the looting and burning have to stop, and

they'll shoot anyone they find doing either."

She rose. "We'll go Captain. I want to see how you've arranged

this. I've a great deal to learn and very little time to learn it in."

Horn and Nettle, he with a captured slug gun and she with a

needler, had stationed themselves outside the street door.

"Horn, go in the house and find yourself a bed," Maytera Mint

told him. "That is an order. When you wake up, come back here and

relieve Nettle if she's still here. Nettle, I'm going around the

Alambrera with the captain. I'll be back soon."

The wind that chilled her face seemed almost supernatural

after so many months of heat; she murmured thanks to Molpe,

then recalled that the wind was fanning the fires Bison feared,

and that it might--that in some cases it most certainly would--spread

fire from shop to stable to manufactory. That there was a

good chance the whole city would burn while she fought the

Ayuntamiento for it.

"The Ayuntamiento. They aren't divine, Captain."

"I assure you, I have never imagined that they were, My

General." He guided her down a crooked street whose name she

had forgotten, if she had ever known it; around its shuttered store

fronts, the wind whispered of snow.

"Since they aren't," she continued, "they can't possibly resist the

will of the gods for long. It is Echidna's will, certainly. I think we

can be sure it's Scylla's too."

"Also that of Kypris," he reminded her. "Kypris spoke to me, My

General, saying that Patera Silk must be calde. I serve you because

you serve him, him because he serves her."

She had scarcely heard him. "Five old men. Four, if His Cognizance

is right, and no doubt he is. What gives them the courage?"

"I cannot guess, My General. Here is our first post. Do you see it?"

She shook her head.

"Corporal!" the captain called. Hands clapped, and lights kindled

across the street; a gleaming gun barrel protruded from a second-floor

window. The captain pointed. "We have a buzz gun for this

post, as you see, My General. A buzz gun because the street offers

the most direct route to the entrance. The angle affords us a

longitudinal field of fire. Down there," he pointed again, "a step or

two more, and we could be fired upon from an upper window of the

Alambrera."

"They could come down this street, straight across Cage, and go

into the Alambrera?"

"That is correct, My General. Therefore we will not go farther.

This way, please. You do not object to the alley?"

"Certainly not."

How strange the service of the gods was! When she was only a

girl, Maytera Mockorange had told her that the gods' service meant

missing sleep and meals, and had made her give that response each

time she was asked. Now here she was; she hadn't eaten since

breakfast, but by Thelxiepeia's grace she was too tired to be hungry.

"The boy you sent off to bed." The captain chuckled. "He will

sleep all night. Did you foresee that, My General? The poor girl will

have to remain at her post until morning."

"Horn? No more than three hours, Captain, if that."

The alley ended at a wider steet. Mill Street, Maytera Mint told

herself, seeing the forlorn sign of a dark coffee shop called the Mill.

Mill Street was where you could buy odd lengths of serge and tweed cheaply.

"Here we are out of sight, though not hidden from sentries on the

wall. Look." He pointed again. "Do you recognize it, My General?"

"I recognize the wall of the Alambrera, certainly. And I can see a

floater. Is it yours? No, it can't be, or they'd be shooting at it, and

the turret's missing."

"It is one of those you destroyed, My General. But it is mine now.

I have two men in it." He halted. "Here I leave you for perhaps three

minutes. It is too dangerous for us to proceed, but I must see that all

is well with them."

She let him trot away, waiting until he had almost reached the

disabled floater before she began to run herself, running as she had

so often pictured herself running in games with the children at the

palaestra, her skirt hiked to her knees and her feet flying, the fear of

impropriety gone who could say where.

He jumped, caught the edge of the hole where the turret had

been, pulled himself up and rolled over, vanishing into the disabled

floater. Seeing him, she felt less confident that she could do it too.

Fortunately she did not have to; when she was still half a dozen

strides away, a door opened in its side. "I did not think you would

remain behind, My General," the captain told her, "though I dared

hope. You must not risk yourself in this fashion."

She nodded, too breathless to speak, and ducked into the floater.

It was cramped yet strangely roofless, the crouching Guardsmen

clearly ill at ease, trained to snap to attention but compressed by

circumstance. "Sit down," she ordered them, "all of you. We can't

stand on formality in here."

That word _stand_ had been unwisely chosen, she reflected. They

sat anyway, with muttered thanks.

"This buzz gun, you see, My General," the captain patted it, "once

it belonged to the commander of this floater. He missed you, so it is

yours."

She knew nothing about buzz guns and was curious despite her

fatigue. "Does it still operate? And do you have," at a loss, she

waved a vague hand, "whatever it shoots?"

"Cartridges, My General. Yes, there are enough. It was the fuel

that exploded in this floater, you see. They are not like soldiers,

these floaters. They are like taluses and must have fish oil or

palm-nut oil for their engines. Fish oil is not so nice, but we employ

it because it is less costly. This floater carried sufficient ammunition

for both guns, and there is sufficient still."

"I want to sit there." She was looking at the officer's seat. "May I?"

"Certainly, My General." The captain scrambled out of her way.

The seat was astonishingly comfortable, deeper and softer than

her bed in the cenoby, although its scorched upholstery smelled of

smoke. Not astonishing, Maytera Mint told herself, not really. To

be expected, because it had been an officer's seat, and the Ayuntamiento

treated officers well, knowing that its power rested on

them; that was something to keep in mind, one more thing she must

not forget.

"Do not touch the trigger, My General. The safety catch is

disengaged." The captain reached over her shoulder to push a small

lever. "Now it is engaged. The gun will not fire."

"This spider web thing." She touched it instead. "Is it what you call

the sight?"

"Yes, the rear sight, My General. The little post you see at the end

of the barrel, that is the front sight. The gunner aligns the two, so

that he sees the top of the post in one or another of the small rectangles."

"I see."

"Higher rectangles, My General, if the target is distant. To left or

right if there is a strong wind, or because the gun favors one side or

another."

She leaned back in the seat and allowed herself, for no more than

a second or two, to close her eyes. The captain was saying

something about night vision, short bursts hitting more than long

ones, about fields of fire.

Fire was eating up somebody's home while he talked, and Lime

(if Teasel had found her quickly and she hadn't been far) was

looking for her right now, going from sentry post to post to post to

post. Looking for her and asking people at each post whether they

had seen her, whether they knew where the next one was and

whether they would take her there because of the fires, because

Bison had known, had rightly known that the fires must be put out

but had been afraid to say it because he had known his people

couldn't do it, could not, men and women who had fought so long

and hard already all day, fight fires tonight and fight again tomorrow.

Bison who made her feel so strong and competent, whose thick

and curling black beard was longer than her hair. Maytera Mockorange

had warned her about going without her coif, which was not

just against the rule but stimulating to a great many men who were

aroused by the sight of women's hair, particularly if long. She had

lost her coif somewhere, had gone without it though her hair was

short, though it had been cropped short on the first day, all of it.

She fled Maytera Mockorange's anger down dark cold halls full of

sudden turnings until she found Auk, who reminded her that she

was to bring him the gods.

"I am Colonel Oosik, Calde," Silk's visitor informed him. He was a

big man, so tall and broad that Shell was hidden by his green-uniformed bulk.

"The officer who directs this brigade," Silk offered his hand. "In

command. Is that what you say? I'm Patera Silk."

"You have familiarized yourself with our organization." Oosik sat

down in the chair Shell had carried in earlier.

"Not really. Are those my clothes you have?"

"Yes." Oosik held them up, an untidy black bundle. "We will

speak of them presently, Calde. If you have made no study of our

organization charts, how is it you know my position?"

"I saw a poster." Silk paused, remembering. "I was going to the

lake with a woman named Chenille. The poster announced the

formation of a reserve brigade. It was signed by you, and it told

anyone who wanted to join it to apply to Third Brigade Headquarters.

Patera Shell was kind enough to look in on me a few minutes

ago, and he happened to mention that this was the Third Brigade.

After he had gone, I recalled your poster."

Shell said hurriedly, "The colonel was in the captain's room when

I got there, Patera. I told them I'd wait, but he made me come in

and asked what I wanted, so I told him."

"Thank you," Silk said. "Please return to your manteion at once,

Patera. You've done everything that you can do here tonight."

Trying to freight the words with significance, he added, "It's already

late. Very late."

"I thought, Patera--"

"Go," Oosik tugged his drooping mustache. "Your calde and I

have delicate matters to discuss. He understands that. So should you."

"I thought--"

"Go!" Oosik had scarcely raised his voice, yet the word was like

the crack of a whip. Shell hurried out.

"Sentry! Shut the door."

The mustache was tipped with white, Silk observed; Oosik wound

it about his index finger as he spoke. "Since you have not studied our

organization, Calde, you will not know that a brigade is the

command of a general, called a brigadier."

"No." Silk admitted. "I've never given it any thought."

"In that case no explanation is necessary. I had planned to tell

you, so that each of us would know where we stand, that though I

am a mere colonel, an officer of field grade," Oosik released his

mustache to touch the silver osprey on his collar, "I command my

brigade exactly as a brigadier would. I have for four years. Do you

want your clothes?"

"Yes. I'd like to get dressed, if you'll let me."

Oosik nodded, though it was not clear whether his nod was meant

to express permission or understanding. "You are nearly dead,

Calde. A needle passed through your lung."

"Nevertheless, I'd feel better if I were up and dressed." It was a

lie, although he wished fervently that it were true. "I'd be sitting on

this bed then, instead of lying in it; but I've got nothing on."

Oosik chuckled. "You wish your shoes as well?"

"My shoes and my stockings. My underwear, my trousers, my

tunic, and my robe. Please, colonel."

The corners of the mustache tilted upward. "Dressed, you might

easily escape, Calde. Isn't that so?"

"You say I'm near death, Colonel. A man near death might

escape, I suppose; but not easily."

"We have handled you roughly here in the Third, Calde. You

have been beaten. Tortured."

Silk shook his head. "You shot me. At least, I suppose that it was

one of your officers who shot me. But I've been treated by a doctor

and installed in this comfortable room. No one has beaten me."

"With your leave." Oosik peered at him. "Your face is bruised. I

assumed that we had beaten you."

Silk shook his head, pushing back the memory of hours of

interrogation by Councillor Potto and Sergeant Sand.

"You do not wish to explain the source of your bruises. You have

been fighting, Calde, a shameful thing for an augur. Or boxing.

Boxing would be permissible, I suppose."

"Through my own carelessness and stupidity, I fell down a flight of

stairs," Silk said.

To his surprise, Oosik roared with laughter, slapping his knee.

"That is what our troopers say, Calde," he wiped his eyes, still

chuckling, "when one has been beaten by the rest. He says he fell

down the barracks stairs, almost always. They don't want to

confess that they've cheated their comrades, you see, or stolen

from them."

"In my case it's the truth." Silk considered. "I had been trying to

steal, though not to cheat, two days earlier. But I really did fall

down steps and bruise my face."

"I am happy to hear you haven't been beaten. Our men do it

sometimes without orders. I have known them to do it when it was

contrary to their orders, as well. I punish them for that severely, you

may be sure. In your case, Calde," Oosik shrugged. "I sent out an

officer because I required better information concerning the

progress of the battle before the Alambrera than my glass could give

me. I had made provisions for wounded and for prisoners. I needed

to learn whether they would be sufficient."

"I understand."

"He came back with you." Oosik sighed. "Now he expects a medal

and a promotion for putting me in this very difficult position. You

understand my problem, Calde?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"We are fighting, you and I. Your followers, a hundred thousand

or more, against the Civil Guard, of which I am a senior officer, and

a few thousand soldiers. Either side may win. Do you agree?"

"I suppose so," Silk said.

"Let us say, for the moment, that it is mine. I do not intend to be

unfair to you, Calde. We will discuss the other possibility in a

moment. Say that the victory is ours, and I report to the Ayuntamiento

that you are my prisoner. I will be asked why I did not

report it earlier, and I may be court-martialed for not having

reported it. If I am fortunate, my career will be destroyed. If I am

not, I may be shot."

"Then report it," Silk told him, "by all means."

Oosik shook his head again, his big face gloomier than ever.

"There is no right course for me in this, Calde. No right course at all.

But there is one that is clearly wrong, that can lead only to disaster,

and you have advised it. The Ayuntamiento has ordered that you be

killed on sight. Do you know that?"

"I had anticipated it." Silk discovered that his hands were clenched

beneath the quilt. He made himself relax.

"No doubt. Lieutenant Tiger should have killed you at once. He

didn't. May I be frank? I don't think he had the stomach for it. He

denies it, but I don't think he had the stomach. He shot you. There

you lay, an augur in an augur's robe, gasping like a fish and bleeding

from the mouth. One more shot would be the end." Oosik shrugged.

"No doubt he thought you would die while he was bringing you in.

Most men would have."

"I see," Silk said. "He'll be in trouble now if you tell the

Ayuntamiento that you have me, alive."

"_I_ will be in trouble." Oosik tapped his chest with a thick

forefinger. "I will be ordered to kill you, Calde, and I will have to do

it. If we lose after that, your woman Mint will have me shot, if she

doesn't light upon something worse. If we win, I will be marked for

life. I will be the man who killed Silk, the augur who was, as the city

firmly believes, chosen by Pas to be calde. If it is wise, the

Ayuntamiento will disavow my actions, court-martial me, and have

me shot. No, Calde, I will not report that I hold you. That is the last

thing that I will do."

"You said that the Guard and the Army--I've been told there are

seven thousand soldiers--are fighting the people. What is the

strength of the Guard, Colonel?" Silk strove to recall his conversation

with Hammerstone. "Thirty thousand, approximately?"

"Less."

"Some Guardsmen have deserted the Ayuntamiento. I know that

for a fact."

Oosik nodded gloomily.

"May I ask how many?"

"A few hundred, perhaps, Calde."

"Would you say a thousand?"

For half a minute or more, Oosik did not speak; at last he said, "I

am told five hundred. If that is correct, almost all have come from

my own brigade."

"I have something to show you," Silk said, "but I have to ask you

for a promise first. It's something that Patera Shell brought me,

and I want you to give me your word that you won't harm him or

the augur of his manteion, or any of their sibyls. Will you promise?"

Oosik shook his head. "I cannot disobey if I am ordered to arrest

them, Patera."

"If you're not ordered to." It should give them ample time to

leave, Silk thought. "Promise me that you won't do anything to them

on your own initiative."

Oosik studied him. "You are offering your information very

cheaply, Calde. We don't bother you religious, except under the

most severe provocation."

"Then I have your word as an officer?"

Oosik nodded, and Silk took the Prolocutor's letter from under

his quilt and handed it to him. He unbuttoned a shirt pocket and got

out a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, shifting his position slightly so

that the light fell upon the letter.

In the silence that followed, Silk reviewed everything Oosik had

said. Had he made the right decision? Oosik was ambitious--had

probably volunteered to take charge of the reserve brigade as well

as his own in the hope of gaining the rank and pay to which his

position entitled him. He might be, in fact he almost certainly was,

underestimating the fighting capabilities of soldiers like Sand and

Hammerstone; but he was sure to know a great deal about those of

the Civil Guard, in which he had spent his adult life; and he was

considering the possibility that the Ayuntamiento would lose. The

Prolocutor's letter, with its implications of increased support for

Maytera Mint, might tilt the balance.

Or so Silk hoped.

Oosik looked up. "This says Lemur's dead."

Silk nodded.

"There have been rumors all day. What if your Prolocutor is

simply repeating them?"

"He's dead." Silk made the statement as forceful as he could,

fortified by the knowledge that for once there was no need to hedge

the truth. "You've got a glass, Colonel. You must. Ask it to find

Lemur for you."

"You saw him die?"

Silk shook his head, saying, "I saw his body, however," and Oosik

returned to the letter.

Too much boldness could ruin everything; it would be worse than

useless to try to make Oosik say or do anything that could be

brought up against him later.

Oosik put down the letter. "The Chapter is behind you, Calde. I

suspected as much, and this makes it very plain."

"It is now, apparently." Here was a chance for Oosik to declare

himself. "If you suspected it before you read that letter, Colonel, it

was doubly kind of you to let Patera Shell in to see me."

"I didn't, Calde. Captain Gecko did."

"I see. But you'll keep your promise?"

"I am a man of honor, Calde." Oosik refolded the letter and put it

in his pocket with his glasses. "I will also keep this. Neither of us

would want anyone else to read it. One of my officers, particularly."

Silk nodded. "You're welcome to."

"You want your clothes back. No doubt you would like to have

the contents of your pockets as well. Your beads are in there, I

think. I imagine you would like to tell them as you lie here."

"I would, yes. Very much."

"There are needlers, too. One is like the one with which you were

shot. There is also a smaller one that seems to have belonged to a

woman named Hyacinth."

"Yes," Silk said again.

"I see I know her, if she is the Hyacinth I'm thinking of. An

amiable girl, as well as a very beautiful one. I lay with her on

Phaesday."

Silk shut his eyes.

"I did not set out to give you pain, Calde. Look at me. I'm old

enough to be your father, or hers. Do you imagine she sends me

love letters?"

"Is that...?"

"What one of the letters in your pocket is?" Oosik nodded

solemnly "Captain Gecko told me the seals had not been broken

when he found them. Quite frankly, I doubted him. I see that I

should not have. You have not read them."

"No," Silk said.

"Captain Gecko has, and I. No one else. Gecko can be discreet

if I order it, and a man of honor must be a man of discretion, also.

Otherwise he is worse than useless. You did not recognize her seal?"

Silk shook his head. "I've never gotten a letter from her before."

"Calde, I have never gotten one at all." Oosik tugged his

mustache. "You would be well advised to keep that before you. Many

letters from women over the years, but never one from her. I say

again, I envy you."

"Thank you," Silk said.

"You love her." Oosik leaned back in his chair. "That is not a

question. You may not know it, but you do." His voice softened. "I

was your age once, Calde. Do you realize that in a month it may be

over?"

"In a day it may be over," Silk admitted. "Sometimes I hope it will be."

"You fear it, too. You need not say so. I understand. I told you I

knew her and it gave you pain, but I do not want you to think, later,

that I have been less than honest. I am being equally honest now.

Brutally honest with myself. My pride. I am nothing to her."

"Thank you again," Silk said.

"You are welcome. I do not say that she is nothing to me. I am not

a man of stone. But there are others, several who are much more.

To explain would be offensive."

"Certainly you don't have to go into details unless you want me to

shrive you. May I see her letter?"

"In a moment, Calde. Soon I will give it to you to keep. I think so,

at least. There is one further matter to be dealt with. You chanced

to mention a woman called Chenille. I know a woman of that name,

too. She lives in a yellow house."

Silk smiled and shook his head.

"That does not pain you at all. She is not the Chenille you took to

the lake?"

"I was amused at myself--at my stupidity. She told me she had

entertained colonels; but until you said you knew her, it had never

entered my mind that you were almost certain to be one of them.

There can't be a great many."

"Seven besides myself." Oosik rummaged in the bundle of clothing

and produced Musk's big needler and Hyacinth's small, gold-plated

one. After holding them up so that Silk could see them, he laid them

on the windowsill.

"The little one is hers," Silk said. "Hyacinth's. Could you see that

it's returned to her?"

Oosik nodded. "I shall send it by a mutual acquaintance. What

about the large one?"

"The owner's dead. I suppose it's mine now."

"I am too well mannered to ask if you killed him, but I hope he

was not one of our officers."

"No," Silk said, "and no. I confess I was tempted to kill him several

times--as he was undoubtedly tempted to kill me--but I didn't. I've

only killed once, in self-defense. May I read Hyacinth's letter now?"

"If I can find it." Oosik fumbled through Silk's clothes again, then

held up both the letters Silk had taken from the mantel in the manse

that morning. "This other is from another augur. You have no

interest in it?"

"Not as much, I'm afraid. Who is it?"

"I have forgotten." Oosik extracted the letter from its envelope

and unfolded it. "'Patera Remora, Coadjutor.' He wishes to see

you, or he did. You were to come to his suite in the Prolocutor's

Palace yesterday at three. You are more than a day late already,

Calde. Do you want it?"

"I suppose so," Silk said; and Oosik tossed it on the bed.

Oosik rose, holding out Hyacinth's letter. "This one you will not

wish to read while I watch, and I have urgent matters to attend to. I

may look in on you again, later this evening. Much later. If I am too

busy, I will see you in the morning, perhaps." He tugged his

mustache. "Will you think me a fool if I say I wish you well, Calde?

That if we were no longer opponents I should consider your

friendship an honor?"

"I'd think you were an estimable, honorable man," Silk told him,

"which you are."

"Thank you, Calde!" Oosik bowed, with a click of his booted heels.

"Colonel?"

"Your beads. I had forgotten. You will find them in a pocket of

the robe, I feel sure." Oosik turned to go, but turned back. "A

matter of curiosity. Are you familiar with the Palatine, Calde?"

Silk's right hand, holding Hyacinth's letter, had begun to tremble;

he pressed it against his knee so that Oosik would not see it. "I've

been there." By an effort of will, he kept his voice almost steady.

"Why do you ask?"

"Often, Calde?"

"Three times, I believe." It was impossible to think of anything but

Hyacinth; he could as easily have said fifty, or never. "Yes, three

times--once to the Palace, and twice to attend sacrifice at the Grand

Manteion."

"Nowhere else?"

Silk shook his head.

"There is a place having a wooden figure of Thelxiepeia. As an

augur, you may know where it is."

"There's an onyx image in the Grand Manteion--"

Oosik shook his head. "In Ermine's, to the right as one enters the

sellaria. One sees an arch with greenery beyond it At the rear,

there is a pool with goldfish. She stands by it holding a mirror. The

lighting is arranged so that the pool is reflected in her mirror, and

her mirror in the pool. It is mentioned in that letter." Oosik turned

upon his heel.

"Colonel, these needlers--"

He paused at the door. "Do you intend to shoot your way to

freedom, Calde?" Without waiting for Silk's reply he went out,

leaving the door ajar behind him. Silk heard the sentry come to

attention, and Oosik say, "You are dismissed. Return to the

guardroom immediately."

Silk's hands were still shaking as he unfolded Hyacinth's letter; it

was on stationery the color of heavy cream, scrawled in violet ink,

with many flourishes.

O My Darling Wee Flea:

I call you so not only because of the way you sprang from

my window, but because of the way you hopped into my

bed! How your lonely bloss has longed for a note from you!!!

You might have sent one by the kind friend who brought you

my gift, you know!

That had been Doctor Crane, and Doctor Crane was dead--had

died in his arms that very morning.

Now you have to tender me your thanks and so much more,

when next we meet! Don't you know that little place up on

the Palatine where Thelx holds up a mirror? _Hieraxday_.

Hy

Silk closed his eyes. It was foolish, he told himself. Utterly foolish.

The semiliterate scribbling of a woman whose education had ended

at fourteen, a girl who had been given to her father's superior as a

household servant and concubine, who had scarcely read a book or

written a letter, and was trying to flirt, to be arch and girlish and

charming on paper. How his instructors at the schola would have sneered!

Utterly foolish, and she had called him darling, had said she

longed for him, had risked compromising herself and Doctor Crane

to send him this.

He read it again, refolded it, and returned it to its envelope, then

pushed aside the quilt and got up.

Oosik had intended him to go, of course--had intended him to

escape, or perhaps to be killed escaping. For a few seconds he tried

to guess which. Had Oosik been insincere in speaking of friendship?

Oosik was capable of any quantity of double-dealing, if he was any

judge of men.

It did not matter.

He took his clothing from the chair and spread it on the bed. If

Oosik intended him to escape, he must escape as Oosik intended. If

Oosik intended him to be killed escaping, he must escape just the

same, doing his best to remain alive.

His tunic was crusted with his own blood and completely

unwearable; he threw it down and sat on the bed to pull on his

undershorts, trousers, and stockings. When he had tied his shoes,

he rose and jerked open a drawer of the bureau.

Most of the tunics were cheerful reds and yellows; but he found a

blue one, apparently never worn, so dark that it might pass for black

under any but the closest scrutiny. He laid it on the pillow beside the

letters, and put on a yellow one. The closet yielded a small traveling

bag. Slipping both letters into a pocket, he rolled up his robe,

stuffed it into the bag, and put the dark blue tunic on top of it.

The magazine status pin of the big needler indicated it was

loaded; he opened the action anyway trying to recall how Auk had

held his that night in the restaurant, and remembering at the last

moment Auk's adjuration to keep his finger off the trigger. The

magazine appeared to be full of long, deadly-looking needles, or

nearly full. Auk had said his needler held how many? A hundred or

more, surely; and this big needler that had been Musk's must hold at

least as many if not more. It was possible, of course, that it had been

disabled in some way.

There was no one in the hall outside. Silk closed the door, and

after a moment's thought put the quilt against its bottom and shut

the window, then sat down on the bed, sick and horribly weak.

When had he eaten last?

Very early that morning, in Limna, with Doctor Crane and that

captain whose name he had never learned or had forgotten, and the

captain's men. Kypris had granted another theophany, had

appeared to them, and to Maytera Marble and Patera Gulo, and

they had been full of the wonder of it, all three of them newly come

to religious feeling, and feeling that no one had ever come to it

before. He had eaten a very good omelet, then several slices of hot,

fresh bread with country butter, because the cook, roused from

sleep by a trooper, had popped the loaves that had been rising

overnight into the oven. He had drunk hot, strong coffee, too;

coffee lightened with cream the color of Hyacinth's stationery and

sweetened with honey from a white, blue-flowered bowl passed to

him by Doctor Crane, who had been putting honey on his bread.

Now Doctor Crane was dead, and so was one of the troopers, the

captain and the other trooper most likely dead too, killed in the

fighting before the Alambrera.

Silk lifted the big needler.

Someone had told him that he, too, should be dead--he could not

remember whether it had been the surgeon or Colonel Oosik.

Perhaps it had been Shell, although it did not seem the sort of thing

that Shell would say.

The needler would not fire. He tugged its trigger again and

returned it to the windowsill, congratulating himself on having

resolved to test it; saw that he had left the safety catch on, pushed it

off, took aim at a large bottle of cologne on the dresser, and

squeezed the trigger. The needler cracked in his hand like a

bullwhip and the bottle exploded, filling the room with the clean

scent of spruce.

He reapplied the safety and thrust the needler into his waistband

under the yellow tunic. If Musk's needler had not been disabled,

there was no point in testing Hyacinth's small one, too. He made

sure its safety catch was engaged, forced himself to stand, and

dropped it into his trousers pocket.

One thing more, and he could go. Had the young man whose

bedroom this was never written anything here? Looking around, he

saw no writing materials.

What of the owner of the perfumed scarf? She would write to

him, almost certainly. A woman who cared enough to drop a silk

scarf from her window would write notes and letters. And he would

keep them, concealing them somewhere in this room and replying in

notes and letters of his own, though perhaps less frequently. The

study, if there was one, would belong to his father. Even a library

would not be sufficiently private. He would write to her here,

surely, sitting--where?

There had been no chair in the room until Shell brought one. The

occupant could only have sat on the bed or the floor, assuming that

he had sat at all. Silk sat down again, imagined that he held a quill,

pushed aside the chair Shell had put in front of the little night table,

and pulled it over to him. Its shallow drawer held a packet of

notepaper, a discolored scrap of flannel, a few envelopes, four

quills, and a small bottle of ink.

Choosing a quill, he wrote:

Sir, events beyond my control have forced me to occupy

your bedchamber for several hours, and I fear I have broken

a bottle of your cologne, and stained your sheets. In extreme

need, I have, in addition, appropriated two of your tunics

and your smallest traveling bag. I am heartily sorry to have

imposed on you in this fashion. I am compelled, as I

indicated.

When peace and order return to our city, as I pray that

they soon will, I will endeavor to locate you, make restitution,

and return your property. Alternately, you may apply

to me, at any time you find convenient. I am Pa. Silk, of Sun Street

For a long moment he paused, considering, the feathery end of the

gray goose-quill tickling his lips. Very well.

With a final dip into the ink, he added a comma and the word

_Calde_ after "Sun Street," and wiped the quill.

Restoring the quilt to the bed, he opened the door. The hall was

still empty. Back stairs brought him to the kitchen, in which it

appeared at least a company had been foraging for food. The back

door opened on what seemed, from what he could see by skylight,

to be a small formal garden; a white-painted gate was held shut by a

simple hook.

Outside on Basket Street, he stopped to look back at the house he

had left. Most of its windows were lit, including one on the second

floor whose lights were dimming; his, no doubt. Distant explosions

indicated the center of the city as well as anything could.

An officer on horseback who might easily have been the one who

had shot him galloped past without taking the least notice. Two

streets nearer the Palatine, a hurrying trooper carrying a dispatch

box touched his cap politely.

The box might contain an order to arrest every augur in the city,

Silk mused; the galloping officer might be bringing Oosik word of

another battle. It would be well, might in fact be of real value, for

him to read those dispatches and hear the news that the galloping

officer brought.

But he had already heard, as he walked, the most important

news, news pronounced by the muzzles of guns: the Ayuntamiento

did not occupy all the city between this remote eastern quarter and

the Palatine. He would have to make his way along streets in which

Guardsmen and Maytera Mint's rebels were slaughtering each

other, return to the ones that he knew best--and then, presumably,

cross another disputed zone to reach the Palatine.

For the Guard would hold the Palatine if it held anything, and in

fact the captain had indicated only that morning that a full brigade

had scarcely sufficed to defend it Molpsday night. Combatants on

both sides would try to prevent him; he might be killed, and the

exertions he was making this moment might kill him as surely as any

slug. Yet he had to try, and if he lived he would see Hyacinth tonight.

His free hand had begun to draw Musk's needler. He forced it

back to his side, reflecting grimly that before shadeup he might

learn some truths about himself that he would not prefer to

ignorance. Unconsciously, he increased his pace.

Men thought themselves good or evil; but the gods--the Outsider

especially--must surely know how much depended upon circumstance.

Would Musk, whose needler he had nearly drawn a few

seconds before, have been an evil man if he had not served Blood?

Might not Blood, for that matter, be a better man with Musk gone?

He, Silk, had sensed warmth and generosity in Blood beneath his

cunning and his greed, potentially at least.

Something dropped from the sky, lighting on his shoulder so

heavily he nearly fell. "Lo Silk! Good Silk!"

"Oreb! Is it really you?"

"Bird back." Oreb caught a lock of Silk's hair in his beak and gave

it a tug.

"I'm very glad--immensely glad you've returned. Where have you

been? How did you get here?"

"Bad place. Big hole!"

"It was I who went into the big hole, Oreb. By the lake, in that

shrine of Scylla's, remember?"

Oreb's beak clattered. "Fish heads?"