In Green's Jungles

9 Fava's Second Story: The Girl on Green

Incanto set his story on Green. It was an unhappy one, as I think we can all agree. For me the saddest part was the death of the leader's son Krait. Incanto never told us how the two came to know each other, or why he had adopted an inhumu. That will be a very good story, I feel sure, and I am sorry I will not be here to hear it.

I am going to use that setting, too. Since none of us have ever been there, it will let my imagination play in any way it wants, and be a fit locale for a story as fanciful as mine.

On Green there was a little girl who lived happily in a warm, dark place. She could see nothing because the place was so dark, but she knew nothing about "seeing" anyway; so she did not miss it. She could hear only a little, though she could hear some noises now and then, and even wondered about them. There was food in the warm, dark place, of which she drank whenever she was hungry.

Her food dwindled away, and the warm, dark place grew more and more cramped until her arms and back and head were pushed against its sides more and more uncomfortably. Nor was that all. The harder she was pressed against sides of the warm, dark place, the more she understood that though it was her whole whorl, there was another whorl, a strange, cold, and frightening whorl, outside it. Her ears heard a few noises, as I told you. Her mind heard more, sounds of lust and hunger, both of which frightened her very much.

She drank the last of her food, and knew hunger not as a noise outside but as a need within. The woman in Salica's story, the woman who was pulled up the chimney by the storm, had eaten as much as she wished for years, and no longer wanted to move. This little girl's case was the reverse of hers. Starving, she soon began to long for another place, one where there would be food again.

That, you see, is the way of the whorl. The well-fed remain where they are, if they can. The ill-fed wander on.

I do not mean to imply that I, who will leave tomorrow to wander through many foreign towns with my father, have not been well fed at your table, Salica. You have always been more than generous with me, not only with food but with your love, just as your son has been a father to me while I have been with you. Nevertheless, I am hungry for the sight of others of my own blood. I hope you will understand how I feel, and even sympathize.

"I certainly do!" my host's mother exclaimed.

And Oreb, from my shoulder: "Bad thing! Thing fly."

A time came when the little girl could not bear her hunger any longer. Gathering her little body, she pressed outward as hard as she could with head, hands, and feet. And when that availed nothing, she clawed frantically at the walls of the warm, dark place that had been home to her for as long as she could remember.

The walls gave way almost at once, and she found herself among rotting reeds and leaves. She did not know what they were, you understand. She had no name for anything beyond her own person. To her, they seemed a further wall, an extension of the warmth and darkness that had wrapped her for so long. She clawed at them, too, and eventually, fatigued and weak with hunger, burst forth into the sunlit brightness of a riverbank.

As I have implied, she did not know who she was or where she had come from. She knew only that she hungered. Seeing the green water, she sensed that it was liquid, like her food, and pulled herself over the mud with her claws until she plunged in.

Soon she discovered that there were hundreds of other babies with her in the water. What games they played! Now and again one of the others tried to bite her, or she tried to bite them; but no harm was done. And every day they grew stronger and fewer, for the fish on which they fed, fed on them.

She was perfectly happy there, until one day-

Here Fava interrupted her story to ask me, "May I use your leader, Incanto? Your man on Green? I won't hurt him much, I promise."

I nodded, hoping that no one other than Oreb was aware of my agitation.

Until one day, as she jumped to escape a particularly large and aggressive fish, she caught sight of Incanto's leader walking all by himself along the riverbank. As soon as she laid eyes on him, she knew that everything she and her playmates had been doing in the river was wrong, and pulled herself up onto the bank. For a time, she ran behind him on all fours like a dog. But that too seemed wrong.

Swimming and eating and swimming again through the calm, sunlit waters had made her much stronger. She stood up as he did, and toddled along behind him, leaving her baby footprints in the mud.

Though she walked as fast as she could, she could not keep up with him, and once a green grabber burst from some thick leaves and snatched at her with claws that were those of a big owl, but ten times larger. Grabbers are horrible animals without feathers or hair, and they change color in ways that make them very hard to see. Think of a bad child as big as a grown man, with a long tail and hands like owls' feet, and you will have pictured one. This grabber forced her to hide in the water for a long while, while the leader walked on.

As Fava spoke, I had been picturing the events in her story; and by the time her little girl had leaped from the green water and seen me, they were painfully vivid.

We had called the "grabbers" colorcats from their claws and the shape of their faces; and I could picture the colorcat at that moment much more clearly than Mora, Inclito, and his mother, or the curving wall of age-old ashlars and the fire in the big fieldstone fireplace: a bull colorcat as green as grass, humpbacked with muscle, splashing through the shallows with high-kneed caution, its snakey tail waving behind it like a detached liana, peering into the water, turning and peering again-and at length pouncing, its horrible claws stretched wide, and coming up with nothing more than a crumbling half load of mud. My hand groped my side for the sword I no longer wore, and found it.

The little girl I've been telling you about would have been left hopelessly behind (Fava continued, with a puzzled expression) if the leader had not turned back. Apparently he had caught sight of the grabber, or more likely had heard it grunting and splashing as it searched for her. I doubt that the leader can have known it was hunting a little girl, but he seemed determined to save that innocent creature, whatever it might be. As soon as he caught sight of the grabber, he drew his sword and advanced upon it fearlessly. At the sight of his resolute face and that slaughtering black blade, the grabber lost heart.

My host's mother could contain herself no longer. "This leader, Fava? Was he-"

"Grandmother!" Mora exclaimed. "You're not supposed to interrupt. You know you're not. You're the one who always objects when Fava and I do it."

"Interruptions are permitted in cases like this, " my host's mother declared with great firmness. "Fava, I have to ask you about Incanto's leader, because Incanto never did describe him. Was he tall? As tall as Incanto?"

Fava shook her head. "That's funny. No, he wasn't. But almost as tall, though he didn't look it, and-"

Stocky. You can think of him as muscular if you like, and he certainly looked strong enough to fight and climb and the rest of it, but there was nothing heroic about him except his eyes.

The little girl whose adventures I have been recounting to you knew nothing about heroes and swords, or any such thing, but she was as curious as a monkey, and as soon as she realized what was happening she pushed her little head up out of the water, and as soon as the grabber was dead she overcame her natural shyness sufficiently to speak to the leader who had killed it and saved her, offering her timid thanks and after some hesitation venturing to say that she thought his was the best shape for everyone.

The colorcat lay dead, half in and half out of the muddy water, scarlet blood that looked no different from a man's or a hog's spurting from the gaping wound below its jaws. Dozens of young inhumi rose to drink it; wading in, I caught one by the nape of the neck and carried it to the bank with its tail lashing futilely and its arms and legs pawing air. "Can you talk?" I shook it.

It swung its head from side to side, then nodded. Already its lizard's face was softening a little, melting.

"You see that tree?" I pointed dramatically. "All I've got do is grab you by your tail and swing you against it, so you'd better do everything I say. What's your name?"

"Mee."

"You're changing your looks, and that's good, but you're making yourself too childlike. I want you older, so grow those legs. Are you a male or a female, Mee?"

"Girl."

"That's good too, " I told her. "I think I'll keep you. I need a little help. If you'll come with me and do your job, I won't hurt you, and I'll see to it that nobody else does, either."

So he cut off a big piece of the grabber's skin for her (Fava continued), and scraped it until it was thin and smooth, and as flexible as grabber-skin can be made. She wrapped it around herself, and they picked flowers and pretty leaves for her to wear in her hair.

Incanto's leader had merely wanted her to frustrate the plans his son and a young woman were making in one of the human settlements. But without in the least intending to, he had made the little girl I have been talking about into a little girl from that day forward, a very good little girl, too, in her way, very fond of pretty dresses and playing nicely with other little girls.

Now I am tired and all of you have finished eating. I have a long way to go tomorrow, so I end her story here, and end it happily.

Perhaps I ought not to have drawn the three whorls, for I only corked my little bottle of ink, wiped my pen, stretched, and talked to Oreb. Now here I am again, the same man in the same place, with the same ink, paper, and pen – though I have sharpened my nib a trifle, as you see.

As I see, I interrupted myself at the place where Fava and Mora came in here in their nightdresses last night, and went off storytelling. I hope to get back to that, but first I ought to say that Fava has gone, and that the two young men who are to carry the letters I wrote for Inclito had dinner with us tonight.

One is certainly the mercenary with whom Inclito spoke; when I entered the room, I saw him glance at Inclito and nod. His name is Eco, a fine, stalwart young man whose dark face and flashing teeth and eyes remind me of Hari Mau.

I have been trying to place him in the group I spoke with in the palace. To my left at the back of the room, I believe. He is quite tall, and I am reasonably certain that I remember him looking over the heads of those in front of him. No smiles then. I saw a very young man about to be sent into battle, and wondering whether he had the courage to bear himself well. From what Inclito said, I feel sure he did.

Indeed, I would be equally sure if Inclito had said nothing about him.

When Mora and Fava came last night, I sent Onorifica for the other maid, Torda, the sullen, good-looking young woman who fetched lap robes for us on the night that Inclito drove me back to Blanko. "I've been wanting to talk to you, " I told her. "You are in danger-in deadly danger, in fact. I'm going to save you if I can. I had not intended to speak to you with Mora listening-"

I stole a glance at her; her heavy, coarse face told me very little, but her mouth seemed narrower than ever.

"Still, this may be the best way. And if Fava listens as well, it can do no harm and may do some good."

"You think you got me out of bed." Torda looked at me accusingly. "You think that-"

"I know I didn't. Onorifica brought you much too quickly for that. You were up and dressed, or dressing."

"I'm supposed to heat madame's bathwater. She bathes every morning. She'll be furious."

"Then Onorifica will have to do it."

"She's supposed to set the table for breakfast."

Fava tittered.

I waved the table aside. "Decina can do it. There can't be much involved in setting table for five."

"You thought I'd be scared and mixed up, but-"

I shook my head. "I hope to frighten you. I'm aware that you're not frightened now." (It was a lie; I knew she was.) "But I hope to frighten you for your own good. Women fear death, Torda, just as men do. If I can show you – and I think I can – that the Hand of Hierax is reaching for you even as we speak, you will be sensibly frightened and tell me the truth. If you do, things may not go so badly for you. Confusion is the last thing I'm hoping for. You must think clearly now, more clearly than poor Onorifica has ever thought in her life. You must see your peril, if you are to escape it."

"Poor girl!" Oreb cocked his head.

Mora nodded emphatically. "That's what I say too. If it weren't for-you really shouldn't bully her like that. I'm going to tell my father."

Fava's hand concealed her smile. "We came in here to talk to you about something entirely different, Incanto, and we were here first."

"I know what you want to talk about, " (my voice was not more assured than I felt) "and it is the same thing. You say it's entirely different, but you don't know what I'm talking to Torda here about. Or do you?"

Fava shook her head.

"Torda is a spy, " I said, and was careful to look at Fava as I said it. "Inclito has known for some time that there was a spy in his household. He asked me to identify her. I say her because it was clear to both of us that it had to be one of four persons: Decina, Onorifica, Torda, and you, Fava. It's Torda, and she can save us all some time by confessing."

"A spy? I am not!"

Oreb spat, "Bad girl!"

"I imagine everyone here knows your history, " I told her, "so there can be no harm in re-hashing it. You came here as a poor relative – a relative only by courtesy. Your mother was supposed to have been a second cousin by marriage, or something like that. Something equally nebulous and impossible to prove. Came here from where?"

Torda shook her head and stared at the floor.

"Not from Blanko, because it wasn't said in that fashion. If you and your family had lived in town, Inclito and his mother – his mother particularly – would have known all about you. You came here from Soldo, and it's obvious who sent you."

"No!"

"You may actually be the sort of step-relative you claim to be. Who cares? The relationship is so tenuous as to be nonexistent anyway. Inclito took you and treated you as well as his daughter. All four of us know why."

I waited for her to speak, but she did not.

"You really are good-looking, " I told her, "your profile particularly. Your face is a trifle too narrow, I would say, but it's not at all bad, and you have an admirable figure. When you smile you must be very pretty, and I'm sure you smiled a lot at Inclito, at first. Didn't you?"

She was glaring at me now, eyes blazing. "That has nothing to do with you!"

"Then something went wrong between you. Did he find you with another man? Or did you ridicule his appearance? He isn't a handsome man, and he seems sensitive about it."

Torda's face was set hard. "It's none of your affair. I told you."

Mora said, "He's acting for my father, or thinks he is." Her voice was flat with resignation.

"I would guess that you simply wanted too much. Was it jewels and clothes? Inclito had made a mistake when he treated you as well as he did in the beginning. You may even have tried to get him to marry you, and he doesn't want to remarry. He's hoping to leave everything he's got to his daughter and her husband."

Torda looked at Mora, and her eyes spoke volumes.

"He cast you aside, and you had to become the mere servant you'd been pretending to be. Any normal woman would have left then-"

"I had no place to go!"

Mora sighed. "Nobody here will, if you don't keep your voice down."

I nodded. "Why did you stay? Clearly because Duko Rigoglio would have been displeased. He would want you right here, as long as you could learn-"

"I'm from Novella Citta. I really am." Torda's voice was almost conversational, but a tear crept down her cheek.

I shrugged. "If that's the truth, perhaps I can arrange for your body to be sent there. I'll do what I can. Certainly Blanko won't want you where its own citizens find rest."

"Fish heads?" Oreb inquired.

"Breakfast soon, at least, though I doubt that there will be fish for you. Mora, would you be willing to go to the kitchen and see that Onorifica brings your grandmother's bathwater? Or perhaps even see to it yourself? It would be-"

She shook her head.

"As you like."

I turned back to Torda. "To repeat, it was clear that the spy was one of you four. Inclito suspected Fava and took care to say nothing that a spy might think significant in her presence. It was a reasonable precaution, and he took it; but nothing changed. The Duko seemed to know each plan he hatched. That suggested that Fava was not the spy, but he – and I, when he told me about it – remained understandably suspicious of her. She was not related to him, had no discernible family of her own, and had the run of the house. I talked to her and to Mora, hinting that her visit, welcome as it had been, had reached its natural conclusion. Mora wanted her to stay, but she herself readily agreed to leave at once, as you've no doubt heard. That settled it for me – Fava was no spy.

"Mora, how do they kill spies in Blanko? Have you any idea? At home they shoot them, but I've heard that in some places they're torn apart by four horses."

"Hang them, I think."

Fava said, "We burn inhumi. It depends on just what the person's done."

I nodded. "You were eliminated, as I said. That left Decina, Onorifica, and Torda here. Torda was clearly a rejected lover, so the answer was plain enough. I took time to inquire about the other two just the same. Decina has been working for Inclito and his mother since Mora was small; moreover, she rarely leaves her kitchen. I eliminated her, as any sensible person would. Onorifica's family lives nearby, and she isn't intelligent enough unless she's a superb dissembler."

I returned to Torda. "If you don't confess, you'll still be tried before the Corpo and executed. It's not the way I'd deal with this if I had a choice, but this isn't my house and Blanko isn't my town. What have you to say?"

"I didn't!" And then, in a whisper, "I love him."

"Poor girl!"

"Yes, Oreb. But a wealthy one if she could have made him believe it. Torda, I can only say that you have a strange way of showing it. If you confess-now-I'll do my utmost to see that there is no trial and no execution."

She shook her head violently.

"I hesitate to speak for him, but I believe that Inclito will as well. He'd prefer to keep your past relationship a secret, surely. Will you confess?"

"I didn't do it!"

I drew a deep breath and let it out. "Then there's no more to be done. Mora, will you tell your father we must see him as soon as he's up and dressed?"

"No." She spoke to Fava. "Go tell the other one about Grandmother's water."

I shook my head, and Fava said, "Really, Mora, I-"

"I mean it. Go now."

Fava stood, nodded, and left us, closing the door behind her. As I watched her go, I had to marvel at the perfection of the illusion. To my eyes (if not to Oreb's) she was a girl of thirteen or fourteen, rather small, with light brown hair that I knew must be a wig.

"Bad thing! Fish heads?" Oreb tugged at a lock of my own.

"No, breakfast isn't ready yet. Onorifica would have come around to tell us, I feel sure."

Mora began, "I am-"

I cut her off. "I know. First let me send Torda away."

Mora shook her head. "I am the spy. It was me."

"As you wish, " I told her, and spoke to Torda. "Mora's been spying on her father for Duko Rigoglio. I accused you in the hope of making her confess. Do you understand?"

"It will… " Her face was stricken. "This will kill him."

"It will if he finds out, perhaps. A few minutes ago you said you loved him. Do you intend to tell him?"

She shook her head.

"Then perhaps you do. Will you tell your father, Mora?"

"No, " Mora said. "I couldn't."

"In that case, neither will I. If we three can keep a secret, there's no reason it shouldn't be kept."

Mora began to speak, but I raised my hand to silence her. "Before you say anything about Fava – it may be we've seen the last of her. Do you realize that? It was why I didn't want you to send her away."

"I hope she's gone. That would make it easier." Mora slumped in her chair.

"Harder, I believe, and certainly less satisfying. She recruited you, isn't that right?"

After a lengthy pause, Mora nodded.

Torda said, "Then Fava is really the Duko's spy?"

"She is-or was-one of two, " I said. "She got Mora to cooperate with her, and I imagine that Fava herself carried their reports back to Soldo."

Fava opened the door as I was speaking. "I did, and I got Mora to tell me things, that's all. I never said anything to her about spying, or telling the Duko. No matter what she's told you, that's all it was."

"That is all I ever thought it was. But after a time she must have realized what she'd been doing. If she hadn't before Inclito told her he thought there was a spy in the house, she certainly must have after that. Nevertheless, she didn't want you to leave."

Mora nodded.

"And she must have been very much afraid that you'd find a way to tell her father after you left-a letter to be found in your room or something of that sort. Most of you can't write, but you can, I know. Since you've been going to palaestra with Mora, it's not surprising."

Mora said, "She wouldn't have."

"She'll say she wouldn't have if you ask her now, I feel quite sure." I watched Fava resume her seat on my bed. "What was it the Duko gave you, Fava? Silver and gold? Cards with which to repair a lander? Not food, you seem to have had no difficulty getting that for yourself."

She shook her head.

"What was it, then?"

"I won't tell you!"

"Yes, you will." I strove to sound ruthless. "I'm giving you a chance to leave alive, but I'll withdraw it if I must."

Sullen silence.

"In a little while, I'm going to have to speak with Torda in private, because I want her to tell me a private matter. Yours is not. You must tell all three of us right now, Mora particularly."

"Torda too?"

"Yes, I think so. It's a bit late to leave Torda out."

I turned and glanced at the window. The Short Sun was rising, illuminating Inclito's broad fields and fat cattle. (Today I watched him stoop and pick up a clod of black earth, which is just now being plowed for winter wheat.) Gesturing, I said to Mora, "All that will be yours someday-no doubt he's told you. Yours, and your husband's."

"Good place!" Oreb assured us, and Mora nodded mutely.

"How did the Duko pay you, Fava, for the information you brought him? What did he give you?"

"Nothing!" She hesitated. "Jewelry, mostly. Jewelry and cards. I gave them away or threw them away."

"I can imagine-gold is heavy stuff. Since you didn't want the Duko's jewels or his cards, what did you want? You must have wanted something."

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"I know, you see, or at least I think I do; and

I'll tell Mora if you don't. It will sound far worse from me."

"You know everything, don't you!"

"Certainly I don't know as much as I need to. I intend to consult the gods again, if I can persuade Mora's father to give me a lamb-"

"No cut!"

"Not you, silly bird. If Inclito will let me have a lamb or something of the kind to sacrifice, I'd like to consult the Outsider. Him, particularly, and perhaps the Mother, the Vanished People's sea goddess, though as far as I know the war brewing here has no connection with the sea."

"Then you'll pretend the gods told you, " Fava declared.

"Certainly not. The gods won't tell people who do that sort of thing anything."

"We've been waiting for it, " Mora explained listlessly. "Some kind of magic or enchantment. We were afraid, but we wanted to see it."

I nodded, and admitted that when I was her age

I would have felt the same way.

Fava said, "Do we still want to talk to him about what we came to see him about, Mora? It will sound inane after all this."

"I don't care, " Mora told her. "If you want to."

"Then I won't."

"I think we need to finish talking about your spying first, " I said. "Mora will feel better when that's over, and so will I. While you were out of the room, I said that if the three of us-Mora, Torda, and I-could keep a secret, there was no reason for anybody else to know. Can you think of one?"

"Not if you can't."

"I can't. You're an intelligent young woman. Can you summarize everything you've told the Duko for me? Briefly, we haven't a lot of time."

"I think so. First there was the ammunition problem. Blanko had a lot of slug guns left over after the last war, but not much ammunition for them. Inclito was able to buy some in Aspis, and he got people from there to come here and show our people how to make it, so now there's a shop making ammunition in Blanko, and the town buys it from them as fast as they can turn it out.

"Then there was a lot of talk about fortifying. Some people wanted to make the town wall thicker and higher, and build more towers, but where was the money coming from? Naturally Inclito was against all that, and so were all the other farmers. He wanted to use the money, or as much as there was, to hire troopers who'd protect everybody, and that was the way it was decided after the farmers said they were going to start taking their produce someplace else."

Mora put in, "My father went around to a lot of the neighbors to get them to do that, and got some of them to go around like he was."

"I see."

"And I told him about you, " Fava continued, "after you came here the first night. Inclito thinks you're a man called Silk he read about-"

"Good Silk, " Oreb assured us.

"In some book. Only I don't think the people in books are ever really real."

"Nor do I, " I told her.

"And that was the last one, two nights ago. I said you were supposed to be this very powerful witch who'd cast spells on him and Soldo so Blanko would win, and I thought there might even be some truth in it. That was because of the story you told us the first night. Then you told that other one tonight, and you got inside mine and started changing things. I told Mora this morning, and she said we should just go and see you and ask how you did it, as friends. I said you were her friend, not mine, but if she wanted to I'd come along."

"He's going to let you go, " Mora told her. "He could get Papa to kill you twice over. You couldn't have a better friend than that."

"Yes, I could. I do."

"Before we talk about stories-"

From my shoulder Oreb repeated, "Talk, talk."

"Before we discuss those, I have a few questions about your reports, Fava. How many times have you gone to Soldo to talk to Duko Rigoglio?"

She muttered to herself, counting on her fingers. "Nine."

Torda burst out, "She said she went there night before last, Incanto. That can't possibly be true. She was here when you and the master went back to town, and here next morning for breakfast."

I nodded. "But let's pretend we think it's true, for the present."

"Nobody can ride that fast!"

"Thing fly!" Oreb demonstrated, circling the room. "Bad thing!"

"Come back, you silly bird.

"I was about to say, Fava, that you must surely have gained some information of value to Inclito on all those trips. How did you give it to him?"

"I couldn't, or not very much. He would have known."

"We both know you could, that you needn't always be Fava. How did you appear to the Duko?"

"Like I do now."

Without in the least desiring to, I pictured her as she must have appeared that night, her wig still upon her head, her arms, widened and lengthened to wings, straining the loose cotton stuff of her sleeves.

Torda was leaning forward to study her. I said, "In bright sunlight you might be able to make out her scales-it's why she carries a parasol. In this room I don't believe you will, unless your eyes are a great deal better than most."

"I've never seen one up close before."

"You're not seeing one now. Fava, would you like to show Torda – and Mora-your natural shape?"

"If you make me, I suppose I'll have to."

"I won't. I asked whether you would like to."

She shook her head.

"They can make themselves look very much like us, as you see, " I told Torda. "They think like us as well. There is a stain of evil in them, however. Perhaps I should say that there is a streak in them that appears evil to human beings like us, an undertone of black malignancy with roots in their reptilian nature."

Fava began, "We feel-"

I raised my hand. "Think before you speak."

She nodded. "I was going to say that we feel the things we do are right, exactly as you and Mora feel that the things you do are right, even when they're wrong."

"That malignant stain kept you from informing Inclito, who has housed you and been kind to you, as well as causing you to offer your services to the Duko. I hope to equalize matters a little, if I can."

"I'll help you, " Fava declared.

Mora asked her, "Was that all it was? You threw away the jewels, you said. Is it just that you don't like us?"

"I like you" Fava told her.

I said, "If you really do, you will want to leave her for her sake. You have done a great deal of good here, I believe. You're beginning to do harm however, and it will only grow worse. Remember please that in a week or a month I will be gone, but Mora and Torda will still be here, and both know.

"Mora, you must understand that however much Fava may have liked you-I'm not qualified to pass on that-she resented the other human beings with whom she came in contact, not only your father and grandmother, but Torda and Onorifica, and all the people she met in Blanko."

Mora nodded reluctantly.

"She envied their humanity, and soothed her feelings by doing what she did, proving to herself that she had the power to destroy them-but we have very little time. The obvious question, Fava. Why didn't the Duko attack when you told him about the ammunition shortage?"

"He should have!"

"I agree, but he didn't. Why didn't he?"

"He said he wanted to train his people better, and get the crop in."

I nodded, wondering as I still do exactly how far

I could trust her. "And hire more mercenaries, I'm sure."

"That's right, and equip everybody better for winter fighting."

I nodded again. "Does it snow here? I suppose it must."

Mora offered, "It snows a lot more up in the High Hills, and that's where my father wants to meet them."

"No doubt. Fava, when you told the Duko about Inclito's influence, how he had persuaded the town to fight outside its walls, it would be natural for him to order you to kill him-or so I would suppose. Blanko would certainly be much weaker without Inclito. Did he do that?"

"Yes, " Fava said. "I wouldn't do it."

What power was in those words, I cannot say; but as she spoke them I felt once more the stillness of the steaming air between the colossal trees, dripping with moisture and thick with the smell of vegetable decay. Oreb surely felt it, too. Again and again he exclaimed, "Bad place! Bad place!, " sounding half frantic with fear.

"He'd want me to kill you, too, Incanto." Her fangs came out, for her kind, like ours, appears about to eat when it is pleased. "If I were to go back there tonight, I know he'd tell me to. I wouldn't do that, either."

Mora and Torda were staring at her, Mora's slack jaw and open mouth rendering her less attractive than ever.

"I want you to go back to him, " I said, and felt that she and I were sitting together on the damp, fecund soil. A moth with wings the size of dinner plates fluttered above the dark, stagnant pool between us, displaying staring eyes upon its wings before it fluttered up and up to vanish into the vaulted ceiling formed by the lowest limbs.

"You said you wanted to help me set things right here." I told Fava. "This is how you can do it. Tell Duko Rigoglio that Inclito is about to marry a woman from Novella Citta, and that both Novella Citta and Olmo have agreed to support his counterattack on Soldo once the war has begun. Will you do that?"

Fava nodded; her fangs had disappeared.

"If you do, and if you leave here today and do not return, you will have my friendship-for whatever that's worth. I won't reveal your nature to Inclito, or tell him that you have nearly bled his mother to death."

Torda grasped my arm and pointed at die idiot-faced, long-legged thing that had fallen from the tree under which we sat; its wrinkled, hairless hide was the brownish pink of human skin, and although it seemed stunned, its blunt tail probed the ground like a blind worm. "Don't worry, " I told her. "They eat leaves, are not good to eat themselves, and are perfectly helpless and harmless. It would never have left its tree if it weren't looking for a mate." At the sound of my voice it lifted its head and stared at me, its eyes as dull as ever and its mouth working.

Fava leaned forward to admire her own face, studying her reflection in the water as she might have in a slab of polished jet. "Back in Grandecitta, where I lived as a girl-do you mind if I'm older now, Mora? It's been so hard staying young for you while I dined with your grandmother. I kept having to stop on the way to Duko Rigoglio's palace, or on the way back, to find another child. Incanto said I had no trouble finding food, and I heard him say once that we prey upon the poor as if it were an accusation. It's really just that we look for houses that aren't very solid and are poorly defended."

Mora gasped. "Are you doing this? Is this…? Is it where you come from?"

Fava nodded. "But I'm not doing it." For a second her mouth opened as widely as a human mouth can, I would guess because she believed she was retracting her fangs. "Incanto is, I'm sure. How do you manage it, Incanto?"

I shook my head.

"Back in Grandecitta, it was fashionable to credit witches and fortune-telling, and all sorts of humbug. If you didn't consult a Strega at least once a month, when your period came, you pretended you had and made the charm yourself to show your friends. I did that sometimes, and so did they I'm sure. Charms against the pain, and for love and good luck. When I remember them now, it seems to me that they never helped anyone, though they may have hurt a few of us."

Her face had become the smooth but delicately wrinkled one of a woman who had been beautiful thirty years ago. "I hope yours aren't like that, Incanto, " she added. "Aren't we all friends here? If we are, anything that harms any of us hurts all of us. I hope you agree."

I said nothing because I was watching Mucor, who had coalesced from a shimmer on the dark surface. "There you are, Silk. There you are, Horn. I've been looking everywhere for you. Babbie came back without you, and Grandmother's worried."

"Tell her I found an eye for her, " I said. "I'll bring it as soon as I can."

There was a knock at the door, and a hoarse, muffled voice outside it.

Mucor had turned her death's-head grin toward Torda. "Are you sure you want to marry him? Silk will help you."

The door opened, and for a moment I saw the fat, middle-aged face of the cook, stupid with shock.

"B-b-breakfast… "

The colossal trees were fading as the small but comfortable bedroom my host had provided returned.

"Breakfast is on the table. The-the, uh… "

Oreb appeared to shrink. "Good place!" He practically crowed it.

And then, "Fish heads?"