Nightside the Long Sun

THE BARGAIN

“It isn’t much,” the fussy little man said, “but it’s mine for as long as he lets me have it.”

“It” was a moderately large and very cluttered room in the north wing of Blood’s villa, and the fussy little man was rummaging in a drawer as he spoke. He snapped a flask under the barrel of a clumsy-looking gun, pushed its muzzle through one of the rents in Silk’s tunic, and fired.

Silk felt a sharp pain, as though he had been stung by a bee.

“This stuff kills a lot of people,” the fussy little man informed him, “so that’s to see if you’re one of them. If you don’t die in a minute or two, I’ll give you some more. Having any trouble breathing?”

Clenching his teeth against the pain in his ankle, Silk drew a deep breath and shook his head.

“Good. Actually, that was a minimal dose. It won’t kill you even if you’re sensitive to it, but it’ll take care of those deep scratches and make you sick enough to tell me I mustn’t give you any more.” The fussy little man bent to stare into Silk’s eyes. “Take another deep breath and let it out.”

Silk did so. “What’s your name, Doctor?”

“We don’t use them much here. You’re fine. Hold out that arm.”

Silk raised it, and the bee stung again.

“Stops pain and fights infection.” The fussy little man squatted, pushed up Silk’s trousers leg, and put the muzzle of his odd-looking gun against Silk’s calf.

“It didn’t operate that time,” Silk told him.

“Yes, it did. You didn’t feel it, that’s all. Now we can take that shoe off.”

“My own name is Patera Silk.”

The fussy little man glanced up at him. “Doctor Crane, Silk. Have a good laugh. You’re really an augur? Musk said you were.”

Silk nodded.

“And you jumped out of that second-floor window? Don’t do that again.” Doctor Crane untied the laces and removed the shoe. “My mother hoped I’d be tall, you see. She was tall herself, and she liked tall men. My father was short.”

Silk said, “I understand.”

“I doubt it.” Doctor Crane bent over Silk’s foot, his pinkish scalp visible through his gray hair. “I’m going to cut away this stocking. If I pull it off, it might do more damage.” He produced shiny scissors exactly like those Silk had found in Hyacinth’s balneum. “She’s dead now, and so’s he, so I guess it doesn’t matter.” The ruined stocking fell away. “Want to see what he looked like?”

The absence of pain was intoxicating; Silk felt giddy with happiness. “I’d love to.” He managed to add, “If you care to show me.”

“I can’t help it. You’re seeing him now, since I look exactly like him. It’s our genes, not our names, that make us whatever we are.”

“It’s the will of the gods.” Silk’s eyes told him that the little physician was probing his swollen right ankle with his fingers, but he could feel nothing. “Your mother was tall; and if you were tall as well, you would say that it was because she had been.”

“I’m not hurting you?”

Silk shook his head. “I don’t resemble my own mother in the least; she was small and dark. I have no idea what my father looked like, but I know that I am the man that a certain god wished me to be before I was born.”

“She’s dead?”

Silk nodded. “She left us for Mainframe a month before I was designated.”

“You’ve got blue eyes. You’re only the second—no, the third person I’ve ever seen with them. It’s a shame you don’t know who your father was. I’d like to have a look at him. See if you can stand up.”

Silk could and did.

“Fine. Let me take your arm. I want you up there on that table. It’s a nice clean break, or anyway that’s what it looks like, and I’m going to pin it and put a cast on it.”

They were not planning to kill him. Silk savored the thought. They were not planning to kill him, and so there might still be a chance to save the manteion.

Blood was slightly drunk. Silk envied him that almost as much as his possession of the manteion. As though Blood had read his thoughts, he said, “Hasn’t anybody brought you anything, Patera? Musk, get somebody to bring him a drink.”

The handsome young man nodded and slipped out of the room, at which Silk felt somewhat better.

“We’ve got other stuff, Patera. I don’t suppose you use them?”

Silk said, “Your physician’s already given me a drug to ease the pain. I doubt that it would be wise to mix it with something else.” He was very conscious of that pain, which was returning; but he had no intention of letting Blood see that.

“Right you are.” Blood leaned forward in his big red leather chair, and for a moment Silk thought that he might actually fall out of it. “The light touch with everything—that’s my motto. Always has been. Even with that enlightenment of yours, a light touch’s best.”

Silk shook his head. “In spite of what has happened to me, I cannot agree.”

“What’s this!” Grinning broadly, Blood pretended to be outraged. “Did enlightenment tell you to come out here and break into my house? No, no, Patera. Don’t try to tell me that. That was greed, the same as you’d slang me for. Your tin sibyl told you I’d bought your place—which I have, and everything completely legal—so you figured I’d have things worth taking. Don’t tell me. I’m an old hand myself.”

“I came here to steal our manteion back from you,” Silk said. “That’s worth taking, certainly. You took it legally, and I intended to take it from you, if I could, in any way I could.”

Blood spat, looked around for his drink, and finding the tumbler empty dropped it on the carpet. “What did you think you could do, nick the shaggy deed out of my papers? It wouldn’t mean a shaggy thing. Musk’s the buyer of record, and all he’d have to do is pay a couple of cards for a new copy.”

“I was going to make you sign it over to me,” Silk told him. “I intended to hide in your bedroom until you came, and threaten to kill you unless you did exactly as I ordered.”

The door opened. Musk entered, followed by a liveried footman with a tray. The footman set the tray on an inlaid table at Silk’s elbow. “Will that be all, sir?”

Silk took the squat, water-white drink from the tray and sipped. “Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Musk.”

The servant departed; Musk smiled bitterly.

“This’s getting interesting.” Blood leaned forward, his wide, red face redder than ever. “Would you really have killed me, Patera?”

Silk, who would not have, felt certain he would not be believed. “I hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I see. I see. And it never crossed your mind that I’d yell for some friends in the City Guard the minute you left? That I wouldn’t even have had to use my own people on you, because the Guard would do their work instead?” Blood laughed, and Musk concealed his smile behind his hand.

Silk sipped again, wondering briefly whether the drink was drugged. If they wanted to drug him, he reflected, they would have no need of subterfuge. Whatever it was, the drink was very strong, certainly. Drugged or undrugged, it might dull the pain in his ankle. He ventured a cautious swallow. He had drunk brandy already tonight, the brandy Gib had given him; it seemed a very long time ago. Surely Blood would make no charge for this drink, whatever else he might do. (Not once in a month did Silk drink anything stronger than water.)

“Well, didn’t you?” Blood snorted in disgust. “You know, I’ve got a few people working for me that don’t think any better than you do, Patera.”

Silk returned his drink to the tray. “I was going to make you sign a confession. It was the only thing I could think of, so it was what I planned.”

“Me? Confess to what?”

“It didn’t matter.” Fatigue had enfolded Silk like a cloak. He had never known that a chair could be as comfortable as this one, a chair in which he could sleep for days. “A conspiracy to overthrow the Ayuntamiento, perhaps. Something like that.” Recalling certain classroom embarrassments, he forced himself to breathe deeply so that he would not yawn; the faint throbbing in his foot seemed very far away, driven beyond the fringes of the most remote Vironese lands by the kindly sorcery of the squat tumbler. “I would have given it to one of my—to another augur, one I know well. I was going to seal it, and make him promise to deliver it to the Juzgado if anything happened to me. Something like that.”

“Not too bad.” Blood took Hyacinth’s little needler from his waistband, thumbed off its safety catch, and aimed it carefully at Silk’s chest.

Musk frowned and touched Blood’s arm.

Blood chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. I only wanted to see how he’d behave in my place. It doesn’t seem to bother him much.” The needler’s tiny, malevolent eye twitched to the right and spat, and the squat tumbler exploded, showering Silk with shards and pungent liquor.

He brushed himself with his fingers. “What would you like me to sign over to you? I’ll be happy to oblige. Give me the paper.”

“I don’t know.” Blood dropped Hyacinth’s gold-plated needler on the stand that had held his drink. “What have you got, Patera?”

“Two drawers of clothing and three books. No, two; I sold my personal copy of the Writings. My beads—I’ve got those here, and I’ll give them to you now if you like. My old pen case, but it’s still in my robe up in that woman’s room. You could have somebody bring it, and I’ll confess to climbing onto your roof and entering your house without your permission, and give you the pen case, too.”

Blood shook his head. “I don’t need your confession, Patera. I have you.”

“As you like.” Silk visualized his bedroom, over the kitchen in the manse. “Pas’s gammadion. That’s steel, of course, but the chain’s silver and should be worth something I also have an old portable shrine that belonged to Patera Pike. I’ve set it up on my dresser, so I suppose you could say it’s mine now. There’s a rather attractive triptych, a small polychrome lamp, an offertory cloth, and so on, with a teak case to carry them in. Do you want that? I had hoped—foolishly no doubt—to pass it on to my successor.”

Blood waved the triptych aside. “How’d you get through the gate?”

“I didn’t. I cut a limb in the forest and tied it to this rope.” Silk pointed to his waist. “I threw the limb over the spikes on your wall and climbed the rope.”

“We’ll have to do something about that.” Blood glanced significantly at Musk. “You say you were up on the roof, so it was you that killed Hierax.”

Silk sat up straight, feeling as if he had been wakened from sleep. “You gave him the name of the god?”

“Musk did. Why not?”

Musk said softly, “He was a griffon vulture, a mountain bird. Beautiful. I thought I might be able to teach him to kill for himself.”

“But it was no go,” Blood continued. “Musk got angry with him and was going to knife him. Musk has the mews out back.”

Silk nodded politely. Patera Pike had once remarked to him that you could never tell from a man’s appearance what might give him pleasure; studying Musk, Silk decided that he had never accorded Patera Pike’s sagacity as much respect as it had deserved.

“So I said that if he didn’t want him, he could give him to me,” Blood continued, “and I put him up there on the roof for a pet.”

“I see.” Silk paused. “You clipped his wings.”

“I had one of Musk’s helpers do it,” Blood explained, “so he wouldn’t fly off. He wouldn’t hunt anyhow.”

Silk nodded, mostly to himself. “But he attacked me, I suppose because I picked up that scrap of hide. We were next to the battlement, and in the excitement of the moment he—I will not call him Hierax, Hierax is a sacred name—forgot that he could no longer fly.”

Blood reached for the needler. “You’re saying I killed him. That’s a shaggy lie! You did it.”

Silk nodded. “He died by misadventure while fighting with me; but you may say that I killed him if you like. I was certainly trying to.”

“And you stole this needler from Hyacinth before she drove you through the window with her azoth—must be about a thirty-cubit drop. Why didn’t you shoot her?”

“Would you have,” Silk inquired, “if you had been in my place?”

Blood chuckled. “And fed her to Musk’s birds.”

“What I have done to you already is surely much worse than anything that Hyacinth did to me; I say nothing of what I intended to do to you. Are you going to shoot me?” If he lunged, Silk decided, he might be able to wrestle the little needler from Blood in spite of his injured leg; and with the muzzle to Blood’s head, he might be able to force them to let him go. He readied himself, calculating the distance as he edged forward in his chair.

“I might. I might at that, Patera.” Blood toyed with the needler, palming it, flipping it over, and weighing it in his hand; he seemed nearly sober now. “You understand—or I hope you do, anyway—that we haven’t committed any kind of a crime, not a one of us. Not me, not Musk here, not any of my people.”

Silk started to speak, then decided against it.

“You think you know about something? All right, I’ll guess. Tell me if I’m wrong. You’ve been talking with Hy, and so you think she’s a whore. One of our guests tonight gave her that azoth. Quite a little present, plenty good enough for a councillor. Maybe she bragged on some of her other presents, too. Have I hit the target?”

Silk nodded guardedly, his eyes on the needler. “She’d had several … Visitors.”

Blood chuckled. “He’s blushing, Musk. Take a look at him Yes, Patera, I know. Only they didn’t pay, and that’s what matters to the law. They were my guests, and Hy’s one of my houseguests. So if she wants to show somebody a good time, that’s her business and mine, but none of yours. You came out here to get back your manteion, you tell me. Well, we didn’t take it away from you.” Blood emphasized his point with the needler, jabbing at Silk’s face. “If we’re going to talk about what’s not legal, we’ve got to talk about what’s legal, too. And legally you never did own it. It belonged to the Chapter, according to the deed I’ve got. Isn’t that right?”

Silk nodded.

“And the city took it from the Chapter for taxes owed. Not from you, because you never had it. Back last week that was, I think. Everything was done properly, I’m sure. The Chapter was notified and so on. They didn’t tell you?

“No.” Silk sighed, and forced himself to relax. “I knew that it might happen, and in fact I warned the Chapter about it. I was never informed that it had happened.”

“Then they ought to tell you they’re sorry, Patera, and I hope they will. But that’s got nothing to do with Musk and me. Musk bought your manteion from the city, and there was nothing irregular about it. He was acting for me, with my money, but there’s nothing illegal about that either, it’s just a business matter between him and me. Thirteen thousand cards we paid, plus the fees. We didn’t steal anything, did we? And we haven’t hurt you—or anybody—have we?”

“It will hurt the entire quarter, several thousand poor families, if you close the manteion.”

“They can go somewhere else if they want to, and that’s up to the Chapter anyhow, I’d say.” Blood gestured toward the welts on Silk’s chest with the needler. “You got hurt some, and nobody’s arguing about that. But you got banged up fighting my pet bird and jumping out a window. Hy was just defending herself with that azoth, something she’s got every right in the whorl to do. You aren’t planning to peep about her, are you?”

“Peep?”

“Go crying to the froggies.”

“I see. No, of course not.”

“That’s good. I’m happy to hear you being reasonable. Just look at it. You broke into my house hoping to take my property—it’s Musk’s, but you didn’t know that. You’ve admitted that to Musk and me, and we’re ready to swear to it in front of a judge if we have to.”

Silk smiled; it seemed to him a very long time since he had last smiled. “You aren’t really going to have me killed, are you, Blood? You’re not willing to take the risk.”

Blood’s finger found the trigger of the needler. “Keep on talking like that and I might, Patera.”

“I don’t believe so. You’d have someone else do it, probably Musk. You’re not even going to do that, however. You’re trying to frighten me before you let me go.”

Blood glanced at Musk, who nodded and circled behind Silk’s chair. Silk felt the tips of Musk’s fingers brush his ears.

“If you go on talking to me like you have been, Patera, you’re going to get hurt. It won’t leave any marks, but you won’t like it at all. Musk has done it before. He’s good at it.”

“Not to an augur. Those who harm an augur in any way suffer the displeasure of all the gods.”

The pain was as sudden as a blow, and so sharp it left Silk breathless, an explosion of agony; he felt as though his head had been crushed.

“There’s places behind your ears,” Blood explained. “Musk pushes them in with his knuckles.”

Gasping for air, his hands to his mastoids, Silk could not even nod.

“We can do that again and again if we have to,” Blood continued. “And if we finally give up and go to bed, we can start over in the morning.”

A red mist had blotted out Silk’s vision, but it was clearing. He managed, “You don’t have to explain my situation to me.”

“Maybe not. I’ll do it whenever I want to, just the same. So to get on with this—you’re right, we’d just as soon not kill you if we don’t have to. There’s three or four different reasons for that, all of them pretty good. You’re an augur, to start with. If the gods ever paid any attention to Viron, they quit a long time ago. Myself, I don’t think there was ever anything in it except a way for people like you to get everything they wanted without working. But the Chapter looks after you, and if it ever got out that we did for you—I mean just talk, because they’d never be able to prove anything—it would get people stirred up and be bad for business.”

Silk said, “Then I would not have died for nothing,” and felt Musk’s fingers behind his ears again.

Blood shook his head, and the contingent agony halted, poised at the edge of possibility. “Then too, we just bought your place so that might make some people think of us. Did you tell anybody you were coming?”

Here it was. Silk was prepared to lie if he must, but preferred to dodge if he could. He said, “You mean one of our sibyls? No, nothing like that.”

Blood nodded, and the danger was past. “It could get somebody’s attention anyway, and I can’t be sure who’s seen you. Hy has, and talked with you and so on. Probably even knows your name.”

Silk could not remember, but he said, “Yes, she does. Can’t you trust her? She’s your wife.”

Musk tittered behind him. Blood roared, his free hand slapping his thigh.

Silk shrugged. “One of your servants referred to her as his mistress. He thought that I was one of your guests, of course.”

Blood wiped his eyes. “I like her, Patera, and she’s the best-looking whore in Viron, which makes her a valuable commodity. But as for that—” Blood waved the topic aside. “What I was going to say is I’d rather have you as a friend.” Seeing Silk’s expression, he laughed again.

Silk strove to sound casual. “My friendship’s easily gained.” This was the conversation he had imagined when he had spied on the villa from the top of the wall; frantically he searched for the smooth phrases he had rehearsed. “Return my manteion to the Chapter, and I’ll bless you for the rest of my life.” A drop of sweat trickled from his forehead into his eyes. Fearing that Musk might think he was reaching for a weapon if he got out his handkerchief, he wiped his face on his sleeve.

“That wouldn’t be what I’d call easy for me, Patera. Thirteen thousand I’ve laid out for your place, and I’d never see a card of it again. But I’ve thought of a way we can be friends that will put money in my pocket, and I always like that. You’re a common thief. You’ve admitted it. Well, so am I.” Blood rose from his chair, stretched, and seemed to admire the rich furnishings of the room. “Why should we, two of a kind, circle around like a couple of tomcats, trying to knife each other?”

Musk stroked Silk’s hair; it made him feel unclean, and he said, “Stop that!”

Musk did.

“You’re a brave man, Patera, as well as a resourceful one.” Blood strode across the room to study a gray and gold painting of Pas condemning the lost spirits, one head livid with rage while the other pronounced their doom. “If I had been sitting where you are, I wouldn’t have tried that with Musk, but you tried it and got away with it. You’re young, you’re strong, and you’ve got a couple of advantages besides that the rest of us haven’t. Nobody ever suspects an augur, and you’ve had a pretty fair education—a better education than mine, I don’t deny that. Tell me now, as one thief to another, didn’t you know down in the cracks of your guts that it was wrong to try to steal my property?”

“Yes, of course.” Silk paused to gather his thoughts. “There are times, however, when one must choose among evils. You’re a wealthy man; stripped of my manteion, you would be a wealthy man still. Without my manteion, hundreds of families in our quarter—people who are already very poor—would be a great deal poorer. I found that a compelling argument.” He waited for the crushing pain of Musk’s knuckles. When it did not come he added, “You suggested that we speak as one thief to another, and I assumed that you intended for us to speak freely. To speak frankly, I find it just as compelling now.”

Blood turned to face him again. “Sure you do, Patera. I’m surprised you couldn’t come up with just as good a reason for shooting Hy. These gods of yours did worse pretty often, didn’t they?”

Silk nodded. “Worse superficially, yes. But the gods are our superiors and may act toward us as they see fit, just as you could clip your pet’s wings without guilt. I am not Hyacinth’s superior.”

Blood chuckled. “You’re the only man alive who doesn’t think so, Patera. Well, I’ll leave morality to you. That’s your business after all. Business is mine, and what we have here is a very simple little business problem. I paid the city thirteen thousand for your manteion. What do you think it’s really worth?”

Silk recalled the fresh young faces of the children in the palaestra, and the tired, happy smiles of their mothers; the sweet smoke of sacrifice rising from the altar through the god-gate in the roof. “In money? It is beyond price.”

“Exactly.” Blood glanced at the needler he still held and dropped it into the pocket of his embroidered trousers. “That’s how you feel, and that’s why you came out here, even though you must have known there was a good chance you’d get killed. You’re not the first who’s tried to break in here, by the way, but you’re the first who got inside the house.”

“That is some consolation.”

“So I admire you, and I think we might be able to do a little business. On the open market, Patera, your place is worth exactly thirteen thousand cards, and not one miserable cardbit more or less. We know that, because it was on the market just a few days ago, and thirteen thousand’s what it brought. So that’s the businessman’s price. You understand what I’m telling you?”

Silk nodded.

“I’ve got plans for it, sure. Profitable plans. But it’s not the only possible site, so here’s my proposition. You say it’s priceless. That’s a lot of money, priceless.” Blood licked his lips, his eyes narrowed, their gaze fixed on Silk’s face. “So as a man that takes a lily profit wherever he can find one but never gouges anybody, I say we split the difference. You pay me twice what I paid, and I’ll sell it to you.”

Silk started to speak, but Blood raised a hand. “Let’s pin it down like a couple of dimber thieves ought to. I’ll sell it to you for twenty-six thousand flat, and I’ll pay all costs. No tricks, and no splitting up the property. You’ll get everything that I got.”

Silk’s hopes, which had mounted higher with every word, collapsed. Did Blood really imagine that he was rich? There were laymen, he knew, who thought all augurs rich. He said, “I’ve told you what I have; altogether, it wouldn’t bring two hundred cards. My mother’s entire estate amounted to a great deal less than twenty-six thousand cards, and it went to the Chapter irrevocably when I took my vows.”

Blood smiled. “I’m flash, Patera. Maybe you’d like another drink?”

Silk shook his head.

“Well, I would.”

When Musk had gone, Blood resumed his seat. “I know you haven’t got twenty-six thousand, or anything close to it. Not that I’m swallowing everything you told me, but if you had even a few thousand you wouldn’t be there on Sun Street. Well, who says that just because you’re poor you’ve got to stay poor? You wouldn’t think so to look at me, but I was poor once myself.”

“I believe you,” Silk said.

Blood’s smile vanished. “And you look down on me for it. Maybe that made it easier.”

“No,” Silk told him. “It made it a great deal harder. You never come to the sacrifices at our manteion—quite a few thieves do, actually—but I was setting out to rob one of our own, and in my heart of hearts I knew that and hated it.”

Blood’s chuckle promised neither humor nor friendship. “You did it just the same.”

“As you’ve seen.”

“I see more than you think, Patera. I see a lot more than you do. I see that you were willing to rob me, and that you nearly brought it off. A minute ago you told me how rich you think I am, so rich I wouldn’t miss four old buildings on Sun Street. Do you think I’m the richest man in Viron?”

“No,” Silk said.

“No what?”

Silk shrugged. “Even when we spoke in the street, I never supposed that you were the wealthiest man in the city, although I have no idea who the wealthiest might be. I only thought that you were wealthy, as you obviously are.”

“Well, I’m not the richest,” Blood declared, “and I’m not the crookedest either. There are richer men than I am, and crookeder men than I am, lots of them. And, Patera, most of them aren’t anywhere near as close to the Ayuntamiento as I am. That’s something to keep in mind, whether you think so or not.”

Silk did not reply, or even indicate by any alteration of his expression that he had heard.

“So if you want your manteion back, why shouldn’t you get it from them? The price is twenty-six thousand, like I told you. That’s all it means to me, so they’ve got it just as much as I have, and they’ll be easier, most of them. Are you listening to me, Patera?”

Reluctantly, Silk nodded.

Musk opened the door as he had before and preceded the footman into the room. This time there were two tumblers on the footman’s tray.

Blood accepted one, and the footman bowed to Silk. “Patera Silk?”

Everyone in the household must know of his capture by now, Silk reflected; apparently everyone knew who he was as well. “Yes,” he said; it would be pointless to deny it.

With something in his expression Silk could not fathom, the footman bowed deeply and held out his tray. “I took the liberty, Patera. Musk said I might. If you would accept it as a favor to me…?”

Silk took the drink, smiled, and said, “Thank you, my son. That was extremely kind of you.” For an instant the footman looked radiant.

“If you’re grabbed,” Blood continued when the footman had gone, “I don’t know you. I’ve never laid eyes on you, and I’d never suggest anything like this to anybody. That’s the way it’s got to be.”

“Of course. But now, tonight, you’re suggesting that I steal enough money to buy my manteion from you. That I, an augur, enter these other men’s houses to steal, as I entered yours.”

Blood sipped his drink. “I’m saying that if you want your manteion back, I’ll sell it to you, and that’s all I’m saying. How you get the money is up to you. You think the city asked where I got the price?”

“It is a workable solution,” Silk admitted, “and it’s the only one that has been proposed so far.”

Musk grinned at him.

“Your resident physician tells me that my right ankle is broken,” Silk continued. “It will be quite some time, I’m afraid, before it heals.”

Blood looked up from his drink. “I can’t allow you a whole lot of time, Patera. A little time, enough for a few jobs. But that’s all.”

“I see.” Silk stroked his cheek. “But you’ll allow me some—you’ll have to. During the time you will allow, what will become of my manteion?”

“It’s my manteion, Patera. You run it just like you did before, how’s that? Only you tell anybody that wants to know that I own the property. It’s mine, and you tell them so.”

“I could say you’ve paid our taxes,” Silk suggested, “as you have. And that you’re letting us continue to serve the gods as an act of piety.” It was a lie he hoped might eventually become the truth.

“That’s good. But anything you take in over expenses is mine, and anytime I want to see the books, you’ve got to bring them out here. Otherwise it’s no deal. How much time do you want?”

Silk considered, uncertain that he could bring himself to conduct the robberies Blood was demanding. “A year,” he ventured. A great deal could happen in a year.

“Very funny. I bet they roar when you’ve got a ram for Scylsday. Three weeks—oh, shag, make it a month. That’s the top, though. Will your ankle be all right in a month?”

“I don’t know.” Silk tried to move his foot and found as he had before that the cast immobilized it. “I wouldn’t think it very likely.”

Blood snorted. “Musk, get Crane in here.”

As the door closed behind Musk, Silk inquired, “Do you always have a physician on the premises?”

“I try to.” Blood set aside his tumbler. “I had a man for a year who didn’t work out, then a brain surgeon who only stayed a couple of months. After that I had to look around quite a while before I found Crane. He’s been with me…” Blood paused, calculating, “pretty close to four years now. He looks after my people here, naturally, and goes into the city three times a week to see about the girls there. It’s handier, and saves a little money.”

Silk said, “I’m surprised that a skillful physician—”

“Would work for me, taking care of my whores?” Blood yawned. “Suppose you’d seen a doctor in the city for that ankle, Patera. Would you have paid him?”

“As soon as I could, yes.”

“Which would have been never, most likely. Working for me, he gets a regular salary. He doesn’t have to take charity cases, and sometimes the girls’ll tip him if they’re flush.”

The fussy little man arrived a moment later, ushered in by Musk. Silk had seen a picture of a bird of the crane kind not long before, and though he could not recall where it had been, he remembered it now, and with it Crane’s self-mockery. The diminutive doctor no more resembled the tall bird than he himself did the shimmering fabric from which his mother had taken his name.

Blood gestured toward Silk. “You fixed him up. How long before he’s well?”

The little physician stroked his beard. “What do you mean by well, sir? Well enough to walk without crutches?”

Blood considered. “Let’s say well enough to run fast. How long for that?”

“It’s difficult to say. It depends a good deal on his heredity—I doubt that he knows anything useful about that—and on his physical condition. He’s young at least, so it could be worse.” Doctor Crane turned to Silk. “Sit up straight for a moment, young man. I want to listen to you again, now that you’ve had a chance to calm down.”

He lifted Silk’s torn tunic, put his ear against Silk’s chest, and thumped his back. With the third thump, Silk felt something hard and cold slide into his waistband beneath the horsehair rope.

“Should’ve brought my instruments. Cough, please.”

Already frantic with curiosity, Silk coughed and was rewarded with another thump.

“Good. Again, please, and deeper this time. Make it go deep.”

Silk coughed as deeply as he could.

“Excellent.” Doctor Crane straightened up, letting Silk’s tunic fall back into place. “Truly excellent. You’re a fine specimen, young man, a credit to Viron.” The timbre of his voice altered almost imperceptibly. “Somebody up there likes you.” He pointed jocularly toward the elaborately figured ceiling, where a painted Molpe vied with Phaea at bagatelle. “Some infatuated goddess, I should imagine.”

Silk leaned back in his chair, although the hard object behind his spine made actual comfort impossible. “If that means I get less time from your employer, I would hardly call it evidence of favor, my son.”

Doctor Crane smiled. “In that case, perhaps not.”

“How long?” Blood banged his tumbler down on the stand beside his chair. “How long before it’s as good as it was before he broke it?”

“Five to seven weeks, I’d say. He could run a little sooner than that, with his ankle correctly taped. All this assumes proper rest and medical treatment in the interim—sonic stimulation of the broken bone and so forth.”

Silk cleared his throat. “I cannot afford elaborate treatment, Doctor. All I’ll be able to do is hobble about and pray that it heals.”

“Well, you can’t come here,” Blood told him angrily. “Was that what you were hinting at?”

Doctor Crane began, “Possibly, sir, you might retain a specialist in the city—”

Blood sniffed. “We should’ve shot him and gotten it over with. By Phaea’s sow, I wish the fall had killed him. No specialist. You’ll see himself whenever you’re in that part of the city. When is it? Sphigxday and Hieraxday?”

“That’s right, and tomorrow’s Sphigxday.” Doctor Crane glanced toward an ornate clock on the opposite side of the room. “I should be in bed already.”

“You’ll see him then,” Blood said. “Now get out of here.”

Silk told Crane, “I sincerely regret the inconvenience, Doctor. If your employer will only give me a bit more time, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

At the door Crane turned and appeared, almost, to wink.

Blood said, “We’ll compromise, Patera. Pay attention, because it’s as far as I’m willing to go. Aren’t you going to drink that?”

Feeling Musk’s knuckles behind his ears, Silk took a dutiful sip.

“In a month—one month from today—you’ll bring me a substantial sum. You hear that? I’ll decide when I see it whether it’s substantial enough. If it is, I’ll apply it to the twenty-six thousand, and let you know how long you’ve got to come up with the rest. But if it isn’t, you and that tin sibyl will have to clear out.” Blood paused, his mouth ugly, swirling his drink in his hand. “Have you got anybody else living there? Maybe another augur?”

“There are two more sibyls,” Silk told him. “Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint. You’ve met Maytera Marble, I believe. I am our only augur.”

Blood grunted. “Your sibyls will want to come out here and lecture me. Tell them they won’t get past the gate.”

“I will.”

“They’re healthy? Crane could have a look at them when he comes to see you, if they need doctoring.”

Silk warmed to the man. “That’s exceedingly kind of you.” There was always some good to be found in everyone, he reminded himself, the unnoted yet unfailing gift of ever-generous Pas. “Maytera Mint’s quite well, as far as I know. Maytera Rose is as well as could be expected, and is largely prosthetic now in any case, I’m afraid.”

“Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?” Blood leaned forward, interested. “There aren’t too many of those around any more.”

“She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some disease requiring amputations.” It occurred to Silk that he should know more about Maytera Rose’s history—about the histories of all three sibyls—than he did. “They were still easily found then, from what she says.”

“How old is she?”

“I’m not sure.” Silk berated himself mentally again; this was something he should know. “I suppose it’s in our records. I could look it up for you, and I would be happy to do so.”

“Just being polite,” Blood told him. “She must be—oh, ninety, if she’s got a lot of tin parts. How old would you say I am, Patera?”

“Older than you look, I suppose,” Silk ventured. What guess would flatter Blood? It would not do to say something ridiculous. “Forty-five, possibly?”

“I’m forty-nine.” Blood raised his tumbler in a mock toast. “Nearly fifty.” Musk’s fingers had twitched as Blood spoke, and Silk knew with an absolute certainty he could not have defended that Blood was lying: that he was at least five years older. “And not a part in my body that isn’t my own, except for a couple teeth.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Listen, Patera, I could tell you—” Blood waved the topic aside. “Never mind. It’s late. How much did I say? In a month? Five thousand?”

“You said a substantial sum,” Silk reminded him. “I was to bring you as much as I could acquire, and you would decide whether it was enough. Am I to bring it here?”

“That’s right. Tell the eye at my gate who you are, and somebody will go out and get you. Musk, have a driver come around out front.”

“For me?” Silk asked. “Thank you. I was afraid I’d have to walk—that is, I couldn’t have walked, with my leg like this. I would have had to beg rides on farm carts, I’m afraid.”

Blood grinned. “You’re a thirteen thousand card profit to me, Patera. I’ve got to see you’re taken care of. Listen now. You know how I said those sibyls of yours weren’t to come out here and bother me? Well, that still goes, but tell that one—the old one, what’s her name?”

“Maytera Rose,” Silk supplied.

“Her. You tell Maytera Rose that if she’s interested in getting another leg or something, and can raise the gelt, I might be able to help her out. Or if she’s got something like that she’d like to sell, maybe to help you out. She won’t get a better price anywhere.”

“My thanks are becoming monotonous, I’m afraid,” Silk said. “But I must thank you again, on Maytera’s behalf and in my own.”

“Forget it. There’s getting to be quite a market for those parts now, even the used ones, and I’ve got a man who knows how to recondition them.”

Musk’s sleek head appeared in the doorway. “Floater’s ready.”

Blood stood, swaying slightly. “Can you walk, Patera? No, naturally you can’t, not good. Musk, fetch him one of my sticks, will you? Not one of the high-priced ones. Grab on, Patera.”

Blood was offering his hand. Silk took it, finding it soft and surprisingly cold, and struggled to his feet, acutely conscious of the object Crane had put into his waistband and of the fact that he was accepting help from the man he had set out to rob. “Thank you yet again,” he said, and clenched his teeth against a sharp flash of pain.

As his host, Blood would want to show him out; and if Blood were in back of him, Blood might well see the object under his tunic. Wishing mightily for the robe he had left behind in Hyacinth’s bedchamber, half incapacitated by guilt and pain, Silk managed, “May I lean on your arm? I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”

Side by side they staggered into the reception hall. Its wide double doors still let in the night; but it was a night (or so Silk fancied) soon to be gray with shadeup. A floater waited on the grassway, its canopy open, a liveried driver at its controls. The most eventful night of his life was nearly over.

Musk rattled the cast on Silk’s ankle with a battered walking stick, smiled at his wince, and put the stick into his free hand. Silk discovered that he still detested Musk, though he had come, almost, to like Musk’s master.

“… floater’ll take you back there, Patera,” Blood was saying. “If you tell anyone about our little agreement, it’s cancelled, and don’t you forget it. A high stack next month, and I don’t mean a few hundred.”

The liveried driver had left the floater to help. In a moment more, Silk was safely settled on the broad, cushioned seat behind the driver’s, with Doctor Crane’s chilly, angular mystery again gouging at his back. “Thank you,” he repeated to Blood. “Thank you both.” (He hoped that Blood would take his phrase to include Musk as well as Blood himself, though he actually intended Blood and the driver.) “I do appreciate it very much. You mentioned our agreement however. And—and I would be exceedingly grateful…” Tentatively, he put out his hand, palm up.

“What is it now, for Phaea’s sake?”

“My needler, please. I hate to ask, after all you’ve done, but it’s in your pocket. If you’re not still afraid I might shoot you, may I have it back?”

Blood stared at him.

“You want me to bring you several thousand cards—I presume that’s what you mean when you speak of a substantial sum. Several thousand cards, when I can scarcely walk. The least you can do is return my weapon, so that I’ve something to work with.”

Blood giggled, coughed, then laughed loudly. Perhaps only because Silk heard it in the open air for the first time that night, Blood’s laughter seemed to him almost the sound that sometimes rose, on quiet evenings, from the pits of the Alambrera. He was forced to remind himself again that this man, too, was loved by Pas.

“What a buck! He might do it, Musk. I really think he might do it.” Blood fumbled Hyacinth’s little needler out of his pocket and pushed its release; a score of silver needles leaped from its breach to shower like rain upon the closely cropped grass.

Musk leaned toward Blood, and Silk heard him whisper, “Lamp Street.”

Blood’s eyebrows shot up. “Excellent. You’re right. You always are.” He tossed the golden needler into Silk’s lap. “Here you go, Patera. Use it in good health—yours, I mean. We’re going to make a slight charge for it, though. Meet us about one o’clock at the yellow house on Lamp Street. Will you do that?”

“I must, I suppose,” Silk said. “Yes, of course, if you wish me to.”

“It’s called Orchid’s.” Blood leaned over the door of the floater. “And it’s across from the pastry cook’s. You know exorcism? Know how it’s done?”

Silk ventured a guarded nod.

“Good. Bring whatever you’ll need. There’ve been, ah, problems there all summer. An enlightened augur may be just what we need. We’ll see you there tomorrow.”

“Good-bye,” Silk said.

The canopy slid soundlessly out of the floater’s sides as Blood and Musk backed away. When it latched, there was a muffled roar from the engine.

It felt, Silk thought, as if they were indeed floating; as if a flood had rushed invisibly to lift them and bear them off along the greenway, as if they were always about to spin away in the current, although they never actually spun.

Trees and hedges and brilliant flower beds reeled past. Here came Blood’s magnificent fountain, with Soaking Scylla reveling among the crystal jets; at once it was gone and the main gate before them, the gate rising as the long, shining arms of the talus shrank. A dip and a wiggle and the floater was through, blown down the highway like a sere leaf, sailing through an eerie nightscape turned to liquid, leaving behind it a proud plume of swirling, yellow-gray dust.

The skylands still shone overhead, cut in two by the black bow of the shade. Far above even the skylands, hidden but present nonetheless, shone the myriad pinpricks of fire the Outsider had revealed; they, too, held lands unknowable in some incomprehensible fashion. Silk found himself more conscious of them now than he had been since that lifetime outside time in the ball court—colored spheres of flame, infinitely far.

The ball was still in his pocket, the only ball they had. He must remember not to leave it here in Blood’s floater, or the boys would have no ball tomorrow. No, not tomorrow; tomorrow was Sphigxday. No palaestra. The day to prepare for the big sacrifice on Scylsday, if there was anything to sacrifice.

He slapped his pockets until he found Blood’s two cards in the one that held the ball. He took them out to look at, then replaced them. They had been below the ball when he had been searched, and the ball had saved them. For what?

Hyacinth’s needler had fallen to the floater’s carpeted floor. He retrieved it and put it into his pocket with the cards, then sat squeezing the ball between his fingers. It was said to strengthen the hands. Minute lights he could not see burned on, burning beyond the skylands, burning beneath his feet, unwinking and remote, illuminating something bigger than the whorl.

Doctor Crane’s mystery gouged his back. He leaned forward. “What time is it, driver?”

“Quarter past three, Patera.”

He had done what the Outsider had wanted. Or at least he had tried—perhaps he had failed. As though a hand had drawn aside a veil, he realized that his manteion would live for another month now—a month at least, because anything might happen in a month. Was it possible that he had in fact accomplished what the Outsider had desired? His mind filled with a rollicking joy.

The floater leaned to the left as it rounded a bend in the road. Here were farms and fields and houses, all liquid, all swirling past as they breasted the phantom current. A hill rose in a great, brown-green wave, already breaking into a skylit froth of fence rails and fruit trees. The floater plunged down the other side and shot across a ford.

Musk adjusted the shutter of his dark lantern until the eight-sided spot of light remaining was smaller than its wick and oddly misshapen. His key turned softly in the well-oiled padlock; the door opened with a nearly inaudible creak.

The tiercel nearest the door stirred upon its perch, turning its hooded head to look at the intruder it could not see. On the farther side of a partition of cotton netting, the merlin that had been Musk’s first hawk, unhooded, blinked and roused. There was a tinkle of tiny bells—gold bells that Blood had given Musk to mark some now-forgotten occasion three years ago. Beyond the merlin, the gray-blue peregrine might have been a painted carving.

The end of the mews was walled off with netting. The big bird sat its roweled perch there, immobile as the falcon, still immature but showing in every line a stength that made the falcon seem a toy.

Musk untied the netting and stepped in. He could not have said how he knew that the big bird was awake, and yet he did. Softly he said, “Ha, hawk.”

The big bird lifted its hooded head, its grotesque crown of scarlet plumes swaying with the motion.

“Ha, hawk,” Must repeated as he stroked it with a turkey feather.