Return to the Whorl

5. HAUNTING DORP

Morning. I went to bed exhausted, and feel that I am exhausted still; but I want to bring this account, which has fallen behind so badly, up to date; and I know that I can sleep no longer-unlike my unlucky daughter, who as far as I know is sleeping yet.

We stayed at the inn for three nights, idling and telling idle tales of ghosts, war, and riot, until food and fodder were running low and the snow had stopped. She was still sleeping, but Sergeant Azijin demanded we go, which we did-Hide, poor Jahlee, the sergeant and his legermen, and me. She cannot be awakened. Hide and I contrived a rough litter for her; it was carried by her mule and a pack horse, and gave endless trouble.

Each of us has been put into a private house, whose owners are responsible for us. I am in a third-floor bedroom, cold and drafty, whose door is locked outside. They tried to feed me when I came, but I wanted only to rest. Now I am up, wearing my coat and wrapped in a quilt. There is a little fireplace, but no fire. Eventually someone will bring me food, and perhaps I can get wood and a fire. I hope so.

I, who am so seldom hungry these days, find that I am hungry now. Given my choice between food and fire, I believe I might choose the food, which surprises me. Oreb has gone. I would like to have something to give him when he comes back.

I have been praying. Sometimes I feel that the Outsider is as near me as he was to Silk; it was like that when I sacrificed upon the hilltop. Today it seems that he is busy far away and does not hear a word. Perhaps he is angry at me for befriending Jahlee, as I confess I have tried to do. What do the family charged with imprisoning her think of her at this moment? How I would love to know! Without me to keep them away, they are bound to find out soon.

I hesitate to write that she is an inhuma, but look at this account! See how much of it there is! Scarcely a word does not condemn me. I will not destroy it. No, I would sooner perish. If it condemns me, it will show equally that Hide is innocent. The inhumi are evil creatures, granted. How could they be otherwise?

More prayer and furious thought. Pacing the floor, wearing my quilt like a robe. Jahlee's spirit cannot return to her, that seems certain. I should never have returned while leaving her there. I must go back and bring her home, although I cannot imagine how it is to be accomplished.

We will be tried, even if they do not learn that Jahlee is an inhuma. Tried for restraining the fat trader. Robbed by the law of all we took from the robbers and-as I hope-released. Or enslaved, as Azijin seemed to think likely.

Food at last, and good food, too, and plenty of it. It was brought up around midday, by a big, pleasant-looking woman named Aanvagen. She and her husband own this house. Bread, butter, cheese, three kinds of sausage (this last I shall not believe when I reread this), fresh onions, pickled vegetables of a dozen sorts mixed together, mustard, and coffee, with a little flask of brandy which I am to use to season it to suit my taste. A feast! One on which I feasted considerably before stopping to write it all down.

I asked Aanvagen whether she was not afraid I might overpower her and escape when she brought my food. She answered very sensibly that she knew I would not because I had too many possessions-our baggage and the bandits' loot. "Goods" was her word. I would stay and face the court, she said, hoping to come away with something.

"And will I?"

"That Scylla will decide, mysire," said Aanvagen, which I did not find comforting. I dream of her again and again.

"Since you're not afraid of me, might I have my staff? It reminds me of happier times, and I miss it."

"In my kitchen it is. At once you need it, mysire?"

"No, I don't need it at all. I simply would like to have it, and I certainly won't try to harm you with it. If you'll let me go down and get it, I'll carry it back up. I hate to put you to so much trouble, Aanvagen." I confess I was hoping to gain a bit of freedom, enough to let me visit Jahlee.

Some while afterward a little servant girl with hair as bright as a tangerine came, bringing my staff and an armload of firewood. Her name is Vadsig, and she is a girl in fact, hardly more than a child. Recalling Onorifica, I showed her the face on my staff and declared that it could talk. She laughed and challenged me to make it say something. I explained that it was angry at her for laughing, and would probably never talk to her after that. She appeared to enjoy it all-which was certainly what I wanted-laid the fire, and went off to fetch coals from one of the others, promising to return at once; but she has been waylaid by her mistress, I fear.

What a dream! I want to record it before I forget it. Mora, Fava, and I were riding through a jungle on Green in an open carriage, the horses trotting purposefully ahead without a driver. I explained about Jahlee over and over, beginning each new explanation as soon as I had finished the last and interrupted at long intervals by pointless questions from one or the other. Mora wanted to know whether my room is above the kitchen, and Fava asked what color Vadsig's hair was; I remember those.

At last I asked where the carriage was taking us, and Scylla replied, cracking her arms like whips over the horses. Since the immense boles of the trees we passed and the monstrous, hairless beasts we glimpsed showed that we were on Green, I knew (as one "knows" all such senseless things in dreams) that we could never reach the sea unless I drove. In any event, I moved up to the driver's seat and took the reins; Mora sat beside me. Fearing that Fava might be angry, I looked behind us; she had become a dead doll, with Chenille's knife protruding from her ribs. The trees were gone. Dust swirled around us. I explained to Mora that I was taking us to Blue, but she had become Hyacinth.

That is all I can remember, although I feel sure there was more. All this, as I should make clear, took place after Vadsig came with the promised coals and lit my fire.

She wanted to know all about me, where I came from and where I had been, why I was under arrest and so on and so forth. I told her about Viron, how empty the city is now, and how a starless night can begin at midday and last for days, at which she became exceedingly skeptical. I told her I had sacrificed there, wearing the same torn and dirty robe I am wearing now, and took off the quilt (which I no longer required) and my coat so she could see it. She knows nothing of augury, poor child, and less of the gods. She said she would never believe in a god she could not see; I explained that she would never see the Outsider, who is the principal god here, and that even Silk had seen him only in a dream.

After that we talked about dreams, and she wanted me to tell her fortune, by which she meant that I was to practice augury as I had in Viron. One sausage remained, so I sacrificed it, the little fire in the grate our Sacred Window and our altar fire. She caught brandy blood in my empty cup and flung it into the flames, which gave us a fine flash of blue. After I had read her sausage (a wealthy marriage soon, happiness, and many children), and burned a piece of it, I gave her the rest. She is no plumper than my staff, poor child, although she insists that Aanvagen gives her enough to eat.

After she left, I prayed for a time and went to bed, and that is when I had the dream I have recounted. I cannot say what it means, and doubt that it means anything.

I have been trying to contrive some plan, but soon fall to rehashing my dream instead-planning seems so useless with our situation as it is. What can be planned when I have no freedom to carry any plan out? I might escape Aanvagen and her husband easily, and every god knows I care nothing for the loot. With considerable luck, I might steal a horse and escape from Dorp, leaving Hide to face the wrath of our captors alone, and poor Jahlee in her coma to be burned aliveneither of which I have the smallest intention of doing. They bind me far more securely than his cupidity could ever bind Nat.

At least I know what doll it was that searched for Hide.

How good it was to see Hyacinth, although it was only for a moment and only in a dream! When Nettle and I lived in the Calde's Palace I disliked her, or thought I did. Each of us was jealous of the attention Silk gave the other, I think, which was as foolish as it was wrong. What a beautiful woman she was, good or bad. When someone is gifted, we think he should behave better than the rest of us, as Silk did. But in Silk's case, his goodness was his gift-a gift he had made for himself. It was the magnetism that drew others to him that caused his embryo to be put aboard a lander. That was the work of Pas's scientists, as Pig's size and strength were. (Recalling the Red Sun Whorl that it became, I cannot but wonder whether it did not sacrifice too much for us.)

His goodness he made for himself as a boy and a young man, as I wrote just a moment ago. No doubt he was prompted by his mother, but then all boys are. I was myself, but how much good did Mother's promptings do?

Oreb has returned, having found no one who might help us, and having nothing to report save cold and snow, dispirited and unwilling to converse.

We progress! Vadsig brought my breakfast today, and with it news better than any fried mush. Jahlee is being held in a house diagonally across the street from ours. I hurried to my window, but it looks in the wrong direction.

"Then please, Vadsig, I beg you, let me go to a window from which I can see it. If only I can I see, for a single minute, the house in which my poor daughter is a prisoner, I'll feel a thousand times better. I swear to you I won't run away, and I'll return to this room and let you lock me in again the moment you tell me I must go back."

It took a great deal of pleading, but she agreed. Out we went, ten steps down a little hallway and into a bedroom only slightly larger and more comfortable than mine. It was Vadsig's own, as she explained with touching pride-a narrow bed, half smothered by an old quilt intended for a bigger one, a fireplace with a woodbox, and an old chest that I feel sure has more than enough room for her entire wardrobe. Together we leaned from her window so that she might point out the window of the room in which poor Jahlee lies. "A doctor for her they want if the court for him will pay," confided Vadsig.

"Poor thing," muttered Oreb, and I agree. Let us hope that it will not.

Afterward she showed me her most prized possessions-a sketch of her dead parents by a street artist, and a cracked vase given her by Aanvagen. She is sixteen, she said; but under pressure admitted she might be no more than fifteen after all. I would say fourteen.

None of which means much. The important points are that Jahlee is confined within a short walk of where I sit, that she like me is on the third floor of a private house, and that Vadsig is inclined to be friendly. She promises to find Hide for me, as well. (Perhaps I should note that the house in which Jahlee is confined has a stone first story and two upper stories of wood, a kind of construction that seems very common here, and that the street is narrow but carries a good deal of traffic, mostly wagonloads of bales, barrels, or boxes.)

I returned to this room as I had promised, heard Vadsig's key squeak in the lock and the solid thump of the bolt, and knelt to squint through the keyhole, hoping for another glimpse of the only friend I have in this brutal, busy, savage seaport. I did not get it, however; the key was still in the lock.

That gave me an idea. I slid this sheet of paper under my door and used the point of one of Oreb's quills to tickle the key into a position that allowed me to poke it out. It fell, and I retrieved this sheet with infinite care, hoping to bring the key in with it. The sheet returned indeed, but the key did not, and I swore.

"No good?" Oreb inquired.

"Exactly," I told him. "Either the key is too thick to slide under the door, or it hit the paper and bounced off."

"Bird find."

I thought that he planned to fly out my window and re-enter the house by another and was about to warn him that it might be a long while before he found another window open in this cold weather, but he disappeared into a triangular hole I had not noticed previously where the wainscoting meets the chimney near the ceiling. In five minutes or less he was back with the key in his beak. I have hidden it in my stocking.

All this has given me another idea. I am going to write a letter to which I will sign Jahlee's name, and have Oreb push it between the shutters of her window for her captors to find. It can do us no harm, and may be of benefit.

Supper was late, as expected. Poor Vadsig looked everywhere for her key before confessing to Aanvagen that she had lost it; Aanvagen boxed her ears and so on, all of which was unfortunate but unavoidable; I comforted her as well as I could in Aanvagen's presence, and promised her a coral necklace when I am free.

"Sphigxday coming is, and you to the court going are," says Aanvagen, looking as somber as her fair hair and red face allow. She is a good woman at base, I believe. This is Molpsday, so I have nearly a week to wait. I must return Jahlee to Blue and consciousness before then. There can be no delay, no excuses; it must be done.

I left my room sometime after midnight, after Oreb reported that all the inhabitants were asleep. There are four: Aanvagen and Vadsig, "Cook," and "Master." After locating our baggage in a ground-floor storeroom off the kitchen and retrieving Maytera Mint's gift and some other things, I explored the rest of the house until I understood the plan of its floors thoroughly. It was dark by Blue's standards, although nothing to compare with the pitchy blackness of a darkday. Smoldering fires gave enough light to save me from tripping over furniture, Oreb advised me in hoarse whispers, and I groped my way with my staff.

When I felt I knew the house, I went outside. As expected, every door of the house in which Jahlee lies was locked. The key to my room will not open them, and I suspect they are barred at night, as the outer doors of this house are. Nothing more to report, save that I have asked Vadsig to bring me a lump of sealing wax so I can study the impression made by this ring. The stone is not actually black, I find; call it purple-gray.

Much shouting downstairs before lunch. Vadsig explained that she is not supposed to leave the house without permission, but that she had gone out to discover where Hide is being held. "Cook" caught her, and gave her a dressing down. "But finding him for you I am, Mysire Horn. In the house behind the house where your daughter is he is. Not happy there he is, these things the girl there tells. Up and down, up and down he walks. A thousand questions he asks."

"I see. I'm very sorry to hear this, Vadsig. I don't want to get you into any more trouble; but sometime when you are sent to the market do you think it might be possible for you to speak to him?"

"If it you wish, mysire, trying I am. Parel upstairs will let me go, that may be."

"Thank you, Vadsig. Thank you very, very much! I'm forever indebted to you. Vadsig, when we were in your room, you showed me the picture of your parents and your vase, things that are precious to you. Do you remember?"

She laughed and shook out her short, orange hair with a touch of the pride she showed in her bedroom. She has a good, merry laugh. "From yesterday not so quickly forgetting I am."

"I want to warn you that it's not wise to show precious things to everyone, Vadsig. You see, I'm going to give you something precious-the coral necklace I promised you; but it could get you into trouble if Aanvagen knew you had it. Do you think we could make it a little secret between the two of us? For the time being?"

"From me it she would take? This you think, mysire?"

I shrugged. "You know her much better than I do, Vadsig."

There was a lengthy pause while Vadsig reached a decision. "Not showing her, I am."

Oreb commended her. "Wise girl!"

"Stealing I am she thinking is… After court you giving it are, mysire?"

"No. Right now." I got out my paper and opened the pen case. "First, though, I'm going to write something you can show other people to prove that you're not a thief."

I did, and gave it to her; but finding that she was unable to read I read it aloud for her: Be it known that I, Horn, a traveler and a resident of New Viron, give this coral necklace, having thirty four large beads of finegreen coral flushed with rose, to my friend Vadsig, a resident of Dorp. It comes to her as agift, freely given, and as of this day becomes her own private possession.

I got out the necklace and put it around her neck. She took it off at once to admire it, put it back on, took it off again, put it on once more, preened exactly as if she could see her reflection, her large blue eyes flashing-and in short showed as much satisfaction as if she had been snatched from the scullery and made mistress of a city.

"If you're able to talk to my son, Vadsig, will you please tell him where I'm confined, and what my circumstances are, and that we are to go to court on Sphigxday, which he may not know? And bring back any message that he has for me?"

"Trying I am, Mysire Horn."

"Wonderful! And succeeding, too, I feel sure. I have great confidence in you, Vadsig."

"But forgetting I am." Very reluctantly, the coral necklace was removed for the last time, dropped into an apron pocket, and concealed beneath a soiled handkerchief. "Mistress a question asks. Every dream you understanding are, mysire? That to her I have told."

I tried to explain that dreams were a bottomless subject, and that no one knows everything about them; but that I had been successful at times in interpreting the principal features of certain dreams.

"Last night strange dreams she and Master having are. Them you for her will explain?"

"I'll certainly attempt it, Vadsig. I'll do what I can."

"Telling her I am."

That was two hours ago, perhaps. Thus far, Aanvagen has not come to have her dream explained; nor has Vadsig returned to report on her attempt to speak with Hide in person. Might Hide and I rescue Jahlee-provided that I can free him, or he can free himself? I suppose it is possible, but the chances of failure will be very high. I would sooner trust myself and them to the mercy of the court, I believe.

Aanvagen brought a most ample supper, accompanied by her portly husband, who was red-faced and panting after two flights of stairs. "My name-mysire… Beroep it is." He offered a very large and very soft hand, which I shook. "You Mysire Horn…" Another gasp for breath. "Mysire Rajan… Mysire Incanto… Mysire Silk-"

"Good man!" This from Oreb.

"Are. A man of many… Names you are." He smiled in a breathless fashion he plainly intended to be friendly.

"A man of many names, perhaps, but I'm certainly not entitled to all those. Call me Horn, please."

"You to my house I could not welcome… For the troopers watching were. Sorry I am." Yet another gasp. "Mysire Horn."

I assured him that it was quite all right, that I bore no animus toward him or his wife. "You have fed me very well indeed and provided me with firewood, wash water, and ample coverings for this comfortable bed. Believe me, I'm very much aware that the conditions under which most prisoners live are not one-tenth as good."

Aanvagen nudged her husband, who asked, "With gods you speak… Mysire Horn?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes they condescend to reply. But I ought to have invited you both to sit down. I have only my bed, but you are very welcome to sit there."

They did, and Aanvagen's husband got out a handkerchief with which he mopped his face and his bald head. "Nat. Him I know. A greedy thief he is."

Aanvagen added hastily, "To others this you do not say, Mysire Horn."

"Of course not."

"Judge Hamer Nat's cousin is."

Aanvagen's husband watched me for some reaction, but I tried to keep from showing what I felt.

"Already this knowing you are?"

"I knew that Dorp was governed by five judges, and that Nat was said to have a great deal of influence with them; but not that Nat was related to one. Am I to take that he's the judge who will try us?"

Aanvagen's husband nodded gloomily; Aanvagen herself poked a second time at his well-padded ribs. "You must about our dreams ask, Beroep."

"Mysire Horn not friendless is, first I say, woman. Poor, Judge Hamer him will make. Beaten, that also may be. But not friendless, he will be. Nat a greedy thief is. All Dorp knows."

I thanked him and his wife very sincerely, and inquired about their dreams.

"Beroep awake is, so he dreams. All through our house voices he hears."

Aanvagen's husband nodded vigorously. "Talking and tapping they are, Mysire Horn. Whisper, whisper and tap, tap."

"I see. You didn't get up to investigate?"

"Asleep I am. I cannot."

"I see. What did the voices say?"

He shrugged. "Psst, psst, psst!"

It was a passable imitation of Oreb's hoarse whisper, and I gave him a severe look to indicate that he was not to speak. He responded by saying "Good bird!" and "No, no!" quite loudly.

"You're not giving me a lot to go on," I told Aanvagen's husband. "Let me hear your wife's dream before I attempt to interpret yours."

"In my own house I am," she began eagerly, "in the big room for company. This room you see, mysire, when here you come."

"Yes. Certainly."

"With me two children sitting are. Darker than my cat one is, mysire. Beroep and I no children have. This you know?"

I admitted that Vadsig had so informed me.

"Girls in pretty dresses they are. Faces clean they have. Hair very nice, it is. A daughter you have, mysire?"

"Yes. A daughter and three sons."

Aanvagen's husband said, "A son by Strik kept is."

"Yes, my son Hide, who was traveling with me. My sons Hoof and Sinew are still free, as far as I know."

"From Dorp much traveling we are. To New Viron we go. Farther even, we sail." He waved a hand expansively. "Now travelers we arrest? Not good for traveling it is."

"I understand."

Aanvagen leaned toward me from her seat on my bed. "This these girls to me say. Bad with us it goes, for you keeping."

I made what I hoped was an encouraging noise.

"About your daughter they talk. Sick she is. Away with you her send we must. My cheeks they kiss." Aanvagen's formidable bosom rose and fell. "Mother, me they call, mysire. Bad things to me they don't want. Warned be! Warned be!"

Oreb interpreted. "Watch out!"

I asked, "Was there anything else about your dream that seemed significant to you?"

Aanvagen's mouth opened, then closed again.

"Was there any other sign associated with the gods?"

Her husband inquired, "One sign already you finding are?"

"Yes, of course. The two children. Molpe is the goddess of childhood, as you must surely know. Were there any animals, Aanvagen?"

She shook her head. "Just the children and me there were."

"Mice? Monkeys? Cattle? Songbirds?" I reminded myself so much of poor old Patera Remora then that I could not resist adding, "Vultures, eh? Hyenas-um-camels?"

Aanvagen had heard only the first. "No mice, no rats in my house there are, mysire."

"What about you?" I asked her husband. "Were there animals in your dream? Bats, for instance? Or cats?"

"No, mysire. None." He sounded very positive.

"I see. Oreb, I want you to speak freely. Do you think this a good man?"

"Good man!"

"What about Aanvagen here? Is she a good woman, too?"

"Good girl!"

"I agree. Beroep, could that have been the voice you heard? Could it have been my bird-or another, similar, bird? Think carefully before you reply."

He stared at me for a moment before patting his forehead with his handkerchief again. "Possible it is, mysire. Not so I will not say."

"That's interesting. My bird is a night chough; and the species is sacred to the god who governs the boundless abyss between the whorls, just as owls are to Tartaros. We have an indication of Molpe in your wife's dream, and an indication of the Outsider in yours." There was a knock at the door, and I called, "What is it, Vadsig?"

"Merfrow Cijfer here is. Through our kitchen she comes, in our front room she sits. With Mistress to speak she wants."

Aanvagen sought my permission with a glance, received it, and hurried out. "A moment only, mysire. Beroep."

"A good woman she is," Aanvagen's husband told me as the door closed, "but no more brain than her cat she has. Better we without her talk. To the court you have thought given? To Judge Hamer? Not friendless you are, I say."

I said that I had tried, but that I knew little of the politics of Dorp-only that I had done no wrong. "Speaking thus from ignorance, it would seem to me that my best chance is to get Nat to drop his charges. If I had the jewelry from my luggage-"

Beroep shook his head regretfully. "This I cannot do, mysire. The inventory Judge Hamer has, by me signed. Fifty cards pay, this to me he would tell."

"Most unfortunate."

Again the gloomy nod. "Why you here are, mysire. This do not you wonder? Why your jailer I am?"

I confessed that I had thought very little about it.

"You will escape, this they hope. A hundred cards paying I am. Ruined I am."

"Poor man!"

Aanvagen's husband patted the bed on which he sat. "Many blankets you have. A fire you have. Good food you get."

"So you won't be ruined. I understand. This is certainly very unfortunate. I take it that it would be useless for you to plead with Nat to drop the charges."

"Me he hates." Beroep wiped sweat-beaded face again. "Bribe him I might. I will, this I think. A greedy thief he is. Friends might help."

"Good. Who did you say is holding my son Hide?"

"Strik he is. An honest trader like me he is."

"Might he not assist you, too?"

"This I will discover, mysire. It may be."

"My son Hide is young and athletic. Headstrong, as all such young men are. He's far more likely to escape, I would say, than I am."

"No go!"

I looked up at Oreb on his perch near the chimney. "All right, I won't. Beroep, you need not worry about my escaping. That won't happen; I give you my word. I can't speak for my son, however, since I can't communicate with him. You might want to tell your friend Strik so."

"To him as you say I will speak, mysire. He may us help. It may be."

"What about the man holding Jahlee, my daughter?"

"Wijzer at sea is." Beroep pointed toward the floor. "That Cijfer, his wife is. But no money she gives unless Wijzer says."

"Do you know when he might return to Dorp?"

Aanvagen's husband shook his head, and I heard her voice from the stairs. "Beroep! A bus! A hus at our door was!"

He rolled his eyes upward. "A shadow it is, mysire. Of this assured be."

My door opened, revealing Aanvagen and a slightly slimmer, slightly younger woman with the same blue eyes, fair hair, and high complexion. "A hus at our door it is. Cijfer to our door it will not allow."

When Aanvagen's husband spoke, it was with a world of skepticism in his voice. "A hus it is?"

"Yes!" Cijfer's hands indicated a beast the size of a dray horse.

I went to the door and called for Vadsig, then turned back to Aanvagen and her husband. "Those are steep stairs. I hope you won't mind if I ask your servant to help me instead of troubling you."

He said, "You my guest are, mysire."

Vadsig's voice floated up the stairwell. "What it is, mysire?"

"Open the front door, please, and leave it open. Your master agrees that you are to do as I say. It's important."

There was a lengthy pause, then the sound of Vadsig's hurrying feet.

"Beroep, am I correct in thinking that if a hus-a wild hus-has come into Dorp, someone will shoot it?"

He shook his head, and both women protested, horrified.

"They won't?"

"Bad luck it is!" This from the women in chorus.

"Superstition it is," Aanvagen's husband explained, in the tone of one who tolerates the irrational beliefs of the ignorant. "If a beast into the town it comes, misfortune it brings. Back to the woodlands we must it drive. If killed it is, the misfortune in our town remains."

I had been listening for the clatter of Babbie's hoofs on Aanvagen's wooden floors, and had not heard it. I called, "Vadsig, did you open that door as I asked you?"

She replied, but I could not understand what she said. "Tell her to come up here," Aanvagen's husband advised.

As loudly as I could, I shouted, "Come here, please, Vadsig!" and fell to coughing.

Aanvagen said, "Tea with brandy in it you need, mysire. Get it you shall. See to it I will."

"Alone we should talk," her husband muttered. "That better would be. This hus in my house you wish."

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Not a wild hus it is. Not a shadow either it is. A tame hus? Yours, mysire?"

I nodded again.

"Like your bird it is."

Oreb bobbed agreement. "Good bird!"

"Somewhat like him at least. My hus-his name is Babbie-does not speak, of course. But he's a clean, gentle animal. We were separated, and he seems to have gone back to the woman who gave him to me. Some time ago, she learned where I was and promised to return him."

Vadsig bustled through the doorway. "Yes, Mysire Horn?"

I said, "I simply wanted to know whether you opened the front door as I asked, Vadsig."

"Oh, yes, mysire."

"You a big animal seeing are?" Aanvagen put in.

"Yes, mistress."

"What sort of animal, Vadsig?"

"Mules, mysire. Pulling carts they are."

"A hus you seeing are?" Cijfer inquired urgently.

"A hus? Oh, no, Merfrow Cijfer."

"Did you leave the door open, Vadsig, when you came up?"

"No, mysire. Cold in the street it is."

"How long did you leave it open?"

"Till you up to come telling me are, mysire."

Oreb dropped to my shoulder, giving me a quizzical look to indicate that he would go outside and look for the hus if asked. I shook my head-unobtrusively, I hope.

Aanvagen's husband asked, "No hus you seeing are, Vadsig?"

"No, Master."

He turned to Cijfer. "A hus at my door you seeing are?"

"Yes, Beroep. Never a hus so big I see. Tusks as long as my hand they are."

"This your Babbie is?" he asked me.

"Yes, I'm quite sure it is."

"Your Babbie Vadsig hurting is?"

"I certainly don't think so."

He made a gesture of dismissal. "Vadsig, to the door again go. If a hus you see, the door open leave and us you tell. If no hus you see, the door you close and your work you do."

She ducked in a sketchy curtsy and hurried away.

Cijfer offered him the letter I had penned a few hours before, her hand shaking sufficiently to rattle the paper. "Finding this in the sleeping girl's room I am, Beroep. It reading you are? Aanvagen, too?"

They bent their heads over it.

"Your daughter she is, mysire?" Her voice trembled.

I nodded.

"Sleeping all day she is. Sleeping all night she is not. Walking she is, talking is." She turned to Aanvagen, her voice trembling. "My pictures from the walls breaking!"

Downstairs, something fell with a crash. Vadsig screamed.