Ceryl sipped thoughtfully at her brandy. “Of course. Well, I can get you the right kind of water,” she said at last. “From my workchambers on the vivarium level. How long have you had it?”
“A few months. It’s going to have babies—see? That’s an egg-sac.” She stuck a grubby finger on the edge of the globe, then said shyly, “Its name is Gato.”
Ceryl gazed at the clot of tiny pearls beneath the mysid’s thorax, then back at the gynander. Sudden pity washed over her—to think of anyone, even a hermaphrodite, keeping such a pathetic thing for a pet! and completely forbidden, as well. Unaccountably she thought of Giton, the trouble he took with his few belongings, his prized holo showing himself and Ceryl outside the Cathedral of Christ Cadillac one festival day.
After a moment she said, “We’ll have to find someplace to keep it. Where it won’t be seen. What does it eat?”
Reive looked up at her, her pale eyes wide with relief. “Anything. Rice crackers, mostly. Sometimes krill paste.”
“It would probably prefer some kind of fish nutriment.” Ceryl stood, a little unsteadily, and placed her empty brandy glass back on a shelf. “Tomorrow, I’ll bring some water back, and something for it to eat.”
At the door to her bedroom she paused. The gynander still knelt beside the globe, looking more childlike than ever with her thin dark hair unbound, her white face pressed close to the glass. Ceryl nodded, once, to herself, then said, “Would you—would you like to sleep in here, with me? There’s more room, I mean you could probably sleep better—”
Slowly the gynander raised her head, brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek. She nodded, shyly, and reached to stroke the glass a final time.
For a few more minutes Ceryl waited, until at last the gynander rose and crossed to join her. Ceryl looked back at the globe, gleaming pale green and blue in the half-light, the mysid floating dreamily in its clouded center. Then she turned to Reive and shut the door behind them.
By next morning Reive had settled in. Ceryl wouldn’t let her go back down to her own room to retrieve her belongings. Reive didn’t care about the clothes; she found a few scarves among Ceryl’s things, some understated jewelry, and a pair of sandals that almost fit. But cosmetics were another matter. After a heated discussion, Ceryl arranged to have a box sent over from the pleasure cabinet’s private spa. Reive squealed and hid behind a mirror for the next few hours, delighting in expensive powders and liquid maquillage, kohl and real gold dust that she applied liberally to her cheeks and shoulders.
Best of all, there was a gravator that went up to Cherubim and Seraphim, the highest levels of Araboth. She removed the wards she had drawn upon her breasts and painstakingly outlined the Orsinate’s heraldic eye and Prophet Rayburn’s crucifix.
Ceryl watched her, smiling. She too felt better today. The gynander seemed genuinely happy; betrayal seemed as unlikely as the sudden destruction of the city. Her sleep had been untroubled for the first time in weeks. Maybe her luck had finally changed. Maybe she had just needed to share her fears with another person.
Still, before she left to go back down to her workchambers she warned Reive against going out alone.
“You don’t know your way around here yet.” She felt a slight twinge, knowing that the real reason was her doubts as to the gynander’s loyalty. “And sentries can be aggressive about checking newcomers.”
“We want to go see the palace.”
Ceryl sighed in exasperation. “The palace! But surely you’ve seen it on the ’files—”
Reive tossed a kohl wand into her cosmetics case. “It’s not the same.” She took a mango from a basket and peeled it sullenly. “We’ve never been to the upper levels before, why should we stay cooped up in here all day?”
“But if you’re not registered for this level, the gravator won’t let you in. They could do a trace on you, which means you’ll be detained by the Reception Committee—”
“We’re registered under the Orsinate,” Reive said. “We’re allowed free commerce on all levels, as long as we’re somebody’s guest.” Her tone turned pleading but her eyes held a trace of belligerence.
Ceryl turned, defeated, and went to gather her things. “If they detain you I can’t do much to help….”
Reive shrugged and took another bite of mango. At the door Ceryl paused and said, “I’ll be back—I don’t know when. This evening, probably. Please don’t go out alone—”
As soon as she was gone the gynander dressed, sprinkled a few flecks of rice cracker into the mysid’s bowl, and headed for the gravator.
Ceryl’s chambers were in a block of affluent residential buildings, pagoda-shaped and shining with blue and red lacquer. The air smelled of lemons, and banners proclaiming an Ascendant triumph over the Commonwealth hung limply from the corners of the pagodas. Between each block ran spacious avenues, crowded with rickshaws bearing members of the pleasure cabinet to and from the gravators. Everyone seemed short-tempered, even more so than one might expect bored aristocrats to be. This close to Æstival Tide, the competition for invitations to purification ceremonies and the more elite parties grew intense. In a day or two the scroll listing those who would join the Orsinate on their private viewing platform would be released. Until then, cabinet members and advisers, lesser relatives of the ruling family and even a few ambitious interlopers from the lower levels would all be scrambling for the opportunity to gain access to the margravines and Imperators.
Some members of the pleasure cabinet already wore the slender fillets of brass and malachite that were one of the first heralds of the Feast of Fear. They elbowed their way past the others disdainfully. Reive recognized a high-ranking diplomat who had been briefly famous during the Archipelago Conflict, and a woman who was lead soprano in the sadist opera Fasa. No one seemed to find it curious that a gynander wandered about unchaperoned. Once Reive saw another hermaphrodite, bouncing around in the back of a rickshaw with an austere-looking man whose black gowns marked him as a vicar in the Church of Christ Cadillac. Reive waved discreetly, but the other hermaphrodite looked through her with slanted agate eyes. After that Reive cultivated a cool expression, following the traffic and trying not to stare.
There was a bottleneck at the gravator that serviced Seraphim, the uppermost level where the palace stood. Diplomats clambered from their rickshaws, waving invitations at each other as they argued over who had seniority and their drivers demanded payment. When a scuffle broke out between the vicar and one of the eunuch followers of the Daughters of Graves, Reive slipped toward the front of the queue unnoticed.
The line moved quickly as the gravator’s sentry processed each person. When her turn came Reive approached it nervously. Sentries were unknown on the lower levels, since gravators there did not ordinarily service the rarefied reaches of the Orsinate and their cabinet. An awning of faux bamboo hung above the entrance, yolk-yellow military banners stirring in a breath of breeze emerging from the chamber’s vents. The sentry was a smooth cylinder of yellow metal, faceless. It beckoned Reive, with a long metal arm containing a tiny optic that glittered as it made a pass across her face. A long moment while she heard it whirring as it accessed her retina print. Then it sighed, “Reive Orsina. Pass.”
Inside, the gravator was opulent, but so crowded that all Reive glimpsed of it was a marble floor, scuffed and rather dirty, and overhead a chandelier made up of myriad holograms that showed the margravines’ faces shimmering and smiling down upon their disgruntled staff. Reive squeezed in between a member of the Toxins Cabal, a plump woman whose sweat smelled of fenugreek and bleach, and a Disciple of Blessed Narouz, the Orsinate’s heraldic eye dangling conspicuously from his neck. When the gravator began its smooth ascent he leaned against Reive, leaving a smear of petroleum along her arm.