matter of curiosity. Are you familiar with the Palatine, Calde?"
Silk's right hand, holding Hyacinth's letter, had begun to tremble;
he pressed it against his knee so that Oosik would not see it. "I've
been there." By an effort of will, he kept his voice almost steady.
"Why do you ask?"
"Often, Calde?"
"Three times, I believe." It was impossible to think of anything but
Hyacinth; he could as easily have said fifty, or never. "Yes, three
times--once to the Palace, and twice to attend sacrifice at the Grand
Manteion."
"Nowhere else?"
Silk shook his head.
"There is a place having a wooden figure of Thelxiepeia. As an
augur, you may know where it is."
"There's an onyx image in the Grand Manteion--"
Oosik shook his head. "In Ermine's, to the right as one enters the
sellaria. One sees an arch with greenery beyond it At the rear,
there is a pool with goldfish. She stands by it holding a mirror. The
lighting is arranged so that the pool is reflected in her mirror, and
her mirror in the pool. It is mentioned in that letter." Oosik turned
upon his heel.
"Colonel, these needlers--"
He paused at the door. "Do you intend to shoot your way to
freedom, Calde?" Without waiting for Silk's reply he went out,
leaving the door ajar behind him. Silk heard the sentry come to
attention, and Oosik say, "You are dismissed. Return to the
guardroom immediately."
Silk's hands were still shaking as he unfolded Hyacinth's letter; it
was on stationery the color of heavy cream, scrawled in violet ink,
with many flourishes.
<blockquote>
O My Darling Wee Flea:
I call you so not only because of the way you sprang from
my window, but because of the way you hopped into my
bed! How your lonely bloss has longed for a note from you!!!
You might have sent one by the kind friend who brought you
my gift, you know!
</blockquote>
That had been Doctor Crane, and Doctor Crane was dead--had
died in his arms that very morning.
<blockquote>
Now you have to tender me your thanks and so much more,
when next we meet! Don't you know that little place up on
the Palatine where Thelx holds up a mirror? _Hieraxday_.
<p class=r>Hy
</blockquote>
Silk closed his eyes. It was foolish, he told himself. Utterly foolish.
The semiliterate scribbling of a woman whose education had ended
at fourteen, a girl who had been given to her father's superior as a
household servant and concubine, who had scarcely read a book or
written a letter, and was trying to flirt, to be arch and girlish and
charming on paper. How his instructors at the schola would have sneered!
Utterly foolish, and she had called him darling, had said she
longed for him, had risked compromising herself and Doctor Crane
to send him this.
He read it again, refolded it, and returned it to its envelope, then
pushed aside the quilt and got up.
Oosik had intended him to go, of course--had intended him to
escape, or perhaps to be killed escaping. For a few seconds he tried
to guess which. Had Oosik been insincere in speaking of friendship?
Oosik was capable of any quantity of double-dealing, if he was any
judge of men.
It did not matter.
He took his clothing from the chair and spread it on the bed. If
Oosik intended him to escape, he must escape as Oosik intended. If
Oosik intended him to be killed escaping, he must escape just the
same, doing his best to remain alive.
His tunic was crusted with his own blood and completely
unwearable; he threw it down and sat on the bed to pull on his
undershorts, trousers, and stockings. When he had tied his shoes,
he rose and jerked open a drawer of the bureau.
Most of the tunics were cheerful reds and yellows; but he found a
blue one, apparently never worn, so dark that it might pass for black
under any but the closest scrutiny. He laid it on the pillow beside the
letters, and put on a yellow one. The closet yielded a small traveling
bag. Slipping both letters into a pocket, he rolled up his robe,
stuffed it into the bag, and put the dark blue tunic on top of it.
The magazine status pin of the big needler indicated it was
loaded; he opened the action anyway trying to recall how Auk had
held his that night in the restaurant, and remembering at the last
moment Auk's adjuration to keep his finger off the trigger. The
magazine appeared to be full of long, deadly-looking needles, or
nearly full. Auk had said his needler held how many? A hundred or
more, surely; and this big needler that had been Musk's must hold at
least as many if not more. It was possible, of course, that it had been
disabled in some way.
There was no one in the hall outside. Silk closed the door, and
after a moment's thought put the quilt against its bottom and shut
the window, then sat down on the bed, sick and horribly weak.
When had he eaten last?
Very early that morning, in Limna, with Doctor Crane and that
captain whose name he had never learned or had forgotten, and the
captain's men. Kypris had granted another theophany, had
appeared to them, and to Maytera Marble and Patera Gulo, and
they had been full of the wonder of it, all three of them newly come
to religious feeling, and feeling that no one had ever come to it
before. He had eaten a very good omelet, then several slices of hot,
fresh bread with country butter, because the cook, roused from
sleep by a trooper, had popped the loaves that had been rising
overnight into the oven. He had drunk hot, strong coffee, too;
coffee lightened with cream the color of Hyacinth's stationery and
sweetened with honey from a white, blue-flowered bowl passed to
him by Doctor Crane, who had been putting honey on his bread.
Now Doctor Crane was dead, and so was one of the troopers, the
captain and the other trooper most likely dead too, killed in the
fighting before the Alambrera.
Silk lifted the big needler.
Someone had told him that he, too, should be dead--he could not
remember whether it had been the surgeon or Colonel Oosik.
Perhaps it had been Shell, although it did not seem the sort of thing
that Shell would say.
The needler would not fire. He tugged its trigger again and
returned it to the windowsill, congratulating himself on having
resolved to test it; saw that he had left the safety catch on, pushed it
off, took aim at a large bottle of cologne on the dresser, and
squeezed the trigger. The needler cracked in his hand like a
bullwhip and the bottle exploded, filling the room with the clean
scent of spruce.
He reapplied the safety and thrust the needler into his waistband
under the yellow tunic. If Musk's needler had not been disabled,
there was no point in testing Hyacinth's small one, too. He made
sure its safety catch was engaged, forced himself to stand, and
dropped it into his trousers pocket.
One thing more, and he could go. Had the young man whose
bedroom this was never written anything here? Looking around, he
saw no writing materials.
What of the owner of the perfumed scarf? She would write to
him, almost certainly. A woman who cared enough to drop a silk