Her smile widened. "Do you want me to justify the way I speak to you, Patera? Hardly the request of a gentleman, much less a man of the cloth."
Silk sat in silence for a time, stroking his cheek. Oreb hopped from Chenille's wrist to her shoulder, then to the top of the battered library table next to Silk's chair.
At length Silk said, "If you had spoken to His Eminence as you spoke to me, he would have assumed that I had hired you for the evening or something of that kind. To save me from embarrassment, you betrayed your real nature to me. I wish I knew how to thank you properly for that, Chenille."
"You pronounce my name as though it were a polite lie. I assure you, it's the truth."
Silk asked, "But if I were to use another name-we both know which-wouldn't that be the truth as well?"
"Not really. Far less than you believe, and it would lead to endless difficulties."
"You're more beautiful tonight than you were in Orchid's house. May I say that?"
She nodded. "I wasn't trying then. Or not much. Not well. Men think it's all bones and makeup. But a lot is ... Certain things I do. My eyes and my lips. The way I move. The right gestures. You do it too, unconsciously. Silk. I like to watch you. When you don't know I'm watching." She yawned and stretched until it seemed that her full breasts would split her gown. "There. That wasn't very beautiful, was it? Though he used to love it when I yawned, and kiss my hand. I did it sometimes. Just to give him pleasure. Such delight. Silk, I'm going to have to have a place to sleep tonight. I love your name, Silk. I've been wanting to say it all night. Most names are ugly. Will you help me?"
"Of course," he said. "I am your slave."
"Chenille."
He swallowed again. "I'll help you all I can, Chenille. You can't sleep here, but I feel sure we can find something better."
Suddenly she was again the woman he had met at Orchid's. "We've got to talk about that, but there are other things to talk about first. You do realize why that awful man came? Why you're getting an acolyte? Why that awful man and this Prolocutor are going to try to take your manteion back from Blood?"
Silk nodded gloomily. "I'm naive at times, I admit; but not that naive. Once I was on the point of suggesting that he drop the pretense."
"He would have turned nasty, I'm sure." "So am I." Silk drew a deep breath and exhaled with mingled relief and disgust. "That acolyte's being sent to keep an eye on me. I'd like to find out how he's spent the summer."
"You think he may be a protege of Remora's? Something of that kind?"
Silk nodded. "He's probably been an assistant to his prothonotary. Not the prothonotary himself, because I've met him and his name isn't Gulo. If I can talk with some other augurs who were in the same class, they may be able to tell me."
"So you intend to spy on the spy." Chenille smiled. "At least your manteion's safe."
"I doubt that. In the first place, I don't have a great deal of confidence in His Cognizance's ability to manipulate Blood. Less, anyway, than His Eminence has, or says that he has. Everyone knows the Chapter doesn't have the influence in the Ayuntamiento that it once had, although Lady Kypris's theophany today may help considerably. And . . ."
"Yes? What is it now?" Chenille was stroking Oreb's back. Stretching out his neck, the bird rubbed her arm with his crimson beak.
"In the second, if they can manipulate Blood I won't be here much longer. I'll be transferred, most likely to some administrative position, and this Patera Gulo will take over everything."
"Urn-hum. I'm proud of you." Chenille was still looking at the bird. "Then my little suggestion is still of interest to you?"
"Spying on Viron?" Silk gripped Blood's lioness-headed stick with both hands as if he intended to break it.
"No! Not unless you order me to do it. And, Chenille - you really are Chenille? Now?"
She nodded, her face serious.
"Then, Chenille, I can't allow you to continue to do it either. All questions of loyalty aside, I can't let you risk your life like that."
"You're angry. I don't blame you, Silk. Though it's better to be cold. He . . . You call him Pas. Someone said once that he was always in a cold fury. Not always, Silk."
She licked her lips. "It wasn't true. But almost. And he came to rule the whole-whorl. Our whorl, bigger than this. So fast. All in a few years. No one could believe it."
Silk said, "I don't think I'm very good at cold furies, but I'll try. I was going to ask what will happen if we succeed? Suppose that we get twenty-six thousand cards from Doctor Crane to hand over to Blood. I doubt that it's even possible, but suppose we do. What good would it do anybody except Blood?"
Silk fell silent for a time, his face in his hands. "I should want to do good to Blood, of course, as I should want to do good to everyone. Even when I broke into his house to try to make him give my manteion back, I did it in part to keep him from staining his spirit by converting the property to a bad purpose. But getting money for him that he doesn't need isn't going to do him any good, and it may even do him harm."
Oreb dropped onto Silk's shoulder, startling him into looking up; as he did, Oreb caught a lock of his straying hair and tugged at it.
"He knows what you're feeling," Chenille said quietly. "He would like to make you laugh, if he can."
"He's a good bird-a very good bird. This isn't the first time he's come to me of his own accord."
"You would take him with you, wouldn't you? Even if you were sent to that administrative position? Silk. It isn't against some rule for augurs to keep pets?"
"No. They're permitted."
"So everything wouldn't be lost, even then." Chenille floated from her chair to slip behind his own. "I could . . . Supply some trifling comfort, too. Now, Silk. If you wish it."
"No," he repeated.
Silence refilled the little sellaria. After two minutes or more had passed, he added, "But thank you anyway. Thank you very much. What you said shouldn't make me feel better; but it does, and I'll always be grateful to you."
"I'll take advantage of your gratitude, you know."
He nodded soberly. "I hope you do. I want you to."
"You don't like girls like me."
"That isn't so." Pie fell silent for a moment to think about it. "I don't like what you do-the kinds of things that go on every night at Orchid's-because I know they do everyone involved more harm than good, and injure all of us eventually. I don't dislike you or Poppy or the others; in fact, I like you. I even like Orchid, and every god"-He would have stopped, but it was already too late-"knows I felt sorry for her this afternoon."
She laughed softly. "All the gods don't know. Silk. . . . One does. Two. You think those men don't many, because they have us. Most are married already, and shouldn't be."
He nodded reluctantly. "You've seen how young most of us are. What do you think happens to us?"
"I've never considered it." He wanted to say that many probably perished like Orpine; but she had stabbed Orpine.
"You think we all turn into Orchids, or use too much rust and die in convulsions. Most of us marry, that's all. You don't believe me, but it's the truth. We marry some buck who always asks for us. Silk."
She was stroking his hair. Inexplicably he felt that if he were to turn around he would not see her; that these were the ringers of a phantom.
"You said you wouldn't. Silk. Because you wanted to see a god. To someone. Yesterday? And now?"