"Fight!" the night chough repeated.
"Fight who? There's no one here."
Oreb whistled, a low note followed by a slightly higher one.
"Is that bird speech for 'who knows?' Well, I certainly don't. And neither do you, Oreb, if you ask me. I'm glad I brought the weapons, because my having them here means that Patera Gulo can't find them, and I'd be willing to bet that by now he's searched my room; but if they were mine instead of Hyacinth's, I'd be inclined to pitch them to the goddess after the stick, Gulo'd never find them then."
"Bad man?"
"Yes, I believe he is." Silk returned to the Pilgrims' Way. "I'm guessing, of course. But if I must guess-and it seems that I must-then my guess is that he's the sort of man who thinks himself good, and that's by far the most dangerous sort of man there is."
"Watch out."
"I'll try," Silk promised, though he was not sure whether the bird was referring to Patera Gulo or the path, which wound along the edge of the cliff here. "So-if I'm right-this Patera Gulo's the exact reverse of Auk, who's a good man who believes himself to be a bad one. You've noticed that, I take it."
"Take it."
"I felt sure you had. Auk's helped in a dozen different ways, without even counting that diamond trinket. Patera Gulo was scandalized sufficiently by that, and the bracelet some other thief gave him. I can't imagine what he'd have done, or said, if he'd found the azoth."
"Man go."
"Do you mean Patera Gulo? Well, I wish I had some means of arranging that, I really do; but for the moment it seems to be beyond my reach."
"Man go," Oreb repeated testily. "No pray."
"Gone from the shrine now, is that what you mean?"
Silk pointed with the walking stick. "He can't have gone, unless he jumped. I didn't see him come out, and it's in full view from here."
Rather to Silk's surprise, Oreb launched himself from his shoulder and managed to struggle up to half again his height before settling again. "No see."
"I'm perfectly willing to believe that you can't see him from here," Silk told the bird, "but he has to be there just the same. Possibly there's a chapel below the shrine, cut into the cliff. The path turns inland again up ahead, but even so we should find out in half an hour or less."
Chapter 7. THE ARMS OF SCYLLA
"May every god be with you this, er, noon, Patera," Remora said as soon as his prothonotary had closed the door behind Gulo. It was extraordinary condescension.
"Even so, may they be with Your Eminence." Gulo bowed nearly to the floor. The bow and conventional phrases gave him time for a final review of the principal items he had come to report. "May Maidenly Moipe, patroness of the day, Great Pas, patron of the whorl, to whom we owe all that we possess, and Scalding Scylla, patroness of this our Sacred City of Viron, be with you always, Your Eminence, every day of your life." In the course of his bow, Gulo had contrived to pat the pocket containing the bracelet and the letter.
Straightening up, he added, "I trust that Your Eminence enjoys the best of good health? That I have not come at an inconvenient moment?"
"No, no," Remora told him. "Um-not at all. I'm- ah-delighted, really quite delighted to see you, Patera. Please sit down. What do you-:ah-make of young Silk, eh?"
Gulo lowered his pudgy body to the black velvet seat of the armchair beside Remora's escritoire. "I've had little opportunity to observe his person thus far, Your Eminence. Very little. He left our manteion a moment or two after my arrival, and he had not yet returned when I myself left it in order to make this report to Your Eminence. He will not return before evening, or so he said, so it would seem less than likely that he is there now."
Remora nodded.
"He made an impression on me, however, even though I saw him so briefly, Your Eminence. A distinct one."
"I-ah-see." Remora leaned back in his chair, his long fingers tip to tip. "Would it be-um-convenient for you to describe this, um, momentary interview in detail, hey?"
"As Your Eminence desires. Shortly after I entered the quarter a man had given me this." Patera Gulo pulled the bracelet from his pocket and held it up; Remora pursed his lips.
"I must add, Your Eminence, that several other such men have come to the door of the manse since then. It was my impression-my marked impression, Your Eminence- that: they had come to proffer similar gifts. They declined to do so when they learned Patera Silk was not present, however."
"You-ah-pressed them, Patera?"
"As much as I dared, Your Eminence. They weren't men of a kind one would care to press too far."
Remora grunted.
"I was about to say, Your Eminence, that when I showed this to Patera Silk he gave me a similar piece and told me to lock both of them in his cashbox. It was a diamond anklet, Your Eminence. There were two other persons with him at the time, a man and a woman. All three were going to the lake, I think. Something was said to that effect." Gulo gave an apologetic cough. "Possibly, Your Eminence, only Patera and the woman."
"You would appear to feel that Patera ought to have been more discreet." Remora seemed to sink deeper into his chair. "Yet unless you have-um-ascertained the identities of these two, you cannot very well, um, gauge how indiscreet he may have been. Have you, eh?"
Gulo fidgeted. "He called them Auk and Chenille, Your Eminence. He introduced them to me."
"Let me see that-ah-bangle." Remora held out his hand for the bracelet. "It ought scarcely to be-ah-needful for me to say that you yourself, Patera, should have been, er, very much more discreet than you were. Ah-by discreet in-ah-this instance, Patera, I, um, intend forceful. The word will bear that-ah-interpretation, I am confident. To be discreet, Patera, is to, er, exercise good judgment, hey? In this present-ah-matter, good judgment would have-ah-prompted a forcible-um-strategy? Approach. Or attitude."
"Yes, Your Eminence."
"You ought to have gracefully and-ah-graciously received any offerings from the faithful, Patera." Remora held up the bracelet so that it caught the light from the bull's-eye window behind him, and swung it from side to side. "I will not-ah-um-desire excuses on that-ah- score, Patera. Do you follow me? None at all, eh?"
Gulo nodded humbly.
"These-ah-gentlemen may return, hey? Perhaps when Patera is absent, as he was in the-um-occasion. You will be-ah-vouchsafed an-um-golden opportunity, when that-ah-hour strikes, with which you may-ah-um-redeem your credit, eh? Not impossibly. See that you do, Patera."
Gulo squirmed. "I shall try, Your Eminence. I will be forceful, I assure you."
"Now then. Your-ah-observations of Silk himself? You needn't-ah-vex yourself with physical description. I've seen him."
"Yes, Your Eminence." Gulo hesitated, his mouth open, his protuberant eyes vague. "He seemed determined."
"Determined, hum?" Remora laid the bracelet on a stack of papers. "To do which?"
"I don't know, Your Eminence. But his jaw was firm, I thought. His manner was decisive. There was-if I may say it, Your Eminence-a glint as of steel in his eyes, I thought. Perhaps that simile is something overblown, Your Eminence-"
"Perhaps it is," Remora told him severely.
"And yet it at least expresses what I sensed in him. At the schola, Your Eminence, Patera was two years before me."
Remora nodded.
"I noticed him there as anyone would, Your Eminence. I thought him good-looking and studious, but rather slow, if anything. Now, however-"
Remora waved the present aside. "You implied, I think, Patera, that Patera-ah-decamped, eh? With a couple. A married couple? Were they-um-ah-wed, so far as you could judge?"
"I believe they may have been, Your Eminence. The woman had a fine ring."
Rcmora's long fingers toyed with the jeweled gammadion he wore. "Describe them, eh? Their-ah-appearance."