"You'll need a bucket," Luca said, "to carry the hot water... We used to have servants," he added, "but they died." Seeing Tris's slight nod, Luca hesitated. "Did I tell you that already?" he said
Only Tris had stopped listening. She stood in the doorway of the pavilion looking bemused.
"The table..."
It was back, not yet complete but soft-edged and almost. A wax sculpture of woodwork melted by the sun. On the wall, a gold and red oblong was coalescing into a temple carving, its gold leaf and red undercoat becoming crazed with age.
"How?" the girl demanded.
"This is what the house does," Luca said. "Endlessly and always the same... Until something gives and suddenly a fire no longer lights itself or the shutters begin to ignore the rain. It will die eventually," he added, his voice entirely matter-of-fact, "but probably not before I do."
Tipping the first bucket into the bath, Luca went back for another. He worked with the rhythm of someone used to the world he inhabited, his life worn loosely.
"How old are you?" Tris asked. The question had been worrying her.
"You know," said Luca, as he scooped another bucket into the cauldron, "it's hard to say." He lifted the full bucket without appearing to notice its weight and carried it through the doorway in which she stood.
"Why is it hard?"
Luca shrugged and as he passed Tris on his way back their eyes met. It was nothing significant. Luca was just doing his best not to look at her breast where the top had torn. "Not sure I can answer that either," he said, sounding embarrassed for the first time since they'd met. "We live time differently."
"How do you live it?"
Like that, he wanted to say. Except this would be wrong, because the water in the cauldron boiled so simply, bubbles rising and currents defined by convection, properties of matter and the shape of the vessel in which it was all held. Time worked in all directions but was lived by humans only in one. At least that was what Luca had been taught.
And there were other differences. The girl's brain contained no pain fibres, for her, synaptic action was a pain-free process. Her brain could rot and she'd feel nothing. When Luca said a thought hurt he meant it.
"I live it one way," he said, "you another." Scooping up water, he carried his bucket into the pavilion, poured it into the bath and came out again. After that Luca worked in silence until the bath was full. "All yours," he said.
The girl glanced doubtfully at steam rising from the surface.
"No problem," Luca assured her, "the temperature will adjust. Well, it should do, unless that's stopped working as well."
In the end Tris tried the water with one toe, and then, when she realized Luca didn't intend to leave, she stripped off her ragged top, shook herself free from the trousers and stepped into her bath.
"Can you make me more clothes?"
"Maybe the house can," Luca said. "Whether you'll want to wear them..." And then he smiled, his gaze catching the latex rags she'd kicked into one corner of the room. "I'll see what we can do," he said, and with that he was gone, leaving the girl to soak away her doubts.
Tris said later, mostly to herself, that she couldn't remember why she agreed to sex. Although this was inaccurate because Tris was the one who instigated it by climbing from her bath and walking naked through the pavilion until she finally found Luca in an attic room, drawing something on a long scroll of paper. An ink stone and mixing pot stood beside him and a small bamboo brush was held elegantly in one hand.
"CV-1," he said blushing.
And Tris saw a sketch of her genitals, a dotted line inked between vulva and anus. "CV-1?"
"A tsubo point," Luca said. "Good for heart attacks, near-drowning and strikes by lightning. Inconveniently positioned, however."
Yeah, thought Tris, you could put it that way. He'd used the handle of that brush to activate the nerve. She'd seen him putting it back into its holder when she came awake at the edge of the road.
"I've grown you some clothes," Luca said quickly.
Tris glanced at the padded blue jacket, wafer-thin silk trousers and rope sandals. "Thanks," she said. "I think."
Somehow Luca looked even younger when he slept, his face was less strained and his mouth had relaxed into a child-like smile. Even his eyes rested easy under their lids.
"Sweet dreams," she said.
The man stank of vaginal secretions and of things Tris hadn't even realized people did to each other in bed and she stank of the same. What Tris didn't stink of was Luca because he had no scent. At least, no scent that she could detect.
Tris leant closer, just to make sure.
"Whatever."
Rolling out of bed, Tris landed lightly and grinned, tucking the single silk sheet tightly around Luca's sleeping body. In part this was because she didn't want the man to get cold, but mostly it was because Tris intended to search his room and wrapping sleeping punters in a sheet to make them feel secure was an old trick. One she'd learnt as a child from listening in on the whores at Schwarzschilds.
"Tuck them in," Bella had been saying, "so they're safe and tight." Then she'd glanced round and seen the kid standing by the wall, nursing a frosted glass of something purple and sighed. "Don't just stand there," she said. "If you want to learn, come over here and learn."
Tris did what she was told.
"There's this five minutes, honey," Bella said. "When men's heads go walkabout and that's the time to tuck 'em in and strip their wallets of anything worth taking."
Only the sex was hours behind her and Tris had no intention of searching Luca's pockets, she just wanted to look around. Most of the drawers in the attic refused to open for her, being owner specific. So in the end all Tris found to open was a long sandalwood chest full of clean sheets. Glancing at what she could see of the filthy mattress visible beneath Luca's sleeping head, Tris shrugged and filed the query away to unpuzzle later.
Under the last of the sheets was a full court dress, Mandarin Third Class, although the jade buckle looked rather grander than this. Tris knew about court grades from the feeds because everybody on Rip knew about stuff like that.
Beneath the court dress she found a sword with an ivory grip, ruby pommel and sharkskin sheath. The blade was oiled but felt blunt to her touch. Since Tris had no way of sharpening the blade and the obvious value of the sword frightened her a little, she placed it carefully on the floor and kept digging.
Another court dress, much smaller this time and more suited to a child. And a second sword, only this one was so tiny that it was barely more than a long dagger. The kind of thing an ambassador's son might carry if he was expected to be presented at court.
Tris felt no guilt at stealing the weapon. What was a small boy's sword compared to a racing yacht? And, besides, she needed a weapon. Of course, she could pretend she was taking it to protect herself against wild animals, or that it was needed to fight off imperial guards. But those would be lies and Tris never lied to herself. At least not more than was required to stay human or sane. Lying to others was different. That was what people like her did if they wanted to remain alive.
She intended to use the small sword to cut out Chuang Tzu's heart. That was all. Any other reason Tris gave would have been untrue.
At the bottom of the chest was a map, a scroll and a jewellery box made from mottled shell. Inside the box nestled a jade necklace so fabulous it had to be real. The map was of Rapture and the scroll contained Ambassador Pacioli's credentials. No one had even broken the seal.