Some, men and women both, were even allowing themselves to mimic the forms of the visitors by way of compliment, so that half a dozen blurry distorted Valentines stood before him, and a couple of Nascimontes, and a grotesque half-sized imitation of Lisamon Hultin. Valentine had experienced that peculiar kind of honor before, in his Ilirivoyne visit, and he had found it disturbing and even chilling then. It distressed him again now. Let them shift shapes if they wished—they had that capacity, to use as they pleased—but there was something almost sinister about this appropriation of the visages of their visitors.
And the jostling began to grow even wilder and more frenzied. Despite himself Valentine started to feel some alarm. There were more than a hundred villagers, and the visitors numbered only a handful. There could be real trouble if things got out of control.
Then in the midst of the hubbub a powerful voice called out,“Back! Back!” And at once the whole ragged band of Shapeshifters shrank away from Valentine as though they had been struck by whips. There was a sudden stillness and silence. Out of the now motionless throng there stepped a tall Metamorph of unusually muscular and powerful build. He made a deep gesticulation and announced, in a dark rumbling tone quite unlike that of any Metamorph voice Valentine had ever heard before, “I am Vathiimeraak, the foreman of these workers. I beg you to feel welcome here among us, Pontifex. We are your servants.”
But there was nothing servile about him. He was plainly a man of presence and authority. Briskly he apologized for the uncouth behavior of his people, explaining that they were simple peasants astounded by the presence of a Power of the Realm among them, and this was merely their way of showing respect.
“I know this man,” murmured Aarisiim into Valentine’s left ear.
But there was no opportunity just then to find out more; for Vathiimeraak, turning away, made a signal with one upraised hand and instantly the scene became one of confusion and noise once again. The villagers went running off in a dozen different directions, some returning almost at once with platters of sausages and bowls of wine for their guests, others hauling lopsided tables and benches from the huts. Platoons of them came crowding in once more on Valentine and his companions, this time urging them to sample the delicacies they had to offer.
“They’re giving us their own dinners!” Magadone Sambisa protested. And she ordered Vathiimeraak to call off the feast. But the foreman replied smoothly that it would offend the villagers to refuse their hospitality, and in the end there was no help for it: they must sit down at table and partake of all that the villagers brought for them.
“If you will, majesty,” said Nascimonte, as Valentine reached for a bowl of wine. The duke took it from him and sipped it first; and only after a moment did he return it. He insisted also on tasting Valentine’s sausages for him, and the scraps of boiled vegetables that went with them.
It had not occurred to Valentine that the villagers would try to poison him. But he allowed old Nascimonte to enact his charming little rite of medieval chivalry without objection. He was too fond of the old man to want to spoil his gesture.
Vathiimeraak said, when the feasting had gone on for some time, “You are here, your majesty, about the death of Dr. Huukaminaan, I assume?”
The foreman’s bluntness was startling. “Could it not be,” Valentine said good-humoredly, “that I just wanted to observe the progress being made at the excavations?”
Vathiimeraak would have none of that. “I will do whatever you may require of me in your search for the murderer,” he said, rapping the table sharply to underscore his words. For an instant the outlines of his broad, heavy-jowled face rippled and wavered as if he were on the verge of undergoing an involuntary metamorphosis. Among the Piurivar, Valentine knew, that was a sign of being swept by some powerful emotion. “I had the greatest respect for Dr. Huukaminaan. It was a privilege to work beside him. I often dug for him myself, when I felt the site was too delicate to entrust to less skillful hands. He thought that that was improper, at first, that the foreman should dig, but I said, No, no, Dr. Huukaminaan, I beg you to allow me this glory, and he understood, and permitted me. How may I help you to find the perpetrator of this dreadful crime?”
He seemed so solemn and straightforward and open that Valentine could not help but find himself immediately on guard. Vathiimeraak’s strong, booming voice and overly formal choice of phrase had an overly theatrical quality. His elaborate sincerity seemed much like the extreme effusiveness of the villagers’ demonstration, all that kneeling and kissing of his hem: unconvincing because it was so excessive.
You are too suspicious of these people, he told himself. This man is simply speaking as he thinks a Pontifex should be spoken to. And in any case I think he can be useful.
He said, “How much do you know of how the murder was committed?”
Vathiimeraak responded without hesitation, as if he had been holding a well-rehearsed reply in readiness. “I know that it happened late at night, the week before this, somewhere between the Hour of the Gihorna and the Hour of the Jackal. A person or persons lured Dr. Huukaminaan from his tent and led him to the Tables of the Gods, where he was killed and cut into pieces. We found the various segments of his body the next morning atop the western platform, all but his head. Which we discovered later that day in one of the alcoves along the base of the Shrine of the Downfall.”
Pretty much the standard account, Valentine thought. Except for one small detail.
“The Shrine of the Downfall? I haven’t heard that term before.”
“The shrine of the Seventh Pyramid is what I mean,” said Vathiimeraak. “The unopened shrine that Dr. Magadone Sambisa found. The name that I used is what we call it among ourselves. You notice that I do not say she ‘discovered’ it. We have always known that it was there, adjacent to the broken pyramid. But no one ever asked us, and so we never spoke of it.” Valentine glanced across at Deliamber, who nodded ever so minutely. Hsirthiir again, yes.
Something was not quite right, though. Valentine said, “Dr. Magadone Sambisa told me that she and Dr. Huukaminaan came upon the seventh shrine jointly, I think. She indicated that he was just as surprised at finding it there as she had been. Are you claiming that you knew of its existence, but he didn’t?”
“There is no Piurivar who does not know of the existence of the Shrine of the Downfall,” said Vathiimeraak stolidly. “It was sealed at the time of the Defilement and contains, we believe, evidence of the Defilement itself. If Dr. Magadone Sambisa formed the impression that Dr. Huukaminaan was unaware that it was there, that was an incorrect impression.” Once again the edges of the foreman’s face flickered and wavered. He looked worriedly toward Magadone Sambisa and said, “I mean no offense in contradicting you, Dr. Magadone Sambisa.”
“None taken,” she said, a little stiffly. “But if Huukaminaan knew of the shrine before the day we found it, he never said a thing about it to me.”
“Perhaps he had hoped it would not be found,” Vathiimeraak replied.
This brought a show of barely concealed consternation from Magadone Sambisa; and Valentine himself sensed that there was something here that needed to be followed up. But they were drifting away from the main issue.
“What I need you to do,” said Valentine to the foreman, “is to determine the whereabouts of every single one of your people during the hours when the murder was committed.” He saw Vathiimeraak’s reaction beginning to take form, and added quickly, “I’m not suggesting that we believe at this point that anyone from the village killed Dr. Huukaminaan. No one at all is under suspicion at this point. But we do need to account for everybody who was present in or around the excavation zone that night.”