In the event, I was never challenged. A man in rich and elaborate clothing drew aside, and several lovely women stared at me curiously; I felt Thecla’s memories stirring at the sight of their faces. At last I found another stair — not narrow and secretive like the one that had taken Jonas and me to the chamber of mirrors, but a broad, open flight of wide steps.
I ascended some distance, reconnoitered the corridor there until I was certain I was still lower than the antechamber, then began to climb again when I saw a young woman hurrying down the stair toward me.
Our eyes met.
In that moment, I feel sure, she was as conscious as I that we had exchanged glances thus before. In memory I heard her say again, “My dearest sister,” in that cooing voice, and the heart-shaped face sprang into place. It was not Thea, the consort of Vodalus, but the woman who looked like her (and no doubt borrowed her name) whom I had passed on the stair in the House Azure — she descending and I climbing, just as we were now. Harlots then, as well as entertainers, had been summoned for whatever fete was being organized.
Almost purely by chance, I discovered the level of the antechamber. I had no sooner left the stair than I realized I was standing almost precisely where the hastarii had stood while Nicarete and I talked beside the silver cart. This was the point of greatest danger, and I was careful to walk slowly. The wall on my right held a dozen or more doors, each framed in carved woodwork, and each (as I saw when I stopped to examine them) spiked to its frame and sealed with the varnish of years. On my left, the only door was the great one of worm-gnawed oak through which the soldiers had dragged Jonas and me. Opposite it was the entrance to the antechamber, and beyond that stretched another row of spiked doors like the first, at the end of which was another stair. It appeared that the antechamber had grown to occupy all of this level of this wing of the House Absolute.
If there had been anyone in sight, I would not have dared to pause; but since the corridor was empty, I ventured to lean for a moment against the newel post of the second stair. While two soldiers had guarded me, a third had carried Terminus Est. It was reasonable to suppose that as Jonas and I were being put through the doorway of the antechamber, this third man would have taken the first few steps at least toward wherever it was that such captured weapons were kept. But I could remember nothing; the soldier had dropped behind when we descended the steps of the grotto, and I had not seen him again. It was possible, even, that he had not come in with us.
In desperation, I returned to the worm-gnawed door and opened it. The musty odor of the well entered the corridor at once, and I heard the song of the green gongs begin. Outside, the world was plunged in night. Save for the corpse candles of the fungi, the rugged walls were invisible, and only a circle of stars overhead showed where the well dropped into the earth.
I closed the door; no sooner had it grated shut than I heard the sound of footsteps on the stair up which I myself had come. There was no place to hide, and if I had darted for the second stair I would have had little chance of reaching it before I was seen. Rather than attempt to duck out through the heavy oak door and close it once more, I decided to remain where I was.
The newcomer was a plump man of fifty or so dressed in livery. Even down the length of the corridor, I saw his face pale at the sight of me. He came hurrying toward me, however, and when he was still twenty or thirty paces off he began to bow, saying, “Can I help you, your honor? I am Odilo, the steward here. You, I can see, are on a mission of some confidence to… Father Inire?”
“Yes,” I said. “But first I must require my sword of you.”
I had hoped that he had seen Terminus Est and would produce her for me, but he looked blank.
“I was escorted here earlier. At that time I was told that I would have to surrender my sword, but that it would be restored to me before Father Inire required me to use it.”
The little man was shaking his head. “I assure you, in my position I would have been informed if any of the other servants—”
“I was told this by a praetorian,” I said.
“Ah, I ought to have known. They’ve been everywhere, answering to no one. We have an escaped prisoner, your honor, as I suppose you’ve heard.”
“No.”
“A man called Beuzec. They say he’s not dangerous, but he and another fellow were found lurking in an arbor. This Beuzec made a dash for it before they locked him up, and got away. They say they’ll take him soon; I don’t know. I’ll tell you, I’ve lived in our House Absolute all my life, and it has some strange corners — some very strange corners.”
“Possibly my sword is in one of them. Will you look?”
He took a half step back, as though I had raised my hand to him. “Oh, I will, Your Honor, I will. I was only trying to make a bit of conversation. It’s probably down here. If you’ll just follow me…”
We walked toward the other stair, and I saw that in my hasty search I had overlooked one door, a narrow one beneath the staircase. It was painted white, so that it was almost of the same shade as the stone.
The steward produced a heavy ring of keys and opened this door. The triangular room inside was much larger than I would have guessed, reaching far back beneath the steps and boasting a sort of loft, accessible by a shaky ladder, toward the rear. Its lamp was of the same type as those I had noticed in the antechamber, but dimmer.
“Do you see it?” the steward asked. “Wait, there’s a candle about here somewhere, I think. That one light’s not much use, the shelves throw such heavy shadows.”
I was examining the shelves as he spoke. They were piled with clothing, with here and there a pair of shoes, a pocket fork, a pen case, a pommander ball. “When I was just a lad myself, the kitchen boys used to pick the lock and come in here to rummage about. I put a stop to that — got a good lock — but I’m afraid the best things disappeared long ago.”
“What is this place?”
“A closet for petitioners, originally. Coats, hats, and boots — you know. Those places always fill up with the things the lucky ones forget to take with them when they go, and then this wing has always been Father Inire’s, and I suppose there’s always been some that came to see him that never came back out, as well as the ones that come out what never came in.” He paused and glanced around. “I had to give the soldiers keys to keep them from kicking down the doors when they were searching for this Beuzec, so I suppose they might have put your sword in here. If they didn’t, they probably took it up to their guardroom. This wouldn’t be it, I don’t imagine?” From a corner he drew out an ancient spadone.
“Hardly.”
“It seems to be the only sword here, I’m afraid. I can give you directions for getting to the guardroom. Or I can wake up one of the pages to go and ask, if you like.”
The ladder to the loft was shaky, but I scrambled up it after borrowing the steward’s candle. Though it seemed exceedingly improbable that the soldier had put Terminus Est there, I wanted a few moments to think over the courses of action open to me.
As I climbed I heard a slight noise from above that I supposed was the scurrying of some rodent; but when I thrust my head and the candle above the level of the loft’s floor, I saw the small man who had been with Hethor on the road kneeling in an attitude of intense supplication. That was Beuzec, of course; I had failed to recall the name until I saw him.