She almost cried out with relief when her call ring tightened on her finger, indicating a message for her. Murell? She found the nearest unit in the Function hall and didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved that Trin timorously but urgently requested her to return to her apartment for a moment.
As Trin had never before interrupted her attendance at a function, Caissa couldn’t imagine what prompted the request but any excuse to leave served Caissa well. She used the fast lane, reserved for persons of her rank or official android messengers and might have missed the encounter had there been anyone else travelling at the moment. Something about the person in the slow channel opposite her caught her attention
“Murell!”
Though he was dressed in plain service clothes and had his head averted, she knew a shock of recognition that couldn’t be denied
He glanced back as she swept by him, confirming her intuition.
“Murell! Wait!” she cried, skillfully turning and thrusting herself across the fast channel to catch him. “Please wait! Grab hold. There’s terrible danger for the coelura. Your accident might have been arranged. Please! Wait! Something has to be done!”
He had been half across into the fast channel to evade her when he paused, caught a handhold and pulled out of the stream to permit her to reach him. His face was as stern as it had been when she had admitted knowing of coelura. Since his clothing was dull as a servant’s ought to be, and not coelura, she could not measure his real feelings.
“Murell, I only heard today. My sire is Baythan and has contracted with an Oriolis Caverna-with a body-heir clause for her, since I am his. And I wish I weren’t for he is somehow betraying the coelura to the Triad.” Did she just imagine that he was relenting towards her? “The day I met you, he’d been hinting at achieving his mission here. It must involve coelura. He cannot realize what he is doing to those glorious creatures!” She began to weep with stress, her words tumbling through the sobs she tried to control. “I tried to leave the city to warn you but no one is permitted to leave. I went to the hangar, hoping… but I couldn’t get a craft. Then I found where the Oriolii were quartered…” she had his unreserved attention now, “but they are android guarded and I wasn’t coded for admittance despite the contract. I’ve been in the Function Room but there isn’t a single Oriolis present. I did try, Murell. I did try! If there is any way in which I can help, let me know. The coelura must not be made to spin!”
Unexpectedly, Murell captured her in his free arm and his voice soothingly repeated her name. He tilted her chin to make her look at him and then dried her tears as they drifted together in the backswirl of grav lap. She was astonished at his ministration and the kindness in his eyes.
“Be assured, Caissa, that the coelura are protected.”
“The Oriolii sanction the Caverna’s contract?”
Murell smiled oddly at some point over her head. “The benefits are manifold. The Oriolii may freely resume their position in the Triad. But I will avail myself of your offer…” he paused, bringing her hand to his lips, “of support if it is needed?”
“For anything,” she cried fervently, clinging to his hands.
“We must part. Anyone could see us. ‘Till tomorrow!”
He had pushed off, into the fast down lane before she noticed the difference about him. His right forearm and leg were no longer bent in ill-set lines. She was relieved for his sake, but she would have been content to see him in any condition.
She continued on to her apartment, her body and heart alive with the joy of having seen Murell and delivered her warning. She refused to consider the niggling doubt that Baythan was a far more accomplished tactician than a Caverna who had been sheltered from galactic-scale contingencies. It was only as she entered her reception room that she realized Murell had said enough to reassure her but left much unexplained, especially his presence in Blue City.
Part of that was answered when Trin, with obsequious excitement, presented her with a shallow rectangular box of highly polished and unusually ornamented bluewood. As soon as Caissa took it, she knew what it must contain. Glancing at Trin’s expectant face, she believed that Trin did, too.
“You did well to recall me, Trin.”
“The Lady Caissa will open the bluewood box?” Trin’s question quavered with expectation.
Caissa would have preferred privacy to savor the thrill of coelura but to deny Trin who had served her so long would have been ungracious, and uncharacteristic behavior in herself.
As her fingers fumbled with the intricately carved fastening of the box, they triggered the lock’s message.
“With this I discharge all debt.”
Caissa almost dropped the gift at the implacable tone of Murell’s voice. Had she not chanced to see and speak with him, that message, piercing her heart as it did despite their meeting, would have compelled her in honor never to open the box.
Now she could and did. Within the bluewood lay coelura fabric, palely quiescent until she touched the folds
“You must put it on immediately, Lady Caissa,” Trin said in an awed whisper. “Only then will the spin live!” She stepped back to indicate that only Caissa could touch the length.
Caissa experienced ambivalent feelings of reluctance and desire for an acquisition that she had never anticipated. With shaking hands, she put the box down and lifted out the delicate length of coelura spin. She glanced questioningly at the old dresser.
“Wrap it about your body. It will fit itself,” said Trin.
Caissa obeyed and suddenly the fabric was alive with shimmering color, smoothly creeping across her breasts and shoulders, snugging into her waist and down her hips to lap about her legs.
“Be ceremonial, Lady Caissa,” whispered Trin, her hands clasped tightly under her chin, her eyes enormous with delight in her grey face.
Regally, Caissa lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and pulled in her diaphragm, realizing for a fleeting miserable second that she copied that movement from her sire. Red spilled through the fabric and it ceased to cling to her legs but fell in graceful drapes to the floor. Then the color settled to echo the pattern of her heir-tattoo Caissa, with an arrogant expression, moved across the floor in the haughty gliding pace that she had been trained to assume for the greater ceremonials. So she would walk tomorrow. And in this robe!
She could not maintain that cold imperiousness for long, not with the exultation she felt. Laughing uninhibitedly, she started to twirl in gladness, revelling in the comfort of the coelura against her bare skin. The fabric responded to her mood in pulsing reds and purples, shot with cerulean blues, breaking into spontaneous patterns as her steps fell into different dance modes. She exercised a hundred while Trin laughed and applauded until, exhausted by her excess, Caissa collapsed on her bed. Now the gown sobered and lovingly warmed her.
“You’d best sleep in it tonight, Lady Caissa, so that it knows you, or tomorrow…” Trin’s expression was solemn. “If the Triads should learn that you’ve received a coelura robe… Oh, I don’t know what I should do, my lady!” Trin’s hands pressed against her mouth in fear.
“No one will know, Trin. And they couldn’t take it from me if they did know,” replied Caissa staunchly. She hugged herself and coelura lapped protectingly over her forearms. “They can never take it from me!”
“Yes, the gown would die with you, my lady, but I wouldn’t want things to get that far,” cried Trin.
“How long have you known about coelura, Trin?” Caissa suddenly thought to ask.
“Oh, dressers like me, we’ve always known about coelura. I never thought to see it in my lifetime.” Trin shook her head slowly in wonder. “Tomorrow, when your sire signs that contract, you’ll outshine everyone else!” That prospect seemed to offer Trin tremendous satisfaction.