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The next morning I did the house worship very early and then went down to both markets, not only to buy the food we needed but to see what was going on in the city. I thought everything would be changed, everybody would be ready for a great thing to happen, as I was. But nobody seemed ready for anything. Everything was just as always, people in the streets hurrying, not looking at one another, keeping out of trouble; Ald guards in blue cloaks swaggering at the corner of the marketplace; vendors in their stalls, children and old women bargaining and buying and creeping home on the byways. No tension, no excitement, nobody saying anything unusual. Only once I thought I heard somebody crossing the Customs Street bridge whistle a few notes of the tune of “Liberty.”
When Orrec and Chy set off for the Council House late in the afternoon they went on foot. They took Shetar, but not me. There was no reason to have a groom without a horse, and they were concerned that there might be danger. I was relieved. I didn’t want to face Simme, because every time I thought of him
But as soon as they were gone I knew I couldn’t stay at home. I couldn’t bear to sit in the house waiting. I had to be closer to the Council Hill, where they were. I had to be near them.
I dressed in mywomen’s clothes, with myhair done up in a knot instead of worn long like a child or a man, so that I was Memer the girl instead of Mem the groom or Nobody the boy. I wanted to wear myown clothes because I needed to be myself. Perhaps I had to put myself into a little danger, to feel that I was with them.
I walked along Galva Street quickly, not looking up, as women always walked, till I came to Goldsmiths’ Bridge over the Central Canal. The gold of Ansul had mostly gone to enrich Asudar; many of the shops on the bridge had long been closed, but some still sold cheap trinkets and worship-candles and such. I could go into one of the shops, out of the thoroughfare, and keep watch for myfriends.
Even though nothing had been going on in the markets, and there was no sign of any agitation here at the bridge nearest the Council Hill, and the two Ald foot soldiers on guard duty were lounging on the bridge steps playing dice, I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that something was happening or about to happen—a sense that some great thing overhead was bending and bending, about to break.
I stood in the shadow of a shop doorway. I’d talked a little with the old man who kept the shop, telling him I was waiting to meet a friend; he nodded knowingly and disapprovingly, but let me stay. Now he dozed behind his counter with its trays of wooden beads, glass bangles, and incense sticks. Not many people went byoutside. There was a little god-niche bythe door frame and I touched the sill of it now and then, whispering the blessing.
As if in a dream I saw a lion pace by,lashing its tail. I came out of the shop and fell into step with myfriends, who looked only mildly surprised. “I like your hair that way,” Gry said. She was dressed as Chy, but was no longer playing the role.
“Tell me what happened!”
“When we get home.”
“No, please, now.”
“All right,” Orrec said. We were on the steps at the north end of the bridge. He turned aside at the bottom, where a railed marble pavement projects out over the canal; from it a narrow flight of stairs leads down to a pier for boats and fishermen. We descended those steps to the canal bank, right under the bridge, out of sight of the street. The first thing we did was go down and touch the water, with a word of blessing for Sundis, the river that makes our four canals. Then we all squatted there, watching the brownish-green, half-transparent water run. It seemed to carry urgency away with it. But pretty soon I said, “So?”
“Well,” Gry said, “the Gand wanted to hear the story Orrec told in the market yesterday.”
“Adira and Marra?”
They both nodded.
“Did he like it?”
“Yes,” Orrec said. “He said he didn’t know we had warriors like that. But he particularly liked the Old Lord of Sul. He said, ‘There is the courage of the sword and the courage of the word, and the courage of the word is rarer.’ You know, I wish I knew some way to bring him and Sulter Galva together. They’re men who would understand each other.”
That would have offended me a few days earlier. Now it seemed right.
“And nothing unusual happened? He didn’t ask you to sing ‘Liberty,’ did he?”
Orrec laughed. “No. He didn’t. But there was a little commotion.”
“The priests started a chanting worship in the tent again, just when Orrec started reciting,” Gry said. “Loud. Drums. Lots of cymbals. Ioratth went black as a thundercloud. He asked Orrec to stop, and sent an officer into the tent. And the head priest came right out, all in red with mirrors, very gorgeous he was, but grim as death. He stood there and said the holy worship of the Burning God was not to be interrupted by vile heathen impieties. Ioratth said the ceremony of sacrifice was to be at sunset. The priest said the ceremony had begun. Ioratth said it was two hours yet till sunset. The priest said the ceremony had begun and would continue. So Ioratth said, ‘An impious priest is a scorpion in the kings slipper!’ And he sent for slaves and had a carpet set up on poles to make shade, by the arcade above the East Canal, and we all trooped over, and Orrec went on.”
“But Iorarth lost the round,” Orrec said. “The priests carried on with their sacrifice. Ioratth finally had to hurry over to the big tent so he wouldn’t miss the whole thing.”
“Priests are good at making people jump,” Gry said. “There’s a lot of priests in Bendraman. Bossing people about.”
“Well,” Orrec said, “they’re held in honor, and they perform important rites, so they get to meddling with morals and politics… Ioratth’s going to need support from his High Gand against this lot.”
“I think he sees you as support,” Gry said. “A way to begin making some kind of link with people here. I wonder if that’s why he sent for you.”
Orrec looked thoughtful, and sat thinking it over. A horse galloped by on the street high above us, with a loud, hard clackety-clackety of shod hoofs on stone. The sleek surface of the water ruffled and roiled out in the middle of the canal. The sea wind that had blown all day had died away, and this was the first breath of the land wind of evening. Shetar, who had lain down on the dirt, sat up and made a low singsong snarling noise. The fur along her spine was raised a little, making her look fluffy.
The water rippled against the lowest marble step and the pilings of the pier. There was a smoky tint in the fading, red-gold light on the wooded hills above the city. Everything down here by the water was peaceful, and yet it was as if a breath were being held, as if everything held still, poised. The lion stood up, tense, listening.
Again a horse galloped past, up on the bridge above us—more than one horse, a racket of hoofs, and the sound of running feet on the bridge, and shouting, both up there and in the distance. We were all afoot now, staring up at the marble railing and the backs of the houses on the bridge. “What’s going on?” Orrec said.
I said aloud not knowing what I said, “It’s breaking, it’s breaking.”
The shouting and yelling were directly above us now; horses neighed; there was trampling of feet, more shouting, scuffling. Orrec started up the stairs and stopped, seeing people at the marble railings, a crowd of people, fighting or struggling, yelling orders, screaming in panic. He ducked as something came hurtling over the railing, a huge dark thing that crashed onto the mud by the staircase with a heavy sodden thud. Heads appeared at the top of the stairs, men peering down, gesturing, shouting.
Orrec had leapt down off the stairs. He said, “Under the bridge!” We all four ran to hide under the low last arch of the bridge where it joined the shore, where the men on the bridge could not see us.
I saw the thing that had fallen. It was not huge. It was only a man. It lay like a heap of dirty clothes near the foot of the steps. I could not see the head.
No one came down the steps. The racket up on the bridge died suddenly, completely, though somewhere in the distance, up towards the Council House, there was a great, dull noise. Gry went to the fallen man and knelt by him, glancing up once or twice at the railing above her, from which she might be seen. She came back soon. Her
