On the other side of the gate she could see a street. In fact, she recognized it: Drapers' Way, leading to the long row of warehouses beside the mill-leet for the brass foundry. She hesitated.
'Can I go?' she said.
He smiled again. 'Of course.'
There was something scary about the gate; she could feel herself shying at it, like a nervous horse. The nice young man simply stood there, no trace of impatience, as though he was some kind of mechanical door-opening device cunningly made in the shape of a human being. If I close my eyes, she thought; if I close my eyes and run…
'Excuse me,' the nice young man said.
'Yes?'
He looked more than a little shy. 'I know I shouldn't ask this,' he said, 'but is it true? Are you really the ex- wife of Vaatzes the abominator?'
'Yes. Didn't you know that?'
He looked at her for a long time; like an engineer who sees a rival's secret prototype, and tries to memorize every detail of it, so he can go away and build a copy. 'Thank you for your time,' he said.
Later, she picked Moritsa up from school. She was in a sulk because she hadn't done well in her spinning test.
'Your own fault. You should've practiced, like I told you to.'
'I hate practicing. It's boring.'
She made Falier's dinner. There was the leftover mutton in the meat safe; she'd been saving it for the end of the week, but it didn't look like it'd keep till then. Leeks, barley and a few beans to go with it. The bread wasn't quite stale yet. When he got home, she asked him if anything had happened at work. He looked at her and said, 'No, should it have?' He was in one of his moods.
When he'd gone to bed, she sat in front of the fire, watching it burn down.
28
At least the Aram Chantat weren't vegetarians, as the late Duke Orsea had believed. On the contrary, if it moved (but not fast enough to escape) they ate it. Sand-grouse and quail weren't too bad, but the funny little birds they served up spit-roasted on arrow shafts just tasted of gristle and grit. She reckoned they were thrushes, but he inclined to the view that they were too small for that. Some kind of starling, was his guess.
And a wonderful improvement on nothing at all, no question about that. To begin with, the gratitude was so thick in the air, walking through the camp was like swimming in mud. There was so much to be grateful for: the Aram Chantat had saved them from the Mezentines, fed them, given them warm blankets for the freezing-cold nights, brought up ox-carts for them to ride in so they wouldn't have to walk the rest of the way across the desert; they'd bound up and dressed their wounds, cured their heatstroke and dysentery with revolting little drinks in tiny clay beakers, even buried the dead in an efficient and respectful manner. The one thing they didn't do was talk, if it could possibly be avoided; but nobody seemed to mind that, at least to start with.
They made an exception in Valens' case. When the convoy reached the edge of the desert (at least, they assumed that was what it was, because of the arrow-straight, deeply rutted road they came to, and the fact that the stunted thorn bushes were slightly closer together), they were met by a coach; an extraordinarily, breathtakingly ornate coach, that looked as though it was on fire until you got close enough to see that every square inch of it was covered in gold leaf. Looking at it hurt the eyes, so instead you gazed at the eight immaculately perfect milk-white horses, or the twenty escort riders, covered like their horses from head to foot in gilded scale armor, apparently unaware of the murderous heat. Out of the burning carriage came a prodigiously tall young man in a pure white robe and gold slippers. He approached the head of the column and snapped at the captain of the Aram Chantat escort, who murmured something back in a voice so soft that none of the Vadani could make out what he'd said. But the vision in white must've understood enough, because he walked slowly and directly to Valens, ignoring the existence of everybody else, and dipped his head in the slightest of bows.
'Duke Valens,' he said, in a perfect received-Mezentine accent. 'Perhaps you would care to come with me.'
It would have been a monstrous sin to deny this perfect creature anything. For some reason, none of the Vadani showed any inclination to go with him. Painfully aware of his filthy clothes and unshaven face, Valens nodded and followed, heading toward the glowing, blinding coach. When he was five yards away from it, two little girls in white smocks scuttled forward from the shadow of the wheels and unrolled a magnificent purple carpet, which the godlike man in white stepped on without looking down. A folding step evolved out of the side of the carriage; simultaneously, a cloth-of-gold awning leaned silently out over the coach door.
Well, Valens thought, I've seen worse. He put his foot on the step and climbed out of the penumbra of the gold fire into total darkness. He heard the door click precisely behind him.
'We have the honor of greeting our son-in-law,' said a tiny voice.
Not pitch dark after all; a faint gleam of light leaked out through a gold gauze lampshade surrounding a single small oil lamp. By its meager glow Valens could see a tiny, shriveled little man, completely bald, smooth forehead, cheeks gaunt as a corpse, thin lips, no more than seven teeth, wrapped up like a baby in a massive swathe of heavy white wool blankets. There were figures on either side of the little man, but all he could see of them were dim, bulging shapes.
The little man was waiting for a reply, but Valens couldn't think of anything to say. Someone cleared his throat, a short, clipped sound.
'I take it I have the privilege of addressing Duke Valens Valentinianus,' the little man said, in the most perfectly correct Mezentine accent Valens had ever heard. 'Allow me to offer my heartiest greetings, despite the tragic circumstances of this meeting.'
Son-in-law, he remembered. This exquisite maggot must be her father. He realized with a dull ache of horror that he couldn't remember her name.
'Pleased to meet you,' he mumbled. 'And thank you. I…'
Whatever he'd been intending to say, it didn't seem to want to clot into words. The little man raised a claw about an eighth of an inch. More would have been mere vulgar display.
'When your Major Nennius contacted our frontier patrol, they quite properly sent a messenger to inform us. He rode at top speed until his horse died under him; fortuitously, he was able to requisition another horse within a matter of minutes. He too died shortly after reaching us, but not before delivering his message. We came at once, not stopping to change our clothes or provision ourselves for the journey. We have driven without pause, stopping only to change horses. We are greatly relieved to have arrived here in time to greet you ourselves, instead of delegating such a momentous privilege to others. We are pleased that you have come, and await with trepidation your confirmation that our soldiers have served you adequately.'
Valens blinked. He had no idea what the little man was trying to say.
'They saved our lives,' he said. 'I'm very grateful.'
The claws came together in a silent clap. 'Excellent,' said the little man. 'Words cannot express my delight. And now we must have some tea.'
Something tinkled faintly, and from somewhere in the darkness a small gold tray appeared, held steady as a rock by two tiny pale hands. On it rested a little gold bowl, from which steam rose.
'For me?' Valens asked stupidly.
'If you would care for it,' the little man said.
It burned his mouth and tasted of slightly stale water. As soon as he put the cup back on the tray, it disappeared completely.
'Please sit.' Valens had forgotten he was standing. Pale hands, not the same ones that had produced the tea, put down a plain low white stool. It was made of bleached ivory, and proved to be as uncomfortable as it looked.
Deep breath. 'I'm very sorry,' Valens said, 'about your daughter.'
'My great-granddaughter.' The voice was small and precise as the point of a needle. 'All my children and
