There was no reply.
Oreb, Silk decided, was openly ignoring him. 'I have a broken ankle,' he told the bird happily. 'And a stiff arm - Master Xiphias thought I was left-handed, did I tell you about that? And a sore belly, and a fine big black- and-blue mark on my chest where Musk hit me with the pommel of his knife.' He arranged three small splits on top of the blazing, snapping twigs. 'But I don't care one bit. It's Molpsday, marvelous Molpsday, and I feel marvelous. If you're going to be my pet, so must you, Oreb.' He clanged shut the firebox and set his shaving water on the stove.
'Fish heads?'
'No fish heads. There hasn't been time for fish heads, but I believe there might be a nice pear left. Do you like pears?'
'Like pears.'
'So do I, so it's share and share alike.' Fishing out of the sink the knife he had used to slice his tomatoes, he wiped the blade (noticing with a pang of guilt that it was beginning to rust) and whacked the pear in half, then bit into his share, drained the sink, pumped more water, and splashed his face, neck, and hair. 'Wouldn't you like to join us for morning prayers, Oreb? You don't have to, but I have the feeling it might be good for you.' Picturing Maytera Rose's reaction to the bird he laughed. 'It would be good for me, too, in all likelihood.'
'Bird sleep.'
'Not until you've finished your pear, I trust. If it's still here when I get back, I'll eat it myself.'
Oreb fluttered down to the tabletop. 'Eat now.' 'Very wise,' Silk commended him, and took another bite from his half, thinking first of his dream-it had been a remarkable dream, from what he remembered of it - then of the yellowish surgical catgut lacing Mucor's scalp. Had he seen that, or merely dreamed it? And then of Crane who was a doctor too, and had almost certainly implanted the homed cats in the mad girl's womb, doubtless two or even three at a time.
Upstairs, while he lathered and scraped, he remembered what Chenille had said about getting enough money from Crane to save the manteion. Ordinarily he would have discarded any suggestion as wild as that summarily, but Chenille was not Chenille-or at least, not Chenille solely-and no matter what she might say, there was no point in deceiving himself about that, though politeness, apparently, demanded a pretense. He had begged Comely Kypris to return, but she had done him one better: she had never left-or rather, merely left the Sacred Window to possess Chenille.
It was a great honor for Chenille, to be sure. For a moment he envied her. He himself had been enlightened by the Outsider, however, and that was a greater honor still. After that, he should never envy anyone else anything at all. Kypris was the whores' goddess. Had Chenille been a good whore? And was she being rewarded for it? She-or rather, the goddess-or perhaps both-had said she would not go back to Orchid's.
He wiped and dried his razor and inspected his face in the mirror.
Did that mean, perhaps, that Kypris loved them without loving what they did? It was an inspiring thought, and very possibly a correct one. He did not know nearly as much as he urgently needed to know about Kypris, just as he remained lamentably ignorant of the Outsider, though the Outsider had showed him so very much and Kypris had revealed something of herself last night-her relations with Pas, particularly.
Silk toweled his face and turned to the wardrobe for a clean tunic, recalling as he did that Patera Remora had as much as ordered him to buy himself new clothes. With the cards left from Orpine's rites, there should be no trouble about that.
Hyacinth had held his tunic for him, had helped him put it back on despite his injured arm. He found that instead of running downstairs to join the sibyls in the manteion he was sitting on his bed again with his head in his hands, his head swimming with thoughts of Hyacinth. How beautiful she had been, and how kind! How wonderful, sitting beside him as they drove to the grave. He would have to die-all men died-and so would she; but they need not die alone. With a slight shock he realized that his dream had been no idle phantom of the night but had been sent by a god, no doubt by Hierax, who had figured in it (that in itself was a nearly determinative signature) with Orpine's white spirit in his hands.
Filled with joy again, Silk stood and snatched a clean tunic from the wardrobe. Blood had called his bird Hierax, a deliberate blasphemy. He, Silk, had killed that bird, or at least had fought against it and caused its death. Hierax therefore had favored him-indeed, Hierax had been favoring him ever since, not only by sending him a dream filled with the god's symbols, but by giving him Orpine's very profitable rites. No one could say Hierax had been ungrateful!
The robe he had worn the day before was soiled now, and badly spotted with dried blood; but there was no clean robe with which to replace it. He got out his clothes brush and whaled away, making the dust fly.
Men and women, made of mud (originally by the Outsider, according to one somewhat doubtful passage in the Writings) turned to dust at last. Fell to dust only too quickly, in all truth. The same sober thought had crossed his mind toward the close of Orpine's rites, as he had been driving the screws to fasten the lid of Orpine's casket.
And Chenille had interrupted him, rising like - like . . . The comparison slipped away. He tried to recreate the scene in his mind. Chenille, taller than many men, with tightly curled fiery hair, big bones, flat cheeks, and large breasts, wooden yet twitching in her plain blue gown.
No. It had been a black gown, as was proper. Had she been wearing blue when he had seen her first, at Orpine's? No, green. Almost certainly green.
Horn's toy! That was it. He had never seen it. (He brushed harder than ever.) But he had seen toys like it, jointed figures worked with four strings on a wooden cross. Horn's had worn a painted blue coat, and Chenille had, at first, moved like such a toy, as if the goddess had not yet learned to work her strings well. She had talked no better than Oreb.
Was it possible that even a goddess had to learn to do new things? That was a fresh thought indeed.
But goddesses learned quickly, it seemed; by the time Patera Remora had arrived she had been able to throw Musk's knife better than Musk himself. Musk, who last night had given him a scant week in which to redeem the manteion. The manteion might not be worth preserving, but the Outsider had told him to save it, so save it he must.
Now here was the pinch at last. What was he going to do today? Because there was no time to waste, none at all. He must get more time from Blood today-somehow-or acquire most or all of that enormous sum.
Pie slapped his trousers pocket. Hyacinth's needler was still there. Kneeling, he pulled the cashbox from beneath his bed, unlocked it, and took out the azoth; with the azoth under his tunic he relocked the cashbox, replaced the key, and returned the empty box to its hiding place.
'Sabered Sphigx,' he murmured, 'remember your servants, who live or die by the sword.' It was a Guardsman's prayer, but it seemed to him that it suited him at least as well.
Chenille was waiting in the garden when Silk, preceded by Maytera Rose and followed by Maytera Marble and little Maytera Mint, emerged from the side door of the manteion. Oreb called, 'Good Silk!' from her shoulder and hopped over to perch on his; but Maytera Rose's back was to him, so that he missed her expression-if in fact she had noticed the living bird.
Maytera Marble said, 'I thought of inviting you to join us, Chenille, but you were sleeping so soundly. . . .'
Chenille smiled. 'I'm glad you didn't, Maytera. I was terribly tired. I peeked in on you later, though. I hope you didn't see me.'
'Did you really?' Maytera Marble smiled in return, her face lifted and her head cocked slightly to the right. 'You should have joined us then. It would have been all right.'
'I had Oreb, and he was frightened. You had reached the anamnesis, anyway.'
Silk nodded to himself. There was nothing of Kypris in Chenille's face now, and the already-hot sunshine was cruel to it; but Chenille would not know that term. He said, 'I hope that Chenille wasn't too much of a bother to you last night, Maytera?'
'No, no. None at all. None. But you'll have to excuse me now. The children will be arriving before long. I have to unlock, and look over the lesson.'
As they watched her hurry away, Chenille said, 'I make her nervous, I'm afraid. She'd like to like me, but she's afraid I've corrupted you.'
'You make me nervous, too, Chenille,' Silk admitted. As he spoke, both of them noticed Maytera Mint,
