along the lakeshore, I understand; and I have been thinking that it would be a meritorious act for Commissioner Simuliid-or anyone-to erect an appropriate shrine to our Patroness on such a spot. Something tasteful, and not too small. The Commissioner may quite possibly have been thinking the same thing, from all that I know of him.'
'Are you sure he wasn't offering to repair it, Patera? Or build an addition? Something like that? Scylla's got a beautiful shrine near here already, and some very important people from the city often go out there to, you know, think things over.'
Silk snapped his fingers. 'An addition! An attached aedicule for the practice of hydromancy. Why, of course! Even I ought to have realized-'
Oreb croaked, 'No cut?'
'Not you, in any event,' Silk told him. 'Where is this shrine, my daughter?'
'Where-?' Suddenly the woman's face was wreathed in smiles. 'Why, that's what Commissioner Simuliid wanted, I remember now. A map. How to get there, really. We don't have any maps that show the shrine, there's some sort of a regulation, but you don't need one. All you have to do is follow the Pilgrims' Way, I told him. West around the bay, then south up onto the promontory. It's quite a climb, but if you just go from one white stone to the next, you can't possibly miss it.' The woman got out a map. 'It's not on here, but I can show you. The blue is the lake, and these black lines are for Limna. Do you see Shore Street?
The shrine's right where I'm pointing, see? And this is where the Pilgrims' Way goes up the cliffs. Are you going to go up there yourself, Patera?'
'At the first opportunity,' Silk told her. Simuliid had made the pilgrimage; that seemed practically certain. The question was whether Crane had followed him.
'And I thank you very much indeed, my daughter. You've been extremely helpful. Did you say that even councillors go there to meditate sometimes? An acquaintance of mine, Doctor Crane-you may know him; I believe he must spend a good deal of time out here at the lake-'
The woman shook her head. 'Oh, no, Patera. They're too old, I think.'
'Doctor Crane may have misinformed me, then. I thought he had gotten his information here, most likely from you. A small man with a short gray beard?'
She shook her head. 'I don't think he's been in here, Patera. But I don't think the councillors really come. He was probably thinking of commissioners. We've had several of them, and judges and so on, and sometimes they want to go in a boat, only we have to tell them they can't. It's up on a cliff, and there's no path up from the water. You have to follow the Pilgrims' Way. You can't even ride, because of where there's steps cut into the rock. I suppose that must be why the councillors don't come, too. I've never seen a councillor.'
Neither had he, Silk reflected as he left the Juzgado. Had anyone? He had seen their pictures-there had been a group portrait in the Juzgado, in fact-and Silk had seen the pictures so often that until he had actually considered it he had supposed that he had at some time or other seen the councillors themselves. But he had not, and could not recall having met anyone who had.
Simuliid had, however; or at least he had told Chenille he had. Not, presumably, at the shrine of Scylla, since the councillors never went there. In one of the eating places, perhaps, or on a boat.
'No cut?' Oreb wanted more reassurance.
'Absolutely not. A shrine isn't really the best place for sacrifice, anyway, although it's often done. A properly instructed person, such as myself, is more apt to visit a shrine to meditate or do a little religious reading.'
Various political figures from the city often went to this lake slirine ofScylla's, according to the woman in the Juzgado. It seemed odd-politicians might make a show of belief, but he had never heard of one who seemed to have any genuine depth of religious feeling. The Prolocutor had little influence in the governance of the city these days, according to everyone except Remora.
Yet either Auk or Chenille-it had been Auk, surely- had called Simuliid, whom he had known by sight, ox- weight or something of that sort. Had implied, at any rate, that he was a large and very heavy man. Yet Simuliid had made a pilgrimage to this shrine of Scylla's (or so it appeared) on foot, after the hot weather had begun. It seemed improbable in the extreme, particularly since he could not have met the councillors there.
Silk massaged his cheek as he walked, gazing idly into shop windows. It was quite conceivable that Commissioner Simuliid's boast to Chenille had been nothing more than a vainglorious lie, in which case Chenille had not earned her five cards, and any time that Crane might have spent here had been wasted.
But whether Crane had wasted his time or not, he did not appear to have traced Simuliid through Limna's Juzgado, as he himself had. It might even be that Crane had not traced him at all.
'Something's very wrong here, Oreb. We've a rat in the wainscotting, if you know what I mean.'
'No boat?'
'No boat, no doctor, and no councillors. No money. No manteion. No ability, either-not a speck of whatever it was that the Outsider thought he saw in me.' Although the immortal gods, as reason taught and the Writings confirmed, did not 'think' that they saw things. Not really. Gods knew.
With no special purpose in mind, he had been strolling west along Shore Street. Now he found it obstructed by a . sizable boulder, painted white and crudely carved with the many-tentacled image of Scylla.
He crossed to the center of the street to examine the image more closely and discovered a rhyming prayer beneath it. Tracing the sign of addition in the air, he appealed to Scylla for help (citing her city's need for the manteion and apologizing for his impetuosity in rushing off to the lake with so little reason to believe that there was anything to be gained) before reciting the prayer, somewhat amused to find that the great goddess's features, as depicted on the boulder, bore a chance resemblance to those of the helpful woman in the Juzgado.
Members of the Ayuntamiento never visited the shrine, she had said, though commissioners came quite often. Did she herself visit the shrine with any frequency, and thus see who came and who did not? Almost certainly not, Silk decided.
With a start, he realized that half a dozen passersby stood watching him as he prayed with head bowed before the image; when he turned away, a stocky man about his own age excused himself and asked whether he intended to make the pilgrimage to the shrine.
'That was one of the points on which I begged for the goddess's guidance,' Silk explained. 'I told a good woman only a few minutes ago that I would go as soon as I had the opportunity. It was a rash promise, of course, because it can be very difficult to judge what 'opportunity' signifies. I have business here today, and so may be said to have none; but there is a remote chance that a pilgrimage to the shrine would further it. If that is so, I am clearly bound.'
A woman of about the same age said, 'You shouldn't even think of it, Patera. Not when it's this hot.'
'Good girl!' Oreb muttered.
'This is my wife, Chervil,' the stocky man told Silk. 'My name's Coypu, and we've made the pilgrimage twice.' Silk started to speak, but Coypu waved it away. 'That place over there has cold drinks. If you hike up to the shrine today, you'll need all the wet stuff you can hold, and we'd like to buy you something. But if you'll let us, and listen to us, you probably won't go at all.'
'Thirsty!'
Chervil laughed, and Silk said, 'Be quiet, Oreb. So am I for that matter.'
It was mercifully cool inside, and to Silk, stepping in from the sunlight, it seemed very dark. 'They have beer, fruit juices-even coconut milk, if you haven't tried that- and spring water,' Coypu told him. 'Order whatever you like.'
To the waiter who appeared as soon as they sat down, he said, 'My wife will have the bitter orange, and I'll take whatever kind of beer's been in your cistern the longest.'
He turned to Silk. 'And you, Patera? Anything that you want.'
'Spring water, please. Two glasses would be nice.'
'We saw your picture on a fence,' Chervil told him. 'It can't have been more than five minutes ago-an augur with a bird on his shoulder, quite artistically rendered in chalk and charcoal. Over your head the artist had written, 'Silk is here!' And yesterday, back in the city, we saw 'Silk for Calde.' '
He nodded grimly. 'I haven't seen the picture with the bird you mentioned, but I believe that I can guess who drew it. If so, I must have a word with her.'
The waiter set three moisture-beaded bottles-yellow, brown, and clear-on their table, with four glasses, and marked their score on a small slate.
Coypu fingered the brown bottle and smiled. 'There's always a crowd on Scylsday, and everything's pretty
