realized that she could see only one in this one. Her mind groped
frantically for a second interpretation.
'The first seems so clear that I feel foolish explaining it, though it
is my duty to explain it. All of you have seen it already, I'm sure. A
part, two parts as the Chrasmologic writer would have it, of our dear
Maytera Rose has perished. We must not forget that it was the baser
part, the part that neither she nor we had reason to value. The
better part, the part beloved by the gods and by us who knew her,
will never perish. This, then, is the message for those who mourn
her. For my dear sib and me, particularly.'
Help me! Hierax, Kypris, Sphigx, please help!
She had touched the sword of the officer who had come to arrest
Silk; her hand itched for it, and something deep within her, denied
until this moment, scanned the crowd.
'I see a man with a sword.' She did not, but there were scores of
such men. 'A fine one. Will you come forward, sir? Will you lend
me your sword? It will be for only a moment.'
A swaggering bully who presumably believed that she had been
addressing him shouldered a path through the crowd. It was a
hunting sword, almost certainly stolen, with a shell guard, a stag
grip, and a sweeping double-edged blade.
'Thank you.' She held it up, the polished steel dazzling in the hot
sunshine. 'Today is Hieraxday. It is a fitting day for final rites. I
think it's a measure of the regard in which the gods held Maytera
Rose that her eyes were darkened on a Tarsday, and that her last
sacrifice takes place on Hieraxday. But what of us? Don't the
Writings speak to us, too? Isn't it Hieraxday for us, as well as for
Maytera? We know they do. We know it is.
'You see this sword?' The denied self spoke through her, so that
she--the little Maytera Mint who had, for so many years, thought
herself the only Maytera Mint--listened with as much amazement as
the crowd, as ignorant as they of what her next word might be. 'You
carry these, many of you. And knives and needlers, and those little
lead clubs that nobody sees that strike so hard. And only Hierax
himself knows what else. But are you ready to pay the price?'
She brandished the hunting sword above her head. There was a
white stallion among the victims; a flash of the blade or some note in
her voice made him rear and paw the air, catching his presenter by
surprise and lifting him off his feet.
'For the price is death. Not death thirty or forty years from now,
but death now! Death today! These things say, _I will not cower to
you! Jam no slave, no ox to be led to the butcher! Wrong me, wrong
the gods, and you die! For I fear not death or you!_'
The roar of the crowd seemed to shake the street.
'So say the Writings to us, friends, at this manteion. That is the
second meaning.' Maytera Mint returned the sword to its owner.
'Thank you, sir. It's a beautiful weapon.'
He bowed. 'It's yours anytime you need it, Maytera, and a hard
hand to hold it.'
At the altar, Maytera Marble had poised the shallow bowl of
polished brass that caught falling light from the sun. A curl of smoke
arose from the splintered cedar, and as Maytera Mint watched, the
first pale, almost invisible flame.
Holding up her long skirt, she trotted down the steps to face the
Sacred Window with outstretched arms. 'Accept, all you gods, the
sacrifice of this holy sibyl. Though our hearts are torn, we, her
siblings and her friends, consent. But speak to us, we beg, of times
to come, hers as well as ours. What are we to do? Your lightest word
will be treasured.'
Maytera Mint's mind went blank--a dramatic pause until she
recalled the sense, though not the sanctioned wording, of the rest of
the invocation. 'If it is not your will to speak. we consent to that,
too.' Her arms fell to her sides.
From her place beside the altar, Maytera Marble signaled the first
presenter.
'This fine white he-goat is presented to...' Once again, Maytera
Mint's memory failed her.
'Kypris,' Maytera Marble supplied.
To Kypris, of course. The first three sacrifices were all for Kypris.
who had electrified the city by her theophany on Scylsday. But what
was the name of the presenter?
Maytera Mint looked toward Maytera Marble, but Maytera
Marble was, strangely, waving to someone in the crowd.
'To Captivating Kypris, goddess of love, by her devout
supplicant--?'
'Bream,' the presenter said.
'By her devout supplicant Bream.' It had come at last, the
moment she had dreaded most of all. 'Please, Maytera, if you'd do
it, please...?' But the sacrificial knife was in her hand, and
Maytera Marble raising the ancient wail, metal limbs slapping the
heavy bombazine of her habit as she danced.
He-goats were supposed to be contumacious, and this one had
long, curved horns that looked dangerous; yet it stood as quietly as
any sheep, regarding her through sleepy eyes. It had been a pet, no
doubt, or had been raised like one.
Maytera Marble knelt beside it, the earthenware chalice that had
been the best the manteion could afford beneath its neck.
I'll shut my eyes, Maytera Mint promised herself, and did not.
The blade slipped into the white goat's neck as easily as it might
have penetrated a bale of white straw. For one horrid moment the
goat stared at her, betrayed by the humans it had trusted all its life;
it bucked, spraying both sibyls with its lifeblood, stumbled, and
rolled onto its side.
'Beautiful,' Maytera Marble whispered. 'Why, Patera Pike
couldn't have done it better himself.'
Maytera Mint whispered back, 'I think I'm going to be sick,' and
Maytera Marble rose to splash the contents of her chalice onto the
fire roaring on the altar, as Maytera Mint herself had so often.
The head first, with its impotent horns. Find the joint between the
