the memories away as he limped along the graveled path, the
captain behind him and five troopers behind the captain, passing the
dying fig in whose shadow the animals that were to die for Orpine's
spirit had rested, the arbor in which he had spoken to Kypris and
chatted with Maytera Marble, her garden and his own blackberries
and wilting tomato vines, all in less time than his mind required to
recognize and love them.
'Leave your men outside, Captain. They can rest in the shade of
the tree beside the gate if they like.' Were they doomed, too? From
the deck of the floater he had talked of Sphigx; and those who
perished in battle were accounted her sacrifices, just as those struck
by lightning were said to have been offered to Pas.
The kitchen was exactly as he recalled it; if Gulo had eaten since
moving into the manse, he had not done it here. Oreb's water cup
still stood on the kitchen table beside the ball snatched from Horn.
'If it hadn't happened, the big boys would have won,' he murmured.
'I beg pardon, My Calde?'
'Pay no attention--I was talking to myself.' Refusing the captain's
offer of help, he toiled at the pump handle until he could splash his
face and disorderly yellow hair with cold water that he could not
help imagining smelled of the tunnels, soap and rinse them, and rub
them dry with a dish towel.
'You'll want to wash up a bit, too, Captain. Please do so while I
change upstairs.'
The stair was steeper than he remembered; the manse, which he
had always thought small, smaller than ever. Seated on the bed that
he had left unmade on Molpseday morning, he lashed its wrinkled
sheets with Doctor Crane's wrapping.
He had told the crowd he would burn his tunic and loose brown
trousers, but although soaked and muddy they were still practically
new, and of excellent quality; washed, they might clothe some poor
man for a year or more. He pulled the tunic off and tossed it into the
hamper.
The azoth he had filched from Hyacinth's boudoir was in the
waistband of the trousers. He pressed it to his lips and carried it to
the window to examine it again. It had never been Hyacinth's, from
what Crane had told him; Crane had merely had her keep it, feeling
that her rooms were less likely to be searched than his own. Crane
himself had received it from an unnamed Idlanum in Trivigaunte
who had intended it as a gift for Blood. Was it Blood's, then? If so,
it must be turned over to Blood without fail. There must be no more
theft from Blood; he had gone too far in that direction on Phaesday.
On the other hand, if Crane had been authorized to dispose of it
(as it seemed he had), it was his, since Crane had given it to him as
Crane lay dying. It might be sold for thousands of cards and the
money put to good use--but a moment's self-examination convinced
him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to
it.
Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him
standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other,
and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined
Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon
worth a company of the Civil Guard--the weapon with which he had
slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him
with when he would not lie with her.
Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make
him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he
recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him
by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night
for a few cards--that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of
some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower.
He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions.
So he had been taught.
An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for.
An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had
already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought
Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought
Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with
its bolted doors and barred windows?
He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his
beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even
than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their
color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that
augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on
the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it
made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains
that could not be washed out.
His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked,
followed them into the hamper.
Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there
was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity
toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such
as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better
than the people they represented before the gods and still represent
them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes
of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.
Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As
be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty
of coquetry, she simpered, 'This isn't the first time I've seen you
with no clothes on.'
He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was
not there.
'I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were
going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother
you any more.'
By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts
from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. 'I wasn't.
I hoped that I wouldn't have to.'
From beyond the bedroom door: '_My Calde?_'
