the air.”
“That line of dark? It goes halfway to the sky.” Agia laughed again, but Dorcas pressed herself against me. “I am afraid, Severian.”
Agia heard her. “Of the Wall? It won't hurt you unless it falls on you, and it has stood through a dozen ages.” I looked questioningly at her, and she added,
“At least it looks that old, and it may be older. Who knows?”
“It could wall out the world. Does it stretch completely around the city?”
“By definition. The city is what is enclosed, though there's open country to the north, so I've heard, and leagues and leagues of ruins in the south, where no one lives. But now, look between those poplars. Do you see the inn?” I did not, and said so.
“Under the tree. You've promised me a meal, and that's where I want it. We should just have time to eat before you have to meet the Septentrion.”
“Not now,” I said. “I'll be happy to feed you when my duel is over. I'll make the arrangements now, if you like.” I could still find no building, but I had come to see that there was something strange about the tree: a stair of rustic wood twined up the trunk.
“Do so. If you're killed, I'll invite the Septentrion — or if he won't come, that broken sailor who is forever inviting me. We'll drink to you.” A light kindled high in the branches of the tree, and now I saw that a path led up to the stair. Before it, a painted sign showed a weeping woman dragging a bloody sword. A monstrously fat man in an apron stepped out of the shadow and stood beside it, rubbing his hands while he waited our coming. Faintly now, I could hear the clinking of pots.
“Abban at your command,” said the fat man when we reached him. “What is your wish?” I noticed he kept a nervous eye on my avern.
“We'll have dinner for two, to be served at...” I looked at Agia.
“The new watch.”
“Good, good. But it cannot be so soon, sieur. It will take longer to prepare. Unless you'll settle for cold meats, a salad, and a bottle of wine?” Agia looked impatient. “We'll have a roast fowl — a young one.”
“As you wish. I'll have the cook begin his preparations now, and you can amuse yourselves with baked stuff after the sieur's victory until the bird is done.” Agia nodded, and a look flashed between the two that made me feel certain they had met previously. “Meanwhile,” the innkeeper continued, “if you've yet time, I could provide a basin of warm water and a sponge for this other young lady, and perhaps you might all enjoy a glass of Medoc and some biscuits?” I was suddenly conscious of having fasted since my breakfast at dawn with Baldanders and Dr. Talos, and conscious too that Agia and Dorcas might have had nothing all day. When I nodded, the innkeeper conducted us up the broad, rustic stair; the trunk it circled was a full ten paces around.
“Have you visited us before, sieur?”
I shook my head. “I was about to ask you what manner of inn this is. I've never seen anything like it.”
“Nor will you, sieur, except here. But you ought to have come before — we keep a famous kitchen, and dining in the open air gives one the best appetite.” I thought that it must indeed if he maintained such a girth in a place where every room was reached by steps, but I kept the reflection to myself.
“The law, you see, sieur, forbids all buildings so near the Wall. We are permitted, having neither walls nor a roof. Those who attend the Sanguinary Field come here, the famous combatants and heroes, the spectators and physicians, even the ephors. Here's your chamber now.” It was a circular and perfectly level platform. Around and above it, pale green foliage shut out sight and sound. Agia sat in a canvas chair, and I (very tired, I confess) threw myself down beside Dorcas on a couch made of leather and the linked horns of lechwes and waterbucks. When I had laid the avern behind it, I drew Terminus Est and began to clean her blade. A scullion brought water and a sponge for Dorcas and, when she saw what I was doing, rags and oil for me. I was soon tapping at the pommel so I could strip the blade from its furniture for a real cleaning.
“Can't you wash yourself?” Agia asked Dorcas.
“I'd like a bath, yes, but not with you watching me.”
“Severian will turn his head if you ask him. He did very well in a place where we were this morning.”
“And you, madame,” Dorcas said softly. “I'd rather you didn't watch. I'd like a private place, if I might have one.”
Agia smiled at that, but I called the scullion again and gave her an orichalk to bring a folding screen. When it was set up, I told Dorcas I would buy her a gown if there were one to be had at the inn.
“No,” she said. In a whisper, I asked Agia what she thought was the matter with her.
“She likes what she has, clearly. I must walk with a hand up to hold my bodice if I wouldn't be shamed for life.” She let her hand fall, so that her high breasts gleamed in the dying sunlight. “But those rags let her show lust leg and chest enough. There's a rent at the groin too, though I dare say you haven't noticed it.”
The innkeeper interrupted us, leading in a waiter who carried a plate of pastries, a bottle, and glasses. I explained that my clothing was wet, and he had a brazier brought in — then proceeded to warm himself by it, for all the world as if he stood in his private apartment. “Feels good, this time of year,” he said. “The sun's dead and don't know it yet, but we do. If you're killed, you'll get to miss next winter, and if you're hurt bad, you'll get to stay inside. That's what I always tell them. Of course, most of the fights are around midsummer's eve, so it's more appropriate then, so to speak. I don't know if it comforts them or not, but it does no harm.”
I took off the brown mantle and my guild cloak, put my boots on a stool near the brazier, and stood beside him to dry my breeches and hose, asking if all those who came this way on monomachy stopped to refresh themselves with him. Like every man who feels himself likely to die, I would have been happy to know that I was taking part in some established tradition.
“All? Oh, no,” he said. “May moderation and St. Amand bless you, sieur. If everyone who came tarried at my inn, why it wouldn't be my inn — I'd have sold it, and be living comfortable in a big, stone house with atroxes at the door and a few young fellows with knives hanging about me to settle my enemies. No, there's many a one goes by here without a glance, never thinking that when he comes past next time, it may be too late to drink my wine.
