“Speaking of which,” said Agia, and handed me a glass. It was full to the brim with a dark, crimson vintage. Not a good wine, perhaps — it made my tongue prickle, and carried with its delicious taste something of harshness. But a wonderful wine, a wine better than good, in the mouth of someone as fatigued and cold as I. Agia held a full glass of her own, but I saw by her flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes that she had already downed one other at least. I told her to save something for Dorcas, and she said, “That milk and water virgin? She won't drink it, and it's you who'll need courage — not she.” Not quite honestly, I said I was not afraid.
The innkeeper exclaimed, “That's the way! Don't you be feared, and don't fill your head with no noble thoughts about death and last days and all that. The ones that do is the ones that never come back, you may be sure. Now you was going to order a meal, I think, for you and your two young women afterward?”
“We have ordered it,” I said.
“Ordered, but not paid nothing toward, that was my meaning. Also there's the wine and these here gateaux secs. Those must be paid for here and now as they're eaten here and now, and drank up too. For the dinner I'll require a deposit of three orichalks, with two more to be paid when you come to eat it.”
“And if I don't come?”
“Then there's no more charge, sieur. That's how I'm able to offer my dinners at such low prices.”
The man's complete insensibility disarmed me; I handed over the money and he left us. Agia peeped around the side of the screen behind which Dorcas was cleansing herself with the aid of the scullion, and I sat down again on the couch and took a pastry to go with what remained of my wine.
“If we could make the hinges in this thing lock, Severian, we might enjoy ourselves for a few moments without interruption. We could put a chair against it, but no doubt those two would choose the worst possible moment to squall and knock everything over.”
I was about to make some bantering reply when I noticed a scrap of paper, folded many times, that had been put beneath the waiter's tray in such a fashion that it could be seen only by someone sitting where I was. “This is really too much,” I said. “A challenge, and now the mysterious note.” Agia came to look. “What are you talking about? Are you drunk already?” I put my hand on the rounded fullness of her hip, and when she made no objection, used that pleasant handle to draw her toward me until she could see the paper. “What do you suppose it says? ‘
Falling in with the joke, Agia offered, “ ‘
“I am looking.” Her torn bodice had fallen again.
“Not there. Cover that with your hand, and then you can look at the note.” I did as she told me, but left the note where it was. “It's really too much, as I said a moment ago. The mysterious Septentrion and his challenge, then Hildegrin, and now this. Have I mentioned the Chatelaine Thecla to you?”
“More than once, while we were walking.”
“I loved her. She read a great deal — there was really nothing for her to do when I was gone but read and sew and sleep — and when I was with her we used to laugh at the plots of some of the stories. This sort of thing was always happening to the people in them, and they were incessantly involved in high and melodramatic affairs for which they had no qualifications.” Agia laughed with me and kissed me again, a lingering kiss. When our lips parted, she said, “What's this about Hildegrin? He seemed ordinary enough.” I took another pastry, touched the note with it, then put a corner into her mouth. “Some time ago I saved the life of a man called Vodalus —” Agia pulled away from me, spewing crumbs. “Vodalus? You're joking!”
“Not at all. That's what his friend called him. I was still hardly more than a boy, but I held back the haft of an ax for a moment. The blow would have killed him, and he gave me a chrisos.”
“Wait. What has this to do with Hildegrin?”
“When I first saw Vodalus, he had a man and a woman with him. Enemies came upon them, and Vodalus remained behind to fight while the other man took the woman to safety.” (I had decided it was wiser to say nothing about the corpse, or my killing of the axman.)
“I'd have fought myself — then there'd have been three fighters instead of one. Go on.”
“Hildegrin was the man with Vodalus, that's all. If we had met him first, I would have had some idea, or thought I had some idea, of why a hipparch of the Septentrion Guard would want to fight me. And for that matter why someone has chosen to send me some sort of furtive message. You know, all the things the Chatelaine Thecla and I used to laugh about, spies and intrigue, masked trysts, lost heirs. What's the matter, Agia?”
“Do I revolt you? Am I so ugly?”
“You're beautiful, but you look as if you're about to be sick. I think you drank too fast.”
“Here.” A quick twist took Agia out of her pavonine gown; it lay about her brown, dusty feet like a heap of precious stones. I had seen her naked in the cathedral of the Pelerines, but now (whether because of the wine I had drunk or the wine she had drunk, because the light was dimmer now, or brighter, or only because she had been frightened and shamed then, covering her breasts and hiding her womanhood between her thighs) she drew me far more. I felt stupid with desire, thick-headed and thick-tongued as I pressed her warmth against my own cold flesh.
“Severian, wait. I'm not a strumpet, whatever you may think. But there's a price.”
“What?”
“You must promise me you won't read that note. Throw it into the brazier.” I let go of her and stepped back.
Tears appeared in her eyes, rising as springs do among rocks. “I wish you could see the way you're looking at me now, Severian. No, I don't know what it says. It's just that — have you never heard of some women having supernatural knowledge? Premonitions? Knowing things they could not possibly have learned?” The longing I had felt was nearly gone. I was frightened as well as angry, though I did not know why. I said, “We have a guild of such women, our sisters, in the Citadel. Neither their faces nor their bodies are like yours.”
