Making it through today in one piece was her very first aim, so Iolanthe bent and breathed in the fumes heavily. The bishop pulled the bowl away after a moment and covered it again, then steadied Io with one hand. “All right, child?”
“I think so.”
“It’ll make you a little light-headed. Nothing awful, it’s just like being slightly drunk. You’ll have to be careful where you step and what you say.”
“Oh.”
“It’s better than collapsing at the altar and being sick for weeks.”
Tell me that again, she thought, if I do anything to disgrace myself in front of the entire City.
“Lend me your arm, please, Father.”
“Certainly, daughter.”
“They’re almost ready,” said Tealeaf, excited. She peered down at the procession of brightly colored priests and aristos. Up at the approach to the altar stood the best man and several of the groom’s wedding party; down by the vestibule entrance were a flock of women in trailing gowns. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
The Salamander had a thoughtful crease in the center of his forehead. He said, “I think I should follow Spider when he leaves. Maybe I’ll find his sleeping compartment. We could take him in the night.”
She glared at him, annoyed that he would break the drama. “How will you find him in the crowd when the church empties?” she snapped. “You might as well try to find a flea turd on Mercati Boulevard.”
“I can do whatever I want,” said the Salamander quietly. He gave her a look from under his heavy-lidded eyes and she recalled that he was, after all, crazy as a loon, and decided to say no more.
Because it was an out-City marriage there was a symbolic capture-element to the ceremony; Adrian had to go down the aisle, take her from the vestibule, and escort her the neverending length of the cathedral to the front.
The priests’ drugs had an unexpected benefit: She was too busy concentrating on her feet to pay attention to the rows of eyes all staring at her.
In Nemiah Circus, Mrs. Hastings turned to her friend Mrs. Cathcart and said, “Oh, doesn’t she look like a proper bride! So modest, but that darling smile.” Mrs. Cathcart agreed, and Mrs. Hastings added, “I’ll have to ask my Stratton, when he comes, if he had a better view of her face.”
Mrs. Cathcart sighed. It was the tenth time she’d mentioned Spider in an hour.
Braziers around the church had been filled with Sacred Breath, and now deacons went among the rows lighting them. The smoke from the drugs began rising into the enormous space of St. Tom’s. Much of it reached the congregation in a highly diluted form, just enough to make acceptance of the pure Curosa sacrament more physically palatable. One larger brazier, however, was underneath the fresco of Archangel Michael Pointing the Way from Earth, a marvelous thing with the blue-and-white globe in the background, the City of Opal twinkling nearby in space, and die blue-and-white angel’s wings brushing the length of the picture. Michael’s form was the entire left third of the painting; he wore steely blue armor, had red-gold curls, and was pointing sternly into deep space. One foot was crushing a viper (how this was to be done against the vacuum of space was a thing generations of children had wondered) and the other touched the bottom of the frame, where Tealeaf and the Salamander sat on their ledge breathing in the priests’ drugs at nearly full strength.
Adrian and Iolanthe were met by Bishop Kalend at the bottom step of the altar. He wore his orphrey now, bordered in roses and cups and thorns. “What is your wish, my children?” he declaimed, giving the question that was asked at the beginning of all Redemptionist sacraments.
“Happiness,” they said together. That was the answer when the sacrament in question was marriage, and Iolanthe thought it was wishful thinking on the part of the Church.
Meanwhile Will Stockton had reached Hartley Quince’s quarters and stationed himself where he could watch the door. It would be a shame, he thought, if Hart had already left and he missed the wedding for nothing; but Hart was a deliberate soul, the sort who—if he did plan on going anywhere—would most likely wait till he was sure everybody was safe in church.
And so it was. Hartley Quince emerged fifteen minutes later, minus his officer’s jacket and his new deacon’s pin, in a plain green aristo cape and white breeches and boots. He was carrying a small box.
At once several possibilities ran through Will’s head, none of them credible to him. Drug-selling? Instructions or payment for agents? Hart did not take obvious risks.
Will followed, very, very carefully, as his quarry strolled, touristlike, through the residential corridors and the parkland and boarded the Mercati Boulevard-bound train at the edge of court territory. Will sat two cars behind and checked the windows at each stop.
It was a Sunday, as well as Adrian’s wedding, and there were few people aboard. Hart left the train at D deck in St. Anne section and took a freight lift; that nearly did Will in, but he knew there was a connecting train stop on H and his guess proved right when he emerged from his own lift and saw Hart farther down the platform.
They ended up in Helium Park. Will just managed to keep sight of him through the trees. The huge park was nearly deserted; it was patronized mainly by the upperdecks, who were all either in St. Tom’s or home where no one could see that they hadn’t gotten an invitation. Practically every other citizen who didn’t have a work-shift had made their way to Nemiah Circus or one of the other transmit screens that was showing the wedding.
Will heard the scrunch of a twig under his boot as the only human-made sound for miles. Alone in the universe with nobody but Hartley Quince. There was a thought to engender true paranoia.
Hart stopped at the edge of the stream that led to
