to look at our buildings. I showed him the palaestra and the manteion. I’m quite sure he didn’t get into the cenoby or the manse, but he looked at everything from the outside.”
“He said the sale was complete?”
She nodded.
“You’re right, Maytera. This sounds very bad.”
“He’d come in a floater, with a man to operate it for him. I saw it when we were going from the palaestra to the manteion. We went out the front, and along Sun Street past the ball court. He said he’d talked to you before he came here, but he hadn’t told you he’d bought it. He said he’d thought you’d make trouble.”
Silk nodded slowly. “I’d have hauled him out of his floater and broken his neck, I think, Maytera. Or at least I would have tried to.”
She touched his knee. “That would have been wrong, Patera. You’d go to the Alambrera, and into the pits.”
“Which wouldn’t matter,” Silk said. “His name’s Blood, perhaps he told you.”
“Possibly he did.” Maytera Marble’s rapid scan seldom functioned now; she fell silent as she searched past files, then said, “It’s not a common name at all, you know. People think it’s unlucky. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a single boy called Blood.”
Silk stroked his cheek, his eyes thoughtful. “Have you heard of him, Maytera? I haven’t, but he must be a wealthy man to have a private floater.”
“I don’t think so. If the sale is complete, Patera, what can you do?”
“I don’t know.” Silk rose as he had before. A step carried him out of the arbor. A few drops of rain still fell through sunshine that seemed bright, though the shade had more than half covered the sun. “The market will be closing soon,” he said.
“Yes.” Maytera Marble joined him.
The skylands, which had been nearly invisible earlier, could be seen distinctly as dawn spread across them: distant forests, said to be enchanted, and distant cities, said to be haunted—subtle influences for good or ill, governing the lives of those below. “He’s not a foreigner,” Silk said, “or at least he doesn’t talk like any foreigner I’ve ever met. He sounded as though he might have come from this quarter, actually.”
Maytera Marble nodded. “I noticed that myself.”
“There aren’t many ways for our people here to become rich, are there, Maytera? I wouldn’t think so, at least.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“It doesn’t matter. You wanted me to speak with this man Auk. On a Scylsday, you said; but there are always a dozen people waiting to talk to me then. Where do you think I might find Auk today?”
“Why, I have no idea. Could you go and see him this evening, Patera? That would be wonderful! Maytera Mint might know.”
Silk nodded. “You said that she was in the manteion, waiting for the fire to die. Go in and ask her, please, while you’re helping her purify the altar. I’ll speak with you again in a few minutes.”
Watching them from a window of the cenoby, Maytera Rose grunted with satisfaction when they separated. There was danger there, no matter how Maytera and Patera might deceive themselves—filthy things she could do for him, and worse that he might do to her. Undefiled Echidna hated everything of that kind, blinding those who fell as she had blinded her. At times Maytera Rose, kneeling before her daughter’s image, felt that she herself was Echidna, Mother of Gods and Empress of the Whorl.
Strike, Echidna. Oh, strike!
It was dark enough already for the bang of the door to kindle the bleared light in one corner of Silk’s bedroom, the room over the kitchen, the old storeroom that old Patera Pike had helped clean out when he arrived. (For Silk had never been able to make himself move his possessions into Pike’s larger room, to throw out or burn the faded portraits of the old man’s parents or his threadbare, too-small clothing.) By that uncertain glow, Silk changed into his second-best robe. Collar and cuffs were detachable in order that they might be more easily, and thus more frequently, laundered. He removed them and laid them in the drawer beside his only spare set.
What else? He glanced in the mirror; some covering for his untidy yellow hair, certainly. There was the wide straw hat he had worn that morning while laying new shingles on the roof, and the blue-trimmed black calotte that Patera Pike had worn on the coldest days. Silk decided upon both; the wide straw would cast a strong shadow on his face, but might blow off. The calotte fit nicely beneath it, and would supply a certain concealment still. Was this how men like this man Auk felt? Was it how they planned?
As reported by Maytera Marble, Maytera Mint had named half a dozen places in which he might come across Auk; all were in the Orilla, the worst section of the quarter. He might be robbed, might be murdered even though he offered no resistance. If Blood would not see him …
Silk shrugged. Blood’s house would be somewhere on the Palatine; Silk could scarcely conceive of anyone who rode in a privately owned floater living anywhere else. There would be Civil Guardsmen everywhere on the Palatine after dark, Guardsmen on foot, on horseback, and in armed floaters. One could not just kick down a door, as scores of housebreakers did in this quarter every night. The thing was impossible.
Yet something must be done, and done tonight; and he could not think of anything else to do.
He fingered his beads, then dropped them back into his pocket, removed the silver chain and voided cross of Pas and laid them reverently before the triptych, folded two fresh sheets of paper, put them into the battered little pen case he had used at the schola, and slipped it into the big inner pocket of his robe. He might need a weapon; he would almost certainly need some sort of tool.
He went downstairs to the kitchen. There was a faint stirring from the smelly waste bin in the corner: a rat, no doubt. As he had often before, Silk reminded himself to have Horn catch him a snake that might be tamed.
