“I brought the cart for you, Patera. I told my jefe about you, and he said it would be all right.”
After a moment’s indecision, Silk added his own name on the other side of the
Teasel’s parents nodded together.
“Also to Sphigx, because today’s hers, and to Surging Scylla, not only because our city is hers, but because your daughter called for water. Lastly, I want you to pray with great devotion to the Outsider.”
Teasel’s mother asked, “Why, Patera?”
“Because I told you to,” Silk replied testily. “I don’t suppose you’ll know any of the prescribed prayers to him, and there really aren’t that many anyway. But make up your own. They’ll be acceptable to him as long as they’re sincere.”
As he descended the stairs to the street, one steep and painful step at a time, Mucor spoke behind him. “That was interesting. What are you going to do next?”
He turned as quickly as he could. As if in a dream, he glimpsed the mad girl’s death’s-head grin, and eyes that had never belonged to Teasel’s stooped, hard-handed father. She vanished as he looked, and the man who had been following him down the stairs shook himself.
“Are you well, Marten?” Silk asked.
“I went all queer there, Patera. Don’t know what come over me.”
Silk nodded, traced the sign of addition, and murmured a blessing.
“I’m good enough now, or think I am. Worryin’ too much about Sel, maybe. Rabbit shit on my grave.”
In the past, Silk had carried a basin of water up the stairs to his bedroom and washed himself in decent privacy; that was out of the question now. After closing and locking both, he covered the Silver Street window with the dishrag and a dish towel, and the garden window (which looked toward the cenoby) with a heavy gray blanket he had stored on the highest shelf of the sellaria closet against the return of winter.
Retreating to the darkest corner of the kitchen, almost to the stair, he removed all his clothing and gave himself the cold bath he had been longing for, lathering his whole body from the crown of his head to the top of his cast, then sponging the suds away with clean, cool water fresh from the well.
Dripping and somewhat refreshed, yet so fatigued that he seriously considered stretching himself on the kitchen floor, he examined his discarded clothing. The trousers, he decided, were still salvageable: with a bit of mending, they might be worn again, as he had worn them before, while he patched the manteion’s roof or performed similar chores. He emptied their pockets, dropping his prayer beads, Blood’s two cards, and the rest on the scarred old kitchen table. The tunic was ruined, but would supply useful rags after a good laundering; he tossed it into the wash basket on top of his trousers and undershorts, dried those parts of himself that had not been dried already by the baking heat of the kitchen with a clean dish towel, and made his way up to bed. If it had not been for the pain in his ankle, he would have been half asleep before he passed the bedroom door.
His donkey was lost in the yellow house. Shards of the tumbler Blood broke with Hyacinth’s golden needler cracked under the donkey’s hooves, and a horned owl as big as a Flier circled overhead awaiting the moment to pounce. Seeing the double punctures the owl had left half concealed in the hair at the back of Teasel’s neck, he shuddered.
The donkey fastened its teeth in his ankle like a dog. Though he flailed at it with Sphigx’s walking stick, it would not let go.
Mother was riding Auk’s big gray donkey sidesaddle—he saw her across the skylit rooftops, but he could not cry out. When he reached the place, her old wooden bust of the calde lay among the fallen leaves; he picked it up, and it became the ball. He thrust it into his pocket and woke.
His bedroom was hot and filled with sunlight, his naked body drenched with sweat. Sitting up, he drank deeply from the tepid water jug. The rusty cash-box key was still in its place and was of great importance. As he lay down again, he remembered that it was Hyacinth whom he had locked away.
A black-clad imp with a blood-red sword stood upon his chest to study him, its head cocked to one side. He stirred and it fled, fluttering like a little flag.
Hard dry rain blew through the window and rolled across the floor, bringing with it neither wind nor respite from the heat. Silk groaned and buried his perspiring face in the pillow.
It was Maytera Marble who woke him at last, calling his name through the open window. His mind still sluggish with sleep, he tried to guess how long he had slept, concluding only that it had not been long enough.
He staggered to his feet. The busy little clock beside his triptych declared that it was after eleven, nearly noon. He struggled to recall the positions of its hands when he had permitted himself to fall into bed. Eight, or after eight, or possibly eight-thirty. Teasel, poor little Teasel, had been bitten by an owl—or by a devil. A devil with wings, if it had come in through her window, and thus a devil twice impossible. Silk blinked and yawned and rubbed his eyes.
She might see him if he went near the window. Fumbling in a drawer for clean underclothes, he called, “What is it, Maytera?”
“Wait a moment.” Silk pulled on his best trousers, the only pair that remained, and crossed the room to the window, twice stepping painfully on pebbles.
Maytera Marble waited in the little path, her upturned face flashing in the hot sunshine. Doctor Crane stood beside her, a shabby brown medical bag in one hand.
