him about them.
He was nowhere to be seen. I put his tray and the four books on his table and shouted for him. A moment later I heard his answering call from a cell not far off. I ran there and looked through the grilled window set at eye level in the door; the client, a wasted-looking woman of middle age, was stretched on her cot. Drotte leaned over her, and there was blood on the floor. He was too occupied to turn his head. “Is that you, Severian?”
“Yes. I've got your supper, and books for the Chatelaine Thecla. Can I do anything to help?”
“She'll be all right. Tore her dressings off and tried to bleed herself to death, but I got her in time. Leave my tray on my table, will you? And you might finish shoving their food at the rest for me, if you've got a moment.” I hesitated. Apprentices were not supposed to deal with those committed to the guild's care.
“Go ahead. All you have to do is poke the trays through the slots.”
“I brought the books.”
“Poke those through the slot too.”
For a moment more I watched him as he bent over the livid woman on the cot; then I turned away, found the undistributed trays, and began to do as he had asked. Most of the clients in the cells were still strong enough to rise and take the food as I passed it through. A few were not, and I left their trays outside their doors for Drotte to carry in later. There were several aristocratic-looking women, but none who seemed likely to be the Chatelaine Thecla, a newly come exultant who was — at least for the time being — to be treated with deference.
As I should have guessed, she was in the last cell. It had been furnished with a carpet in addition to the usual bed, chair, and small table; in place of the customary rags she wore a white gown with wide sleeves. The ends of those sleeves and the hem of the skirt were sadly soiled now, but the gown still preserved an air of elegance as foreign to me as it was to the cell itself. When I first saw her, she was embroidering by the light of a candle brightened by a silver reflector; but she must have felt my eyes upon her. It would gratify me now to say there was no fear in her face, yet it would not be true. There was terror there, though controlled nearly to invisibility.
“It's all right,” I said. “I've brought your food.” She nodded and thanked me, then rose and came to the door. She was taller even than I had expected, nearly too tall to stand upright in the cell. Her face, though it was triangular rather than heart-shaped, reminded me of the woman who had been with Vodalus in the necropolis. Perhaps it was her great violet eyes, with their lids shaded with blue, and the black hair that, forming a V far down her forehead, suggested the hood of a cloak. Whatever the reason, I loved her at once — loved her, at least, insofar as a stupid boy can love. But being only a stupid boy, I did not know it.
Her white hand, cold, slightly damp, and impossibly narrow, touched mine as she took the tray from me. “That's ordinary food,” I told her. “I think you can get some that's better if you ask.”
“You're not wearing a mask,” she said. “Yours is the first human face I've seen here.”
“I'm only an apprentice. I won't be masked until next year.” She smiled, and I felt as I had when I had been in the Atrium of Time and had come inside to a warm room and food. She had narrow, very white teeth in a wide mouth; her eyes, each as deep as the cistern beneath the Bell Keep, shone when she smiled.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't hear you.” The smile came again and she tilted her lovely head to one side. “I told you how happy I was to see your face, and asked if you would bring my meals in the future, and what this was you brought me.”
“No. No, I won't be. Only today, because Drotte is occupied.” I tried to recall what her meal had been (she had put the tray on her little table, where I could not see its contents through the grill). I could not, though I nearly burst my brain with the effort. At last I said lamely, “You'd probably better eat it. But I think you can get better food if you ask Drotte.”
“Why, I intend to eat it. People have always complimented me on my slender figure, but believe me, I eat like a dire wolf.” She picked up the tray and held it out to me, as though she knew I would need every help in unraveling the mystery of its contents.
“Those are leeks, Chatelaine,” I said. “Those green things. The brown ones are lentils. And that's bread.”
“ ‘Chatelaine'? You needn't be so formal. You're my jailer, and can call me anything you choose.” There was merriment in the deep eyes now.
“I have no wish to insult you,” I told her. “Would you rather I called you something else?”
“Call me Thecla — that's my name. Titles are for formal occasions, names for informal ones, and this is that or nothing. I suppose it will be very formal though, when I receive my punishment?”
“It is, usually, for exultants.”
“There will be an exarch, I should think, if you will let him in. All in scarlet patches. Several others too — perhaps the Starost Egino. Are you certain this is bread?” She poked it with one long finger, so white I thought for a moment that the bread might soil it.
“Yes,” I said. “The Chatelaine has eaten bread before, surely?”
“Not like this.” She picked the meager slice up and tore it with her teeth, quickly and cleanly. “It isn't bad, though. You say they'll bring me better food if I ask for it?”
“I think so, Chatelaine.”
“Thecla. I asked for books — two days ago when I came. But I haven't got them.”
“I have them,” I told her. “Right here.” I ran back to Drotte's table and got them, and passed the smallest through the slot.
“Oh, wonderful! Are there others?”
“Three more.” The brown book went through the slot as well, but the other two, the green book and the folio volume with arms on its cover, were too wide.
“Drotte will open your door later and give them to you,” I said.
“Can't you? It's terrible to look through this and see them, and not be able to touch them.”
