Shadowplay

"Thank you." He stood up and bowed, his face suddenly distant, Now I must go. I have much to think about and I have stolen enough of your time today." He walked toward the archway leading back to his tower rooms-comfortable enough, he had told her, if you did not mind a door that had a barred window in it and was locked from the outside-without looking back.

Pelaya sat, feeling oddly as though she wanted to cry. For the first time since they had met each other Olin had left the garden first. The prisoner had gone back to his cell to be alone rather than share her company any longer.

She remained on the bench, trying to understand what had happened to her, until the first drops of rain forced her inside.

"Who could ever live in such a place?" Yazi asked, wide-eyed. "You would tire yourself to fits just walking to the kitchen."

"People who live in such places don't walk to the kitchen," said Qi

"But look at us!" Yazi was from the Ellamish border country so she spoke fairly good Xixian, a good-hearted girl but a little slow and prone to mistakes. "We are lost already. Surely no one can find their way in such a big place. This must be the biggest house on earth!"

Qi

the Royal Seclusion, where she had been one of the fortunate lew who had their food brought to them by hurrying, silent servants, was certainly not going to be mentioned either, although the irony of the present conversa¬tion was not lost on her.

"I know it's back this way," she said instead. "Remember, we came down a long hall full of pictures just after we went through that garden?"

"What garden?"

"You didn't…? Where you could see the ocean and everything?" She sighed. "Never mind."Yazi was like a dog that way-the girl had been talk¬ing about something, a dream she had, or a dream she wanted to have, and hadn't even noticed the garden, the one time today they had been out from under the castle roof. Qi

"Breasts of Surigali, where have you two been?" Soryaza stood with her hands on her hips, looking as though she might pick up one of the massive washing tubs and dump its scalding contents all over the truants. "You were just supposed to take those up to the upstairs ewery and come straight back."

"We did come straight back," Qi

"It's so big!" Yazi said. "We didn't do anything wrong, Mistress. On the Mother, we didn't'."

Soryaza snorted her disbelief, then spat on the wet floor. "Well, get back to work. And speak Hierosoline, both of you. You aren't in the south anymore!"

As the laundry-mistress stalked away several of the other women sidled over to find out what had happened. Qi

"Is she always angry?" asked one of these new workers, an anxious, scrawny young thing with pink-tinged eyes and twitching nose-the oth¬ers had already named her Rabbit.

"Always," Yazi said. "Her feet hurt. And her back hurts too."

"Pah!" said one of the other women. "She's been saying that for years. Didn't stop her from picking that boy Gregor up and throwing him out the door when she caught him sleeping in the drying room. Or from kicking over a tub or two when she's in the mood."

"Nira, someone said you were a priestess in Xis," the girl called Rabbit suddenly said to Qi

She was always a little slow to recognize her own false name, although she was getting better at it, and speaking Hierosoline slowed her down even more, so it took a moment for the question to sink in. When it did, she felt a chill. By the Dark Queen, does everyone know already? Curse this nest of busy-bodies, and curse Soryaza-she must have told someone.

Out loud, she said, "I… was not priestess. Just…" She searched for a word, but her command of the language was still weak. "Just helper."

"In the Hive?" Rabbit asked. "Someone said it was in the Hive. I've heard of that place. Was it like they say-did the priests come in and… you know? With the priestesses?"

"Silence, girl," said one of the other new workers, an old woman with a burn-scarred face and a mouth where dark holes outnumbered ruined teeth. She glared at Rabbit. "Don't ask so many question. She does not want to talk, maybe." Her command of Hierosoline was better than Qi

"I only wanted to know…!" Rabbit squeaked.s

"Tits of the Great Mother, what are you lazy bitches up to?" Soryaza's voice thundered through the dank room. Her bulky form loomed up out of the washtub fog and the women scattered. "The next one I catch stand¬ing and talking might as well go down to the harbor and find a place to stand on Daneya Street with the other whores, because you won't work for me another moment!"

"Yazi, why are there so many new people?" Qi

"New?" The round-faced girl laughed. "You've only been here a ten-night yourself."

"But so many! Rabbit, and that old toothless woman, and the one with the fat legs…"

"Oh, listen to you! Not everyone's a ski

"The war?"

"Don't you listen to anybody? There's a war coining, everyone says so. The autarch's going to send ships. They'll never break this place, of course- no one ever lias. But the lord protector has called in troops from Krace and… and… and other places." She flushed, her tone of authority mo¬mentarily compromised. "And so we're going to be having more work."

Qi

"The… autarch…?" she said now. Memories of his pale, mad eyes, never more than a moment away from her thoughts at the best of times, now pushed their way front and center. Is it me? she wondered. Is it to find me, to torture me for ru