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“I was shriving Chenille,” Silk explained. “I’m afraid we didn’t hear him.”
“I did,” Chenille declared, “only I thought it was on the street. It was while I was telling you about—” He silenced her, a finger to his lips.
“His name is Hossaan,” Maytera Marble continued. “He’s foreign, I think, but he says he knows you. He gave you a ride once, and he was on a boat with you out on the lake. Now where are you — ? Oh, I forgot. He can’t go through the cenoby.”
The last words were spoken to Silk’s back. At a limping run, he vanished into the narrow opening between the northwest corner of the manteion and the southwest corner of the cenoby.
“There’s a gate,” Maytera Marble explained to Chenille, “that opens onto the children’s playground from Silver Street. But you and I can go through the cenoby.”
She mounted the back step and opened the kitchen door. “My granddaughter’s in here. I had just fixed her a bite when I saw that man. Do you know her?”
“Your granddaughter?” Chenille shook her head.
“Perhaps you’d enjoy a little boiled beef too?” Maytera Marble lowered her voice. “I think it’s good for her to talk with other bio girls. She’s been, well, sheltered, I suppose you could call it. And I have something to say to Patera before that man makes off with him. I have a favor to ask him, a great big one.”
On Silver Street, Silk was already speaking to “that man.” “I haven’t been looking for you,” he said. “It was stupid of me, incredibly stupid. I’ve had Guardsmen out combing the city for Hyacinth and some other people, but you had slipped my mind completely.”
“We can talk in my floater, Calde.” Hossaan was slight and swarthy, with vigilant eyes. “It’ll be more private and get us out of this wind.”
“Thank you.” Stepping into the floater, Silk let himself sink into its black-leather upholstery.
The translucent canopy went up with a muted sigh, and the freezing gusts that had been punishing Viron ended, if only for them.
“If your Guardsmen had looked, they would’ve found me.” Hossaan smiled as he took his place in the front seat. “These things aren’t easy to hide.”
“I suppose not. I ran to see you as soon as I realized who you were because I want to ask where Hyacinth is. You brought her to Ermine’s on Hieraxday to meet me.”
Hossaan nodded.
“From your name — Maytera Marble told me that — you’re a Trivigaunti. Is that right? Doctor Crane said once that you were his second in command. Most of the spies he employed seem to have been Vironese, but it would be natural for him to have a few from his own city, people he could trust completely.”
“Only me, Calde. You’re right, though. More of us would have made us a lot more effective.”
“Do you know where Hyacinth is?”
“No. I wish I did.” Hossaan drew a deep breath. “You know, Calde, you’ve taken a load off my shoulders. I thought I’d have to find out how much you knew and make sure you didn’t learn more than you had to. It turns out you knew everything.”
Silk shook his head. “Not at all. Doctor Crane and I made an agreement. I told him all I’d learned or guessed about his activities, and in return he answered my questions about them. I had guessed very little, and he told me very little more, not even his real name.”
“It was Sigada.” Hossaan smiled bitterly. “It means he was supposed to be handsome and humble.”
“But he was neither. Thank you.” Silk nodded. “Sigada. I’ll always remember him as Doctor Crane, but I’m glad to know how he remembered himself. You weren’t called Hossaan when you were at Blood’s, I’m sure.”
“No. Willet.”
“I see. You didn’t give that name to Maytera Marble; you gave her your real one. You can’t have known that Doctor Crane had told me about you, because you can’t have talked to him between our conversation Tarsday afternoon and his death on Hieraxday morning.”
“I told you I didn’t know how much you knew, Calde.”
“That’s right.” Futilely, Silk groped in a pocket of his robe. “Do you know, I don’t have any prayer beads now? When I was a poor augur, I had beads in my pocket but no money. Now I have money, but no beads.”
“An improvement. You can buy some.”
“If I can find the time when the shops are open, and get into one without being mobbed. You said you were going to tell me no more than you had to; but plainly you intended to tell me you were a Trivigaunti spy.”
“That’s right. I was going to tell you because you would have known it from the news I came to give you. Generalissimo Siyuf is coming to reinforce you, with thousands of troopers. I just found out about it myself.” Hossaan twisted in his seat until he was face-to-face with Silk. “It means your victory is assured, Calde. If you’re not defeated before she arrives, it will be impossible for you to be defeated at all.” There was a timid tap on the canopy, and Hossaan said, “It’s the sibyl.”
Turning, Silk saw Maytera Marble’s metal face, hardly a span from his. “Let her in, please. I can’t imagine myself saying anything. I wouldn’t want her to know — or hearing any such news or confidence, except in shriving.”
The canopy retraced, and Maytera Marble entered, her long black skin and wide sleeves flapping in the wind. “I spoke to you, Patera, but you couldn’t hear me.”
“No,” Silk said. “No, Maytera, I couldn’t.” He motioned to Hossaan and the canopy enclosed them as before.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but seeing you in this machine I thought you might be about to leave. And…and…”
“I suppose we are, but not without Chenille. I want to take her with me. Is she in the cenoby?”
Maytera Marble nodded. “I’ll go get her in a moment, Patera. She’s eating.”
“But first you want to tell me something. Is it about her, or,” Silk hesitated, “your granddaughter, Maytera?”
“I wanted to ask you for something, Patera, actually. I realize that you and this foreign gentleman were conferring, and that it’s important. But this won’t take long. I’ll ask and go.”
“Hossaan is from Trivigaunte,” Silk told her, “like your friend General Saba. They’re our allies, as you must know, and I’ve just learned from Hossaan that they’re sending more troops to help us.”
“Why, that’s wonderful!” Maytera Marble smiled, her head back and inclined to the right. “But after news like that my little problem will seem terribly insignificant, I’m afraid.”
“I’m certain it won’t, Maytera. You’re not the sort who bothers others with insignificant problems.” To Hossaan, Silk added, “Now I want to say that Maytera was to me what you were to Doctor Crane, but she was far more. I came to this manteion straight from the schola, and I’d been here only a bit over a year when Patera Pike died. Maytera saved me from making a fool of myself at least once a day.” He paused, remembering. “Though I wish it had been more, because I did make a fool of myself often, in spite of all that she could do.”
“I intrigued against you, too,” Maytera Marble confessed. “I didn’t hate you, or at least I told myself I didn’t. But I obstructed and embarrassed you in small ways, telling myself that it was for your own good.” Her voice grew urgent. “I don’t have the right to ask favors. I know that, but—”
“Of course you do!”
“I can’t manage it myself. I wish I could. I’ve prayed for the means, but I can’t. Do you know Marl, Patera?”
“I don’t think so.” Silk, who knew few chems, exhausted his mental list quickly. “She — ?”
“He, Patera.”
“He can’t attend our sacrifices. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a chem there — except you, of course.”
“There aren’t many left,” Hossaan put in, “here or in my own city. Is he a soldier?”
Maytera Marble shook her head. “He’s a valet. He works for a man called Fulmar. I don’t see him often at all, but I went over yesterday, my granddaughter and I did, and…”
“Go on, Maytera.”
“I showed him my hand. The one that my — you know…”