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“Not at all, General.”
“I’m a plain-spoken old campaigner, and I don’t pretend to be anything more. Or anything less. A simple old trooper. The way things are here makes me try and act like an ambassador, so I do my best.” She laughed loudly. “But that’s not too good, so I’ll give it to you straight. Your customs seem backwards to me, and I keep waiting for them to turn around. Take her, now.” Saba pointed to Chenille, who had entered with a tray. “Here’s a woman and a man talking, and a woman waiting on them. I’m not saying you never see that at home, but you don’t see it often.”
“But to get back—” Silk accepted a cup. “Thank you, Chenille. You didn’t have to do this, and I’m not sure General Saba realizes that. Goodness and servility look alike at times, though they’re very different. Won’t you sit down?”
“If I won’t bother you.”
“Of course not. We’ll be happy to have your company, and I know you were anxious to meet General Saba. She’s the commander of the Rani’s airship.”
“I know.” Chenille gave Saba an admiring smile.
“She was one of your rescuers. Generalissimo Oosik told me afterward that he’d be delighted to see the kind of efficiency her pterotroopers displayed in a brigade of our Guard.”
“They’re picked women, every one of them,” Saba told Silk complacently. “The competition to get in is fierce. We turn away ten for each we take.”
“I want to get back to augury. If I seem to be harping on it, I hope you’ll excuse me; I was trained as an augur, and I doubt that I’ll ever lose interest in it entirely. But first, would it be possible for me to go up in your airship some time?”
Saba winked at Chenille, her brutal face briefly humorous.
“One of the students — his name is Horn, and he’s acting as a messenger here for the present — told me not long ago that he’d dreamed of flying. So have I, though I didn’t admit it to Horn, or even to myself when I spoke with him.”
“Bird fly!” Oreb proclaimed.
“Exactly. We can scarcely look up without seeing a bird; and there are fliers every few days, proving it can be done. When I was a boy, I used to imagine they were shouting, “We can fly and you can’t!” up there too high to be heard. I knew it was foolish, but the feeling has never left me entirely.”
“Wing good.” Hopping onto Silk’s head, Oreb displayed it.
“He couldn’t fly for a while,” Silk explained. “Before that I doubt that he took much pride in it.”
“I’m going to surprise you, Calde,” Saba a
“Of course.” Silk sipped from his cup, pausing to admire the delicate porcelain, brave with gilt and holding a painted Scylla as well as coffee.
“If that were wine, I’d tell you I was going to fit you up with wings like my girls”, the teeth of Saba’s underjaw showed in a savage grin, “and shove you out. But sham diplomats don’t get to make that sort of a joke.”
Silk sighed. “I’d thought about it. I’m not at all sure I have the courage, but perhaps I might try.”
“Don’t. You’d be crippled for life if you weren’t killed. My girls start with a platform that would fit in this room. I — who’s that!”
“Who?” Silk glanced at the doors; so did Chenille.
“There was a face in that mirror.” Saba stood up, her cup still in her hand. “Somebody that isn’t in here, somebody I’ve never seen before. I saw her!”
“I’m sure you did, General.” Silk put down his coffee.
“You’ve only just reopened this palace, isn’t that right?”
“Less than an hour ago, actually. Maytera Marble and—”
“A secret passage.” Saba’s tone brooked no contradiction. “The mirror’s a peephole, and somebody’s spying from in there already. One passage at least, and there could be more, I’ve seen some at home. What’s that girl doing?”
Chenille had gone to the mirror and grasped the sides of its ornate frame with both hands. “It’s dusty,” she told Silk. “They had dust covers over all this, but dust got in anyhow.” With a grunt of effort, she lifted the mirror from its hook; behind it was featureless plaster, somewhat lighter in color than that to either side.
Silk had risen when Saba did. He limped to the wall and rapped it with his knuckles, evoking solid thuds. Saba stared, her wide mouth working.
“Want me to put this back, Patera?” Chenille inquired.
“I don’t think so. Not yet, at least. I’ll do it, or Master Xiphias can. Can you put it down without dropping it?”
“I think so. I’m pretty strong.”
The heels of Saba’s polished riding boots came together with a click. “I apologize, Calde. I’m leaving. Again, I regret this very much.”
“Don’t go yet,” Silk said hastily. “Your Generalissimo Siyuf is bringing us thousands of—”
Saba’s cup fell to the costly carpet, splashing it and her gleaming boots with black coffee. “That’s the news I was going to tell you! You — you learned that from animal guts?”
Chapter 3 — The First Theophany on Thelxday
Three busy days after Saba had dropped her coffee, Marrow the greengrocer abandoned the pleasant anticipation of the parade that was to close the market early to stare at the weary prophet nearing his stall. “Auk?” Marrow smoothed his fruit-stained apron. “Aren’t you Auk?”
“That’s me.” The prophet stepped out of the wind to lean against a table piled with oranges.
“You’re a friend of the calde’s. That’s what they say.”
“I guess.” Auk saatched his stubbled jaw. “I like him, anyhow, and I brought a ram when Kypris came. I don’t know if he likes me, though. If he don’t, I don’t blame him.”
Marrow wiped his nose on his sleeve. “You’re a friend of General Mint’s, too.”
“Everybody is now. That’s what I hear.”
“Scleroderma told me. You know her? The butcher’s wife.”
Auk shook his head.
“She knows you, and she says you used to come to Silk’s manteion, on Sun Street.”
“Yeah. I know where it is.”
“She says you’d sit in a little garden they’ve got and talk to her. To General Mint. Would you like an orange?”
“Sure, but I don’t have the money. Not that I can spend.”
“Take some. Wait a minute, I’ll get you a bag.” Marrow hurried to the back of his stall, and Auk slipped a peach into his pocket.
“Now you’re going around talking about the Plan of Pas. Would you like some bananas? Real bananas from Urbs?”
Auk looked at the price. “No,” he said.
“Free. I’m not going to charge you.”
Auk straightened up, filling his barrel of a chest with air. “Yeah. I know. That’s why I don’t want any. Listen up. I’d steal your bananas, see? That’s lily. I’d steal ’em and riffle your till, ’cause that’s the kind I am. I’m a dimber thief, and Tartaros needs cards for something we’re pla
“But—”
“Muzzle it.” Auk had begun to peel an orange, pulling away bright cusps of rind with strong, soiled fingers. “I got a mort back in the Orilla I’m supposed to take care of. She’s hungry, and she’s not used to it like me. So if you want to put oranges and maybe a couple potatoes in that sack, I’ll thank you for ’em and take ’em to her. No bananas, see? But nab the gelt off these that want to buy first. I’ll take the sack when you’re done, if you still want to give it.”
“That’s Auk the Prophet,” Marrow whispered to the crowd around his stall. “A dozen yellow apples, madame? And two cabbages? Absolutely! Very fresh and very cheap.”
A few minutes later he told Auk, “I want to take you over to Shrike’s as soon as my boy gets back. Scleroderma’s husband? He’ll let you have a bite or two of meat, I’m sure.”
There were two hundred, if not more, waiting for Auk in the Orilla, and another hundred following him. Tartaros whispered, “You are fatigued, Auk my noctolater, and cold.”