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Spider grunted.
“Furthermore, I don’t believe there are soldiers hiding in here. I think that what must have happened was that one of them was in here looking for something. He heard Guan come in and hid, then came out and shot Guan after Guan’s first and perhaps rather cursory examination failed to find him. Would the water have come from the storeroom?”
Spider nodded. “Right.”
“Then I should think that the soldier was in the latrine. Since chems don’t use them, he might have thought Guan wouldn’t expect him there.”
Spider said nothing, sitting with eyes half shut, his back against the shiprock wall.
“Here is my second question. You’ll recall that Councillor Potto described the situation on the surface to His Eminence and me, then asked who was master of the city. His description made it clear that he was implying the Rani was. I take it you will concede that. You were present.”
“Sure. When her troopers come out of her airship, some of yours took shots at them. You know that?”
“I do. Many died as a result of that tragic error.”
“Those troopers thought Viron was bein’ invaded, and they were right. Sure, the Trivigauntis are goin’ to help you fight us. Sure, they’re goin’ to make this Silk calde. But he’ll lose his job the first time he balks. What’s the question?”
“You’ve answered it already, at least in part. I pla
Remora cleared his throat. “I am — ah — readied. Also resolved. You yourselves, eh? Are you, um…?”
“Go ahead,” Spider told him.
Remora took two determined steps to his right and threw wide the door.
“That’s the latrine, you putt!”
Calmly, Remora turned. “I am, ah, was aware of it. I, um, eavesdropped, eh? Couldn’t help it. The General, um, indicated that this, ah, necessary room would be the point of greatest, er, greater hazard. I revere her intellect. More than your own, if I may be thus — ah — incivil.”
“Usually I do better than this,” Spider told him. “Now get in there where you’re s’posed to, and don’t forget to bring me out a bottle.”
“You would — ah — indubitably have had me, um, risk the necessary room as well.” Remora opened the storeroom door as he spoke. “I therefore, eh? Advised by the immortal gods. Or so I would like to, um, have it. The greater risk first.”
He stepped into the storeroom. “As for, ah, this…” He clapped to brighten the single dull light on the ceiling. “It is equally, um, i
“In that case, I would like another bottle of water, Your Eminence,” Maytera Mint declared firmly, “if it’s not too much trouble. And some bread, if there is any. Meat, too. I would be very grateful.” To Spider she continued, “I inquired about what you knew, you’ll notice, not what you guessed. Do you know this? Or is it speculation?”
“I know it. Now you’ll want to know how I know.”
She shook her head, marveling to find herself — little Maytera Mint from Sun Street! — haggling with such a man over such a matter. “I won’t require you to reveal your sources.”
“I’ll tell you anyhow. Councillor Potto told me before we went up there. He wasn’t just guessin’, neither.”
Remora emerged from the storeroom with a dusty wine bottle, two even dustier bottles of water, and several small packages wrapped in tinted synthetic.
Spider accepted the wine. “Brown’s bread and red’s meat. I ought to of told you, but I guess you worked it out yourself.”
“It was not — ah — cryptic.” Remora sat down. “This, er, packet is unopened, Maytera. I, hum, sampled the other. Somewhat saline, but tasty.”
She accepted a red package and unwrapped it eagerly; it held flat strips of what seemed to be dried beef. “We thank all gods for this good food,” she murmured. “Thanks to Fair Phaea, especially. Praise Pasturing Pas for fat cattle.” She tore the leathery meat with her teeth and thought it sweet as sugarcane.
“Councillor Potto can lie birds out of a tree,” Spider drew the cork of the wine bottle with a pop. “I’ve heard him to where I just about believed him myself. You said while we were talkin’ in the tu
Maytera Mint nodded and swallowed. “Thank you. And thank you, Your Eminence, for this food. I thanked the gods, I fear, but not their proximal agent.”
“Quite all right, eh? Um — delighted. Have some bread.” Remora handed her a brown-wrapped package. “Strengthening. Ah — fortifying.”
“Thank you again. Thank you very much. All praise to Fruiting Echidna, whose sword I am.”
She paused as she tore the loaf. “Spider, I’ll ask my final question, if I may. I won’t be able to, with my mouth full of this good bread. You may not know the answer.”
“If I don’t know, I don’t.” He wiped the top of the wine bottle on his cuff and held it out to her. “You want to bless this, too, while you’re doin’ everythin’ else?”
“Certainly.” Maytera Mint laid the bread in her lap with the remainder of the dried beef and traced the sign of addition over the bottle. “Praise to you, Exhilarating Thelxiepeia, and praise to you, likewise, dark son of Thyone.”
“Want a drink? Help yourself.”
She sipped cautiously, then more boldly.
“I bet that was the first wine you ever had in your life. Am I right?”
She shook her head. “Laymen — they are men in fact, very largely — give us a bottle now and then. When it happens, we have a glass at di
“A, umph, excellent sibyl,” Remora put in. He chewed and swallowed. “Doubtless. I did not have the — ah — happiness of her acquaintance. But doubtless, eh? No doubt of it.”
“A good woman whom life had treated sufficiently roughly that she struck out, at times, before she was struck.” Maytera Mint finished pensively. “Toward the end she struck at others habitually, I would say. It could be unpleasant, and yet her asperity was fundamentally defensive. That’s good wine. Might I have a little more, Spider?”
“Sure thing.”
“Thank you.” She sipped again. “Perhaps His Eminence would like some too.”
“Dimber with me.”
Maytera Mint wiped the mouth of the bottle and passed it to Remora. “My third question now. As I said, you may not know the answer. But what was the original purpose of these tu
Spider leaned back, his homely heavy-featured face tilted upward and his eyes closed. “That’s somethin’ I can tell you all right, but I got to think.”
“As I say—”
He leaned forward once more, his eyes open and one large hand tugging at his stubbled jaw. “I didn’t say I don’t know. Councillor Potto told me about them. One thing he said was it wasn’t just one thing. There’s three or maybe four, and they go under the whole whorl. You know that?”
Her mouth full, Maytera Mint shook her head.
“If you went along the big one we turned off of,” Spider jerked his thumb at the door, “far enough, you could get clean to the skylands, maybe. I don’t know anybody that ever tried it, but that’s what Councillor Potto said one time. You can be way out in the sticks where there isn’t any houses or anythin’, nothin’ but trees and bushes, and maybe there’s one right under you. Could be a hundred cubits down or so close you’d hit it puttin’ in a fence post.”
Hoping her face did not betray the skepticism she felt, she said, “The labor involved must have been incredible.”