Страница 60 из 104
The gray face nodded sagely. “Prudent, madame.”
“Yeah, I think so. Wait up, I got to think.”
“Gladly, madame.” For nearly a minute, there was no sound in the Lyrichord Room save Siyuf’s hoarse respiration.
At last Chenille a
“We thrive upon adversity, madame.”
“Good, I’ve got some for you. I want to get word to a lady named Orchid. Get her, or get anybody that might be able to get a message to her. What time is it?”
“Two twenty-one, madame. It is Phaesday morning, madame. Shadeup is less than four hours distant.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. If you can’t do it, just tell me. I won’t blame you a bit.”
“I shall make the utmost effort, madame, but Orchid is also a widely employed appellation. Additional information may be of assistance.”
“Sure. This Orchid’s got a yellow house. It’s on Lamp Street. Music runs right in back, and there’s a pastry shop across the street. Across Lamp Street, I mean. She’s a big fat woman, I guess forty or forty-five.”
“That is sufficient, madame, I have identified her. There is a glass in her private apartments, and she is preparing for bed in the room beyond. Shall I summon her to her glass?”
“I know that glass and it doesn’t work.”
“To the contrary, madame, it is fully operational, though it was out of service for… eighteen years. Would you care to speak with Orchid?”
Chenille nodded, and in half a minute saw Orchid standing in front of her own glass in lacy black pantaloons and a hastily assumed peignoir. “Chen! How’d you get this thing turned on?”
“Never mind, it just is. Orchid, I need a favor, only there’ll be something for you. Maybe a card. Maybe more.”
Orchid, who had been eyeing the rich furnishings of the Lyrichord Room, nodded. “I got my ears up.”
“All right, you see the mort in doss in the next room? She’s the Trivigaunti’s generalissimo. Her name’s Siyuf.”
“You always were lucky, Chen.”
“Maybe. The thing is, I got to beat the hoof. Is Violet riding pretty light?”
Orchid shrngged, plump shoulders rising and falling like pans of dough. “Pretty much. You know how it is, Chen. Where are you?”
“Ermine’s. This’s Room Seven and Nine, get it? It’s a double room, so seven and nine too. Right at the top of the big stairs. Siyuf likes tall dells, she would’ve given me five easy. Five’s nothing to her. Violet ought to get more if she soaps her. Tell her to come uphill and play spoons, tell Siyuf she’s my pal and I told her what a nice time I’d had, so she thought she’d drop by and party. I’ll leave the door unlocked when I go out.” Chenille’s voice hardened. “Only I get half. Don’t think you’re going to wash me down.”
“Sure thing, Chen.”
“The way I’m set with the calde—” groping the carpet at her feet, Chenille found her bandeau, “I ought to be able to throw something your way pretty often. Only don’t try to wash me, Orchid. The word from me could shut you down.”
Under her breath, Hyacinth asked, “Do you really want to go through with this?”
It seemed too foolish to require a reply, but Silk nodded. “Your Cognizance, you and His Eminence, with Patera Jerboa and Patera Shell, are more than sufficient, surely.”
From Echidna’s dark chapel behind the ambulatory, Maytera Marble called, “Just one moment more, please, Patera. Patera Incus is working as quickly as he can, and — and…”
Like a rumble of thunder, Hammerstone’s deeper voice added, “She wants to be there, and there’s another reason. Hold on, Calde. Patera’s about finished.”
Hyacinth whispered, “We really don’t have to. We could just go somewhere and do it all night. It doesn’t matter to me, honest.” Tick added, “Goo no!” from her arms.
“I’ve revoked your vow of chastity,” Quetzal said; it was impossible to say whether he had overheard her. “You’re still an augur. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, Your Cognizance.”
Remora smiled in a way he meant to be reassuring. “Can’t, eh? Not even Quetzal. Indelible, hey?”
The Prolocutor himself nodded. “I could enjoin you from augural duties, but you’d still be an augur, Patera Calde.”
“I understand, Your Cognizance.”
“I’m not doing it. You’re relieved of the requirements. You need not say the office and sacrifice, but you can if you want to. You can and should wear the robe. Our citizens have chosen an augur, believing the gods chose for them. We must keep it so. We must sustain their faith. If necessary, we must justify it.”
He glanced at Maytera Mint, who said, “Your Cognizance is wondering whether I retain mine after Pas failed to appear. I don’t know, and it may be weeks before I do. Years, even. I wish Bison were here.”
Spider nodded. “Me, too.”
Spokesman for his master, Oreb croaked, “Do now!”
Hoping his bird had been understood, Silk said, “You told me what took place, General, but I’m afraid I wasn’t listening as closely as I should have been. I couldn’t think beyond my need to obtain His Cognizance’s permission and persuade Hyacinth to accept me. Did Pas actually say that he would grant you a second theophany when you got here?”
“I…” Maytera Mint sighed, her face in her hands. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember. I thought so.”
Slate put in, “No, he didn’t, sir. He said you take the sarge to the Grand manteion, ’cause my prophet Auk’s there and I mean to tell him how to fix him up. He didn’t say nothing about right away.”
Remora nodded.
Auk said, “He told me he’d teach me, and he will. Only he ain’t yet.” Auk cleared his throat. “This was as queer for me as for Maytera. Worse, when I had to watch what it did to her. Pas had us fetch Patera Jerboa there — that’s Hammerstone and me, and Patera Incus. All right we did, only nothing’s happened yet. I had all my people up here and they’re not here any more, so I guess you know what they think about me after this.”
Oreb sympathized. “Poor man!”
“Only that don’t matter.” Defiantly, Auk looked around at the rest of the impromptu wedding party. “They still think more of me than what I do myself. It’s what they think about the Plan, and that’s what’s hardest, harder even than Maytera. But I’m sticking. If everybody goes, that’s all right, only not me. I’m here, like Pas said, and I’m sticking.”
From deep within the vast nave, far from the light of the dying altar fire, a voice rumbled, “This’s my fault, Calde.” A man taller even than Auk rose, and as he did a misshapen figure sprang to the top of the pew before him.
From his position behind and to the right of Quetzal and Remora, old Patera Jerboa quavered, “My son…”
“Probably you don’t remember me, Calde, only I gave you one on the house once, ’cause you said Pas for Kalan. I’m Gib from the Cock.”
Silk nodded and smiled. “Of course I remember you, Gib; though I admit I didn’t expect to meet you here, and I thought we’d met everyone. Have you been praying?”
“Tryin’, anyhow.” Gib strode down a side aisle, his tame baboon leaping from one pew to the next.
Auk said, “Muzzle it, Gib. You didn’t do anything.”
Silk nodded again. “If by ‘fault’ you mean this delay, the fault certainly isn’t yours, Gib. If anyone is at fault, I am the person. I should have acted much more expeditiously to have Maytera’s hand repaired.”
Tick said, “Ale rat, nod rung.” And Hyacinth, “You always blame yourself. Do you really think you’re the only one in the whorl that makes mistakes?”
“I tagged along after Auk when he went to your place over on Sun,” Gib explained. “Me an’ him’s a old knot. I’d got Bongo here when I broke my flipper, see, Calde? I can’t pluck proper. He’ll do for anybody I say. I figured to sell him when it was fixed.”
“I believe I’m begi
“Then Auk says to fetch animals, so I fetched him. Bongo here, that is. Then comin’ up here I thought maybe—”