CALDE OF THE LONG SUN botls-3

  Maytera Mint, might tilt the balance.

  Or so Silk hoped.

  Oosik looked up. "This says Lemur's dead."

  Silk nodded.

  "There have been rumors all day. What if your Prolocutor is

  simply repeating them?"

  "He's dead." Silk made the statement as forceful as he could,

  fortified by the knowledge that for once there was no need to hedge

  the truth. "You've got a glass, Colonel. You must. Ask it to find

  Lemur for you."

  "You saw him die?"

  Silk shook his head, saying, "I saw his body, however," and Oosik

  returned to the letter.

  Too much boldness could ruin everything; it would be worse than

  useless to try to make Oosik say or do anything that could be

  brought up against him later.

  Oosik put down the letter. "The Chapter is behind you, Calde. I

  suspected as much, and this makes it very plain."

  "It is now, apparently." Here was a chance for Oosik to declare

  himself. "If you suspected it before you read that letter, Colonel, it

  was doubly kind of you to let Patera Shell in to see me."

  "I didn't, Calde. Captain Gecko did."

  "I see. But you'll keep your promise?"

  "I am a man of honor, Calde." Oosik refolded the letter and put it

  in his pocket with his glasses. "I will also keep this. Neither of us

  would want anyone else to read it. One of my officers, particularly."

  Silk nodded. "You're welcome to."

  "You want your clothes back. No doubt you would like to have

  the contents of your pockets as well. Your beads are in there, I

  think. I imagine you would like to tell them as you lie here."

  "I would, yes. Very much."

  "There are needlers, too. One is like the one with which you were

  shot. There is also a smaller one that seems to have belonged to a

  woman named Hyacinth."

  "Yes," Silk said again.

  "I see I know her, if she is the Hyacinth I'm thinking of. An

  amiable girl, as well as a very beautiful one. I lay with her on

  Phaesday."

  Silk shut his eyes.

  "I did not set out to give you pain, Calde. Look at me. I'm old

  enough to be your father, or hers. Do you imagine she sends me

  love letters?"

  "Is that...?"

  "What one of the letters in your pocket is?" Oosik nodded

  solemnly "Captain Gecko told me the seals had not been broken

  when he found them. Quite frankly, I doubted him. I see that I

  should not have. You have not read them."

  "No," Silk said.

  "Captain Gecko has, and I. No one else. Gecko can be discreet

  if I order it, and a man of honor must be a man of discretion, also.

  Otherwise he is worse than useless. You did not recognize her seal?"

  Silk shook his head. "I've never gotten a letter from her before."

  "Calde, I have never gotten one at all." Oosik tugged his

  mustache. "You would be well advised to keep that before you. Many

  letters from women over the years, but never one from her. I say

  again, I envy you."

  "Thank you," Silk said.

  "You love her." Oosik leaned back in his chair. "That is not a

  question. You may not know it, but you do." His voice softened. "I

  was your age once, Calde. Do you realize that in a month it may be

  over?"

  "In a day it may be over," Silk admitted. "Sometimes I hope it will be."

  "You fear it, too. You need not say so. I understand. I told you I

  knew her and it gave you pain, but I do not want you to think, later,

  that I have been less than honest. I am being equally honest now.

  Brutally honest with myself. My pride. I am nothing to her."

  "Thank you again," Silk said.

  "You are welcome. I do not say that she is nothing to me. I am not

  a man of stone. But there are others, several who are much more.

  To explain would be offensive."

  "Certainly you don't have to go into details unless you want me to

  shrive you. May I see her letter?"

  "In a moment, Calde. Soon I will give it to you to keep. I think so,

  at least. There is one further matter to be dealt with. You chanced

  to mention a woman called Chenille. I know a woman of that name,

  too. She lives in a yellow house."

  Silk smiled and shook his head.

  "That does not pain you at all. She is not the Chenille you took to

  the lake?"

  "I was amused at myself--at my stupidity. She told me she had

  entertained colonels; but until you said you knew her, it had never

  entered my mind that you were almost certain to be one of them.

  There can't be a great many."

  "Seven besides myself." Oosik rummaged in the bundle of clothing

  and produced Musk's big needler and Hyacinth's small, gold-plated

  one. After holding them up so that Silk could see them, he laid them

  on the windowsill.

  "The little one is hers," Silk said. "Hyacinth's. Could you see that

  it's returned to her?"

  Oosik nodded. "I shall send it by a mutual acquaintance. What

  about the large one?"

  "The owner's dead. I suppose it's mine now."

  "I am too well mannered to ask if you killed him, but I hope he

  was not one of our officers."

  "No," Silk said, "and no. I confess I was tempted to kill him several

  times--as he was undoubtedly tempted to kill me--but I didn't. I've

  only killed once, in self-defense. May I read Hyacinth's letter now?"

  "If I can find it." Oosik fumbled through Silk's clothes again, then

  held up both the letters Silk had taken from the mantel in the manse

  that morning. "This other is from another augur. You have no

  interest in it?"

  "Not as much, I'm afraid. Who is it?"

  "I have forgotten." Oosik extracted the letter from its envelope

  and unfolded it. "'Patera Remora, Coadjutor.' He wishes to see

  you, or he did. You were to come to his suite in the Prolocutor's

  Palace yesterday at three. You are more than a day late already,

  Calde. Do you want it?"

  "I suppose so," Silk said; and Oosik tossed it on the bed.

  Oosik rose, holding out Hyacinth's letter. "This one you will not

  wish to read while I watch, and I have urgent matters to attend to. I

  may look in on you again, later this evening. Much later. If I am too

  busy, I will see you in the morning, perhaps." He tugged his

  mustache. "Will you think me a fool if I say I wish you well, Calde?

  That if we were no longer opponents I should consider your

  friendship an honor?"

  "I'd think you were an estimable, honorable man," Silk told him,

  "which you are."

  "Thank you, Calde!" Oosik bowed, with a click of his booted heels.

  "Colonel?"

  "Your beads. I had forgotten. You will find them in a pocket of

  the robe, I feel sure." Oosik turned to go, but turned back. "A

  matter of curiosity. Are you familiar with the Palatine, Calde?"

  Silk's right hand, holding Hyacinth's letter, had begun to tremble;

  he pressed it against his knee so that Oosik would not see it. "I've

  been there." By an effort of will, he kept his voice almost steady.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Often, Calde?"

  "Three times, I believe." It was impossible to think of anyt
hing but

  Hyacinth; he could as easily have said fifty, or never. "Yes, three

  times--once to the Palace, and twice to attend sacrifice at the Grand

  Manteion."

  "Nowhere else?"

  Silk shook his head.

  "There is a place having a wooden figure of Thelxiepeia. As an

  augur, you may know where it is."

  "There's an onyx image in the Grand Manteion--"

  Oosik shook his head. "In Ermine's, to the right as one enters the

  sellaria. One sees an arch with greenery beyond it At the rear,

  there is a pool with goldfish. She stands by it holding a mirror. The

  lighting is arranged so that the pool is reflected in her mirror, and

  her mirror in the pool. It is mentioned in that letter." Oosik turned

  upon his heel.

  "Colonel, these needlers--"

  He paused at the door. "Do you intend to shoot your way to

  freedom, Calde?" Without waiting for Silk's reply he went out,

  leaving the door ajar behind him. Silk heard the sentry come to

  attention, and Oosik say, "You are dismissed. Return to the

  guardroom immediately."

  Silk's hands were still shaking as he unfolded Hyacinth's letter; it

  was on stationery the color of heavy cream, scrawled in violet ink,

  with many flourishes.

 

  O My Darling Wee Flea:

  I call you so not only because of the way you sprang from

  my window, but because of the way you hopped into my

  bed! How your lonely bloss has longed for a note from you!!!

  You might have sent one by the kind friend who brought you

  my gift, you know!

 

  That had been Doctor Crane, and Doctor Crane was dead--had

  died in his arms that very morning.

 

  Now you have to tender me your thanks and so much more,

  when next we meet! Don't you know that little place up on

  the Palatine where Thelx holds up a mirror? _Hieraxday_.

 

Hy

 

  Silk closed his eyes. It was foolish, he told himself. Utterly foolish.

  The semiliterate scribbling of a woman whose education had ended

  at fourteen, a girl who had been given to her father's superior as a

  household servant and concubine, who had scarcely read a book or

  written a letter, and was trying to flirt, to be arch and girlish and

  charming on paper. How his instructors at the schola would have sneered!

  Utterly foolish, and she had called him darling, had said she

  longed for him, had risked compromising herself and Doctor Crane

  to send him this.

  He read it again, refolded it, and returned it to its envelope, then

  pushed aside the quilt and got up.

  Oosik had intended him to go, of course--had intended him to

  escape, or perhaps to be killed escaping. For a few seconds he tried

  to guess which. Had Oosik been insincere in speaking of friendship?

  Oosik was capable of any quantity of double-dealing, if he was any

  judge of men.

  It did not matter.

  He took his clothing from the chair and spread it on the bed. If

  Oosik intended him to escape, he must escape as Oosik intended. If

  Oosik intended him to be killed escaping, he must escape just the

  same, doing his best to remain alive.

  His tunic was crusted with his own blood and completely

  unwearable; he threw it down and sat on the bed to pull on his

  undershorts, trousers, and stockings. When he had tied his shoes,

  he rose and jerked open a drawer of the bureau.

  Most of the tunics were cheerful reds and yellows; but he found a

  blue one, apparently never worn, so dark that it might pass for black

  under any but the closest scrutiny. He laid it on the pillow beside the

  letters, and put on a yellow one. The closet yielded a small traveling

  bag. Slipping both letters into a pocket, he rolled up his robe,

  stuffed it into the bag, and put the dark blue tunic on top of it.

  The magazine status pin of the big needler indicated it was

  loaded; he opened the action anyway trying to recall how Auk had

  held his that night in the restaurant, and remembering at the last

  moment Auk's adjuration to keep his finger off the trigger. The

  magazine appeared to be full of long, deadly-looking needles, or

  nearly full. Auk had said his needler held how many? A hundred or

  more, surely; and this big needler that had been Musk's must hold at

  least as many if not more. It was possible, of course, that it had been

  disabled in some way.

  There was no one in the hall outside. Silk closed the door, and

  after a moment's thought put the quilt against its bottom and shut

  the window, then sat down on the bed, sick and horribly weak.

  When had he eaten last?

  Very early that morning, in Limna, with Doctor Crane and that

  captain whose name he had never learned or had forgotten, and the

  captain's men. Kypris had granted another theophany, had

  appeared to them, and to Maytera Marble and Patera Gulo, and

  they had been full of the wonder of it, all three of them newly come

  to religious feeling, and feeling that no one had ever come to it

  before. He had eaten a very good omelet, then several slices of hot,

  fresh bread with country butter, because the cook, roused from

  sleep by a trooper, had popped the loaves that had been rising

  overnight into the oven. He had drunk hot, strong coffee, too;

  coffee lightened with cream the color of Hyacinth's stationery and

  sweetened with honey from a white, blue-flowered bowl passed to

  him by Doctor Crane, who had been putting honey on his bread.

  Now Doctor Crane was dead, and so was one of the troopers, the

  captain and the other trooper most likely dead too, killed in the

  fighting before the Alambrera.

  Silk lifted the big needler.

  Someone had told him that he, too, should be dead--he could not

  remember whether it had been the surgeon or Colonel Oosik.

  Perhaps it had been Shell, although it did not seem the sort of thing

  that Shell would say.

  The needler would not fire. He tugged its trigger again and

  returned it to the windowsill, congratulating himself on having

  resolved to test it; saw that he had left the safety catch on, pushed it

  off, took aim at a large bottle of cologne on the dresser, and

  squeezed the trigger. The needler cracked in his hand like a

  bullwhip and the bottle exploded, filling the room with the clean

  scent of spruce.

  He reapplied the safety and thrust the needler into his waistband

  under the yellow tunic. If Musk's needler had not been disabled,

  there was no point in testing Hyacinth's small one, too. He made

  sure its safety catch was engaged, forced himself to stand, and

  dropped it into his trousers pocket.

  One thing more, and he could go. Had the young man whose

  bedroom this was never written anything here? Looking around, he

  saw no writing materials.

  What of the owner of the perfumed scarf? She would write to

  him, almost certainly. A woman who cared enough to drop a silk

  scarf from her window would write notes and letters. And he would

  keep them, concealing
them somewhere in this room and replying in

  notes and letters of his own, though perhaps less frequently. The

  study, if there was one, would belong to his father. Even a library

  would not be sufficiently private. He would write to her here,

  surely, sitting--where?

  There had been no chair in the room until Shell brought one. The

  occupant could only have sat on the bed or the floor, assuming that

  he had sat at all. Silk sat down again, imagined that he held a quill,

  pushed aside the chair Shell had put in front of the little night table,

  and pulled it over to him. Its shallow drawer held a packet of

  notepaper, a discolored scrap of flannel, a few envelopes, four

  quills, and a small bottle of ink.

  Choosing a quill, he wrote:

 

  Sir, events beyond my control have forced me to occupy

  your bedchamber for several hours, and I fear I have broken

  a bottle of your cologne, and stained your sheets. In extreme

  need, I have, in addition, appropriated two of your tunics

  and your smallest traveling bag. I am heartily sorry to have

  imposed on you in this fashion. I am compelled, as I

  indicated.

  When peace and order return to our city, as I pray that

  they soon will, I will endeavor to locate you, make restitution,

  and return your property. Alternately, you may apply

  to me, at any time you find convenient. I am Pa. Silk, of Sun Street

 

  For a long moment he paused, considering, the feathery end of the

  gray goose-quill tickling his lips. Very well.

  With a final dip into the ink, he added a comma and the word

  _Calde_ after "Sun Street," and wiped the quill.

  Restoring the quilt to the bed, he opened the door. The hall was

  still empty. Back stairs brought him to the kitchen, in which it

  appeared at least a company had been foraging for food. The back

  door opened on what seemed, from what he could see by skylight,

  to be a small formal garden; a white-painted gate was held shut by a

  simple hook.

  Outside on Basket Street, he stopped to look back at the house he

  had left. Most of its windows were lit, including one on the second

  floor whose lights were dimming; his, no doubt. Distant explosions

  indicated the center of the city as well as anything could.

  An officer on horseback who might easily have been the one who

  had shot him galloped past without taking the least notice. Two

  streets nearer the Palatine, a hurrying trooper carrying a dispatch