"I don't... I don't understand." Olivine cocked her head, and again he caught the glint of glass.
"Why they want them? Because they're not supposed to have them, I suppose. Or because they feel that they provide special access to the goddess. Quadrifons' name-with your key-gives you special access to this lovely garden." He paused, looking beyond the branches that concealed them. "I used to live in the Calde's Palace too, Olivine. It had just been reopened, and this was weeds and a few trees; but Viron itself was thronged with people. When you and Quadrifons opened the door for me, those leaves and weeds were all that I expected to see. It never occurred to me that this garden would be tended as it was in the days of Calde Tussah when so much of the city lies in ruins. I find it heartening."
She had risen, and he rose too. "I merely wanted to say that by prohibiting the possession of her image in Trivigaunte, Sphigx has made it highly valued there. Quadrifons may have had something of the same kind in mind when he restricted the use of his name. Or he may have hoped to link himself to the Outsider, whose true name is unknown."
They left the spreading branches and crossed a bright, soft lawn. Seeing them, a white-haired man dropped his hoe and knelt.
"He wants your blessing..."
There seemed to be no help for it; he sketched the sign of addition over the old man's head. "Blessed be you in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in those of his living children, in that of the patron of doors and crossroads, and in that of the Obscure Outsider, whom we pray will bless this, our Holy City of Viron."
"Come on... Come on, Patera." Olivine tugged his sleeve. "We've got to get some... We've got to get some bread." He followed, reflecting gloomily that the old man had probably noticed how very irregular his blessing had been, although he had kept his voice low and spoken as rapidly as he could.
A door (wooden, this time, although bound with iron) opened on a scullery, the scullery on the kitchen he vaguely remembered. A cook paring carrots froze as they entered, her mouth a perfect circle of surprise. The door of a cupboard rattled and banged; then Olivine was drawing him up a dark stair, her limp more pronounced than ever. Almost running, they passed a landing.
The next had a small window; he stopped before it to gasp for breath. "This floor."
"No... No, Patera. I was born down there... I was born down there, but my room's under the roof."
"I know, my child. I saw you there."
She shifted the small loaf to her other hand, and reached out to stroke his tunic. "You're... You're dirty."
"I've been traveling rough, I'm afraid. Last night I slept on the floor. It was a very dirty floor, too. Besides you were sitting on the ground, remember? And I knelt on it. I don't believe I even dusted my knees when I stood up. But, Olivine, I'd like to ask a personal question. May I?" She was rubbing a double thickness of his soiled tunic between her forefinger and thumb, and he had seen clearly that they were metal.
"Wouldn't you like... Wouldn't you like clean clothes?"
"Very much. I'd like a bath, too; but I'm afraid both are impossible."
She glanced up, her face inscrutable behind its swaddling sackcloth. "I know a... I know a place."
"Where I might take a bath? That's very good of you. It's wonderful of you, in fact; but before we leave this floor, there is something I must see-a certain room into which I must go, if I possibly can. I can find it for myself, I believe, and I'll rejoin you here afterward, or anywhere you choose."
"Here... Here, Patera." She opened a door; and he saw a corridor lined with more. He had forgotten it or thought he had, but the pattern in its carpet was like a blow.
"Yes, there. My-Nettle and I stayed here once. It was only for a few days, though it seemed forever then." He spoke to himself more than to her, but found it impossible to stop. "It was always cold, and we took blankets from other rooms-from empty rooms, I ought to say. There was a little fireplace, and the first one to get back at night would raid the woodbox in the kitchen." He paused to look at the hand that held the bread Olivine had gotten there. "And make a fire. There was an old brass pan you filled with coals to warm the bed, and we'd strip and bathe and huddle naked under the blankets trying to keep warm."
He pushed past her, stepping into the remembered corridor and half afraid it might vanish. They had not used this stair, he decided, but another larger one nearer the front, reaching the kitchen from the ground floor. "We were wonderfully happy here, as happy as we were capable of being-which was very happy indeed in those days-and happier than we were ever to be on Blue, though we were very happy there, too, sometimes."
Olivine pointed to a door.
"No, it was down that way, I'm sure."
"Where you can... Where you can wash? I'll find clean... I'll find clean clothes."
"I can't let you steal for me, my child, if that's what you're proposing."
"From an old storeroom... From an old storeroom, Patera. Nobody... Nobody cares." She stepped back into the stairwell again, and shut the door.
Shrugging, he opened the one she had indicated. A small bedroom, smaller even than the one he had shared with Mother so long ago. The bed, a chest of drawers, and a bedside table so small that it might almost have been a toy. No washstand, which presumably meant that the door that appeared to belong to a closet led to a lavatory. The thought of a bath, even a sponge bath with cold water, was irresistible; removing his tunic with one swift gesture, he threw open the door.
Chapter 11. MY TRIAL
Now that I have leisure to write again, I am ready to throw the whole thing overboard. We put out night before last, having waited half a day for a wind, and have been coasting ever since, bedeviled by light airs. I spent yesterday-or most of it-rereading everything that I have written since I began to write back in Gaon. I have covered a lot of paper and wasted hundreds of hours, all without more than mentioning my search for Patera Silk in the Whorl-the central reason for my trip; and (I must face the fact) the great failure of my life.
Nor have I described my trial and the overthrow of Dorp's judges, which I promised to do again and again the last time I wrote and which I intend to do in a moment. Perhaps I shall never pen an account of my return to Old Viron, of meeting my father there, and the rest of it. Perhaps it is better so.
Hoof and Hide were afraid they would be arrested. I assured them that as long as they were circumspect they had nothing to fear. And so it proved, although Wijzer and Wapen, both local men with extensive connections among the sailors and boat owners, accomplished much more. At the end (which is to say after I had been removed from Aanvagen's in chains) Beroep and Strik joined them. They had little time in which to work, but they brought us more than a hundred fighters between them-so many that the slug guns I had bought were insufficient, and they had to buy more by ones and twos out of their own pockets. Once the rebellion was under way, we were joined by many more who had only knives and clubs; but I am proud to say that all our original men had slug guns, every one of them.