Epiphany of the Long Sun (47 page)

"Yet, ah-"

"Through the doorway, too." They had nearly reached the steps of Blood's portico. "That door would have been defended more strongly than any other point, and I can look right into the sellaria. There's not a one. Where are they?"

"I would, er, hazard that the victorious troops disposed of them afterward."

She shook her head vigorously. "Troopers who've won are never anxious to get the bodies of those they've killed out of sight, Your Eminence. Never! I've seen that much more often than I like. They're proud, and it's good for their morale. Yesterday Major Skin was begging, literally begging me, not to have bodies that had lain in the streets for days carted off. If the bodies are gone, it's because their friends came back for them. It would be interesting to see if there are graves behind the house. That's where they'd be, I imagine. By the wall, as far as possible from the road. Do you know if there are gardens in back?"

"I have never, um, had the pleasure." Remora started up the steps. "Nor has His Cognizance, I think. He, um, confided it to me a year or two past. We had been-um-dissecting? Decrying this, er, Blood's influence. Was never a, um, visitor within these-ah-despoiled walls."

"Neither have. I, Your Eminence." Maytera Mint hiked up her skirt and started up the steps.

"To be sure. To be sure, General. I regret it. Regret it now. I will not dissemble, nor, um, ever. Seldom. To have seen this in its days of prosperity would-prosperity and peace, eh? The contrast 'twixt memory and the, um, less happy present. Do you follow me? Whereas one can now but picture… See that picture? Fine. Very fine indeed, eh? Torn. Might be refurbished yet, in skillful hands. Like the tali, eh?"

"I suppose." She had glanced at the ruined furniture, and was studying the shadowy doorways of further rooms. "He kept women here, didn't he? This bad man Blood who owned the house. Women-women who…"

"Enough, enough! Do not, um, perturb yourself, Maytera. General. A few such. An, er, select contingent. So I was given to understand upon the occasion of our-um-my
tete-a-tete,
eh? With old Quetzal. Do I, um, scandalize you? With His Cognizance. I am, ah, betimes inclined to be overfree. To presume upon an old friendship. A failing, I concede." Remora advanced to study the damaged Murtagon.

"Was this where it happened?"

"Where the women-ah?" He glanced back at her with a half smile. "No indeed."

"Where Caldé Silk killed this man Blood, and Sergeant Sand killed Councillor Potto."

"We've finer ones at the Palace, hey? Still it's nice and might be-ah-emended. In an, um, one of the anterooms as I understand it, General. May I ask why you wish to know. An um, monument of some kind, possibly? A dedicational tablet of, er, bronze?"

"Because we know that the man who owned this house died in it, Your Eminence," Maytera Mint explained. "This Blood, with Councillor Potto. If their bodies aren't here, they've been removed by someone, and I'd think that if Generalissimo Oosik or even General Saba had done it I'd have heard. A councillor's body? Everyone would be arguing about what should be done with it, and I would certainly have heard."

Her tone grew crisp. "Now if you'll oblige me."

Remora, who was not used to being asked for favors in that peremptory fashion, looked around sharply.

"There seems to be no one here, though my informants… Never mind. Do you agree?"

"There is certainly no one in this room at present except-ah-ourselves. With regard to the, er, remainder of the, um, building, I-hum-further investigation."

"I've been listening carefully and heard nothing. The bodies may be in plain view or hidden by furniture or whatnot." Rather tardily Maytera Mint added, "Your Eminence. I'll search the rooms on this side. I'd like you to search the other. We needn't bother with the rest of the house, I think."

"If there are no, er, bodies, General," Remora smoothed the truant lock into place, "shall we return to the city-ah-forthwith? Might be wise, eh? We have no way of knowing what has transpired in our absence, hey?"

She nodded. "Agreed. We'll know then that they've been here and may return later. I'll leave one of Bison's officers to watch, with a few troopers. If we
do
find a body, either one, it should be safe to assume that the Ayuntamiento's troops have never come back at all. We can go back to the city at once and forget about this house."

"Wisely, er, spoken." Remora was already hurrying toward the first of his assigned roorns. "I shall inform you promptly should I discover an-ah-the mortal remains."

The anteroom Maytera Mint entered had, it appeared, been the owner's study. A massive mahogany desk, lavishly carved, stood against one wall, and there were shelves of books, mostly (she scanned the titles on a shelf at the level of her eyes) erotic if not pornographic:
Three Maids and Their Mistress, The Astonishing Exploits of a Virile Young Man and His Donkey, His Resistance Overcome
…

She turned away. What had it been like to be here under such a master? She tried to picture the lives of the women who had endured it, and failed. They had been bad women, as the whorl judged, but that only meant that they had commanded defenses greatly inferior to her own.

Strange, how she had come to think in military metaphors during the past few days.

The desk drawers seemed apt to tell her a good deal about the owner, who counted for nothing now, and nothing about the Ayuntamiento and those who served it. She opened a drawer at random anyway, glanced at the papers it had held-all of them concerned in some fashion with money-shut it, and made sure no corpse lay concealed in the leg hole.

"General!
"

Turning so quickly that the long, black skirt of her habit billowed about her, she hurried out of the study and across the sellaria. "What is it, Your Eminence?"

He met her at the doorway, visibly struggling to conceal his pleasure. "I have the-ah-it is my unhappy duty-"

"You've found a body. Whose?"

"The, um, late councillor's, I believe. If, perhaps, you would not care-"

"To see it? I must! Your Eminence, I've seen hundreds of bodies since this began. Thousands." There had been a time when she had found it nearly impossible to cut the throat of a goat; as she pushed past Remora, she reflected that she would find that difficult still, and find it literally impossible to cut a man's, even an enemy's. Yet she had made plans and given orders that had clogged entire streets with corpses.

"I took the, um, responsibility? The-ah-presumption of, er, tidying him up. On his back now, eh? Folded the arms, prior to calling you."

Potto lay almost at her feet, his arms crossed in such a way as to hide the wound Sand's slug had made just below his sternum. The graying hair that he had worn long trailed over Blood's lush carpet, and Maytera Mint found herself muttering, "He looks surprised."

"Doubtless he-ah-was." Remora cleared his throat. "Caught unawares, hey? Shot by one of his own. All in a, um, trice. So my prothonotary tells me. He-ah-Incus is his name, General. Patera Incus. He has, um, fallen prey in some-ah-wise to the notion that he's old Quetzal-"

She knelt beside the corpse, traced the sign of addition, and opened its card case.

"Mad, I fear. Deranged. Bit of rest, eh? He'll come to himself soon enough. General-ah-?"

In the first place," Maytera Mint explained, "there may be papers of value in here. In the second, there's money, ten cards or so, and we need that very badly."

"I, ah, see."

Cards and papers vanished into her wide sleeve. "Where's the blood? Did you clean up his blood before you called to me, Your Eminence?"

"Through the heart, eh?" Remora's nasal tones sounded slightly strangled. "Not much bleeding then, eh? So I am-ah-apprised."

Gently at first, then with increased vigor, Maytera Mint rubbed the councillor's cheek. "This's a chem!"

"I-um-"

She looked up at Remora. "You knew."

"I-ah-suspected."

"You rolled him over, you said, Your Eminence. You folded his arms. You must have known."

"Then? Oh, yes, I-ah-confirmed, eh? I had, um, and-ah-Quetzal, eh? Old Quetzal. Wouldn't tell. Asked him once. More, actually. He, ah, er, wouldn't. Confides in me, eh? Nearly everything. Very, ah, delicate points. Sensitive matters, finances. Everything. But he-ah-wouldn't."

Suddenly Remora was on his knees beside her. "General-ah-General. Alone here, hey? No one but, er, ourselves. May I call you Maytera?"

She ignored it. "There'll be the question of burial. A dozen questions, really. You must have realized I'd find out."

"I-ah-did. Indeed. Not so swiftly, however. You are most-or-perspicacious."

"Then why didn't you say so? Why all that nonsense about blood?"

"Because I-Incus. Patera Incus. And old Quetzal, eh? My position is, er, delicate. Imperiled. Maytera, hear me, I-ah-beg you. Yes, beg. Implore."

She nodded. "I'm listening. What is it?"

"Incus, my prothonotary. Was. You know him?"

She shook her head. "Just tell me."

"He's been appointed Prolocutor. By, um, Scylla. He says it, I mean. Credits it himself, eh? Convinced. Spoke to him yesterday, but he-you…"

"Me?" For a second, Maytera Mint felt she was missing some vital clue. It dawned upon her, and she rocked backward to sit cross-legged on the carpet, her head in her hands.

"Maytera? Er, General?"

She looked up at Remora. "I was appointed by Echidna, in front of thousands of people. Is that it, Your Eminence?"

Remora's mouth opened and shut silently.

"So you know it happened. All those witnesses. And I've been successful, as you say. The victorious commander, chosen for us by the gods. Even Bison and the captain talk like that, and then there's Patera Silk."

Remora nodded miserably.

"Everyone says he's been appointed by Great Pas to be our Caldé, even Maytera Marble. He's been successful, too, so it looks like the gods have decided to choose leaders for us, and if this Patera Incus is going to be the new Prolocutor, he'll want to pick his own coadjutor."

"Nor-ah-um-worse. If he-ah-old Quetzal, you know. Resourceful. Cunning. Seen it myself, hundreds of times, eh? Ayuntamiento had the force, but he'd get 'round them. Get 'round Lemur and Loris, all of them. Old man, hey? Foolish old man. What they think. His Cognizance. Quetzal. But sly, Mayt-General. Very sly. Deep."

She made a small sound of encouragement.

"Compromise. I-ah-sense it. I am not, um, clever, General. Try to be, indeed. Try. Some have said-well, it pares no parsnips. But not like old Quetzal. Experienced, though. My-ah-self. Conferences, negotiations. And I wind it. Wind it already. Be coadjutor, Incus. Obvious, eh? First thing anybody would, er, formulate. Old Quetzal would-ah-visualize? Comprehend the whole before Incus finished. Old man. Die soon, hey? A year, two years, to-ah-fit yourself into the position, Patera. I'll be gone. I can, um, hear him as I-we-speak. So I didn't dare, eh? Tell you. You see my predicament? The-ah-Loris. Galago. All the rest. Chems, every one of them. I suspected it for years. Meeting with this one, that one, entire days, sometimes. Saw them up close. Quetzal knows, he must."

"But His Cognizance wouldn't talk about it?"

"No. Ah-no. Too sensitive. Even for me, eh? He, Incus. I told you?"

"You told me he says Scylla's made him Prolocutor."

"He, um, offered me…"

One bony hand pushed back the straying lock, and Maytera Mint saw how violently that hand shook. "He offered you…?"

"A-ah-appointment. A position. He was," Remora swallowed, "not abusive. It was not, I judge, his intent to be-ah-disparage. He said that I-I refused, to be sure. His prothonotary. His, ah, I-I-I…"

Maytera Mint nodded. "I see."

"We have been, er, companions, Maytera. Coworkers-ah-partners in peace, hey? Son and daughter of the Chapter. We have conferred, and the same-um-consecrated vision has inspired us both. I well-ah-recollect our first meeting. You averred with-um-coruscant eyes that peace was your, er, sole desire once you had-ah, um-executed the will of the gods. I affirmed? Avowed that it was mine likewise. In concert we have conferred with Brigadier Erne and the Caldé. You are a hero, um, heroine to the-ah-populace. There is talk of a statue, hey? A word from you, your support…"

"Be quiet," she told him. "I haven't had a moment to get used to the idea that the Ayuntamiento's made up of chems, and now this."

"If I, ah-"

"Be quiet, I said!" She drew a deep breath, running the fingers of both hands through her short brown hair. "To begin with, no, you may not call me Maytera. Not in private, and not any other time. If His Cognizance will release me, I mean to return to secular life. I," another breath, "may marry. We'll see. As for you, if this Patera Incus has in fact been named Prolocutor by Scylla, then he
is
Prolocutor, regardless of any arrangement that he and Patera Quetzal may make. I can readily imagine a younger man of great sanctity deferring to a much older one. Viewed in a certain light, it would be an act of noble self-renunciation. But it wouldn't alter the fact. He would be our Prolocutor, though he wasn't called so. Since he proposed that you become his prothonotary, plainly you're not to be coadjutor any longer. No doubt Patera Quetzal is, in solemn truth, coadjutor. That being so, I'll call you Patera."

"My dear young woman!"

Her look silenced him. "I'm not your dear young woman, or anyone's. I'm thirty-six, and I assure you that for a woman it's no longer young. Call me General, or I'll make your life a great deal less pleasant than it has been."

A door at the far end of the room opened, and someone who was neither Mint nor Remora applauded. "Brava, my dear young general! Simply marvelous! You ought to be on the stage."

He waddled over to them, a short, obese man with bright blue eyes, a cheerful round face, and hair so light as to be nearly blond. "But as for accepting an Ayuntamiento of chems, you need not trouble. I'm no chem, though I confess that the object before you is something of the kind."

Remora gasped, having recognized him.