Nightside the Long Sun

He stood up and backed away.

“They call it beggar’s root because it makes you beg. I’m begging now, just listen to me. Come on. You’ll like it.”

Silk shook his head.

“Come sit next to me.” She patted the rumpled sheet. “That’s all I’m asking for—right now, anyway. You were here in bed with me a minute ago.”

He tried to pull his tunic over his head and failed, discovering in the process that even the slightest movement of his right arm was painful.

“You’re the one that they were looking for, aren’t you? Aren’t you glad that I didn’t tell them anything? You really ought to be, Musk can be awfully mean. Don’t you want me to help you with that?”

“Don’t try.” He retreated another step.

Sliding off the bed, she picked up his robe. She was completely naked; he closed his eyes and turned away.

She giggled, and he was suddenly reminded of Mucor, the mad girl. “You really are an augur. He called you Patera—I’d forgotten. Do you want your little hat back? I stuck it under my pillow.”

The uses to which Patera Pike’s calotte might be put if it remained with her flashed through Silk’s mind. “Yes,” he said. “Please, may I have it back?”

“Sure, I’ll trade you.”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t you come here to see me? You don’t act like it, but you knew my name.”

“No. I came to find Blood.”

“You won’t like him, Patera.” Hyacinth grinned again. “Even Musk doesn’t like him, not really. Nobody does.”

“He has my sympathy.” Silk tried to raise the tunic again, and was deterred by a flash of pain. “I’ve come to show him how he can be better liked, and even loved.”

“Well, Patera, I’m Hyacinth, just like you said. And I’m famous. Everybody likes me, except you.”

“I do like you,” Silk told her. “That is one of the reasons I won’t do what you want. It’s a rather minor one, actually, but a real reason nonetheless.”

“You stole my azoth, though, didn’t you, Patera? I can see the end of it poking out of that rope.”

Silk nodded. “I intend to return it. But you’re quite right, I took it without your permission, and that’s theft. I’m sorry, but I felt I’d better have it. What I’m doing is extremely important.” He paused and waited for remonstrances that did not come. “I’ll see that it’s returned to you, and your needier as well, if I get home safely.”

“You were afraid of the guards, weren’t you? There in my bed. You were afraid of that one with Musk. Afraid that he’d kill you.”

“Yes,” Silk admitted. “I was terrified, if you want the truth; and now I’m just as terrified of you, afraid that I’ll give in to you, disgrace my calling, and lose the favor of the immortal gods.”

She laughed.

“You’re right.” Silk tried to put on his tunic again, but his right forearm burned and throbbed. “I’m certainly not brave. But at least I’m brave enough to admit it.”

“Wait just a minute,” she said. “Wait right here. I’m going to get you something.”

He glimpsed the balneum through the door she opened. As she closed it behind her, it occurred to him that Patera Pike’s calotte was still in the bed, under her pillow; moved by that weak impulse which turns back travelers to retrieve trifles, he rescued it and put it on.

She emerged from the balneum, naked still, holding out a gold cup scarcely larger than a thimble, half filled with brick-colored powder. “Here, Patera. You put it into your lip.”

“No. I realize that you mean well, but I’d rather be afraid.”

She shrugged and pulled forward her own lower lip. For a moment it made her ugly, and Silk felt a surge of relief. After emptying the little cup into the hollow between lip and gum, she grinned at him. “This is the best money can buy, and it works fast. Sure you don’t want some? I’ve got a lot.”

“No,” he repeated. “I should go. I should have gone before now, in fact.”

“All right.” She was looking at the gem in the hilt of the azoth again. “It’s mine, you know. A very important man gave it to me. If you’re going to steal it, I ought to at least get to help you. Are you sure you’re a real augur?”

Silk sighed. “It seems that I may not be much longer. If you’re serious about wanting to help me, Hyacinth, tell me where you think Blood is likely to be at this hour. Will he have retired for the night?”

She shook her head, her eyes flashing. “He’s probably downstairs saying good-bye to the last of them. They’ve been coming all night, commissioners and commissioners’ flunkies. Every once in a while he sends a really important one up here for me. I lost count, but there must have been six or seven of them.”

“I know.” Silk tried to push the hilt of the azoth more deeply into the coil of rope. “I’ve lain between your sheets.”

“You think I ought to change them? I didn’t think men cared.”

Silk knelt to fish his broad-brimmed straw hat from beneath the bed. “I doubt that those men do.”

“I can call a servant.”

“They’re busy looking for me, I imagine.” Silk tossed the hat onto the bed and readied himself for one last try at his tunic.

“Not the maids.” She took his tunic from him. “You know, your eyes want to look at me. You ought to let them do it.”