Return to the Whorl

7. DRINKING COMPANIONS

We have made the experiment, and the experiment has failed. That is the truth, so that is how I must look at it. All my planning-I shall be honest: all my scheming-has gone for nothing. I must devise a new approach.

When I was in Blanko, Fava and I found that when my mind was joined with hers we, and anyone else who was in our company, could travel in spirit. We went to Green; and later Jahlee, the Duko, Hide, and I, with some others, went to the great city of the Red Sun Whorl. We were able to, I believe, because the Duko had been there previously. Let me think.

I am going to write down everything-even the smallest details. Perhaps something will suggest itself, either when I am writing or when I read this over tomorrow.

I persuaded Beroep to take me across the street to Cijfer's. It was a serious violation of the law, he said; he and Aanvagen might lose their boats and even their house if the law found out. We waited until long after shadelow, when the street was almost empty. I was muffled in a thick twill boat cloak with a hood. It is dark gray, and reminds me of Olivine's giving me my augur's robe; what a strange whorl it is, in which we become someone else by putting on new clothes! The prisoner Horn disappeared as soon as Beroep draped him in this exceedingly voluminous cloak, replaced by the nameless captain of a nameless boat. In all the time I sailed with Babbie and Seawrack, I had no such cloak. Now I have no boat, but am equipped for one. No doubt it will soon appear.

In the same way, rubies and red and purple silk made me Rajan of Gaon. We are but the paper; our clothes are the ink.

Across the street we went, with Oreb flying well in advance so that his company would not betray my identity, and to make certain Cijfer would put out the lamps and open her door the moment we arrived.

She had and did. We hurried inside. "My servants away I have sent, Mysire Horn. This you say, and this I have done."

"Come bird!" Oreb was fluttering up the stairwell already. We ran after him-or at any rate Cijfer and I ran, and Beroep labored behind us, puffing and groaning. Up a flight-then another-and into the locked and bolted little bedroom whose window I had studied with Vadsig, and which has been constantly in my thoughts. It seemed as dark, almost, as Blood's villa; I nearly stumbled over the chair to which Cijfer directed me.

"A candle now you wish, Mysire Horn? The shutters closed are. No one can see."

It occurred to me that no one could see me well enough to recognize me even if they had been open, and I recalled Silk's saying that Mucor thought her spirit could not leave her room unless the window was open. I resolved to open the shutters of Jahlee's room, and did afterward, although nothing came of it.

Beroep arrived at the same time Cijfer brought the candle. He would have bent over Jahlee if I had permitted it. I ordered him away with a gesture that I hope brooked no argument, and he dropped gasping into the chair. It was only then, after Beroep had sat down, that I understood how it was that Cijfer served as Jahlee's jailer for so long without realizing that she was an inhuma: the sheet had been drawn up nearly to the top of her wig. "Good thing?" Oreb inquired when I lifted it.

I replaced the sheet, telling him to be quiet. "You've covered her face," I remarked to Cijfer. "May I ask why?"

"So silent she is, mysire. So cold. Like dead your poor daughter is. Seeing her so I do not like."

Not dead," Beroep gasped, "she is?"

"No. She's in a coma-from which I intend to rouse her." I felt confident of my ability to do it, and made the declaration as certain as I could. What if Jahlee, who was been buried alive in Gaon, were buried alive a second time here in Dorp? Who would rescue her then?

"My house the ghosts will leave, mysire, if up she wakes?"

I told Cijfer I was sure of it, and ordered them out; she left obediently and he reluctantly. And what more is there to tell?

Nothing, really.

I sat with her all night, thinking of Green-its ruined city, its swamps and jungles, the rice fields of the villagers, the abandoned tower in the cliff, and the derelict lander in which I died rose before my mind not once or twice but twenty or thirty times; and as far as I am capable of it, I explored their every corner, leaf, and crevice. Two floors below me, where Beroep was talking to Cijfer and drinking the white brandy they relish here, plates fell from a shelf and Cijfer shrieked in dismay. That was a little after midnight, and was far more activity than I myself saw. I opened the shutters and closed them after half an hour during which the room became unbearably cold. I moved the candle from place to place. I poked the fire and fed it fresh wood. I pulled down the sheet and kissed Jahlee's cheek, and took her hand (very clearly the hand of an inhuma) from under the bedclothes and clasped it between my own. It was as cold as ice-no dead woman's could have been colder. In time I warmed it, but Jahlee never stirred.

I prayed again and again, imploring the help of the Outsider and every other god, told my beads, and recalled ten thousand things, from my mother's kindnesses when I was a boy to the way Pig looked and spoke when he rejoined Hound and me at the fire in Blood's villa. I listened to Oreb, and talked to him-mostly to caution him to say nothing about what we were doing. And at last, when I could no longer bear his chatter, I opened the shutters again and sent him out to look for Babbie, something I very much regret now, because he has not returned.

Dawn came and with it Beroep, rather drunk, to tell me that he could risk my absence from his house no longer. So here I sit, having accomplished nothing. But what more could I have done? I wish now that I had thought to cut my arm and smeared Jahlee's lips.

Here is news, perhaps even good news. I hope so. There was an awful brawl downstairs this morning. I listened at my keyhole and soon identified Cook's voice; it was not difficult to guess who she was bawling at, so I pounded on my door and shouted for Vadsig. She was breathless when she arrived and every bit as red of face as Aanvagen, with a livid bruise on her cheek. "I only require that you talk to me awhile," I told her, "and give Cook's temper time to cool. I felt sure you'd appreciate being rescued from that situation, whatever it was."

"Going out I am, mysire. Asking her I am not." This was said in the tone of one who defies the armed might of cities. "Saying all morning she is. Lying, she is. No more than one hour it is, mysire. Less!"

"I believe you."

"Paying me she is not, mysire. A servant like me she is!"

"No doubt she became accustomed to bullying you when you were younger, Vadsig. She must learn from your speech and your deportment that you are growing up."

She nodded vigorously. "All her life a servant she is. So with me it will not be. This she sees. Our own house we will have. Children I will have, and servants like her to wait on us, it may be."

"Aim high, Vadsig. There is nothing to be gained by not doing so."

"Thank you, mysire. Very kind you are." Smoothing her apron, she turned to go. "Your son well is, mysire. Happy he is not, but well he is and love to you by me he sends."

She had gone out and turned the key before my mouth closed. Hide? And Vadsig? What a wonderful whorl we live in!

I have been walking up and down this little room, three steps and turn, worrying about Oreb. If you ever read this, dear Nettle, you will say that I ought to have been worrying about our son; but what is there to worry about? He and Vadsig will or will not marry. I cannot decide that for them, and neither could you; they must decide it for themselves. If they do not, each will regret it sometimes, and nothing you and I could say or do can change that. If they do, each will regret that sometimes, too; and we cannot change that either. So what is there to think about? I wish them both well. So would you, I believe, if you were here with me.

As for Oreb, I am concerned about him but what can I do? When we reached this whorl, he left me for nearly a year. At, this moment he has been gone less than a day. I have prayed that he is safe, and that is all I can do. I hope the Outsider, whose sacrifice Silk once intended Oreb to be, smiles on him.

The reason for my failure with poor Jahlee last night is obvious, surely. Her spirit is absent. I had supposed that it might be hovering about her body, and that I might somehow assist it to re-enter. It is not there, and in all probability is still on Green. I returned from Green, leaving her there and supposing that she could return as I did whenever she chose. Either she has not chosen to return, or she is unable to do so. If it is the first, well and good. I have no claim on her; she may remain as she is if she chooses.

But if she is unable to return (and I confess I believe that most likely) I must bring her back; and I cannot go without the company of another such as Jahlee is and my poor friend Fava was.

Available to me in this house are Vadsig, Aanvagen, Beroep, and perhaps Cijfer. I have tried to persuade myself that one of them might do. I cannot. Vadsig is lean enough, but the idea of an inhuma living by choice as Vadsig does-sleeping in a garret, sweeping and mopping floors, and washing dishes-is perfectly ridiculous. She has worked here, she says, for two years. She would have been detected a hundred times over. If somehow she had not been, she would have been detected at once by Oreb, who has seen her many times.

Beroep and Aanvagen can be dismissed at once; both are far too portly. As for Cijfer, I do not believe it. Oreb saw her and said nothing. She would not have covered Jahlee's face, or fetched a bio to help her. All four can be dismissed.

Leaving no one. What am I to do?

Sleep.

No dreams. Not of Fava and Mora, nor of anyone else; but I ought to have known better-Mora herself must be awake.

Dusk outside my window. Another short winter day has ended. Soon the house will be asleep, and I will go out and search the streets for someone like Fava and Jahlee who may (may, I say) be willing to go to Green with me and bring my poor daughter home. What else can I do? I give thanks to the Outsider, particularly, that Beroep failed to notice I was keeping his gray boat cloak.

So much has happened that I despair of recording all of it. I required Beroep's cloak-I was right about that-but not to search the streets of Dorp for a helpful inhumu. I had no more than written cloak and put away my pen case and my dwindling supply of paper than I heard the rattle of sling swivels and the clatter of boots on the stair. In came two men with slug guns, and off to Judge Hamer we went-not to a courtroom, but to his house, where he held court in his sellaria.

"No formal session it is, Mysire Horn." He is fat and red of face, and seemed to me to be forcing his voice deeper than nature intended. "A preliminary hearing it is. This is capital cases we do."

I protested that I had killed no one.

"Nat you made your prisoner. Him you restrained, mysire. By our law a capital offense it is." He smiled, cocked his head, and pointed his forefinger down at his neck.

"Is Nat a particularly privileged individual here in Dorp, Judge Hamer?"

He looked severe. "Mysire Rechtor to me you must say, mysire, each time you speak."

"Excuse it, please, Mysire Rechtor. I am a stranger, and ignorant of your usages. Is Nat a privileged citizen, Mysire Rechtor? Or does this law you describe apply to everyone?"

"The protection of all it is, mysire."

"What about strangers such as my daughter, my son, and myself, Mysire Rechtor? Are we protected, too? Or does your law protect only your own citizens?"

"All it protects. This I say, mysire, and this so is."

"Then I protest on behalf of my daughter, Mysire Rechtor. She is being held by your order, and she had nothing to with restraining Nat-whom we soon released, by the way."

"By the law held she is, mysire. The law, the law cannot break." He addressed the troopers. "Mysire Horn's daughter, Meren Jahlee. Why not to my court fetching her you are?"

One came to attention and saluted. "Sleeping she is, Mysire Rechtor."

"Her you wake."

There was a whispered consultation; I took advantage of the time it gave me to look around. The five with slug guns I took to be legermen, although their uniforms were sketchy at best. Except for them, and Judge Hamer, there was no one in the sellaria save Beroep, Aanvagen, and me.

The sellaria itself spoke of wealth and luxury, although no wealthy man in the Viron I knew as a boy would have been impressed by it. Its floors of waxed wood was smooth, and the rough wool carpet before the judge's desk not quite contemptible. Somber pictures hung on the crudely paneled walls; heavy chairs and glass-fronted cabinets containing rusted knives and swords, and split and polished stones, completed the furnishings.

"Mysire Horn!" Hamer rapped his desk with a walking stick. "About your daughter presently we see. Likewise Mysire Hide, who stands accused with you."

"Unjustly. He is my son and merely did what I told him."

"This he and you later must say. How you plead I must know, and not how Mysire Hide will, or this Meren Jahlee whose sleep brave men dare not disturb. Our laws you do not know, mysire?"

I shook my head.

"By speaking you must answer."

"No, Mysire Rechtor. I do not."

"Such criminals as you, Mysire Horn, three choices have. Innocent you may plead. If this you say, your innocence by your own speech and your witnesses you must to me prove."

"I would be free to speak then, Mysire Rechtor?"

"This I have said, mysire. If guilty you plead, almost the same it is. By your speech and witnesses for a light sentence you argue."

"I believe I understand, Mysire Rechtor."

"Not pleading also you may choose. If so you choose, a friend for you I shall appoint. Then your guilt we must show, and he our witnesses may question. For children and those who cannot speak this is done."

"You said that you would have to prove my guilt, Mysire Rechtor. I thought you were to be my judge."

"Your judge I am. If guilty you are, show it so I must. How pleading you are?"

I looked to Beroep for a hint, but he would not meet my eye. I said, "I won't plead until my trial, Mysire Rechtor."

"Now plead you must, so we for your trial can prepare."

I shook my head again.

"To me aloud you must speak!"

I was badly frightened, but I thought of Silk in the inn in Limna, and how he had longed for a public trial, though he had known that at the conclusion of any such trial he would be convicted and sentenced to die. Gathering what courage I have, I said, "You are my prosecutor, mysire. Take me before a just judge, and I will speak to him."

"Your judge I am!" He pounded the table with his stick.

"You claim the right to prosecute me in accordance with your laws, the laws of Dorp, about which I know nothing. I claim the right to defend myself by the only law I know, the law of reason. Reason demands an impartial judge, and that I be given the advice of someone who knows your law." I wanted to swallow and tried to, as I recall vividly. "Someone friendly to my cause."

Silence descended on the sellaria, save for the shuffling of the leg- ermen's boots.

"Is that all you have to say, Mysire Horn?"

I nodded my head.

"To me aloud speak!"

I shook it and waited for the blow from behind I expected.

"Mysire Beroep!"

He stepped forward and said, "Yes, Mysire Rechtor," with a slight tremor.

"In your house Mysire Horn is staying how many days?"

There was a pause, and I saw Beroep's fingers twitch as he endeavored to count on them without making it obvious that he was doing so. I said, "For eight days, Judge Hamer."

"Me, Mysire Rechtor calling you are."

"No, Hamer."

"Him you silence," Hamer told one of the legermen, who positioned himself behind me with his hand over my mouth.

Beroep said, "Six days, Mysire Rechtor."

"Not eight it is?"

Beroep cleared his throat. "Only six counting I am, Mysire Rechtor."

There was an interruption as Hide was hustled in, followed by Vadsig and a middle-aged couple.

"This Mysire Hide it is?" Judge Hamer asked.

I jerked the legerman's hand down and said as loudly as I could, "No!"

"What this is you saying are, mysire?"

The legerman had his hand over my mouth and an arm around my neck; I could not speak.

"Mysire," Hamer pointed to Hide, "your name we must have."

"My name is Hoof," Hide told him.

"To me Mysire Rechtor you say, mysire. Again you answer."

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

Hamer's eyes rolled upward; I felt sure that like me, he was silently imploring the mercy of the immortal gods. "To this court your name you must give. It what is?"

The middle-aged man said, "Hide it is, Mysire Rechtor. In my house quartered he is. If removing-"

Hamer cut him off. "Him asking I am, mysire!"

Hide said, "My name is Hoof."

"Hide not it is?"

I saw Hide's eyes steal toward me, although I doubt that Judge Hamer did. "No," Hide said.

The woman interrupted, saying rather shrilly, "Hide always we calling him are, Mysire Rechtor."

Her husband snapped, "Silent you be, Versregal!"

"To your house confined he is, Mysire Strik?"

Hide said, "I am, but my brother isn't."

"Mysire Hide your brother is?"

Hide nodded, and one of the troopers stepped up behind him and cuffed the side of his head.

"To Judge Hamer loudly you must speak," Strik explained in a whisper.

Vadsig stepped forward, eyes blazing. "Not knowing he is! No crime he does! Why him you abuse? What justice this is?" And much more of the same-too much for me to record here even if I recalled it. When Hamer found out she was only a servant in Aanvagen's house, he had her gagged and tied to a chair.

"Mysire Hide. This Mysire Horn's son you are?"

"My name isn't Hide," Hide explained. "My name's Hoof. Hide's my brother. We're twins, and we changed places. We used to do it all the time when we were smaller to fool our father. He couldn't tell us apart."

"Mysire-"

"Hoof. We look exactly alike."

Aanvagen put in, "Mysire Horn three sons and a daughter having is."

Hamer silenced her with a glance.

Hide said, "I'd heard my brother was in trouble here, so I came to see if I couldn't help him, and we changed placed. He's on his way back home by now, I guess."

Hamer told the trooper to release me, and asked whether Hide was my son. I said he was.

"Three having you are, mysire? Saying this the woman is."

I nodded, and was knocked to my knees.

"Three sons you are having?"

I must have nodded again. (At another time I will write about Green.) When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the floor beside Hamer's desk, and he was questioning Azijin. "With Mysire Horn talking while snowbound you are. Of twin sons he spoke?"

Azijin stood at attention. "Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

"More than a yes from you I ask."

Azijin gulped; the sound was soft, but the sellaria was so still, and I lay so near him, that I was able to hear it. "Of his family to me speaking often he is, Mysire Rechtor. Of his sons who twins are, of his wife and older son, of his daughter, who asleep fell and could not we wake-"

"Not permitting it he is?"

Another gulp. "No, Mysire Rechtor. Permitting he is, but not waking she is."

Hamer grunted. "Of twins he speaks? Sons that twins are?"

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

I suppose he must have beckoned to Hide, because Hide came forward.

"This son with him then is, Sergeant?"

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

"Not the other it is?" (I held my breath and shut my eyes.)

"The other, Mysire Rechtor…"

"The other it is?" I did not have to see Hamer to know that his face was crimson with rage. "This you saying are?"

"No, Mysire Rechtor."

"This son it is?"

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

Hide burst out, "Who is this, and why's he lying about me?"

There was a lengthy silence. At last Hamer said smoothly, "Mysire Strik, charged with the prisoner Hide you were."

"Here he is!" Strik protested. "Before you he stands, Mysire Rechtor."

"No, mysire. Escaped he has. His brother his place has taken while you slept."

"But-but-"

"To me plain this is. Mysire, your name Hoof it is?"

Hide nodded. "Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

"Mysire Hide your brother is?"

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor."

"When your father Mysire Nat confined, you in your own town were?"

Hide coughed nervously. "Can I say something, Mysire Rechtor? It's about something that's been bothering me a long time."

"Speak. Of you what I ask it is."

"That man there isn't really my father at all. He says he is, and he must've talked to my real father a lot, because he knows a lot about me and my brothers and our whole family. But that's not him."

"Not your father he is? Lying he is?"

"I don't know if he's lying, Mysire Rechtor. Sometimes it's like he believes it himself."

Judge Hamer rapped his desk. "Nearly finished we are. Sergeant, Mysire Hide who with you in the inn was, this man his father calling he was?"

"Yes, Mysire Rechtor!"

"Good." Judge Hamer sighed with relief; I heard his walking stick rattle as he laid it down. "Good! From Mysire Nat a disposition I have. By Mysire Horn and Mysire Hide he was bound and beaten. Mysire Horn we have."

Hide started to protest, but fell silent.

"You may not me interrupt, mysire! Mysire Horn your father he is?"

"That's his name, Mysire Rechtor, but-"

"Then this man another Mysire Horn to me he is, because Horn himself he calls. This Mysire Horn we have. Mysire Hide we do not have. Meren Jahlee not I have seen, but little guilt she has, and ill she lies." This was said portentously, and there was a slight stir of anticipation.

"For this preliminary hearing I will decide. In the matter of Meren Jahlee, no reason to charge I find. Dismissed though absent she is."

Although she spoke softly, Vadsig surprised me enough to make me open my eyes by saying, "Thanks, Mysire Rechtor. We really appreciate it." At an angry gesture from Azijin, a legerman hurried to replace her gag, which lay in her lap.

"In the matter of Mysire Hide, escape his guilt confirms. With unlawful restraint he charged is. Not here he is to plead, so for him not pleading down I set. This the law requires. With his escape Mysire Strik I charge."

I was watching Strik through narrowed lids, and he looked stricken. Hide asked, "What about me, Mysire Rechtor?"

"With you my court no business has, Mysire Hoof. Free to go you are."

"Thank you," Vadsig said again. Azijin went over to fasten her gag himself, but Judge Hamer told him to free her instead.

Strik was trying to say something, but was silenced. "Your preliminary hearing not this is, mysire. A date for that I will set. Notified you shall be." Hamer cleared his throat. "Mysire Beroep."

Hesitantly, poor Beroep stepped forward.

"Mysire Horn you for us have kept. Mysire Strik also you must keep."

Aanvagen answered for him. "That we will do, Mysire Rechtor. Safe with us he will be."

"In the matter of Mysire Horn, for himself he cannot plead, for him also not pleading down I set." Just then Cijfer burst in to announce that Jahlee had escaped. But I must go.

I have been out raising money. It was not easy, as the loot we took was mostly jewelry; but after searching and pounding on doors I was able to trace one jeweler to his home, wake him, and persuade him to buy six pieces. I stopped at a dram shop when I left him, a very foolish thing to do when I was carrying so much money; but I told myself (correctly, as it turned out) that I would be able to sit down with a glass before me and rest for an hour or so before I had to find my way back to Aanvagen's, and I might hear something of value. It was a clean, decent place, and had very few customers so late at night.

Sit down, Patera.

Auk sat across from me, more dour and more threatening than I ever imagined him when we wrote about his meeting with Silk. I blinked and he was gone, but he soon returned. Eventually I called the owner of the shop over, saying quite truthfully that my head ached, that I was very tired and much in need of company, and that I would be happy to stand him a glass of his own brandy if only he would tell me the gossip of the town.

"A foreigner you are?" He bent over my table, a bald and beefy man of more than forty.

"A foreigner much in need of companionship, mysire," I said.

"A girl you want?"

I shook my head. "Just someone real to talk to. Are you about to close?"

"No, mysire. At shadeup we close, but soon my son comes so sleep I get."

"Most people here don't say shadeup anymore," I told him, "or shadelow, either."

"For this my son at me laughs, mysire." He sat on Auk's stool, to my great relief. "The old place I do not forget. Back I cannot go, but remember I do. Old as me you are, mysire. Why come you did?"

For a moment I could not decide whether to tell him that I was told to (as I was by Silk) or that I was made to (as I was by Hari Mau and his friends); in the end I decided to change the subject and said, "For the same reasons as many others, I suppose. Would you like that drink? If you'll get it I'll pay for it, as I said."

"No, mysire. In my house sometimes, but here never I drink. For my trade ruin it is. From where to our Dorp do you come?"

"New Viron."

"A long voyage it is, but last night another from New Viron to my tavern comes. For you it is he searches?"

"I doubt it. What was his name?"

The shopkeeper scratched his bald head. "This forgotten I have, mysire. What yours is? Him I tell if again he comes."

I smiled and told him, "Horn it is, mysire. To him this you say. Mysire Horn for your company asks. Your townsman he is. With Beroep he is to be found. Help you he will."

The shopkeeper laughed. "Better talking you are, mysire."

"But not perfectly? How would you say it?"

" `For' not you say."

As I sipped from my chipped glass, I struggled to recall just what I had said. "Mysire Horn your company asks?"

"Yes, mysire. That the right way it is. Also must you say, with Beroep to be found he is."

"I see, and I appreciate your instruction. I'll wait a bit before I try again."

"A good man where we are Beroep is." The shopkeeper winked and pretended to drink, then turned gloomy. "Soon ruined he is. Destroyed he is. His boats they want, mysire."

A younger man joined us. "Strik already ruined is."

The shopkeeper introduced him. "My son, mysire. Wapen he is."

Wapen said, "Strik tried will be. Everything they take."

"For what tried?"

Wapen shrugged. "If not wanted it is, too heavy it is."

His father told me, "They us destroy, mysire. One man and another."

"My father's tavern soon they take." The younger man was not tall, but he looked tough; and as he leaned toward me I saw a scar that must have been made by a knife or a broken bottle across one pitted cheek.

"Soon, not now, it is," the shopkeeper said.

"Better the tavern we sell and a boat buy. Back not coming, we are."

I said, "Better destroying those who would destroy you, you are."

The shopkeeper looked around fearfully, but his son spat on the floor, saying, "What more to us they will do?"

Soon after that the shopkeeper left for home, and Wapen excused himself to wait on another patron.

"They're y'are."

I looked around at the swaying woman behind me and said, "Chenille?"

"Tha' lady on Green? No, 's me." Jahlee dropped onto Auk's stool and leaned across the table her chin on her hands. "Guesh my faish's not sho good, huh?"

"Don't smile," I told her.

"I won'. I'sh jush show hungry. I foun' thish woman in a alley."

"Not so loud, please."

"I drank 'n drank, 'n I fell down 'n I knew I better shtop."

"Did you kill her, Jahlee?"

"Don' thin' sho. She'sh big woman." She paused, her eyes unfocused and her nose softening and seeming to sink into her face. "Never wash sho drunk. D'you like it, Rashan?"

I shook my head, wondering how long it would be before she was sober again. It could be a matter of minutes, I decided; it was also possible that what we were interpreting as drunkenness was permanent brain damage.

"I'sh jus' sho hungry," she repeated.

"A part of the blood you drink becomes your own blood. Surely you must know that."

"Washn't thinkin', Rashan. It'sh jush like th' cow." She waited, expecting (as I saw) to be scolded. "Sho then I shed go back to tha' big housh, only I'sh locked up there."

I nodded.

"An' I can' find it but I shaw you."

"Basically you're right," I told her. "We must get you out of sight, and it would probably be unwise to return to Cijfer's."

"My hair'sh crooked?" Her hands went up to it.

"No. But I wouldn't touch it if I were you." Seeing a face I recognized, I called, "Hoof, come over and sit with us."

He came to the table and offered me his hand. "I'm afraid I don't remember you, sir. Are you from New Viron?"

I was worried about Oreb and my trial and a dozen other things; but I could not help laughing, just as I was to laugh a few minutes later when Hide came in with his bruised face and swollen eye, still angry and eager to fight. "Yes, I am," I told Hoof. "I'm your father, and this is your sister, Jahlee."