“Oh indeed?” said the High Head. This had to be a bluff. “Then why haven’t I heard from the king direct?”
“I’m sure you will,” answered Lady Marceny’s son. “But you know how slowly Royal Office moves. Red tape. Protocol. Leathe decided to give you advance warning so that you can get a move on now.”
“My humble thanks,” the High Head retorted. “Now, do you mind leaving me in peace? I happen to be very busy.”
“But certainly,” said the young man and vanished from the glass.
His insolence, the High Head thought, was beyond even Tod’s. Goddess! How he hated the ruling class! He turned back to Zillah, fueled with additional anger and prepared to break her. To his further annoyance, she was staring at the master mirror with eyes that had become wide and large. Around them the rest of her face seemed pinched in and bluish white, as if she were suddenly near death from exposure.
“Who was that?” she said. “On the screen.”
“Only the chief Lady of Leathe’s despicable son,” he said. “I’m told it’s not really his fault he’s like he is. His mother has steadily perverted him from the cradle up.”
“What’s his name?” Zillah asked, in a strange, breathless, unhappy way.
“Herrel — Herrel Listanian, I suppose — he’d take his mother’s name since the gods alone know who his father was, though it’s rumored the poor wretch was a gualdian—” The High Head stopped himself, exasperated. What was it about Zillah’s peculiar powers that always caused him to be sidetracked into patiently answering her questions? No more. “Let us now return to yourself and the way you broke the law,” he said coldly. “Arth’s laws were not made lightly, you know. By your amorous seduction of young Gordano, you have seriously imperilled the stability of the citadel. I explained this when we first took your people in — and yet you still behave like a whore! What are you — a rutting bitch?”
Zillah had gone back to her first meeting with Mark, the night when he dropped in to speak with someone in the witchcraft circle in Hendon. She had been so bored with them by then. Then she had looked up and there was Mark, speaking in his serious, confidential way with — what was his name? Never mind. It was as if the sun had come out. In the same dispassionate way she had noted Herrel’s beard just now, she had noted then that Mark seemed very repressed, probably rather a prig, and realized that it made no difference at all to what she wanted. She remembered the artless, almost greedy way she had made sure she was included in the party that went to the pub afterward. The first opportunity she got, she asked Mark back to her bed-sit with her…
“Yes, I think you’re right,” she said, and looked up at the High Head almost judiciously. “There are times when I seem to behave like that — as if I can’t help it. If I could hate myself for it, I would, but I can’t. You’re quite right to call me names.”
He gaped at her. Once more she had contrived to send this interview down the wrong track. It was typical of her. Ridiculously, he had an urge to leap to her defense and assure her she was not a whore at all. Nor a bitch. Oh—women! “Well,” he said, after a pause, “as you seem to have a proper sense of contrition, you had better go away and — er — think about it. But remember: if you do anything like this again, you will be in very great trouble indeed.”
What got into me? he wondered as Zillah passed through the veils of the doorway like a sleepwalker. He shook himself and stalked off to Ritual Horn to supervise Tod’s departure.
2
“I must go,” said High Brother Nathan, mopping his flushed face. “So must you. There’s going to be a ritual.”
Flan watched him attempt to push the streaks of gray hair back over the bald center of his head. “One I can’t see?” she asked, composedly zipping herself back into her trousers. On the whole, she was rather sorry about the interruption. True, Brother Nathan had shamelessly blackmailed her. He had found her near as dammit undressed with Alexander in this very same gallery and swiftly made his bargain. He had not needed to say much. The sight of Alexander’s face when Brother Nathan said the word “punishment” had been enough for Flan. She would have agreed to anything. And she had gone to the assignation with clenched teeth, only to discover that Nathan could be quite sweet after all. And the poor old soul was in a real dither now. I’m getting quite soppy! Flan thought.
“No, you can’t see — you mustn’t be seen!” he said. “Goddess, girl! It was only the merest luck the High Head didn’t have most of you naked in his mirror!”
“All right then,” Flan said equably.
But High Brother Nathan had had second thoughts, evidently not unconnected with the unfinished business between them. “On the other hand,” he said, firmly smoothing gray strands of hair to his scalp, “I don’t see that it would do any harm for you to watch, provided you keep well out of sight behind the wall of the gallery. It wouldn’t do at all for the High Head to see you were here.” He shook his uniform straight and picked up his headdress. “I’ll see you,” he said, hurrying toward the doorway at the side of the gallery. There he paused, artistically. Flan, who knew a studied movement when she saw one, wondered, What’s the old villain up to now? Brother Nathan turned around. “This ritual,” he said, “is to punish a serviceman, as it happens. It’s the same punishment I mentioned to you in connection with Brother Alexander. Though, of course, we both know Brother Alexander to be blameless, don’t we?”
You old bastard! Flan thought. More blackmail! She had no desire at all to see anyone punished, least of all in the way that had brought that look to Alexander’s face. As soon as Nathan’s stout figure had faded through the veiling, Flan dived after him, only to find herself brought up short with such force that she was bounced back into the gallery. “Bastard!” she shouted. “Blackmailer! I’ll give you female harassment!”
She would have shouted a great deal more, but by then, feet were hurriedly and hollowly shuffling in the great rituals room below.
Evidently when the High Head ordered a sudden ritual, people jumped to it. Not knowing whether or not the High Head was there in person, Flan decided not to draw attention to herself. But she was still damned if she was going to watch this ritual. After plunging twice more at the veiling without the slightest effect, she sat down on the raked steps of the gallery with her face obstinately between her fists. Out of sight below her, objects clanged, feet continued to shuffle, two voices called off lists in a low murmur, and she could sense the room filling up. This ritual was big.
Incense or something abruptly clouded the air, thick and sharp as woodsmoke — pine smoke, Flan thought. By this time she was feeling more than a slight tug of curiosity. She had spent the last two days professionally trying to improve the way these mages moved, and yet she had still no idea what the movements were needed for. When music struck up, the wavery, jangly sort favored by Arth, she yielded to her curiosity. Just one look, she told herself. She bounced to her feet and ran downward to crouch by the balustrade at the edge of the gallery.
She got there just as the High Head swept into the room through the archway opposite. Flan dared not move. His eyes were moving all over, now high, now low, checking up on everything, and the look on his face scared Flan. She stayed in a crouch, with her chin on the plain cold stone of the coping, and cursed Brother Nathan all over again. At the same time, she was frankly fascinated.