He lifted Silk’s torn tunic, put his ear against Silk’s chest, and thumped his back. With the third thump, Silk felt something hard and cold slide into his waistband beneath the horsehair rope.
“Should’ve brought my instruments. Cough, please.”
Already frantic with curiosity, Silk coughed and was rewarded with another thump.
“Good. Again, please, and deeper this time. Make it go deep.”
Silk coughed as deeply as he could.
“Excellent.” Doctor Crane straightened up, letting Silk’s tunic fall back into place. “Truly excellent. You’re a fine specimen, young man, a credit to Viron.” The timbre of his voice altered almost imperceptibly. “Somebody up there likes you.” He pointed jocularly toward the elaborately figured ceiling, where a painted Molpe vied with Phaea at bagatelle. “Some infatuated goddess, I should imagine.”
Silk leaned back in his chair, although the hard object behind his spine made actual comfort impossible. “If that means I get less time from your employer, I would hardly call it evidence of favor, my son.”
Doctor Crane smiled. “In that case, perhaps not.”
“How long?” Blood banged his tumbler down on the stand beside his chair. “How long before it’s as good as it was before he broke it?”
“Five to seven weeks, I’d say. He could run a little sooner than that, with his ankle correctly taped. All this assumes proper rest and medical treatment in the interim—sonic stimulation of the broken bone and so forth.”
Silk cleared his throat. “I cannot afford elaborate treatment, Doctor. All I’ll be able to do is hobble about and pray that it heals.”
“Well, you can’t come here,” Blood told him angrily. “Was that what you were hinting at?”
Doctor Crane began, “Possibly, sir, you might retain a specialist in the city—”
Blood sniffed. “We should’ve shot him and gotten it over with. By Phaea’s sow, I wish the fall had killed him. No specialist. You’ll see himself whenever you’re in that part of the city. When is it? Sphigxday and Hieraxday?”
“That’s right, and tomorrow’s Sphigxday.” Doctor Crane glanced toward an ornate clock on the opposite side of the room. “I should be in bed already.”
“You’ll see him then,” Blood said. “Now get out of here.”
Silk told Crane, “I sincerely regret the inconvenience, Doctor. If your employer will only give me a bit more time, it wouldn’t be necessary.”
At the door Crane turned and appeared, almost, to wink.
Blood said, “We’ll compromise, Patera. Pay attention, because it’s as far as I’m willing to go. Aren’t you going to drink that?”
Feeling Musk’s knuckles behind his ears, Silk took a dutiful sip.
“In a month—one month from today—you’ll bring me a substantial sum. You hear that? I’ll decide when I see it whether it’s substantial enough. If it is, I’ll apply it to the twenty-six thousand, and let you know how long you’ve got to come up with the rest. But if it isn’t, you and that tin sibyl will have to clear out.” Blood paused, his mouth ugly, swirling his drink in his hand. “Have you got anybody else living there? Maybe another augur?”
“There are two more sibyls,” Silk told him. “Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint. You’ve met Maytera Marble, I believe. I am our only augur.”
Blood grunted. “Your sibyls will want to come out here and lecture me. Tell them they won’t get past the gate.”
“I will.”
“They’re healthy? Crane could have a look at them when he comes to see you, if they need doctoring.”
Silk warmed to the man. “That’s exceedingly kind of you.” There was always some good to be found in everyone, he reminded himself, the unnoted yet unfailing gift of ever-generous Pas. “Maytera Mint’s quite well, as far as I know. Maytera Rose is as well as could be expected, and is largely prosthetic now in any case, I’m afraid.”
“Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?” Blood leaned forward, interested. “There aren’t too many of those around any more.”
“She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some disease requiring amputations.” It occurred to Silk that he should know more about Maytera Rose’s history—about the histories of all three sibyls—than he did. “They were still easily found then, from what she says.”
“How old is she?”
“I’m not sure.” Silk berated himself mentally again; this was something he should know. “I suppose it’s in our records. I could look it up for you, and I would be happy to do so.”
“Just being polite,” Blood told him. “She must be—oh, ninety, if she’s got a lot of tin parts. How old would you say I am, Patera?”
“Older than you look, I suppose,” Silk ventured. What guess would flatter Blood? It would not do to say something ridiculous. “Forty-five, possibly?”
“I’m forty-nine.” Blood raised his tumbler in a mock toast. “Nearly fifty.” Musk’s fingers had twitched as Blood spoke, and Silk knew with an absolute certainty he could not have defended that Blood was lying: that he was at least five years older. “And not a part in my body that isn’t my own, except for a couple teeth.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Listen, Patera, I could tell you—” Blood waved the topic aside. “Never mind. It’s late. How much did I say? In a month? Five thousand?”
“You said a substantial sum,” Silk reminded him. “I was to bring you as much as I could acquire, and you would decide whether it was enough. Am I to bring it here?”
“That’s right. Tell the eye at my gate who you are, and somebody will go out and get you. Musk, have a driver come around out front.”
“For me?” Silk asked. “Thank you. I was afraid I’d have to walk—that is, I couldn’t have walked, with my leg like this. I would have had to beg rides on farm carts, I’m afraid.”
Blood grinned. “You’re a thirteen thousand card profit to me, Patera. I’ve got to see you’re taken care of. Listen now. You know how I said those sibyls of yours weren’t to come out here and bother me? Well, that still goes, but tell that one—the old one, what’s her name?”
“Maytera Rose,” Silk supplied.
“Her. You tell Maytera Rose that if she’s interested in getting another leg or something, and can raise the gelt, I might be able to help her out. Or if she’s got something like that she’d like to sell, maybe to help you out. She won’t get a better price anywhere.”
“My thanks are becoming monotonous, I’m afraid,” Silk said. “But I must thank you again, on Maytera’s behalf and in my own.”
“Forget it. There’s getting to be quite a market for those parts now, even the used ones, and I’ve got a man who knows how to recondition them.”
Musk’s sleek head appeared in the doorway. “Floater’s ready.”
Blood stood, swaying slightly. “Can you walk, Patera? No, naturally you can’t, not good. Musk, fetch him one of my sticks, will you? Not one of the high-priced ones. Grab on, Patera.”
Blood was offering his hand. Silk took it, finding it soft and surprisingly cold, and struggled to his feet, acutely conscious of the object Crane had put into his waistband and of the fact that he was accepting help from the man he had set out to rob. “Thank you yet again,” he said, and clenched his teeth against a sharp flash of pain.
As his host, Blood would want to show him out; and if Blood were in back of him, Blood might well see the object under his tunic. Wishing mightily for the robe he had left behind in Hyacinth’s bedchamber, half incapacitated by guilt and pain, Silk managed, “May I lean on your arm? I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”