It quieted the women somewhat, although the dagger, the wound it had made, and the blood that had so briefly spurted from that wound were still visible.
Orchid shouted, “Who did this? Who stabbed her?” and a puffy-eyed brunette, nearly as naked as the woman sprawled on the steps, drawled, “She did, Orchid—she killed herself. Use your head. Or if you won’t, use your eyes.”
Kneeling on a blood-spattered step just below the dead woman’s head, Silk swung his beads, first forward-and-back, then side-to-side, thus describing the sign of addition. “I convey to you, my daughter, the forgiveness of all the gods. Recall now the words of Pas, who said, ‘Do my will, live in peace, multiply, and do not disturb my seal. Thus you shall escape my wrath. Go willingly, and any wrong that you have ever done shall be forgiven.’ O my daughter, know that this Pas and all the lesser gods have empowered me to forgive you in their names. And I do forgive you, remitting every crime and wrong. They are expunged.” With his beads, Silk traced the sign of subtraction. “You are blessed.” Bobbing his head nine times, as the ritual demanded, he traced the sign of addition.
A female voice breathed curses somewhere to his right, blasphemy following obscenity. “Hornbuss Pas shag you Pas whoremaster Pas hornswallow ‘Chidna sick-licker Pas…” It sounded to Silk as though the speaker did not know what she was saying, and might well be unaware that she was speaking at all.
“I pray you to forgive us, the living,” he continued, and once again formed the sign of addition with his beads above the dead woman’s handkerchief-shrouded head. “I and many another have wronged you often, my daughter, committing terrible crimes and numerous offences against you. Do not hold them in your heart, but begin the life that follows life in innocence, all these wrongs forgiven.” He made the sign of subtraction again.
A statuesque girl spat; her tightly curled hair was the color of ripe raspberries. “What are you doing that for? Can’t you see she’s stiff? She’s dead, and she can’t hear a shaggy word you’re saying.” At the final phrase her voice cracked, and Silk realized that it was she whom he had heard swearing.
He gripped his beads more tightly and bent lower as he reached the effectual point in the liturgy of pardon. The sun beating down upon his neck might have been the burning iron hand of Twice-Headed Pas himself, crushing him to earth while ceaselessly demanding that he perfectly enunciate each hallowed word and execute every sacred rubric faultlessly. “In the name of all the gods, you are forgiven forever, my daughter. I speak here for Great Pas, for Divine Echidna, for Scalding Scylla…” Here it was allowable to halt and take a fresh breath, and Silk did so. “For Marvelous Molpe, for Tenebrous Tartaros, for Highest Hierax, for Thoughtful Thelxiepeia, for Fierce Phaea, and for Strong Sphigx. Also for all lesser gods.”
Briefly and inexplicably, the glaring sun might almost have been the swinging, smoking lampion in the Cock. Silk whispered, “The Outsider likewise forgives you, my daughter, for I speak here for him, too.”
After tracing one final sign of addition, he stood and turned toward the statuesque young woman with the raspberry hair; to his considerable relief, she was clothed. “Bring me something to cover her with, please. Her time in this place is over.”
Orchid was questioning the puffy-eyed brunette. “Is this her knife?”
“You ought to know.” Fearlessly, the brunette reached beneath the railing to pull the long dagger from the wound. “I don’t think so. She’d have showed it to me, most likely, and I’ve never seen it before.”
Crane came down the steps, stooped over the dead woman, and pressed his fingers to her wrist. After a second or two, he squatted and laid an ausculator to her side.
(We acknowledge this state we call death with so much reluctance, Silk thought, not for the first time. Surely it can’t be natural to us.)
Withdrawing the dagger had increased the seepage from the wound; under all the shrill hubbub, Silk could hear the dead woman’s blood dripping from the steps to the crumbling brick pavement of the courtyard, like the unsteady ticking of a broken clock.
Orchid was peering nearsightedly at the dagger. “It’s a man’s. A man called Cat.” Turning to face the courtyard, she shouted, “Shut up, all of you! Listen to me! Do any of you know a cull named Cat?”
A small, dark girl in a torn chemise edged closer. “I do. He comes here sometimes.”
“Was he here last night? How long since you’ve seen him?”
The girl shook her head. “I’m not sure, Orchid. A month, maybe.”
The corpulent woman waddled toward her, holding out the dagger, the younger women parting before her like so many ducklings before a duck. “You know where he lives? Who’s he get, usually?”
“No. Me. Orpine sometimes, if I’m busy.”
Crane stood up, glanced at Silk and shook his head, and put away his ausculator.
Blood’s bellow surprised them all. “What’s going on here?” Thick-bodied and a full head taller than most of the women, he strode into the courtyard with something of the air of a general coming onto a battlefield.
When Orchid did not answer, the raspberry-haired girl said wearily, “Orpine’s dead. She just killed herself.” She had a clean sheet under her arm, neatly folded.
“What for?” Blood demanded.
No one replied. The raspberry-haired girl shook out her sheet and passed a corner up to Crane. Together, they spread the sheet over the dead woman.
Silk put away his beads and went down the steps to the courtyard. Half to himself he muttered, “She didn’t—not forever. Not even as long as I.”
Orchid turned to look at him. “No, she didn’t. Now shut up.”
Musk had taken the dagger from her. After scrutinizing it himself, he held it out for Blood’s inspection. Orchid explained, “A cully they call Cat comes here sometimes. He must’ve given it to her, or left it behind in her room.”
Blood sneered. “Or she stole it from him.”
“My girls don’t steal!” As a tower long subverted by a hidden spring collapses, Orchid burst into tears; there was something terrible, Silk felt, in seeing that fat, indurated face contorted like a heartsick child’s. Blood slapped her twice, forehand and backhand, without effect, though both blows echoed from the walls of the courtyard.
“Don’t do that again,” Silk told him. “It won’t help her, and it may harm you.”
Ignoring him, Blood pointed to the still form beneath the sheet. “Somebody get that out of sight. You there. Chenille. You’re plenty big enough. Pick her up and carry her to her room.”
The raspberry-haired woman backed away, trembling, the roughed spots on each high cheekbone glaring and unreal.
“May I see that, please?” Deftly, Silk took the dagger from Musk. Its hilt was bleached bone; burned into the bone with a needle and hand-dyed, a scarlet cat strutted with a tiny black mouse in its jaws. The cat’s fiery tail circled the hilt. Following the puffy-eyed brunette’s example, Silk reached under the railing and retrieved his handkerchief from beneath the sheet. The slender, tapering blade was highly polished, but not engraved. “Nearly new,” he muttered. “Not terribly expensive, but not cheap either.”
Musk said, “Any fool can see that,” and took back the dagger.
“Patera.” Blood cleared his throat. “You were here. Probably you saw her do it.”
Silk’s mind was still on the dagger. “Do what?” he asked.
“Kill herself. Let’s get out of this sun.” With a hand on Silk’s elbow, Blood guided him into the spotted shade of the gallery, displacing a chattering circle of nearly naked women.
“No, I didn’t see it,” Silk said slowly. “I was inside, talking to Orchid.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe you want to think about it a little more. Maybe you saw it after all, through a window or something.”