"You mean they were all impotent?” Dolm Actor barked.
Ambria slammed the door so the building shook. Everyone jumped. “Yes,” she admitted. “The priests are deeply concerned, naturally. But none of you husbands need worry about, er, consequences."
"That's insane!” Dolm said, and suddenly laughed shrilly. Everyone glared at him, even Eleal. “And three tried with Olimmiar, one after the other?” His eyes flicked inquiringly to Uthiam.
"Two."
"So a total of eight—"
"We need not discuss sordid trivia,” Ambria Impresario proclaimed. She strode majestically across the big chamber toward Trong, one hand extended, the other sweeping Olimmiar Dancer along beside her. “Some of the men became violent in their distress, but the priests stopped them before there was any serious damage. Now you know. The matter is closed.” She stepped into her husband's embrace.
"No it's not!” Dolm was grinning and quite unabashed by her anger. Eleal had never seen any member of the troupe defy Ambria openly like that, but then Dolm had been bubbling like a kettle since he came in, and a reaper certainly need not fear an aging female actor.
Ambria whirled around in wrath. Olimmiar looked up in astonishment, revealing a puffy swelling around her eye. K'linpor's mouth was hanging open.
"It's a miracle!” Dolm jeered. “A holy miracle! Of course we must discuss it. Were they all old, fat factory owners?"
Ambria's ivory cheeks flamed scarlet in a way Eleal would never have believed possible. “No they were not!” Echoes rang. “In my case, as I remained unchosen, the priests went out and found a twenty-year-old quarry worker who has already fathered two children. Does that satisfy your prurient curiosity, Dolm Actor?"
He sniggered. “Did it yours? Well, now what happens? Are we free to depart from Narsh, as Ois has apparently no use for us?"
The big woman seemed to shrink slightly. “No. We are summoned to the temple at dawn. The priests will seek an oracle to discover the Lady's will."
Even Dolm Actor flinched.
There was a moment's silence, and then he said softly, “All of us?"
"All of us."
Everyone turned to look at Eleal Singer.
When times were good, the troupe was one big happy family. When times were otherwise, which was more frequent, it was still one big family, and rarely too unhappy. Everyone was related to everyone else in some contorted fashion. Old Piol Poet was the brother of Ambria's first husband and thus Uthiam's uncle. Even Klip Trumpeter was a stepbrother of Gartol Costumer, who was Trong Impresario's cousin. Everyone was family except Eleal Singer. Although she could recall no trace of her life before the troupe took her in, she was the outsider, the waif, the stray.
Normally she never thought about that distinction. Certainly nobody ever mentioned it, not even Olimmiar at her most catty. That evening Eleal could smell it. She was the only one who had not been to the temple of the Lady. She was the last hope. All other efforts had failed, so in the morning they would take her there and she would be unmasked as the cause of the trouble. It was obvious.
Perhaps Sister Ahn's lunatic babbling had been true, and the gods were staging some great cosmic tragedy that involved little Eleal Singer.
Wives clung to husbands. Olimmiar Dancer had attached herself to Halma, her sister. Old Piol fussed around, preparing a meal in tactful silence. Trumpeter soon went up to his room and came down muffled in llama fleece. He announced briefly that he was going out for a walk, and vanished rapidly through the door into a near-blizzard, followed by a puzzled frown from Ambria, a glare of outrage from Trong, and a sardonic smile from Dolm. Young Klip knew an opportunity when he was handed one.
He might be heading for a disappointment, though—he did not know that Dolm had been lying about going back to the temple.
Every time Eleal risked a glance in Dolm's direction, he was directing his sardonic smile at her. She wondered about her chances of living through the night. No one ever spoke of reapers; to denounce one was probably suicide. To denounce Dolm Actor would be an act of rank madness. The others would just assume that the stressful day had unhinged her mind—he was Ambria's cousin's husband, one of the family! The only evidence Eleal could hope to produce was that black garment hidden in his pack and she was certain that it would have gone elsewhere by now. Even if it could be produced, he could always claim that it was an old stage costume and then accuse her of having stolen something.
Maybe it was only an old costume, although she could not imagine any audience tolerating a play with a reaper in it. Maybe she had imagined the loathsome ritual. Maybe she had gone crazy.
As the evening dragged on in quiet confidential whispers, she realized that everyone was planning to head off to be alone very early. Actors were night birds by profession, but tonight wives wanted to be alone with husbands and husbands wanted to be alone with wives.
Larger and larger in her mind grew an image of her cubicle door, with its heavy lock and its thick iron bolt. Not even a reaper was going to break through those without waking everybody!
Then Dolm himself stretched his long arms overhead and yawned.
Eleal realized that she must leave before he did, or she might find him waiting for her in her room.
"G'night!” she snapped, jumping to her feet.
She scampered across the room to the stairs—Clip, clop.
"I'm very sleepy,” she explained, racing up them two at a time.
Clip, clop ... “See you in the morning,” she shouted back as she tore along the corridor.
She dashed into her room—took a hurried glance around to make sure it was unoccupied—closed the door. It creaked loudly, but at the last minute she slowed it so it would not slam. She turned the key gently, wrestled the bolt over, and flopped down on the floor, panting as if she had run over Rilepass carrying a mammoth.
The window was barred. The walls were solid stone, the floor and ceiling thick planks. If anywhere was safe from a reaper, this was it. As an afterthought, she took the big key out and tucked it in her pack. She stuffed a sock into the keyhole.
Preparing for bed was never a lengthy process in chilly Narsh. She donned her woolly nightgown, rolled up her second-best dress to be a pillow, and laid her llama fleece coat on the pallet as a cover. Then she knelt and took hold of her amulet to say her prayers.
The amulet was a little golden frog that Ambria had given her a long time ago, as soon as she could be trusted not to swallow it. It looked like gold, but it left green stains on her chest. It seemed a very frail defense against the god of death, whom she had probably offended mightily by spying on his sacred ritual.
The wind rattled the casement hungrily. Her usual prayers seemed grievously inadequate this night. She extemporized a long addition, addressed to Kirb'l Tion, asking for his aid in letting the troupe travel to the Tion Festival in safety. Shivering with cold, then, she whispered an apology to the Man for spying on holy ceremony in his shrine. After all, the shrine itself had not been specifically dedicated to Zath ... she could not speak that name.
At last she snuggled in under the heavy fleece. Cockerel with no liver, alpaca white outside and black inside, a reaper on a mammoth and another in the troupe, men stricken impotent by the Lady ... She would not be able to sleep a wink!
But she did.
16
NIGHTS IN HOSPITALS ARE MUCH LONGER THAN DAYS. EDward Exeter had discovered this truth during his first term at Fallow, when the unfamiliar diseases of England had made him a frequent patient in the san. He rediscovered it in Albert Memorial.