“He’s in costume and you aren’t, I suppose. Do you think I don’t know stage brocade? And bare feet too, when I see them?”
“I never said I was not in costume, nor that I was of his rank. As for my shoes, I left them outside so as not to ruin them in this water.” The big man nodded in a way that gave no clue as to whether he believed her or not. “Now you, goldy-hair. The embroidered baggage here has already said she don’t know you. And from the look of him, I don’t believe her fish—that you pulled out for her, and a good piece of work that was, too—knows any more than I do. Maybe not that much. So who are you?”
The blond girl swallowed. “Dorcas.”
“And how’d you get here, Dorcas? And how’d you get in the water? For that’s where you’ve been, plainly. You couldn’t of got that wet just pulling out our young friend.”
The brandy had brought a flush to the girl’s cheeks, but her face was as vacant and bewildered as before, or nearly so. “I don’t know,” she whispered. Agia asked, “You don’t remember coming here?”
Dorcas shook her head.
“Then what’s the last thing you do remember?”
There was a long silence. The wind seemed to be blowing harder than ever, and despite the drink, I was miserably cold. At last Dorcas murmured, “Sitting by a window… There were pretty things in the window. Trays and boxes, and a rood.”
The big man said, “Pretty things? Well, if you was there, I’m assured there was.”
“She’s mad,” Agia said. “Either someone’s been taking care of her and she’s wandered away, or no one is taking care of her, which seems more likely from the state of her clothes, and she wandered in here when the curators weren’t looking.”
“It may be somebody’s cracked her over the head, took her things, and threw her in here thinking she was gone. There’s more ways in, Mistress Slops, than the curator knows of. Or maybe somebody brought her in to be sunk when she was only sick and sleepin’. In a com’er, as they call it, and the water woke her up.”
“Surely whoever brought her in would have seen her.”
“They can stay under a long time in a com’er, so I’ve heard. But whichever way it was, it don’t much matter now. Here she is, and it’s up to her, I should say, to find out where she come from and who she is.”
I had dropped the brown mantle and was tyying to wring my guild cloak dry; but I looked up when Agia said, “You’ve been asking all of us who we are. Who are you?”
“You’ve every right to know,” the big man said. “Every right in the world, and I’ll give you better bona fides than any of you have given me. Only after I does so, I must be about my own business. I come because I saw the young armiger here drowning, like any good man would. But I’ve my own affairs to take care of, the same as the next.”
With that he pulled off his tall hat, and reaching inside produced a greasy card about twice the size of the calling cards I had occasionally seen in the Citadel. He handed it to Agia, and I peered over her shoulder. In florid script, the legend read:
“And that’s who I am, Mistress Slops and young sieur—which I hope you won’t mind my calling you, firstly because you’re younger nor me, and secondly because you’re a sight younger than what she is, for all you was probably born only a couple years sooner. And I’ll be on my way.
I stopped him. “Before I fell in, I met an old man in a skiff who told me there was someone farther down the track who could ferry us across the lake. I think you must be the man he referred to. Will you take us?”
“Ah, the one what’s lookin’ for his wife, poor soul. Well, he’s been a good friend to me many a time, so if he recommends you, I suppose I’d better do it. My scow will hold four in a pinch.”
He strode off motioning for us to follow; I noticed that his boots, which seemed to have been greased, sank in the sedge even deeper than my own. Agia said, “She’s not coming with us.” Still it was obvious that she (Dorcas) was, trailing along behind Agia and looking so forlorn that I dropped behind to try to comfort her. “I’d lend you my mantle,” I whispered to her, “if it weren’t so wet it would make you colder than you are already. But if you’ll go along this track the other way, you’ll come out of here altogether and into a corridor where it’s warmer and drier, Then if you’ll look for a door with Jungle Garden on it, that will let you into a place where the sun is warm and you’ll be quite comfortable.”
I had no sooner spoken than I remembered the pelycosaur we had seen in the jungle. Fortunately, perhaps, Dorcas showed no sign of having heard what I said. Something in her face conveyed that she was afraid of Agia, or at least aware, in a helpless way, of having displeased her; but there was no other indication she was any more alert to her surroundings than a somnambulist. Conscious that I had failed to relieve her misery, I began again. “There’s a man in the corridor, a curator. I’m sure he’ll at least try to find some clothes and a fire for you.”
The wind whipped Agia’s chestnut hair as she looked back at us. “There are too many of these beggar girls for anyone to be worried about one, Severian. Including yourself.”
At the sound of Agia’s voice, Hildegrin glanced over his shoulder. “I know a woman might take her in. Yes, and clean her up and give her some clothes. There’s a high-bred shape under that mud, thin though she is.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Agia snapped, “You contract laborers, according to your card, but what’s your business here?”
“Just what you said, Mistress. My business.”
Dorcas had begun to shiver. “Honestly,” I told her, “all you have to do is go back. It’s much warmer in the corridor. Don’t go in the Jungle Garden. You might go into the Sand Garden, it’s sunny and dry in there.” Something in what I had said seemed to touch a chord in her. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
“The Sand Garden? You’d like that?”
Very softly: “Sun.”
“Here’s the old scow now,” Hildegrin announced. “With so many, we’re going to have to be particular about the seatin’. And there’s to be no movin’ about—she’ll be low in the water. One of the women in the bow, please, and the other and the young armiger in the stem.”
I said, “I’d be happy to take an oar.”
“Ever rowed before? I thought not. No, you’d best sit in the stern like I told you. It ain’t much harder pullin’ two oars than one, and I’ve done it many a time, beheve me, though there was half a dozen in her with me.” His boat was like himself, wide, rough, and heavy-looking. Bow and stem were square, so much so that there was hardly any horizontal taper from the waist, where the rowlocks were, though the hull was shallower at the ends. Hildegrin got in first, and standing with one leg to either side of the bench, used an oar to nudge the boat closer to shore for us.
“You,” Agia said, taking Dorcas by the arm. “You sit up there in front.” Dorcas seemed willing to obey, but Hildegrin stopped her. “If you don’t mind, Mistress,” he said to Agia, “I’d sooner it was you in the bow. I won’t be able to keep my eye on her, you see, when I’m rowin’, unless she sits behind. She’s not right, which even you and me can agree on, and low as we’ll be I’d like to know if she starts friskin’ around.”
Dorcas surprised us all by saying, “I’m not mad. It’s just… I feel as if I’ve just been wakened.”