Go on.”
“Hildegrin was the man with Vodalus, that’s all. If we had met him first, I would have had some idea, or thought I had some idea, of why a hipparch of the Septentrion Guard would want to fight me. And for that matter why someone has chosen to send me some sort of furtive message. You know, all the things the Chatelaine Thecla and I used to laugh about, spies and intrigue, masked trysts, lost heirs. What’s the matter, Agia?”
“Do I revolt you? Am I so ugly?”
“You’re beautiful, but you look as if you’re about to be sick. I think you drank too fast.”
“Here.” A quick twist took Agia out of her pavonine gown; it lay about her brown, dusty feet like a heap of precious stones. I had seen her naked in the cathedral of the Pelerines, but now (whether because of the wine I had drunk or the wine she had drunk, because the light was dimmer now, or brighter, or only because she had been frightened and shamed then, covering her breasts and hiding her womanhood between her thighs) she drew me far more. I felt stupid with desire, thick-headed and thick-tongued as I pressed her warmth against my own cold flesh.
“Severian, wait. I’m not a strumpet, whatever you may think. But there’s a price.”
“What?”
“You must promise me you won’t read that note. Throw it into the brazier.”
I let go of her and stepped back.
Tears appeared in her eyes, rising as springs do among rocks. “I wish you could see the way you’re looking at me now, Severian. No, I don’t know what it says. It’s just that—have you never heard of some women having supernatural knowledge? Premonitions? Knowing things they could not possibly have learned?” The longing I had felt was nearly gone. I was frightened as well as angry, though I did not know why. I said, “We have a guild of such women, our sisters, in the Citadel. Neither their faces nor their bodies are like yours.”
“I know I’m not like that. But that’s why you must do what I advise. I’ve never in my life had a premonition of any strength, and I have one now. Don’t you see that must mean it’s something so true and so important to you that you can’t and mustn’t ignore it? Burn the note.”
“Someone is trying to warn me, and you don’t want me to see it. I asked you if the Septentrion was your lover. You told me he was not, and I believed you.” She started to speak, but I silenced her.
“I believe you still. Your voice had truth in it. Yet you are laboring to betray me in some way. Tell me now that isn’t so. Tell me you are acting in my best interests, and nothing beyond.”
“Severian…”
“Tell me.”
“Severian, we met this morning. I hardly knew you and you hardly know me. What can you expect, and what would you expect if you had not just left the shelter of your guild? I’ve tried to help you from time to time. I’m trying to help you now.”
“Put on your dress.” I took the note from under the tray. She rushed at me, but it was not difficult to hold her off with one hand. The note had been penned with a crow quill, in a straggling scrawl; in the dim light I could decipher only a few words.
“I could have distracted you, and thrown it into the fire. That’s what I ought to have done. Severian, let me go—”
“Be quiet.”
“I had a knife, only last week. A misericorde with an ivy-root handle. We were hungry, and Agilus put it in pawn. If I had it still, I could stab you now!”
“It would be in your gown, and your gown is over there on the floor.” I gave her a push that sent her staggering backward (there was wine enough in her stomach that it was not entirely from the violence of my motion) into the canvas chair, and carried the note to a spot where the last light of the sun penetrated the crowding leaves.
The woman with you has been here before.
Do not trust her. Trudo says the man is a torturer. You are my mother come again.
26. SENNET
I had just had time to absorb the words when Agia jumped from her chair, snatched the note from my hand, and threw it over the edge of the platform. For a moment she stood before me, looking from my face to Terminus Est, which by this time leaned, reassembled, against an arm of the couch. I think she feared I was going to strike off her head and throw it after the note. When I did nothing, she said, “Did you read it? Severian, say you didn’t!”
“I read it, but I don’t understand it”
“Then don’t think about it.”
“Be calm for a moment. It wasn’t even meant for me. It may have been for you, but if it was, why was it put where no one but I could see it? Agia, have you had a child? How old are you?”
“Twenty-three. That’s plenty old enough, but no, I haven’t. I’ll let you look at my belly if you don’t believe me.”
I tried to make a mental calculation and discovered I did not know enough about the maturation of women. “When did you menstruate first?”
“Thirteen. If I’d got pregnant, I would have been fourteen when the baby came.
Is that what you’re trying to find out?”
“Yes. And the child would be nine now. If it were bright, it might be able to write a note like that. Do you want me to tell you what it said?”
“No!”
“How old would you say Dorcas is? Eighteen? Nineteen, perhaps?”
“You shouldn’t think about it, Severian. Whatever it was.”
“I won’t play games with you now. You’re a woman—how old?” Agia pursed her full lips. “I’d say your drab little mystery’s sixteen or seventeen. Hardly more than a child.”
Sometimes, as I suppose everyone has noticed, talking of absent persons seems to summon them up like eidolons. So it was now. A panel of the screen swung back and Dorcas came out, no longer the muddy creature we had become accustomed to, but a round-breasted, slender girl of singular grace. I have seen skin whiter than hers, but that was not a healthy whiteness. Dorcas seemed to glow. Freed of filth, her hair was pale gold; her eyes were as they had always been: the deep blue of the world-river Uroboros in my dream. When she saw that Agia was naked, she tried to return to the shelter of the screen, but the thick body of the scullion prevented her.
Agia said, “I had better put my rags on again before your pet faints.”
Dorcas murmured, “I won’t look.”
“I don’t care if you do,” Agia told her, but I noticed she turned her back to us while she put on her gown. Speaking to the wall of leaves, she added, “Now we really must go, Severian. The trumpet will sound at any moment.”
“And what will that mean?”
“You don’t know?” She swung about to face us. “When the machionations of the City Wall appear to touch the edge of the solar disc, a trumpet—the first—is sounded on the Sanguinary Field. Some think it’s only to regulate the combats there, though that’s not so. It is a sigual to the guards inside the Wall to close the gates. It’s also the signal to begin the fighting, and if you’re there when it blows, that’s when your contest will start. When the sun is below the horizon and true night comes, a trumpeter on the Wall sounds tattoo. That means the gates will not be opened again even for those who carry special passes and also that anyone who, having given or received a challenge, has not yet come to the Field is assumed to have refused satisfaction. He can be assaulted wherever he is found, and an armiger or an exultant can engage assassins without soiling his honor.”
The scullion, who had been standing by the stair listening to all this and nodding, moved aside for her master, the innkeeper. “Sieur,” he said, “if you indeed have a mortal appointing, I—”
“That is just what my friend was saying,” I told him. “We must go.” Dorcas asked then if she might have some wine. Somewhat surprised, I nodded; the innkeeper poured her a glass, which she held in both hands like a child. I asked him if he supplied writing implements for his guests. “You wish to make a testament, sietir? Come with me—we have a bower reserved for that purpose. There’s no charge, and if you like, I will engage a boy who’ll carry the document to your executor.”