Velva had known of the dinner, as she knew that Swordsmen never drank milk.
The mix girl had entered the foyer and the man was ladling into her pitcher. Velva went forward and stood near. The mix did not glance at her. Velva surreptitiously stroked the milkman’s side. He smiled.
“My cousin here,” he said to the mix. “She’s had a bit of bad luck today. Up before dawn getting all those flowers, the first and freshest, for a cow along the street. But the cow’s sulking over some tiff with her lover, and won’t buy.” He hesitated, not yet taking the coins the servant held out to him. He was doing his very best. “I suppose your lady wouldn’t care to take some? Do you think you could ask her. It’d be a kindness. I’m sure my girl here wouldn’t mind giving you back a bit of what your lady pays ... if it’s enough, of course.” His hand shut on his own payment at last.
The mix turned and looked at Velva. Velva hated and was afraid of the yellow-brown color of her eyes, but she said hopefully, “Look, miss, beautiful flowers. These roses—for a love-couch nothing better.” The peculiar eyes went on to the flower basket. Velva had begun to tremble. She had an array of gambits, all risky, but was alert to veer in whatever direction she must—even to upsetting the milk pitcher. “Oh, please, miss. Could you perhaps take up the flowers for her to see? She’ll like them. And the lilies are good fortune for lovers. Oh, do. I could hold the milk. Here, you just carry up the basket—” And Velva brought the pannier, adrip with water drops and fragrance, against the servant’s hands. While, with the dexterity of her trade as wine-girl, Velva laid hold of the pitcher’s handle. If the mix refused, something else must be done. But the mix did not refuse. She gave over the pitcher and accepted the flowers, and went away up the stair with them like a doll of clockwork from Xarabiss.
Velva forced herself to turn slowly, friendly, to the milk vendor.
“Yasmat’s blessing.”
“That’s what I trust I’ll get.”
“Those trees near the gate,” Velva said. “It’s cool there, and no one can see. Go on, or she may think we’re up to something else. I’ll meet you in a minute.”
“You’d better,” he said. But he was deceived. The gods of Vis were helping. He led the zeeba off through the garden. And Velva fumbled the vial of poison from her cloak. Prizing out the stopper, she closed the vial with her finger. Putting her hand down into the milk, she released the poison in its depths.
Her hand was dry again, the milk smooth, when the mix came back. She had no flowers but an array of draks to pay lavishly for them.
“Heaven reward you,” said Velva. She pressed two draks, as if ingenuously, on the mix, and then went out to the trees by the gate to let the milk vendor enjoy her. Something must always be rendered for something. That, too, was the gods’ law.
The young soldier, part of the Guardian’s force, which had a military requirement of a certain height, discovered that the Lydian was still a trace taller. He waited, with the westering sun behind him, and the soldier said, “You can go in, if you want. Shall I tell you the news first? Not good, Lydian.”
The Lydian replied that he would hear the news. Accordingly the soldier gave it. “I’m sorry to be the one tells you. Don’t curse me for it. Do you still want to go in the house?”
The Lydian said he would, thanked him, and went on through the gate and across the garden.
It was late in the hot afternoon, the sky with a strange glaring light that taxed the eyes. The house was deadened but not refreshed by shade. There were soldiers on the stair. They, too, let the Lydian by, commiserating, one asking after his arm, and, insensitive in embarrassment, when he would fight again. The other said, “The slut’s run, a thief, too. There’ll be trouble with Sh’alis over it, mark my words.”
It seemed she had asked to be shown some lace that day. So the lacemaker and her two girls had come in and found it all, and rushed out shrieking in fright for the watch.
A sheet of lace was strewn on the floor of the salon; they had forgotten it in their panic. It was, too, costly, of gold threads from which the stretched gauze backing was scorched out by a heated iron. Perhaps the lacemaker had thought she would be accused of malice—though who would dare practice against an Amanackire? Somebody, plainly.
Elsewhere chests and cabinets hung open, a jewel-box had been emptied and flung down. The mix girl had robbed her mistress, having, presumably, murdered her. Servants did sometimes turn on their employers. As for Shansarian Alisaar—Sh’alis—always on fire for the honor of Shansar’s old ally the Lowlands, they would have to be appeased. It was excellent the villainess was a mix. Nothing else was about to be considered.
She lay on a couch near the window, that window where she had wept. Apart from the fact that the mix had torn the rings from her fingers and the jeweled pin out of her dress, she lay as peacefully as if she slept. Her pale, pale hair glistened in a shaft of sun. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, fresh, delicately painted as the mouth of an image. Superstition had apparently caused the robber to leave the amber drop on the forehead alone, also the enamel snake on her arm. Its eyes sparkled dully, as Rehger crossed the chamber. But nothing else was stirring.
He had seen death many times, and caused death, and walked with death. But she did not look dead.
Rehger bent over her, and put out the sun from her face.
Yes, this was how she looked in slumber. For he had seen that, too. Serene and still. The dead, despite the words of poets, never looked like this. They looked—vacant, like something sloughed and thrown away. But here she was, poised for life, And no life came.
He would hear, before dusk, for they wanted to tell him all they could, as if details might be of use, that the poison had been identified, in the last of a cup of milk left standing by. Though the scent was very faint, both the physicians sent in by the Guardian had diagnosed the substance, for they had seen men and women depart through its benefits before. She had drained the pitcher; it was thirsty weather. Nothing on earth could have saved her, the medicine being that strong. It was astonishing she looked so quiet, as this way there was firstly euphoria and then terrible pain—And, somehow, obviously realizing her end was on her, she had got out and laid ready the necessary papers to do with her disposal. These also the robber respected.
Although Amanackire, she had at some time decided, with surprising tact, to be buried. The Shalian Ashara temple was to see to the rites. Regarding a tomb, she had recently bought that of Panduv the dancer. Indeed, ominously enough, the documents had only been notarized and sealed the previous night.
From all this one might even suspect a suicide. But the method, if so, was curious; she was young and in the wholeness of health, and of a race thinking itself god-gotten. And she was the doxy of a man any woman, liking men, would have desired.
There was nothing to be spoken to the dead. They would not listen. An inspiration was on him to say her name, Aztira. But he did not say it.
In the deep silence, a bird sang in the garden trees.
9
The Fall of the Hawk
There was a room which was kept for him above an armorer’s shop on Sword Street. It was not quite unusual for Swordsmen, or the dancers of the Women’s House, to retain such a bolt-hole. Here they might have a privacy the stadium dormitories did not afford, for lovers, or for mere solitude. Rehger had always thought it proper to pay for the room and its maintenance, his cash rewarded by scrupulous attention from the armorer’s cleaner. The whitewashed walls were spotless, the rugs shaken, and the sleeping couch aired and ready. Tonight, for some reason, she had put speckled lilies in a crock under the window. The very same flowers that had clouded up from a figured bowl in the salon of the mansion.