24

Just for tonight, Pirra told herself stubbornly, I’m going to forget about the Mystery. I’m fed up with being dirty and scared.

Making Hylas wait in her chamber, she ran next door to the water room and took a swift cold bath, then dragged a comb through her hair and threw on the clean tunic she’d brought from her clothes chest. After that she hurriedly showed Hylas the split seat in the corner for relieving oneself, with the bucket to wash it away, and then explained about refilling the bath from the water jars and pulling out the wooden plug when he’d finished.

He eyed the bath with suspicion. “That’s a coffin.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is. Last time I saw one of them was in a tomb.”

“It’s a bath,” said Pirra, “and you could do with one. I’ll be back soon, I’m off to get supplies.”

She found the cloth stores locked, and cracked the clay sealings with her knife, half expecting an angry steward to come running. Her rushlight revealed piles of linen and wool that exhaled a dusty tang of rosemary. Stifling a sense of wrong-doing, she found a short-sleeved jerkin of fine blue wool that looked about Hylas’ size, a man’s kilt of supple deerskin with a fringed hem, a wide red calf-hide belt, sandals, and a knife-sheath of braided leather. Bundling them up in a cloak of rare dark green, she made for the food stores.

Someone had broken in before her: someone who hated stealing, and had left a neat record of what they’d taken on a waxed wooden tablet propped against the door—four flatbreads, a wineskin, and a bag of salted ducks’ legs.

In the wax, Pirra saw the tiny imprint of a scarab beetle. The reluctant thief had been Userref. “Userref?” she whispered.

No answer.

Her hand went to the wedjat amulet at her throat. She longed for Userref to emerge from the shadows and scold her. “Pirra, look at you! Hair loose—and your feet! Rougher than a crocodile’s hide!”

“Userref, where are you?” she said in a hoarse whisper. But all she heard was the thrum of sparrows’ wings, and mice scurrying along the roof beams.

She knew the priests wouldn’t have left Kunisu unprotected. There would be guardians—although maybe not in human form. Suddenly she was sharply aware of the dark spaces around her. The glimmering rushlight made familiar things frightening. A painted octopus glared from a grain jar as tall as a man.

Her thoughts flew to Echo. Did the falcon know where she was? Would she dare follow her into Kunisu?

“Food,” she told herself firmly. “Get on with it, Pirra.”

Hurrying down the rows, she grabbed as much as she could carry, then struggled back to her quarters as laden as a donkey on market day.

Hylas was still in the water room, splashing in the bath. She flung in his new clothes, then started setting out the supplies on her clothes chest.

“Did you find him?” he called.

“No. But he was here.” Standing back, she surveyed the feast. There were snails in oil and octopus in brine; smoked venison, dried swordfish, and blood sausage with onions and chestnuts; pickled vine leaves stuffed with fennel and chickpeas; pressed figs, fat black mulberries in rose-petal syrup; and her favorite, crunchy almond honey cakes. To drink, she’d brought a skin of best raisin wine, with barley meal and ewe’s-milk cheese for mixing, and two silver drinking cups, because they were lighter than pottery and wouldn’t break.

While she was away, Hylas had found some pressed olive kernels and woken a fire in the brazier, so as she waited for him she made an offering, flicking wine on the flames and begging the Goddess to keep away the Crows.

Please, she added silently, tell me if I should do the Mystery. Send me a sign. Is this why You’re keeping me here? Or is it just chance?

She must have spoken the last bit out loud, because behind her Hylas said, “Is what just chance?”

He stood in the doorway wearing his new jerkin and kilt, and for a moment he didn’t look like Hylas, but the long-legged god in the Hall of Whispers: the same broad shoulders and narrow waist; the same knife-cut features and startling rock-crystal eyes.

“Is what just chance?” he repeated.

“Nothing,” she croaked. “I was making an offering.”

He nodded. “Did the gods send you a sign?”

“Not yet.”

He glanced at the food on the chest, then back to her. “You look better.”

She touched her cheek. She’d never felt so ugly, or hated her scar more. “I’m just clean, that’s all,” she muttered.

He tucked his lion-claw amulet in the neck of his jerkin and raised his eyebrows. “Do I look Keftian?”

She flushed. “No. But you look all right.”

Pirra lit more lamps and fetched some sheepskins, then they sat on the floor and fell on the food. She gulped two goblets of wine very fast, and felt her worries slip away in a golden glow. She forgot about the Mystery. She even forgot about her scar. It was wonderful to be warm again, and clean.

Hazily, she watched Hylas feeding the fire. The light caught a dusting of fine gold hairs along his jaw. No Keftian man wore a beard, and Pirra had always thought them uncouth, but she reflected that if Hylas grew one, she wouldn’t mind.

He’d resumed his place on the floor and sat turning his drinking cup in his fingers and staring at the paintings on the wall. He hadn’t drunk as much as her, and to her surprise, he seemed ill at ease in his new clothes. He’d ignored the sandals, and kept his battered old knife-sheath. She wondered why.

“Why do they do that?” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“Keftian children, like the one in that painting. Shave their heads, with one lock hanging down.”

“To keep cool. And it’s cleaner. But you always leave the sidelock because that’s where your soul lives.”

He stared at her. “You did it too?”

“Till I was eleven.” She smiled. He didn’t smile back.

It occurred to her that maybe he felt intimidated by Kunisu, so to put him at his ease, she asked what he thought of the dolphins on the other wall, and if they reminded him of Spirit, the dolphin they’d made friends with two summers ago.

“They got the noses wrong,” he said. “They look like ducks.”

“I think so too,” she agreed. “And the fins are wrong. Spirit wouldn’t think much of them, would he?”

He gave her a brief smile, but it soon clouded over.

“Hylas, what’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not true.”

He hesitated. “I just . . . I never thought it would be this grand. I mean, your own little coffin, just to wash!”

“It’s a bath,” she said, biting back a smile.

“And all the colored clothes and jewels and silver cups—silver! ”

“And no earth, no trees, and no freedom,” she said bitterly.

He glowered at her, unconvinced.

“The first time I ever saw a live fish,” she said, “I was astonished because it moved so fast. I’d only seen them in paintings or a dish.” She paused. “There was an old woman, a slave who’d never been outside, she’d worked in the weaving room her whole life. One day she found her way to the Great Court and saw the sky. She was terrified it would fall on her; it sent her mad. I’ve always dreaded ending up like her. Gibbering in some windowless room with only lizards for company.”

Hylas gave her a considering look. “That’s not going to happen. If we don’t find Userref first thing tomorrow, we’re getting out.”

She nodded. She wanted to believe it. She really did.

“Pirra, what’s wrong?” said Hylas. “Are you still worrying about the Mystery? Is it—dangerous?”

Springing to her feet, Pirra grabbed the oil jar and fed the lamps. Sometimes, Hylas noticed too much.

“Whatever it involves,” he said quietly, “I’ll help you.”

“You can’t. You can’t help and I can’t tell you about it.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . it’s secret. That’s why it’s a Mystery. All I can tell you is it’s about calling on the Goddess to make Herself visible—to make Herself flesh—then maybe, She’ll bring back the Sun.” She gulped more wine, but it no longer gave her a warm glow, only a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She felt the weight of expectation tightening around her. Her mother . . . Deukaryo . . . that child in the cavern with her grubby toy donkey, and all the others like her . . .

She couldn’t tell Hylas any of this. He would only try to stop her. And if she did find the courage to perform the Mystery, it would mean never seeing him again.

It would mean sacrificing her life to bring back the Sun.