“I know, I’ve seen it. Perhaps General Mint will come. Let’s hope so. She’ll certainly be welcome if she does.”

“Very welcome,” Bison rumbled.

“So they — no, wait a moment. What about Mucor? Surely she isn’t going to help you in the kitchen. Isn’t she going to eat with us?”

Horn looked slightly embarrassed. “Maytera thought it’d be better for her to eat in her room, Calde. She isn’t always — you know.”

“Maytera Marble’s granddaughter,” Silk explained to Bison. “I don’t believe you’ve met her.”

Bison shook his head.

“She must certainly eat with us. Tell Maytera I insist upon it. She had better be close to Maytera, however. Put her on the right side, between Maytera and Generalissimo Siyuf’s staff officer. That gives us six on each side, and fourteen places — fifteen diners in all, including Oreb. Be sure to letter a placecard for Mucor as well as one for General Mint.”

Silk heaved a sigh of relief, feeling better than he had since early that morning; his informal dinner no longer seemed a mere formality, and when the dinner was over the formalities (which he had come to detest) would be over as well. “She may be dead,” he told Bison. “With all my heart, I pray she isn’t, but she may be.”

Bison nodded gloomily.

“Even if she is, however — even if we were to find her body, even if we knew beyond doubt that she was dead — we dare not let the Trivigauntis know it, or even suspect we think it. She has won more victories than any other commander we’ve got, and the better chance they think we have of winning, the more help they will provide us. Am I making myself clear?”

Bison nodded again. “We mustn’t let her troopers know, either. Half would go after her on their own, if they knew the Ayuntanriento’s got her.”

“Or your troopers. Quite correct.” Silk pushed back his chair and stood up. “Come with me; there’s a glass in the next room.”

The gauntletted hand of old Jerboa withdrew the knife of sacrifice, and the calf fell to its knees and rolled over on its side, its spurting blood captured in an earthenware chalice held by one of the younger sibyls. With more dexterity than Auk would have believed he possessed, Jerboa cut off the calfs head and laid it on the fire. The right rear hoof gave him some difficulty, but he persisted.

A fleeting fleck of color in the Sacred Window caught Auk’s eye. He gasped, and it was gone.

The impact of the call’s final hoof sent up a fountain of scarlet sparks; Jerboa faced the Window, hands aloft. “Accept, O Great Pas—” He coughed. “Pas who art of all gods…”

The window bloomed pink, violet, and gold. As Auk watched open-mouthed, the dancing hues coalesced into a face of more than human beauty — one that he saw as plainly as he had ever seen any other woman’s. “You seek my lover,” the goddess said.

“We do, O Great Goddess.” Jerboa’s reedy old voice was weaker than ever. “We seek him because we seek to do his will.”

Auk blurted, “He said he’d come if we’d find Patera.”

The goddess’s violet eyes left Jerboa. “So much love… So much love here. Auk? You are Auk? Find her, Auk. Clasp her to you. Never part.”

“All right,” Auk said, and repeated, “All right.” It was difficult to argue with a goddess. “I sure will, Kindly Kypris. Only Pas gave us this job. We had to find Patera, so we did. Now we got to find Pas, got to get the two together, like.”

“The Grand Manteion. Auk.” The goddess’s shining eyes left him, opening their bottomless lakes to Jerboa once more. “Will you go, old man? Dear old man, so filled with love…? Will you find my lover and your god? Jerboa?”

The old augur struggled to speak. Shell said, “I’ll take him, Great Goddess. We’ll go together.” His voice was stronger than Auk had ever heard it.

Although he could not tear his gaze from hers, Incus, on his knees, scuttled backward. “I am pledged…”

“To prevent my mischief.” Kypris’s laughter was the peal of icy bells. “To kill fifty? A hundred children. Or more, that little Scylla may heed you. Homely little Scylla, with her father’s temperament and her mother’s intellect.”

Incus seemed incapable of speech or motion.

“You’ll require a sacrifice… Auk? Not children.”

“Not children,” Auk repeated, and felt an immense relief.

“My lover. Pas? My lover is engaged with his wife. At present.” This time the precious bells were warm and merry. “Not in making more… Brats? You call them sprats. No. Oh, no. Wiping her out of core. Do you know what that means? Auk?” Kypris’s smile found Shell. “Tell him…”

“He don’t have to, Kindly Kypris. I got it.”

“You will need a victim. To get my lover’s attention. Not a child… Auk? Something unusual. Think upon it.”

“A victim in the grand Manteion,” Auk repeated numbly.

“Several. Perhaps. Auk. I offer no… Suggestions. But tonight. As quickly as you can.” For a half-second her high, ivory-smooth brow wrinkled in thought. “The piece the old man has may aid him in the fight. I hope so.”

As Silk limped into the room, one of the waiters provided by Ermine’s pulled out his chair for him. He halted behind it, his hands resting on the back. Bison, smiling broadly, made his way down the table to his seat near the foot.

“Welcome,” Silk said. He had intended to welcome them in the name of the gods, but the words died unspoken. “Welcome in the name of the City of Viron, to all of you. I deeply regret that I was unable to welcome most of you when you arrived; but I was engaged with Colonel Bison. Maytera will have welcomed you, I feel sure, in Scylla’s name.”

At the other end of the table, Maytera Marble nodded.

Xiphias whispered, “Sit down lad! Want your leg worse?”

“In which case,” Silk continued, “I welcome you in the name of him who enlightened me, the Outsider, the only god I trust.”

“He is right, Calde.” Oosik pushed back his chair. “If you will not, my son and I must rise. We cannot remain seated while our superior stands.” The pale cornet on his left was struggling to get to his feet already.

“Of course. That was thoughtless of me, Generalissimo. I beg your pardon, and your son’s.” Silk sat, finding his inlaid rosewood chair rather too high. “I was about to say that I do trust him, now, though it’s very hard for me to trust any god.”

“We are like children, Patera Calde,” Quetzal told him, and Oreb flew from Silk’s shoulder to perch upon the topmost level of the crystal chandelier. “A child has to trust its parents, even when they’re not to be trusted.”

The pale cornet looked up with a flash of anger that seemed as much a symptom as an emotion. “What are you two implying!”

“Nothing, Mattak. Nothing at all.” His father’s big hand covered his.

Siyuf’s laugh was clear, pleasant, and unaffected. “So we feel of Sphigx, Calde. But are we fighting among ourselves so quick as this? At home we make a rule that there is allowed no fighting until the fourth bottle.”

“That’s a good rule,” Bison put in, still smiling. “But the tenth might be better.”

The young officer had already relaxed, slumping back in his chair; Silk smiled, too. “I don’t know what the proper form is, but this is a thoroughly informal dinner anyway. Generalissimo Siyuf, have you met your fellow diners? I know you know His Cognizance and Generalissimo Oosik.”

“There is one I should particularly like to meet, Calde Silk. That very promising girl who sits with Major Hadale.”

The major, a gaunt, hard-faced woman of about forty, said, “Her name is Chenille, Generalissimo. She’s living here in the palace temporarily.”

Siyuf cocked an eyebrow at Silk. “I am surprise that you have not seated her next to you. She could fit in very easily here between you and me.”

“Good girl!” Oreb assured Siyuf from his lofty perch.

“Major Hadale is correct,” Silk told Siyuf. “Her name is Chenille, and she’s a close friend. So much has happened since we met that I could call her an old one. She has been helping Maytera here, haven’t you, Chenille?”