“As for that,” Amin Lim said with some asperity, from the other side of the bed, “her natural facilities were set aback when your Dol settled herself in Aoz Roon’s bed. She feels deeply for him, as who doesn’t? A presentable man, Aoz Roon, besides being Lord of Embruddock.”
Rol Sakil sniffed. “That’s no reason why she should go off intercourse entirely. She could always fill in time elsewhere, to keep herself in training. Besides, he won’t come round knocking at her door again, you mark my words. He’s got his hands full with our Dol.”
The old woman beckoned Amin Lim nearer to bestow a confidence and they put their heads together over the supine body of Shay Tal. “Dol always keeps him at it—both by inclination and policy. A course I’d recommend to any woman, you included, Amin Lim. I hazard you enjoy a length now and again—it ain’t human not to, at your age. You ask your man.”
“Oh, I daresay there isn’t a woman as hasn’t fancied Aoz Roon, for all his tempers.”
Shay Tal sighed in her pauk. Rol Sakil took her hand in her own withered one and said, still using a confidential mode, “My Dol tells me as he mutters terribly in his sleep. I tell her that’s the sign of a guilty conscience.”
“What’s he got to be guilty about, then?” Amin Lim asked.
“Now, then—there I could tell you a tale… . That morning, after all the drinking and carrying on, I was about early, as of old. And as I went out, well wrapped against the cold of morning, I come on a body in the dark and I says to myself, ‘Why here’s some fool drunk out of his wits, lying asleep on the ground.’ There he was, at the base of the big tower.”
She paused to observe the effect of her story on Amin Lim, who, having nothing else to do, was listening intently. Rol Sakil’s little eyes became almost hidden in wrinkles as she continued.
“I’d never have thought a mite more of it—I likes a drop of pig’s counsel myself. But round the other side of the tower, what do I find but another body lying there. ‘That’s two fools drunk out of their wits, lying asleep on the ground,’ says I to myself. And I’d never have thought a mite more of it, but when it’s given out that young Klils and his brother Nahkri were found dead together, lying at the bottom of their tower, why, that’s another matter… .” She sniffed.
“Everyone said that’s where they were found.”
“Ah, but I found them first, and they weren’t together. So they didn’t fight together, did they? That’s fishy, Amin Lim, isn’t it? So I says to myself, ‘Someone went and pushed them two brothers off the top of the tower.’ Who might it be, who stood most to gain by their deaths? Well, girl, that’s something I leave to others to judge. All I says is, I says to our Dol, ‘You cultivate your fear of heights, Dol. Don’t you go near no edges of towers while you’re with Aoz Roon,’ I says. ‘Don’t you go near no edges of towers and you’ll be all right… .’ That’s what I says.”
Amin Lim shook her head. “Shay Tal wouldn’t love Aoz Roon if he did that kind of thing. And she’d know. She’s wise, she’d know for sure.”
Rol Sakil rose and hobbled nervously about the stone room, shaking her head in doubt. “Where men’s concerned, Shay Tal is the same as the rest of us. She doesn’t always think with her harneys—sometimes she uses the thing between her legs instead.”
“Oh, hush with you.” Amin Lim looked sorrowfully down at her friend and mentor. Privately, she wished that Shay Tal’s life were ruled more in the way Rol Sakil indicated: she might then be happier.
Shay Tal lay stretched out stiffly on her left side, in the pauk attitude. Her eyes seemed barely closed. Her breathing was scarcely audible, punctuated by long-drawn-out sighs. Looking at the austere contours of that loved face, Amin Lim thought she was watching someone facing death with composure. Only the mouth, growing tighter occasionally, indicated the terror it was impossible to suppress in the presence of the denizens of the world below.