Gilla pulled the curtain back across the window despite the airless heat of the evening and sat down again. Illyra lay on her couch, clutching’the coverlet to her breast at every cry, as if she were cold, despite the sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Gilla looked down at her own clasped hands, red and workwom, the flesh puffing around the circle of her wedding band, and tried to tell herself that the plague came nearly every year. But she knew it did not come this way. She and Illyra had done this, somehow, with their spell.
A new outbreak of shouting below startled her to awareness again. The building shook as the great door of the Aphrodisia House slammed, and she heard a mutter of voices and footsteps on the stairs. It was their door they were coming to!
Gilla got heavily to her feet as it was flung open, and she saw Lalo framed in the doorway with Myrtis behind him and Latilla in his arms.
Illyra cried out, but Gilla was already in motion, reaching out to touch the hot forehead. Latilla opened her eyes then, focusing with difficulty, and tried to smile.
“Mama, I missed you. Mama, I’m so hot, can’t you make me cool again?”
Throat tight, Gilla took the burning body into her own arms, whispering words that made no sense even to her. Latilla was so light, her flesh half consumed already by that inner fire!
“Lay her down on the couch,” said Illyra in a strained voice. “We’ll need cold water and cloths.”
“I’ve already ordered them,” said Myrtis calmly, “and perhaps these will help as well.” She gestured, and one of her girls brought in two of the plumed fans which they used to fan away the sweat of amorous exercise from the bodies of their more important customers, then scurried out of the room.