They came to a narrow, blue-painted gate, which one of the escort opened, pointedly looking away from Genevieve as she entered. Inside was a simple courtyard with gravel paths and little patches of greenery set around a pool of fish. Three figures, covered as she was, head to toe, sat on stools in the shade of a shallow portico covered with dusty vines.
Genevieve approached them, bowed, said, “I am happy to see you.”
One of the figures replied, a nonsense syllable, which set the pattern for all subsequent interchange.
“Thank you for inviting me to share your garden.”
“Walla, bulla, taka taka, bum.”
“Your fish are quite remarkable.”
“Lilla-lalla zim zam.”
And so on, for the better part of an hour. By this time, Genevieve was making a game of it. “How heavy the heat of the sun, sun sun, how delightful the night when it’s cool cool cool. Do you ever go out for a run, run run, or do you just act like a fool, fool fool?”
“Lalla ap,” said the spokeswife.
A serving person came into the portico with a pot and cups. The spokeswife poured for all of them. The wives raised their veils, momentarily exposing their faces, dreamy, self-contained, placid.
The spokeswife leaned forward to give Genevieve her cup and whispered softly, in a careless voice, “You are laughing at us.”
Genevieve sat back, flushed and confused. They had obviously understood everything she had said, and might properly resent it.
“I was laughing at myself,” she said. “For being here.”
“Are you the only woman in your party?” The words were quite clear, but the question was asked in a dreamy, inconsequential tone, one that gave it no importance whatsoever.
“Does it matter?” she said, determined to give nothing away.
“Have you a new baby?” The same tone, incognizant, almost sleepy.
How answer this question? She did not want them to know about Dovidi. “If I had a child, I am sure my child would enjoy this garden.
“Cralliopop. Guggle,” said the wives to one another, unmoved.
The spokeswife rose and came to sit close to Genevieve.
“We are sad for you,” she crooned into Genevieve’s ear. “We three have new children, each of us. And now, we are candidates for the journey to Galul. Now, with these children, our third children, we have earned the right. Galul is paradise.”
“I am happy for you if you desire this. Where is Galul?”
The woman swayed on her seat, as though to music only she could hear. “Far, far south. In the high mountains, where it is cool and green. I am old for the trip. Thirty-three. But my master and lord did not want me to go until now. I begged him. Though it was wrong to speak to him, I did. He punished me for speaking, but the wounds have healed and he has done as I asked. Perhaps, you may earn the journey if you speak to your master. Do not fear the pain of his displeasure. It goes away, in time.”
She rose and returned to her chair, nodding slowly at Genevieve, who was holding her cup beneath her veil, slowly dripping its contents onto her soft inner robe, where it wouldn’t show. They had raised their veils, but she had not. They had drunk their tea, but she was wary of it. It had a strange smell.
Shortly thereafter, a serving person came to tell Genevieve that the harpta was waiting. So was Aufors.
They returned in silence to the gate of the residence, and then, seeing the lizard proceed through the city gate, they ran as if with one mind to the slit atop the stairs and from there watched the handlers and the giant beast going down to the sea. There the lizard was divested of its harness and allowed to dive into the waves.
“Ah,” Genevieve said. “It’s aquatic! Of course it is! Just as the lizards on Haven. There’d be nothing for it to eat here, on land. It must eat seaweed!”
“What happened?” demanded the Marshal, as he came up the stairs.
“Nothing,” she said. “They talked a kind of gibberish. We didn’t walk in the garden at all. We just sat and talked incomprehensible nonsense to one another, except that one of the wives said two intelligible things. She said that they had new babies, their third—did I forget to say there were three wives present?—and this entitled them tobe candidates to go to Galul . . .”