His tone angered Ornery, but she kept a neutral tone as she said, “You’re cheerful about it, considering you may be there when it goes.”
“If I am, I’ll be in company, and if I’m not, I’ll rejoice. Whatever the inscrutable Hagions provide.”
Ornery made a noncommittal noise. If the scarp decided to blow, it really wouldn’t matter what had been said about it either way. Either it would reach all the way to the Giles or it wouldn’t. She turned the conversation in another direction, and the hours went by more comfortably until, along about evening, they were in sight of the city, the domes of the Temple district shining in the rose-amber light.
“Where do you tie up?” Ornery wanted to know.
“We’ll stop at the post pier to pick up and drop off mail and valuables. Then we’ll go on up to the old wharf just the other side of Brewer’s Bridge, and we’ll tie there for tonight. I’ve half the forward hold full of stuff for House Genevois, and the other half grain for the brewers. We’ll unload in the morning, then go farther upstream to the market district to pick up special orders for Naibah. Will you leave us tonight or tomorrow?”
Ornery thought about it. Her sister lived not far from the Temple district, which was just a few blocks west of the river, but it was late to drop in on her. “I’ll help you unload and sleep aboard, if you’ve no objection, Captain, then I’ll go on to my sister’s place in the morning.”
So it was agreed between them. The boat thrust itself upstream past a tanner’s yard and a printing house—both identifiable by the smell—then for a brief stop at the post wharf. Then onward once more, past a lumber yard and a dyers yard and a clutter of old houses, then past a tall wall with two odd little towers at its corners and the remains of a rotted wharf at its center, and finally beneath the high central arch of Brewers Bridge to the pier beyond, where, with much shouting and maneuvering, the captain, Ornery, the deckhand and the stoker brought themselves tight against the timber pier built out from the edge of the stony trough in which the river ran. It seemed too quiet. Ornery stared all around, finding no reason for the silence, which was soon broken in any case, when people came with carts from House Genevois and from the breweries. They unloaded by torchlight, the carts departed, and the strange silence returned. Later that night, as Ornery spread her blankets on the deck she heard a scurrying, like small animals moving, and she looked up to see a skulk of shadows vanishing along the river path in a lengthy stream, like a migration. It was too dark to see who they were, though Ornery thought them too small for mankind, and they had been in a most dreadful hurry. She resolved to tell someone about it tomorrow, perhaps, if it seemed important.
33—Marool Mantdby and the *** p198
That same evening, which was a few days after Marool Mantelby returned from her trip into the mountains, Marool made a visit to the Temple of the Hagions, most particularly the office of the High Crones, where she was assured a polite welcome by virtue of her frequent and generous gifts to the Temple. She met with women who knew her better, perhaps, than she supposed: D’Jevier and On-sofruct Passenger, who remembered the fourteen-year-old Marool well, though Marool had been too preoccupied at that time to remember anyone.
“Revered Hags,” Marool announced as she entered the throne room cum office. “Thank you for seeing me.”
D’Jevier and Onsofruct had changed little in the almost twenty years since Marool had come to the Temple to find the Hagion Morrigan. The two Hags had never mentioned that incident to anyone except one another, preferring to forget it as nearly as possible. Over the years, both had cultivated the impersonal manner and voice suitable for use in Temple when emotion was inappropriate, and it was this voice D’Jevier used to greet Marool.
“You are welcome, Marool. Is there something needful?”