Dravig asked: “Do you know him?”
“No.” The swelling made recognition impossible.
Niall turned away; the staring eyes and exposed teeth made him feel sick. He climbed the ladder back to the lawn; suddenly he was glad it was cold. On a hot day the corpse would already have been surrounded by bluebottles. And since bluebottles were the size of small birds, the corpse would soon have been devoured.
Niall stood staring at the lawn. Only a few hours earlier, men had worked in the darkness, gathering armfuls of snow and dead leaves to conceal the corpse; they should have left behind some clue to their identity. But the recent snow had buried all the clues. But why should they take so much trouble to hide the body? Did they mean to return later to give it a decent burial? Niall dismissed that idea. The man’s clothes had been removed because they might afford a clue to his identity; the body had probably been concealed for the same reason. But that suggested that the killers were men who belonged to this city. And Niall found such an idea almost unbelievable.
Dravig had been waiting patiently while Niall stood there, lost in thought. As Niall shook his head and sighed, Dravig asked: “Do you have any idea who might be responsible?”
“None. The whole thing is completely baffling.”
From over the rooftops came the sound of a gong. In the days when men were enslaved, it had been used to announce the evening curfew; anyone found abroad after that time was subject to instant execution. Now it was used in the mornings to announce the beginning of the working day.
Niall said: “I must go back. There is a meeting of the Council in half an hour.” Its full title was the Council of Free Men, but Niall shortened it in order to avoid the risk of causing offense.
As they walked back through the bushes, Niall observed something that had caught on a twig. It was a fine, thin chain made of a gold-colored metal; suspended on it there was a medallion of the same color. One side was blank; on the other was the symbol that he had already seen once that morning. Niall held it out on the palm of his hand. But Dravig stared at it blankly. The spider mentality, for all its intelligence, found symbols incomprehensible.
Niall said: “It is the same sign we found on the lead disc under the tree.”
“But what does it mean?”
“I don’t know. But I shall try to find out.”
As they returned along the path between the walls, Niall stopped and pointed to the footprints.
“Now I understand why the heel is deeper than the toes. He was walking backwards, helping to carry the body.”
“But why did they not leave the body where it was?”
“By removing it, they thought they were leaving no clues behind. If the snow had been heavier, we would never have discovered how Skorbo died.”
Dravig said: “The snow was their ally.”
“And also their enemy.”
In the damp-smelling hallway, with its dust and rubble, Niall paused again to look around. This time he was able to find the prints of two sets of sandals in the dust. He said: “There is still one thing I cannot understand. How did they lure Skorbo into the building?”
“I can tell you that.” Niall stared at him in surprise. “They used the scent of a female spider in season.”
“Of course!” It was the smell that had intrigued Niall when he first stepped into the hallway. When he had returned with Dravig, it had gone. But the spider’s more acute senses had detected it.
Dravig said: “What do you wish me to say to the Death Lord?”
The question took Niall by surprise. After all, he had nothing to do with Skorbo’s death. Now, suddenly, he realized that his attitude revealed a lack of maturity and understanding. He was the ruler of all the human beings in this city. Therefore, the murder was his responsibility, whether he liked it or not.
He said: “Please tell the Death Lord that I shall do everything in my power to find the criminals. When they are found, they shall be handed over to you for punishment.”
“Thank you.” Their minds made momentary contact; it was the equivalent of a human handshake. Then Dravig turned away and went out into the square. When he and Niall were alone, he omitted the ritual gestures of homage, knowing that Niall found them embarrassing. Dravig would have preferred to make the gestures; like all spiders, he found them natural and satisfying to his sense of order. That he omitted them now was a sign of friendship and respect.
About to follow Dravig into the square, Niall remembered the leaden disc, which he had left outside the door that led into the garden. He went back down the corridor. The disc was gone. Niall could remember the exact spot where he had left it; in fact the indentation was still in the snow, with some faint earth marks.
The slaves were now clearing the snow from the pavement in front of the house. The overseer, a powerfully built man whose face looked as if it had been carved out of wood, snapped to attention as Niall approached.
Niall asked: “What is your name?”
“Dion, sir.”
“Have you seen anyone go into that house in the last ten minutes?”
“No, sir.”
Niall was probing his mind as he spoke, and could see he was telling the truth.
“None of the slaves has been in there?”
“No, sir.” This time, Niall sensed his hesitation. It was understandable enough. Watching slaves shoveling snow was scarcely a demanding job; what could be more natural than turning his back and gazing into the distance?
Niall looked thoughtfully at the slaves. It seemed inconceivable that any of these pathetic creatures could have taken the disc. To begin with, it would be too heavy for the pockets of their garments. Slaves were notoriously inclined to steal, but they were usually interested in food, or attractive shining objects. Niall scanned the minds of those who were closest to him. It was as he had expected. Slaves seemed to live in a permanent mental fog, a perpetual present without past or future; their minds were little more than a reflection of their environment. By comparison, even the overseer was an intellectual prodigy. Niall always found it depressing to probe the minds of slaves; they took their emptiness so completely for granted that it was contagious, like a disease.
Niall said: “Listen to me, Dion. Behind this house there is a garden with a gate in the wall. Follow my footprints along the lane. They will lead you to an empty swimming pool, in which you will find the body of a man. Have him carried to my palace. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” If the man was surprised, his face showed no sign of it. Under the spiders, the overseers had been trained to obey like machines.
As he retraced his footsteps through the snow, Niall was lost in thought. The events of the past few hours had left him baffled. Yet he found them irritating and puzzling rather than alarming — a tiresome interruption of more important affairs.
The past six months had been the most absorbing and exciting of his life. Since the spiders had granted men their freedom, life had become a continuous adventure. In the days of slavery, men had not been allowed to use their minds. Children had been raised in strictly supervised nurseries; any who showed signs of unusual intelligence were destroyed. Books had been forbidden; so had any form of mechanical device. Even the servants of the bombardier beetles, who had always enjoyed relative freedom, had been forbidden to construct any kind of machine on pain of death.
In practice, the beetle servants had ignored the prohibition; for generations, their children had secretly learned to read. But the men of the spider city had been allowed no such latitude. Ever since birth, their minds had been systematically violated by their masters; even their most secret thoughts had been open to inspection by the spiders. Most of them had never even dreamed of the possibility of freedom.
The men of Dira were a different matter. Until their capture by the spiders less than a year ago, they had always been free. But their minds had been cramped by generations of confinement in an underground fortress, and by the need for the strictest obedience if they were to avoid the vigilance of spider patrols. In order to guarantee their safety, their rulers — like the late King Kazak — had demanded total submission and loyalty. Even the women of Dira were treated by Kazak as his private harem. So the men of Dira were almost as ill equipped as the men of the spider city to deal with the experience of self-determination.