the far wall, for all the world like a piece of furniture. It took another
moment for her to realize that he had not moved when she came in. He had not
even looked at her.
Swiftly she went to him. He stood as if he had backed across the room step by
careful step until he ran into the wall. The paintbrush was still clenched in
one hand; she tugged it free and set it down. And still he did not move. His
eyes were fixed, unseeing, on the easel across the room. She glanced at it – a
man’s face, and at this distance she saw nothing remarkable – then turned to him
again.
‘Lalo, are you all right? Did you hear me? Shipri All-Mother have mercy – Lalo,
what’s wrong?’ She shook his arm and still he did not respond to her, and a sick
fear uncoiled itself beneath her heart and began to grow.
Gilla gathered him into her ample embrace and for a moment held him unresisting.
His body was warm, and she could feel his heart beating very slowly against her
own. but she knew with dreadful certainty that he was no longer there. Biting
her lip, she guided him to the pallet and arranged him on it as one of the
children might arrange a doll.
Fear’s chill tentacles extended all the way to her fingertips now. and she
remained kneeling before Lalo, chafing his hands less for his sake than for her
own. His eyes were unfocused, the pupils darkly dilated. He was not looking at
her. He had not been looking at the painting either, although his face had been
turned towards it when she came in. These eyes were focused on something beyond