They lifted the unconscious boy and took him next door, and laid him in a shallow bath. Over him Orphne poured sun-warmed water, full of herby substances. Dann was dirty, but nothing like as grimed as he had been a year ago, when the two of them came down the cliff into Chelops. The water was soon dark with dirt and blood and full of crusts from the scratches and ulcers. Then, as his body became visible, they saw around his waist a chain of scars that looked like knife cuts, as if he had decided to make a belt of scars for decoration or for ritual. They were red and sore-looking. The round, flat shapes under the skin told Mara what she was looking at, and she cried out to Orphne, who was manipulating the flesh there, "No, don't squeeze." Dann had cut himself and slid in coins for safe keeping, and let the flesh heal over them. Orphne's eyebrows were demanding explanation and Mara, close to tears, said, "I'll tell you... I'll explain."

That water was flung out into the hot sun where its filth could be burned harmless, and more medicinal water was poured around Dann, who lay quite still, eyes closed, and did not move when Orphne wiped his face and his eyes, and then held his head to wash his hair. They dried him and laid him back on the bed. Orphne cut Dann's nails, which were not far off claws, rubbed oil into dry skin, and examined his teeth, which were loose in inflamed gums, as Mara's had been so recently. But now they were white, and tight in her head, and she was proud of them: so would Dann's be, quite soon.

"So," said Orphne again, "this is the famous Dann. He looks like you, or will when he's better." The big, strong woman, with her big breasts, which shone with health, and which seemed to shine, too, with kindness, stood looking down at her patient; and then, evidently pleased, because he was already less inert, slipped on her pretty, white dress, replaced the cactus flower in her hair, and said, "Now Mara, you aren't going to like what's going to happen next, so I suggest you leave."

"No, I'll stay."

Orphne tied Dann to the bed with cords, interposing soft pads of cloth between them and his skin, laid a single piece of cloth over him, because of the heat, and sat down next to the bed. "Have you ever seen someone while the poppy is leaving them? No? Well, I'm warning you."

Mara replaced her tunic and trousers, and sat down. She thought, It doesn't seem as if he knows I am here, but perhaps he does.

For some time Dann slept, or was unconscious, or both, but then he began to moan and shiver, and to fight against his bonds; great spasms shook his body, while his teeth clenched and his eyes rolled, and yet all the time he seemed insensible, so that it was like watching someone fighting in his sleep with an assailant, or a drowning person struggling just under the water. It was sickening, and Mara wanted to untie him, and hold him as she had the small child, to lift that body of his, as light as bones picked up from beside a road, and run away with him, shelter him, hide him — but she knew that this Orphne with her skills was right, was curing him, and that she must sit quiet and watch.

Juba came, and Dromas, and then Candace and Meryx, and one after another all the Kin came and stood gazing down; and their faces were like the guards' and the runners', and — Mara thought — probably like hers when she looked at the dying milk beast. Which was not going to die, because a woman had given it water, and Dann was not going to die either.

Late that night Meryx came, found Orphne alert by Dann, and Mara sitting dozing in her chair. He tried to lift Mara up, to take her to bed, but her hand tightened around Dann's. Orphne shook her head at Meryx, who stood beside Mara for a while, stroking her hair, and Orphne watched, smiling drily. Then Meryx kissed Mara, and went off to bed; and Orphne said, meaning the way Mara envied her big body and her breasts, "But you have the lover, and I don't."

Through that night Orphne poured her soporific drinks and potions into Dann; but as she said, what goes in must come out, and she had a shallow pan by her, which she slid under Dann, watching for the moment. Then she had to clean him, and he screamed at the first touch. Orphne pulled apart his legs. The two women bent, shocked, to see how the area around the anus was bruised black and green and blue, and the anus itself was loose and bleeding. Mara had not seen anything like this, nor even thought about it; but Orphne knew and said, "They enjoy it when they are young but they don't think that when they are old they won't be able to hold their shit."

"Old," said Mara, for this was one of the moments when she felt as if she lived a different life from these gentle people. "Which of us do you imagine will live to be old?"

"I will," said Orphne, smearing ointment on Dann. "I shall be a wise old woman. I shall be a famous healer. Even the Hadrons will honour me and use my cures."

"They do now," said Mara.

"And my little hospital will be twice as big, and I shall train people to be famous healers."

And Orphne sat smiling at Mara, calm, confident, and with only a hint of the pugnacity that means doubt.

"You k^ow," said Mara, after a long pause of not knowing what to say, "I have learned something important here. Do you want to know what it is?"

"I suppose so," said Orphne, her smile meaning now: There she goes again.

"You can tell someone something true, but if they haven't experienced anything like it they won't understand. Orphne, if I say to you, 'You can't buy something if you haven't got the money,' you'll say, 'Well, of course.'"

"Of course," said Orphne, laughing.

"But you don't understand what it means to have a cache of gold coins, each one enough to buy a house, or three hours in a sky skimmer that means saving many days of walking — but if you don't have a little coin, you can't buy a piece of bread or some matches."

"Then change a gold one," said Orphne. "What's the problem?"

"That's the problem," said Mara.

All the next day Dann shook and screamed and begged for poppy, and Orphne kept him bound and cared for him; and that night he was so exhausted she gave him the same strong sleeping draught she had given Mara. It had in it ganja, and a little poppy; and when Mara said, "But surely that is only prolonging the agony," Orphne said, "There is only very little poppy, but it will be enough to calm him. To take someone off the stuff suddenly — you can, but it is dangerous when he is as weak as Dann."

And so Dann was put soundly to sleep, and Mara went to Meryx, and he held her as if he had recovered a treasure he had thought lost for ever.

And so the days passed, Mara and Orphne fighting to bring Dann back, and slowly succeeding. At night Meryx claimed Mara.

Then Dann was himself, though still weak, and Mara asked him what had held him so long in the Tower.

He seemed to be speaking of events long in the past. His eyes searched the ceiling as he spoke, as if what he remembered was pictured there, and he did not look at Mara or at Orphne, who held his hands, one on each side.

He said he had run away from the barracks for the male slaves when he heard the Towers were occupied. There he joined a gang of runaway slaves, mostly Mahondis, but there were some Hadrons and others. They were all men. There were women in the Towers but they kept to their own groups, afraid of rape. No woman by herself could survive. Dann's gang lived by stealing food from the fields, and then poppy from the warehouses, through intermediaries. He mentioned Kulik. At first Dann had sold the stuff to get food, but then he began taking it: now his words became halting, and he said, "There was a bad man." And now this was little Dann's voice: "A very bad man," piped little Dann. "He hurt Dann."

He had done it again: his memory had refused to accept a truth too painful to be borne. "Weren't there two men?" asked Mara.