“What is it?” Hresh called. “What’s happened?”

His voice would not carry. No one could hear him. Fearfully he rushed down the endless winding staircase to the ground floor, and out into the street. He stood clinging to the gate of the building, gasping for breath, his legs trembling, and looked around. No one there. Whoever had been shouting had moved along. But then others came, a band of boys on their way to school, tumbling and leaping, tossing their notebooks about. When they saw him they halted, adopting a more sober demeanor as befitted an encounter with the chronicler. Their eyes, though, were bright and jubilant.

“Is there news?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Your daughter, sir — the lady Nialli Apuilana—”

“What of her?”

“Found, sir. In the lakelands. The hunter Sipirod found her. They’re bringing her back right now!”

“And is she—”

He couldn’t get the whole question out soon enough. The boys were on their way again already, scampering and cavorting.

“ — all right?”

They called something back to him. Hresh was unable to make out the words. But their tone was cheerful and the sense of it was clear. All was well. Nialli lived and was returning to the city. He gave thanks to the gods.

“You must come with me, Mother Boldirinthe,” the earnest young guardsman said. “The chieftain requires it. Her daughter is in great need of healing.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” the offering-woman said, smiling at the guardsman’s solemnity. He was a Beng, like most of the guards, blocky and thick-tongued, with a heavy manner about him. But he was very young. Much was forgivable, on that account. “Don’t you think I knew I’d be summoned? Four days lying in those vile swamps — what a shape the girl must be in! Here, boy, help me up. I’m getting as big as a vermilion.”

She extended her arm. But the guardsman, with unexpected diligence and courtesy, rushed around behind her chair and slipped his own arm around her to lift her to her feet. She tottered a bit. He steadied her. It was hard work for him, strong though he was. Boldirinthe chuckled at her own unwieldiness. Flesh was accumulating on her with the force of an avalanche, new layers of it every day. Soon she’d be entombed within herself, virtually unable to move. Her legs were like pillars, her belly was a rippling massive mound. That was a matter of little concern to her, though. She was grateful to the gods for having let her live long enough to undergo this transformation, and for having provided her with the sustenance out of which she had created her vastness. Many others hadn’t been so fortunate.

“Over there,” she said. “That satchel on the table — hand it to me—”

“I can carry it for you, mother.”

“No one must carry it but me. Hand it here. There’s a good boy. You have a wagon waiting?”

“In the courtyard, yes.”

“Take my arm. That’s it. What’s your name?”

“Maju Samlor, mother.”

She nodded. “Been in the guards long?”

“Almost a year.”

“Terrible thing, your captain’s murder. But it won’t go unpunished, will it?”

“We seek the slayer day and night,” said Maju Samlor. He grunted a little as she swayed and lurched, but held her steady. At a cautious pace they proceeded into the courtyard. This was twice in two days that she had left her cloister, now, for only yesterday she had attended the meeting that Taniane had called at the Basilica. That was unusual for her, in these days, to go out so often. Movement was so difficult. Her thighs rubbed together with each step, her breasts pulled her groundward like weights. But perhaps it would do her some good, she thought, to bestir herself more frequently.

The long satchel she carried was more of a burden to her than she had expected. She had loaded it that morning with the things she would need in caring for Nialli Apuilana — the talismans of Friit and Mueri, of course, but also the wands of healing, which were carved of heavy wood, and an array of herbs and potions in stone jars. Too many things, maybe. But she managed to hobble out to the wagon without dropping it.

Her hillside cloister was near the head of the steep street known as Mueri Way. Just a hundred paces or so farther uphill was Mueri House. The alleyway in which Kundalimon had been murdered lay midway between Mueri House and her cloister.

It angered Boldirinthe that blood — innocent blood — had been shed so close to her holy precinct. How could anyone, even a madman, have dared violate this place of healing by casting an aura of violent death over it? Each morning since the killing she had sent one of her junior priestesses to the site to perform a rite of purification. But she hadn’t gone to it herself. Now, as Maju Samlor tugged at the reins and the xlendi moved forward into the street, she turned to look toward the fatal place.

A crowd seemed to have gathered. She saw thirty or forty people, or perhaps more, bustling about the narrow entrance to the alley. The ones going in carried string-bags bulging with fruit, and others bore bunches of flowers, or armloads of greenery of some sort — boughs pulled from trees, so it looked. The ones coming from the alley were empty-handed.

Boldirinthe turned to Maju Samlor, frowning. “What’s going on there, do you think?”

“They’re bringing offerings, mother.”

“Offerings?”

“Nature-offerings. Branches, fruits, flowers, things like that. For the one who died, you know, the boy from the hjjks. It’s been going on two or three days.”

“They place offerings on the spot where he died?” That was strange. Her priestesses had said nothing about it to her. “Take me over there and let me see.”

“But the chieftain’s daughter—”

“She can wait another few minutes. Take me over.”

The guardsman shrugged and pulled the wagon around, and drove it up the street to the mouth of the alley. At closer range, now, Boldirinthe realized that there were only a few adults in the crowd. Most were boys and girls, some of them quite young. From where she sat it was hard for her to get a good view of what was going on, nor did she want to dismount and investigate directly. But she could see that someone had set up some kind of shrine in there. At the far end where the line of offering-bearers terminated the green boughs were piled higher than a man’s head, and they were draped with bits of cloth, glittering metallic ribbons, long bright-colored paper streamers.

For a long moment she sat there watching. Some of the children noticed her, and waved and called her name, and she smiled to them and returned their greetings. But she did not leave the wagon.

“Would you like a closer look?” Maju Samlor asked. “I could help you out, and—”

“Another time,” Boldirinthe said. “Take me to Nialli Apuilana now.”

The guardsman turned the wagon and headed it down the hill.

So now they’re worshiping him, Boldirinthe thought in wonder. The one who died: they are making him a god. Or so it would appear. How strange. It’s all so very strange, everything that has happened that is in any way connected to that boy.

She found it bothersome that such things should be going on. That there should be a shrine in the alleyway, that the children should be bringing offerings to Kundalimon as though he were a god, seemed improper to her.

Perhaps it’s not so serious, though, she told herself.

She thought of all the unorthodoxies that she’d seen arise during her long life. Had any of them done any real harm? These were unstable times. The coming of the New Springtime had shaken the People out of the narrow ways of the cocoon by sending them out to face the unknown mysteries of the larger world; and it wasn’t surprising that they would grasp at new salvations when the old ones didn’t appear to be producing immediate gratification.

Some of the novelties had been short-lived. Like that odd cult of human-worship that had sprung up during the last days in Vengiboneeza, when a few of the simpler folk had met secretly to dance around a statue of a human that they found somewhere in the old city, and had made prayers and sacrifices before it. But that had died out in the time of the second migration.