I sat thinking for a few seconds. At last I said, "Mucor, you told Silk what I told you when I came."

She nodded. Her eyes were dull once more, and fixed upon something far away.

"This is my fault, because I didn't explain the situation as fully as I should have. It's actually my fault twice. My fault for not explaining, and my fault that certain people in New Viron want Silk to be their calde. The same thing is true, I'm told, in Three Rivers and some other towns, and that's my fault, too. My wife and I wrote our book, and it has been more widely read, and much more often copied, than we had ever dreamed it would be."

"What about the women troopers from Trivigaunte?" Maytera inquired.

"No. Though their men may feel differently. But they want him in Urbasecundus, and in other towns even farther from here. I said my wife and I wrote that book, and it sounds as if I'm trying to divide the blame. I'm not; our book would never have been written if I had not been determined to write it before I died. Nettle saw how hard it was and offered her help, which I gladly accepted. But the fault is mine alone."

I waited for Mucor to speak, which was nearly always a mistake.

"Maybe it was a foolish thing to do, though I didn't think so at the time. It was to be a book about Silk, Silk's Book, and mostly it was. But you're in it, both of you, and so are General Mint and Maytera Rose. Maybe I should have said all three of you are in there."

"Really?" Maytera asked.

"Yes. So too are your son Blood, and His Cognizance, and the inhumu that we called His Cognizance Patera Quetzal back in Old Viron. And Corporal Hammerstone, and Patera Incus. Do you remember Patera Incus?"

"Yes, Horn. Yes, I do. My husband thought the whorl of him." I had been away from her for too long to tell whether she was smiling or frowning.

"But it was mostly about Patera Silk," I continued, "and I tried to show how good and wise he was, and how he made mistakes sometimes but was never too proud to acknowledge that he'd been wrong. Most of all, how he never gave up, how he kept working for peace with the Ayuntamiento and peace with Trivigaunte, no matter how badly things were going or how impossible any peace seemed. I believed that a book like that would help everyone who read it, not just now or next year, but long after Nettle and I were gone. Nettle thought so, too, and wanted to help create a gift that we could give our children's children, and their children."

Maytera's hand groped toward me. "You're a good boy, Horn. Too lively and fond of mischief, but good at heart. I always said so, even when I had to take my switch to you."

I thanked her. "There was something else, Maytera. I felt he deserved it, deserved a book telling everyone what he had done, and I felt sure that if I didn't write down all the things I knew about him, nobody would."

Maytera said, "He deserved your tribute, dear." And Mucor, "He does."

"So I tried. It was a lot of work for me and even more for Nettle, because she had to copy what I'd written over and over. But when we were finished and I read it as somebody who hadn't known him would, I realized I hadn't done him justice, that he had been greater than I had been able to show. Ever since it began to be read, people have been telling us that we exaggerated, that he couldn't have been as great and good a man as my wife and I said he was. We've always known that all the error was on the other side."

Maytera Marble sniffed. One of the parts she had taken when Maytera Rose died had been that sniff, so expressive of skepticism and contempt. "You think you've got to go because they'd never have known about young Patera Silk if you and that girl hadn't written about him."

"Yes, I do."

"That was how I used to treat Maggie, our maid. Every time she did some little favor for me, I made it her task, and added to it. Oh, I knew it was wicked, but I did it just the same."

Hoping to bring her to herself again, I said, "Did you really, Maytera Marble?"

She nodded, and something in the movement of her head told me that it was still Maytera Rose who gave her assent. "I said to myself that if she was ninny enough to let me impose on her like that, she deserved everything she got. I was right, too. Both ways... Horn?"

"Yes, Maytera. I'm still here. What is it?"

"You don't owe my granddaughter and me any more favors. You've been very, very generous with us, and the only help that my granddaughter's been able to give you has been to tell you to help yourself. Now I need to ask you for another favor, one that I want almost as much as I want a new eye-"

"I'll get two if I can, Maytera."

"You're going to go anyway? In spite of what Patera Silk said?"

I was, of course, because I had to. I temporized by saying that there were many other things in the Long Sun Whorl that were needed in New Viron.

"We must be realistic, Horn. Are you realistic?"

I said that I tried to be.

"You may not be able to find a new eye for me, much less two. I-I understand that. So do you, I feel sure."

I nodded and said, "I also understand that because we told everyone about Silk, I'm the one who must go back for him when he's needed so badly here. When I got to New Viron I asked Marrow for a copy of a certain letter he had shown me. Do you remember Marrow, Maytera?"

Her old woman's fingers smoothed her dirty black skirt over her thin metal thighs. "I used to go to his shop twice a week."

"He's not a bad man, Maytera. In fact, he's a very good man as men are judged in New Viron today. He has been a good and generous friend to me ever since I agreed to go back and get Silk. But when his clerk came in to copy that letter, he wore a chain."

She said nothing, and I was afraid she had not understood me. I said, "I don't mean jewelry, a gold or silver chain around his neck. His hands were chained. There were iron bands around each wrist, and the chain ran between them."

She said nothing. Neither did Mucor.

"They make those chains short enough that a man wearing one can't fire a slug gun properly. He can't work the slide to put a fresh round into the chamber without letting go of the part that his right hand holds."

"You needn't explain any more, Horn. Not about the gun or the chains, I mean."

I did anyway. I had lived on Lizard too long, perhaps, seeing few people other than you yourself, Nettle darling, and our sons. I said, "I watched him write, copying it out for me, and I couldn't help seeing how careful he was to keep it back, keep it from smearing his ink. It wasn't a big chain, Maytera. It wasn't a heavy chain at all, just a little, light chain with seven little links. The men who unload boats wear much heavier ones. He probably thinks that he's being treated kindly, and in a way he is."

"I quite understand, Horn. You don't have to tell us any more."

"Once-this is two or three years ago-I talked to a man in town who was boasting about how beautiful a girl he had was. He even offered to take me to his house so that I could see her."

"Did you go?"

I had but I denied it, one of those lies we tell without knowing why. "I asked him if the chain didn't get in the way when they made love, and he said no, he made her hold her hands over her head."

"Is this about Silk? Yes, I suppose it is." Maytera was silent for a moment. "Like Marl. Marl was a friend of mine back home. Like the clerk, except that he didn't have to wear a chain. All right, I understand why you think you must bring Silk here. In your place, I suppose I would, too."

"Even though he doesn't want to? He wanted very badly to go with us when we left. You must remember that, Maytera-how much he wanted to go with us, how eager he was. He hated all the evil he saw in the Whorl, and he must have hoped that people would be better in a new place."

She said nothing.

"A lot are. Many of us are. That's what I ought to say, because I'm one of them. We're not as good as he would want us to be, but we're better than we were in a lot of ways. Just thinking about starting fresh in a new place made Auk better, and if he and Chenille landed here-"

Mucor said distinctly, "On Green."

"They landed on Green?" I turned to her eagerly. "Have you talked to them there?"

My question hung in the air, whispered by the waves at the feet of the cliffs.

At last I shrugged, and went back to Maytera Marble. "Even if they landed on Green, Maytera, they may be better people than the Auk and Chenille we knew, better people than they ever were at home."

"What I started out to say, Horn, is that even if you cannot bring back a new eye for me, you could still make me very, very happy."

I assured her that I would do anything I could for her.

"We agree that it will be difficult for you to find a new eye. This is worse, or anyway I'm afraid it may be. But if you should see my husband, see Hammerstone..."

I waited.

"If he's still alive, if you should run across him, I'd like you to tell him where I am and how very deeply I regret tricking him into marriage as I did. Tell him, please, that I wouldn't have come here, or brought my granddaughter here, if I had been able to face him. Ask him to pray for me, please. Will you do that for me, Horn? Ask him to pray for me?"

Naturally I promised that I would.

"He didn't pray at all when I was with him, when we were... It pained me. It gave me pain, and yet I knew that he was being open and honest with me. It was I, the one who prayed, who lied and lied too. I know that must seem illogical, yet it was so."

Here I tried to say something comforting, I believe. I am no longer certain what it was.

"Now I'm blind, Horn. I am punished, and not too severe a punishment, either. Are you going to tell him that I'm blind now, Horn?"

I said I certainly would, because I would try to enlist Hammerstone's help in finding new eyes for her.

"And where we are now, my granddaughter and I? Will you tell him about this rock in the sea?"

"I'll probably have to, Maytera. I'm sure he'll want to know."

She was silent for a minute or two, nor did Mucor speak again. I stood up to gauge the force and direction of the wind. The western horizon showed no indications of bad weather, only the clearest of calm blue skies.

"Horn?"

"Yes, Maytera. If Mucor won't tell me anything more, and won't tell Patera Silk that I'm going to come for him whether he wants me to or not, I ought to leave."

"Only a moment more, Horn. Can't you spare me a moment Or two? Horn, you knew him. Do you think that my husband-that Hammerstone might try to come here and kill me? Is he capable of that? Was he?"

"Absolutely not." Privately I thought it likely that he would come, or try to, although not to do her harm.

"It might be better if he did." Her voice had been growing weaker as she spoke; it was so faint when she said that that I could scarcely hear her over the distant murmur of the waves. "I still try to pretend that I'm taking care of my granddaughter, as I did when we were on our little farm, and in the town. But she's taking care of me, really. That is the truth-"

Mucor interrupted, startling me. "I do not."

I said, "You don't require much taking care of, Maytera, and your granddaughter wouldn't have the bottles of water I brought for her if you hadn't told me she needed them. You were taking care of her then."

For seconds that dragged on and on, Maytera was silent; when I was on the point of leaving, she said, "Horn, may I touch your face? I've been wanting to, the whole time you've been here."

"If it will make you happy to do it, it will make me happy, too," I told her.

She rose, and Mucor rose with her; I stood close to Maytera Marble and let her hands discover my face for themselves.

"You're older now."

"Yes, Maytera. Older and fatter and losing my hair. Do you remember how bald my father was?"

"It's still the same dear face, though it pains me to-to have it changed at all. Horn, it's not at all likely that you'll be able to find new eyes for me, or find my husband, either. We both know that. Even so, you can make me happy if you will. Will you promise to come back here after you have tried? Even if you have no eye to give me, and no word of my husband? And leave me a copy of your book, so that I can hear, sometimes, about Patera Silk and Patera Pike, and the old days at our manteion?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that our book would be of no use to her, but it occurred to me that the seamen who came to consult Mucor might be induced to read passages to her. I said something to that effect, and she said, "Mucor can read it to me, if she will."

Surprised yet again, I asked, "Can you read, Mucor?"

"A little." She seemed almost on the point of smiling. "Grandmother taught me."

"She would have, naturally." I was ready to kick myself for not having anticipated something so obvious.

Maytera Marble said, "If she doesn't know a word, she can spell it out to me so I can tell her."

The love in her voice touched me; for the space of a breath, I considered what you would want me to do, Nettle; but I know you too well to have much doubt. "You want me to bring you a copy of our book, when I return from the Long Sun Whorl, Maytera? From the Whorl Whorl?"

Very humbly she said, "If it's not too much trouble, Horn." Her hands had left my face to clutch each other. "It-I would appreciate it very much."

"You won't have to wait. I have a copy in my boat. I'll be back in a few minutes."

I had not gone ten steps when I heard the tapping of her stick behind me. I told her that she did not have to come, that I would bring the book up to her.

"No. No, I want to, Horn. I can't ask you to make that climb again, and-and..."

She was afraid that I might sail away without having given it to her. Perhaps I should have been angry that she had so little confidence in my promise; but the truth was, as I realized even then, that she wanted the book so badly that she could not bear to run even the slightest risk, and wailing for me to return with it would have been agony. I took her free hand, and we descended the precipitous path together.

When we had reached the flat rock upon which the fish had so mysteriously appeared, she asked me about the sloop, how long it was, how wide, how one managed the sails and so on and so forth, all of it, I believe, to postpone the delicious instant when she would actually hold the book in her own hands, pushing the moment back again and again.

I gave her each measurement she asked for, and explained the rudiments of sailing as well as I could, how one trims the sails depending on the angle of the wind to the course, how to navigate by the sun and the stars, how the management of a laden boat differs from that of an empty one, and other matters; and while I was descanting upon all this Mucor appeared, standing upon an outcrop halfway up the cliff so small that it had escaped my notice up to then. I waved to her and she waved in return, but she did not speak.

At last I went aboard, retrieved our book from the cubby, and standing in the stern with one foot on the gunwale presented it to Maytera Marble, a present from both its authors.

It seems foolish now to write that her face, a face composed of hundreds of tiny mechanisms, glowed with happiness. Yet it did. "Horn! Oh, Horn! This-this is the answer to so many, many prayers!"

I smiled, although she could not see it. "All of them yours, I'm sure, Maytera. A good many people have taken the trouble to read it, though."

"It's so thick! So heavy!" Reverently she opened it, turning pages to feel the paper. "Are they written on both sides, Horn?"

"Yes, they are, Maytera. And my wife's handwriting is quite small."

She nodded solemnly. "I remember dear little Nettle's hand. She had a very good hand, Horn, even when she was just a child. A neat little hand. It may give my granddaughter trouble at first, but she'll soon be reading it like print, I feel sure."

I said that I was, too, and prepared to cast off.

"We're all in here, Horn? Dear old Maytera Rose, Maytera Mint, and my granddaughter and I? And Patera, and Patera Pike, and you children in the palaestra?"

"There's a great deal about Patera Silk," I told her, "but only a little, really, about Patera Pike. I'm afraid most of the other students at the palaestra aren't even mentioned, but Nettle and I pop up pretty frequently."

I was on the point of saying good-bye, but now that the moment for it had come I found myself every bit as reluctant as she was. "Do you remember how I followed you to the gate of Blood's villa? How I wanted to come in with you, but you wouldn't let me?"

"You were a good, brave boy. I couldn't risk your life like that, Horn."

"It's in there," I said, and cast off. "I'm leaving now. Remember me in your prayers."

"I will. Oh, I will!"