a fancy to him, insisted on having him; and the Father approved of the friendship, encouraging it as a good thing for the Family, for the Arca interest with the House of Runda. Young men would be young men, there would be women and drinking and so on, there was no harm in it, nothing would go really wrong.
Tib, a prentice cook now, followed Hoby about like a dog when Hoby was at Arcamand. And Tib told us the stories Hoby told him. Corric and his friends liked to get Torm drunk because he went crazy when he was drunk and would do anything they dared him to do—fence with three men at once, fight a bear, tear off his clothes and dance naked on the Senate steps till he fell down in a foaming fit. They thought Torm was wonderful, Hoby said, they all admired him. To some of us it sounded as if they used him as a clown, for entertainment, like the dwarfs Corric kept as wrestlers, or his half-witted, one-eyed, giant bodyguard Hurn. But it wasn't like that at all, according to Hoby as related by Tib. Hoby said that Corric Runda took lessons in swordfighting from Torm, treating him as a master of the art. He said all Corric's friends respected Torm. They feared his great strength. They liked him to run wild because then everybody feared him and them.
"Torm-dí is young," Everra said. "Let him have his fling while he's young. He'll be the wiser for it when he's older. The Father knows that. He had his wild days too."
The Runda estate called the Hot Wells was a mile or so from Etra in the rich grainlands west of the city. The Senator built a grand new house there and gave it to his son Corric. Hoby told Tib all about it and Tib told us: the luxurious chambers, the silk rooms full of women, the courts full of flowers, and the wonderful bathing pool in a back court—the water came up from a hot spring and was always the temperature of blood, but it was transparent blue-green, and peacocks spread their plumage beside it on pavements of green and purple marble ... Hoby had been there many times as Torm's bodyguard. All these young noblemen had bodyguards, it was the fashion;Corric had three besides the giant, Torm had bought a second one recently. The bodyguards were invited to share the women in the silk rooms at the Hot Wells, to take their pick of the food and the women, after their masters, of course. Hoby had swum in the warm pool. He told Tib all about the pool, about the women, about the food—minced livers of capon, the tongues of unborn lambs.
So when Falli said to me that Torm had taken Ris and Sallo to the Hot Wells, though my mind seemed blank as if I'd run into a stone wall and been stunned, I went after a little while to the kitchens and looked for Tib. I thought he might know something from Hoby. I don't know what I thought he might know. He knew nothing. When I told him what Falli had said, he looked taken aback for a moment, dismayed. Then he said, "There are a lot of women there, the Rundas keep dozens of slave women there. Torm just took the girls there to have a good time."
I don't know what I answered, but it made Tib go sullen and defensive. "Look, Gav, maybe you're teacher's pet and all, but remember, after all, Sal and Ris are giftgirls."
"They weren't given to Torm," I said. I spoke slowly, because my mind was still blank and slow. "Ris is a virgin. Sallo was given to Yaven. Torm can't take them out of the house. He can't have taken them there. The Mother would never allow it."
Tib shrugged. "Maybe Falli got the story mixed up," he said, and turned away to his work.
I went to Iemmer and told her what Falli said. I repeated what I'd said to Tib—that it could not be: the Mother would not allow it.
Iemmer, who like so many people since the siege now looked much older than she was, said nothing at all for a while. Then only a great "Ah," and shook her head, again and again.
"Oh, this is—This is not good," she said. "I hope, I hope Falli is wrong. She must be. How could she let him take off the girls without permission? I'll