CHAPTER ELEVEN

Urras

RODARRED, the old capital of Avan Province, was a pointed city: a forest of pines, and above the spires of the pines, an airier forest of towers. The streets were dark and narrow, mossy, often misty, under the trees. Only from the seven bridges across the river could one look up and see the tops of the towers. Some of them were hundreds of feet tall, others were mere shoots, like ordinary houses gone to seed. Some were of stone, others of porcelain, mosaic, sheets of colored glass, sheathings of copper, tin, or gold, ornate beyond belief, delicate, glittering. In these hallucinatory and charming streets the Urrasti Council of World Governments had had its seat for the three hundred years of its existence. Many embassies and consulates to the CWG and to A-Io also clustered in Rodarred, only an hour’s ride from Nio Esseia and the National seat of government.

The Terran Embassy to the CWG was housed in the River Castle, which crouched between the Nio highway and the river, sending up only one squat, grudging tower with a square roof and lateral window slits like narrowed eyes. Its walls had withstood weapons and weathers for fourteen hundred years. Dark trees dustered near its landward side, and between them a drawbridge lay across a moat. The drawbridge was down, and its gates stood open. The moat, the river, the green grass, the black walls, the flag on top of the tower, all glimmered mistily as the sun broke through a river fog, and the bells in all the towers of Rodarred began their prolonged and insanely harmonious task of ringing seven o’clock.

A clerk at the very modern reception desk inside the castle was occupied with a tremendous yawn. “We aren’t really open till eight o’clock,” he said hollowly.

“I want to see the Ambassador.”

“The Ambassador is at breakfast. You’ll have to make an appointment.” In saying this the clerk wiped his watery eyes and was able to see the visitor clearly for the first time. He stared, moved his jaw several times, and said, “Who are you? Where— What do you want?”

“I want to see the Ambassador.”

“You just hold on,” the clerk said in the purest Nioti accent, still staring, and put out his hand to a telephone.

A car had just drawn up between the drawbridge gate and the entrance of the Embassy, and several men were getting out of it, the metal fittings of their black coats glittering in the sunlight. Two other men had just entered the lobby from the main part of the building, talking together, strange-looking people, strangely clothed. Shevek hurried around the reception desk towards them, trying to run. “Help me!” he said.

They looked up startled. One drew back, frowning. The other one looked past Shevek at the uniformed group who were just entering the Embassy. “Right in here,” he said with coolness, took Shevek’s arm, and shut himself and Shevek into a little side office, with two steps and a gesture, as neat as a ballet dancer.