I stumbled into the familiar blue tent which meant home now that I was no longer a child in the tower.

She shrank away from me. Slowly she shrank from me, holding out her hands palm outwards as if to ward me off. Gestures meant a lot to Ooldra. She made signs with her fingers and I stood there.

“You do not vanish. You are stronger now than I,” she whispered. “1 did not think you could be. What do you want to say?”

I did not even give my lost lamb’s cry of “Ooldra!” I knew now that something had happened which would not be put right by crying to Ooldra.

“What have you done, Ooldra?”

“If you do not yet know,” she cried, “I can get rid of you—” and she threw a powder on the fire and made signs through the smoke. I stood there. Her eyes began to glitter their silver.

“I’m alive, Ooldra,” I said.

“Is that all? So it is simply that the soldiers missed you. Never mind, they’ll be here again soon.”

“I haven’t killed Him, Ooldra. He, too. is alive.”

She came crouching close to me, looking in my eyes.

“Why, Cija, did you not kill him?” she asked softly.

“No reason. Just, I didn’t kill him.”

“You have bungled.”

“His wife came in.”

Her stance and appearance changed. “Then, my sweetling, this is nothing. There is tomorrow night.”

“I can’t try again. I told him I hate him.”

“A thing any girl could do, balked of her night.”

“I said it. It was the truth. He knew that. When I ran out he didn’t follow me. That is significance enough.”

“Everything can be retrieved, child,” she said. Her eagerness was too tense. “You must try again. Offer yourself, no pride matters.”

“It can’t be retrieved. Ooldra dear. Why are these soldiers you mentioned coming?”

“I told them you had gone to His room, but that I had found your dagger missing from its usual place and I feared for him.” “And they’ve gone to his room? And they’ll knock, and he’ll answer and they’ll find he’s not a corpse after all.”

“So, my child,” she said, sitting down again, “they’ll return here and find you.”

“Not much use to you, Ooldra.”

“Yes, I have proof anyway that you meant to kill him. Your knife is obviously new-sharpened. Apart from that, witnesses saw you sharpening it just before going to Him. The guard-captain will say he saw anything I ask him to have seen. Blob also would have said anything for me, but you made him worthless as a witness by bringing an accusation against him so that his evidence would be construed as malice. But the guard-captain—And it will be obvious to everyone that the entry of Lara was well-timed enough to prevent a murder.”