Lucilla pivoted on one heel, sorting the room’s details: that Harkonnen griffin worked into a crystal table, the exotic fabrics on chairs and couches. A weapons rack against one wall held two rows of long field-style lasguns of a design she had never before seen. Each was bell-mouthed and with a curling gold guard over the trigger.
Burzmali had returned to his conversation with the green-eyed man. It was an argument over how they would be disguised. She listened with part of her mind while she studied the two members of their escort remaining in the room. The other three from the escort had filed out through a passage near the weapons cabinet, an opening covered by a thick hanging of shimmering silvery threads. Duncan, she saw, was watching her responses with care, his hand on the small lasgun in his belt.
Casually, she crossed to Duncan’s side and, using the finger-touch language on his arm, relayed her suspicions. Both of them looked at Burzmali.
Lucilla went back to her study of the room. Were they being watched by unseen eyes?
Nine glowglobes lighted the space, creating their own peculiar islands of intense illumination. It reached outward into a common concentration near where Burzmali still talked to the green-eyed man. Part of the light came directly from the drifting globes, all of them tuned into rich gold, and part of it was reflected more softly off the algae. The result was a lack of dark shadows, even under the furnishings.
The shimmering silver threads of the inner doorway parted. An old woman entered the room. Lucilla stared at her. The woman had a seamed face as dark as old rosewood. Her features were sharply defined in a narrow frame of straggling gray hair that fell almost to her shoulders. She wore a long black robe worked with golden threads in a pattern of mythological dragons. The woman stopped behind a settee and placed her deeply veined hands on the back.
Burzmali and his companion broke off their conversation.
Lucilla looked from the old woman down to her own robe. Except for the golden dragons, the garments were similar in design, the hoods draped back onto the shoulders. Only in the side cut and the way it opened down the front was the design of the dragon robe different.
When the woman did not speak, Lucilla looked to Burzmali for explanation. Burzmali stared back at her with a look of intense concentration. The old woman continued to study Lucilla silently.
The intensity of attention filled Lucilla with disquiet. Duncan felt it, too, she saw. He kept his hand on the small lasgun. The long silence while eyes examined her amplified her unease. There was something almost Bene Gesserit about the way the old woman just stood there looking.
Duncan broke the silence, demanding of Burzmali: “Who is she?”
“I’m the one who’ll save your skins,” the old woman said. She had a thin voice that crackled weakly, but that same strange accent.
Lucilla’s Other Memories brought up a suggestive comparison for the old woman’s garment:
Lucilla almost shook her head. Surely this woman was too old for such a role. And the shape of the mythic dragons worked into the fabric differed from those supplied by memory. Lucilla returned her attention to the old face: eyes humid with the illnesses of age. A dry crust had settled into the creases where each eyelid touched the channels beside her nose. Far too old for a playfem.
The old woman spoke to Burzmali. “I think she can wear it well enough.” She began divesting herself of her dragon robe. To Lucilla she said: “This is for you. Wear it with respect. We killed to get it for you.”
“Who did you kill?” Lucilla demanded.
“A postulant of the Honored Matres!” There was pride in the old woman’s husky tone.
“Why should I wear that robe?” Lucilla demanded.
“You will trade garments with me,” the old woman said.
“Not without explanation.” Lucilla refused to accept the robe being extended to her.
Burzmali took one step forward. “You can trust her.”
“I am a friend of your friends,” the old woman said. She shook the robe in front of Lucilla. “Here, take it.”
Lucilla addressed Burzmali. “I must know your plan.”
“We both must know it,” Duncan said. “On whose authority are we asked to trust these people?”
“Teg’s,” Burzmali said. “And mine.” He looked at the old woman. “You can tell them, Sirafa. We have time.”
“You will wear this robe while you accompany Burzmali into Ysai,” Sirafa said.
Sirafa studied Duncan. “Yes, he is small enough yet. He will be disguised and conveyed separately.”
“No!” Lucilla said. “I am commanded to guard him!”
