“This is the Demoiselle Issensteg,” said Brog (and Lalette reflected incontinently that it was hard to distinguish an appearance of melancholy in a face from one of dissipation). “I transmit her to you. She is recommended from Ser Kimred, the residentialist at Netznegon.” He handed the man in the hat a folded letter. “It is my duty to warn you that in this ship she has been confined on suspicion of man-murder through witchery. In the home country, I would have brought her before a Court of Deacons.”
The dunnier bowed, as unsmiling as Brog himself, then with his annotation-roll as a wand, touched Lalette on the arm and her little trunk. “This is not Dossola, but Mancherei,” he said. “Subject to the regulations of the realm of Mancherei, and the association of the Myonessae, we accept her charge and her possessions.” Then, turning to Lalette; “In the name of the God of Love, come with me.”
(Knowing barely the name of these Myonessae, unwilling to ask more lest she somehow tip over the razor-narrow bridge of safety) Lalette only smiled and turned to the door. A plank-way led to the dock; the sun shone yellowly upon a row of wharfside houses, whose brick looked as though streaked with wet, while at many windows there was bunting as though for a festival, but much of it faded, miscolored or torn. As she watched, she brushed against a hand which had been held out to her and was beginning to fall in disappointment. Captain Mülvedo.
“I am sorry,” she said, and took the hand.
“Farewell, demoiselle. I do not believe it. If you are not accepted here, I—that is—”
He seemed at the edge of tears, a droll thing.
“Thank you. I will remember your kindness.” Brog was in the rear, looking right past her (and she had the dreadful feeling that when she was gone, he would have no trouble in bringing the Captain to his own point of view on her. This was goodbye to all yesterdays.). She mounted the plank for the shore.
There was a great press of people about, the men in loose pantaloons hanging over their shoes, and all walking about and yammering as fast as they could. They seemed reasonlessly excited, as though this were a day of crisis; Lalette could hardly make out a sign of that calm assurance that seemed to be the mark of the Amorosians in her own country. They stared at Lalette, the more when two of the guards who waited at the plank with short bills in their hands and the small “city” arbalests strapped to their backs, placed themselves on either side of her at a word from the dunnier, leading across to a building with a low door, over which was a shield painted thickly with something that might be a pair of clasped hands on a field of blue.
There was a door down the hallway rightward, with a little man at a desk behind it, writing laboriously, his tongue in his cheek, as the light struck over his shoulder. The guards led Lalette in; he jumped up and threw down his quill so rapidly that a blot was left on the paper. She noticed food-stains on his jacket.
“You must not interrupt, really you must not interrupt me unannounced,” he said. “You are not authorized. I am a protostylarion.”