Maria's bedroom door was open, and Gabriel was already standing at the bedside. If Amon remembered right, Gabriel should have been resting downstairs in the room nearest the front gate—he had not seen her at all as he charged up the stairs. That meant Gabriel had come up in the instant between Maria's cry and Amon getting to his feet beneath the staircase. Her speed was astonishing, like teleportation.
Gabriel's sword was already drawn, a faint silver glow wrapped around the blade—not bright, yet it stung the eye. Her expression, though, was odd, and there was surprise in that oddness. The tip of her sword pointed at a small furry animal in front of the bed.
"Amon, how did this cat get in?" Gabriel asked in a low voice, without turning her head—she knew he was already at the door.
Isn't that Schrödinger? Amon recognized the cat sprawled asleep at Maria's feet. It was the cat the old madman kept: lazy, greedy, fat and filthy, its gray-and-white fur always crusted with stove ash until even the white looked gray, and it slept around the clock. The old madman had even given it a name: Schrödinger. How had it gotten into Maria's room?
"No—I don't know how it got in either," Amon answered honestly.
Gabriel had only asked offhandedly; a moment later it occurred to her that she herself had not noticed the cat slipping in, so questioning this little miner was pointless. Then Maria said, with a trace of apology, "I'm sorry for waking you both. I didn't know this cat was sleeping here—I nearly stepped on it and it gave me a fright. … Lady Gabriel, please don't hurt it. It's only sleeping."
Gabriel sheathed her sword. "You must not call me 'Lady'—from now on, just Gabriel. And of course I won't harm the cat, as you command. … Nor should you apologize—it isn't fitting. Protecting you is my sacred duty. … Amon, take this cat away and make sure it never disturbs Lady Maria's rest again."
Amon answered and stepped forward with his head lowered to pick up Schrödinger. The lazy cat could really sleep—after all that commotion, it still had not woken when Amon lifted it. Looking down, Amon saw Maria's feet. She wore no shoes; slender, fair ankles showed beneath her nightgown, and her toenails were pink, so lovely.
Amon's heart began pounding for no reason. He quickly brought his breathing under control, evening it out until his heartbeat was steady too. This was one of the deepest techniques in Duke Town's miners' craft: a man had to hold his body's reactions in a state of perfect calm to be sure of succeeding each time he opened an ore core. Amon's training had been far stricter than anyone else's in town, largely thanks to years of bathing in the biting cold spring.
Even Gabriel could find no flaw in him. The boy had indeed been flustered when he first came charging upstairs—that was only natural—but on seeing that Lady Maria was unharmed, he had calmed at once.
That was how it looked on the surface, but inside, Amon was far from calm. Maria wore only her nightgown. When he crouched, he had seen her feet; when he straightened he kept his head down, so his line of sight fell right on her tender pink chest. The neckline was not low, but from that angle he could still see the small patch of skin bared below her throat.
Worse still, his gaze seemed able to pass through the nightgown and, through imagination, see something else. Maria's nightgown was neither thick nor thin—soft and clingy, a little loose, a very comfortable material. A girl her age had already developed; under the nightgown he could see the curved rise of her chest, as though it were the most beautiful curve in the world, and at the top of that curve, a slight pair of protrusions—were those her nipples?
Amon felt himself burning—not only his face; something inside him was scorched, as though he had just stepped up out of the biting cold spring. Yet that heat also filled him with shame. He hurriedly backed away three steps with Schrödinger in his arms, then turned and walked out.
Once past the door, Amon opened his mouth and drew a deep breath, and his face flushed scarlet all at once, even his earlobes going red. When Gabriel rushed into Maria's room she had lit a candle with all possible speed, but the light was not bright and the stairs were darker still—no one could see Amon's expression.
As he came downstairs Amon was startled, so much that he drew a sharp breath. Six armored warriors were already standing in the hall below: the two in front held shields and battle-axes, the two behind them shields and javelins, and two more beside them held longswords. They stood there without a sound, yet a fierce pressure washed over him. Even Schrödinger seemed to feel it—in Amon's arms it gave half a disgruntled meow, nuzzled its head in, and curled into a ball.
"What happened?" The six warriors in the hall said nothing; another warrior with a longsword at his waist, standing in the hall doorway and looking like some sort of squad leader, asked Amon.
"Nothing much—just a cat. Lady Maria nearly stepped on it, and she told us not to hurt the animal, to carry it out." Amon answered as he threaded his way among the six warriors, carrying the cat toward the yard outside.
At the yard gate he was startled again: one fully armed warrior stood to either side of the gate, and at each of the four corners of the courtyard another warrior stood weapon in hand, fully alert. Amon knew these men were the personal guard Lord Dick had brought to town—the same men who had escorted Fayol to his home to fetch the Tears of the Gods that day.
Lord Dick's personal guard was normally stationed in the Temple of Horus near the courtyard. Whether they had heard the commotion or received word from Gabriel by some special means, they had arrived astonishingly fast, silently taking up guard and battle formations—only, without Lady Gabriel's word, they could not go upstairs to Maria's room.
They got here that fast—could I do the same? Amon wondered. The answer is yes! But in armor, carrying weapons? He had no experience of that. On second thought, if he were hauling his big hammer, he could manage it too. He was only puzzled: this courtyard looked quiet and unguarded, yet its watch was this strict—so how on earth had Schrödinger slipped into Maria's room?
Never mind anything else—with a warrior like Gabriel on guard, it should have been all but impossible for a cat to sneak in and fall asleep right beside Maria's bed!
It was only puzzlement; Amon did not think much more about it. He walked out of the yard, set the cat on the ground, and gave its rump a hard swat. "Schrödinger, go home, quick. It's a bit dangerous here—you can't come back!" he whispered.
Schrödinger woke, gave an aggrieved meow, stretched out its four limbs, shook out its fur, and streaked off into the distance—by the look of it, toward the Old Madman's house. Only then did Amon breathe a sigh of relief.
Back in the hall, Gabriel had come downstairs and dismissed the warriors. She stayed there, though, and asked Amon, "You move well, and your reactions are quick—no worse than a low-ranking warrior's. Have you studied combat arts?"
Amon asked, somewhat surprised, "Lady Gabriel, are you asking me? I don't know what 'combat arts' means, but I have learned the miners' craft handed down through the generations in Duke Town. You must already know how that came about."
Gabriel asked nothing more and went back to her own room, and all was calm again. But Amon could hardly calm down inside. The moment he closed his eyes he seemed to see Maria's feet, and then his gaze rose with him as he stood, and came to rest on her chest—such tender, fair skin. Perhaps from the fright, or the night air, the fine soft hairs had stood slightly on end … and that alluring curve beneath the nightgown, and the two points standing out on the curve …
As he thought, his body began to respond. Amon was still a boy, but not a small one, and the reaction left him unsettled, even irritable. He was picturing what those lovely breasts under the nightgown looked like—if I slipped a hand in at the collar, what would it feel like? Then he suddenly shivered, feeling that such thoughts were an outrage he should never have harbored.
For some reason he badly wanted to go bathe in the cold spring in the Black Fire Thicket. Maybe all this wild thinking is because I bathe in that strange cold spring so often, he mused. Every time he came up out of the spring and sat on the bank to rest, his body would go warm all over and he would feel this same response, so pleasant he almost wanted to groan—but his mood had never been as muddled as it was now.
But tonight Amon could not go. He had to sleep on the boards under the staircase—and of course he did not sleep well that night.
At lunch the next day Amon stood by to serve, his mind still unsettled, though he carefully kept himself quiet and subdued, not daring to show anything out of the ordinary. The hard part was that Maria was still gazing at him; he could feel her eyes on him. Then he heard Maria say quietly, "That cat from yesterday—you didn't hurt it, did you?"
Amon: "N-no. As you bid me, Lady Maria, I let it go."
Maria: "Thank you, Amon. For yesterday."
Amon answered quickly, "You needn't thank me, my lady. It is a servant's duty. That your rest was disturbed—that was my failing." As he spoke he finally raised his eyes and met Maria's gaze. Perhaps he had summoned up his courage, or was daring himself: Yesterday I saw her like that—so why shouldn't I dare look her in the eye today?
Maria was clearly a little surprised; she had not expected the boy to raise his eyes and meet hers. It made her somewhat uncomfortable—instinctively she wanted to look away, but then she remembered Gabriel's instructions, and so she went on looking at him, unable to hide a trace of awkwardness.
"How can any cat be that lazy? It didn't even wake up?"
"Its name is Schrödinger. It really is that lazy—it's the cat the Old Madman in town keeps."
"The cat has a name? And who is the Old Madman?"
"He's the oldest man in town, and my friend ..."
As they talked they held each other's eyes the whole time, as if challenging each other; neither seemed willing to be the first to flinch, and both showed a good deal of childish temper. She's beautiful. I like looking at her like this, Amon thought.
In the end it was Maria who looked away first, though it did not look like flinching—she lowered her head to eat again and stopped asking Amon questions. She ate little today, much less than yesterday. When he met her eyes, Amon could make out something like unease deep in them. She seemed unwell, enduring some pain, yet she tried hard to keep calm.
Amon wanted badly to ask her what was wrong, but there was no way to ask. He could answer Maria's questions; he could not speak to her first.