"Tell me about the coins," murmured Vorbis.

"Three of them were Citadel cents," said Brutha promptly. "Two were showing the Horns, and one the sevenfold-­crown. Four of the coins were very small and golden. There was lettering on them which . . . which I could not read, but which if you were to give me a stylus I think I could-”

"This is some sort of trick?" said the fat man.

"I assure you," said Vorbis, "the boy could have seen the entire room for no more than a second. Brutha . . . tell us about the other coins."

"The other coins were large. They were bronze. They were derechmi from Ephebe."

"How do you know this? They are hardly common in the Citadel."

"I have seen them once before, lord."

"When was this?"

Brutha's face screwed up with effort.

"I am not sure-” he said.

The fat man beamed at Vorbis.

"Hah," he said.

"I think . . ." said Brutha ". . . it was in the afternoon. But it may have been the morning. Around midday. On Grune 3, in the year of the Astounded Beetle. Some merchants came to our village."

"How old were you at that time?" said Vorbis.

"I was within one month of three years old, lord."

"I don't believe this," said the fat man.

Brutha's mouth opened and shut once or twice. How did the fat man know? He hadn't been there!

"You could be wrong, my son," said Vorbis. "You are a well­grown lad of . . . what . . . seventeen, eighteen years? We feel you could not really recall a chance glimpse of a foreign coin fifteen years ago."

"We think that you are making it up," said the fat man.

Brutha said nothing. Why make anything up? When it was just sitting there in his head.

"Can you remember everything that's ever happened to you?" said the stocky man, who had been watching Brutha carefully throughout the exchange. Brutha was glad of the interruption.

"No, lord. Most things."

"You forget things?"

"Uh. There are sometimes things I don't remember." Brutha had heard about forgetfulness, although he found it hard to imagine. But there were times in his life, in the first few years of his life especially, when there was . . . nothing. Not an attrition of memory, but great locked rooms in the mansion of his recollection. Not forgotten, any more than a locked room ceases to exist, but . . . locked.

"What is the first thing you can remember, my son?" said Vorbis, kindly.

"There was a bright light, and then someone hit me," said Brutha.

The three men stared at him blankly. Then they turned to one another. Brutha, through the misery of his terror, heard snatches of whispering.

". . . is there to lose? . . . "Foolishness and probably demonic . . ." "Stakes are high . . ." "One chance, and they will be expecting us . . ."

And so on.

He looked around the room.

Furnishing was not a priority in the Citadel. Shelves, stools, tables . . . There was a rumor among the novices that priests towards the top of the hierarchy had golden furniture, but there was no sign of it here. The room was as severe as anything in the novices' quarters although it had, perhaps, a more opulent severity; it wasn't the forced bareness of poverty, but the starkness of intent.

"My son?"

Brutha looked back hurriedly.

Vorbis glanced at his colleagues. The stocky man nodded. The fat man shrugged.

"Brutha," said Vorbis, "return to your dormitory now. Before you go, one of the servants will give you something to eat, and a drink. You will report to the Gate of Horns at dawn tomorrow, and you will come with me to Ephebe. You know about the delegation to Ephebe?"

Brutha shook his head.

"Perhaps there is no reason why you should," said Vorbis. "We are going to discuss political matters with the Tyrant. Do you understand?"

Brutha shook his head.

"Good," said Vorbis. "Very good. Oh, and-Brutha?"

"Yes, lord?"

"You will forget this meeting. You have not been in this room. You have not seen us here."

Brutha gaped at him. This was nonsense. You couldn't forget things just by wishing. Some things forgot themselves-the things in those locked rooms-but that was because of some mechanism he could not access. What did this man mean?

"Yes, lord," he said.

It seemed the simplest way.

Gods have no one to pray to.

The Great God Om scurried towards the nearest statue, neck stretched, inefficient legs pumping. The statue happened to be himself as a bull, trampling an infidel, although this was no great comfort.

It was only a matter of time before the eagle stopped circling and swooped.

Om had been a tortoise for only three years, but with the shape he had inherited a grab-bag of instincts, and a lot of them centered around a total terror of the one wild creature that had found out how to eat tortoise.

Gods have no one to pray to.

Om really wished that this was not the case.

But everyone needs someone.

"Brutha! "

Brutha was a little uncertain about his immediate future. Deacon Vorbis had clearly cut him loose from his chores as a novice, but he had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon.

He gravitated towards the garden. There were beans to tie up, and he welcomed the fact. You knew where you were with beans. They didn't tell you to do impossible things, like forget. Besides, if he was going to be away for a while, he ought to mulch the melons and explain things to Lu-Tze.

Lu-Tze came with the gardens.

Every organization has someone like him. They might be pushing a broom in obscure corridors, or wandering among the shelves in the back of the stores (where they are the only person who knows where anything is) or have some ambiguous but essential relationship with the boiler-room. Everyone knows who they are and no one remembers a time when they weren't there, or knows where they go when they're not, well, where they usually are. Just occasionally, people who are slightly more observant than most other people, which is not on the face of it very difficult, stop and wonder about them for a while . . . and then get on with something else.

Strangely enough, given his gentle ambling from garden to garden around the Citadel, Lu-Tze never showed much interest in the plants themselves. He dealt in soil, manure, muck, compost, loam, and dust, and the means of moving it about. Generally he was pushing a broom, or turning over a heap. Once anyone put seeds in anything he lost interest.

He was raking the paths when Brutha entered. He was good at raking paths. He left scallop patterns and gentle soothing curves. Brutha always felt apologetic about walking on them.

He hardly ever spoke to Lu-Tze, because it didn't matter much what anyone ever said to Lu-Tze. The old man just nodded and smiled his single-toothed smile in any case.

"I'm going away for a little while," said Brutha, loudly and distinctly. "I expect someone else will be sent to look after the gardens, but there are some things that need doing . . ."