"Most exquisite my lady," the polished looking clothier asked. They were androgynous and completely bald, lacking even eyebrows, dressed in a flowing robes of gray silk. Like everyone else on the planet, he dressed in vaugley Ecclesiachal fashion. Even on Agnivor, a world of towering cathedral spires and shining minauretes most people were not actually members of the church, but dressing as though you were, earned you an extra measure of respect.

"You'd say that if I were dressed in a sack," I retorted as I admired myself in the micron fine mirror. The dress was of fine brown cloth stitched with gold thread. The seams were of pale cream silk masterfully dyed with scriptoral verses, apparently from the Life of Saint Ecklverta. The clothier simpered but didnt respond to my joke. I adjusted the stole of cream and orange fur around my neck.

"I'll take it," I responded, nodding to the pile of gowns and garments stacked on a guilded cart. The days shopping was not limited to gowns, it also included reliquaries, illuminated books of hours, small pomanders of herbs that proofed against the varied effluvia of pilgrims, incense, and the background grease of millions of candles.

"Your husband is calling again Madmosielle," one of the ushers said in a professionally respectful voice. I touched my belly and grimaced slightly, as though feeling the loss of my imaginary child. Ignoring Hadrian was a good way to establish my cover, but I was still dealing with some residual pettishness as well. In case of a real emergency he could reach my psycically. 

"I'm not to be disturbed," I responded snappishly. I gazed out of the luxurious store into the two story drop to the flagstone street below. Thousands of pilgrims thronged the streets, ranging from well dressed nobles to penniless mendicants who had worked passage on starships or stowed away. The two ends of the social spectrum were not homogonous, the nobles had retinues that kept the hoi poloi at bay, while the unwashed masses crashed around them like surf. Preachers stood on street corners on makeshift plinths draped with painted silks, shouting out the Emperor's message while hard faced thugs in aquilla marked robes stood vigils. 

The crowd moved in an out of temples in long unending lines, like food passing through a digestive tract. Pilgrims were marked by servitor scribes with strokes of ink at each genuflection. Slowly, over thousands of strokes, the Benediction of St Hildesheim. The prayer was seven hundred thousand words in length, so it required scores of pilgrims to complete a single iteration. I couldn't see it from here, but I knew that the ground water was stained black from the effluent. The Golden Jubilee of the Saint was bringing pilgrims from all over the sub-sector. That might be coincidence, but after what had happened on Gravemire, I had a bad feeling.

"Madmoiselle, your husband..."

"I am not to be disturbed!" I snapped.  Then I moderated my temper.

"Bring me something in burgandy."