The Wages of Sihnon

Several Dances - pt 2

The Great Temple of Sihnon, formally dedicated to Kuan-Yin the Bodhisattva of Compassion, did not have a prison yard, or a dungeon, or cells. What the opulent structure did have though was rooms, a plethora of them:

Great rooms, state rooms, sunlit chambers for the playing of music, the rehearsal of dance, ritual, the making and taking of tea. There were meeting rooms, greeting rooms, classrooms and closets. Whole sprawling wings dedicated to boudoirs - and further wings dedicated to the theory and practise of what to do in them. The Temple housed rooms for meditation, prayer and religious instruction. There were rooms set aside simply to store the furniture for used in all the other rooms. The Temple boasted rooms for cooking, rooms for eating and rooms in which to digest. Reading rooms and exercise rooms and rooms whose purpose was long forgot.

Every room had a door. Every door could be locked.

In just such a room, (that was neither a cell nor part of a dungeon) a woman who had asked an impertinent question was sitting on a large divan and wondering if she'd get her camera back. Her name was Akiko Jones and to most people she would admit to being a journalist - she was not prone to admit much else. She was thinking about her camera and she was waiting. It was something just shy of an hour before her first visitor arrived.

.........................................

Inara Serra was standing next to the woman she knew as Saffron as the pair shared the tiny earpieces of the bugging device. Unfortunately, this meant the two women had to be in close physical proximity at all times. As a consequence Inara's face began to ache from the effort of heavy glaring - and Saffron's mouth had kept up a malicious grin for so long it was becoming a nervous tic.

It was clear that the Abbott had no immediate plans to chat with anyone, they could hear him pacing meditatively and that was all.

Saffron snapped first. "Whatever it is that's o