On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

"Mainly red corpsucles ... that's a meaningless word to you. I don’t think it was any more meaningful when it was coined. Mainly red bits that make up blood, the way that a piece of fabric is made of many fine threads." Claudius offers the sleeve of his robe, patterned with subtle purple and gold paisleys, to be touched. “The lenses of a microscope — the device you were examining — magnify the threads, make them appear larger. So instead of seeing a smooth piece of fabric, you see each thread individually, the fraying ends, the chasms in-between them. It’s the same with blood. And my blood is mainly many red bits, but some bits behave very strangely, like ill-suited spies trying to blend in with the rest. At times they’ll toss off their disguises, twist to shapes blood should not, and I’m sure there’s some witchcraft that explains their movements. But after a while, the sample goes inert, as though all the spies went back to sleep.”