Okay, I accept that the woman Sev sees being led away, as Tony Ellis (and mantis, in the archives) states, is in the role of the Contessa, but who was she in the "real" world, outside the play, on the last day of Urth? Both she and Sev seem to recognize each other. From where, when? If she is less than forty years old, as suggested by her desirability, then Sev couldn't have seen her on Urth, because he has been gone that long. Why was she apparently being arrested?
The behavior of Valeria and others at the House Absolute seems very strange. The big flood is almost upon them, Nessus is two days under water, yet there is no sense of crisis. Why aren't they running for high ground?
Now the question I hate to ask, as aspects of it have been covered before, but I still don't know the answer to: who the hell is/was buried in Sev's tomb, the one he played in as a boy? Who built it? When? Why? Why were there five coffins in it, two open and empty on the floor, three intact on the shelf?
Roy