the maids of contessa

all right, all the beheaded saints has convinced me that it is no coincidence and that there is some real beheading going on somewhere, like st. dorcas coming back from the dead.

We can also look with fresh eyes at the lines in the play that predict the Contessa's fate: Contessa: If my body held a part of yours -- drops of liquescent tissue locked in my loins... Meschia: If it did, you might wander Urth for a time longer, a lost thing that could never find its way home. But I will not bed you. Do you think you are more than a corpse? You are less. In other words, if the Contessa (Catherine) becomes pregnant with the seed of the New Sun, her life will be prolonged but she will never be able to return to her home (her own time).