The crystal softened. It stirred against her; it felt like a baby wanting to suck. She bit her lip. There was no point in futile dreaming; she’d been effectively sterile since her eleventh birthday. Slowly, so slowly, the boy’s form unfolded until, finally, Jaril filled her lap, his head resting between her breasts. He opened his eyes, looked blankly up at her, then remembered.
Stiffly, he pushed away from her, slid off her lap and went to stand in the doorway, staring into the stinking darkness outside.
Brann frowned at him. After a minute, she said, “If you go stone every time I mention that place or you-know-who, we’re not going to get very far.”
He pressed his body against the doorjamb, stretched his arm up it as high as he could reach. He said nothing.
“Hmm. Tell me this, is everybody at the house a demon?”
He twisted his head around. “I saw some gardeners that weren’t. Some women went out to the Market, I suppose they were after supplies for the party the courtesan was throwing that night. They weren’t. I didn’t actually see more, but she’d need a lot of servants or slaves to run a house that size. I only counted five smiglar plus the courtesan.”
“Smiglar, Jay?”
Rubbing at his neck, he swung around, strolled to her box and sat down on it. “Have to call them something. I’m uncomfortable when I hear talk about demons. The way you folk define these things, I’m a demon. I don’t like the fringes that word has, you know what I mean. Stuvtiggor clots are smiglar, these hive types are like them, why not call them smiglar? Better than demon, isn’t it?”
“Smiglar’s fine. All right.” She pushed fluttering strands of hair out of her eyes, began rebuttoning her blouse. “First thing. We need to know how the inside of that house is laid out, xvho lives there. You’re sure they’d spot you?”
“Yeh.”
“That’s out then. Too bad. Trap… trap… urn, you think the courtesan is the whiphandler of that clutch?”
“Yeh.” He dipped a finger in a pool of wine, drew glyphs on the wood. Set. Tsi. Ma. Ksi. MM. “The uh fetor she gives off is ten times what I got from the others.” He drew a line through the glyphs, canceling them. “Like I said, even Malts would back off that bunch. Her most of all.” He frowned. “Maybe that’s it. Why he didn’t come.”
Brann brushed aside his dig at Maksim, it was nothing but an upsurge of Jaril’s old resentment. “And she’s flying among the Isu?”
“If her guest list for tonight’s party means anything.”
“Courtesan, hmm. Big house. Lots of dependents. Living high. All that in spite of the Temueng base for the culture and what that means about woman’s place, especially a woman without a family to back her. She has to be clever, Jay; power in itself wouldn’t get her those things. You said there were sorcerors in some of those Isu sars?”
“Yeh.” He drew two circles on the table, pulled a line from the left circle to the right. “One of them might have matched Ahzurdan when he wasn’t drugged to the eyebrows. While he was still himself, that is.”
“And they haven’t smelled out what she is. Interesting, isn’t it. And this. They’re predators, but Yaro’s still alive. They didn’t take her to eat her. She’s bait, Jay. For you, sure. For me, probably. Which means I’ve got to keep away from there too. Ahhl What a mess.”
“Mess.” He crumpled the stained towel between his hands, then began wiping up the wine. “You expected it to come out like that, didn’t you.”
“Why?”
“You asked about the servants. Only thing left is getting at one of them.” He tossed the towel at the tub where the stew pot was soaking. “So?”
“So we go looking for a servant or slave or someone from that house that we can get next to without letting the boss… um, what’s the singular form of smiglar, Jay?”
“Same. One smiglar, twenty smiglar. Hive things.”
“Right. Without letting the boss smiglar know what we’re doing. Get some rest, luv. We start tomorrow early.”
6
One week later.
Midmorning, just before the busiest time in the Market.
A huge brindle mastiff stopped suddenly, howled, shook his head. Foam from his mouth spattered the serving girl who stood beside an older woman so busy arguing over the price of tubers she didn’t notice what was happening around her. The girl screamed and backed away.
A gaunt old woman appeared between two kiosks. She swung a heavy staff at the beast and bounced dust off his hide. He howled, then yelped as the staff connected again; he swung his muscular front end from side to side, trying to get at her. Foam dripped copiously from his mouth.
People around them scrambled to get away. The girl had dived behind the old woman, trapping herself in a short blind alley between two rows of shops. Her companion looked around, yelped and went running off. The place emptied rapidly except for the three of them, the woman, the girl and the dog.
The mastiff whimpered, backed away from the whirling staff. He stood for a moment shivering convulsively, then he went ki-yi-yipping off, vanishing into the crazyquilt of alleys about the market, the noises he made sinking into the noises and silences of the dank cloudy afternoon.
The old woman knocked the butt of her staff against the flagging underfoot, grunted with satisfaction. She tugged her worn homespun shirt down and shook her narrow hips until the folds in her trousers hung the way she wanted them. Finally she tucked a straggle of gray hair behind her ear as she turned and inspected the deserted chaos around her. She saw the maid, raised her scraggly brows. “You all right, child?”
The maid was rubbing and rubbing at the back of her hand where some the dog’s spit had landed. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled out; she wasn’t crying so much as overflowing. She was young and neatly dressed, her brown hair was smooth as glass despite her agitation, pinned into a three-tiered knot atop her head; she might have been pretty, but that was impossible to say. Puffy and purplish red, a disfiguring birthmark slid down one side of her face, hugged her neck like a noose and vanished beneath her clothing. Her arms were covered from shoulder to wrist, but the backs of both hands were spattered with more of that ugly birthstain.
She lowered her eyes. “I think… I think so,” she murmured, speaking so softly Brann had trouble hearing her.
“You’re shivering, child.” Brann touched her fingertips to the marred cheek. “Your face is like ice. Come, we’ll have some tea. That will make the world look brighter.”
The maid shrank back. “I… I’d better find Elissy.”
“Surely you can take five minutes for yourself.” Brann rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder, using the lightest of pressures to start her moving. “Don’t be afraid of me, I am the Jantria Bar Ana. Ah, I see you’ve heard my name. Why don’t you tell me yours.”
Reassured, the girl began walking along beside her. “My name is Carup Kalan, Jantria.” She looked uneasily at her hand. “It didn’t bite me, but I got its spit on me. Will that do bad to me?”
They turned a corner and plunged into the noisy, dusty throngs of the Market, walked around a group of highservants arguing over some bolts of silk and velvet. “No. If your skin is not broken, there’s no harm in that foam. If you’re worried, there’s a fountain two ranks over; you can stop and wash your hands.” She smiled at Carup. “I expect you were with-Elissy, was it-just to carry things, so it will be my pleasure to pay for the tea.”
They stopped at the fountain and Carup Kalan scrubbed her hands with an enthusiasm that made Braun smile as she watched. Carup might have heard of her healings and find her presence reassuring, but she wasn’t about to take any chances she could avoid.
There were a number of teashops scattered about the Market, each with a little dark kitchen, a counter and tables under a battered canvas awning. Brann took her unknowing catch to the nearest of these and sat her at a table while she went for tea and cakes.
Circling the crowded tables, lifting the tray and dancing precariously around clots of customers coming and going. Brann carried her cakes and tea back, shushed Carup as the girl jumped up and tried to take the tray from her. The tea was hot and strong, the cakes were deep-fried honey wafers, crisp and sweet. “From your name, you come from Lake Tabaga.” She slipped some cakes on a round of brown paper and slid them across to Carup, poured tea for both of them.