Faro grounded his staff, and leaned against it heavily. Xylina banished all her conjurations but his staff, revealing the six bodies strewn across the street. None of those bodies showed any sign of life. Once again, they had defended themselves too well to leave anyone to question.
"Good thinking, little mistress-" Faro managed, around his pain. His eye was swelling, and the cut on his scalp bled down the side of his head and stained the breast of his tunic. He looked as if he might collapse into the street at any moment. She found herself with a length of conjured gauze in her hand to use as a bandage, and she hurried to bind his wound quickly before it bled any further.
"Don't talk," she urged him, adding her strength to that of his staff, helping to keep him upright. Finally, only now after all the noise of fighting had ceased, she heard a gate creak behind her and turned to see a slave peering around the edge of the gateway with round, frightened eyes. Cowards! she thought angrily.Now they came look to see who was being attacked, after it was all over!
"Get your mistress," she ordered him peremptorily, "Let us in; my faithful slave has been wounded and I do not care to stand here in the street while he bleeds! Then go fetch someone from the Guard. We have been attacked by a gang of thieves, and this must be reported to the authorities."
She pushed Faro around and towards the open gate before the slave inside could object, and interposed her body so that the slave would not dare close it. In a moment she had Faro inside the enclosure. She looked around quickly, assessing the surroundings, looking for the best place to get Faro off his feet. This front garden, like her own, was not large, but it had a tree with a bench beneath it, and a tiny fishpond. She sat Faro down on the bench beside the pond before the slave could object, and began cleaning his scalp-cut with conjured water and cloth. The slave stared at them for a moment before fleeing into the house-presumably to get his mistress, as Xylina had ordered.
And when she showed up-and the City Guard-Xylina hoped she could get something other than words out of them.
But words was all she did get, and vague promises; no kind of help at all.
When they finally reached their own gates, it was well past sunset; Xylina had been torn between assisting Faro and letting him totter behind her as was proper for a slave, even an injured one. Since it was still possible that people might see them, she elected to be the proper mistress and ignore her slave's condition, but she was not happy, and she kept apologizing to Faro for her behavior. One small bright spot: during all that fighting, the cheeses Faro had purloined had remained unharmed. As they left the garden of their reluctant hostess, he showed them to her with a pain-filled smile.
Although the three members of the Guard who had been summoned by the frightened slave had questioned her closely, there had been no suggestion that they did not believe Xylina's story of "ambush by a pack of ruffians." That was where their agreement ended, for Xylina attempted to persuade them that being attacked twice by rogues was beyond coincidence. The Guards, however, were insistent on a claim that their attackers had been "wild" men; escaped slaves, or criminals being sheltered within the Men's Quarter. They would not even entertain the notion that a fellow citizen could be responsible. After all, she was told, Xylina was hardly important enough to have anyone feuding with her-and not rich enough to attract the attention of one of the notorious female criminals with bands of slaves obeying her orders to attack and rob.
"We've had some trouble with packs like this in the past," the senior Guard had said casually, poking one of the bodies with her sheathed sword. "They're freedmen who haven't learned their place, or think because some mistress was soft enough to free them that they're as good as a woman. One of those brutes gets the idea he's going to pay back women for what they did to him-forgetting the women who fed and clothed and took care of him before he got uppity. Then he gets a gang of runaways to go along with his craziness, and the next thing you know, there's trouble. First time they've attacked to kill like this, though, that I know of. Mostly they're happy just to knock you down and make off with your goods."
"Sounds like it's about time for a purge, if you ask me," the householder had said darkly. She had not appreciated being interrupted in the middle of her meal to deal with an altercation on her doorstep. She had offered Xylina no help, and had tried her best to ignore Faro's existence altogether. She had not even asked Xylina's name. "It's about time the Queen sent the Guard through the quarter and checked every house against the roster. That'll take care of these 'wild' men. When the tame ones see a purge coming, they'll turn the bad ones over fast enough."
The Queen ordered purges of the walled Freedmen's Quarter periodically, although the last one had occurred before Xylina's mother had died. She would order all the gates sealed, and conjure the same kind of metal mesh barrier over the walls that Xylina had protecting her house from invasion from above, thus effectively sealing off all routes of escape. Then the Guard would move in, and make a house-to-house search, checking the inhabitants against the roster of those who were supposed to be living there, looking for hidden rooms and secret passages. Any house with men living there that were not on the roster had better have exception-papers for them, or every inhabitant in the house would be taken for the arena. And the owner of any house with secret rooms or passages would find himself bound for the arena as well. There was no point in trying to hide from such a purge, for the entire Guard would be involved in making certain that no one escaped.
As Xylina's unwilling hostess had indicated, the mere announcement of a purge was generally enough to make the inhabitants of the Men's Quarter turn over most, if not all, illegal dwellers. And it was enough to make thieves from the quarter confine their activities to their own kind for a while.
But despite what the senior Guard thought, Xylina was fairly certain that this was no attempt at mere theft, nor were these men acting on their own. Even though she had seen no indication of a woman directing them this time, she felt that the mind behind this attack and the previous one was the same. The attacks were much too similar, too close together, and too well coordinated.
And the hand she fancied she saw behind both of them was that of her unknown enemy-who just might be powerful enough to have some influence in the Guard itself. How else could you explain the complete absence of a patrol within shouting distance on not one but both nights they had been attacked? And how to explain the boldness of an attack when it was still daylight?
That notion was confirmed when a fourth Guard came with a message for the others, just as they were completing their questions. The four conferred for a moment in a little huddle, then the senior Guard turned back to Xylina, who still sat beside Faro on the bench beside the pond.
"We've gotten all we need from you-thank you, lady. You can go now," the Guard said briskly-no, brusquely- then turned to the homeowner. "There'll be a collector around for the bodies in a bit. Meanwhile, just stay inside. I doubt anyone is going to come back, but why take chances? You'll be safe with your slaves on guard. We've been called back to the barracks."
While the homeowner remonstrated fruitlessly, railing about "protection" and "security," and most of all, about "her rights as a citizen," the senior Guard joined the others, totally ignoring the homeowner. Before the Mazonite could do anything to prevent them from leaving, the four of them pushed open the gate, and left at a trot. Xylina exchanged a meaningful glance with Faro, and nudged him to his feet.