For Auk's sake as well as his own, Silk asked, "You're not going to use rust anymore? No matter how severe your symptoms become?"
"Not if we're going to do this. It makes you too brave. I guess I said that. Didn't I? It's great to have a sniff or a lipful... . Some people do that too, but it takes more when you're scared practically to death. But after a while you find out that it was what you ought to have been scared of. It's worse than Bass or even Musk, and a lot worse than the cull that looked so bad out in the big room. Only by that time it's got you. It has me, and it has Hy, too, I think. Silk?"
Pie nodded, and Auk patted Chenille's arm.
"I know her, but now that I think about her, there's not a whole lot I know, and I've already told you most of it. Have you seen her?"
"Yes," Silk said. "Phaesday night."
"Then you know how good-looking she is. I'm too tall for most bucks. They like dells tall, but not taller than they are, or even the same. Hy'sjust right. But even if I was this much shorter, they'd still run after her instead of me. She's getting really famous, and that's why she works for Blood direct. He won't split with Orchid or any of the others on somebody that brings in as much as she does."
Silk nodded to himself. "He has other places, besides the yellow house on Lamp Street?"
"Oh, sure. Half a dozen, most likely. But Orchid's is one of the best." Chenille paused, her face pensive. "Hy was kind of flat-chested when I met her at Orchid's. ... I guess that's something else Crane's given her, huh? Two big things."
Auk chuckled.
"From what you've said, she was born here in Viron."
"Sure, Patera. Over on the east side someplace? Or at least that's what I heard. There's another girl at Orchid's from the same quarter."
Auk said, "Patera thinks she might be an informant. For you and him, now, I guess."
"And he'll want to pay her from my share," Chenille said bitterly. "Nothing doing unless I give the nod."
"That isn't what I meant at all. As Auk just told you, I believe that Hyacinth might help me against Blood; but I have no reason to believe that she would willingly help us against Crane, which is what we need at present. I ought to explain, Auk, that Chenille feels quite sure that Crane is spying on Viron, although we don't know for what city. Do we, Chenille?"
"No. He never said he was a spy at all, and I hope that I never said he did. But he is ... he was hot to find out about all sorts of gammon, Auk. Especially about the Guard. He just about always wanted to know if any of the colonels had been in, and what did they say? And I still think the little statues are messages, Patera, or they've got messages inside them."
Sensing Auk's disapproval, she added, "I didn't know, Hackum. He was nice to me, so I helped him now and then. I didn't get flash till yesterday."
Auk said, "I wish I'd met this Crane. He must be quite a buck. You're going to wash him down, or try to, Patera? You and Jugs?"
"Yes, if washing someone down means what I suppose it does."
"It means you deal him out and keep the cards. You're going to try to bleed your twenty-six out of him?"
Chenille nodded, and Silk said, "Much more, if we can, Auk. Chenillewould like to buy a shop."
"The easy out for him would be to lay you both on ice. You scavy that?"
"To murder us, you mean, or to have someone else do it. Yes, of course. If Crane is a spy, he won't hesitate to do that; and it he controls money enough to present Hyacinth with an azoth, he could readily employ someone else to do it, I imagine. We will have to be circumspect."
"I'll say. I could name you twenty bucks who'd do it for a hundred, and some of 'em good. If this cull Crane's been working for Blood long-"
"For the past four years," Silk put in, "or so he told me that night."
"Then he'll know who to get about as good as I do. This Hy-" Auk scratched his head. "You remember when we had dinner? You told me about the azoth, and I told you I bet Crane's got a lock. Well, if he was after Jugs to tell him about colonels, this Hy would be a lot better from what you said about her. So that's the lock. She was staying out at Blood's place in the country, right? Does she ever come into town?"
"She seemed to be. She had a suite of rooms there, and the monitor in her glass referred to her as its mistress." Silk recalled Hyacinth's wardrobes, in which the monitor had suggested he hide. "She had a great deal of clothing there, too."
Chenille said, "She gets to the city pretty often, but I'm not sure where she goes ... or when. When she does, there'll be somebody with her to watch her, unless Blood's gone abram."
Auk straightened up, his left hand on the hilt of the big, brass-mounted hanger he wore. "All right. You wanted my advice, Patera. I'll give it to you, but I don't think you're going to get it down easy."
"I'd like to have it, nevertheless."
"I thought you would. You run wide of this Hy, for now anyhow. Just finding her's liable to be dicey, and more than likely she'll squeak to this Crane buck straight off. Jugs says she didn't know she was spying. Maybe so. But if this Crane stood this Hy an azoth, you can bet the basket this Hy knows, and is trotting behind. If she was the only handle you had, I'd say go to it. But that's not the lay. If this Crane had Jugs telling him all about colonels and what they said, and this Hy doing the same, and that's what it sounds like, wouldn't he have maybe four or five others, too? Most likely at some of Blood's other kens. And when Jugs is gone- cause she says she's going-won't he line up somebody else at Orchid's?"
Chenille suggested, "The best thing might be for me to go back to Orchid's after all. If I'd talk against Viron a little, he might let me help more. Maybe I could find out who the woman in the market is."
Silk explained, "There's a stallkeeper there who seems to be a contact of Crane's, Auk. Crane had Chenille carry images of Sphigx to her. Was it always Sphigx, Chenille?"
She nodded, her fiery curls trembling. "They always looked just like that one I showed you, as near as I can remember."
"Then see what happens to them," Auk suggested. "When the market closes, where does this mort go?"
"Good Silk!" Oreb dropped from the vines to light in his lap. "Fish heads?"
"Possibly," Silk told the bird, as it hopped onto his shoulder. "In fact, I think it likely."
He returned his attention to Auk. "You're quite right, of course. I've been thinking too much about Hyacinth. I'd hate to see Chenille return to Orchid's, but either of the courses that you suggest-and they're by no means mutually exclusive-would be preferable to approaching Hyacinth, I'm afraid, without some hold on her. When we learn a bit more, however, we should have such a hold. We'll be able to warn her that we know Crane's an agent of another city, that we have evidence that's at least highly suggestive, and that we're aware that she's been assisting him. We'll offer to protect her, provided that she'll assist us."
Chenille asked, "You don't think Crane's Vironese? He talks like one of us."
"No. Mostly because he seems to control so much money, but also because of something he once said to me. I know nothing of spies or spying, however. Nor do you, I think. What about you, Auk?"
The big man shrugged. "You hear this and that. Mostly it's traders, from what they say."
"I suppose that practically every city must question its traders when they return home, and no doubt some traders are actually trained agents. I would imagine that an agent well supplied with money would be like them-that is to say, a citizen in the service of his native city-and probably thoroughly schooled in the ways of the place to which he was to be sent. An agent willing to betray his own city might betray yours as well, surely; particularly if he were given a chance to make off with a fortune."