I walked along the line of the booths until I came to Booth Seventeen. Most of the booths had the curtains drawn, and the lining of the booths and curtains is usually opaque. In two booths the threshold curtains were partly open. In one I saw a slave, naked, writhing slowly in chains before a man, his hands upon her. In another I saw a slave and her lover-master of the moment in one another's arms half oof the large, soft cushion on which the slave, customarily, kneeling, in obeisance, greeets the booth's entrant. Outside most of the booths two or three men were waiting. Interestingly enough, on Booth Seventeen, there was a sign pinned on the front of the booth, near the entrance curtain. It said, "Closed." The curtain itself was drawn shut, but it did not appear, from the look of it, from its lack of tautness, to be secured from the inside. I looked about. There were men about, some with carnival masks, but none seemed concerned with this booth. I waited outside the booth for a few moments. Noone, however, approached me. To be sure, I was supposed to meet the individual in Booth Severnteen, according to what Henrius had been told. I wondered who had spoken to him. I wondered if this matter had to do with Priest-Kings. To be sure, it seemed mysterious. Any normal business, I supposed, would have been conducted in more normal fashions.
I brushed aside the curtain and entered the booth, permitting the curtain, not much drawn on its rings, to fall shut behind me. A small tharlarion-oil lamp lit the interior of the booth. The booth was the only one furnished by the house of Vart, once Publius Quintus of Ar, a minor slaver in Port Kar. I had not seen him around outside. I wondered why the booth was closed. He had perhaps rented the space to someone for an Ahn or so. Perhaps the whole matter was a mistake. On the large cushion, sofr, and some five feet in diameter, toward the back of the booth, there lay a small, lovely body. It was a tiny, luscious redhead. She lay terribly still, extremely still. I approached her and, crouching down beside her, put my fingertips to the side of her throat, by the collar. She was alive. I puller her to a seated position on the cushion and smelled her mouth and lips, and gently, carefully, delicately, touched her lips with my tongue. I detected nothing. There was a smear of Ka-la-na wine at the left side of her mouth. Tassa powder had doubtless been used on her. It is traceless, and effective. I did not hting she would awaken for hours. The lamp flickered slightly. Her wrists had been thonged behind her; her ankles, too, had been crossed and thonged. The thongs were narrow, dark and tight. I put her back on the cusion.
I jerked my body suddenly to the side, to evade the grasping left arm, seeking to hod the target in place for the short, low right-handed thrust of the knife, or the throat attack, if the assailant was right-handed, and fo the assassins or the warriors. The small tharlarion-oil lamp had been placed in such a way that no shadow would be cast by it of a figure entering through the curtain. Warriors notice such things. Too, in permitting the curtain to fallshut behind me, I had not interfered with the antural closure of the booth. Had it not closed in this fashion I would have adjusted it shut. It is difficult to move such a curtain, heavy and lined as it is, customary in purple booths, without rustle of fabric, or the scraping of one or more of the rings. Too, of course, the air in the booth changes slightly as the curtain is moved, admitting it. The flame of the tiny lamp had flickered, too, in this shifting of air. The knife and arm, howeer, descending, passed over my body. The high stroke has various disadvantages. It begins from farther back and thus makes it difficult to use the left hand or arm to secure the target. It is easier to block. It does not have the same power as the short blow. The blade that has only six inches to move, with a full weight behind it, other things being equal, effects a deeper penetration than a blade wich must move farther and has behind it primarily the weight of a shoulder and arm. Too, of course, the stab from a shorter distance at closer range, point-blank range, so to speak, is likely to be more accurate. The target, after the initiation of the blow, even it if is not held in place, has very little time, given the mathmatics of reflexes, to shift its position. My assailant, I gathered, was neither of the assassins or warriors.
I rolled to the side, my hand going instinctively for the blade in my sheath, but the sheath, the weapon earlier surrendered at the check point through which I had entered the piazza, was empty. The man adjusted quickly, very quickly. he was fast. he wore a half mask. The blade had cut into the cushion. Before I could rise to my feet he was upon me. We grappled. I caught his wrist, turning the blade inward. Suddenly he relaxed. I left the blade in him. I was breathing heavily. I pulled away the half mask. He was the fellow hwom I had seen at the check point. Too, we had spoken together near the magician's stage.
I rifled through his robes. I could find no identification. Probably he had seen me throw the golden tarn disk to the stage. His motivation, doubtless, had been robbery. Yet I had seen him earilier at the check point. That could have been a coincidence, I supposed. I opened his wallet. It was filled with golden staters, from Brundisium, a port on the coast of Thassa, on the mainland, a hundred pasangs or so south of the Vosk's delta, one reported to have alliances with Ar. Robbery, then, did not seem a likely motivation. I knew little about Brundisium. Supposedly it had relations with Ar. I wondered if this were the fellow who had arranged to meet with me in Booth Seventeen. I did not think Vart, the slaver whose booth this was, was likely to be involved. He had probably just rented the booth. If he was involved he would have been stupid to use his own booth. Too, I suspected he had little love for Ar, and perhaps thus for Brundisium. He had once been banished from Ar, and nearly impaled, for the falsification of slave data, misrepresenting merchandise as to its level of training and skill.
I, too, had once been denied salt, bread and fire in Ar, and banished from the city. I did not think, however, that Marlenus, of Ar, her Ubar, he who had banished me, would be likely to send a covert assassin from Brundisium against me, from Brundisium perhaps to make the coneection with Ar seem unlikely or tenuous. If he wished to have it out with me, presumably he would do so, with his own blade. Marlenus was too direct and proud for such deviousness. Too, we were not really enemies. Too, if he had wished to send an assassin against me, presumably he would have done so long ago. Too, the fact that the stateres in the fellow's wallet were from Brundisuim did not mean that he himself was from that city. Anyone might have paid him in the staters of Brundisium. What enemies did I have? Perhaps, after all, robbery was the fellow's motivation.