Stilcho made a strangled sound. Flinched from him.
Stilcho remembered. Haught took that for granted; and smiled in Stilcho's distraught face.
Before he swept the russet cloak back, set a fine hand on the elegant sword, and walked on down the street like a lord of Sanctuary.
Straton stood still and blindfolded as the door closed behind, as the little charade played itself out. He heard the tread of men on board and the scrape of a chair and smelled the remnant of dinner and onions in this small, musty room.
"Do I take this damn thing off?" he asked, after too much of this shifting about had gone on.
"He can take it off," a deep voice said. "Get him a chair."
So he knew even then that his contact had not played him false; and that it was Jubal. He reached up and pulled off the tight blindfold and ran a hand through his hair as he stood and blinked at the black man who faced him across a table and a single candle-a black man thinner and older than he ought to be, but pain aged a man. White touched the ex-slaver's temples, amid the crisp black: lines were graven deep beside the mouth, out from the flaring nostrils, deep between dark, wrinkle-set eyes. Jubal's hands rested both visible on the scarred tabletop; those of the hawknosed man in the chair beside him were not visible at all. And Mradhon Vis, who lately sported a drooping black mustache to add to his dusky sullenness, sat in the comer with one booted foot on the rung of the next chair and elbow on knee, a broad-bladed knife catching the candlelight with theatrical display.
A man shoved a chair up at Straton's back; he turned a slow glance that way, took the measure of that man the same as he had of the two more in the comer. Thieves. Brigands. Ilsigis. A Nisi renegade. Jubal from gods knew where. And himself, Rankan; the natural enemy of all of them.
"Sit down," Jubal said, a voice that made the air quiver. Straton did that, slowly, without any haste at all. Leaned back and put his hands in his belt and crossed his ankles in front of him.
"I said I had a proposal," Straton said.
"From you or from the witch? Or from your commander?"
"From me. Privately. In regard to the other two."
Jubal's square-nailed finger traced an obscure pattern on the aged wood. "Your commander and I have a certain-history."
"All the more reason to deal with me. He owes the witch. She owes me. I want this town quiet. Now. Before it loses whatever it's got. If Tempus is here he's here for reasons more than one."
"Like?"
"Like imperial reasons."
Jubal laughed. It was a snarl, a slow rumbling. He spoke something in some tongue other than Rankene. The man by him laughed the same. "The Emperor, is it? Is it treachery you propose? Treachery against your commander?"
"No. Nobody benefits that way. You make your living in this town. I have interests here. My commander has interests only in getting out of here. That's in your interest. You can go back to business. I get what I want. My commander can get out of here without getting tied down in a fight in Sanctuary streets. All that has to happen is a few weeks of quiet. Real quiet. No theft. No gangs. No evidence of sedition."
"Stepson, if your commander heard you promise that he'd have your guts out."
"Give me the quiet I need and I'll give you the quiet you need. You and I understand each other. You won't have a friend left in our ranks-if I fall. Do you understand me?"
"Do I understand you've got your price, Rankan?"
"Mutual advantage." Heat rose to his face. Breath came shorter. "I don't give a damn what you name it, you know where we all are: trade's slowed to a stop, shops are closed, taverns shut down-are you making money? Merchants aren't; you aren't; no one's happy. And you know and I know that if this PFLS craziness goes on we've got a town in cinders, trade gone down the coast, revolutionary fools in control or martial law as long as it takes, and corpses up to the eaves. You see profit in that?"
"I see profit everywhere. I survive, Rankan."
"You're not fool enough to go up against the empire. You make money on it."
Bodies stiffened all around the room. Strat folded his arms across his chest and recrossed his ankles top to bottom.
"He's right." Jubal snapped his fingers. "He said the right word. Let's see if he goes on making sense. Keep talking."
There was disturbance on the Street of Red Lanterns; but the crowd that gathered did it in the discreet way of Red Lantern crowds: peered through windows and out of doorways of brothels and taverns and just stopped in ordinary passages down the Street if they were far enough away. It was glitter and drama, was this district; and a great deal of the tawdry, and in this thunder-rattling night and the bizarre quiet in town since the fire, it was a rougher-than-usual place, the clients that showed up being the sort who were less delicate about their own safety, the sort who took care of themselves. So the whores on the Street were unsurprised at the commotion down by Phoebe's: the small office where Zaibar and the remaining Hell-Hounds served quiet duty as policemen on the Street-that office was unastonished tod, and tried to ignore the matter as long as possible. Zaibar in fact was deliberately ignoring it, since rumor had spread who was on the Street.
He poured himself another drink, and looked up as a rider on a sorrel horse went clattering past his office as if that man had business.
Stepson. He was relieved, and took a studied sip of the drink he had poured, feeling his problem on its way to resolution without him. The disturbance was far from the house in which he had a personal interest; and that rider headed down the Street was one of Tempus's own, which interference stood a much likelier chance of curtailing the trouble down the street. So it was wise to have sat still a moment and trust the problem to go away; the screams went on, but they would stop very shortly, only one life was in the balance, and the madam of the house (if not the whore) would probably agree that this intervention was better than police.
They were nothing if not pragmatic on the Street.
"Well," said Jubal. "I like your attitude. I like a sensible man. Question is, is your commander going to like you tomorrow?"
"An empire runs on what works," Straton said. "Or it doesn't run. We can be very practical."
Jubal considered a moment. A grin spread on his dark, lined face, all theater. "This is my friend." He looked left and right at his lieutenants, and his voice hit registers that ran along the spine. "This is my good friend." Looking back at Straton. "Let's call it a deal-friend Straton."
Straton stared at him, with less of relief than of a profound sickness in his gut. But it was a victory. Of sorts. It just did not come with parades and shouting crowds. It came of common sense. "Fine," he said. "Does this include a deal about that stupid blindfold? Where's my horse?"
"At the contact point. I'm afraid it doesn't include my whereabouts, friend. But I'll send you back with a man you know, how's that? Vis."
Mradhon Vis slipped his knife into sheath and let the front legs of his chair meet the floor as he got up.
It was not the man Strat would have chosen to go with, blindfolded and helpless, down an alley. Protesting it sounded like complaint and complaint did nothing for a man's dignity in this situation that had little enough of dignity about it and precious little leeway. Straton stood up, his arms at his sides as a man behind him took the chair away. Another man put the blindfold back in front of his eyes and tied it with no less uncomfortable firmness. "Dammit, watch it," Straton muttered.
"Be careful of him," Jubal's deep voice said. But no one did anything about the blindfold.