It was less trouble finding Tempus than Crit had anticipated when he talked to Niko and knew where Tempus had gotten to. He reined in at Phoebe's Inn (so the sign said) and shoved the sorrel's reins through a ring at the building's side. There were bystanders; and part of their interest diverted to him, who added himself to the diversion-he scowled blackly and glanced around him with the quiet promise what would befall the hand that touched his horse or his gear. Then he walked on into Phoebe's front room and confronted the proprietor, a fat woman with the predictable amount of gaud and matronly decorum. "Seen my commander?" he asked directly.
She had. Chins doubled and undoubled and painted mouth formed a word.
"Where?"
She pointed. "T-two of them," she said. "F-foreign lady, sh-she-"
That took no guesswork. "Tell my commander Critias is downstairs. Do it."
There was another scream from upstairs. Of a different pitch. For a whorehouse the desertion of the front room was remarkable. Not a whore of either gender came out of the alcoves. The madam ran the stairs and went careening down the upstairs hall, vanishing into the dark.
And still not a beaded curtain shadowed in the downstairs. Not a sound, except upstairs: a knock at a door, the madam's voice saying something unintelligible.
A door opened finally. A heavier tread sounded in the upstairs and Crit looked up as Tempus appeared at the head of the stairs-looked up with a stolid face and a moil of trepidation in his own gut that was only partly due to disturbing Tempus at this particularly agitated moment.
He watched Tempus come down the stairs; stood quietly with his hands in his belt and composed himself to inner quiet.
And it occurred to him, staring Tempus eye to eye, that he had been a fool and that he might have just killed the partner he was trying to save, because it was not reason he saw there.
"What?" Tempus asked with economy.
"Strat-after we cleaned up on riverside, the witch-left. Strat and I parted company. He's gone missing. He's not back at riverside."
Of a sudden it seemed like his problem, like something he never should have brought here. He seemed like a thoroughgoing fool. There was another tread on the stairs now, and that was Jihan coming down, trouble in duplicate. But Tempus's face got that masklike look, his long eyes gone inward and deep as he looked aside, a frown gathering and tightening about his mouth.
"How far-missing?" Tempus asked with uncomfortable accuracy and looked him straight in the eye.
"He told me to go to hell," Crit said, had not wanted to say, but Tempus did not encourage reticence with that look. "Commander, he'd listen to you. She's got him-bad. You, he'd listen to. Not me. I'm asking you."
For a long, long moment he reckoned Tempus was going to tell him go to hell too. And assign him there. But he was a shaken man, was Critias. He had seen the most practical-minded man he knew go crazy and desert him. Possession he could have coped with; he might have put an end to Strat the way he would have dispatched a comrade in the field, gut-wounded and suffering and hopeless; a man dreamed about a thing like that and never forgot it, but he did it. Not this time. Not with Strat cursing him to his face and telling him he was wrong. He was accustomed to regard Strat when he said wrong and stop, and hold it, Crit, Crit, stop it-. Straton the level-headed. Straton who seemed at one moment coldly rational and in the next rode off on-whatever that bay horse had become. "Where did you leave him?"
"Mageguild post. He left me. He rode off. I-lost track of him. He wasn't at Ischade's. I thought he'd come to you. Niko said not, Niko said-find you."
Tempus exhaled a long breath, took the sword he was carrying and hung it where it belonged. Thunder rattled. The inn echoed with it as Jihan came on down the steps. "Barracks, maybe," Jihan said. "I don't think so," Crit said. "Where do you think he's gone?" Tempus asked. "To do something," Crit said, and out of that fund of knowledge a pairbond held: "To prove something."
Tempus took that in with a grave and quiet look. "To whom?"
"To me. To you. He's being a fool. I'm asking you-"
"You want an order from me? Or you want me to find him?"
Of a sudden Crit did not know what he wanted. One seemed too little; the other, fatal.
"I'll find him," Crit said. "I thought you'd better know."
"I know," Tempus said. "He's still in command of the city. Tell him he'll be at Peres on time. And he won't have done anything stupid; tell him that too."
A horse snorted softly, hooves shifted on cobbles; and Straton heard the sound of their steps between narrow walls, knew before the hands left his arms that they had come back to the alley and the little stable-nook where he had left the bay. He felt the grip lift, heard retreating steps as he raised his hands and pulled the blindfold off. The bay whickered softly. A trio of cloaked figures went rapidly down the alley, one more than had brought him; the third would be the man who had kept the horse safe in the interval.
He walked over and patted the bay's neck, finding his hands shaking. Not from any fear of violence. Even Vis's personal grudge did not do that to him. It was himself. It was knowing what he had done.
He took the reins and swung up to the bay's back, reined about to ride out of the alley and caught his balance as the bay rose up under him: a cloaked shadow had slipped round the comer in front of him.
"That horse isn't hard to find," Haught said as the bay walked backward and came down on four feet again, still shying. Strat reined him out of it, and held him, hand to the sword he had never given up.
"Damn you-"
Haught held up something between two fingers. "Calm yourself. She sent me. With this."
Strat reined the bay quieter, still too wary to bring his horse alongside a man who might have a knife. He slid down to his own feet, keeping the reins in hand, met the ex-slave on a level and took the object Haught offered at arm's length.
A ring lay in his palm. It was Ischade's.
"She wants you-not at the uptown house tomorrow. Stay away. Come to the riverhouse. After midnight."
He closed his hand on the ring. A shudder ran through him with a reaction he had no wish to betray to the slave's amusement. He kept his face cold and his voice steady. "I'll be there," he said.
"I'll tell her that," Haught said with uncommon civility, and whisked himself around the comer again.
Strat slipped the ring on his littlest finger, and suffered a spasm that took his sight away. The bay horse pulled the reins from his hands and then, sheepish, stood there with the reins adangle while his master recollected his sight and got his heart settled from its pounding.
It was apology, from Ischade. It was invitation as plain as ever witch or woman sent a man. His heart pounded as he climbed up to the saddle and clenched his fist on the ring that had now the slow sweet bliss krrf never matched.
He fought his head clear, knew that what the slave asked- what she asked-was trouble, trouble not with Crit this time. Trouble that might take everything he had done and his life and sweep everything away, but the witch knew that, but Ischade wanted him and by this gift he knew how much she wanted him; he felt it continually and the world swam in front of his eyes.
What are you doing? he asked her in absentia. Do you know what you're asking?
And in the gnawing doubt that had been between them at the beginning and now again: Does it matter to you?
The bay moved, and the alley passed in a blur of starlit cobbles, the glare of a lantern. Things passed in and out of focus.
And in a profound effort he took the ring from off his finger and put it in his pocket where it was only mildly euphoric.