Eevroen continued to come in drunk late at night. But he spoke very little, just using the place to eat and sleep. He seldom saw Masha when she was awake. In fact, he seemed to be doing his best to avoid her. That was fine with her.
6
Several times, both by day and night, Masha felt someone was following her. She did her best to detect the shadower, but whether she got the feeling by day or night, she failed to do it. She decided that her nervous state was responsible.
Then the great dog hunt began. Masha thought this was the apex of hysteria and silliness. But it worried her. After all the poor dogs were gone, what would next be run down and killed and gutted? To be more precise, who? She hoped that the who wouldn't be she.
In the middle of the week of the dog hunt, little Kheem became sick. Masha had to go to work, but when she came home after sundown, she found that Kheem was suffering from a high fever. According to her mother, Kheem had also had convulsions. Alarmed, Masha set out at once for Doctor Nadeesh's house in the Eastern quarter. He admitted her and listened to her describe Kheem's symptoms. But he refused to accompany her to her house.
'It's too dangerous to go into the Maze at night,' he said. 'And I wouldn't go there in the day unless I had several bodyguards. Besides, I am having company tonight. You should have brought the child here.'
'She's too sick to be moved,' Masha said. 'I beg you to come.'
Nadeesh was adamant, but he did give her some powders which she could use to cool the child's fever.
She thanked him audibly and cursed him silently. On the way back, while only a block from her apartment, she heard a sudden thud of footsteps behind her. She jumped to one side and whirled, drawing her dagger at the same time. There was no moon, and the nearest light was from oil lamps shining through some iron barred windows in the second storey above her.
By its faintness she saw a dark bulk. It was robed and hooded, a man by its tallness. Then she heard a low hoarse curse and knew it was a man. He had thought to grab or strike her from behind, but Masha's unexpected leap had saved her. Momentarily, at least. Now the man rushed her, and she glimpsed something long and dark in his uplifted hand. A club.
Instead of standing there frozen with fear or trying to run away, she crouched low and charged him. That took him by surprise. Before he could recover, he was struck in the throat with her blade.
Still, his body knocked her down, and he fell hard upon her. For a moment, the breath was knocked out of her. She was helpless, and when another bulk loomed above her, she knew that she had no chance.
The second man, also robed and hooded, lifted a club to bring it down on her exposed head.
Writhing, pinned down by the corpse, Masha could do nothing but await the blow. She thought briefly of little Kheem, and then she saw the man drop the club. And he was down on his knees, still gripping whatever it was that had closed off his breath.
A moment later, he was face down in the dry dirt, dead or unconscious.
The man standing over the second attacker was short and broad and also robed and hooded. He put something in his pocket, probably the cord he'd used to strangle, her attacker, and he approached her cautiously. His hands seemed to be empty, however.
'Masha?' he said softly.
By then she'd recovered her wind. She wriggled out from under the dead man, jerked the dagger from the windpipe, and started to get up.
The man said, in a foreign accent, 'You can put your knife away, my dear. I didn't save you just to kill you.'
'I thank you, stranger,' she said, 'but keep your distance anyway.'
Despite the warning, he took two steps towards her. Then she knew who he was. No one else in Sanctuary stank so of rancid butter.
'Smhee,' she said, equally softly.
He chuckled. 'I know you can't see my face. So, though it's against my religious convictions, I will have to take a bath and quit smearing my body and hair with butter. I am as silent as a shadow, but what good is that talent when anyone can smell me a block away?'
Keeping her eyes on him, she stopped and cleaned her dagger on the dead man's robe.
'Are you the one who's been following me?' she said. She straightened up.
He hissed with surprise, then said, 'You saw me?'
'No. But I knew someone was dogging me.'
'Ah! You have a sixth sense. Or a guilty conscience. Come! Let's get away before someone comes along.'
'I'd like to know who these men are ... were.'
'They're Raggah,' Smhee said. 'There are two others fifty yards from here, lookouts, I suppose. They'll be coming soon to find out why these two haven't shown up with you.'
That shocked her even more than the attack.
'You mean the purple mage wants we? Why?'
'I do not know. Perhaps he thinks as so many others do. That is, that Benna told you more than you have said he did. But come! Quickly!'
'Where?'
'To your place. We can talk there, can't we?'
They walked swiftly towards her building. Smhee kept looking back, but the place where they had killed the two men was no longer visible. When they got to the door, however, she stopped.
'If I knock on the door for the keeper, the Raggah might hear it,' she whispered. 'But I have to get in. My daughter is very sick. She needs the medicine I got from Dr Nadeesh.'
'So that's why you were at his home,' Smhee said. 'Very well. You bang on the door. I'll be the rearguard.'
He was suddenly gone, moving astonishingly swift and silently for such a fat man. But his aroma lingered.
She did as he'suggested, and presently Shmurt came grumbling to the door and unbolted it. Just as she stepped in she smelled the butter more strongly, and Smhee was inside and pushing the door shut before the startled doorkeeper could protest.
'He's all right,' Masha said.
Old Shmurt peered with runny eyes at Smhee by the light of his oil lamp. Even with good vision, however, Shmurt couldn't see Smhee's face. It was covered with a green mask.
Shmurt looked disgusted.
'I know your husband isn't much,' he croaked. 'But taking up with this foreigner, this tub of rotten butter ... shewawl'
'It's not what you think,' she said indignantly.
Smhee said, 'I must take a bath. Everyone knows me at once.'
'Is Eevroen home?' Masha said.
Shmurt snorted and said, 'At this early hour? No, you and your stinking lover will be safe.'
'Dammit!' Masha said. 'He's here on business!'
'Some business!'
'Mind your tongue, you old fart!' Masha said. 'Or I'll cut it out!'-
Shmurt slammed the door to his room behind him. He called, 'Whore! Slut! Adulteress!'
Masha shrugged, lit her lamp, and went up the steps with Smhee close behind her. Wallu looked very surprised when the fat man came in with her daughter.
'Who is this?'
'Someone can't identify me?' Smhee swi. 'Does she have a dead nose?'
He removed his mask.
'She doesn't get out much,' Masha said. She hurried to Kheem, who lay sleeping on her rag pile. Smhee took off his cloak, revealing thin arms and legs and a body like a ball of cheese. His shirt and vest, made of some velvety material speckled with glittering sequins, clung tightly to his trunk. A broad leather belt encircled his paunch, and attached to it were two scabbards containing knives, a third from which poked the end of a bamboo pipe, and a leather bag about the size of Masha's head. Over one shoulder and the side of his neck was coiled a thin rope.