"You got your own hell," Vis said. "I want a straight answer. Is it her? Is it her pulling the cords right now? Where's the rest of your lot?"
Quick mental addition. The slaughter at the barracks: dead giveaway of a new wave of Rankan activity among those in a position to know they hadn't done it. And Vis was at least marginally on Rankan funds, not Nisibisi. Vis and his lot hated Roxane and her lot. That they had in common. "A few of the Band's here," Straton said. "Say that-we've funded this and that in the streets. Same as you. And we want that street to stay open. You want any more funds. Vis, you better think again. I don't know what She's up to; and I sure as hell won't hand it out if I find out. But my lads have steered yours clean so far and none of mine have cut your throats. This Jubal's doing? That who's behind this? Is he running your lot? Or is it Walegrin?"
"Oh, we're still bought," Vis said, and the knife eased off. "On all the usual sides. If I was a fool I'd pay you a personal debt right now; but you aren't marked and I'm not a fool." Another of Vis's wolf-grins. "You don't promise and you don't make threats. You just want out of here with as little said as possible. On my side I've been helpful. In spite of some things. I'm telling you now- won't charge you a thing. Something's coming. Debts are being called in. In the Downwind. Moruth's lot. You understand me."
Moruth. Beggar-king. The hawkmasks' old nemesis. Straton looked at Vis and his pseudo-Ilsigi company and added it up again-Vis willing to risk his Rankan income and Vis running information against Moruth and his beggars. It added up to Jubal. For certain it did. Straton let go a slow breath. "Tell Jubal I'm on it. I'll find out. But I don't run his errands."
"You're too smart, Whoreson."
"You're too rash, bastard. So's Jubal if he thinks he's bought out you and these dogs of yours. How many others in the town? Coming in with the trade, are you?"
"Like you. Here. There. A lot of us. But we don't die like the Whoresons in barracks. You're dealing with something else now."
"There's Nisi want your guts for ribbons. My spies tell me that." Strat grinned deliberately into Vis's dark face. "Us is a damn small number. Ils doesn't include most of the mountaineer-Nisi. I know what they want you for, Vis. But don't let's discuss that. You may find Jubal can't hide you singlehanded. You may find Ilsigi money runs thin. Say you and your fine friends just back off now and thank your peculiar gods you and I've kept our tempers. And we won't remind each other of old times."
"So it's not Ranke on the move."
"No, it's not Ranke. It's not us. It's not you. Whatever's moving, it's not either one of us. Or Jubal."
"Ilsigi," Vis said.
"Ilsigi." Freed, Straton spat in sheer amazement. "Wrigglies." He stared at the Nisi outlaw, recalling the peculiar silence of the streets.
"It's Ilsigi," Vis said. "What's either of our lives worth when that breaks loose, huh? That's a lot of knives."
More messengers flew. Most were black, and feathered. One landed in the Maze, bearing a certain amulet. One landed on the wall of the palace and with characteristic perverseness, ran its designated recipient to panting hysteria trying to overtake it and retrieve the small cylinder affixed to its leg. It took off, landed, took off again, and finally, coyly surrendered and bit the hand of the priest who retrieved it.
One landed on a small bush and hopped onto a sill in the Street of Red Lanterns.
And Haught, returning home after delivering one message in person-discovered a rose thrust through the doorhandle, and blanched.
He gathered it up; and thrust it into his bosom as unwillingly as if it had been a snake.
"I do trust," Ischade said when he had come inside, "you'll be more kind in future. Stilcho's not yours."
"Yes," Haught said fervently.
"You think I'm indolent."
"No, Mistress."
"How Nisi, to be in a hurry. How Nisi to be so punctiliously, superciliously careful of my affairs. Sometimes I'd forgotten that. But you do justly chide me for my nature."
"I only tried to care for things-"
"Haught, Haught, Haught. Spare me. You think you've become indispensable. Or rather-you hope to become so." Ischade kicked aside a cloak of fine rose silk. "Few things are."
"Mistress-"
"You fear I don't care for details. Well, you may be right, Haught. I accept your judgment. And your warning. And I want you to take care of a matter for me. Yourself. Since you've become so skilled."
"What-matter?"
She smiled and came and touched the rose he wore. "Take care of Roxane. Keep her out of my way."
Haught's eyes went white, all round.
"Oh, you'll have Stilcho's help," Ischade said. "And Roxane's hardly what she was. Niko's seen to that. She might well make a try for him, but then, you have Janni. And Stilcho. Don't you? I'm sure I can trust you with it."
Another bird fluttered into the open window, and took its perch on a chair back. This one came from uptown. It had a spelled ring about its inky leg, and it whetted a chisel-keen beak against steelshod claws. Regarded them both with a mad gold eye.
"Oh, indeed," she said. And to Haught: "Be useful. Feed it. Mind your fingers."
"That's the high priest," Haught said, meaning where it had come from. Its message, shrilled in a high thin voice, was not within his understanding.
Query, query, query. "Molin wants answers," Ischade said, and smiled, because those answers were forthcoming, but not in the way the high priest wanted. "Tell Janni he's welcome to take Niko if he can. When you see him."
"Where have you been?" Black Lysias of the 3rd Commando asked questions when Strat came up into the stables, back inside the Black line. "We've been scouring-"
"Say I had an urgent meeting." Strat caught the man by the sleeve. Fastidious Lysias looked like a ratsnest; smelled like fish. That was the way the 3rd traveled these days. Strat propelled him through into the slant-walled tackroom, where a little daylight got through the cracks of the leaky roof. The bay snorted and stamped and kicked a board nearby, having had enough of this den. Second kick, like half the building was falling. "Damn. Cut it, horse."
Sulky silence then. A snort and switch of tail.
"We've got something moving," Straton said. "You hear it?" And in the absence of confirmations: "What have you heard?"
"We got a line on Niko. Got rumors where he is. Uptown. Priests. We got areas we can't get into. Randal sent-says Roxane's stirring about last night; she's looking too. Fast. We still haven't got where. Kama's got her piff connection sniffing round; haven't found her yet. Melant's down harborside; Kali's trying that Setmur contact; we've got-"
A shiver went up his back. He gripped Lysias's shoulder, hard. "Listen. I'm going out again. Get the word out, get the Third to positions, full alert."
"You going-"
"Get out of here. Get it moving."
"Right," Lysias said, and dived round the comer: no further questions.
But Strat lingered there in the dim light, with the sinking feeling that panic had impelled that. He wanted the daylight; wanted-
-easy answers.
Kadakithis will lose the Empire-
Niko in trouble. Plots went through Sanctuary like worms through old meat. Tempus delaying and Randal discomfited. Straton considered himself no fool, not ordinarily; upstairs in that nasty little room, men and women had tried to make him one and he had unerringly stripped souls down to little secrets, most of which he was not interested in, a few of which he was, and they spilled them all before they went their way either loose (for effect) or into the Foal (for neatness). He was not particularly proud of this skill, only of a keen wit that did not take lies for an answer. That was what made him the Stepsons' interrogator; a certain dogged patience and a sure instinct for unraveling the mazy works of human minds.