No one talked about Mehta's fate; they'd seen him with the dark-clad whore, seen him mesmerized, seen him take her hand. They'd hid until the pair walked on, then followed - the group had sworn to stay together, wicked adventure on their minds; all were officially adults now; none could keep them from the forbidden pleasures of men and women - to see if Mehta would really lay the whore, thinking they'd regroup right after, and find out what fun he'd had.
They'd seen him fall, and gag, and die once he'd raised her skirts and had her, his buttocks thrusting hard as he pinned her to the alley wall. They'd seen her bend down over him and raise her head and the glowing twin hells there had sent them pell-mell, fleeing what they knew was no human whore.
Now they'd calmed, but they were deep in the Shambles, near its end where Caravan Square began. There was light there, from midnight merchants engaged in double-dealing; it was not safe there, one of the boys said: slaves were made this way: children taken, sold north and never seen again.
'It's safe here, then?' Tamzen blurted, her teeth chattering but the krrf making her bold and angry. She strode ahead, not waiting to see them follow; they would; she knew this bunch better than their mothers. The thing to do, she was sure, was to stride bravely on until they came upon the Square and found the streets home, or came upon some Hell Hounds, palace soldiers, or Stepsons. Niko's friends would ride them home on horseback if they found some; Tamzen's acquaintance among the men of steel was her fondest prize.
Niko ... If he were here, she'd have no fear, nor need to pretend to valour... Her eyes filled with tears, thinking what he'd say when he heard. She was never going to convince him she was grown if all her attempts to do so made her seem the more a child. A child's error, this, for sure ... and one dead on her account. Her father would beat her rump to blue and he'd keep her in her room for a month. She began to fret - the krrf's doing, though she was too far gone in the drug's sway to tell - and saw an alley from which torchlight shone. She took it; the others followed, she heard them close behind. They had money aplenty; they would hire an escort, perhaps with a wagon, to take them home. All taverns had men looking for hire in them; if they chanced Caravan Square, and fell afoul of slavers, she'd never see her poppa or Niko or her room filled with stuffed toys and ruffles again.
The inn was called the Sow's Ear, and it was foul. In its doorway, one of the boys, panting, caught her arm and jerked her back. 'Show money in that place, and you'll get all our throats slit quick.'
He was right. They huddled in the street and sniffed more krrf and shook and argued. Phryne began to wail aloud and her sister stopped her mouth with a clapped hand. Just as the two girls, terrified and defeated, crouched down in the street and one of the boys, his bladder loosed by fear, sought a comer wall, a woman appeared before them, her hood thrown back, her face hidden by a trick of light. But the voice was a gentlewoman's voice and the words were compassionate. 'Lost, children? There, there, it's all right now, just come with me. We'll have mulled wine and pastries and I'll have my man form an escort to see you home. You're the Alekeep owner's daughter, if I'm right? Ah, good, then; your father's a friend of my husband ... surely you remember me?'
She gave a name and Tamzen, her sense swimming in drugs and her heart filled with relief and the sweet taste of salvation, lied and said she did. All six went along with the woman, skirting the square until they came to a curious house behind a high gate, well lit and gardened and full of chaotic splendour. At its rear, the rush of the White Foal could be heard.
'Now sit, sit, little ones. Who needs to wash off the street grime? Who needs a pot?' The rooms were shadowed, no longer well lit; the woman's eyes were comforting, calming like sedative draughts for sleepless nights. They sat among the silks and the carven chairs and they drank what she offered and began to giggle. Phryne went and washed, and her sister and Tamzen followed. When they came back, the boys were nowhere in sight. Tamzen was just going to ask about that when the woman offered fruit, and somehow she forgot the words on her tongue-tip, and even that the boys had been there at all, so fine was the krrf the woman smoked with them. She knew she'd remember in a bit, though, whatever it was she'd forgot...
When Crit and Straton arrived with the hawkmask they'd captured at the Foalside home of Ischade, the vampire woman, all its lights were on, it seemed, yet little of that radiance cut the gloom.
'By the god's four mouths, Crit, I still don't understand why you let those others go. And for Niko. What - ?'
'Don't ask me, Straton, what his reasons are; I don't know. Something about the one being of that Successors band, revolutionaries who want Wizardwall back from the Nisibisi mages -there's more to Nisibis than the warlocks. If that Vis was one, then he's an outlaw as far as Nisibisi law goes, and maybe a fighter. So we let him go, do him a favour, see if maybe he'll come to us, do us a service in his turn. But as for the other - you saw Ischade's writ of freedom - we gave him to her and she let him go. If we want to use her ... if she'll ever help us find Jubal - and she does know where he is; this freeing of the slave was a message; she's telling us we've got to up the ante - we've got to honour her wishes as far as this slave-bait goes.'
'But this ... coming here ourselves^. You know what she can do to a man ...'
'Maybe we'll like it; maybe it's time to die. I don't know. I do know we can't leave it to the garrison - every time they find us a hawkmask he's too damaged to tell us anything. We'll never recruit what's left of them if the army keeps killing them slowly and we take the blame. And also,' Crit paused, dismounted his horse, pulled the trussed and gagged hawkmask he had slung over his saddle like a haunch of meat down after him, so that the prisoner fell heavily to the ground, 'we've been told by the garrison's intelligence liaison that the army thinks Stepsons fear this woman.'
'Anybody with a dram of common sense would.' Straton, rubbing his eyes, dismounted also, notched crossbow held at the ready as soon as his feet touched the ground.
'They don't mean that. You know what they mean; they can't tell a Sacred Bander from a straight mercenary. They think we're all sodomizers and sneer at us for that.'
'Let 'em. I'd rather be alive and misunderstood than dead and respected.' Straton blinked, trying to clear his blurred vision. It was remarkable that Critias would undertake this action on his own; he wasn't supposed to take part in field actions, but command them. Tempus had been to see him, though, and since then the task force leader had been more taciturn and even more impatient than usual. Straton knew there was no use in arguing with Critias, but he was one of the few who could claim the privilege of voicing his opinion to the leader, even when they disagreed.
They'd interrogated the hawkmask briefly; it didn't take long; Straton was a specialist in exactly that. He was a pretty one, and substantively undamaged. The vampire was discerning, loved beauty; she'd take to this one, the few bruises on him might well make him more attractive to a creature such as she: not only would she have him in her power but it would be in her power to save him from a much worse death than that she'd give. By the look of the tall, lithe hawkmask, by his clothes and his pinched face in which sensitive, liquid eyes roamed furtively, a pleasant death would be welcome. His ilk were hunted by more factions in Sanctuary than any but Nisibisi spies. Crit said, 'Ready, Strat?'