But no words were exchanged, aside from a muffled curse or two. Wellhyrn reached out to steady the drunk and quickly dropped something into the man's hand. Ladirno drew a sharp breath. The lamps which burned at the doorway to Wellhyrn's apartments lent a fair amount of light to the street, and in this light he had seen the glint of gold.
The drunk snarled something at Wellhyrn, appeared to get his directions totally mixed up, then lurched off again, this time headed down the hill toward Old Town.
Wellhyrn glanced up and down the street, while Ladirno held his breath, plastered against the side of the building and praying his colleague would not look his way.
Some bored god must have heard his prayer, for Wellhyrn turned around and went back inside.
For a long moment, Ladirno stood shivering against the wall. What was it that Wellhyrn had paid this man for? He had seen the flash of at least one gold donahri, sufficient price for a murder in some quarters.
A sour taste filled Ladirno's mouth. Ladirno spat into the street, gathered his cloak tighter, and hurried off into the dark down the alley.
A bell rang somewhere. A distant bell, muffled and indistinct. The sound of it filtered into Duran's sleep and woke him from a dream of rain.
He sat up in bed, his heart pounding. He listened, unsure whether the bell had rung only in his mind, or in the real world.
No. There it was again—the "Cat's" bell—that only rang for theft and fire—
Duran sprang from bed, and ran toward the front window. Flinging open the shutters, he stared down into the street.
The rain had stopped. Torchlight from the "Cat" lit up the street, people running—
But not only that light—
"Fire!" someone called—Ithar, he thought. "Get buckets!"
Duran cursed aloud, lit his lamp with shaking hands, flung his clothes on, grabbed the lamp and rushed down his stairs—Dog was barking now, frantically. Duran set down the lamp, grabbed his cloak, unlocked the door with trembling fingers.
He stepped into a scene of chaotic motion. People ran here and there, searching for buckets. He could see the flames now, and his heart lurched. The fire burned up against the walls of Zeldezia's shop. Duran glanced around and found Tutadar. The innkeeper was standing in the center of the street, directing his fellow neighbors to various rain barrels, instructing them where buckets were kept.
"When did it start?" Duran yelled over the commotion.
"Don't know! But it's burnin' good!"
Duran stared at the fire. The blaze was impossible—in a puddle-filled alleyway, debris soaked and sodden—
"Dammit!" He ran to Tutadar's side. "Don't throw water on it, Tut! Call back the buckets!"
The innkeeper stared at Duran as if he were mad.
"It's an oil fire, Tut! For gods' sake, don't throw water on it! Can't you see? It's too damned wet for anything but oil to burn like that!"
Tutadar narrowed his eyes and looked back at the fire.
"Wait!" he bellowed, his voice carrying over the yelling of the neighbors. "No water! You hear me? No water!"
"Get mud, get dirt. Flour! Something that will smother the flames!" Duran glanced around. "Find Bontido. He's got to have something like that around his shop!"
Several of the neighbors were beating at the fire with heavy blankets now. Someone ran off with Bontido toward the potter's shop. Zeldezia stood in the street, her hands clasped, wailing in a shrill voice. A man ran back from the inn, struggling under the weight of a heavy bag of flour.
"Hurry!" Tutadar hollered. "All of it! On the fire!"
The man approached Zeldezia's shop, held the bag firmly, one hand keeping it open, and began tossing flour onto the fire. The flames fell back some, but did not die.
"Move aside!"
Duran stepped back as Bontido and two other men pushed a manure wagon full of soaked stable-dirt toward the shop. One of the men grabbed a shovel and started tossing the dirt onto the flames. Duran watched, his heart pounding raggedly. How the hells had an oil fire got started?
Who would have done such a thing to Zeldezia?
A ragged cheer went up from the neighbors as the fire guttered and slowly began to die. Duran drew a deep breath, not surprised to find his knees shaking.
A hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to face Tut. "That'n was set," Tut said grimly. "Ain't no accident."
Duran nodded, still shaking.
"Damn you, Duran!" Zeldezia's shrill voice penetrated the voices of the crowd. "This is all your fault! Sabirn-lover! They witched my shop, they tried to burn me in my house!"
"Gods," Tut murmured, holding tight to Duran's shoulder.
The seamstress elbowed her way through a crowd grown suddenly silent.
"You brought this here fire on me!" she raged. "You an' them damned Sabirn!"
"Calm down, Zeldezia," Ithar said, reaching out to take her arm.
She yanked away from the smith, her eyes narrowed to slits. "You think I don't know! That I can't guess! You—"
"Zeldezia, shut up!" Tut roared, leaving Duran to step between. "You shut your damned mouth! You been nothin' but trouble the past few days, an' now you're accusin' the man who had enough sense to know what that damned fire was, and how to fight it!"
Zeldezia backed up a step. "What d'you mean—he knowed what it was?"
"It ain't sorcery! It's an oil fire. If we'd poured water on it, we'd've made it worse. You got Duran t' thank we saw it in time!"
"He knowed what it was! How'd he know? Oil don't get on the side of a body's building by fallin' from the sky!"
"For the gods' sake, Zeldezia, if he'd started that damned fire, he wouldn't've tried to stop it—"
Zeldezia spat at Tut's feet. "The Sabs started that fire—-probably that damn boy's skulked back t' get me, near burned the block down! An' you, Duran, you're guilty along with 'em! Ever since I started tryin' to change your ways, you been settin' 'em on me—They wanted to burn me out, that's what, they know what I know—that they been witchin' the weather, that it's them plottin' agin us—"
Duran kept silent. Anything he said at this point would only make matters worse.
Tears were running down Zeldezia's cheeks now. "You low-down scum . . . you Sabirn-lover! I hate you for this! An' you'll pay, Duran! You'll pay!"
She spun around, ran into her shop, and slammed the door.
For a long moment the street was silent, so silent Duran could hear the water dripping from the eaves.
"She's crazy," someone muttered. "Damned woman's crazy."
"Maybe not," somebody else said.
Tut gripped Duran's shoulder. "Duran, I think you'd best go back inside. Hear?"
Duran nodded, turned, and walked slowly to his shop. Dog stood in the lighted doorway, his tail wagging slowly now that the noise had died down.
Duran shut the door behind him, leaned up against the counter, staring off into the shadows.
Someone had deliberately started that fire.
Kekoja? Gods, no, no. Not Kekoja, not Old Man—not fire, that could have burned Zeldezia alive.
Who would do such a thing? Who in the world would do a thing like that?
A jar was out of place on the counter. It weighted a paper.
It said, in a boy's uneven letters, The river gate. Tomorrow sundown. Fire not ours.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN