The Masked laughed. "Your tongue is sharper than many a sword."
"It has to be. I'm shorter than most swords. Now, have you had a good look?"
She swayed, stretching and swiveling like a tavern-dancer. "How about now?"
"I, uh …was asking you a question. Which you've avoided answering by talking about my looking at your …upperworks. Tantaerra?"
The halfling thrust one leg into the bath, winced, and drew it out again hastily. "Rutting hot."
"I don't doubt it. Most people heed the obvious warning-all this steam, you know."
"Stop staring, come around here, and wash my back," she commanded, striding into the bath. Wincing, she went hastily to her knees, gasped, shuddered all over, then snarled, "Vault, that's hot!"
"Too hot to-?"
"Wash," the halfling commanded. "Soap-flakes, bristle brush …I'm filthy."
The Masked wrinkled his nose. "I'd noticed."
"Congratulations, masked man-you've discovered the secret: that stale, sweaty halfling women smell just as musky as human women. We also tend to be just as touchy about it. So please wash my back and refrain from saying anything that could get you killed."
"Tantaerra, answer me," The Masked said quietly, starting to wash her back gently, recalling how the maids in the most expensive inns he'd stayed at went about this. First, use the brush to lift all of her unbound tresses over her shoulder, to hang down her front …
"Leave my hair," she said sharply. "I'll see to it."
"With your combs?"
"With my combs. Later." She sighed, and he could feel her relaxing under the brush. When he worked his way down to her tailbone, she slid smoothly right down into the bath to lie on her back amid the growing scum and look up at him.
"To tell the truth, Tarram Armistrade," she said quietly, "I was-no, am reluctant to be parted from you as we explore the city. It seems …imprudent. Dangerous, even. We're stronger as a team."
"Yet if the Watchguard, after last night-to say nothing of eager prowling Mereir and Telcanor swordsmen-are seeking a masked man accompanied by a halfling?"
"We'll deceive them," Tantaerra said tartly, "by confronting them instead with a halfling accompanied by a masked man!"
She held out a hand for the brush. "Seriously, Masked One, why don't we work together? I'll keep to rooftops, peering and eavesdropping, and you dress as a crone, keeping your hood up and wearing the best mask for that-and hobbling about slowly, mind-and we'll take our measure of Braganza that way."
"That should work," The Masked agreed.
Tantaerra gave him a sly look, then used both hands to thrust her upperworks out of the water at him. "We'll just have to work up a false pair of these for you, with wadded-up clothes and all that cord."
"Or you could reprise your role as my pregnant belly, only tied across me higher up," he suggested, his hands shaping an imaginary bust line.
"That," she told him flatly, "is an entirely inappropriate suggestion."
"It probably won't be my last," he warned, making a mock grab for her.
She submerged hastily. "Sir Armistrade, do you mind?"
"Not yet," he said, leering through the eyeholes in his mask. "In fact, not at all."
Tantaerra found the brush and hurled it at him.
He caught it out of the air deftly. "You do want your legs washed, don't you? Half the filth of Braganza seems to have joined what you brought from Halidon …"
"Masked man, you say the most charming things."
"That's why I'm still alive. For now."
"For now," Tantaerra agreed meaningfully, sliding farther down into the bath.
Luraumadar, the mask commented approvingly.
∗ ∗ ∗
It took them most of the morning to learn the extent of the Mereir-Telcanor feud, and the current mood of the city. A lot of Braganzans were willing to mutter a fervent desire that the two warring families would exterminate each other or just go away, but those mutters were neither loud nor firm. Both families, it seemed, were apt to treat neutral folk as foes, threatening such citizens into obeying, aiding, or joining them-or tasting a swift dagger or a fire kindled out of seeming nowhere, usually in the dead of night while the abstainers were asleep.
As The Masked and his patron returned to Thaener's with new-bought clothes, so those they'd been living in for days could finally be washed, a thought struck him.
Luraumadar, the mask said approvingly, in the depths of his mind.
"I'm curious," he murmured to the innkeeper, sliding two coins-good Absalom mintings that had ridden his belt for months now, awaiting just such a need-covertly across the counter. The man's hand came down on them with practiced casualness, his expression changing not a whit. "Do Mereirs or Telcanors look at guest registers in this inn? Daily? All inns in the city?"
The innkeeper turned away from The Masked to look at some tankards he'd been polishing that suddenly seemed to now need polishing again, and nodded. Thrice.
The Masked strode unhurriedly to the stairs, affecting not to notice a glowering man leading two others-all of them armed-up to the innkeeper.
Tantaerra was waiting for him in the room, a dagger ready behind her back. "Well?"
"The Mereirs and Telcanors examine all inn registers in Braganza. Daily."
"Then we're not sleeping here. Better rats than dead."
"Agreed," The Masked replied, and turned on his heel to look down the stairs. The three men were coming up, and looked quickly away from the stare he gave them.
"Out, right now," he hissed at his patron. "Back stairs, swiftly!"
Tantaerra rolled the new clothes into a bedsheet in a trice and joined him at the door. They raced along the passage, practically hurled themselves down the servants' stair, and burst out through the kitchens, ignoring a shout from a cook.
Another trio of armed men was lounging against a nearby wall, but The Masked and Tantaerra strode right past and sought alleyways.
A handy drainpipe got them aloft in time to see their pursuers hasten out that same scullery door-and come to a sudden halt, as the lounging trio unfolded themselves from the wall in a menacing line of men who held casually drawn daggers in their hands.
The Masked looked up and down the alleyway they now stood above, and at the mouths of other alleys opening off it.
"What a cesspit," he said, almost admiringly.
∗ ∗ ∗
He and Tantaerra soon found an empty mansion where they changed into their new clothes. Then they set about learning the streets of Braganza and finding possible lairs to spend the night ahead in. The city was a crowded, noisy hive of builders at work, with carts of supplies rumbling everywhere and the Watchguard directing traffic. They soon became aware that a growing group of interested observers-all apparently independent of each other-were following them, but there was nothing they could do about that.
"So," Tantaerra asked grimly, as they paused for breath on a lofty rooftop and surveyed all of the oh-so-casual folk who just happened to be looking back at them, "do we try to get out of Braganza before dusk?"
"No," The Masked replied. "If we try, we'll just be handing our friend from Halidon an easier task of reaching us. Assuming we aren't arrested at the gates or just taken down by Mereir or Telcanor bowmen while still within range of the walls."
Tantaerra sighed. "I hate it when you're so bleakly right about things."