MID-WINTER'S DAY arrived, cool and clear. Jame, Dally, and Canden went to Judgment Square to see the apotheosis of the Frost King, but were driven to the rooftops when fighting broke out between two factions in a temple war and the crowd panicked. Up on the tiles, Jame first had the pleasure of preventing her friends from being thrown off and then of presenting them to Prince Dandello, who had come with his retinue to see the rites. The bloodshed below, however, made the prince ill, and he soon left. The other three soon followed.
They were becoming a common trio, one the Guild had trouble understanding. But then they understood little when Jame was in question. By now, she could open any lock in the city, go anywhere like a shadow in the night, and reach anyone from a guild lord in his hall to the meanest beggar in hiding for his life. But still her new talents made her uneasy. The closer she came to actual stealing, the more she wondered how it would be possible to abscond honorably with someone else's property, despite what Ishtier had told her. And so she hedged. The apple vendor missed the rottenest of his wares from the bottom of the pile; the nobleman, surrounded by his retainers, discovered that the smallest button on his trousers was inexplicably missing. And now a rich merchant went his way, unaware that deft fingers had slipped into his pocket, found the least valuable coin there by touch alone, and triumphantly carried it off. Surely not much honor was risked by such trifling thefts as these.
"Just the same," said Dally, looking doubtfully at the tin coin that she had just dropped into his hand, "they'll never understand it at the Moon."
Jame smiled ruefully. She knew only too well what her reputation was now that she had gone for weeks without matching the exploit of the Cloud King's britches, which had brought her into the Guild with such fanfare. The other young thieves conveniently forgot that none of them had accomplished much during their first six months or, for that matter, in their first year. For Penari's pupil, however, things were different. With such a master, she must command respect or deserve contempt; her peers had left her no middle ground.
But that trial would soon be over. Winter would now be sliding down toward spring, and it was time that she make plans to leave Tai-tastigon. Her smile faded. She had suddenly realized that she didn't want to go.
There were several reasons for this, she realized later. For one thing, she hated to leave without somehow having proved herself worthy of Penari's instructions. For another, she was hardly closer to solving the mystery of the gods than she had been when she first came. And then there was the Res aB'tyrr. The business of the charter must be settled by Spring's Eve, so come what may, she would be on hand for that. But if Marplet failed in his current scheme, he would simply launch another, and another, and another, until one succeeded or he, somehow, was stopped. It was impossible to see how this business would end. Moreover, if Kithra was right, Tubain would have her (Jame) indirectly to thank for anything unpleasant that befell him from now on. It was hardly honorable to desert him now and yet how could she commit herself to a campaign that might drag on for years if Marplet found it sufficiently entertaining?
But there was more to her hesitation even than this. She was no longer sure that she should rejoin the Kencyrath. She was remembering more and more of life at the keep: her father's ill-will, her brother's disapproval, all for something she couldn't help, for a cruel trick of heredity. It was said that there was no greater punishment for a Kencyr than to be cast out, denied any place among his people. But was that really worse than a shadow existence, permitted on sufferance alone to sit at some stranger's hearth? She didn't know. What had been true at the isolated keep might not be so in the Riverland. Still, as she sat on the loft's window ledge that night, more and more the face of the Kencyrath bore the features of Tori, her twin brother, whose love for her, however strong, had shone but feebly beneath the weight of his prejudices.
There was a burst of applause from the inn across the way, which quickly settled down into rhythmic clapping. Harpists were popular in Tai-tastigon, but a good dancer even more so. Jame thought of Taniscent in her lonely room below, hiding that wrinkled face and prematurely aged body from even the kindest of eyes. Once her talent might have saved the inn. How much that thought must prey on the former dancer's mind now God alone knew.
Cruel, cruel city with its gleaming snares and velvety paws, its eyes that shone up steadily at her even now, watching, waiting. And this was the place she thought to call her home? Yes. Its temper suited her. She could make her own way here and never think of the past again.
But was that possible? Perhaps . . . if she really knew what she was turning her back on. However, not only had several years fallen out of her own life, but she had learned not long ago that she didn't even know any recent Kencyr history. It seemed, for example, that the host of the Kencyrath had suffered a major defeat some thirty years ago, which had resulted in the exile of Ganth Gray Lord, its greatest Highborn. Dally knew this much, but little more. It had been a long time since news had moved freely across the Ebonbane—which probably, Jame thought, was why her own people had never learned of these events. Nonetheless, hearing of them now, she felt more cut off from her heritage than ever and even less inclined to abandon it without knowing what she was giving up.
But was the knowledge worth the pain that gaining it might cost?
And what about the ring and broken sword? They must be gotten to her brother somehow, if only by messenger. Maybe Tori would even prefer it that way. But who could she trust with such a mission . . . assuming she could bring herself to delegate it at all.
Round and round her thoughts went—to go, to stay— and to make matters worse, she must decide soon. The passes usually cleared soon after the Feast of Fools, which took place just after Spring's Eve, and remained open until the Feast of Dead Gods at the end of the summer. This year, however, the readers of bones had predicted a remarkably short season, lasting perhaps a matter of weeks or less. When the high passes unlocked, she must go quickly or not at all.
Dawn surprised Jame, with no decision made. The widow, coming down early on a baking day, found her already up to her elbows in dough and pummeling away at it with all the frustrated energy of a mind at war with itself.
Wise Cleppetty set to work without a word, and between them they soon plunged the kitchen deep into a floury fog that did not lift until late morning. Then came the baking, then the scrubbing, all in silence, all at a pace that even the tireless widow began to regret. She was just beginning to wonder, rather desperately, if she was about to be launched into spring cleaning two months early when Jame suddenly put aside her apron and left the inn.
The widow collapsed into a chair. "Don't ask!" she told a startled Kithra.
Jame found herself walking eastward with no clear idea of where she was going. On Armorer's Row, a display of daggers laid out on black velvet caught her eye, reminding her of her aversion to knives. That was another mystery rooted in the past. Was she never to understand the reason for that either? On impulse, she picked up a knife, closed her eyes, and tried to remember.
Nothing came.
Sudden anger rose in her. Dammit, she wouldn't go through life without a past, forever a stranger to herself. Fiercely, she summoned all her will and threw it against the barrier in her mind. The ornate hilt bit into her hand. The sounds of the market fused into a dull roar. For a long moment she was alone in the red-shot darkness behind her trembling eyelids, and then she saw the room.
It was huge, its upper regions lost in shadows. Figures moved about her, indistinct, all eyes and gleaming teeth. One of them held up something. A cloak made of black serpent skins sewn together with silver thread. They put it on her bare shoulders . . . heavy, heavy, and the tails, coiled together beneath her chin, twitched. She was climbing a stair. The snake heads thumped on each step at her heels. He was waiting in an alcove, the shadows a mask over his ravaged face. A white-bladed knife slipped from one cold hand to another. She went on, clutching it, up toward the doorway barred with red ribbons, toward the darkness beyond . . .
"Hey!"
Her eyes snapped open. A shop boy was standing in front of her, scowling pugnaciously.
"You wanta buy that?" he demanded.
She dropped the dagger and walked blindly away. Her head throbbed. The hall, the man on the stair! Red ribbons, she vaguely remembered, were usually for a lord's wedding chamber, but the Serpent Skin Cloak and the Ivory Knife, surely they were things of legend. She thought of her mother, that strange, beautiful woman whom her father had brought back one day to the keep out of the Haunted Lands, out of nowhere. The others had thought her mute, for by day she never spoke, but at night her daughter had often awakened to the sound of her voice, reciting the ancient stories or singing songs that had been old when the Kencyrath was but new-founded. That was how Jame had first heard of the cloak, the knife, and the Book Bound in Pale Leather.
It was no use, she thought: fact would not separate from legend. But still, where had that hall been and who, in all the names of God, had she been climbing to meet, knife in hand?
The parapet of the Old Wall stretched out before her. Below, beyond it and the curtain walls, the caravans were gathering on the southern plain for their dash across the Ebonbane in the spring. To leave Tai-tastigon, to remain— either way, it couldn't hurt to make some inquiries.
The rest of the afternoon did little to ease either her growing headache or her mind. The first caravan-master she spoke to told her that the fee for anyone joining his convoy at Tai-tastigon was thirty-five golden altars. "If the price were any lower," he said, giving her a shrewd look, "we'd be overrun with thieves joined up for the pickings. It's no good trying to cross on your own, either; those hills will be thick with bandits come the thaws. No, without my help or that of my colleagues, you'll never see the other side."
"What about the sea routes?" Jame asked, stung by his smug air.
"These days, that's for those who don't care what they pay, or if they arrive. You've heard of dead water? Hit a patch of that some dark night and you sink like a brick—ship, cargo, and all. The straits are rotten with it. You don't believe me? Go ask in any port and check the fares too, while you're at it. Mine will look like a bargain after that."
"Well then, couldn't I work my way across? I can be a first-rate cook by then, and I'm already a fair hostler."
The master laughed. "All such positions were filled weeks ago, boy, but if you wouldn't mind working in another sort of position. . . ." His hand dropped to her knee.
"Think about it, you scrawny bastard!" he shouted after her a moment later. "No one else will make a better offer!" And with that he retreated into his tent, gingerly feeling his jaw for loose teeth.
Unfortunately, the master was right. His two colleagues asked forty and forty-five altars respectively, and both laughed at her request for employment. Discouraged, she started home on the path that ran along the outer face of the bulwark. It had never occurred to her that passage would be so expensive or—worse yet—honest work so hard to find, though she cursed herself now for not having realized that the shortness of the season would effect both drastically. She had virtually no money of her own. Another thief would have stolen what he needed; but even if Jame had been in the practice of taking valuable things instead of trinkets, she would still have had too much respect for her oath not to turn them over to Penari. Although he and Tubain kept her in pocket money, neither paid her for her work—which was only fitting since one had agreed to train her without the usual fee and the other was giving her free room and board. She had counted on striking a bargain with the caravan-master and working for whatever she couldn't pay outright. It seemed now that she must either come up with the whole sum or a new plan if she really meant to leave in the spring.
Just then she came to a brook cutting through the bulwark and realized with irritation that she had missed the cut that led to the Meadow Gate. There were, however, other ways to enter the city. She followed the stream until it disappeared behind a grate in the outer curtain wall, then climbed the steep, lichen-covered stairs to a postern high in its outer face. Inside, a rope walk stretched across the dry moat to a minor gate set in the inner wall. Below, on either side of the swift water, were the kennels, catteries, and mews that catered to the sporting element among the city's rich folk.
Jame was two-thirds of the way across when she happened to look down and saw a man walk up to a small backwater carrying a weighted sack that appeared to be moving. He threw it in. Instantly such a feeling of panic swept over her that she almost fell. Close, wet, no air . . . she scrambled over the guide rope and dove clumsily. It was a long way down. The water hit her like a body blow, driving air out between her teeth. My God! she suddenly thought, halfway to the bottom. Do I know how to swim? At any rate, she clearly knew how to sink and was rapidly doing so in water that proved surprisingly deep and shockingly cold. Weeds rippled in the current below. Among them nestled many small sacks, only one of them still moving. Fighting down the panic that beat at her, she unsheathed the knife that Dally had insisted she carry and slashed open the bag. A small, furry body wriggled frantically through the slit. They swam upward together and surfaced gasping. The man on the bank stared at her open-mouthed as Jame waded ashore holding the shivering ounce cub.
"What in Perimal's name did you think you were doing?" she demanded, nearly inarticulate with delayed shock and rage.
"Drowning it, of course," the man said, still staring.
"Why?"
"Look at its eyes." Jame did. They were wide with fear and opaque as milk opals. "Blind," said the man regretfully. "Born that way, poor mite. We kept it an extra month hoping they would clear, but this afternoon Master said, 'Right. Dispose of it.' So here I am, and there it is."
"How much?"
He looked at her, puzzled. She forced herself to clarify.
"How much do you want for it?"
"Well now," he said, rubbing his chin, "although it don't look like much now, that's a Royal Gold, one of the rarest cats there is. If it were sound, Master would ask two hundred altars for it or more, but blind . . . well, Master is a hard man. He'd rather destroy it than ask less."
"I'll get the money," Jame said, knowing she spoke nonsense. Two hundred altars was more than half the price of Tubain's seven year charter, enough gold to keep the inn affluent for three seasons. Still, desperation drove her to repeat, "I'll get it, somehow."
The man looked at her, at the trembling cub in her arms. "Well now," he said slowly. "It seems to me that the tyke might as well disappear into the city as into that pool, though Master would ruin me for sure if he ever found out. I'll tell you what: promise never to tell how you came by him, and he's yours."
There was little that Jame would not have promised at that moment. It was only as she hurried away, slipping her prize inside her d'hen for warmth, that she realized there was no way she could ever prove that the cub had not been stolen.
THE SUN SET behind the mountains as Jame walked quickly through the curving streets of the Rim. She was still very wet and fast becoming bitterly cold in Tai-tastigon's sudden twilight with the cub a shaking morsel of ice against her right breast. The mind link she had shared with it in that moment of crisis no longer seemed to exist, although the beast clung to her as tightly as before, its small claws pricking her through her shirt. Perhaps it would return. Now all she felt was the cold and the same vague sense of being followed that had haunted her for so long that she now virtually ignored it. Besides, the inn was just ahead, on the other side of that gatehouse set in the Old Wall. Soon there would be warmth, supper, companionship . . .
In the shadow of the gate's arch, blocking the way, stood three men. The largest was Bortis. He smiled disagreeably but with satisfaction when he saw her and said: "I've a message for you, thief. You aren't to go home tonight. . . nor ever again if you're mindful of your health."
"Oh?" Jame said, bidding for time to rouse her half-frozen wits. "Who shall I thank for this kind warning?"
"Let's just say a friend, and you needn't bother to try going another way. All roads are closed to you tonight. Your friend doesn't want you hurt, but if you should be so ungrateful as to ignore his advice, well, something unpleasant might happen to you." His smile broadened. "In fact," he said softly, "something may happen to you anyway."
Jame took a quick step backward. With her right arm immobilized by the cub, she couldn't fight effectively against such odds. Her only chance lay in flight. Then, simultaneously, she saw Bortis look over her shoulder and sensed too sharply for any doubt that someone was behind her. She whirled. Bane stood there, smiling at her.
"Well, well," he said, regarding the young ounce. "Mother and child. Very pretty. Gentlemen, this lady would like to pass. Have you any objections?"
Bortis grinned and lunged. Bane pushed Jame out of the way and side-stepped. The edge of his left hand cut down on the other's wrist as he shot past. He was behind the man with his right forearm across his throat before the bandit had time to recover. Bane's left hand, now free, came up from his belt gripping bright steel. With a gesture of great delicacy, he pricked Bortis's right eye.
Bortis staggered against a wall with hands to his face. The other two men recoiled from him, too shocked to press the attack.
"Shall we go?" Bane said to Jame, bowing. "Theocandi's spies heard that there might be trouble here tonight," he said as he escorted her to the gate of the Res aB'tyrr. "I thought I'd come to see what was brewing. Shall I stay in case there's more excitement?"
"No!" said Jame. Her stomach twisted at the thought of Bane involved in the hostelry's affairs, even of him setting foot inside its walls. "No thank you," she repeated, trying to be more courteous. "We'll cope. . . Bane, I don't understand you at all."
"You only think you don't," he said with a lazy smile. "You know me as well as you know yourself. Go in, m'lady. Your lips are blue with the cold." And he drew a fingertip down her cheek, turning the sharp nail edge to the jawline where it left a thin line of blood.
Cleppetty was at the kitchen table, chopping meat. For a moment she simply stared at the bedraggled, apologetic apparition that had materialized on her doorstep with dripping clothes and a smear of blood on its face. Then she advanced on Jame purposefully. Minutes later the young ounce was snug in a nest of old aprons by the fire, and Jame, having been shaken out of her wet garments and into a blanket, was sitting beside it, looking rather dazed.
The widow thrust a cup of hot spiced wine into her hands, waited until she had drunk half of it, and then said: "Explain!"
Jame did. Just as she finished, Ghillie and Rothan came in. Rothan was glaring into space with bloodshot eyes, making little whuffling noises deep in his throat. Ghillie, on the other hand, seemed half wild with joy even though his lip was split and bleeding freely.
"You should have seen him!" he crowed. "They said we couldn't pass, we objected, one of them hit me, and Rothan here went at them like a bull with a bee up his butt. It was glorious!"
"Wait a minute," said Cleppetty. "Who are 'they'?"
"Why, some of Marplet's pug-nasties, of course, too far from home to be protected by their precious guards. Oh, we've waited a long time for this! You should have been there with your skillet, Aunt Cleppetty. All we needed to make it perfect was a few cracked skulls."
"I may crack some yet," the widow said, regarding the capering boy balefully. "This doesn't sound good." She went to the door and shouted for Tubain, Kithra, and Taniscent.
"Kithra's out," sang Ghillie, trying to induce Jame to dance with him. "So is Taniscent. I saw her leave with Bortis."
"Bortis!" said Tubain, entering from the courtyard. "When did she start seeing him again?"
"Just about the time he settled into the Skyrrman," said the widow. "I thought you knew. Ghillie, you monkey, calm down. What will the customers think?"
"There aren't any."
"What?" Cleppetty advanced on the boy menacing. "None?"
"Look for yourself!" he cried, ducking behind the still immobile Rothan. "The hall is empty."
At that moment, Kithra burst into the kitchen through the street door. "They're stopping them all," she gasped. "They tried to stop me too, but I got away and ran."
"Who are they stopping?" Cleppetty demanded. "We're all here now but Tanis."
"Why, the customers . . . all our regular people."
"Of course, Marplet's list!" said Jame. "Now he's making use of it, but to what purpose? Surely he doesn't mean to blockade all the streets until Spring's Eve."
"He may not have to," said the widow grimly. "Ghillie, Rothan—wake up, you great lump!—go watch the main approaches to the square. Tuby. . . bless us, where is the man?"
"He went out the courtyard door, madam," said Kithra tactfully. "I think he's gone to warn his wife."
"Hmph! Well, let him go. In these lands, we don't tie our leaders to trees and keep them on the battlefield. Kithra, stay with me. We've got water to draw, just in case. You, missy," she said, turning to Jame, "get some dry clothes on fast and come back down. I've work for you, too."
Jame dropped the blanket and, naked, darted up to the loft. When she came down again, hastily belting her spare d'hen, Cleppetty was waiting with Boo and the sleepy cub in her arms.
"Here," she said, handing both over. "Take them up to Mistress Abernia. They'll be safe there as long as the south wing stands."
Jame crossed the courtyard and climbed the stairs with her charges, conscious with each step of a growing excitement. At last, after nearly five months at the inn, she was about to meet its termagant mistress.
Light shone around the edges of Abernia's door. Jame scratched on its panels tentatively, then rapped with her knuckles.
"Who is it?" the shrill, familiar voice demanded.
"It's Jame, mistress. Cleppetty sent me." She could hear the sound of breathing now, down by the keyhole, and below, the widow's urgent voice barking orders.
"Please, mistress. I've brought the children."
The door opened abruptly, light streaming around the broad figure on the threshold. A powerful hand scooped both the ounce and the cat out of Jame's arms. The door slammed in her face.
"I gather you met her," said the widow drily as Jame reentered the kitchen, looking dazed.
"I-I think so . . . Cleppetty, am I losing my mind, or was that Tubain dressed up in . . ."
"Hush!" The widow glanced hastily out the door to be sure that Kithra was still at the well. "The mistress was already here when Tubain first gave me a home at the Res aB'tyrr. I discovered her secret by accident and have helped to maintain it ever since as it's clear that Tubain needs her. She can face things that he can't, and on her own ground she's a regular lion. Nobody else knows about this, not even Rothan, but it occurred to me tonight that someone else should, in case of an emergency. That's you, for lack of anyone more sensible."
"I'm honored . . . I think."
"You are," she said with a sudden smile. "Now help me get these kettles filled."
But there was no time. Ghillie burst into the kitchen followed by Rothan. "Marplet's men are coming!" the boy gasped. "All of them. Rothan figures thirty; I say closer to fifty. Shall we bar the door?"
"No," said the widow after a moment's rapid thought. "Whatever they have planned, they'll be looking for an excuse to make it seem spontaneous. The fewer opportunities we give them to complain, the better."
"So what do we do?" -
"Wait."
They stood at the kitchen door, listening. Outside, the sound of voices, shouting, laughing raucously, was coming closer. Jame and Ghillie ran to the front windows. Men were entering the square from all directions, calling ironic greetings to each other as though they had met there by chance. The fur-trimmed clothes of some betrayed them as brigands from the hills, doubtless colleagues of Bortis, while Jame recognized others as members of Tai-tastigon's true criminal class, guildless men who would do anything for a price. A loud, mock debate ensued over which inn should be patronized. Ghillie and Jame retreated precipitously to the kitchen just as the front door crashed open and the first of them came tramping into the hall, shouting for the best wine in the house.
"Now what?" said Ghillie, white-faced.
"We serve them," said Cleppetty grimly, "or rather you three do. Kithra stays here with me. They may have special instructions about her." She jumped down from the bench she had been using to reach a high shelf and handed Jame a small black bottle. "Put three drops of this in every tankard. That should confuse them some."
"Confuse" was a mild word for it, Jame thought as she and the others plunged down the steps to the cellar with their first load of empty vessels. Not long ago, Ghillie's girlfriend had teased him into trying some of Cleppetty's special medicine, and he had spent the rest of the day watching green marmosets scamper across the ceiling. Still, three drops wasn't much per glass, and it was a very small bottle. She climbed the steps, two tankards clasped by the grip in each hand, and her courage quailed at the roar that came crashing down to meet her.
The next two hours were a nightmare. Jame, Rothan, and Ghillie were kept continually in motion carrying food and drink to the clamorous mob and suffering everything it could provide by way of pinching, tripping, and general insults. The interlopers were still playing the part of rowdy but otherwise normal customers, except that they missed no opportunity to criticize either the food or the service and got excessive pleasure out of assuring Jame and the others that all accounts would be settled at the end of the evening. The little bottle was long since empty. Some men had taken to staring into space, grinning idiotically, but the majority seemed relatively unaffected.
"How long can this go on?" Ghillie gasped as he and Jame collided on the stair.
In the hall, someone started shouting for Tanis.
"That's done it," said Cleppetty, looking out the kitchen door as the noise grew to a steady, pounding chant.
"Madam, it's all right!" Kithra called from the back door. "I just saw her come in."
"What good is that?" Jame said to the widow. "She can't dance."
At that moment, Taniscent herself entered through the curtains below the minstrels' gallery. Candlelight shimmered on her translucent garments, on skin glowing with scented oils, and the crowd roared at the sight of her. Jame felt her mouth drop open. She thought she had never seen the dancer look more beautiful, or so young. Beside her, the widow growled deep in her throat.
"Sixteen years old, seventeen at most," she said. "How much Dragon's Blood did it take to do that, and who gave it to her?"
Taniscent mounted the table under the central chandelier, the applause of the audience dizzying her with delight. Oh, it was every bit as wonderful as Bortis had promised. This was where she belonged, where she would stay forever. Briefly, she wondered where her handsome lover was and why he had left her to wait for this moment of triumph alone. She would tease him about that later. Now, she would dance as she had never danced before, glorying in her remembered skill, in the youth that again burned so hotly in her veins.
Jame watched, entranced. She had forgotten how good Tanis was, or what enthusiasm she could draw from her audience. But although the men cheered, there was something half-mocking, half-expectant in the echo, and an undercurrent of pure cruelty. Turn, bend, glide . . . the sensual dance went on, separating planes of sense, merging them again in the flickering light. . . and then the change began.
Jame blinked. What place had lines in the lovely face, or flecks of gray in that dark, lustrous hair? Cleppetty gripped her arm fiercely. The waist seemed to be—no, was thickening, the slim ankles likewise. Breasts, glossy with oil, began to sag under the diaphanous fabric. The note of the mob had also changed. Hisses and jeers now interlaced the applause, growing in volume. The sound broke Taniscent's trance of movement. She faltered, looked down in bewilderment at the malicious glee on the faces below, and then caught sight of her own hands where the veins now ran blue and prominent under the skin. With a wail of horror, she fell to her knees. Ghillie and Jame ran to help her, elbowing a way through the jeering crowd to get her to the kitchen. Behind them, the tumult grew.
Cleppetty was putting on her hat and cloak. 'Take her up to her room," she ordered Kithra, then turned to Jame. "Ghillie says that you know how to dance."
"I know the Senetha. D-do you mean you want me to . . ."
"That's right. I'm going out of the district for help, and we've got to buy time either until I return or they get enough wine in them to reinforce the drug. Thank the gods they mean to drink all they can before the burning starts or we would have been finished hours ago."
"B-but Cleppetty, what if they don't like me?"
"That we'll have to risk. Put on one of Tanis's costumes and stand on your head if you have to, but keep their attention." And with that she disappeared out the street door.
Jame stood there gaping after her for a second, then turned and fled up to Taniscent's room with the voice of the mob loud behind her.
KITHRA HAD the dancer in bed and was trying to keep her there. Ignoring them both, Jame burrowed into the chest at the foot of Taniscent's bed, throwing gaudy clothes right and left. Was there anything there that wouldn't fall off her the first step she took? A long black scarf, a pair of diaphanous trousers . . . she tore off her clothes, put the latter on with her own belt to hold them up, slipped the former around her neck, crossed it over her small breasts, tied it in back. One hurried step toward the door and the thought stopped her as though she had run into a wall: one does not dance the Senetha barefaced in public. Someone had told her that emphatically, many times. The half-memory of a face formed, was scattered by a flicker of pain. She snatched up another gauzy scarf. Knotting it around her head like a semi-transparent blindfold, she went out onto the gallery. The wind brought to her the rising clamor from below.
Inside the great hall, chaos reigned. Half the men at least seemed finally to have succumbed to Cleppetty's little black bottle and were either staring into space or stumbling about wild-eyed. Marplet's household toughs were trying to organize them. Then one man more clear-minded than the rest jumped onto the center table, waving a blazing brand. Jame darted into the room. Vaulting onto the table, she caught the man with a fire-leaping kick squarely in the stomach. He disappeared off the other side, doubled up in midair, his torch flying. There was a moment of startled silence as audience and would-be performer stared at each other. Then, taking a deep breath, Jame gave the assembled ruffians a full, ceremonial bow. Hesitantly, she began to dance.
The quavering notes of Ghillie's flute came down from the minstrels' gallery. He had never played for her before and, having no idea what tune to use, had settled for Taniscent's favorite. Worse and worse, Jame thought despairingly, trying to adapt to it. All she needed now was to remind her audience of how different this was from Tanis's usual, provocative performance. In fact, the Senetha was so different that Marplet's bullies were probably still watching her only because they hadn't figured out yet what she was doing.
But the essence of the dance is concentration. Long practice soon made Jame forget her nervousness, and she began to flow through the patterns, feeling the power build in her, around her. There was more of it than she had ever sensed before, dancing alone in the loft. It came from all sides, from the men who watched her open-mouthed. Hunger lay naked on every face. For a moment, the rawness of it took Jame's breath away, and then something deep inside her responded. With a gesture at once reckless and exultant, she clothed herself in their desires. This had happened before, would happen again. In the utter intimacy of the dance, she gave each man what he wanted most, took from him all that he could give without the touch of hand or lip.
Then one by one the upturned faces fell away. In the darkness that followed, golden-eyed shadows whirled with her. Priestess, they whispered in her ear, Chosen of our Lord, feed on us and give us food. Dance! And she danced—in joy, in terror, touching and touched—until all sound faded and she was alone.
When Jame regained her senses, she was kneeling formally on the table. The room was empty except for the widow, who sat watching her intently.
"What time is it?" she asked, stretching with unaccustomed sensuousness.
"Nearly dawn. You've been sitting like that for hours."
Memory returned in part with a rush, freezing her in mid-gesture. "What happened? Did you get help . . . or was I so bad that they all jumped out the windows shrieking?"
"I found a pair of guards who would come, all right," said the widow, "but when we got here there was nothing for them to do. Everyone was gawking at you. Then, when you bowed and sat down at the end, it was as if they couldn't see you anymore. Damnedest thing I've ever seen. We would have had them staggering all over the inn, hunting for you, if I hadn't promised that you'd dance again tonight."
"Oh, Cleppetty, no!"
"Oh, child, yes, if you don't want another riot. But don't worry," she added, grinning fiercely. "We can lay in another supply of black poppy milk by then, though I doubt if you'll need it. You surprised me, missy. I don't know how you did it, skinny thing that you are, but you seduced every man in the room . . . and some women too. Not even Taniscent ever did that."
"Tanis! I'd forgotten about her. How is she?"
"Gone. Kithra left her untended to see how you were doing, and she slipped out. Betrayed, ruined, and replaced all in one night—no wonder she ran away. We'll get her back, though. Whether she dances here or not, this is her home, and now she'll need us more than ever. What you need is sleep. Tomorrow—or rather later today—we'll see about a better costume for you, one not quite so likely to fall off. Now don't make faces at me, missy; like it or not, you've got a new career on your hands.