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4

"Jular bor-Raydiman!" announced the maid, bowing as she passed the titular head of Erdin's City Patrols into the drawing room where Ilna waited on a couch beneath the south windows.

Jular bowed as Ilna rose to greet him. "Mistress Ilna," he said. "Such a pleasure to meet you at last."

The nobleman wasn't often up this early—didn't often get up this early, though sometimes his nights ran this late. A summons from the mysterious Mistress Ilna wasn't something he cared to turn down, however.

The windows were ceiling-high. Jular had expected tapestries; after all, the woman was supposed to be a weaver. There was nothing of the sort, just a shawl of gray-shaded wool over the couch. The furnishings were limited to a pier glass; a wardrobe chest of burl walnut, well made but of simple design; and the couch. Jular's eyes turned to the couch instinctively.

"No," Ilna said as she walked toward the wardrobe, "that's not why you're here, Master Jular."

She was an attractive little thing. Stiff-backed, but he rather liked that sort. When they finally broke there was no reserve, no spirit left.

Ilna turned to him and smiled. Jular hated spiders, feared them worse than he feared death itself. For an instant—

The world was normal again. Jular lowered the hand he'd instinctively clutched to his heart.

"I told you," the woman said, "that's not why you're here." She opened the lid of the chest.

Jular was a fleshy man but still young enough to appear handsome in a bad light. The light in this east drawing room was very good indeed. He was breathing hard after the shock, the illusion, and he'd have sat down without asking if there'd been a chair available.

There was only the couch. He'd rather have died than sit there.

"Come over here," Ilna directed as she closed the wardrobe and laid the three packets she'd taken out on its lid.

Part of Jular's mind told him that he ought to be angry at being ordered around by a commoner—and a woman besides. That wasn't why he hesitated, though.

Ilna gave him a grin that was just short of a sneer. "Come," she repeated. "I won't bite you. I need you, the position you fill at least."

Jular obeyed because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn't. He hadn't spoken since his initial greeting, a time that seemed from a former life.

"I want two people arrested and brought to me," Ilna said, unrolling one of the packets of cloth. "I don't want them harmed—"

She fixed Jular with a look of anger that he'd done nothing to justify. He'd done nothing! 

"Under no circumstances are they to be harmed," she said. "Do you understand that? Answer me."

"I understand," Jular said after swallowing. "Ah...mistress? I think you may misunderstand the extent of my involvement with, ah, the duties of arresting people and this sort of thing. In fact—"

"Yes, I know," Ilna interrupted. "You're a fat fool who probably doesn't know where the city's prison is. You have the title simply because other nobles think that one of their own sort should be in charge of important ministries on paper. But they'll take orders from you if you give them, won't they?"

Jular had been called many vile things during his life. The inflection this woman put on "sort" made it far the worst insult he'd ever heard.

He cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "Yes, I suppose they will. I've done favors in the past, of course...."

For others of my own sort.

Ilna nodded as she spread two of the rolls of cloth on the wardrobe. "That's what I assumed," she said. "A ship chartered by Benlo bor-Benliman arrived in port the day before yesterday. These two persons were probably aboard it. They're the ones I want brought to me. If they've left Erdin, I want to know where they went."

Jular looked at two portraits in fabric; they were astonishingly realistic. They were of a young man with an unfashionably dark complexion, and of a strikingly beautiful black-haired woman.

"They may be going by the names Garric or-Reise and Liane os-Benlo," Ilna said. "You can have these sketched by artists so that every member of the Patrols has a copy of both pictures."

"Yes..." Jular said. He'd have agreed that he was the son of a donkey driver under the present circumstances. "I suppose they have people who can do that."

Ilna rolled the portraits again, each within its separate covering of baize. "I suppose you're wondering what's in this for you?" she said as she worked.

All Jular was thinking about was how he was going to get out of this house, away from this woman. He didn't know what would happen if he ran. There were a number of husky male servants in the mansion, but it wasn't them whom he feared.

She handed him the portraits and weighed the third roll of fabric in her hand. "This is for you when you've accomplished your task," she said. "It's exactly what you need for your off-duty pursuits."

Her brief smile was insulting, but Jular was beyond insult by now. "You've heard about my work, no doubt?" she added.

"Yes," Jular said, interested despite all the negative emotions boiling through his mind. "Yes I have, mistress. This cloth—"

He gestured but didn't try to touch the roll.

"—has the effect on women that your other cloth is said to have on men?"

"No," Ilna said curtly. "For that you'd have to go to another weaver, a man I suppose—if anything of the sort exists. But this can be used to the same effect."

She unrolled a length of the fabric and held it over the back of her left forearm as though she were a shop assistant and he a customer. Objectively it was black lace of gossamer delicacy, valuable no doubt to a person who cared about such things.

Subjectively it lit in Jular a desire such as he had never imagined could exist. He wanted this woman, wanted to abase himself before her, to surrender himself utterly...

And all the time he knew that her poison fangs would drain him dry and leave him an empty husk beneath her web. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that he had to have her.

Ilna covered the fabric again. Jular caught himself on the wardrobe with his palms flat. He looked out the window until he'd gotten his breath.

"This is of a much higher quality than the ribbons others have purchased," Ilna said to his averted head. There was a cat's smile in her voice. "As a bribe, I think you'll find it more than satisfactory. Virtuous women who couldn't possibly be brought to your bed by gold will nonetheless meet whatever price you set for the chance to be irresistible to the man of their desires."

Jular had control of himself. He straightened.

"I suppose they'll hold their noses while they're with you," Ilna continued, "but that isn't a matter of concern, is it, Jular? You're just interested in adding them to your little list."

Jular looked at her. He was no longer afraid: he'd achieved the safety of abject surrender. He would do absolutely anything for this woman in order to be free of her. She knew that, and she was still offering a payment for which he would have exchanged half his considerable personal fortune.

Jular weighed the two rolled portraits, unconsciously mimicking Ilna's gesture of a moment before. "Yes, I'll take care of this at once," he said. "Why are you interested—"

He caught himself. "No, that's none of my business, of course," he said.

He looked again at the rolls and shrugged. "The girl's a pretty thing, isn't she?" he said. "But that's none of my business either, I know. That lace will suffice me for some time to come, I'm sure."

"We understand each other," Ilna said. She rang a small bell. "Good day, Master Jular."

Jular saw himself in the pier glass. His smile was as foul as the expression on the face of a long-dead corpse. He didn't care; he knew what he was, and he didn't care.

"Good day, mistress," he said. The maid opened the door for him. Jular was only peripherally aware that the maid was female. All that mattered was that he was leaving.

And that if he succeeded in arresting two nobodies, he would never have to face Ilna's smile again.

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