She had sent it by Haught.

Haught attacked the column and tried for-whatever Tempus was on the other sideof. Tempus and the priest. And the gods.

Damn, it shaped itself into pattern, it shaped all too well: Ischade owned nogods. Haught and the dead man, who made a try that might, succeeding atwhatever they were after-have shaken the town.

Ischade had sent him back to Crit that night Crit came to the riverhouse andnothing had been the same.

He slipped the ring into the light and slipped it onto his finger, the breathgoing short in his throat and the touch of it all but unbearable; it was like adrug. He had not dared wear it into Crit's sight, a token like that. But he woreit when he thought there was no one to see, no one but the Ilsigi passersby whomight see him only as the faceless rider all Stepsons were to the town: he was atype, that was all, he was a power, he was a man with a sword and everyone intown wanted to pretend they had no special reason to look anxiously at a Rankanrider too tall and too hard to be other than what he was. So if that man's eyeswere out of focus and all but senseless, no one noticed. It was only for amoment. It was always, in the last two days, only for a moment, because when heheld that metal in his hand he had a sense of contact with her and his soul wasin one piece again.

He shivered and looked up where a rare straightness of a Sanctuary streetafforded a sliver of sunlight, the gleam of uptown walls.

There was a rattle at the window, a spatter of gravel against the second-storybedroom shutters, and Moria started, her hand to her heart. For a moment she hadthought of some great bird, of claws against her shutters; she expected somesuch visitation, even in the daylight. But she came up off her bed where she hadflung herself, dressed as she was in the stifling, tight-laced satins that werewhat a lady in Sanctuary had to wear, 0 Shalpa and Shipri, so that her headreeled and her senses wanted to leave her every time she climbed stairs orthought too much on her situation.

Now she knew that rattle of gravel for what it was: someone down in the sidelane that led back toward the rear of the house and the stable. Someone who knewwhere her bedroom was, maybe that importunate lord who had beseiged her step;maybe- Shalpa! maybe it was Mor-am come back. Maybe he was in some dire trouble,maybe he needed her, maybe he would try that window, the only one off the streetexcept the servants' and the kitchen at the back.

She went and flung the inside shutters open, looked out and saw a latelyfamiliar, handsome face staring up at her with adoring eyes. At one breath itdrove her to rage that he was back, rage and fear and grief at once, for what hewas, and what a fool he was, and how handsome and how helpless in Her spellswhich had somehow gone all amiss.

"Oh, damn!" She flung open the casement and leaned out, her corset-hard middleleant across the sill and the compression of her ribs all but choking the windout of her as she set her palms on the rough stone. Cold wind stung her face andher exposed front and blew her hair. Loose ribbons hit her in the face. "Goaway!" she cried. "Hasn't my doorkeeper told you? Go away!"

The lord Tasfalen looked up with a flourish of his elegant hands, a glance ofhis eyes that would melt a harder heart than an ex-thief's. "My lady, forgiveme-no! Listen to me. I know a secret-"

She had started to pull back. Now she leaned there all dizzy in the wind, withthe air chilling her upper breasts and her bare arms, and her heart beating sothat the whole scene took on an air of unreality, as if something thrummedunnaturally in her veins, as if the feeling that had come on her when Haughttouched her and turned her like this went on happening and happening and growingin her, so that she was a danger and a Power herself, poor Moria of the gutters,a candle to singe this poor lord's wings, when a conflagration waited for him, aburning that was Power of a scope to drink them both down....

"0 fool," she moaned, seeing that face, hearing that word secret and thaturgency in his voice. It had as well be both of them in the fire. "Come roundback," she hissed, and closed the casement and the shutters without thinkinguntil then that she had just asked a lord of Sanctuary to come in by thescullery, and that at her merest word he was going to do it.

She stepped into her slippers, unable to bend in the corset, and worked one andthe other on with a perilous hop and a catch-step as she headed out to thestairs, saving herself on the railings as she flew down in a flurry of too manydamned Beysib petticoats that kept her from seeing her feet or the steps. Shefetched up at the bottom out of breath, with a catch at the newel-post and ananguished glance at a thief-maid who gawped at her.

"There's a man out back," Moria said, and pointed. "Go let him in."

"Aye, mum," the gaptoothed girl said, and tucked up her curls under her scarfand went clattering off in unaccustomed, too-large shoes to see to that. Themaid was one of those who had come for the Dinner; and stayed, Moria not knowinganything else to do with her. Like the new chef. As if She had forgotten abouteverything, and left her with this huge staff and all these people to take careof, and, gods, she had given Mor-am part of the house accounts, had given himtoo much. Ischade would find it out. She would find this out....

Moria heard the maid clattering and clumping along the back hall, heard the dooropen, and went into the drawing room where there was a mirror. She stood therehunting her hair for pins to put the curls back in place.

0 gods, is that me? Am I like this, this ain't me, outside, this is Haught'sdoing and She's got Haught by now. She has. Maybe She's outright killed him,taken him into Her bed and thrown him in the river an' all-like She'll throw me,all these damn' beggars to come on me in the night and cut my throat- 0 gods,look at my face. I'm prettier'n Her, She must've seen that-

A step sounded in the hall. A face appeared in the mirror beside her own. Sheturned, dropping her hands as a curl tumbled loose, her breast heaved-shesuddenly knew what effect she projected, natural as breathing and dangerous as aspider.

She saw adoration glowing in Tasfalen's face, and the terrified pounding of herheart and the constriction of the laces brought on that raininess again.

"What secret?" she asked. And Tasfalen came and seized up her hand in his, inone move closer to her than she had planned to let him get. He smelled of spicesand roses.

Like a flower seller. Or a funeral.

"That I want you," Tasfalen said, "and that you're in deadly danger."

"What-danger?"

He let go her hand and took her by both shoulders, staring closely into hereyes. "Gossip. Rumors. You've become known in town and someone has slanderedyou-incredible slander. I won't repeat all of it. Say that you've been accusedof- trafficking with terrorists. Of being catspaw for-Is that part true? Thatwoman, that dark woman-I know her name, dear lady. My sources are highly placed.And they mention your name-" His eyes rolled toward the uptown height, towardthe palace, the while he slid his hands to hers and drew them against him. "Iwant to take you into my house. You understand, you'll be safe there. In alluncertainties. I have connections, and resources. I place them all at yourdisposal."

"I can't, I daren't, I daren't leave-"

"Moria." He gathered her against him, hugged her so tightly that the sense halfleft her, tilted her face up and brought his mouth down on hers, which wasperhaps all he could do, being a fool; and perhaps there was something wrongwith her too, because his touching her did something to her that only Haught haddone before, of many, many men, some for money and some for need and most ofthem come to grief and no good in the scattering of the hawkmasks. That was aworld that had nothing to do with the silk and the perfume and the smell and thecraziness of the uptown lord who smothered the breath that was left in her andran his hands over her with an abandon that would have gotten him a knife in thegut back in her old wild days, but which now, through the lacings and the silkand the lace, made her think nothing in the world so desirable as shed ding allthat binding and breathing and doing what she had wanted to do with this mansince first she had laid eyes on him there on her doorstep. He would not be likeHaught, not reserved, not holding so much of himself back: this man was fevermad, and it was all going to happen right here in the drawing-room for theservants and all to gawk at if she did not prevent him....