“We will see how slow business is,” the black woman said. She gestured for me to mount behind one or the other of her companions, then smiled to see me stand flat-footed, frightened now for the first time and hot with shame to be so. But I was not sharing any saddle with any fox, and it was beyond me to take the least step toward that white, burning woman. Lal’s smile widened, making the corners of her eyes tilt up. “With me, then,” she said, and I scrambled to join her, clinging as though I had never been on a horse before. Her leather garments smelled of weariness and the sea, but under that smell was Lal’s own. I said, “Three miles to the crossroad and a mile west,” and I forgot Marinesha for the rest of that day.

My name is Karsh. I am not a bad man. I am not a particularly good one, either, though honest enough in my trade. Nor am I at all brave—if I were, I would be some kind of soldier or sailor. And if I could write even such a song as that nonsense about those three women which someone has put my name to, why, then I would be a songwriter, a bard, since I would certainly be fit for nothing else. But what I am fit for is what I am, everything I am. Karsh the innkeeper. Fat Karsh.

They talk foolishness about me now, since those women were here. Since that song. Now I am all mystery, a man from nowhere; now I am indeed supposed to have been a soldier, to have traveled the world, seen terrible things, done terrible things, changed my name and my life to hide from my past. Foolishness. I am Karsh the innkeeper, like my father, like his father, and the only other country I have ever seen is the farmland around Sharan-Zek, where I was born. But I have lived here for almost forty years, and run The Gaff and Slasher for thirty, and they know that, every one of them. Foolishness.

The boy brought those women here to devil me, of course, or else simply to make me overlook his slipping off after that butterfly-brained Marinesha. He can smell strangeness—has that from me, at least—he knew those three were not what they seemed, and that I want no part of any such folk, no matter how well they pay. Mischief enough with the usual lot of drunken farmers on their way to Limsatty Fair. All he had to do was direct them to the convent seven or eight miles east: the Shadowsisters, as we call them. But no, no, he must needs bring them to my door, fox and all. Fox and all. That bloody fox is in the song, too.

When they rode into my courtyard, I came out—I’d been polishing glass and crockery myself, since there’s no one else to trust with it around this place—took one good look at them and said, “We’re full up, stables, everything, sorry.” As I told you, I am neither brave nor greedy, merely a man who has kept house for strangers all his life.

The black one smiled at me. She said, “I an told otherwise.” I have heard such an accent before, very long ago, and there are two oceans between my door and the country where people speak like that. The boy slid down from her saddle, keeping the horse between us, as well he might. The black woman said, “We need only one room. We have money.”

I did not doubt that, journey-fouled and frayed as all three of them looked—any innkeeper worth his living knows such things without thinking, as he knows trouble when it comes asking to sleep under his roof and eat his mutton. Besides, the boy had made a liar of me, and I am a stubborn man. I said, “We have some empty rooms, yes, but they are unfit for you, the rains got into the walls last winter. Try the convent, or go on into town, you’ll have your choice of a dozen inns.” Whatever you think of me, hearing this, I was right to lie, and I would do it again.

But I would do it better a second time. The black woman still smiled, but her hands, as though twitching nervously, fidgeted at the long cane she carried across her saddle. Rosewood, very handsome, we make nothing like that in this country. The curved handle twisted a quarter-turn, and a quarter-inch of steel winked cheerfully at me. She never glanced down, saying only, “We will take whatever you have.”

Aye, and didn’t that prove true enough, though? The swordcane was the end of the matter, of course, but I tried once again; to save my honesty, in a way, though you won’t understand that. “The stables wouldn’t suit a sheknath,” I told her. “Leaky roof, damp straw. I’d be ashamed to put horses as fine as yours in those stalls.”

I cannot recall her answer—not that it makes the least difference—first, because I was looking hard at that boy, daring him to say other and second, because in the next moment the fox had wriggled out of the brown woman’s saddlebag, leaped to the ground and was on his way due north with a setting hen by the neck. I roared, imbecile dogs and servants came running, the boy gave chase as hotly as if he hadn’t personally brought that animal here to kill my chicken, and for the next few moments there was a great deal of useless dust and clamor raised in the courtyard. The white woman’s horse almost threw her, I remember that.

The boy had the stomach to come sneaking back, I’ll say that much for him. The brown woman said, “I am sorry about the hen. I will pay you.” Her voice was lighter than the black woman’s, smoother, with a glide and a sidestep to it. South-country, but not born there. I said, “You’re right about that. That was a young hen, worth twenty coppers in any market.” Too much by a third, but you have to do that, or they won’t respect a thing you own. Besides, I thought I saw a way out of this whole stupid business. I told her, “If I see that fox again, I’ll kill it. I don’t care if it’s a pet, so was my hen.” Well, Marinesha was fond of it, at least. They suited each other nicely, those two.

The brown woman looked flustered and angry, and I was hopeful that they might just throw those twenty coppers in my face and ride on, taking their dangers with them. But the black one said, still toying with that sword-cane without once looking at it, “You will not see it again, I promise you that. Now we would like to see our room.”

So there was nothing for it, after all. The boy led their horses away, and Gatti Jinni—Gatti Milk-Eye, the children call him that—my porter, he took in what baggage they had, and I led them to the second-floor room that I mainly keep for tanners and fur traders. I already knew I wouldn’t get away with it, and as soon as the black one raised an eyebrow I took them on to the room where what’s-her-name from Tazinara practiced her trade for a season. Contrast, you see; most people jump at it after that other one. Swear on your gods that you practice no such sleights, and that dinner’s a gift, fair enough?

Well, the black woman and the brown looked around the room and then looked at me, but what they had it in mind to say, I never knew, because by then the white one was at me—and I mean at me, you understand, like that fox after the broody hen. She hadn’t said a word since the three of them arrived, except to quiet that jumpy horse of hers. Up until then, I could have told you nothing about her but that she wore an emerald ring and sat her saddle as though she were far more used to riding bareback on a plowhorse. But now, quicker than that fox—at least I saw the fox move—she was a foot away from me, whispering like fire, saying, “There is death in this room, death and madness and death again. How dare you bring us here to sleep?” Her eyes were earth-brown, plain peasant eyes like my mother’s, like most of the eyes I ever saw. Very strange they always looked to me, that pale, pale face burning around them.

Mad as a durli in the whistling time, of course. I won’t say that I was frightened of her, exactly, but I certainly was afraid of what she knew and how she knew it. The Gaff and Slasher had a bad name before I bought it, just because of a killing in that same room—and another in the wine cellar, for the matter of that. And yes, there was some bad business when the woman from Tazinara had the room. One of her customers, a young soldier it was, went lunatic—came there lunatic, if you ask me—and tried to murder her with a crossbow. Missed her at point-blank range, jumped out the window and broke his idiot neck. Yes, of course, you know the story, like everyone else in three districts—how else could fat Karsh have bought the place so cheaply?—but this pale child’s voice came from the south, maybe Grannach Harbor, maybe not, and in any case she could not possibly have known which room it was. She could not have known the room.