'A thief. And competent, you say.' Bourne scratched his thigh under the tunic ofhis Hell Hound's uniform. He glanced around the apartment she occupied on nightswhen the prince might come - hours from now. 'And he has a valuable halter ofyou now, to sell. Perhaps to brag about and get you into trouble. That kind oftrouble ends in death, Lirain.'

'You find it hard to admit that I a woman - have accomplished this, love? Lookhere, that gourd-holster was stolen today in the market-place. Sliced through inback and snatched off, in a single act. Some child of about thirteen, a dirtygirl who ran off with it like a racing dromedary. I did not tell anyone becauseI so hated its loss and am so mortified.'

'All right. Maybe. That's not bad - forget the part about its being sliced inback, lest it turn up whole. Hmm - I guess it won't. Likely perfectly good silkwill be dumped while the pearls and gold thread are sold. And how competent washe at the couching, Lirain?'

Lirain looked to the heavens. '0 Sabellia, and we call Thee the Sharp-TonguedOne! Men! Plague and drought. Bourne, can't you be more than a man? He was ...fair. That's all. I was on business. We are on business, love. Our assignmentfor those "certain interested nobles" back in Ranke - my hind leg, it's theEmperor himself, worried about his half-brother's pretty golden-hairedmagnetism! - is to embarrass His pretty golden-haired Highness K-adakithis! He'sbeen doing that well enough all by himself! Trying to implement civilized law inthis roach-nest of a town! Continuing to insist that temples to Savankala andSabellia have to be mightier than the one to the Ils these people worship, andthat Vashanka's must be equal to Ils's. Priests hate him and merchants hate himand thieves hate him - and thieves make this town go!'

Bourne nodded - and demonstrated his strength by drawing a fifteen-inch daggerto clean his nails.

Lirain tossed her girdle of silver links on to a pile of cushions and idlyfingered her navel. 'Now we provide the finishing touch. There will never be athreat to the Emperor from this pretty boy's supporters again! We help Hanse theroach into the palace.'

'After which he is absolutely on his own,' he said, pointing with the dagger.'We've got to be uncompromised.'

'Oh,' she said flaunting, 'I shall be a-couching with His Highness! Thewhile, Hanse steals his Rod of Authority: the Savankh of Ranke, given himpersonally by the Emperor as symbol of full authority here! Hanse will wishto negotiate a private, quiet trade with Kittycat. Rod for a fat ransom, andhis safety. We will be busily seeing that word gets around. A thief broke intothe palace and stole the Savankh! And the Prince-Governor is the laughing stockof the capital! He'll either rot here - or, worse still, be recalled indisgrace.'

The big man lounging so familiarly on her divan nodded slowly. 'I do have topoint out that you may well rot here with him.'

'Oh, no. You and I are promised reprieve from this midden-heap town. And ...Bourne ... particularly if we heroically regain the Savankh for the honour ofthe Empire. After its theft is just terribly well known, of course.'

'Now, that's good!' Bourne's brows tipped up and his lips pursed, a ratherobscene spectacle between the bushiness of brown moustache and beard. 'And howdo we do that? You going to trade this Hanse another halter for it?'

She looked long at him. Coolly, brows arched above blue-lidded eyes. 'What'sthat in your hand. Guardian; Hell Hound so loyal to His Highness?'

Bourne regarded the dagger in his big hairy hand, looked at Lirain, and began tosmile.

*

Though hardly beloved nor indeed particularly lovable, Hanse was a member of thecommunity. Though a paid ally, the customs inspector was not. Hanse heard fromthree sources that Cusharlain had been asking after him, on behalf of someoneelse. After giving that thought, Hanse traded with a grimy little thief. FirstHanse reminded him that he could easily take the five truly fine melons the boyhad been so deft as to steal, all in an afternoon. The boy agreed to accept alongish, stiffish piece of braided gold thread, and Hanse gained four melons.With his hilt and then thumb, Hanse made a nice depression in the top of each.Into each he tucked a nice pearl; four of his thirty-four.

These he set before the hugely fat and grossly misnamed Moonflower, a S'danzowho liked food, melons, pearls, Hanse, and proving that she was more than a merecharlatan. Many others were. Few had the Gift. Even the cynical Hanse wasconvinced that Moonflower had.

She sat on a cushioned stool of extra width and sturdy legs. Her pile of red andyellow and green skirts overflowed it, while disguising the fact that so did hervast backside. Her back was against the east wall of the tired building whereinshe and her man and seven of their brood of nine dwelt, and wherein her man sold... things. Hanse sat cross-legged before her. Looking boyish without his armsheaths and in a dusty tunic the colour of an old camel. He watched a pearldisappear under Moonflower's shawl into what she called her treasure chest. Hewatched the melon disappear between her lavender-painted lips. Swiftly.

'You are such a good boy, Hanse.' When she talked, Moonflower was a kitten.

'Only when I want something, passionflower.'

She laughed and beamed and tousled his hair for he knew that such talk pleasedher. Then he told her the story. Handed her, disguised in carefully smudgedrusset, a strip of silken cloth: two straps and two cupped circles bearing manythread-holes.

'Ah! You've been visiting a lady in the Path of Money! Nice of you to letMoonflower have four of the pearls you've laboriously sliced off this littlesheath!'

'She gave it me for services rendered.' He waved a hand.

'Oh, of course. Hmm.' She folded it, unfolded it, fondled it, drew it throughher dimple-backed hands, sniffed and tasted it with a dainty tongue-tip. A grosskitten at her divining. She closed her eyes and was very still. As Hanse was,waiting.

'She is indeed a c- what you said,' she told him, able to be discreet eventhough in something approaching a trance. 'Oh, Shadowspawn! You are involved ina plot beyond your dreaming. Odd - this must be the Emperor I see, watching fromafar. And this big man with your - acquaintance. A big man with a big beard. Ina uniform? I think so. Close to our ruler, both. Yet ... ahh ... they are hisenemies. Yes. They plot. She is a serpent and he a lion of no little craft. Theyseek ... ah, I see. The Prince-Governor has become faceless. Yes. They seek tocost him face.' Her eyes opened to stare wide at him, two big garnets set amid aheavy layer of kohl. 'And you, Hanse my sweet, are their tool.'

They stared at each other for a moment. 'Best you vanish for a time,Shadowspawn. You know what becomes of tools once they are no longer needed.'

'Discarded,' he snarled, not even bemoaning the loss of Lirain's denudedbandeau, which Moonflower made vanish within a shawl-buried vaster one.

'Or,' she said, keeping him fixed by her gaze, 'hung up.'

Lirain and her (uniformed?) confederate were tools then, Hanse reasoned,prowling the streets. Prince Kadakithis was nice to look at, and charismatic. Sohis imperial half-brother had sent him way out here, to Sanctuary. Now he wantedhim sorely embarrassed here. Hanse could see the wisdom of that, and knew thatdespite what any might say, the Emperor was no fool. So, then. They two plotted.Lirain gained enough knowledge of Hanse to employ Cusharlain to investigate him.She had found a way to effect their meeting. Yes; though it hurt his ego, headmitted to himself that she had made the approach and the decisions. So now hewas their tool. A tool of tools!