Despite the chaos the children caused, she always let the girls keep them ifthey wanted to. With the girl-children there was no problem with their earningtheir keep; no virgin was ever too ugly. But the boy-children were apprenticedoff at the earliest possible age. Their wages were garnished to support the ongoing concern that was the Aphrodisia House.

'There is a soldier at the front door, Madame.' One of the girls who had beencleaning the lower rooms interrupted as Myrtis spread a thick blue-veined cheeseover her bread. 'He demands to see you, madame.'

'Demands to see me?' Myrtis laid down the cheese knife. 'A soldier has nothingthat "demands" to see me at the front door. At this hour, soldiers are less usethan tradesmen. Send him around to the back.'

The girl ran back up the stairs. Myrtis finished spreading her cheese on thebread. She had eaten half of it when a tall man cast a shadow over her privatedining alcove.

'You are blocking my sunlight, young man,' she said without looking up.

'You are Madame Myrtis, proprietress of this ... brothel?' he demanded withoutmoving.

'You are blocking my sunlight and my view of the garden.'

He stepped to one side.

'The girls are not available during the day. Come back this evening.'

'Madame Myrtis, I am Zaibar, captain of Prince Kadakithis's personal guard. Ihave not come to inquire after the services of your girls.'

'Then what have you come for?' she asked, looking up for the first time.

'By order of Prince Kadakithis, a tax of ten gold pieces for every woman livingon the Street of Red Lanterns is to be levied and collected at once if they areto be allowed to continue to practise their trade without incurring officialdispleasure.'

Only the slight tensing ofMyrtis's hand betrayed her indignation at Zaibar'sstatement. Her voice and face remained dispassionately calm.

'The royal concubines are no longer pleasing?' she replied with a sneeringsmile. 'You cannot expect every woman on the Street of Red Lanterns to have tengold pieces. How do you expect them to earn the money for your taxes?'

'We do not expect them to be able to pay 'the tax, madame. We expect to closeyour brothel and every other house like it on the Street. The women, includingyourself, will be sent elsewhere to lead more productive lives.'

Myrtis stared at the soldier with a practised contempt that ended theirconversation. The soldier fingered the hilt of his sword.

'The tax will be collected, madame. You will have a reasonable amount of time toget the money for yourself and the others. Let us say, three days? I'll returnin the evening.'

He turned about without waiting for a reply and left through the back door incomplete silence. Myrtis went back to interrupted breakfast while the staff andthe girls were hysterical with questions and the seeds of rumour. She let thembabble in this manner while she ate; then she strode to the head of the commontable.

'Everything shall continue as usual. If it comes to paying their tax,arrangements will be made. You older girls already have ample gold set aside. Iwill make the necessary adjustments for the newer girls. Unless you doubt me in which case, I'll arrange a severance for you.'

'But madame, if we pay once, they will levy the tax again and again until wecan't pay it. Those Hell Hounds ...' A girl favoured more by intelligence thanbeauty spoke up.

'That is certainly their desire. The Street of Red Lanterns is as old as thewalls of Sanctuary itself. I can assure you that we have survived much worsethan the Hell Hounds.' Myrtis smiled slightly to herself, remembering the otherswho had tried and failed to shut down the Street. 'Cylene, the others will becoming to see me. Send them up to the parlour. I'll wait for them there.'

The emerald day-robe billowed out from behind her as Myrtis ascended thestaircase to the lower rooms and up again to her parlour. In the privacy of herrooms, she allowed her anger to surface as she paced.

'Ambutta!' She shouted, and the young girl who attended her appeared.

'Yes, madame?'

'I have a message for you to carry.' She sat a't the writing table composing themessage as she spoke to the still-out-of-breath girl. 'It is to be delivered inthe special way as before. No one must see you leave it. Do you understand (hat?If you cannot leave it without being seen, come back herd Don't let yourselfbecome suspicious.'

The girl nodded. She tucked the freshly folded and sealed message into thebodice of her ragged cast-off dress and ran from the room. In time, Myrtisexpected her to be a beauty, but she was still very much a child. The messageitself was to Lythande, who preferred not to be contacted directly. She wouldnot rely on the magician to solve the Street's problems with the Hell Hounds,but no one else would understand her anger or alleviate it.

The Aphrodisia House dominated the Street. The Hell Hounds would come to herfirst, then visit the other establishments. As word of the tax spread, the othermadams would begin a furtive pilgrimage to the back entrance of the Aphrodisia.They looked to Myrtis for guidance, and she looked out the window forinspiration. She had not found one by the time her guests began to appear.

'It's an outrage. They're trying to put us on the streets like common whores!'Dylan of the artificially flaming red hair exclaimed before sitting in the chairMyrtis indicated to her.

'Nonsense, dear,' Myrtis explained calmly. 'They wish to make us slaves and sendus to Ranke. In a way, it is a compliment to Sanctuary.'

'They can't do such a thing!'

'No, but it will be up to us to explain that to them.'

'How?'.

'First we'll wait until the others arrive. I hear Amoli in the hall; the otherswon't be long in coming.'

It was a blatant stall for time on Myrtis's part. Other than her conviction thatthe Hell Hounds and their prince would not succeed where others had failed inthe past, Myrtis had no idea how to approach the utterly incorruptible elitesoldiers. The other madams of the Street talked among themselves, exchanging theinsight Myrtis had revealed to Dylan, and reacting poorly to it. Myrtis watchedtheir reflections in the rough-cut glass.

They were all old. More than half of them had once worked for her. She hadwatched them age in the unkind manner that often overtakes youthful beauty andtransforms it into grotes-querie. Myrtis might have been the youngest of them young enough to be working in the houses instead of running one of them. Butwhen she turned from the window to face them, there was the unmistakable glintof experience and wisdom in her eyes.

'Well, it wasn't really a surprise,' she began. It was rumoured before Kittycatgot here, and we've seen what has happened to the others the Hell Hounds havebeen turned loose on. I admit I'd hoped that some of the others would have heldtheir ground better and given us a bit more time.'

'Time wouldn't help. I don't have a hundred gold pieces to give them!' A womanwhose white-paste make-up cracked around her eyes as she spoke interruptedMyrtis.

'You don't need a hundred gold pieces!' A similarly made-up woman snarled back.

'The gold is unimportant.' Myrtis's voice rose above the bickering. 'If they canbreak one of us, they can drive us all out.'

'We could close our doors; then they'd suffer. Half of my men are from Ranke.'

'Half of all our men are, Gelicia. They won the war and they've got the money,'Myrtis countered. 'But they'll kowtow to the Hell Hounds, Kittycat, and theirwives. The men of Ranke are very ambitious. They'll give up much to preservetheir wealth and positions. If the prince is officially frowning on the Street,their loyalties will be less strained if we have closed our doors withoutputting up a fight.'