'Madame?'

Ambutta peered around the doorway .when the flow of gentlemen had abatedslightly.

'The kitchen says that we have enough food for ten days, but less of ordinarywine and the like.'

Myrtis touched the feather of her pen against her temple.

'Ten days? Someone has grown lax. Our storerooms can hold enough for manymonths. But ten days is all we will have, and it will have to be enough. Tellthe kitchen to place no orders with the tradesmen tomorrow or the next day, andsend word to the other backdoors. - .

'And, Ambutta, Irda will carry my messages in the future. It is time that youwere taught more important and useful things.'

A steady stream of merchants and tradesmen made their way through the AphrodisiaHouse to Myrtis's parlour late the next morning as the effects of her ordersbegan to be felt in the town.

'But Madame Myrtis, the tax isn't due yet, and surely the Aphrodisia House hasthe resources ...' The puffy-faced gentleman who sent meat to half the houses onthe Street was alternately irate and wheedling. .

'In such unsettled times as these, good Mikkun, I cannot look to luxuries likeexpensive meats. I sincerely wish that this were not true. The taste of saltedmeat has always reminded me of poverty. But the governor's palace does not careabout the poverty of those who live outside its walls, though it sends itsforces to tax us,' Myrtis said in feigned helplessness.

In deference to the sad occasion she had not put on one of the brightlyembroidered day-robes as was her custom but wore a Soberly cut dress of afashion outdated in Sanctuary at least twenty years before. She had taken offher jewellery, knowing that its absence would cause more rumours than if she hadindeed sold a part of it to the gem-cutters. An atmosphere of austerityenveloped the house and every other on the Street, as Mikkun could attest, forhe'd visited most of them.

'But madame, I have already slaughtered two cows! For three years I haveslaughtered the cows first to assure you the freshest meat early in the day.Today, for no reason, you say you do not want my meat! Madame, you already havea debt to me for those two cows!'

'Mikkun! You have never, in all the years I've known you, extended credit to anyhouse on the Street and now ... now you're asking me to consider my dailypurchases a debt to you!' She smiled disarmingly to calm him, knowing full wellthat the butcher and the others depended on the hard gold from the Street to paytheir own debts.

'There will be credit in the future!'

'But we will not be here to use it!' "

Myrtis let her face take on a mournful pout. Let the butcher and his friendsstart dunning the 'respectable' side of Sanctuary, and word would spread quicklyto the palace that something was amiss. A 'something' which she would explain tothe Hell Hound captain, Zaibar, when he arrived to collect the tax. The tradesman left her parlour muttering prophecies of doom she hoped would eventually beheard by those in a position to worry about them.

'Madame?'

Ambutta's child-serious face appeared in the doorway moments after the butcherhad left. Her ragged dress had already been replaced with one of a more maturecut, brighter colour, and new cloth.

'Amoli waits to speak with you. She is in the kitchen now. Shall I send her up?'

'Yes, bring her up.'

Myrtis sighed after Ambutta left. Amoli was her only rival on the Street. Shewas a woman who had not learned her trade in the upper rooms of the Aphrodisia,and also one who kept her girls working for her through their addiction to krrf,which she supplied to them. If anyone on the Street was nervous about the tax,though, it was Amoli; she had very little gold to spare. The smugglers hadrecently been forced by the same Hell Hounds to raise the price of a wellrefined brick of the drug to maintain their own profits.

'Amoli, good woman, you look exhausted.'

Myrtis assisted a woman less than a third her age to the love-seat.

'May I get you something to drink?'

'Qualis, if you have any.' Amoli paused while Myrtis passed the request along toAmbutta. 'I can't do it, Myrtis - this whole scheme of yours is impossible. Itwill ruin me!'

The liqueur arrived. Ambutta carried a finely wrought silver tray with one glassof the deep red liquid. Amoli's hands shook violently as she grasped the glassand emptied it in one gulp. Ambutta looked sagely to her mistress; the othermadam was, perhaps, victim of the same addiction as her girls?

'I've been approached by Jubal. For a small fee, he will send his men up heretomorrow night to ambush the Hell Hounds. He has been looking for an opportunityto eliminate them. With them gone, Kittycat won't be able to make trouble forus.'

'So Jubal is supplying the krrf now?' Myrtis replied without sympathy.

'They all have to pay to land their shipments in the Night Secrets, or Jubalwill reveal their activities to the Hell Hounds. His plan is fair. I can dealwith him directly. So can anyone else - he trades in anything. But you andLythande will have to unseal the tunnels so his men face no undue risk tomorrownight.'

The remnants of Myrtis's cordiality disappeared. The Golden Lily had beenisolated from the rat's nest of passages on the Street when Myrtis realized theextent of krrf addiction within it. Unkind experience warned her against mixingdrugs and courtesans. There were always men like Jubal waiting for the firstsign of weakness, and soon the houses were nothing more than slaver's dens; themadams forgotten. Jubal feared magic, so she had asked Lythande to seal thetunnels with eerily visible wards. So long as she - Myrtis - lived, the Streetwould be hers, and not Jubal's, nor the city's.

'There are other suppliers whose prices are not so high. Or perhaps Jubal haspromised you a place in his mansion? I have heard he learned things besidesfighting in the pits of Ranke. Of course, his home is hardly the place forsensitive people to live.'

Myrtis wrinkled her nose in the accepted way to indicate someone who livedDownwind. Amoli replied with an equally understandable gesture of insult andderision, but she left the parlour without looking back.

The problems with Jubal and the smugglers were only just beginning. Myrtispondered them after Ambutta removed the tray and glass from the room. Jubal'sruthless ambition was potentially more dangerous than any threat radiatingdirectly from the Hell Hounds. But they were completely distinct from thematters at hand, so Myrtis put them out of her mind.

The second evening was not as lucrative as the first, nor the third day asfrantic as the second. Lythande's aphrodisiac potion appeared in the hands of adazed street urchin. The geas the magician had placed on the young beggardissipated as soon as the vial left his hands. He had glanced around him inconfusion and disappeared at a run before the day-steward could hand him acopper coin for his inconvenience.

Myrtis poured the vial into a small bottle of qualis which she then placedbetween two glasses on the silver tray. The decor of the parlour had beenchanged subtly during the day.-The red

liqueur replaced the black-bound ledger which had been banished to the nightsteward's cubicle in the lower rooms. The draperies around her bed were tiedback, and a padded silk coverlet was creased to show the plump pillows. Muskyincense crept into the room from burners hidden in the corners. Beside her bed,a large box containing the three hundred gold pieces sat on a table.