Myrtis hadn't put on any of her jewellery. It would only have detracted from theebony low-cut, side-slit gown she wore. The image was perfect. No one but Zaibarwould see her until the dawn, and she was determined that her efforts andplanning would not be in vain.

She waited alone, remembering her first days as a courtesan in Ilsig, whenLythande was a magician's raw apprentice and her own experiences a nightmareadventure. At that time she had lived to fall wildly in love with any younglordling who could offer her the dazzling splendour of privilege. But no mancame forward to rescue her from the ethereal, but doomed, world of thecourtesan. Before her heauty faded, she had made her pact with Lythande. Themagician visited her infrequently, and for all her boasting, there was nopassionate love between them. The spells had let Myrtis win for herself thepermanent splendour she had wanted as a young girl; a splendour no high-handedbarbarian from Ranke was going to strip away.

'Madame Myrtis?' '

A peremptory knock on the door forced her from her thoughts. She had impressedthe voice in her memory and recognized it though she had only heard it oncebefore.

'Do come in.'

She opened the door for him, pleased to see by the hesitation in his step thathe was unaware that he would be entering her parlour and boudoir.

'I have come to collect the taxes!' he said quickly. His military precision didnot completely conceal his awe and vague embarrassment at viewing the royal anderotic scene displayed before him.

He did not turn as Myrtis shut the door behind him and quietly slid a concealedbolt into place.

'You have very nearly undone me, captain,' she said with downcast eyes and alight touch on his arm. It is not so easy as you might think to raise such alarge sum of money.'

She lifted the ebony box inlaid with pearl from the table beside her bed andcarried it slowly to him. He hesitated before taking it from her arms.

'I must count it, madame,' he said almost apologetically.

'I understand. You will find that it is all there. My word is good.'

'You ... you are much different now from how you seemed two days ago.'

'It is the difference between night and day.'

He began assembling piles of gold on her ledger table in front of the silvertray with the qualis.

'We have been forced to cut back our orders to the town's merchants in order topay you.'

From the surprised yet thoughtful look he gave her, Myrtis guessed that the HellHounds had begun to hear complaints and anxious whinings from the respectableparts of town as Mikkun and his friends called back their loans and credit.

'Still,' she continued, T realize that you are doing only what you have beentold to do. It's not you personally who is to blame if any of the merchants andpurveyors suffer because the Street no longer functions as it once did.'

Zaibar continued shuffling his piles-of coins around, only half-listening toMyrtis. He had half the gold in the box neatly arranged when Myrtis slipped theglass stopper out of the qualis decanter..

'Will you join me in a glass of qualis, since it is not your fault and we stillhave a few luxuries in our larder. They tell me a damp fog lies heavy on thestreets.'

He looked up from his counting and his eyes brightened at the sight of the deepred liqueur. The common variety of qualis, though still expensive, had a dullercolour and was inclined to visible sediment. A man of his position might live afull life and never glimpse a fine, pure qualis, much less be offered a glass ofit. Clearly the Hell Hound was tempted.

'A small glass, perhaps.'

She poured two equally full glasses and set them both on the table in front ofhim while she replaced the stopper and took the bottle to the table by her bed.An undetectable glance in a side mirror confirmed that Zaibar lifted the glassfarthest from him. Calmly she returned and raised the other.

'A toast then. To the future of your prince and to the Aphrodisia House!'

The glasses clinked.

The potion Lythande had made was brewed in part from the same berries as thequalis itself. The fine liqueur made a perfect concealing dilutant. Myrtis couldtaste the subtle difference the charm itself made in the normal flavour of theintoxicant, but Zaibar, who had never tasted even the common qualis, assumedthat the extra warmth was only a part of the legendary mystique of the liqueur.When he had finished his drink, Myrtis swallowed the last others and waitedpatiently for the faint flush which would confirm that the potion was working.

It appeared in Zaibar first. He became bored with his counting, fondling onecoin while his eyes drifted off towards nothingness. Myrtis took the coin fromhis fingers. The potion took longer to affect her, and its action when it didwas lessened by the number of times she had taken it before and by the ageinhibiting spells Lythande wove about her. She had not needed the potion,however, to summon an attraction towards the handsome soldier nor to coax him tohis feet and then to her bed.

Zaibar protested that he was not himself and did not understand what washappening to him. Myrtis did not trouble herself to argue with him. Lythande'spotion was not one to rouse a wild, blind lust, but one which endowed a lifelongaffection in the drinker. The pure qualis played a part in weakening hisresistance. She held him behind the curtains of her bed until he had no doubt ofhis love for her. Then she helped him dress again.

'I'll show you the secrets of the Aphrodisia House,' she whispered in his ear.

'I believe I have already found them.'

'There are more.'

Myrtis took him by the hand, leading him to one of the drapery-covered walls.She pushed aside the fabric; released a well-oiled catch; took a sconce from thewall then led him into a dark, but airy, passage way.'

'Walk carefully in my footsteps, Zaibar - I would not want to lose you to theoubliettes. Perhaps you have wondered why the Street is outside the walls andits buildings are so old and well-built? Perhaps you think Sanctuary's founderswished to keep us outside their fair city? What you do not know is that thesehouses - especially the older ones like the Aphrodisia - are not really outsidethe walls at all. My house is built of stone four feet thick. The shutters onour windows are aged wood from the mountains. We have our own wells andstorerooms which can"supply us -and the city - for weeks, if necessary. Otherpassages lead away from here towards the Swamp of Night Secrets, or intoSanctuary and the governor's palace itself. Whoever has ruled in Sanctuary hasalways sought our cooperation in moving men and arms if a siege is laid.'

She showed the speechless captain catacombs where a sizeable garrison could waitin complete concealment. He drank water from a deep well whose water had none ofthe brackish taste so common in the seacoast town. Above he could hear thesounds of parties at the Aphrodisia and the other houses. Zaibar's military eyetook all this in, but his mind saw Myrtis, candle-lit in the black gown, as aman's dream come true, and the underground fortress she was revealing to him asa soldier's dream come true. The potion worked its way with him. He wanted bothMyrtis and the fortress for his own to protect and control.

'There is so much about Sanctuary that you Rankans know nothing about. You taxthe Street and cause havoc with trade in the city. You wish to close the Streetand send all of us, including myself, to the slave pens or worse. Your wallswill be breachable 'then. There are men in Sanctuary who would stop at nothingto control these passages, and they know the Swamp and the palace better thanyou or your children could ever hope to.'