"Get away you!" cried a guard from the wall, with a crossbow. "There is no loitering here"

"But master!" I cried. "I have gems and jewels to show the noble Saphrar!"

"Approach then the nearer gate!" he called. "And state your business."

I found a rather small gate in the wall, heavily barred, and begged admittance to show my wares to Saphrar. I hoped to be ushered into his presence and then, on the threat of slaying him, secure the golden sphere and a tarn for escape. To my chagrin I was not admitted into the compound, but my pitiful stock of almost worthless stones was examined outside the gate by a steward in the company of two armed warriors. It took him only a few moments to discover the value of the stones and, when he did, with a cry of disgust, he hurled them away from the gate into the dust, and the two warriors, while I pretended fright and pain, belabored me with the hilts of their weapons. "Be gone, Fool!" they snarled.

I hobbled after the stones, and fell to my knees in the dust, scrabbling after them, moaning and crying aloud. I heard the guards laugh.

I had just picked up the last stone and tucked it back in my pouch and was about to rise from my knees when I found myself staring at the high, heavy sandals, almost boots, of a warrior.

"Mercy, Master," I whined.

"Why are you carrying a sword beneath your robe?" he asked.

I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champion of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the games of Love War.

I lunged forward seizing him by the legs and upended him in the dust and then leaped to my feet and ran, the hood flying off behind me.

I heard him cry. "Stop that man! Stop him! I know him! He is Tart Cabot of Ko-ro-ba! Stop him!"

I stumbled in the long robe of the merchant and cursed and leaped up and ran again. The bolt of a crossbow splat- tered into a brick wall on my right, gouging a cupful of masonry loose in chips and dust.;, I darted down a narrow street. I could hear someone, probably Kamras, and then one or two others running after me. Then I heard a girl cry out, and scream, and two men curse. I glanced behind me to see that the girl who carried the market basket had inadvertently fallen in front of the warriors. She was crying angrily at them and waving her broken basket. They pushed her rudely to one side and hurried on. By that time I had rounded a corner and leaped to a window, pulled myself up to the next window, and hauled myself up again and onto the flat roof of a shop. I heard the running feet of the two warriors, and then of six more men, pass in the street below. Then some children, screaming, ran after the soldiers. I heard some speculative conversation in the street below, between two or three passersby, then it seemed quiet.

I lay there scarcely daring to breathe. The sun on the flat roof was hot. I counted five Gorean Ehn, or minutes. Then I decided I had better move across the roofs in the opposite direction, find a sheltered roof, stay there until nightfall and then perhaps try to leave the city. I might go after the wagons, which would be moving slowly, obtain the tarn I had left with them, and then return on tarnback to Saphrar's house. It would be extremely dangerous, of course, to leave the city in the near future. Certainly word would be at the gates to watch for me. I had entered Turia easily. I did not expect I would leave as easily as I had entered. But how could I stay in the city until vigilance at the gates might be relaxed, perhaps three or four days from now? Every guardsman in Turia would be on the lookout for Tarl Cabot, who unfortunately, was not difficult to recognize.

About this time I heard someone coming along the street whistling a tune. I had heard it. Then I realized that I had heard it among the wagons of the Tuchuks. It was a Tuchuk tune, a wagon tune, sometimes sung by the girls with the bask sticks.

I picked up the melody and whistled a few bars, and then the person below joined me and we finished the turn. Cautiously I poked my head over the edge of the roof. The street was deserted save for a girl, who was standing below, looking up toward the roof. She was dressed in veil and Robes of Concealment. It was she whom I had seen before, when I had thought I might be followed. It was she who had inadvertently detained my pursuers. She carried a broken market basket.

"You make a very poor spy, Tart Cabot," she said.

"Dina of Turia!" I cried.

I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of Dina of Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the robes of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of the Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers had belonged.

Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the shop from the street had been splintered apart; the counter had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval domes shattered, their iron doors twisted from their hinges; even the top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown to the floor and broken.

At one time, I gathered from Dina, her father's shop had been the most famed of the baking shops of Turia, most of which are owned by Saphrar of Turia, whose interests range widely, though operated naturally, as Gorean custom would require, by members of the Caste of Bakers. Her father had refused to sell the shop to Saphrar's agents, and take his employment under the merchant. Shortly thereafter some seven or eight ruffians, armed with clubs and iron ban, had attacked the shop, destroying its equipment. In attempting to defend against this attack both her father and her two older brothers had been beaten to death. Her mother had died shortly thereafter of shock. Dina had lived for a time on the savings of the family, but had then taken them, sewn in the lining of her roles, and purchased a place on a caravan wagon bound for Ar, which caravan had been ambushed by Kassars, in which raid she herself, of course, had fallen into their hands.

"Would you not like to hire men and reopen the shop?" I asked.

"I have no money," she said.

"I have very little," I said, taking the pouch and spilling the stones in a glittering if not very valuable heap on the small table in her central room.

She laughed and poked through them with her fingers. "I learned something of jewels," she said, "in the wagons of Albrecht and Kamchak and there is scarcely a silver tarn disk's worth here."

"I paid a golden tarn disk for them," I asserted.

"But to a Tuchuk" she said.

"Yes," I admitted.

"My dear Tart Cabot," she said, "my sweet dear Tarl Cabot." Then she looked at me and her eyes saddened. "But," said she, "even had I the money to reopen the shop it would mean only that the men of Saphrar would come again."

I was silent. I supposed what she said was true.

"Is there enough there to buy passage to Ar?" I asked. "No," she said. "But I would prefer in any case to remain in Turia it is my home."

"How do you live?" I asked.

"I shop for wealthy women," said she, "for pastries and | tarts and cakes things they will not trust their female slaves to buy."

In answer to her questions I told her the reason for which I had entered the city to steal an object of value from Saphrar of Turia, which he himself had stolen from the Tuchuks. This pleased her, as I guessed anything would which was contrary to the interests of the Turian merchant, for whom she entertained the greatest hatred.

"Is this truly all you travel" she asked, pointing at the pile of stones.

"Yes," I said.

"Poor warrior," said she, her eyes smiling over the veil, "you do not even have enough to pay for the use of a skilled slave girl."

"That is true," I admitted.

Slit laughed anti with an easy motion dropped the veil from her face and shook her head, freeing her hair. She held out her hands. "I am only a poor free woman," said she, "but might I not do?"