"They don't speak Ethsharitic, do they?" he asked.

Annis smiled at him again. "If they do, they won't admit it," she said. "I take it you don't speak Trader's Tongue? Morkai wanted to know what we were discussing, and I said we were still on introductions."

That matched what he had heard reasonably well. "Shall we get beyond the introductions, then? What did you want with me?"

"To the point. You are working for the Vondishman? The one in the red coat and plumed hat?"

Emmis wondered whether the woman was exaggerating her accent; if she knew the Ethsharitic word for "plumed" she had to be pretty fluent.

"He hired me to find him a residence, yes." Emmis didn't see any reason to admit to more than that.

"Ah, is that where you were today?"

"Yes."

"Did you find him one?"

"I did. Why do you want to know?"

She leaned back in her chair. "Do you know where Ashthasa is?"

"You just told me – it's on the South Coast, in the Small Kingdoms."

"But do you know where it is relative to the Empire of Vond? And how big it is, and how big the Empire of Vond is?"

"No," Emmis admitted.

"Our entire eastern frontier is with the Empire," she said. "It was our border with the kingdom of Quonshar, until the Great Warlock conquered Quonshar three years ago, together with all the lands beyond. Where there were once eight other kingdoms along the coast to the east of Ashthasa, there is now only the empire, reaching from our border to the very edge of the World, and Quonshar is merely the westernmost province of Vond. There are more than a dozen other provinces in the empire, and while Quonshar is one of the smallest provinces, all by itself it's larger than Ashthasa. If the empire should decide to extend its borders ever so slightly, my homeland would vanish, and become Vond's eighteenth province; we could not possibly resist them effectively."

Emmis glanced at the three silent men.

"And Lumeth of the Towers – well, it's inland, not on the coast. It's one of the larger lands in the Small Kingdoms, though of course it's nothing compared with the Empire of Vond, or the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars. A few years ago it bordered on nine other kingdoms; four of them are now provinces of Vond, and Lumeth is half-surrounded. If you were to look at a map of the empire – you know what a map is?"

"Yes," Emmis said. "I've seen maps."

"Good. Well, if you had a map of the Empire of Vond, you would see that it's shaped a little like a half-moon, with the sea and the desert around the curve to the south and east, and the rest of the Small Kingdoms to the north and west of the flat side. Except that the border isn't straight. There's a piece broken off the western tip – that's Ashthasa. And there's a bite out of the middle – that's the southern part of Lumeth. So they're worried about the empire just as my own people are."

"Oh," Emmis said.

"So we are all very, very interested in everything the empire does, and when the Imperial Council and the Regent send an envoy to Ethshar of the Spices, well, naturally, we want to know who he is, and what he's doing, and why. I am telling you this openly to save time; I could have made up some elaborate story, but why should I? You have no ties to Vond, and we are not asking you to do anything terrible. We just want to know whether you can tell us anything about why this Vondishman is in Ethshar."

Emmis glanced at the three silent Lumethans, then looked Annis in the eye.

"What's in it for me?" he asked.

Emmis had never greatly concerned himself with ethical issues. Unloading freighters generally did not present a lot of difficult moral choices.

One of the rules he and the other dockworkers lived by, though, was that you finished the job you were on before you took another one, even if the new employer offered higher pay. Walking off one job to start the next meant you weren't trustworthy, weren't reliable.

And you didn't steal from the people who hired you. That was even worse. A thief who got caught would never work on the waterfront again.

But if the captain left you sitting on the dock while he got the paperwork done or dickered with a buyer, there was no rule that said you couldn't answer a few questions for interested merchants, or that they couldn't give a hard-working young man a copper bit or two in exchange for telling them just how many planks of planed hickory, or crates of tarragon, you and your fellows had really hauled out of the hold, even if it didn't match what the owner claimed he had available.

It wasn't as if Lar had told him anything important, after all. In fact, Lar had specifically refused to tell him just what the actual purpose of his stay in Ethshar was, and if Lar was keeping that secret, then presumably anything Lar had told him was not secret.

So why not pick up a little extra money while he waited for the ambassador to come back from wherever he had gone? That was what Emmis told himself while Annis and the three Lumethans argued in Trader's Tongue.

He kept an eye on the front door as they bickered; if Lar should walk in just then, Emmis wanted to be ready to put some distance between himself and the four foreigners. He also listened, though, while trying not to let on that he could understand about one word in five of the debate.

The Lumethans seemed to find his willingness to talk to them suspicious, while Annis appeared to be arguing that it was plain old Ethsharitic greed, that Ethsharites would sell their own children if the price was right. They also seemed to disagree as to whether the costs should be split two ways or four, by country or by individual.

And there was the question of how much to offer him, up front or in installments – Emmis did know all the numbers in Trader's Tongue, and was reasonably pleased by what he heard.

Finally, Annis turned back to him and said, "Two rounds for what he's told you so far, and another round for every new item you bring us."

"Silver?"

Annis looked genuinely shocked. "Gods, no!" she said. "Just copper!"

Emmis turned up a palm. "It was worth asking." It hadn't really been, as far as any honest doubt might be concerned, but it did make plain to these four that while Ethsharites might be greedy, they weren't cheap. He had also understood enough of the Trader's Tongue to know that two rounds was the opening bid, not a final offer – for one thing, he was fairly certain that they had compromised on a three-way split, and eight bits didn't divide by three. "Perhaps half a dozen rounds?"

"For a litle conversation?"

"Four rounds, then?"

"We'll meet you halfway. Three rounds to start, a dozen bits for each additional item."

That was what he had expected. "Good enough," he said. "Though perhaps some items might be worth more? After all, isn't your entire kingdom at stake?"

"They might be," Annis conceded.

"Buy me a beer, then, to moisten my throat while we speak, and you have a deal."

Annis beckoned to Gita, mimed gulping beer, and pointed at Emmis. Gita nodded, and bustled away.

That done, Annis folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "Now, lad, tell us about the Vondishman."

"Until my beer gets here and your money's in my hand, tell me first what you already know, so I won't waste your time. How did you know to talk to me? How did you know he was here at all?"

Annis smiled, and reached down to her purse as she said, "Our governments keep an eye on things in the Vondish ports, of course, and your man didn't make any secret of his departure, or where he was going, so Prince Sammel invested in the services of a magician, who located the Vondishman, and the Prince sent word to me that I'd find him here at the Crooked Candle." She dumped a handful of copper on the table, and began counting out eight bits. "I came here and waited, and sure enough, there he was at breakfast this morning, and there you were with him, and that was when I decided I wanted to talk to you, and paid Gita here…" She nodded toward the serving girl, who was just then lowering a tray of well-filled beer mugs over Emmis's shoulder. "…paid her to bring you to me." She pushed the little pile of coins across the table, and Emmis began counting them into his own purse.