No one was paying any attention to the fellow in the corner with the sword, thelute, and a sneer of disgust at the empty tankard before him. 'Ho, friend,'Samlor called to the slope-shouldered bartender. 'Wine for me, and whatever myfriend with the lute is drinking.' The instrument had inlays of ivory andmother-of-pearl, but Samlor had noticed the empty sockets, which must recentlyhave been garnished with gems.

The women were already in motion, lurching from their stools - remoras thrashingtowards the shark they hoped would find their next meal. It was to the pimpagainst the wall that Samlor turned with a bright smile, however. 'And for you,sir -' he said. His thumb spun a coin through the air. Its arc would havedropped it in the pimp's lap if the fellow had not snatched it in with fingerslike eagle's talons. The coin was silver, minted in Ranke, a day's wage for aman and as much as these blowsy whores together could expect for a night. 'Ifyou keep them away from me. Otherwise, I take back the coin, even if you'veswallowed it.' Samlor wore a smile again, but it was not the same smile. Thewomen were backing off even before the pimp snarled at them.

The minstrel had risen to take the cup Samlor handed him from the bar. It waswine, though poverty had drunk ale on the previous round. 'I thank you, goodsir,' the man said as he took the cup. 'And how may Cappen Varra serve you?'

Samlor passed his left hand over the sound box of the lute. The coin he droppedsang on the strings as it passed. 'A copper for a song from home,' he said. Heknew, and from the sound the minstrel knew also, that the coin had not beencopper or even silver. 'And another like it if you'll sing to me out on thebench, where the air has less - sawdust in it.'

Cappen Varra followed with a careful expression. He gave the lute a gentle tossin his hand, just enough to make the gold whisper again in the sound chamber.'So, what sort of a song did you have in mind, good sir?' he asked as he seatedhimself facing Samlor. The minstrel had set his wine cup down. His left leg wascocked under him on the bench; and his right hand, on the lute's belly, was notfar from the serviceable hilt of his dagger.

'A little girl's missing,' said Samlor. 'I need a name, or the name of someonewho might know a name.'

'And how little a girl?' asked Varra, even more guarded. He set down the lute,ostensibly to take the cup in his left hand. 'Sixteen, would she be?'

'Four,' said Samlor.

Cappen Varra spat out the wine as he stood. 'It shouldn't offend me, good sir,'said the minstrel as he up-ended the lute, 'there's folk enough in this city whotraffic in such goods. But I do not, and I'll leave your "copper" here in thegutter with your suggestion!'

'Friend,' said Samlor. His hand shot out and caught the falling coin in the airbefore the sun winked on the metal. 'Not you, but the name of a name. For thechild's sake. Please.'

Cappen Varra took a deep breath and seated himself again. 'Your pardon,' he saidsimply. 'One lives in Sanctuary, and one assumes that everyone takes one for athief and worse ... because everyone else is a thief and worse, I sometimesfear. So. You want the name of someone who might buy and sell young children?Not a short list in this city, sir.'

'That's not quite what I want,' the Cirdonian explained. 'There is - reason tothink that she was taken by the Beysib.'

The minstrel blinked. 'Then I really can't help you, much as I'd like to, goodsir. My songs give me no entree to those folk.'

Samlor nodded. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'But it might be that you knew who in the localcommunity - fenced goods for Beysib thieves. Somebody must, they can't dealamong themselves, a closed group like theirs.'

'Oh,' said Cappen Varra. 'Oh,' and his right hand drummed a nervous riff on thebelly of his instrument. When he looked up again, his face was troubled. 'Thiscould be very dangerous,' he said. 'For you, and for anyone who sent you to thisman, if he took it amiss.'

'I was serious about the payment,' Samlor said. He thumbed a second crown ofRankan gold from his left hand into the right to join the piece already there.

'No, not that,' said the minstrel, 'not for this. But... I'll give youdirections. Go after dark. And if I thought you might mention my name, Iwouldn't tell you a thing. Even for a child.'

Samlor smiled wanly. 'It's possible,' the caravan-master said, 'that there aretwo honourable men in Sanctuary this day. Though I wouldn't expect anyone tobelieve it, even the two of us.'

Cappen Varra began fingering an intricate sequence of chords from his lute.'There's a temple of Ils in the Mercer's Quarter,' he began in a rhythmicdelivery. It would have suited the love lyrics his face was miming. 'Just aneighbourhood chapel. Go through it and turn right in the alley behind ...'

It had been three hours to sundown when Samlor left the Vulgar Unicorn, but ittook him most of the remaining daylight to shop for what he would require duringthe interview. Nothing illicit, but the city was unfamiliar; and the majorpurchase was uncommon enough to take some searching. He found what he needed atlast at an apothecary's.

The streets of Sanctuary had a different smell after dark, a serpent-cage miasmathat was more of the psychic atmosphere than the physical. Under thecircumstances, Samlor did not feel it would be politic to carry his dagger freein his hand as he might otherwise have done. He kept a careful watch, however,for the casual footpads who might waylay him for his purse, or even for the winebottle whose neck projected from his scrip.

The chapel of Ils had once had a gate. It had been stolen for the weight of itswrought iron. There was nothing pertaining to the cult in the sanctuary except aniche in which the deity was painted. There might at one time have been a statuein the niche instead; but if so, it had gone the way of the gate. Samlor slippedthrough unobtrusively, though he was by no means sure that the drunk asleep inthe corner was only what he seemed.

The alley behind the chapel was black as a politician's soul, but by now theCirdonian was close enough to operate by feel. A set of rickety stairs againstthe left wall. A second staircase. The things that squelched and crunchedunderfoot did not matter. There were other, stealthy sounds; but the guardsSamlor expected would not attack without orders, and they would fend away lessorganized criminals as the Watch could not dream of doing.

A ladder was pinned against the wall. It had ten rungs, straight up into a trapdoor in the overhanging story. Samlor climbed two rungs up and rapped on thedoor. He was well aware of how extended his body was if he had misjudged theguard's instructions.

'Yes?' grunted a voice from above.

'Tarragon,' Samlor whispered. If the password had been changed, the next soundwould be steel grating through his ribs.

The door flopped open. A pair of men reached down and heaved Samlor inside withscant ceremony. Both of them were masked, as was the third man in the room. Thethird was the obvious leader, seated behind the oil lamp and the account bookson a desk. The men who held Samlor were bravos; more perhaps than their musclesalone, but certainly there for their muscles in part. The leader was a black.The mask obscuring his face was battered from age and neglect, but the eyes thatglittered behind it were as bright as those of the hawk it counterfeited.

The black watched during the silent, expert search. Samlor held himself relaxedin the double grip as the guards' free hands twitched away his knife, his purse,his scrip; snatched off his boots, the sheath in the left one empty already butnoted; ran along his arms. his torso, his groin. The only weapon Samlor carriedthis night was the openly sheathed dagger. To leave it behind as well would inthis city have been more suspicious than the weapon.