And now here they were together, idling on a midsummer day, taking their leisure and seeing the sights, the sun pleasantly warm on their backs and the city babble and savors and throngs all around them as they sauntered up the Kharjiz towards Storks Hill and Masons Street. On the bridge over the Monju Brook N'Kasit stopped and they leaned side by side over the parapet, looking upstream to where the water ran glittering round the curve at the base of the Tower of the Orphans. Further down in their direction was a little garden, and here a weeping willow overhung the stream, its branches forming a kind of watery arbor as they trailed in the slack current.

"Did you do well this last Melekril?" asked Selperron after a time. He spoke with appropriately off-hand diffidence-a blend between the natural interest of a business associate and a friend wishing to seem politely but not unduly inquisitive.

"That's-well-quite a difficult question to answer, even two or three months after," replied N'Kasit. "As things have turned out, I'm still overstocked. It's a damned nui-

sance having money tied up in stuff that's been on my hands as long as this."

"Well," answered Selperron, "one beauty of our line of business is that at least stock doesn't go bad on you. That market-girl over there's got to sell her fruit quick, but you and I can always hang on to hides and wait for our return."

"Normally, yes," said N'Kasit, "and as a rule, if a proportion of Melekril stock's not been taken off my hands before the spring festival I'm not much troubled; but this time I was fully expecting to be robbed and possibly murdered into the bargain."

Selperron stared and shook his head, looking suitably concerned. "We heard all kinds of rumors in Kabin, but thank Cran everything stayed quiet enough down there."

"You should just have been up here, then," replied N'Kasit. "After the murder of the High Counselor that night, no one knew what to expect. People were burying their valuables and even sending their wives and children away-those who could afford to. A lot of them were expecting another revolution, like the time when Senda-na-Say was killed."

"But of course it didn't come to that," replied Selperron.

"No: but there was a fair amount of robbery and looting, you see, and some people were saying it must have been organized. And then not long after the murder Santil-ke-Erketlis came out against Bekla, and young Elleroth joined him from Sarkid. So we didn't know but what there mightn't be some sort of heldro bunch organizing trouble here in the city-just as Fornis's supporters did before she came up from Dari getting on for eight years ago. I don't mind telling you, I was scared. There simply weren't enough soldiers here, you see; most of them had just left for the Valderra. I asked for an armed guard for the warehouse, but I never got a man. Think of it-forty or fifty thousand melds' worth of portable stock and only me and a night-watchman! I slept there myself for three or four nights- me and my man Malendik. We had one sword and a knife between us, that's all. But nothing came of it, thank the gods; and as I was saying, about half the stock's still there now, waiting to be sold. Well, it's no good worrying."

Wandering on down the Kharjiz, they came to the foot of Storks Hill and then to the edge of the temple precinct and the Tamarrik Gate beyond. Here they stopped to watch Fleitil and his men on their scaffolding, putting the finishing

touches to big-bellied Airtha of the Diadem, while below, a painter was beginning his task of coloring the relief panels round the plinth, which depicted the seven beatific acts of the goddess. Selperron wondered what proportion of the taxes he had paid last year might have gone into the gold leaf of the goddess's cloak, her jeweled nipples and the silver wire braiding her hair. He himself was not much in favor of spending public money on this kind of thing, but maybe such civic splendors were indirectly good for business-who could tell?

"They say Santil's got all of two thousand men under arms in the Chalcon hills," said N'Kasit after a time.

"I suppose he would have, counting Elleroth's lot," answered Selperron. "But surely that's nowhere near enough to bother the Leopards, is it? After all, he can't really do more than lurk about in Chalcon, playing tip-and-run. He couldn't even consider trying to take Thettit, for instance."

"Maybe not," said N'Kasit. "But all the same, the Leopards have got to take some notice of him, haven't they? Kembri's had to drop his idea of attacking Karnat in Suba, I know that. Thettit's been garrisoned, you know, and that takes men away from the Valderra for a start."

"Was anyone ever arrested for the murder?" said Selperron.

N'Kasit shook his head. "That's the extraordinary thing. Of course, there were hundreds of people coming into the upper city all that afternoon and evening-guests and so on-and I suppose the surveillance at the gate can't have been as strict as usual. After the murder, of course, the whole place was searched from end to end, but there wasn't anyone who couldn't account for themselves."

Selperron chuckled. "That High Counselor-he was basting one of his girls in a boat, or something, wasn't he? A black girl, didn't I hear?"

"Yes, that's right. They had her into the temple for questioning, and that's the last I remember hearing about her. But if they've put her to death it certainly wasn't in public, so I suppose they must have decided she wasn't involved. She was rumored to be some sort of witch or sorceress, I remember hearing. Quite a lot of the young bloods in the upper city were very taken with her at one time; but that was last year. Once the temple got hold of her she just vanished; dead, for all I know. Anyway, no one's any nearer the truth about the murder."

"There've been arrests in Kabin, you know," said Sel-perron. "Eight or nine since the spring, and more than that in Tonilda and north Yelda, so I heard: people who've been acting as messengers between heldro barons and so on."

"They're contenting themselves with arresting little people because they can't spare troops to tackle the bigger ones," said N'Rasit, "that's about the size of it. They'll bring them up here and execute them and hope that'll damp the heldril down until they can spare more troops from the Valderra and mount an expedition against Er-ketlis in Chalcon." '

They turned up Storks Hill, N'Kasit heading for the Caravan Market and "The Green Grove," for he was prosperous enough to be able to afford the best class of tavern, and anxious to show as much to his friend.

"All the same, no great loss, Sencho, was he?" asked Selperron in a cautious undertone, as they came within sight of the colonnade. "He was a foul brute, by all accounts."

"That's true enough, but all the same he's a loss to us, as merchants," said N'Kasit. He grinned sideways at Selperron. "Why not admit it? He only did what we'd all like to do. Wasn't it only last night you were talking about Beklan shearnas and saying you wouldn't mind meeting a nice one?"

"I wouldn't, either," replied Selperron. "Beautiful girls, some of them, a captain of the guard in Kabin was saying only the other day. He told me they-"

"Yes, but the really good ones are impossibly expensive," broke in N'Kasit. "Upper city stuff, you know, and inclined to be choosy with it even then. Sencho didn't bother with shearnas, though. Bought his own girls and kept them for himself."

Selperron fell silent. The truth was that he did indeed take a keen interest in girls, but in a somewhat less carnal way than his friend supposed. To him they were less a means of gratification than one of the most delightful forms of beauty, like jewels or flowers. His head was often turned, but he seldom went further, and in his memory certain girls whom he had never actually possessed tended to stand out as vividly as those he had.