'"Favours"?'

'Sex, you clapperdudgeon! Fucking! Do you understand me?'

'Not entirely. It sounds like a very odd system to me.'

Wess thought it odd, too. It seemed absurd to decide to bear children of onlyone gender; and bonded by law sounded suspiciously like slavery. But - threewomen pledged solely to one man? She glanced across at Aerie and Quartz and sawthey were thinking the same thing. They burst out laughing.

'Chan, Chan-love, think how exhausted you'd be!' Wess said.

Chan grinned. They often slept and made love all together, but he was notexpected to satisfy all his friends. Wess enjoyed making love with Chan, but shewas equally excited by Aerie's delicate ferocity, and by Quartz's inexhaustiblegentleness and power.

'They're not your wives, then,' the man said. 'So how much for that one?' Hepointed at Quartz.

They all waited curiously for him to explain.

'Come on, man! Don't be coy! You're obvious to everyone -why else bring women tothe Unicorn? With that one, you'll get away with it till the madams find out. Somake your fortune while you can. What's her price? I can pay, I assure you.'

Chan started to speak, but Quartz gestured sharply and he fell silent.

'Tell me if I interpret you correctly,' she said. 'You think coupling with mewould be enjoyable. You would like to share my bed tonight.'

'That's right, lovey.' He reached for her breast but abruptly thought better ofit.

'Yet you speak, not to me, but to my friend. This seems very awkward, and veryrude.'

'You'd better get used to it, woman. It's the way we do things here.'

'You offer Chan money, to persuade me to couple with you.'

The man looked at Chan. 'You'd best train your whores to manners yourself, boy,or your customers will help you and damage your merchandise.'

Chan blushed scarlet, embarrassed, flustered, and confused. Wess began to thinkshe knew what was going on, but she did not want to believe it.

'You are speaking to me, man,' Quartz said, using the word with as much contemptas he had put into 'woman'. 'I have but one more question for you. You are notill-favoured, yet you cannot get someone to bed you for the joy of it. Does thismean you are diseased?'

With an incoherent sound of rage, he reached for his knife. Before he touchedit. Quartz's short-sword rasped out of its scabbard. She held its tip just abovehis belt-buckle. The death she offered him was slow and painful.

Everyone in the tavern watched intently as the man slowly spread his hands.

'Go away,' Quartz said. 'Do not speak to me again. You are not unattractive, butif you are not diseased you are a fool, and I do not sleep with fools.'

She moved her sword a handsbreadth. He backed up three fast steps and spunaround, glancing spasmodically from one face to another, to another. He foundonly amusement. He bolted, through a roar of laughter, fighting his way to thedoor.

The tavern-keeper sauntered over. 'Foreigners,' he said, 'I don't know whetheryou've made your place or dug your graves tonight,

but that was the best laugh I've had since the new moon. Bauchle Meyne willnever live it down.'

'I did not think it funny in the least,' Quartz said. She sheathed her shortsword. She had not even touched her broadsword. Wess had never seen her draw it.'And I am tired. Where is our room?'

He led them up the stairs. The room was small and low-ceilinged. After thetavern-keeper left, Wess poked the straw mattress of one of the beds, andwrinkled her nose.

'I've got this far from home without getting lice, I'm not going to sleep in anest of bedbugs.' She threw her bedroll to the floor. Chan shrugged and droppedhis gear.

Quartz flung her pack into the comer. 'I'll have something to say to Satan whenwe find him,' she said angrily. 'Stupid fool, to let himself be captured bythese creatures.'

Aerie stood hunched in her cloak. 'This is a wretched place,' she said. 'You canflee, but he cannot.'

'Aerie, love, I know,.I'm sorry.' Quartz hugged her, stroking her hair. 'Ididn't mean it, about Satan. I was angry.'

Aerie nodded.

Wess rubbed Aerie's shoulders, unfastened the clasp of her long hooded cloak,and drew it from Aerie's body. Candlelight rippled across the black fur thatcovered her, as sleek and glossy as sealskin. She wore nothing but a short thinblue silk tunic and her walking boots. She kicked off the boots, dug her clawedtoes into the splintery floor, and stretched.

Her outer fingers lay close against the backs of her arms. She opened them, andher wings unfolded.

Only half-spread, her wings spanned the room. She let them droop, and pulledaside the leather curtain over the tall narrow window. The next building wasvery close.

'I'm going out. I need to fly.' .

'Aerie, we've come so far today -'

'Wess, I am tired. I won't go far. But I can't fly in the daytime, not here, andthe moon is waxing. If I don't go now I may not be able to fly for days.'

'It's true,' Wess said. 'Be careful.'

'I won't be gone long.' She slid sideways out of the window and climbed up therough side of the building. Her claws scraped into the adobe. Three softfootsteps overhead, the shushh other wings; she was gone.

The others pushed the beds against the wall and spread their blankets,overlapping, on the floor. Quartz looped the leather flap over a hook in thewall and put the candle on the window-ledge.

Chan hugged Wess. 'I never saw anyone move as fast as Lythande. Wess, love, Ifeared he'd killed you before I even noticed him.'

'It was stupid, to speak so familiarly to a stranger.'

'But he offered us the nearest thing to news of Satan we've heard in weeks.'

'True. Maybe the fright was worth it.' Wess looked out of the window, but sawnothing of Aerie.

'What made you think Lythande was a woman?'

Wess glanced at Chan sharply. He gazed back at her with a mildly curiousexpression.

He doesn't know, Wess thought, astonished. He didn't realize -

'I... I don't know,' she said. 'A silly mistake. I made a lot of them today.'

It was the first time in her life she had deliberately lied to a friend. Shefelt slightly ill, and when she heard the scrape of claws on the roof above, shewas glad for more reasons than simply that Aerie had returned. Just then thetavern-keeper banged on their door announcing their bath. In the confusion ofgetting Aerie inside and hidden under her cloak before they could open the door,Chan forgot the subject of Lythande's gender.

Beneath them, the noise of revelry in the Unicorn gradually faded to silence.Wess forced herself to lie still. She was so tired that she felt as if she weretrapped in a river, with the current swirling her around and around so she couldnever get her bearings. Yet she could not sleep. Even the bath, the first warmbath any of them had had since leaving Kaimas, had not relaxed her.

Quartz lay solid and warm beside her, and Aerie lay between Quartz and Chan.Wess did not begrudge Aerie or Quartz their places, but she did like to sleep inthe middle. She wished one of her friends were awake, to make love with, but shecould tell from their breathing that they were all deeply asleep. She cuddled upagainst Quartz, who reached out, in a dream, and embraced her.

The darkness continued, without end, without any sign of dawn, and finally Wessslid out from beneath Quartz's arm and the blankets, silently put on her pantsand shirt, and, barefoot, crept down the stairs, past the silent tavern, andoutside. On the doorstep, she sat and pulled on her boots.

The moon gave a faint light, enough for Wess. The street was deserted. Her heelsthudded on the cobblestones, echoing hollowly against the close adobe walls.Such a short stay in the town should not make her uneasy, but it did. She enviedAerie her power to escape, however briefly, however dangerous the escape mightbe. Wess walked down the street, keeping careful track of her path. It would bevery easy to get lost in this warren of streets and alleys, niches and blankcanyons.