I was halfway down the stairs when a commotion broke out below. I heard Jefrey bellowing, and another man shouting, and I charged off the stairs and onto the polished marble floor just in time to see Jefrey deliver a solid blow with a shiny black walking stick to someone standing outside.

More bellowing. Jefrey raised his stick again, but the door slammed into him so hard it took him back a pair of steps. He dropped his stick to put both hands on the door and push.

The door pushed back. Jefrey grunted and cussed and heaved, but went steadily back, his boots leaving long black marks on the tiles as they slid.

I charged at the door, right shoulder first, hit it hard and kept going. Jefrey scrambled for footing but found it, and between us we slammed the door shut. Jefrey threw the lock-bolt and sagged down on all fours on the tile.

“Didn’t think they came out in daylight,” I said, puffing a bit too, just out of friendly consideration.

“Ain’t no rev’nant,” gasped Jefrey.

Outside, a beefy fist began to pound, and then Jefrey and I heard the barking and snarling that meant the Merlat dogs were loosed at last.

The pounding stopped. Jefrey sprang to the thick leaded glass panel beside the door and squinted out into the yard. “Get ’em, boys!” he shouted. “Tear ’em up!”

I turned to my panel, squinted through it. Two men dashed through the lawn, half a dozen snarling Eastern wolf-hounds at their heels. The dogs took turns leaping and biting, though they could easily have taken both men down with a single rush.

“Temple missionaries?” I asked.

Jefrey laughed so hard he went into a fit of coughing. I slapped him on the back and waited for it to pass.

“Moneylenders,” he spat at last. “Come to see young master Abad, I suspect.”

“Jefrey!” snapped the widow. I hadn’t heard her approach, not even on the tiles, for Jefrey’s hacking and sputtering. “You have no right-”

“Who loosed the dogs?” I asked, interrupting the widow. “Are there members of the staff here that I haven’t met?”

The widow turned her glare on me. “I loosed the dogs,” she said. “When it became apparent that…person was not going to leave, even when told.”

“Good thinking,” I said. I offered Jefrey a hand, and he took it and stood. “If they’re moneylenders, though, they’ll be back.”

“No they won’t,” said Jefrey. He met the widow’s glare. “She’ll send word to the banking-house, and they’ll pay off whatever Master Abad lost at the Victory Round.”

Victory Round was a gambling den. Not one of the better ones, though-it was on my side of the Brown, for starters, and with a handful of the widow’s coins and bit of a wash, even I could probably walk right in. Victory Round and dives like it were one of two things-breeding grounds for gamblers on the rise, or last stops for those whose luck and credit were long gone. I didn’t have to flip a coin to see where Junior fit in.

“Jefrey,” said the Widow Merlat. “Be still.”

Jefrey shrugged, turned his gaze back toward the glass. “They’re gone,” he announced. “I’ll go fetch the dogs.”

“I’d better go with you,” I said. “They might decide to circle back and call again.”

Jefrey picked up his walking stick, unlocked the door and threw it open. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Mind the fireflowers.”

I followed Jefrey out into the yard, and shut the door behind me.

I made a few friends that afternoon. Horga and Surn and Vlaga and Thufe, to be precise; the other five of Jefrey’s dogs, aside from the occasional sidelong glare and low snarl, would have nothing to do with me.

But after Jefrey introduced me, the four females were all lapping tongues and wagging tails. Thufe, the biggest, hairiest, most ferocious of the females, actually rolled over on her back at my feet and let me rub her belly.

Jefrey looked on with something like awe. “Ain’t never seen ’em do that,” he said, as Thufe licked my knee and made happy-puppy noises. “They hate everybody.”

I grinned. “Always did like dogs,” I said. “Better company than most people, I say.”

Jefrey nodded in agreement.

We were halfway to the street, all gathered in the dappled shade cast by the tossing boughs of a century-old madbark tree. The grass was soft and cool. Flowers swayed, birds chased and sang, and the air was breezy and sweet. Had the dogs not been wild-eyed, shaggy wolfhounds bred for fatal maiming, we’d have looked like something out of a Pastoral Period oil painting.

The widow’s head popped out of the door.

“Jefrey!” she shouted. “Put the dogs up and get back to the kitchen!”

“Yes ma’am,” said Jefrey. He rose, stretched, yawned.

“I reckon I was wrong about you, earlier,” he said, not looking at me but up at the wide blue sky. “Reckon you ain’t what I thought.”

“Jefrey!” shrieked the widow.

“It’s hard to know who people are,” I said. I rose too, as did all my shaggy new friends. “Takes time. Take the Merlat kids, for instance. I don’t know them, won’t have time to know them. You do.” I brushed twigs off my pants. “Tell me who the kids are, Jefrey. Who they really are.”

Jefrey’s face darkened, took on its usual tight-lipped, pinched expression.

“I reckon they’re a right lot of useless, bloodsucking, backstabbing bastards,” he said softly. “Monsters, all, and don’t you tell the Lady I said so.”

“I won’t,” I said. “The girl too?”

“Her especially,” said Jefrey, and he began to stomp and grind his jaw. “You mind her, finder,” he said. “She’ll come on to you, first thing, all sweets and juices. I reckon you’ll like that.”

I remembered the laugh from upstairs. “No, I won’t,” I said. “Thufe here is my only girl. Right, Thufe?”

The dog barked. I swear it did, and Jefrey nearly stumbled, so much was he surprised.

“You ain’t doin’ some mojo, are you?” he asked. “I swear, if you are-”

“I’m not doing anything,” I said. “Relax. The dogs just like me because I like them.” I paused, edged around a fireflower bed, fell back into step with Jefrey. “We had dogs in the Army. I was a handler. That good enough for you?”

Jefrey turned. “A handler? You?”

“Fifth regiment, eight brigade, out of Fort Armistead,” I replied. “Six years, one after the Truce.”

Jefrey cocked his head. “Didn’t they use dogs to sniff out Troll tunnels?”

I nodded. “We did,” I said, and Thufe looked up and licked my hand. “Don’t ask.”

Jefrey shrugged. By then, we were close enough to get on the sidewalk. The widow shouted once more, something about meeting us at the back, and the big door shut.

“Abad’s a gambler,” said Jefrey. “Diced away his inheritance in two years flat.”

“What’s he playing with now?” I asked.

“The widow’s money,” he said, ruffing the big male Hort’s neck-mane. “He borrows against the Merlat name, pisses it all away and then they show up. She always pays,” said Jefrey. “Ought to let ’em gut the rat-faced little bastard.”

We neared the corner. “What about the other brother?” I asked. “Arthur, isn’t it?”

“Othur,” said Jefrey, and he spat after pronouncing the word. “Weed.”

I nodded. “How long?”

“Long as I can recall, it seems,” said Jefrey. He was looking about now, checking windows and doors to see if the widow’s shadow fell across any of them. “Took to it when the old master left for the War. Ain’t much left of Othur now, ’cept when he’s running low. Then he gets mean. He’s the reason I lock my door at night, Markhat. Them others is bad enough-but I reckon they’re too lazy to cut a poor man’s throat for a handful of copper jerks. Othur, though-he’d kill you just to wait a day and snatch the coppers off your eyes, you mark my words.”

I nodded, kept my mouth shut. Jefrey was getting nervous, and though I wanted to ask about the daughter again, I didn’t want to put Jefrey on the spot with the widow.

We neared the kennels, and the dogs yipped and trotted. Jefrey wrestled open the top of a barrel and began to scoop out pellets of dog food.