There was a little food here. A little wine. A waterpot and a few other odds and ends. He stumped about in the dusty silence and knew that he was safe from hearing: below was only the stable, and to either side were warehouses and the owners of them well-heeled and Rankene, uptown.

He had his breakfast. He washed. He found himself trapped in one of those days that had gotten common enough lately, with horror on either end and sheer boredom in the middle. Nowhere presently to go. Nothing presently to do, because it was all waiting, waiting, waiting. Something would break and the Srd's scattered vigilance would turn up something, but in the meanwhile commerce went on and down by the harbor hammering went on, sound echoing off distant walls.

Building going on while the world ended.

He sat there and chewed a tasteless bit of yesterday's bread and drank a cup of wine and most of what his mind wanted to go to was Her, and the river and the dark. Maybe he could have found something to do with himself, found some use for himself or some plan to pursue-but he had a deep and abiding conviction that there was nothing, presently, worth the doing. And that soon all hell would break.

He grew prophetic since he had shared the witch's bed. Niko had gone down in such a trap and even that failed to alarm him, because he knew why, and accepted. He sat listlessly and heard his heart beat, thump, thump, like the hammer-blows and the thud of cartwheels on cobbles and the whole pulse of the city.

My city. Walls behind which the Empire could last if there were adjustments here.

More than one emperor of Ranke had risen (aye, and come to grief) at the will of the soldiery.

He could snatch up the sword Kadakithis left untouched. Be ready when Tempus returned.

Shock Crit to hell, he would. Hello, Crit. Meet the new emperor. Me.

He shivered. It was crazy. He tried to think back to the night and it was full of dark gaps. Memory of things he had done with Ischade that had all the improbability of efreets and krrf-dreams.

They came and went. Her face did. Her mouth hovered close and spoke words and he could read lips, but he could not read that, as if she spoke some language he knew and did not know when he was awake, or his brain would not let him put the sounds together.

And no man had nights like that, no one could, and have another and another and pay no penalties.

There were sore places; there were marks-(witch-marks?) bites and scratches that confirmed part of what he remembered; could a man's soul leak out through such little wounds?

A spider had spun an elaborate web over by the light-vent, across the slats. He found it uncomfortably ominous. He went and flung it down and crushed the spider under his heel; and felt a chill greater than the killing in the barracks had given him.

"Stilcho." It took an expenditure of energy to bring him back. Ischade put her hands on the Stepson and searched deep down the long threads that led where he had gone; and pulled, and rewove, and brought him up again, there on the cold ground beneath the scraggly roses and the brush. "Stilcho. Fool. Come up and let go."

He wept-tears from one eye and a thin, reddish fluid from the missing one. And he did come back-came rushing back all at once and into the world with a scream that would have drawn attention in any town but Sanctuary and in any neighborhood but this one.

"Well," she said, sitting there with her arms about her | knees and regarding this least willing of her servants, i "And where were you?"

He knew her then and scrambled back till he hit the rosebushes and impaled himself on the thorns. He began to shiver; and she caught a little remnant of magics about the place.

"That very fool!" she said, knowing of a sudden that signature and that willful pride. At times Haught amused her with his hunger for knowledge and his self convinced keenness to serve. This was not one of those times. "Where did you go last night?"

"H-h-here."

"Vanity. Vanity. What prodigy did you perform? What did he ask?"

"I-I-" Stilcho's teeth chattered. "Ask-a-ask me-go down-find-f-find-a-answer-"

She drew in a deep breath and slitted her eyes. Stilcho gazed into her face and pressed himself as far in retreat as he could, heedless of the thorns. He flinched when she reached and caught him by the arm. "Stepson. No, I shan't hurt you. I'll not hurt you. What did Haught want to know?"

"N-n-nik-o." Stilcho went into a new paroxysm of shivering. "T-temple-. Said said tell-you-Janni- Janni is out hunting Niko."

She was very still for a moment. A thread of blood ran down Stilcho's cheek from the thorns. "What side is he playing, Stilcho?"

"Says-says-you spend-" Stilcho trembled and a second runnel joined the first down his cheek. "Too much time on Straton. Says think of Janni. Think-"

It all died away very quickly, very quietly. She stared at him a moment, and he stayed still as a bird in front of a snake. And then she smiled, which made him flinch the more. She reached out and straightened a lock of hair above his ruined face. "You have a good heart, Stilcho. A loyal heart. An honest one. Proof against corruption. Of all sorts. Even though you hate what I did. Haught is Nisi. Does that suggest caution to you?"

"He-hates the Nisi witch."

"Oh, yes. Nisi enemies sold him into slavery. But Stepsons bought him. I tell you, Stilcho, I will not have quarrels in my house. There, you're bleeding. Go in and wash. And wait-" She bent and pressed a kiss against his scarred mouth, another against his wounded cheek. He took in his breath at the second, because she had sent a little prickling spell lancing into his soul. "If Haught tries you again I'll know. Get inside."

He scrambled out of his predicament with the rosebush, gathered himself to his feet and went up the steps into the house. In haste. With what of grace a dead man could manage taking his leave of a sovereign lady who crouched thus in the dust and meditated a few tattered, fresh leaves onto the rosebush.

The door slammed. The rosebush struggled into one further untimely surge, thrust out a wan limegreen shoot and budded. She stood and it unfurled, blood-red and perfect.

She plucked it and sucked her finger, sent out a silent summons and a dozen birds napped aloft above where they had clung like ill-omened leaves to the skeletal winter trees.

She tucked the rose into the dooriatch. So much for Haught, who thought that his mistress had grown soft-witted. Who thought that she needed counsel; and who took first a bit of latitude with his orders and then a bit more.

This rose likewise had thorns.

It was noon, and Straton headed to the streets again- quietly, or at least with enough attempt at disguise that those who recognized him would know better than to hail him. He left the bay stabled and went afoot; and wore ordinary clothes. First he paid a visit to the backside of a tavern where messages tended to turn up, if there was a chalkmark on a certain wall there. There was nothing. So one informant failed, which meant two others had, down the line from that one.

But Sanctuary stayed uncommonly quiet-considering the carnage that had happened over by the barracks Downwind-side. Or because of it.

He fretted, and bought a hot drink at a counter, and stood there watching Sanctuary urchins batting something objectionable about the gutter. And took a further walk up the street, past an easy checkpoint into Blue, dodging round a fuller-wagon immediately after. A donkey had died in the street. That was the morning's excitement. The tanners from the Shambles were loading it into a cart with more help from local brats than they wanted. A sly wag spooked the tanner's horse and it shied off and dumped the corpse flat, to howls from watchers curbside.