“Yes, I will contact Zingaro, Business Agent of the Thieves’ Guild, and he will return it to you, for a compensation, of course. But before we conclude this bargain you must swear that you will not harm Amra, my wife, nor any of her children, nor confiscate her business but will behave toward her as if this had never happened.”
The Duke swallowed hard, but he swore. Green was happy, because, though he was going to desert Amra, he was at least insuring her future.
It was a long, long hour later that Green came out of his hiding place inside a large closet in the Duke’s apartment. Even though the Duke had sworn the holiest of oaths, he was as treacherous as any of the barbarians on this planet, and that was very treacherous indeed. Green had stood behind the door, sweating and listening to the loud and sometimes incoherent conversation taking place between the Duke, his soldiers and the Duchess. The Duke was a good actor, for he convinced everybody that he had escaped from the mad slave Green, had seized a sword and forced him to make a running broad jump from the balcony railing. Of course, several guardsmen had seen a large man-sized object hurtle from the balcony and fall with a loud splash into the moat below. There was no doubt that the slave must have broken his back when he struck the water or else he had been knocked out and then drowned. Whatever had happened, he had not come out.
Green, his ear against the door, could not help smiling at this, despite his tension. He and the Duke had combined forces to heave out a wooden statue of the god Zuzupatr, weighted with iron dishes tied to it so that it wouldn’t float. In the moonlight and the excitement, the idol must have looked enough like a falling man to deceive anybody.
The only one seemingly not satisfied was Zuni. She raised every kind of hell she knew, behaved in a most undignified manner, screeched at her husband because his blood-thirstiness and lack of restraint had robbed her of the exquisite tortures she’d planned for the slave who had attempted to dishonor her. The Duke, his face getting redder and redder, had suddenly bellowed out at her to quit acting like a condemned izzot and go at once to her apartments. To show that he meant what he said he ordered several soldiers to escort her. Zuni, however, was too stupid to see how perilous was her situation, how near the headsman’s ax. She raved on until the Duke gave a sign and two soldiers seized her elbows – at least, Green supposed they did, for she yelled at them to take their dirty hands off her – and propelled her out of the rooms. Even then it took some time before the Duke could close the doors on his last guest.
The little ruler opened the door. In his hand he held a priest’s green robe, the sacerdotal hexagonal spectacles and a mask for the lower part of the face. The mask was customarily worn when a monk was on a mission for a high dignitary. During the time the face was covered the monk was under a vow not to speak to anyone until he had reached the person for whom he had a message. Thus, Green would not be bothered with any embarrassing questions.
He put on the robe, spectacles and mask, threw the hood over his head and placed the glass exurotr inside his shirt, His loaded pistol he kept up one capacious sleeve, holding it with the other hand.
“Remember,” said the Duke anxiously as he opened the door and peered out to see if anybody was on the staircase, “remember that you must take every precaution against damaging the exurotr. Tell Zingaro that he must at once pack it in a chest filled with silks and sawdust so it won’t break. I will die a thousand deaths until it comes back once again to my collection.”
And I, thought Green, will die a thousand deaths until I get safely out of your reach, out of the city and far away on a windroller.