street, assuring him that eventually the successful Gelicia had got his parting
joke. Red Lanterns was a quiet neighbourhood this time of day, after the
sweeping up of the dust and tracks of last night’s customers. Now sheets were
being washed. A few deliveries made. A couple of workmen were occupied with a
broken door-hasp at a House down the street. Cusharlain squinted upwards. The
Enemy, a horrid white ball in a horrid sky going the colour of turmeric powder
laced with saffron, was high, nigh to passing noon. One-Thumb should be stirring
himself about now. Cusharlain decided to go and have a talk with him, too, and
maybe he could get his report made by sunset. His employer did not seem as long
on patience as on funds. The customs inspector of a fading city whose chief
business was theft and the disposal of its product had learned the former, and
was ever at work on increasing his share of the latter.
‘Did what?’ the startlingly good-looking woman said. ‘Roaching? What’s roaching
mean?’
Her companion, who was only a little older than her seventeen or eighteen years,
stiffened his neck to keep from looking anxiously around. ‘Sh – not so loud.
When do cockroaches come out?’
She blinked at the dark, so-intense young man. ‘Why – at night.’
‘So do thieves.’
‘Oh!’ She laughed, struck her hands together with a jangling of bangles – gold,
definitely – and touched his arm. ‘Oh, Hanse, I know so little! You know just
about everything, don’t you.’ Her face changed. ‘My, these hairs are soft.’ And
she left her hand on that arm with its dark, dark hairs.