She laughed and beamed and tousled his hair for he knew that such talk pleased
her. Then he told her the story. Handed her, disguised in carefully smudged
russet, a strip of silken cloth: two straps and two cupped circles bearing many
thread-holes.
‘Ah! You’ve been visiting a lady in the Path of Money! Nice of you to let
Moonflower have four of the pearls you’ve laboriously sliced off this little
sheath!’
‘She gave it me for services rendered.’ He waved a hand.
‘Oh, of course. Hmm.’ She folded it, unfolded it, fondled it, drew it through
her dimple-backed hands, sniffed and tasted it with a dainty tongue-tip. A gross
kitten at her divining. She closed her eyes and was very still. As Hanse was,
waiting.
‘She is indeed a c- what you said,’ she told him, able to be discreet even
though in something approaching a trance. ‘Oh, Shadowspawn! You are involved in
a plot beyond your dreaming. Odd – this must be the Emperor I see, watching from
afar. And this big man with your – acquaintance. A big man with a big beard. In
a uniform? I think so. Close to our ruler, both. Yet … ahh … they are his
enemies. Yes. They plot. She is a serpent and he a lion of no little craft. They
seek … ah, I see. The Prince-Governor has become faceless. Yes. They seek to
cost him face.’ Her eyes opened to stare wide at him, two big garnets set amid a
heavy layer of kohl. ‘And you, Hanse my sweet, are their tool.’
They stared at each other for a moment. ‘Best you vanish for a time,
Shadowspawn. You know what becomes of tools once they are no longer needed.’