getting even. Perhaps there was no longer any hope of bringing to account the
villain who had killed her parents and sacked their estate, enslaved the able
bodied, turned loose his half-mad troops on children to glut the lust of their
loins amid the smoke and crashing of beams as the village its inhabitants called
Holt vanished from the stage of history.
But there were other things to do with her life. Hastily she snatched back the
cup she had already allowed to linger too long in the grasp of this, luckily the
last of Melilot’s publicity boys. She cut short an attempt at complaint with a
scowl which drew her forehead-skin down just far enough to reveal a scar
normally covered by her forelock. That was a resource she customarily reserved
until all else failed. It had its desired effect; the boy gulped and surrendered
the cup and went back to work, pausing only to urinate against the wall.
2
Just as Jarveena expected, Aye-Gophlan marched stolidly around the block,
occasionally glancing back as though feeling insecure without his regular escort
of six tall men, and made for the rear entrance to the scriptorium – the one in
the crooked alley where the silk-traders were concentrated. Not all of Melilot’s
customers cared to be seen walking in off a populous and sunny roadway.
Jarveena thrust the wine jar, dish, and cup she was carrying into the hands of
an apprentice too young to argue, and ordered them returned to the kitchen
next to the bindery, with which it shared a fire. Then she stole up behind Aye