bed.
‘1 was beginning to get worried. My girl has not returned.’
Lythande walked to her side, draping an arm about her shoulders and taking hold
of her hand.
‘I’ve heard the rumours in the streets. The new regime has chosen its next
enemy, it would seem. What is the truth of their demands?’
‘They intend to levy a tax of ten gold pieces on every woman living on the
Street.’
Lythande’s habitual smile faded, and the blue star tattooed forehead wrinkled
into a frown. ‘Will you be able to pay that?’
‘The intent is not that we pay, but that the Street be closed, and that we be
sent up to the empire. If 1 pay it once, they’ll keep on levying it until I
can’t pay.’
‘You could close the house …’
‘Never!’ Myrtis pulled her hands away. ‘The Aphrodisia House is mine. I was
running this house when the Rankan Empire was a collection of half-naked
barbaric tribes!’
‘But they aren’t any longer,’ Lythande reminded her gently. ‘And the Hell Hounds
– if not the prince – are making substantial changes in all our lives.’
‘They won’t interfere with magic, will they?’
Myrtis’s concern for Lythande briefly overshadowed her fears for the Aphrodisia
House. The magician’s thin-lipped smile returned.
‘For now it is doubtful. There are men in Ranke who have the ability to affect
us directly, but they have not followed the prince to Sanctuary, and I do not
know if he could command their loyalty.’
Myrtis stood up. She walked to the leaded-glass window, with its thick,
obscuring panes which revealed movement on the Street but very little else.