contained. Mignureal had never seen it and could not know about this container
of quicklime. She could not know where he was going this night for he had only
just decided (and that without quite admitting it to himself); she was
Moonflower’s daughter…
Stupid, cumbersome, senseless, he thought while he slipped the crock into a good
oilskin bag he had lifted in the Bazaar. He secured it to his belt so that it
rested on one buttock. And he touched the sandal of Thufir tacked above the
door, and went forth.
The white blaze of the sun had hours since become yellow in its daily waning,
and then orange. Now it squatted low and seemed to spray streamers of crimson
across the darkening sky. It did not look at all like blood, Hanse told himself.
Besides, soon it would be dark and his friends would be everywhere, in black and
indigo and charcoal. The shadows.
I could use a good sword, the shadow thought, blending into another shadow. An
eerie feeling still lay on him, from that business with Mignureal. Surely not
even Kurd deserved quicklime! This long ‘knife’ from the Ilbarsi Hills is a good
tool, he thought, to keep his mind on sensible, practical matters. But it’s time
I had a good sword.
I’ll have to try and steal one.
‘Thou shalt have a sword,’ a voice said sonorously inside his head, a lion
within the shadowed corridors of his mind, ‘;/ thou free’st my valued and loyal
ally. Aye, and a fine sheath for it, as well. In silver!’
Hanse stopped. He was still and dark as the shadow of a tree or a wall of stone.