“Have it inside.” A second figure stepped into the alley out of the dark
doorway, and the voice was female. “Come on in. But go first.”
He thought about it. The pair of them stood in front of him. “One of you get a
light going in there.”
The second figure vanished, and in a moment a dim light flared, casting a faint
glow on the youth outside. Mradhon calculated his chances, slipped his own knife
into its sheath and went, with a prickling sensation at his nape-a short step up
to the floor with the man at his back, a flash of the eye about the single room,
the tattered faded curtain at the end that could conceal anything; the woman; a
single cot this side, clothing hung on pegs, water jugs, pots and pan-.nikins
set on a misshapen brick firepit at the right on the rim of which the lamp sat.
The woman was the finer image of the man, dark hair cropped close as his, like
twins-brother and sister at least. He turned. The brother shut the door behind
him with a push of his foot.
“Mama Becho’s,” the brother said. “That was where you were.”
“You’re Jubal’s man,” Mradhon said and ignored the knife to walk over to the
wall nearest the clothes, where a halfwall jutted out to shield his back from
the curtain. “Still Jubal’s man, I’m guessing, and I’m looking for hire.”
“You’re crazy. Out. There’s nothing for you here.”
“Not so easy.” He saw one cloak on the pegs. The man wore one. There was some
clothing, not abundant. He fingered the cloak, letting them follow his train of
thought, and looked at them again, folded his arms and leaned back against the