bridge, Stepsons, Tempus’ men. They were gone in a moment and life poured back
onto the street.
So the business out by Jubal’s estate continued, and Tempus settled in. A shiver
ran down Mradhon’s spine, for the inconvenience of the neighborhood. He wanted
out-desperately he thought of Garonne-if he had had the funds. But they hunted
spies. War with Nisibis was on them. Any foreigner was suspect, and one who
really happened to be Nisibisi-
Most especially he avoided the main ways after that, grateful for the anonymity
of Mama Becho’s, which lay off the main track the carts and the riders took.
Something in him shivered, remembering the hire he had just accepted, pay which
had set him against the new occupants of the estate. Tempus’ men hunted
hawkmasks as they hunted spies and foreigners; and gods knew it was no prettier
way to go.
The alleyways unwound, almost home territory now. A beggar or two always huddled
near Mama Becho’s, one wakeful enough tonight to put out a claw and want a coin
a true cripple, perhaps, or too sick to make the bridge to richer streets. A dry
spitting attended his lack of charity.
Then for one heart-stopped moment he heard a sound behind, and turned, but there
was nothing but the moon on a muddy alley and the tilt-walled buildings leaning
together like some fever dream of hell in the dark.
Followed, he thought. He quickened his pace, on the verge of home, and came to
the alleyway by Mama’s, where the drinking continued, and the hangers-about-the
door still loitered, but fewer of them. He walked into that alley and Tygoth was