curse without word or effort, refiexively, giving him a social disease no
Sanctuary mage or barber-surgeon could cure, complete with running sores upon
lips and member, and a virus in control of it which buried itself in the
brainstem and came out when it chose. She hardly took note of it; it was a small
show of temper, like for like: let him exhibit the condition of his soul, she
had decreed.
To banish her leggy nakedness from the surface of her wine, she said straight
out; ‘You know the other bar owners. The Alekeep’s proprietor has a girl about
to graduate from school. Arrange to host her party, let it be known that you
will sell those children krrf – Tamzen is the child I mean. Then have your
flunky lead her down to Shambles Cross. Leave them there – up to half a dozen
youngsters, it may be – lost in the drug and the slum.’
‘That will tame two vicious Stepsons? You do know the men I mean? Janni? And
Stealth? They bugger each other, Stepsons. Girls are beside the point. And
Stealth – he’s a/wzzbuster- I’ve seen him with no woman old enough for breasts.
Surely -‘
‘Surely,’ she cut in smoothly, ‘you don’t want to know more than that – in case
it goes awry. Protection in these matters lies in ignorance.’ She would not tell
him more – not that Stealth, called Nikodemos, had come out of Azehur, where
he’d earned his war name and worked his way towards Syr in search of a Tros
horse via Mygdonia, hiring on as a caravan guard and general roustabout, or that
a dispute over a consignment lost to mountain bandits had made him bond-servant