began to giggle. Phryne went and washed, and her sister and Tamzen followed.
When they came back, the boys were nowhere in sight. Tamzen was just going to
ask about that when the woman offered fruit, and somehow she forgot the words on
her tongue-tip, and even that the boys had been there at all, so fine was the
krrf the woman smoked with them. She knew she’d remember in a bit, though,
whatever it was she’d forgot…
When Crit and Straton arrived with the hawkmask they’d captured at the Foalside
home of Ischade, the vampire woman, all its lights were on, it seemed, yet
little of that radiance cut the gloom.
‘By the god’s four mouths, Crit, I still don’t understand why you let those
others go. And for Niko. What – ?’
‘Don’t ask me, Straton, what his reasons are; I don’t know. Something about the
one being of that Successors band, revolutionaries who want Wizardwall back from
the Nisibisi mages -there’s more to Nisibis than the warlocks. If that Vis was
one, then he’s an outlaw as far as Nisibisi law goes, and maybe a fighter. So we
let him go, do him a favour, see if maybe he’ll come to us, do us a service in
his turn. But as for the other – you saw Ischade’s writ of freedom – we gave him
to her and she let him go. If we want to use her … if she’ll ever help us find
Jubal – and she does know where he is; this freeing of the slave was a message;
she’s telling us we’ve got to up the ante – we’ve got to honour her wishes as
far as this slave-bait goes.’
‘But this … coming here ourselves^. You know what she can do to a man …’