He looked up and it was a dark face, a couple of days unshaven, haggard-eyed,
under a dark fringe of hair and a cap that had seen better years.
Vis.
Mradhon Vis pulled at him, edged sideways through the crowd and alleyward, and
Straton followed, cursing himself for a twice-over fool. This was a Nisi agent.
A hawkmask; and a man with more than one grudge against him. And also a man more
than once in his pay.
Vis wanted him in the alley. And of a sudden there was a second man who seemed
less interested in the dead donkey than in him.
Fool, Straton thought again, but there were two choices now-the alley with Vis
or taking out running, in full flight, and attracting the mob.
3
Moria waited in the antechamber in an agony of uncertainty-cloak close about her
and enough muscle waiting out in the street to guarantee her passage through
Downwind with jewels on. This foyer of one of uptown’s most elegant mansions was
no less perilous territory, for other reasons. It was the lady Nuphtantei’s
mansion, where Ischade had sent her: Haught said so. Haught gave her an escort
of some of Downwind’s best, bathed and dressed up like a proper set of servants;
Haught gave her a paper to hand the servants, a tiny object^ and a set of words
to say, and Moria, born to Downwind’s gutters, stood in this place which was one
of the oldest of all Sanctuary mansions (but not the oldest of Sanctuary
occupants) and knotted her hands and professionally estimated the wealth that
she saw about her, in gold and silver.
A movement caught her eye. She looked down, gulped and skipped four feet