in which an old handsomeness lurked as sad and near-unseen as the ghost-bay. His
carriage had ruin about it too. Mriga saw the ghost of it, straight and tall,
under the present reality-a hunched posture, the stance of someone cowering
under the lash of a fear that never went away.
The man stared at them, more with the patched eye than with the whole one, Mriga
thought. “Stilcho,” she said, “where’s your mistress? Bring us to her.”
He stared harder, then laughed. “Who shall I say is calling? Some guttersnipe,
and her mangy cur, and …” He noticed the black bird and grew more reserved.
“Look … get out of here,” he said. “Who are you? Some Nisi witchling, one she
missed last night? Get out. You’re crazy to come here. You’re just a kid, you’re
no match for her, whoever you think you are!”
“Not Nisi, at least,” Mriga said, mildly nettled.
Siveni looked up at Stilcho from Mriga’s shoulder and said, “Man, we are the
goddess Siveni. And if you don’t bring us to your mistress, and that speedily,
you’ll be spoiled meat in a minute. Now get out of our way, or show us in to
her.” The scorn was very audible.
Tyr growled.
“Stilcho you fool, shut that, the wind’s like knives,” said another voice from
beyond the door. And there came a smaller, slimmer man, who wore a cold
composure exactly the opposite of Stilcho’s desolation; but under it, ghost to
its solidity, dwelt the same impression of unrelenting fear. The man looked out
and down at them, and his face went from surprise to amused contempt to
uncertainty to shocked realization in the time it took him to take a breath and