“We’ve got business.” The dog quieted: Mriga let her stand, but watched her
carefully. “Straton, is the lady decent?”
He stared at them, as dumbfounded by the outrageous question as by the simple
sight of them-the armed and radiant woman, fierce-eyed and divinely tall: the
ragged skinny beggar girl who somehow shone through her grime: and the delicate,
deer-slim, bitter-eyed brown dog wearing a look such as he had seen on Stepsons
about to avenge a lost partner. “Haught,” he said, “go inquire.”
“No need,” said a fourth voice behind him in the doorway’s darkness: a voice
soft and sleepy and dangerous. “Haught, Stilcho, where are your manners? Let the
ladies in. Then be off for a while. Straton, perhaps you’ll excuse us. They’re
only goddesses, I can handle them.”
The men cleared out of the doorway one by one as the three climbed the stair.
First came the dog with her lip curled, showing a fang or two; then the gray
eyed spear-bearer, looking around her with the cool unnoticing scorn of a great
lady preparing to do some weighty business in a sty. Last came the beggar, at
whom Straton looked with relaxed contempt. “Curb that,” he said, glancing at
Tyr, then back at Mriga, in calmest threat.
Mriga eyed him. “The bay misses you,” she said, low-voiced, and went on past,
into the dark.
She ignored the hating look he threw into her back like a knife as he turned
away. If her plan worked, vengeance would not be necessary. And she was
generally not going to be a vengeful goddess. But in Straton’s case, just this