was allowed to adjourn to a rearward chamber. She emerged with her hair caught
in a plain snood of dull old green. A veil of medium green concealed her lower
face. Displayed were ears pierced but not be jeweled, which she knew was
unattractive.
She tarried there, in that booth of a seer blindingly dressed in multicolor,
while the S’danzo’s daughter and the lackey Wints bore the ring back to the
White Swan. No, she did not care to be read by the S’danzo. Was the kind S’danzo
discreet?-Yes. Then did she perhaps know of a certain man … And the newcomer,
veiled again, mentioned a name and then a description.
No, the S’danzo did not know him; perhaps a reading might help?-No, no reading;
there would be no Seeing into the affairs of the veiled lady.
The S’danzo wisely said no more. She assumed that this stranger either was so
cautious as to want not even a close-mouthed seer to know aught of her-or wished
not to know more of herself and her future’s possibilities and probabilities
than she already did.
Wintsenay and the nine-year-old returned anon with the veiled lady’s three
horses. She dispatched them to arrange lodgings for her at the inn suggested by
her new S’danzo friend.
She did not see him she sought, that day. Twice she must stop and show her face
to members of the occupying force, but apparently she did not resemble whomever
they sought. Two of their number had been slain last night. The word was murder,
but Sanctuarites did not use it in connection with the deaths of the Beysa’s
minions.
She kept Wintsenay with her, calling him Wints, that he might not talk o’ermuch