find a way in even on the upper floor-
She reached the bedroom and froze in the doorway, dead-stopped against the
doorframe.
Not a sound came out of her throat. She was Moria of the streets and she had
seen corpses and made a few herself.
But the sight of a man who had lately made love to her lying dead on the floor
in her bedspread-her heart clenched and loosed and sent a flood of nausea up
into her throat. Then she swallowed it down and ducked down low, got across the
room to get the shutters closed and bolted-for the window itself she did not
try.
Then she ran, past the dreadful death on the floor, out of that place and down
the stairs again for the comfort of Stilcho’s presence, for the dead-alive man
who was the only ally she had left, and to the Stepson who had come running out
of that upstairs room the same as she.
He was still lying on the hall floor, there beside the stairs, with Stilcho’s
cloak wadded under his head and Stilcho crouching over him. Stilcho looked up as
she came down the last steps, and his face and the face of the Stepson on the
floor were the same pale color.
“Name’s Straton,” Stilcho said. “Her lover.”
“T-Tasfalen’s d-dead,” Moria said. She had almost said my lover, but that was
not true, Tasfalen was only a decent man who had treated her better than any man
ever had, and who had died a fool. Of her doing, never this Straton’s fault:
Moria knew who she had left him with; and suddenly Moria the thief felt a pang
of tears and the sting and ache of all her wounds. “What’ll we do?” She leaned