But Jihan found him before he could find a likely wench on the Street of Red
Lanterns. Her eyes were glowing and she squeezed his arm and wanted to know,
“Just what kind of houses are these?”
He had half a mind to show her, but not the time: she’d come to get him to
mediate between Crit and Strat in matters of command and to ask whether they
could all attend a “fete for returning heroes” being given by friends of
Ischade’s who lived uptown, and whether he’d noticed anything strange about
Strat’s bay horse.
And since he had troubles enough of his own, and Jihan was one, he agreed to
come with her, gave permission for the Band and Stepsons to attend the fete, and
lied about the horse, saying he hadn’t noticed anything strange about it at all.
DAGGER IN THE MIND
C. J. Cherryh
“My lady-” Stilcho said, ever so quietly. The dead Stepson hesitated in the
doorway of the back room of the riverhouse. Hesitated longer. Ischade sat in the
chair before the fire with her hands clasped between her black-robed knees and
gazed there, the fire leaping and casting light on her face, on the bright
scatter of cloaks and trinkets that made the house like some garish carnival.
And Ischade, a darkness in it, fire-limned. The wind rushed in the chimney. The
fire roared up with a dizzy sibilance. The candles burned brighter so that
Stilcho flinched back. Flinched and flinched again in the other direction, for
he encountered a body behind him and a hard hand on his shoulder.
He turned and looked by mistake straight into Haught’s dark Nisi eyes. A muscle