everyone else he knew.
He flung the saddle up and the bay which was her gift stood quietly while Crit’s
damn sorrel kicked a stall to ruin and Crit did not come to see to the animal.
He checked the bridle and turned the bay and led it out into the stable aisle,
from there to the door.
Perhaps Crit would be waiting there, having known his chances slipping up on
him. Perhaps it would be one fast bolt through the ribs and never a chance at
all to tell Crit he was a fool and a blackguard.
Strat leapt up to the bay’s back and ducked his head, sending the bay flying out
that door with a powerful drive of its hindquarters. If a bolt flew past he
never saw it. The bay scrabbled for a tight turn on the dirt of the little yard
and lit out down the cobbles of the alley, never pausing until he reined it to a
walk a block away.
Where he was going he had no idea. Stay away, Ischade had said. He had believed
her then, the way he believed implicitly when she spoke in that tone to him,
that it was something she understood and he did not. It was something to do with
Roxane. It was something that brought a wildness to her eyes and meant hazard to
her; but it was a witch-matter, not his kind of dealing. Nothing he could help
her with. And he and Ischade had the kind of understanding he had once with
Crit, an understanding he had never looked to have with any woman: an unspoken
agreement of personal competencies. Witchery was hers. The command of the city
was his. And he would not go there tonight, though that was where every bone in