clutching his knees as he crouched rocking in the cream-and-lace of her bed. “I
got to have m-m-money, Mo-ri-a. I got to go to Her, I got to make it g-g-good-“
“Damn, all I’ve got is Her money, you fool! You’re going to take Her money and
pay Her back with it?”
“You g-g-got to, you g-g-got to, the p-pain, Moria, the pain-“
“Stay here!”
She set the knife down and fled, a flurry of satin and ribbons and bare feet
down the polished, carpeted stairs, down into the hall and back where even in
this night Cook’s minions labored over the dinner-the infamous Shiey had
acquired a partner with a monumental girth and a real skill, who co-ruled the
kitchen: one-handed Shiey managed the beggar-servants and Kotilis stirred and
mixed and sliced with a deft fury that put an awe into the slovens and dullards
that were the rule in this house. They thought She had witched this cook, and
that the hands that made a knife fly over a radish and carve it into a flower
could do equally well with ears and noses: that was what Shiey told them. And
work went on this night. Work went on in mad terror; and if anyone thought it
was strange that one more beggar went padding in the front door at night (with a
key) and Little Mistress came flying downstairs in her night-gown to rummage the
desk in the hall for the money not one thief in the house dared steal-
No one said a thing. Shiey only stood in the door in her floured apron, and
Kotilis went on butchering his radishes, while Moria ignored them both, flying
up the stairs again with the copper taste of a bitten lip and stark fear in her