Niko and knew where Tempus had gotten to. He reined in at Phoebe’s Inn (so the
sign said) and shoved the sorrel’s reins through a ring at the building’s side.
There were bystanders; and part of their interest diverted to him, who added
himself to the diversion-he scowled blackly and glanced around him with the
quiet promise what would befall the hand that touched his horse or his gear.
Then he walked on into Phoebe’s front room and confronted the proprietor, a fat
woman with the predictable amount of gaud and matronly decorum. “Seen my
commander?” he asked directly.
She had. Chins doubled and undoubled and painted mouth formed a word.
“Where?”
She pointed. “T-two of them,” she said. “F-foreign lady, sh-she-“
That took no guesswork. “Tell my commander Critias is downstairs. Do it.”
There was another scream from upstairs. Of a different pitch. For a whorehouse
the desertion of the front room was remarkable. Not a whore of either gender
came out of the alcoves. The madam ran the stairs and went careening down the
upstairs hall, vanishing into the dark.
And still not a beaded curtain shadowed in the downstairs. Not a sound, except
upstairs: a knock at a door, the madam’s voice saying something unintelligible.
A door opened finally. A heavier tread sounded in the upstairs and Crit looked
up as Tempus appeared at the head of the stairs-looked up with a stolid face and
a moil of trepidation in his own gut that was only partly due to disturbing
Tempus at this particularly agitated moment.
He watched Tempus come down the stairs; stood quietly with his hands in his belt