lap, to meditate, to request the guidance of the Great One. And then, when my mind was purged of all selfish desire, I considered the many offers. When I came to yours I felt the sword grow warm in my hands. I knew then that I had to journey to Kydor.'
'Does the sword then yearn for peril?' asked Matze Chai.
'Perhaps. But I believe it merely shows the Rajnee a path towards the will of the Great One.'
'And these paths inevitably carry you towards evil?'
'Yes,' said Kysumu.
'Hardly a comforting thought,' said Matze Chai, deciding he had no wish to elicit further explanation. He disliked excitement, and this journey had already contained too many incidents. Now, it seemed, the mere presence of Kysumu guaranteed further adventure.
Pushing thoughts of demons and swords from his mind he closed his eyes, picturing his garden and the scented, flowering trees. The image calmed him.
From outside the palanquin came a raucous noise. The ditch-digger was singing in a loud, horrible discordant voice. Matze Chai's eyes snapped open. The song was in a broad northern Chiatze dialect, and concerned the physical endowments and unnatural body hair of a young pleasure-woman. A small pain began behind Matze Chai's left eye.
Kysumu rang the bell and the palanquin came to a smooth halt. The Rajnee opened the door and leapt lightly to the ground. The singing stopped.
Matze Chai heard the loud oaf say, 'But the next verse is really funny.'
*
Lalitia was a woman not easily surprised. She had learnt all there was to know about men by the time she was fourteen, and her capacity for surprise had been exhausted long before that. Orphaned and living on the streets of the capital at the age of eight, she had learnt to steal, to beg, to run and to hide. Sleeping on the sand beneath the wharf timbers, she had sometimes huddled in the dark and watched the cut-throats drag victims to the water's edge before knifing them viciously and hurling the bodies into the surf. She had listened as the cheap tavern whores plied their trade, rutting with their customers in the moon shadows. On many occasions she was close by when the officers of the watch came round to collect their bribes from the tavern women, before taking it in turns to enjoy free sport with them.
The red-headed child learnt swiftly. By the age of twelve she was leading a gang of juvenile cutpurses, operating throughout the market squares, paying out a tenth of their earnings to the watch, ensuring they were never caught.
For two years Lalitia - Sly Red, as she was known then - hoarded her own takings, hiding the coin where no one would find it. She spent her spare time crouched in alleyways watching the rich enjoying their meals in the finer taverns, noting the way the great ladies moved and spoke, the languid grace they displayed, the faint air of boredom they assumed when in the company of men. Their backs were always straight, their movements slow, smooth and assured. Their skin was creamy white, untanned - indeed, untouched - by the sun. In summer they wore wide-brimmed hats, with gossamer veils. Sly Red watched, absorbed their movements, carefully storing them in the vaults of memory.
At fourteen her luck had run out. While running from a merchant, whose money pouch strings she had neatly sliced, she slipped on a piece of rotten fruit and fell heavily to the cobbles. The merchant had held her until the watch soldiers arrived, and they had dragged her away.
'Can't help you this time, Red,' said one of them. 'You just robbed Vanis, and he's an important man.'
The magistrate had sentenced her to twelve years. She served three in a rat-infested dungeon before being summoned one day to the office of the gaol captain, a young officer named Aric. He was slim and cold-eyed, even handsome in a vaguely dissolute manner. 'I saw you walking by the far wall this morning,' he told the seventeen-year-old girl. 'You do not appear to be a peasant.'
Sly Red had been using her hour of daylight to
'Does the sword then yearn for peril?' asked Matze Chai.
'Perhaps. But I believe it merely shows the Rajnee a path towards the will of the Great One.'
'And these paths inevitably carry you towards evil?'
'Yes,' said Kysumu.
'Hardly a comforting thought,' said Matze Chai, deciding he had no wish to elicit further explanation. He disliked excitement, and this journey had already contained too many incidents. Now, it seemed, the mere presence of Kysumu guaranteed further adventure.
Pushing thoughts of demons and swords from his mind he closed his eyes, picturing his garden and the scented, flowering trees. The image calmed him.
From outside the palanquin came a raucous noise. The ditch-digger was singing in a loud, horrible discordant voice. Matze Chai's eyes snapped open. The song was in a broad northern Chiatze dialect, and concerned the physical endowments and unnatural body hair of a young pleasure-woman. A small pain began behind Matze Chai's left eye.
Kysumu rang the bell and the palanquin came to a smooth halt. The Rajnee opened the door and leapt lightly to the ground. The singing stopped.
Matze Chai heard the loud oaf say, 'But the next verse is really funny.'
*
Lalitia was a woman not easily surprised. She had learnt all there was to know about men by the time she was fourteen, and her capacity for surprise had been exhausted long before that. Orphaned and living on the streets of the capital at the age of eight, she had learnt to steal, to beg, to run and to hide. Sleeping on the sand beneath the wharf timbers, she had sometimes huddled in the dark and watched the cut-throats drag victims to the water's edge before knifing them viciously and hurling the bodies into the surf. She had listened as the cheap tavern whores plied their trade, rutting with their customers in the moon shadows. On many occasions she was close by when the officers of the watch came round to collect their bribes from the tavern women, before taking it in turns to enjoy free sport with them.
The red-headed child learnt swiftly. By the age of twelve she was leading a gang of juvenile cutpurses, operating throughout the market squares, paying out a tenth of their earnings to the watch, ensuring they were never caught.
For two years Lalitia - Sly Red, as she was known then - hoarded her own takings, hiding the coin where no one would find it. She spent her spare time crouched in alleyways watching the rich enjoying their meals in the finer taverns, noting the way the great ladies moved and spoke, the languid grace they displayed, the faint air of boredom they assumed when in the company of men. Their backs were always straight, their movements slow, smooth and assured. Their skin was creamy white, untanned - indeed, untouched - by the sun. In summer they wore wide-brimmed hats, with gossamer veils. Sly Red watched, absorbed their movements, carefully storing them in the vaults of memory.
At fourteen her luck had run out. While running from a merchant, whose money pouch strings she had neatly sliced, she slipped on a piece of rotten fruit and fell heavily to the cobbles. The merchant had held her until the watch soldiers arrived, and they had dragged her away.
'Can't help you this time, Red,' said one of them. 'You just robbed Vanis, and he's an important man.'
The magistrate had sentenced her to twelve years. She served three in a rat-infested dungeon before being summoned one day to the office of the gaol captain, a young officer named Aric. He was slim and cold-eyed, even handsome in a vaguely dissolute manner. 'I saw you walking by the far wall this morning,' he told the seventeen-year-old girl. 'You do not appear to be a peasant.'
Sly Red had been using her hour of daylight to
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