Jans raised a finger to hush her. “No matter that,” he said. “My first point has been made. Id est, imprimis, you would have left these premises if you could.

  “Secundus, the dowries for my daughters exhausted my savings, and nature has not outfitted my son for my own sort of career. You know Denn Orliand for a good lad, and good with his hands, who at present toils as a day laborer, for miserable wages, whenever he can find work. I could buy him a shop of some kind, as it might be this very one, were my small capital not trapped by that incubus of a second house.”

  “We’re all trapped,” Lona whispered.

  “Tertius,” the dry voice marched on, “I looked forward to your wedding, for I am fond of you and Arvel is by no means a bad fellow. I had a book for a gift, a geography which migrants to the New Lands should find helpful or at least amusing, as the case may be, and which is in any event a sumptuous volume —”

  “Jans.” She took his nearer hand in both of hers.

  “Quartus,” he ended, “you might have had occasion to send me a wedding gift from oversea in your turn.”

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  He glanced away and cleared his throat. “Um-m… a lady in reduced circumstances, forced to work in a tavern — but a fine person. As a matter of fact, I met her when Arvel once took me to the, m-m, Drum and Trumpet.”

  “Ynis!” Lona trilled. “Why, I’ve met her myself a time or two, but I never suspected —”

  “Well, but of course I cannot think of assuming any fresh obligation before I have provided for the last child that my Iraine gave me, namely, Denn. The, m-hm, the lady in question agrees.”

  “Does Denn?” Scorn tinged her voice.

  “Oh, he has no idea of all this,” Jans answered hastily. “Pray do keep silence about it. And bear in mind, too, that… Ynis… would be most unwise to give up her present position, distasteful though it often is to her, and marry an aging widower, unless her step-son is able to provide for her and her children if necessary. Denn is loyal, he would do so, but he must have a foundation for his own life before he can, must he not? We are being sensible, even as you are.”

  Lona swallowed again. “Yes.” She jumped down from the bench. “Come,” she said, around an uncertain smile, “let’s choose your things.”

  Natan Sandana the jeweler was visiting Vardrai of Syr the courtesan. The occasion was not the usual one. The small gray man had always contented himself with his wife, rather than spend money on the favors of other women, especially when they were as expensive as Vardrai’s. His desire was for a different sort of joining.

  “I tell you, we cannot lose,” he urged, while he paced excitedly back and forth. The rug drank down every footfall. “My guild maintains a farflung web of communication — which stays healthy, sick though business has otherwise become. I had word of that Norrener ship soon after she had sailed from Owaio. Scarcely was she moored at the Longline this morning but I was aboard, to speak with her captain and look into his strongbox. The news was true. Besides his cargo of spices and rare woods, he has, for himself, such a store of pearls as I never saw aforetime. White, rosy, black, all huge, all perfect, oh, I have today let Beauty’s embodied being trickle through these finers!”

  “How did he get them?” asked Vardrai from the couch whereon she had curled her magnificent body. She continued to stroke a comb through the mahogany sheen of her tresses.

  Natan shrugged. “He did not say. But it’s known that while they were down among yon islands, the Norreners lent their aid — ship, cannon, pikes — in a war between two kinglets, for hire. I conjecture that the good Haako picked up some booty about which he did not inform his royal employer.”

  “And he’d fain sell the lot?”

  “What else? He can get a substantial price at home. However, he understands it will be but a fraction of the true value. If we, here, outbid it, we shall still have a fantastic bargain.”

  Vardrai set the comb down and touched the necklace that her throat graced. “Pearls are fine to wear,” she observed, “but who can eat them? If you can scarcely move what stock you have in your shop, Master Sandana, how can you realize a profit on such a hoard?”

  “Some can be sold quickly,” he maintained. “Not everyone suffers in this abominable climate of trade. Zulio Pandric, for example, waxes fat, and nowadays is my best customer.”

  She grimaced the least bit. “And mine, or one of them,” she murmured, half to herself. “I wish I could charge some less than others. A lusty young man would make up for a bloated old moneylender. But he and his kind seem to have all the gold, and I dare not risk word leaking out that Vardrai of Syr can be had cheaply.”

  “For the most part, the pearls will have to be held for several years, perhaps as much as a decade, until conditions improve,” Natan admitted. “But conditions will. They must. If nothing else, once Sir Falcovan Roncitar has established his colony overseas, the wealth of the New Lands will begin flowing back to Caronne, and we know with certainty how lavish the gods were when they fashioned that part of the world. Gems will not only command their present rightful price, they will have appreciated enormously. Think, my lady. How would you like a profit of two or three hundred per centum?”

  The woman sighed. Her glance strayed to an open window which, from this upper floor, overlooked King’s Newmarket. The breeze that blew in was soft and quiet, for little of the olden bustle stirred on the square; dwindled were the very odors of foodstalls and horse droppings. Cultivated musicality slipped from her voice as she said, in the provincial accent of her childhood, “The trick is to stay alive till then. How much do you need?”

  “I bargained him down to four hundred aureates —”

  Vardrai whistled.

  “— of which I can provide half, if I pledge sufficient property to Master Pandric,” Natan said. “But we must be swift. Unlike so many merchant skippers, Haako expects to sell his cargo at a brisk rate, to wholesalers as well as the rich and the noble. Then he’ll be off.”

  The jeweler halted before Vardrai’s couch. “My lady,” he pleaded, “I came to you because your trade is still faring well, and it is general knowledge that you are not extravagant, but put money aside. What say you to a partnership, share and share alike?”

  Slowly, she shook her lovely head. “I say wonderful — but impossible,” she told him with regret. “I have not the likes of such cash, nor could I leave it with you to ripen for ten years or so if I did.”

  “‘But,” he protested. “But.”

  “I know.” She gestured at those velvet hangings, ivory-inlaid furnishings, crystal chandeliers, fragrant incense burners which decorated the room. She ran a palm down the thin silk which draped her in luster. “I command high prices, because the alternative is to be poor, miserable, and abused down in Docktown or along the canals. But this means my gentlemen are not many. It also means that they expect this sort of environs, and much else that is costly; and it must be often changed, lest they weary of sameness. No, it’s true that large monies pass through my hands, but what remains is scant, hard though I pinch. Besides, as I said, I cannot wait ten years.”

  “Why not?”

  Vardrai turned her left cheek toward the window and pointed to the corner of that deep-violet eye. A sunbeam, slanting over a roof opposite, brought forth the tiny crow’s-feet as shadows. “I am less young than you may think,” she said quietly. “Time gnaws. I have seen what becomes of old whores.”

  Despite his disappointment, Natan felt a tinge of compassion. “What will you do?”

  She smiled. “Why, I hope within that decade to have collected the wherewithal to buy a house and start an establishment wherein several girls work, paying commissions to me. That will give me my security and… and freedom.”

  Her gaze went outward again, fell on a red-haired youth who was crossing the marketplace with furious long strides, and followed him. A madam could have whatever lovers she chose, requiring no more of them than that they please her.

  A gong sounded. “Come in,” Vardrai called. A maidservant opened the door and announced: “My lady, there’s a patron. Somebody new.”

  “Indeed?” Interest quickened the courtesan’s tone. “Who?”

  “He’s a Norrener, my lady, but seems quite decent. Says he’s the captain of a ship.”

  Natan chuckled, a trifle bitterly. “Ah, ha!” he remarked. “I expect you’ll find Haako Grayfellsson rather a change from Zulio Pandric.”

  “Let me hope so,” Vardrai replied. “Well, go back, Jayinn, and entertain him while I make ready. I fear you must leave now, Master Sandana; and I am sorry I couldn’t help you.

  Over the cobblestones, between high, half-timbered walls, through arcades, beneath overhangs, across the plazas and a bridge spanning the Imperial Canal, Arvel Tarabine stalked. Almost, he ran. Passersby whom he jostled would begin to curse, espy the fury on his brow and the white knuckles on his fists, and keep silent. A couple of wagoners halted their mules to let him by, as if otherwise he would have cut a way for himself. Dogs barked at him, but from a safe distance.

  Truth to tell, he fled his rage and grief, lest they cause him indeed to harm someone; but they rode along with him, inside his breast. They kicked his heart, squeezed his lungs, clambered about on his rib cage, and mouthed at him. Perhaps, he thought, he could exorcise them by wearing his body down to exhaustion — but how much liefer would he have gotten into a fight!

  Out the Eastport he went, and soon left Tholis Way for a trail northward. Seilles had long since outgrown its old defensive walls, but not far in that direction, because there the land climbed steeply, in cliff and crag and ravine. Not even shepherds cared to make use of it, nor did noblemen risk breaking their horses’ legs in the chase. Peasants sometimes went afoot after deer, or set snares for birds and rabbits — yet seldom, for wolves prowled these reaches and, it was whispered, beings more uncanny than that.

  The trail was merely a track winding up hillsides and along ridges, often overgrown by whins. Strong though. he was, after two hours of it Arvel must stop to catch his breath. He looked about him.

  Stillness and warmth pressed down out of a sky where no clouds were, only a hawk whose wings shone burnished. The air had a scorched smell. Gorse and scrub trees grew around strewn boulders, save where the heights plunged sheer. Afar and below was a forest canopy, richly green, and beyond it the Ilwen estuary gleamed like a drawn blade. He could just discern the city, walls, towers, ruddy-tiled roofs, temple spire, Scholarium dome, Hall of Worthies and palace of the Lord Mayor, warehouses and a couple of ships at the Longline, all tiny at this distance and not quite real. It was as if Lona were a dear dream from which he had been shaken awake.

  His glance traveled westward. The sun cast a blaze off the rim of the world yonder — the bay, and behind it the ocean. Despair lifted overwhelmingly in him. That dream was also lost. Everything was lost.

  How he had implored Sir Falcovan! “I proved myself a good fighting man in the war, one who can lead other men, did I not? Your colony may well need defenders. It will certainly need explorers, surveyors, hunters, and you know I can handle such matters too. As for a regular business, well, I’d be ill at ease on a plantation, but the trade in timber, furs, gold, ores — Take me, my lord!”

  The great adventurer twirled his mustachios. “Most gladly, son,” he answered, “if you can outfit yourself and engage whatever underlings you require, as well as help pay our mutual costs. Two hundred and fifty aureates is the price of a share in the enterprise. The Company cannot take less, not in justice to those who’ve already bought in. And you’ll need another hundred or so for your own expenses.”

  That much money would keep a family in comfort for some years, or buy a large house or a small shop here at home. “My lord, I — I’ll have to borrow.”

  “Against prospective earnings?” Sir Falcovan raised his brows. “Well, you can try. But don’t dawdle. The ships have begun loading at Croy. We must sail before autumn.”

  “My… my wife, the wife I’ll have, she’s strong and willing the same as I,” Arvel begged. “We’ve talked about it. We’ll go indentured if we can’t find the money.” Lona had resisted that idea violently before she gave in, and he misliked it himself, but passage to the New Lands, to a reborn hope for the future, would be worth seven years of bondage.

  The knight shook his head. “No, we’ve no dearth of such help — nigh more than we can find use for, to be frank. It’s capital we still need: that, and qualities of leadership.” His weathered visage softened. “I understand your feelings, lad. I was your age once. May the gods smile on you.”

  They had not done so.

  Abruptly Arvel could no longer stand in place. He spun about on his heel and resumed his flight.

  The weariness that he sought, he won after a few more hours. He staggered up Cromlech Hill and flopped to the ground, his back against the warm side of a megalith. A forgotten tribe had raised this circle on the brow of this tor, unknown millennia ago, and practised their rites, whatever those were, at the altar in the middle. Now the pillars stood alone, gray, worn, lichenous, in grass that the waning summer had turned to hay, and held their stony memories to themselves. People shunned them. Arvel cared nothing. He thought that he’d welcome a bogle or a werewolf, anything he could rightfully kill.

  The heat, the redolence, a drowsy buzzing of insects, all entered him. He slept.

  Chill awakened him. He sat up with a gasp and saw that the sun was down. Deep blue in the west, where the evenstar glowed lamplike, heaven darkened to purple overhead. It lightened again in the east, ahead of a full moon that would shortly rise, but murk already laired among the megaliths.

  “Good fortune, mortal.” The voice, male, sang rather than spoke.

  Arvel gasped. The form that loomed before him was tall, and huge slanty eyes caught what luminance there was and gave it back as the eyes of a cat do. Otherwise it was indistinct, more than this dimness could reasonably have caused. He thought he saw a cloak, its flaring collar suggestive of bat wings, and silvery hair around a narrow face; but he could not be sure.

  He scrambled to his feet. “Joy to you, sir,” he said in haste while he stepped backward, hand on sword. His heart, that would have exulted to meet an avowed enemy, rattled, and his gullet tightened.

  Yet the stranger made no threatening move, but remained as quiet in the dusk as the cromlech. “Have no fear of me, Arvel Tarabine,” he enjoined. “Right welcome you are.”

  The man wet his lips. “You have the advantage of me, sir,” he croaked. “I do not think I have had the pleasure of meeting you erenow.”

  “No; for who remembers those who came to their cradles by night and drew runes in the air above them?” A fluid shrug. “Names are for mortals and for gods, not for the Fair Folk. But call me Irrendal if you wish.”

  Arvel stiffened. His pulse roared in his ears. “No! Can’t be!”

  Laughter purled. ‘Ah, you think Irrendal and his elves are mere figures in nursery tales? Well, you have forgotten this too; but know afresh, from me, that the culture of children is older than history and the lore which its tales preserve goes very deep.”

  Arvel gathered nerve. “Forgive me, sir, but I have simply your word for that.”

  “Granted. Nor will I offer you immediate evidence, because it must needs be of a nature harmful to you.” The other paused. “However,” he proposed slowly, “if you will follow me, you shall perceive evidence enough, aye, and receive it, too.”

  “Why — what, what — ? —” stammered Arvel. He felt giddy. The evenstar danced in his vision, above the stranger’s head.

  Graveness responded: “You are perhaps he for whom the elvenfolk have yearned, working what poor small magics are ours in these iron centuries, in hopes that the time-flow would guide him hither. You can perhaps release us from misery. Take heed: the enterprise is perilous. You could be killed, and the kites and foxes pick your bones.” A second quicksilver laugh. “Ah, what difference between them and the worms? We believe you can prevail, else I would not have appeared to you. And if you do, we will grant you your heart’s desire.”

  There being no clear and present menace to him, a measure of calm descended upon Arvel. Beneath it, excitement thrummed. “What would you of me?” he asked with care.

  “Twelve years and a twelvemonth ago,” related he who used the name Irrendal, “an ogre came into these parts. We think hunger drove him from the North, after men had cleared and plowed his forest. For him, our country is well-nigh as barren; unicorn, lindworm, jack-o’-dance, all such game has become rare. Thus he turned on us, not only our orchards and livestock but our very selves. Male and female elf has he seized and devoured. Worse, he has taken of our all too few and precious children. His strength is monstrous: gates has he torn from their hinges, walls has he battered down, and entered ravening. Warriors who sought him out never came back, save when he has thrown a gnawed skull into a camp of ours while his guffaws rolled like thunder in the dark. Spells have we cast, but they touched him no deeper than would a springtime rain. To the gods have we appealed, but they answered not and we wonder if those philosophers may be right who declare that the gods are withdrawing from a world where, ever more, men exalt Reason. Sure it is that the Fair Folk must abide, or perish, in whatever countrysides they have been the tutelaries; we cannot flee. Hushed are our mirth and music. O mortal, save us!”

  A tingle went along Arvel’s backbone. The hair stirred on his head. “Why do you suppose I can do aught, when you are helpless?” he forced forth.