26

The mob in front of the Serian factory had grown larger with each passing minute after nightfall, the way some of the showiest flowers open in the darkness. A few of the locals had thrown stones, but for the most part they watched with the grinning malice of a cat with its paws spread, waiting for a vole to move.

"Your broker would have done better to come by daylight," Cashel said uneasily. The killers were prowling around his flock and there was nothing he could do about it.

Frasa extended both little fingers in the equivalent of a shrug. "It was Themo's decision," he said. "He's lived here for twenty years, so we can only hope that he has better judgment about this sort of situation than we do."

"He was in Carcosa during the Troubles seventeen years ago," Jen agreed. "We can only hope."

Mellie was prowling about the roof, peeking into drains and sometimes reappearing over the coping several feet from where Cashel had last seen her. The sprite was visible in light or shadow as though she were illuminated by a sky different from the one she walked under. Cashel knew he'd never get used to the blithe nonchalance with which Mellie took risks; but like most things, his concern would never reach his tongue.

"The man you're dealing with isn't a Carcosan?" Cashel said aloud. It gave him an odd feeling to be standing on a flat roof looking down on the world. Roofs in Barca's Hamlet were peaked and mostly thatch. Even the ancient slates of the millhouse sloped steeply and fed an equally old cistern with rainwater that Ilna saved for washing delicate fabrics.

"We've used two brokers here in the past," Frasa explained. "The other one, Sidras or-Morr, is a local man."

"He seemed honest and satisfactory in the past," Jen said. "Under the present circumstances, though, we thought that Themo or-Casmon was the better choice. His family is on Ornifal, so he'll be less swayed by local passions."

"Folks from Ornifal don't hate devil worshippers?" Cashel said with a frown.

Jen stiffened again, then broke into the broadest smile Cashel had thus far seen on his face. Frasa merely said, "Master Cashel, under the present circumstances I wouldn't trust a Serian out of my own family to deal honestly with me; but we decided to choose a broker whose allegiance isn't to Count Lascarg."

It didn't seem to Cashel that anybody's real allegiance was to Count Lascarg, or that Lascarg felt responsibility for anything except his own skin. Tenoctris had said that outside forces were breaking down society, but pressure on society doesn't make a man evil or weak: it just allows those qualities to show through if they were there in the first place.

The city folk below with bricks in their hands and empty hate in their hearts were making their own decision; wizardry wasn't responsible. Cashel and his quarterstaff had already shown what he thought of picking on strangers. The way things were looking, he'd have more chances to repeat the lesson.

Harbor Street was a broad relic of the Old Kingdom. The tenements on the other side overlooked the factories. Because of the backdrop of the dark sky, the mob in the street couldn't see Cashel and the Serian merchants, but they showed up against the roof's pale brickwork to folk on the tenement roofs.

"Dirt! Dirt! Dirt!" screamed a girl not even Cashel's age. She flung a roofing tile. The missile flew less than halfway to the intended target, dropping to shatter among the mob in the street.

"Arrows!" cried a man as the mob surged away from the sharp-edged fragments. "The dirt's shooting arrows!"

"Maybe we'd better stay back," Cashel suggested, wondering as he spoke where Mellie had gone to. The roof was in easy range of stones thrown from the street. If the mob realized it was being watched from above, there'd be a hail that might hurt somebody before they got under cover.

"There he comes," said Frasa. "That's Themo now."

Half a dozen men in steel caps and quilted leather armor came up the street from the south. Five of them carried spears and wore small round shields on their left forearms; the sixth had a larger shield and no spear.

The crowd saw the broker's men at about the same time Frasa did. A murmur grew, spreading from the edge back to the mob's heart. Themo's guards raised their spears point-forward over their right shoulders, ready to stab or throw.

The rioters nearest the weapons backed or sidled away; those to the rear began throwing stones. The blind shower of missiles scattered the front of the mob faster than the oncoming spears could have done. Themo and his men broke into a run toward the factory door.

Frasa and Jen started for the stairs down into the building proper. Cashel backed behind them, alert to block a missile flung from the street as a farewell but also looking desperately for Mellie.

"They aren't serious about it yet," the sprite said from his shoulder. Cashel whirled his staff in a startled half-circle, responding to nonexistent threats to either side. "You can smell when a mob means business."

"Don't scare me like that!" Cashel hissed. He hadn't felt the touch of her climbing his leg; had she hopped to his shoulder from the roof coping?

Mellie giggled but cuddled his throat repentantly.

Shouts and curses echoed briefly through the entryway, then muted when Serian servants slammed the door behind Themo and his men. The broker dropped his oversized shield and flung his helmet down on the stone. He was a thin-faced man whose blond hair was going gray. Glaring up the staircase at Jen and Frasa, he said, "You didn't tell me what it was like out there! Were you trying to get me killed?"

"Your pardon, Master Themo," Jen said with a deep bow. Except that he and his brother were standing at the top of stairs, Cashel was pretty sure they'd have fallen on their knees in full obeisance. "We didn't want to have the Highlanders out in the street to await your coming lest we give the civic authorities an excuse to bring their own troops against us."

It was none of Cashel's business but it bothered him to see anyway. The Serians had nothing to apologize for: it wasn't their city, their mob, or their decision to delay so long. Besides, there weren't a hundred people in the street at present. Cashel, Garric, and four more of the right lads from the borough with quarterstaves could have sent a wispy rabble like that packing with less effort than as many minutes on the threshing floor after every harvest.

"He didn't want people to see him by good light," Mellie said, lying on her back and somehow managing to touch her toes with her fingertips from that position. "Consorting with devil worshippers."

She gave a trill of liquid laughter and added, "Who'd want to worship a demon anyway? Most of them are too stupid even to be good company."

Themo stamped up the stairs with two of his guards, a red-haired man and one whose flat nose and scarred cheekbones marked him as a longtime fistfighter. They'd laid their spears aside but they wore their steel caps and carried swords on shoulder belts over their leather jacks.

The guards eyed Cashel with the same generalized contempt they offered everyone else in the factory including the brothers and the four Highlanders laughing just off the entrance hall. Contempt for those little killers seemed to Cashel as stupid as scorning a poisonous snake because it was small.

"I don't like this man," Mellie said, following Themo with her eyes. Cashel said nothing as he walked behind the Serians and their visitors into the office, but he sure didn't disagree.

"Who's that?" Themo demanded, pointing his thumb at Cashel as he addressed his question to the brothers. A servant closed the door behind Cashel.

"This is our aide, Master Cashel or-Kenset," Frasa said calmly. "He is a native of this island."

Themo assessed Cashel and frowned in puzzlement before dismissing him again. Cashel knew he looked like exactly what he was: a big shepherd who had no business in a discussion of this sort.

He kept right hand firmly on the quarterstaff upright at his side; that avoided the possibility that Themo would try to clasp hands with him out of normal politeness. Themo didn't seem the sort who was normally polite anyway.

The broker sat down without waiting for the offer of the chair and pulled several folded sheets of rice paper out of his belt pouch. "All right," he said, "I've looked at your manifest and most of it seems in order. I haven't been able to move the figured pottery at anything like the price the celadon brings—why do you insist on trying to change people's tastes when they know what they like?"

Jen bobbed his head in apology. "The figured ware is very popular in Valles," he said. "We hoped that when news of the court's tastes reached Haft, there would be a surge in demand."

"Well, it's a drug on the market here," Themo grunted. "I've half a mind to tell you to keep it aboard as ballast, but since we've done business so many years I'll do you the favor of taking it off your hands."

The brothers said nothing. Themo fumbled again in his scrip and came out with another list, this one written on a pair of thin boards.

"Here's what I'm offering in return," he said, tossing the boards on the table instead of handing them across. "Understand, it's going to be a lot of trouble to me to move any Serian stuff for the next who-knows-how-long. It might be I'll just have to dump it all at sea to keep from getting charged with devil worship myself. And there's not going to be more cargoes from you lot anytime soon, that I know."

Still without speaking, the brothers each picked up one of the boards, read it through, and then exchanged it for the other. They looked at one another expressionlessly. Frasa handed the board he now held to his brother and said, "This appears satisfactory, Master Themo. Though it's not in my interest to say so, it's quite a generous offer under the circumstances. We'll have a contract prepared."

Jen handed the list to a long-robed servant, who turned with it to a slanted writing desk against the wall near Cashel.

"I already had that made up," the broker said and pulled a third document from his purse; this one a narrow parchment scroll, the ends of the hide left ragged but the roll done up with a red ribbon for show.

He tossed it to Frasa, who untied it expressionlessly. Jen tented his hands and looked calmly accepting.

Cashel would've liked to ask Mellie what she made of what was going on, but she'd left him to climb over the three visitors. Cashel was horrified to see the sprite disappear into the broker's open purse, then pop out again an instant before he buckled it closed again.

"I've got six wagons waiting at Fountain Court," Themo said. "There's a man on top of the Arch of Verucca who can take a signal from your roof and relay it to the wagoners. The only thing is, they're coming empty. I'll have to deliver the return cargo tomorrow."

Frasa put down the parchment scroll. "It's traditional to make the exchange of merchandise at the factory before goods are either loaded on shipboard or carried off the premises," Jen said.

"It's not traditional that there's a mob waiting at the door to knock the heads in of anybody who deals with you Serians!" Themo said. "And the Sister take you if you can't see that. I won't take the chance of unloading the wagons while that lot—"

He gestured toward the street behind him. There was scar tissue on the ball of his thumb and the nail was twisted into a claw.

"—gathers up all their friends and brothers with maybe some of the Count's guard too and waits for us to come back out. I want a quick in and out. Tomorrow when things settle down I'll bring your goods."

He pointed at the parchment. "It's all right there, already signed."

All Cashel knew about contracts was two men spitting on their palms and shaking hands, but he had a notion of how far a Serian would get trying to sue today before Count Lascarg's judges. They'd be as likely to leave court alive as a sickly ewe was to survive the Hungry Time in February before the new grass came in.

Frasa met the broker's eyes for a long moment. "Yes, I can see that," he said at last.

Jen held out his hand. The secretary brought a bronze pen and alabaster inkwell to him, moving with steps so tiny that the long robe appeared to glide over the floor by itself.

"Good, good," Themo said. He'd visibly relaxed; so did his pair of guards. "I figured you'd see reason. The signal's three lanterns from the roof. You've got that here, right."

"Yes," said Frasa. Cashel had seen stones with more overt emotion. The Serians knew the risk they were taking with this man, but they were hoping against hope of a good result for their trust.

"Master Cashel will witness my signature," Jen said, rotating the document on the table and setting the pen across the inkwell where Cashel could reach it.

"Yes you can," Mellie said. She hopped from Cashel's shoulder to the floor in three long jumps that would have frightened the youth if he hadn't already been frozen by Jen's words. Garric had taught him to write his name, but he couldn't imagine doing it under the eyes of so many educated strangers.

"I can't—" he began before the meaning of what the sprite had said sank in. Mellie sat cross-legged on the contract, grinning up at Cashel as her right index finger pointed to a spot above a scribe's trained calligraphy.

Cashel coughed as if clearing his throat. He handed his quarterstaff to the secretary—the Serian accepted it gravely—then squatted in front of the low table and took the pen. He'd seen people writing effortlessly, but people had watched Cashel spin a quarterstaff, too, and that didn't mean they could do it because he had.

"It's easy," Mellie said. "Stick the point in the ink and then start here where my finger is. I'll guide you."

The contract had a short preamble, then an indented list followed by a closing. Below that to the right of the sheet was a signature Cashel took to be the broker's—the ink was dry—written above a scribe's notation; and the signature Jen had just affixed above a similar notation. Jen's writing was if anything more precise than that of the scribe.

Someone had signed below Themo; Mellie was pointing to the similar spot below Jen's name. The scribal notation was the same: Cashel could recognize the shapes of characters even though they didn't project sound or meaning to him. With the laborious care of a man who was used to tasks where the least fraction of his strength would smash the tools he was using, Cashel began to draw his name on the parchment following the line of Mellie's finger.

The parchment grew suddenly warm beneath the heel of his hand. Mellie looked at him, raising her eyebrows in question. Blue fire seemed to tremble from the edges of the document—but that must have been Cashel's imagination, since otherwise the others watching him sign would have said something.

Cashel concentrated silently on his task. Something was happening but he didn't know what; it could wait until he finished what he was doing without humiliating himself in front of friends and enemies alike.

The sprite gave him a wicked grin. Her arm traced a flourish that Cashel followed by the expedient of disconnecting his conscious mind from the motion his hand was making. The pen was out of ink by the time he finished the stroke, leaving only scratches and a tracery of shading on the tough parchment. Mellie crossed her arms in completion, then turned a handspring onto Cashel's wrist.

He straightened and stepped back. Frasa reached for the contract but paused before his fingers touched it. He looked at Cashel in wonder.

Themo stared at the document. "What kind of joke is this?" he roared. He leaped up, kicking the low chair away behind him.

Cashel blinked. The signatures of the broker and his witness weren't the same as they had been when Cashel's hand covered them while drawing his own name. He was sure he hadn't even let his palm brush the parchment, though.

Themo looked at Cashel with a fury the youth had never seen on another man's face. "I'll have your guts for garters!" he said. "Get him, boys!"

The boxer reached for Cashel's arm; the red-haired man tried to draw his sword. A servant dropped a drinks tray and ran out the door shouting; Jen was calling into the courtyard through the louvered windows. The table flipped over, though Cashel didn't see who or what hit it.

Cashel grabbed the guards by their throats. Because he was usually slow and methodical, he always moved faster than people expected when there was a need for haste. The boxer punched him on the side of the head, a glancing blow but enough to send Cashel's vision momentarily black and white.

He swung the two big men together. Their steel caps clashed like anvils colliding. The helmets flew off as their heads bounced apart. The red-haired man had gone limp; the boxer's eyes crossed but his left arm windmilled blindly.

Cashel slammed their heads together again and flung them both straight-arm against the wall. They smacked hard against the masonry and dropped as though boneless. Themo backed with his hands raised and a distorted look on his face, screaming unintelligibly.

Mellie cheered from Cashel's shoulder. The secretary stood where he'd been, wearing a dazed expression. Cashel snatched the quarterstaff from the man's hand, more to have it than as a useful weapon inside even as large a room as this.

The door flung open again. Highlanders poured in with half-drawn bows and raised stone axes. None of them carried metal weapons; Cashel wondered if it had something to do with their religion. If the Serians are devil worshippers, what's the Highlanders' god like? More of the jabbering little men climbed in through the windows.

Jen called a command. From his throat the Highlanders' language sounded like birdsong. One of the little men regretfully lowered the axe that had been an eyeblink from decapitating the broker. He pleaded with Jen, who merely tented his fingers and stared into space with a grim expression.

"Show Master Themo and his companions out of the building," Frasa said to the robed secretary. "You'll need some help with the two gentlemen who fell, I suppose."

Cashel started to say that he'd carry the guards out; then he decided he hadn't better touch them again. He hadn't needed to throw them into the wall that way. He knew he shouldn't get angry and hated it afterward when he did, but the cold rage that the boxer's punch had dropped him into hadn't yet dissipated. Better to let somebody else move the fellows.

Cashel bent and picked up the contract that had flown into a corner when the table overset. The writing still didn't mean anything to him, but he could see that the broker and witness signatures were not only different from what they'd been, they were in squared block letters unlike anything else on the page.

"Themo's name reads liar," Mellie said, sitting in the crook of Cashel's right elbow. "And the foreman who signed below him is liar's witness. My, but you're naughty, Cashel!"

She went off into peals of familiar laughter.

"I didn't do this!" Cashel said in amazement. That's what he'd thought of the broker, sure, but . . . "I couldn't do anything like that!"

"Of course you did it, silly!" the sprite said. "And you were right, too. He's a nasty man."

Servants, sailors from the Serian ship judging from their callused hands, were carrying the guards out. Four held each unconscious man. There was blood on the wall where the fellows had hit. Cashel grimaced and looked away.

Frasa and Jen stood before him. When he looked toward them, they bowed. "Master Cashel," Frasa said, "we had no idea what you were. Thank you from our deepest hearts."

"Were you sent to us, sir?" Jen asked.

Cashel didn't know what to say or do. For want of a better choice he handed the contract to Frasa. "I shouldn't have hit those fellows," he muttered. "On the wall, I mean."

"If you'll consent to act for us further," Frasa said, "our only remaining hope is to contact our other broker, Sidras or-Morr. We can't go out ourselves, and Sidras may reasonably feel that it's unsafe to come here to negotiate with us."

The outside door opened. The crowd roared; the clang of a stone hitting the helmet of a member of Themo's entourage rang through the factory. Nobody in the street was a worse enemy to the Serians now than the disgruntled broker, but with luck the two groups would bloody each other well before the mob realized they were all on the same side.

"He lives in a house on Government Square," Jen said. "We haven't contacted him since we landed, however."

"I know where it is," Cashel said. He'd passed through the square with Benlo. He supposed he could find it again. If he got confused, well, he had Mellie to help him. "But I don't think I ought to be doing that sort of business for you."

"We trust you implicitly, Master Cashel," Jen said. "Of course the risk to you is terrible. Perhaps we'd better reload the cargo and take a loss for the trip."

Cashel shrugged. "It doesn't look that bad a risk," he said. "I mean, if I wait till things settle down for a while out there."

He picked up one of the steel caps lying on the floor. It had been the boxer's; he had a big head.

Jen took the cap from Cashel's hands. "We'll have the dent hammered out of it, Master Cashel," he said. "Is there anything else you'd like?"

I'd like to know what's going on, Cashel thought. Aloud he said, "No, I guess I'll be all right."

"Of course we'll be all right!" Mellie said, stretching like a grinning cat. "It'll be fun!"