"The street"s full of kids. Give her to Pella." Ghort glanced round, sensing the stirring of shadows.

Hecht"s wrist tingled. The warning was unnecessary. Somebody was coming. In a hurry. A lot of somebodies, considering the racket.

Ghort said, "I thought them wh.o.r.es gave up awful easy."

Hecht grunted. "They"d know their city. They"d know how long they could raise h.e.l.l before they had to run for it."

"I don"t like this. These guys have torches."

"The Special Office won"t forgive us if we get caught and questioned."

"No s.h.i.t. Not to mention me. Pella, little buddy, I"m thinking we ought to get us up on a roof somewhere. Unless you got a better idea."

"That"s what I"d do, Your Honor. But not here. People here are on the lookout on account of the noise them stupid wh.o.r.es made."

"Pipe, I tell you, this kid reminds me of me. Smart as a whip."

"Make up your mind. Which is it? Like you? Or smart?"

"Huh?"

"I"ll bet he can remember names. Even when he"s excited."

"Oh. Good point. Sorry. Get on, boy. Find us a place."

"This ain"t my part of town. But come on."

Hecht kept an eye on the shadows.

The children were more convincing than false pa.s.ses. Though they did leave early, while the guards were still yawning and barely able to stumble through their routine questions. Hecht lied liberally. The guards failed to recognize them as dangerous foreign agents making a desperate getaway.

Hecht and Ghort muttered about what were they going to do with two kids who would not go away. Pella, not even for money. And Vali... Well, Vali Dumaine steadfastly refused to talk. How could they ransom her without finding out anything, were they so inclined?

She ain"t stupid... Matt. Keeping hope alive. In our black hearts. So we"ll take good care of her."

"She must remind you of you, too, then."

"Yeah. You know, I"m thinking we should"ve broke down and brought Bo and some of his crew. I"m thinking that bunch back there might not have been the most dedicated bunch of Brotherhood types we ever run into."

"You think? When they use a brothel for a chapter house? And an old woman for a castellan?"

"I"m thinking we shoulda read them letters. Might be handy to know what they"re up to."

"Had we done, they wouldn"t have believed we were Brothers, too. Which means this morning would"ve found us less happy than we are now. Maybe even swimming in the Sawn."

"Another good point. You bring much specie?"

"You"re zigging when I"m zagging. For the thousandth time since I"ve known you."

"We got families, now. I"m thinking we"ll have a hard time getting there on time. With the girl. I don"t figure she"s done a lot of walking before. So we might want to hire a cart and driver."

Hecht eyed the girl. And thought he could read the story of her kidnapping. "She"ll handle it. They made her walk to Sonsa. And they weren"t kind about it, either. Right, Vali?"

That did not crack any barriers. Hecht had hoped for a nod or a headshake.

Ghort asked, "How long you figure it"ll be till they send somebody out here to look for us?"

"Bit and Beomond?"

"Whoever. Somebody had a whole lot invested in this kid."

Hecht wished he did know what was in those letters, now. "The other girl said they were trying to blackmail her father into doing something."

"Two things going on in the same place?" Ghort wondered. "Maybe. But most people are like me. Narrow focused as me. I have trouble walking and talking at the same time."

Not that Hecht had noticed. Ghort could talk in his sleep.

"We"d better not use the pa.s.ses anymore. I wish we could put different clothes on the kids."

"There"s some woods up there. We get off the road. You and me, we dig out a clean outfit. We put the girl in the boy"s clothes. Bingo! We got two boys."

"One of them naked."

"No. Put him in my dirty shirt. Be huge on him but street kids live like that all the time."

Pella observed, "She"s too clean, Your Honors. She looks like a rich kid in disguise."

Hecht told him, "Help her look less prosperous, then. Once we get off the road."

They were just inside the tree line when six hors.e.m.e.n raced in from the west. "s.h.i.t, Pipe, Fortune"s grinning at us today. We"d been on the road, we"d never have got off in time."

"They"re killing their horses. And that"s why." He eyed Vali Dumaine. "Who"s this bony chit"s daddy? Who does the Brotherhood hate that much?"

"You really asking? Or is that one of your rhetorical type questions? Them riders wasn"t Brotherhood guys, anyway."

"I"m pleased to listen if you have answers. And I know they weren"t Brotherhood. They couldn"t have that many hidden around town. But they might have men working for them who don"t know who they really work for."

Ghort shrugged. "I got nothing, then. The girl is fair. She maybe better pa.s.s as your kid. I"ll take the other one. We need to get out of here. Those guys will start working their way back after a while."

"We"ll stick to the woods till we see them go back."

"You been away from the wilds a while, Pipe. You able to handle the woods? To cover a trail?"

"I think so. If they do catch us here it"ll be where their bodies won"t be found for a while."

"I like your confidence. What if we get stopped?"

"I"ll leave that to you. You"re a natural. Me, I have the same problem as my daughter. Runs in the family."

"Thought she was gonna be your son, Your Honor."

"My son. Yes, Pella."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, yeah. They"re gonna take one look at you and vant me to tell how you got some woman to get that close if you didn"t fog her mind with bulls.h.i.t."

"Do Your Honors go on like this all the time?"

"He does," Hecht got in first. "I"m the responsible one."

"O Responsible One. How"re we gonna make any bodies to leave in the woods?" Pretending to be poor travelers, they carried no weapons heavier than knives. "We can"t be looking for mercenary work if we"re on this road. Headed away from Sonsa? Not if Sonsans ask."

"They"ll give up when they don"t find any sign of us." Hecht felt slightly rattled. Why was he even out here? His choices recently seemed slightly unreal.

"Child of Fortune."

"What?"

"That"s what they call orphans where I come from, Pipe. In general. And me, specifically. That was my only name for a long time."

Hecht grunted. Really? Not that long ago Ghort had blamed in a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on men recommended to the City Regiment by relatives. And, farther back, he had told a story about his father being murdered in Clearenza.

In the language of Hecht"s youth, Child of Fortune meant someone touched by the G.o.ds. One who had become a tool of the Instrumentalities of the Night. One who became a prophet. Or a raging lunatic.

Which might explain aspects of his life he could not understand in any other context.

Frightening.

You were in trouble if you started thinking you had been singled out by the Night.

"We"re ready to go, Your Honors."

"Oh. Good." Hecht had paid little attention to the children changing.

"Hey!" Pella said. "Where"s your tattoo?"

"What? I likes my wine, boy, but I ain"t never been drunk enough to let no failed torturer"s apprentice use me for no art board."

Pella studied Hecht. "You don"t got one neither, do you? You guys lied. You ain"t Brotherhood of War, are you?"

Ghort said, "We never said we was."

Hecht asked, "Members of the Brotherhood have an identifying tattoo?"

"That"s what I heard."

"Did you? It"s news to me. Buck?"

"I never heard that before. Don"t mean it ain"t true."

What were the chances a Child of Fortune off Sonsa"s streets would know something the Brotherhood had hidden successfully from men who were around them every day?

"Everybody knows that!" Pella insisted.

"How?"

"When there was all that fighting with the Brotherhood chapter house and the Deves, when I was little. When people stripped the bodies the Brothers all had tattoos. The same one. Back here." He tried to slap his own back behind his heart. "It was only about this big." He indicated his left thumbnail. "It looked like an acorn. With a leaf coming out."

"From this seed shall a mighty oak rise," Ghort mused. "Aaron of Chaldar. Talking about Domino. Who became a disciple when Aaron was dying. And he was right. Domino preached all along the southern coast of the Mother Sea. There are tribes in the mountains down there that still haven"t bought the Praman evil."

They were worms in the belly of a dog... Hecht said, "You never cease to amaze me, Buck. How would you know something like that?"

The Founder Domino was not well known to Episcopal Chaldareans. He had not evangelized in the west. The Brotherhood of War, however, considered Domino their patron. Before his conversion Domino had been the Imperial general, Anelos Andul Gallatin, Dominius, Dominius being a t.i.tle reserved to commanders who had celebrated several significant successes.

Hecht suspected that, as would be the case with Josephus Alegiant a generation later, Domino had been successful mainly because of his willingness to make converts at spear"s point.

"I was a divinity student. For about two years, one week. They threw me out on account of somebody drank all the teaching brothers" wine and they needed somebody to blame it on." it on."

"Don"t you hate it when people scapegoat?"

They resumed traveling, but stayed in the woods, which naked along the banks of a creek that, headed the other direction, eventually emptied into the Sawn. Sometime later Hecht sensed the drum of distant horses. "They"re coming."

The riders did return, not racing now, looking into the woods, sometimes darting in to look for a sign. They missed Hecht and his companions. They continued on westward.

"I feel better, now," Ghort said. "Though they should"ve been smart enough to have some minor mage with them."

"They"re criminals. But if they did have one, how would we know?"

"You"re just all the time the incarnation of optimism, Pipe."

"How come he calls you Pipe when your name is Mathis?" Pella wanted to know.

"Because he"s an idiot?"

"Because he used to smoke a ton of kuf kuf when we was in the Holy Lands." when we was in the Holy Lands."

Pella sneered. He had established his disbelief in their holy calling already.

Hecht said, "We have to get back on the road and start making time. We ought to get to Alicea before dark." The town was a long way off. He could remember nowhere to get in out of the night anywhere closer. And the sooner they established themselves at the Knight of Wands the more they would be part of the background when their quarry arrived.

Ghort launched a fanciful account of his adventures in the Holy Lands with his good pal Mathis Schlink. Because he wove in commonplace fairy tale, tall tale, and legendary elements, Pella knew he was lying from the start.