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additional benefit. And there was more: As long as Meleena cared for her cousin’s infant son, she would receive a maintenance stipend-stipend, mind you, she thought to herself, was how Wanno put it-of five golden orbs each month!
    As if that wasn’t enough, then the goodly old dweomercraefter had produced a chest filled with beautiful clothing and jewels-a part of the estate of her poor, dear cousin. Meleena regretted that she couldn’t recall anything about Ermantrude, for she must be… must have been… a very sweet and wonderful person.
    “Please alight, m’lady. We are at the Grand Palace,” the guardsman said deferentially as he swept aside the heavy plush drape to enable Meleena to leave the sedan chair.
    The sound and the motion snapped her back to the present. “Thank you, my man,” she said with a detached tone, emulating the women she had waited upon until recently. “This is for your services,” she added, drawing a silver coin from her purse and holding it out to the brawny man. “Please make certain that all is well until I return.”
    The affair was as splendid as Meleena had imagined it would be. Many a handsome young gallant noticed her. Many of the older ones saw her too, and they were more aggressive than the less experienced or less secure younger fellows. Yet she managed to fend them all off while awaiting her chance at Lord Roland-and it finally came. He even danced with her, and they laughed together at his missteps in leading her through the complicated tracery of the pompous rite. “I am hopeless, I fear, dear lady,” he apologized. Meleena quickly blamed her own lack of grace for his blunders, then nearly stumbled and fell over his wrongly placed foot. When he caught her and clutched her close to keep her from injury, and in doing so looked so concerned as to be near comic, Meleena laughed in combined happiness and mirth. That was enough to provoke the nobleman to laughter himself, and the remainder of the night, which she spent almost entirely in his company, was a dream come true.
    “May I call on you tomorrow. Lady Meleena?” Lord Roland asked at the close of the evening.
    “Yes, m’lord. It will be my pleasure,” she replied then, consciously appreciating that just days before she had received her first stipend and taken more suitable quarters pending the arrival of her orphaned infant cousin.
    “Just off the Street of Silks, you said?”
    “Your lordship has a good memory. It is the house at the very end of Vertwall Close, just off the middle of that very street you named.”
    “I shall call in the afternoon, then. Perhaps we can stroll the Gardens?”
    “We shall see. Lord Roland, when the time comes.” She had overheard enough of such banter to know precisely how to reply.
    Despite the damp chill of the night air, she insisted that the curtains of the litter be left open on her way home. Meleena needed the cold air to clear her head of wine and calm her dizzying state of excitement. Every time she thought hard about what had occurred this night, it made her head swim-and, at other times, it positively ached with sadness and sympathy when she thought of Ermantrude and the poor little waif she was soon to become foster mother to. It occurred to her, during one of these musings, that she had never been told the infant’s name. But as soon as she realized that, it ceased to concern her. No doubt Wanno, or someone he had designated to deliver the babe, would tell her what to call her newfound child. By the time the bearers had carried her up the Processional, along the Street of Silks, and to her own apartment in Vertwall Close, Meleena was cold to the bone and weary too, but still floating on a cloud of joy.
    Lambent eyes watched Meleena as she climbed stiffly from the chair and entered her apartment.
    They were slit-pupiled and red, the evil eyes of a monster not of this world. As the door closed behind her, the fiery orbs became disembodied and floated upward. Where they