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bring the ornate buckle free, bearing a thin strip of steel, flexible yet razor sharp on both edges, a beautiful thing. He loved it. Poor little Dosh always felt naked without at least one weapon concealed somewhere on his person.
    He donned his silk tunic—a delicate lilac shade, exquisitely embroidered with many-colored wildflowers—and admired himself in the mirror for a moment, then looked more carefully, checking for love bites. He found none. What he did notice, with annoyance, was the gleam of scalp through his curls. Blond men always went bald young, and he was no longer as youthful as he liked to think he was. There were faint lines starting on his forehead. He turned away angrily from his reflection.
    The old hag was still asleep, snoring now. That relieved him of the obligation of a sticky, hypocritical farewell embrace. Amorgush was a good living, but he felt he earned every crust of it, and he headed for the door with the conviction that he had just done a noble day’s work. After such a session, his nominal duties in the stable always seemed positively recreational.
    The corridor was deserted. He strode along it, admiring the pillared grandeur, intent on a quick bath to get the stench of her perfume off him. All things considered, though, his position in the Bandrops household was the most enjoyable sinecure he had found in his highly varied career. For one thing, Joal was the finest city in the Vales, with every facility a man could dream of. He was paid enough to indulge his versatile taste in vices. Best of all, he need not fear the wrath of a jealous husband, because Bandrops knew exactly what his coachman did during siesta hour.
    It had been Bandrops who had first brought Dosh into the house. Bandrops Advocate was an up-and-coming politician—which in Joal meant a man with the instincts of a killer spider—who was widely expected to bribe his way into the Clique when the next vacancy occurred. He had married Amorgush for her money, as his personal tastes ran more to the likes of Dosh than to matrimony. For a while poor Dosh had been required to satisfy both of them regularly, which had been hard work, but now the master had found himself a tender juvenile page, and his calls upon his coachman’s evenings were much rarer.
    As Dosh reached the head of the staircase, who should be trotting up it but that very same Pin’t Pageboy, looking hot and flushed and positively adorable. He stopped, and the two of them appraised each other warily. Dosh had a faint worry that Pin’t was after his job with the mistress. Pin’t was distrustful of Dosh’s own advances, although he had so far managed to resist them admirably.
    “Feeling the heat?” Dosh inquired. “It’s a remarkably warm fall.”
    “You don’t look very cool yourself,” the brat retorted. He had a dark curl trailed artfully over his forehead—Dosh wished he knew how the kid organized that so consistently. “I was looking for you.”
    “Wonderful! I’m just heading for the bathhouse. Come along.”
    Pin’t curled a lip in refusal. “The master wants you.”
    Dosh regretfully dismissed the thought of cool water. At this time of day, Bandrops would be wanting a coachman, not a catamite—probably. He shrugged. “Then I’d better go to him. But keep my offer in mind.”
    “I can’t think why I should.”
    Dosh trotted down. “Experience, my boy!” He reached out in passing, aiming an affectionate pat, which Pin’t foresaw and dodged. “I could teach you some very useful tricks.”
    “I doubt it,” Pin’t retorted.
    He was certainly wrong.
     
    Dosh knocked and was bade enter. The master’s office was a sumptuous, sun-bright room overlooking a manicured garden. The rugs alone represented more wealth than most men earned in their lifetimes. Amorgush left all the financial decisions to her clever husband.
    Bandrops’s perpetual stoop seemed only to emphasize his bulk. He sported the thickest, blackest eyebrows Dosh had ever seen,