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understand my accent. They were not impressed by money: “Koperasi paper. What good that?” Women’s eyes followed me everywhere with implacable suspicion: staring at my city clothes, the shoes on my feet. A respectable man, they told me, does not travel alone. I was stuck. And, as I had I suspected, I was lodging in a den of thieves.
    It was their country, too; why should they not be interested in the debate? Who could keep them away? Having no papers at all, “permisi travel” didn’t worry them. The brigands had come from all over Timur: swaggering at night in the back alleys, loafing about by day in low dives like mine. The patrols that roared around the town day and night, slaughtering chickens and fouling the streets with the alien stink of hydrocarbon, took no notice. Koperasi law and order has no real quarrel with organised crime. After dark, my inn was like a pasar malam, a night market: young men preening themselves and posing under the sizzling white lamps; whispered dealing in corners. Short-lived, bold-eyed, wild-haired—in other times they would all have been boys and safe at home. But we seem to be returning to a state of nature, where unneeded males are simply driven away, to strut and fight and die like falling flowers in the wilderness.
    But these bravos were not entirely abandoned. They had a guardian. I met her on my second night in the town: a lean young woman with a cadaverous dark face, dressed like the bandits in coarse silk breeches and a vivid embroidered jacket. It was raining hard. About ten of them were sprawled around the empty hearth in the common room, drinking beer under the notice that said no alcohol could be served to Peninsulans (she wasn’t drinking, of course). Someone had been very wicked, I gathered. The dark woman was the bandits’ conscience, trying to persuade them to defy the villain. But she didn’t nag. She recognised that even fierce ogres can sometimes feel small and helpless.
    ” As for me, I don’t have any support at the moment. But when I do, I plan to withdraw it immediately.”
    They laughed in relief. “Me too, me too. “
    ” As soon as ever—”
    ” I’m just going to walk right up to him—”
    Watching this, and wondering about the woman, I didn’t notice I had company. Suddenly there was a grubby, red and gold sash in front of my face, with the ornate hilt of a knife sticking out of it.
    “D’you like it?”
    If I stood up we would be practically mouth to mouth. He had come upon me soft-footed as a cat. I was horrified. I knew from experience nothing I could say would be right. These things ignite in a moment: I’d be in a knife fight, or I’d be raped—
    “I said , d’you like my knife? What’s the matter boy? Does pretty little bottom think he’s too pretty to talk to me?”
    I flushed crimson, ridiculously. “I am not a boy.”
    The demon grinned broadly, eyed my lap, stroked his knife hilt. “Not a boy, eh?”
    “Leave him alone Tjakil. He’s a stranger, he doesn’t mean to offend.”
    The dark young woman smiled, almost indifferently. My suitor, after a moment’s hesitation, shrugged his shoulders and stalked away.
    “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you madam. It was good of you.”
    “It was nothing. It is just that I know their names. Names are magic, you know….I suppose your people are staying in town?”
    I had spoken in our language: she followed. I was surprised to hear a cultivated voice, without a trace of dialect.
    “No. I’m here by myself. I am an observer.”
    “Oh. ” She frowned, but kept the rest back. I was grateful that she didn’t say I ought not to be alone.
    “My name is Endang. I am from Timur.”
    She smiled again, brilliantly. “My name is Derveet.”
    But names are magic. Neither of us, I noticed, chose to mention a family.
    From her pure accent, and her habit of bowing slightly over every minute social transaction, I judged she had been brought up in Jagdana, in a high caste family. But her