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hands. He asked if I were going out again, and since he was responsible for the operation of the Vincula in my absence I told him I was, and that I could not say when I would return. Then I thanked him for the loan of his jelab, which I said I would not need again.
    â€œYou are welcome to it anytime, Lictor. But that was not what concerned me. I wanted to suggest that you take a couple of our clavigers when you go down to the city.”
    â€œThank you,” I said. “But it is well policed, and I will be in no danger.”
    He cleared his throat. “It’s a matter of the prestige of the Vincula, Lictor. As our commander, you should have an escort.”
    I could see he was lying, but I could also see that he was lying for what he believed to be my good, and so I said, “I will consider it, assuming you have two presentable men you can spare.”
    He brightened at once.
    â€œHowever,” I continued, “I don’t want them to carry weapons. I’m going to the palace, and it would be insulting to our master the archon if I were to arrive with an armed guard.”
    At that he began to stammer, and I turned on him as though I were furious, throwing down the splintered wood so that it crashed against the floor. “Out with it! You think I am threatened. What is it?”
    â€œNothing, Lictor. Nothing that concerns you, particularly. It is just …”
    â€œJust what?” Knowing he was going to speak now, I went to the sideboard and poured us two cups of rosolio.
    â€œThere have been several murders in the city, Lictor. Three last night, two the night before. Thank you, Lictor. To your health.”
    â€œTo yours. But murders are nothing unusual, are they? The eclectics are forever stabbing one another.”
    â€œThese men were burned to death, Lictor. I really don’t know much about it—no one seems to. Possibly you know more yourself.” The sergeant’s face was as expressionless as a carving of coarse, brown stone; but I saw him look quickly at the cold fireplace as he spoke, and I knew he attributed my breaking of the sticks (the sticks that had been so hard and dry in my hands but that I had not felt there until long after he entered, just as Abdiesus had not, perhaps, realized he was contemplating his own death until long after I had come to watch him) to something, some dark secret,
the archon had imparted to me, when in fact it was nothing more than the memory of Dorcas and her despair, and of the beggar girl, whom I confused with her. He said, “I have two good fellows waiting outside, Lictor. They’re ready to go whenever you are, and they will wait for you until you’re ready to come back.”
    I told him that was very good, and he turned away at once so I would not guess he knew, or believed he knew, more than he had reported to me; but his stiff shoulders and corded neck, and the quick steps he took toward the door, conveyed more information than his stony eyes ever could.
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    My escorts were beefy men chosen for their strength. Flourishing their big, iron claves, they accompanied me as I shouldered Terminus Est down the winding streets, walking to either side when the way was wide enough, before and behind me when it was not. At the edge of the Acis I dismissed them, making them the more eager to leave me by telling them they had my permission to spend the remainder of the evening as they saw fit, and hired a narrow little caique (with a gaily painted canopy I had no need of now that the day’s last watch was over) to carry me upriver to the palace.
    It was the first time I had actually ridden on the Acis. As I sat in the stern, between the steersman-owner and his four oarsmen, with the clear, icy river rushing by so near that I could have trailed both hands in it if I wished, it seemed impossible that this frail wooden shell, which from the embrasure of our bartizan must have appeared no more than a dancing insect, could