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Then she wheeled about, shouted for Mata, and rolled toward the plank.
    Wallie glanced around. He was pleased to see that Katanji had reappeared on deck and had recovered most of his color. Wallie beckoned him over. “Feeling better now?” he inquired.
    The lad gave him a pert and incredibly innocent smile. “Yes, thank you, my lord.” Katanji could be angelically polite or diabolically vulgar, as circumstances required.
    “I need a speck of additional wisdom from you, novice,” said Wallie.
    “I am always at your service and at that of the Goddess, my lord.”
    After the service of his own money pouch, of course.
“Good!” Wallie said with a conspiratorial smile. “Mistress
    Brota is now bent on buying leather. I should like to know how much she spends on it.”
    Katanji grinned. “Is that all?” He nodded and walked away. He could probably discover details of the tanner’s grandfather’s sex life if Wallie needed them.
    Wallie stayed by the rail, watching his spy trail after Brota. There were no swordsmen in sight. Then Nnanji reappeared at his side, suspicious of what his oath brother had wanted with his true brother. Nnanji’s protg was a constant trial to him, with his unswordsmanlike tendencies, and his mentor almost as bad. Wallie decided not to explain, out of pure perversity.
    “Did you find Adept Kionijuiy?” he inquired.
    Nnanji scowled. “Someone else got to him first, my lord brother.”
    On their previous visit to Tau, Kionijuiy had been de facto reeve. He had been absent from his post, leaving the town in the care of an inadequate garrison, and that lapse had offended Nnanji’s ideals of swordsman honor. While the subject had not been discussed since, Wallie knew that Nnanji never forgot anything. He would certainly have sought to rectify the matter that morning.
    “The new reeve is the Honorable Finderinoli,” Nnanji added. “He and his band arrived at the lodge just before your message got there. So he came on to Tau and put things to rights at once. I did not meet him, but he seems to be doing a fine job.” He nodded approvingly.
    “What did he do to the old man?” Wallie asked. Kionijuiy’s father had failed to resign when he grew too old to be reeve. Much worse, though, he had taught his civilian sons to fence. That was an abomination, a breach of the sutras, a violation of the swordsmen’s closed,shop union rules.
    “Drained him, too,” Nnanji said simply, studying people on the dock road below.
    Wallie shivered. “And the brothers?”
    “Cut off their hands,” Nnanji said. “Ah! Here she is!”
    Thana was coming along the road—Brota’s daughter, tall and slim and ravishing in a yellow wrap. Thana had a classic Grecian profile and dark curls. Whenever Wallie saw her with her sword on her back, as now, he thought of Diana the Huntress. When
     
    Thana was in sight, Nnanji would not think readily of anything else.
    Beside her was the tiny form of Honakura, ancient priest and one of Wallie’s company—indeed, Honakura was the first person he had spoken to when he awoke in the World in Shonsu’s body. Today the old man had gone to visit the temple hi search of news. He was still wearing his anonymous black robe, hiding his craft,marks under a headband, and so being a Nameless One. Wallie had half expected Honakura to end this charade now, but apparently not. He had never explained its purpose; possibly he did not wish to admit that it had none.
    Jja was comforting Vixini, who was fretting over another tooth. Katanji came strolling back from the warehouse. Honakura climbed wearily up the gangplank. Nnanji headed toward it to welcome Thana. Seven was the sacred number. When Wallie had left the temple at Harm to begin his mission for the gods, seven had been the number in his party. The seventh, Nnanji’s moronic slave, had gone. If Nnanji had any say in the matter, Thana was destined to replace her. That would bring them back to seven again...
    Sapphire had taken Wallie to