He knew they wouldn’t go right away. By dawn, though, the painkilling balm he’d put on their hurts would wear off. They might decide even a visit to an eknub who was mad-brained enough to work free of charge was better than the ache of broken bones.

It was nearly midnight when the Viper tesku Ikrum and the three who had tried to capture Evvy made their reports to Lady Zenadia, who had returned late from a family supper. She heard them out in silence, though she smiled briefly when Ikrum described the first attacks on the Camelguts. Of the four Vipers, he was the only one unmarked by the day. Orlana’s, Sajiv’s, and Yoru’s faces glistened with burn salve. They still wore the clothes that Evvy had decorated with burn holes.

“An exciting day,” remarked the lady when Ikrum finished. “I hope that my other Vipers continue to harry the Camelguts.”

Ikrum bobbed his head. “Just as my lady ordered, cutting them out of the pack and giving them glory with these.” He stroked the blackjack thrust into his sash. “We haven’t talked to them yet about joining, though.”

“You must judge when the time is right to make an offer,” the lady replied. “With only a few down, they are most likely of a mind to fight. They will have to take more casualties before they will see where their best interests lie. Now, these two.” She pointed to Orlana and Yoru. “You will find the girl-child Evvy again. Follow her — do not try to take her now. In due time, we shall find a way to make her eager to join us. You two and Ikrum have my leave to go. Sajiv, I desire a private word.”

Ikrum, getting up, glared jealously at the still-kneeling Sajiv. His mouth worked briefly as he considered a protest. Something in the lady’s face, a trace of iron in her dark eyes, made him change his mind. Instead he bowed and followed Orlana and Yoru out.

Once they were gone, the lady sat up on her couch, resting her sandaled feet on the courtyard tiles. “Sajiv,” she murmured, her voice soft and musical. “How you have disappointed me! Two errors in as many days — am I supposed to accept this?”

His forehead still pressed to the tiles, Sajiv muttered, “Not my fault.”

“But surely you can see that it is hard to assign blame elsewhere,” she said reasonably. “First you allow your nose ring, which I gave to you, to be taken by three mere thukdaks. Then you and two others who have never disappointed me fail to capture a girl I wish to meet. Do you see where I might be forced to wonder at your contribution?”

Sajiv forgot himself and glared up at her. “The astrologer said this week was not a good one for me.”

The lady clenched her hands. “Do not talk to me of astrologers!” she said sharply. “Only dirt-people who will be useless all their lives heed their babble. It serves as an excuse to avoid trying to better oneself, and I have no patience with it!”

Sajiv sat up on his knees, pale with rage. “Toss you and toss your patience!” he snarled. “You with your airs and jewels, telling us how to be a gang when you was never bound in your life!” He thrust out his right arm, pointing to a pair of deep puncture scars through the back of his hand and his palm. “I paid in blood to be a Viper — you never paid, you never will! We’re your festering toy whilst your own kids chase gold and power for themselves! You got Ikrum believing you’ll make us kings of Chammur, but you don’t fool me, and you don’t fool some of the others!”

The lady folded her hands in her lap, listening as closely as a student might listen to a favorite teacher. When Sajiv stopped for breath, panting, she undid the veil over the lower half of her face. The smile on her lips was thin and icy. “I see the inner truth of what you fumble to say,” she told Sajiv. “You present me with a situation I must remedy, and carefully. A generous person would give you a fresh chance, to err a new.” She raised her hand. “Or perhaps it is only a weak person who would do so.”

Sajiv had no sense that someone had come up behind him until the silk cord dropped over his head and around his neck. He barely had the chance to gasp before the tall, hairless, fat man at his back yanked it tight. Thick muscles flexed under dark brown skin as the eunuch applied his strength; the cord bit deep, closing off the youth’s windpipe. Sajiv weakened slowly, his burn-marked face passing from scarlet to blue to purple. His bowels let go at the end, filling the air with stench as their contents dripped through his trousers.

Through it all the lady sat gravely, unveiled, her eyes solemn. She did not even wrinkle her nose at the smell. When the eunuch let the boy’s corpse drop to the tiles, she stood. “Dispose of that,” she ordered. “Have these tiles taken up and new ones laid down. A different color would be nice — red, I think.”

The man bowed to her. The traders who had made him a eunuch had also cut out his tongue, to get a higher price from wealthy people with secrets.

The lady patted his shoulder as if he were a dog. “You did well. Wash yourself before you enter my presence again.” She walked into the house.

Evvy surprised Briar when she arrived in the morning. Not only was she clean from top to toe, but she had found another garment somewhere. It looked as if it had once been a well made linen shift: it had no sleeves, and there were tiny holes where thread would have held lace on the garment. It may have been white at one time, before too many washings in hard water with bad or no soap had turned it gray.

“Better?” Evvy demanded, glaring up into his face. She was bareheaded, her clean black hair sticking out at all angles. Briar suspected that she cut it herself, with a knife and no mirror.