She began to run, took to the straight ways, the ways that no thief liked to use, broke into the streets and raced breathlessly toward the Serpentine, that great canal along which all the streets of the city had their beginnings. Breath failed her finally and she slowed, dodged late walkers and kept going. If one of the walkers was that one who followed her. . . she could not tell. The midtown gave way to the high; she retraced ways she had passed twice this night, with faltering steps, her breath loud in her own ears. It was late, even for prowlers. She met few but stumbled across one drunk or dead in the way, leapt the fallen form and fled with the short-range speed of one of the city's wary cats, dodged to this course and that and came out again in the same alley from which she and Sophonisba had spied out the palace.
The garden gate, Prince Osric had instructed her. The ring burned cold upon her finger. She walked into the open, to the very guards who had let her out not so very long before. 6
The prince was abed. The fact afforded his guards no little consternation—the suspicion of a message urgent enough to make waking him advisable; the suspicion of dangerous wrath if it was not. Gillian, for her part, sat still, wool-hosed ankles crossed, hands folded, a vast fear churning at her belly. They had taken the ring. It had parted from her against all the advice of him who had given it to her; and it was not pleasing them that concerned her, but Jensy. They had handled it and had it now, but if it was cold to them, they had not said, had not reacted. She suspected it was not. It was hers, for her.
Master Aldisis came. He said nothing, only stared at her, and she at him; him she feared most of all, his sight, his perception. His influence. She had nothing left, not the ring, not the blades, not the single gold coin. The scholar, in his night robe, observed her and walked away. She sat, the heat of exertion long since fled, with her feet and hands cold and finally numb.
"Mistress Gillian," a voice mocked her.
She looked up sharply, saw Jisan standing by a porphyry column. He bowed as to a lady. She sat still, staring at him as warily as at Aldisis.
"A merry chase, mistress Gillian."
Alarm might have touched her eyes. It surprised her, that it had been he.
"Call the lord prince," the Assassin said, and a guard went.
"Who is your contract?" she asked.
He smiled. "Guildmaster might answer," he said. "Go ask." Patently she could not. She sat still, fixed as under a serpent's gaze. Her blades were in the guards' hands, one more knife than there had been. They suspected something amiss, as it was their business to suspect all things and all persons; Jisan knew. She stared into his eyes.
"What game are you playing?" he asked her plainly.
"I've no doubt you've asked about."
"There's some disturbance down in lowtown. A tavern with a sudden. . . unwholesomeness in it. Dead men. Would you know about that, mistress Gillian?"
"I carry messages," she said.
His dark eyes flickered. She thought of the serpent-god and the mouse. She kept her hands neatly folded, her feet still. This was a man who killed. Who perhaps enjoyed his work. She thought that he might.
A curse rang out above, echoing in the high beams of the ceiling. Osric. She heard every god in the court pantheon blasphemed and turned her head to stare straight before her, smoothed her breeches, a nervousness—stood at the last moment, remembering the due of royalty, even in night dress.
Called from some night's pleasure? she wondered. In that case he might be doubly wrathful; but he was cold as ever, thin face, thin mouth set, white-blue eyes as void of the ordinary. She could not imagine the man engaged in so human a pastime. Maybe he never did, she thought, the wild irrelevance of exhaustion. Maybe that was the source of his disposition.
"They sent me back," she said directly, "to kill you." Not many people surely had shocked Osric; she had succeeded. The prince bit his lips, drew a breath, thrust his thin hands in the belt of his velvet robe. "Jisan?" he asked.
"There are dead men," the Assassin said, "at dockside."
"Honesty," Osric murmured, looking at her, a mocking tone.
"Lord," she said, at the edge of her nerves. "Your enemies have my sister. They promise to kill her if I don't carry out their plans."
"And you think so little of your sister, and so much of the gold?" Her breath nigh strangled her; she swallowed air and kept her voice even. "I know that they will kill her and me whichever I do; tell me the name of your enemies, lord prince, that you didn't tell me the first time you sent me out of here with master Jisan behind me. Give me names, lord prince, and I'll hunt your enemies for my own reasons, and kill them or not as you like."
"You should already know one name, thief."
"A god's name? Aye, but gods are hard to hunt, lord prince." Her voice thinned; she could not help it. "Lend me master Aldisis's company instead of master Jisan's, and there's some hope. But go I will; and kill me priests if you haven't any better names."
Osric's cold, pale eyes ran her up and down, flicked to Jisan, back again. "For gold, good thief?"
"For my sister, lord prince. Pay me another time."
"Then why come here?"
"Because they'd know." She slid a look toward the guards, shifted weight anxiously. "A ring; they gave me a ring to wear, and they took it."
"Aldisis!" the prince called. The mage came, from some eaves-dropping vantage among the columns or from some side room.
An anxious guard proffered the serpent ring, but Aldisis would not touch it; waved it away. "Hold it awhile more," Aldisis said; and to Osric: "They would know where that is. And whether she held it."
"My sister," Gillian said in anguish. "Lord, give it back to me. I came because they'd know if not; and to find out their names. Give me their names. It's almost morning."
"I might help you," said Osric. "Perhaps I might die and delight them with a rumor."
"Lord," she murmured, dazed.
"My enemies will stay close together," he said. "The temple—or a certain lord Brisin's palace. . . likely the temple; Brisin fears retaliation; the god shelters him. Master Aldisis could explain such things. You're a bodkin at best, mistress thief. But you may prick a few of them; and should you do better, that would delight me. Look to your reputation, thief."
"Rumor," she said.
"Chaos," muttered Aldisis.
"You advise me against this?" Osric asked.
"No," said Aldisis. "Toward it."
"You mustn't walk out the front gate this time," Osric said, "mistress thief, if you want a rumor."
"Give me what's mine," she said. "I'll clear your walls, lord, and give them my heels; and they'll not take me."
Osric made a sign with his hand; the guards brought her her knives, her purse and her ring, the while Osric retired to a bench, seated himself, with grim stares regarded them all. "I am dead," he said languidly. "I shall be for some few hours. Report it so and ring the bells. Today should be interesting."
Gillian slid the ring onto her finger; it was cold as ever.
" Go!" Osric whispered, and she turned and sped from the room, for the doors and the terrace she knew.
Night opened before her; she ran, skimmed the wall with the dogs barking, swung down with the guards at the gate shouting alarm—confused, and not doing their best. She hit the cobbles afoot as they raced after her, and their armor slowed them; she sprinted for known shadows and zigged and zagged through the maze.
She stopped finally, held a hand to a throbbing side and fetched up against a wall, rolled on a shoulder to look back and find pursuit absent.