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'I'm a virgin,' Cythen interrupted in a far from steady voice. When her mind was focused on the fish-eyed murderer other sister, she could manage to ignore the implications of the plan she had agreed to; but faced with the pragmatic logic of the madam, she began to realize that vengeance and determination might not be enough.
Myrtis nodded, 'I had suspected as much. You would not want your sister's slayer, then, to be the first -'
'It won't matter. Just tell everyone that I'm being saved for just the right man. That's often the way of it anyway, isn't it? A special prize for a special customer?'
Myrtis hardened. 'In those places where courtesan and slave are the same that may be so. But my women are here because they wish to be here; I do not own them. Many leave for other lives after they've grown tired of a life of love and earned a healthy portion of gold. But pleasure is not your talent, Cythen; you wouldn't understand. Men have nothing you desire and you have nothing to give them in return.'
'I have a talent for deceit, Myrtis, or neither Bekin nor I would have survived at all. Honour your promise. Give him to me for one night.'
With a gesture of worried resignation, Myrtis consented to the arrangement. She summoned Ambutta, who some said was her daughter, and had Cythen led into the private sections of the house where, for a night and a day she was fussed over and transformed. Before sundown of the next day she was ensconced in the plush seraglio where Bekin had lived, and died. Her garrison clothes and knife had been hidden in the dark panelled walls and she herself was now draped in lengths of diaphanous rose-coloured silk - a gift to Bekin from the man who had slain her.
Staring into the mirror as the sun set, Cythen saw a woman she had never known before: the self she might have become if tragedy had not intervened. She was beautiful, as Bekin had been, and she preferred the feel of silk to the chafing of the linen and wools she normally wore. Ambutta had skilfully wound beads through Cythen's hair, binding it into a fanciful shape that left Cythen afraid to turn quickly, lest the whole affair come tumbling down into her face.
'There was a message for you earlier,' Ambutta, a disturbingly wise woman no older than thirteen, said as she daubed a line of kohl under Cythen's eyes.
'What?' Cythen jerked away in anger, her stance becoming that of a fighter, despite the silk.
'You were bathing,' the child-woman explained, twirling the brush in the inky powder, 'and men do not come upstairs by day.'
'All right, then, give it to me now.' She held out her hand.
'It was spoken only, from your friend Walegrin. He says two more fish-folk have been found murdered: Actually it's three -another was found at low tide - but the message came before that. One of them was a cousin to the Beysa herself. The garrison is ordered to produce the culprit, or any culprit, by dawn or the executions will begin. They will kill as many each noon as fish-folk who have already died. Tomorrow they'll kill thirteen - by venom.'
Though the room was warm and draughtless, Cythen felt a chill. 'Was that all?'
'No, Walegrin said Turghurt is horny.'
The chill became a finger of ice along her spine. She did not resist as Ambutta moved closer to finish applying the kohl. She saw her face in the mirror and recognized herself as the frightened girl beside the wise Ambutta.
The hours wore on after Ambutta left her. Two knobs had burnt off the hour candle and none had come to her door. The music and laughter that were the normal sounds of an evening at the Aphrodisia House grated on her ears as she listened for the telltale accent that would betray the presence of the fish folk, whatever common Ilsigi or Rankan name Myrtis gave them.
Couples walked noisily past her closed door; women already settled for the night. The smells of love-incense grew strong enough to make her head ache. She stood on a pile of pillows to open the room's only window and to look out on the jumble of the Bazaar stalls and the dark roofs of the Maze beyond them. Absorbed by the panorama of the town, she did not hear the latch lift nor the door open, but she felt someone staring at her.
'They told me that they had given you her room.'
She knew, before she turned, that he had finally come. He spoke the local dialect well, but without any attempt to conceal his heavy accent. Her heart was fluttering against her ribs as she turned to face him.
He had left his cloak downstairs and stood before her in fish-folk finery, filling the doorway with his bulk. It was no wonder Bekin had adored him - she'd had a child's delight in colour and shine. His pantaloons were a deep turquoise, embroidered with silver. His tunic was a lighter shade, slashed open to the navel with sleeves that shone and rippled like the rose silk she wore. His fez was encrusted with glittery stones; he removed it with a smile; his shaved scalp glistened in the candlelight. Despite herself, Cythen flattened against the wall and regarded him with a mixture of fear and awe. His eyes shone as he watched her without blinking, and after a moment she looked away.
'There is no need to be frightened. Little Flower.'
His arms circled the rose silk and drew her tightly against him. Strong blunt fingers pressed around her neck, digging in behind her ears so she could not resist as he forced her lips apart. She willed herself to numbness when he found the knots that bound the silk around her and undid them. Screams of outrage echoed in her mind, but she clung silently, unprotestingly, to his powerful arms.
'You are still frightened?' he asked after a while, ru
She shook her head when he asked if she was afraid, but could not stop her hands from coming to rest on top of his, stopping his incessant motion. He bent over her, caressing her breast with his lips, tongue and teeth. With a strangled whimper, she stiffened away from him.
'You will see. There's nothing to be frightened of. Just relax.'
He was staring at her: cold fish-eyes peering into her body and soul. All the warnings that Myrtis, Walegrin, and even Ambutta had given her chorused out of her memory and she wished she was Bekin: either dead or willing to love any man. Her confidence went out like a guttered candle. She felt him loosening the heavy belt that bound his pantaloons and knew she could not stifle the next screams that would rise from her throat.
There would be no second chance. She would fall, and probably die here in this room with her sister's ghost hovering in her thoughts. But she was a master of deceit, as she had claimed, which was much more than simple lying or pretending.
'Yes, I'm frightened,' she whispered in a coy, little girl's voice she had just discovered, using the truth to buy a few more moments. She shivered and clutched the discarded silk against her as he let her slide away from him. 'Do you know what happened to the girl who lived in this room? While she slept, someone let a serpent into here and it bit her. She died horribly. Sometimes I think I hear it on the pillows, but they won't let me have another room.'
There are no snakes in this room. Little Flower.'
In the shadows, she could not be certain of his expression, and his accent made it difficult to read the sound of his voice. Recklessly, she continued.
'That's what they tell me. The only snakes in Sanctuary which are poisonous are the Beysa's holy snakes - and those never go far from her in the palace. But she was killed by snake venom. Someone had to have put it in here. But she was only a mad girl from the Street of Red Lanterns, so no one will search for her killer.'