Not being able to find a reply, Gareth would slink back to his canted desk, which grew larger and higher from the ground every day, more and more covered with scribbles on paper, his stool taller and taller, stretching toward heavens as dull as the wintry Sarosian skies, when he longed for tropic sunshine and warm blue waters splashing on sandy beaches.

The clerks around him were all older, and all seemed to have found a home, and delighted in telling stories of how they almost sent a cargo of oranges to the tropics, or how they'd gotten lucky, and found an erroneous entry, and saved Hern Radnor so many gold coins.

There wasn't even any point in pranking them, for all that happened the two or three times he tried something was a long look and a tired sigh.

At dusk, or after twelve turnings of the glass during the short winter days, the office was closed.

The evening meal was heavy, Pol giving himself two glasses of the finest ale before dinner, three glasses of wine with the sumptuous feast a" food from many lands that Pol traded with a" and two brandies before bed as he read and responded to his agents' correspondence.

Gareth got drunk once on the ale, didn't like the sickness it brought nor the way he felt the next day, and forever after remained a non-toper, never really minding, unlike most of his countrymen, if he were forced to drink small beer, very watered wine, or even simple water itself.

After the evening meal, no one cared what Gareth did, so long as he was back inside the compound by two turnings before middle-night.

When he discovered the small ladder in a shed, his path was open, and he'd retire early and slide out across the roofs. No one seemed to check on him, and he suspected they would not care much if they did find his bed empty.

Ticao was a magical city to explore.

It had been built long ages past, first as an upriver trading village, sensibly ten leagues from the sea, to guard against raiders. Its river, the Nalta, was wide enough for a ship to tack up, especially after dredges had begun deepening the main channel over the past one hundred years. It continued north into the farming heartland of Saros, and canals had been built from east and west, so most of the goods Saros traded in came through Ticao.

On the northeast bank of the river was the trading heart of Ticao, around and in the old walled city. Beyond that rose the heights, where the king's castle and other noble buildings sat. Pol said that while he certainly wanted to be a Merchant Prince, he would never build on the king's mountain, since one requirement was that in time of war, if the capital were threatened, all these homes would be razed to give clear fields of fire to the cannon in the Royal castle.

Ticao had spread across the river, where working quarters and slums sprawled, just as the city had reached north, beyond the King's mountain, through greater and smaller country homes into the rolling countryside.

Streets, alleys, wound through the city, and it seemed impossible to ever know Ticao completely, for there was always a new shop, tea-bar, or tavern being opened. Here and there through Ticao were parks, spreading tree-spattered grasslands, and it was a royal edict that they be open to any citizen.

And so he explored the avenues and alleys of Ticao, never clambering back into his bedroom before midnight, sometimes not until dawn, after which he would spend a yawning day at his desk, trying to ignore the frowns from the chief clerk.

Ticao was thronged with seamen and traders from foreign parts, including men from Linyati. The first time he saw one of the olive-complected, blank-faced sailors, he asked a beggar who the man was.

"Slavers," the man spat, hand still out for a coin.

"The ones who raid our villages?"

"Th' same."

"Why are they allowed ashore?" Gareth asked in shock.

" *Cause our nimby-namby king doesn't want war with anybody, wants the seaways to be open to all, so Saros can bring home the most gold.

"Damned fool, with all respect. There's some who know the way to deal with scum like the Slavers is at sword point. *At's how I got all crippled up, lad, in a grand battle ashore with a bunch of them. I fought my best, kept my mate alive, but took a terrible wound. Here, for a copper or two I'll show you, right a" "

Gareth dropped a coin, hurried away.

He saw them again, seldom singly, mostly in groups of half a dozen, to prevent the mutterers who trailed them from becoming bolder and hurling cobbles or filth. The things the Slavers bought made no sense. Sometimes it would be a sweetmeat, sometimes a jewel. Anything edible or drinkable was immediately gulped down, as if they were small boys sneaking behind their parents' back.

Gareth trailed them often, trying to figure out what they were, following them back to their strange ships, ships whose portholes were alight from within from dusk to dawn, as if the Slavers never slept.

He asked what they came to Ticao to trade, since slavery had been outlawed for generations in Saros. A clerk from another factory made a face, said the slaves they took, generally from the savage continent of Kashi, separated from the continent of Linyati by a long isthmus, were sold elsewhere, to other countries who still held bondage legal. Those trade goods were perfectly legitimate to bring into Saros.

"Damned shame, too," the young man added. "Our factor's lost three ships in five years, and one or another of our seamen managed to make his way home later to tell us they'd not been wrecked by storms, but seized by the Slavers.

"Good King Alfieri ought to fit out a fleet, and drive them back to their own lands. No one needs dealing with murderous bastards like them."

Twice Gareth hurled a stone at a knot of Linyati, and was breathlessly pursued down alleys, the Slavers waving daggers or the thin-bladed swords they preferred. Their language was a series of coughs, like one of the lions Gareth saw in the King's Menagerie.

Once he lurked on a rooftop, waited until four of the Slavers passed underneath, and tipped a full chamberpot over.

But this was very small beer, he knew, and wanted greater revenge, revenge with a pistol or sword.

His uncle Pol told him he shouldn't bear hatred, for it kept the memory of that murderous day alive. That was fine with Gareth. He wanted not one, not ten, but a hundred dead Slavers for his mother and father, even more for the others of his village who now wore chains on some unknown shore.

But Gareth did not let himself become a dark brooder, like fishermen he'd known who'd lost a son or a brother at sea. He loved pranking, jesting against those he thought were pompous, foolish, or malicious, whether rich merchants, cheating shopkeepers, or pompous citizens, once even a fraud claiming to be a magician, who persuaded an entire street of credulous whores of his talents with love potions.

He made two friends in his ramblings, then a third.

The first was the enormous Labala, whom he rescued from being rolled by cutpurses when drunk. Labala's family came from a distant tropical island, but none of them knew precisely where it was. Labala, like his father, worked as a stevedore on Ticao's docks, augmenting his income by what he could steal.

In return for Gareth's favor, he promised that neither he, nor any of his family, nor any of his cousins, would ever thieve from a Radnor cargo, no matter the temptation.

Labala was two years a" or so he thought a" older than Gareth, but appeared in his twenties at least. Some made the mistake of not taking him seriously, or thinking him stupid, because of his bulk, the rolls of fat he was quite proud of, and the constant beam on his round face.

The grin concealed quite a nasty temper, as quite a few discovered after the smile suddenly vanished and Labala growled, "Now I'm going to sit on you." Which he would do, after his huge fists had hammered the person's body for a while. Labala was also very fast. Gareth saw a man pull two knives on him one night, lose them both in an armblock and two crashing blows, and then get hurled into the river.

Labala loved pranking as well, without much regard for the target or outcome.

Fox was the second. He never said what he did during the day. Gareth thought he was a cutpurse or perhaps pickpocket, the way his eyes followed money around. He was very small, skinny to the point of emaciation, and his eyes darted about under a mop of unruly hair. Gareth knew little of his family, except he had a mother whom he revered, two twin brothers a" "the greatest of heartless villains," he said proudly a" and a seemingly endless array of uncles. He never mentioned his father.

Fox's taste in japery ran toward the well dressed and those with purses he might be able to end up with during the hubbub.

The last was Cosyra. She stood just to Gareth's chin, was slender, small-breasted, wore her brown hair very short, dressed like a boy. Her face was heart-shaped, with perfect teeth and a grin almost as frequent as Labala's.

Like the other three, she wore commoner's clothes of leather, wool, or coarse cotton. There was one thing unusual about her appearance: on a silver chain she wore a small icon of a sea eagle.

Cosyra spoke, unlike Fox and Labala, in an educated tongue, though the cant of thieves and the streets came easily to her.

She never spoke of a family or friends. One of her favorite quick pranks was, when someone realized she was a woman and showed lustful signs, enticing them for a bit, then telling them she was the daughter of a shopkeeper, and would love to tryst later, at a certain address. Since the address she gave was that of the temple of Houf, Goddess of Eunuchs and the Celibate, Gareth wondered if she was a young harlot, sold to one of the many bordellos of Ticao.

None of the three young men ever tried to bed her. For some unknown reason, they all felt that might spoil things.

And so, every second or third night, they'd creep out, either looking for a target, or else putting a plan in motion.

The pranked were generally picked by either Cosyra or Gareth, the other two seeming content to be lieutenants in the schemes.

Gareth thought his japery might be the only thing that kept him from going mad.

Three.

I have it," Labala gurgled from the darkness. "Let's paint the statue of the king in Centersquare."

"We did that three months ago," Cosyra said patiently.

"Yes a yes a but this time, we'll paint his butt blue, instead of pink," Labala said, and almost fell against the stone wall in his mirth.

"Well," Gareth said diplomatically, "we'll consider that as a second option." None of them wanted to get Labala unhappy, for obvious reasons.

"You have somethin' in th' way of a scheme," Fox said, not a question.

"Maybe," Gareth said. "Do any of you know Lord Quindolphin?"

"I do. I mean, I've heard of him," Cosyra said.

Gareth waited.

"Not supposed to be a very nice sort," she said.

"Had a mate of my uncle's drawn an' quartered," Fox said. "Just for borrowin' one of them gilt eagles off his mansion's gates."

"That ain't right," Labala said indignantly. "Let's do him. Forget about the king's stony arse."

"His daughter's getting married four nights from now," Gareth went on. "There'll be a big party afterwards."

"Of course," Cosyra said. "But his mansion's got big, high walls."

"He's not having it there," Gareth went on. "For some reason, he's putting it on at the Banker's Guildhall."

"Prob'ly owes *em money," Fox said.

"Could be," Gareth said. "Anyway, I scouted the place on my way here. It's got a big delivery door at the rear."

"So?" Cosyra said.

"A very big delivery door," Gareth said, and outlined his idea as Labala's laughter grew, almost shaking the cobbles they stood on.

"An' a" an' a" an' a" " he interrupted, sides shaking like they were in a gale, "there's a ship, come from upcountry, just docked today, with just the right present for old Quindolphie."

a a a "Way for the musicians' gear," Gareth bayed, cracking, rather ineptly, the whip he'd borrowed along with the freight wagon and its horses.

A guildhall worker nodded without much interest, went back inside, under draped red and black banners.

Gareth managed to swing the wagon around, and Fox jumped out of the back. He awkwardly pushed at the horses until they backed up, and the wagon thudded against the building's dock.

Cosyra and Labala jumped off the back, and slid a ramp from its slot under the wagon to the dock. She went to the guildhall's gate, prepared to open it.

Fox and Labala were on either side of the ramp, and Gareth unbarred the wagon's rear door.

Two dozen pigs saw freedom, squealed happily, and ran down the ramp as Cosyra opened the guildhall entrance.

Someone shouted, a woman shrieked, and the pigs boiled through the kitchen a" no doubt smelling in horror their former colleagues revolving on spits a" knocking a wine steward aside, into the middle of milord Quindolphin's daughter's reception.

The squeals were louder, human, and there were shouts and frenzy.

Gareth let himself listen to the cacophony with great pleasure, then came back to reality.

"Come on. There's trouble building," he shouted, and the four, abandoning the wagon they'd "borrowed" some hours earlier, ran down the side of the guildhall and into the street.

There was a man, rather foppishly dressed, dismounting at the main entrance, handing his horse's reins to a servitor.

"Here, you," he shouted. "What's going on in there?"

Paying no attention, the four ran on.

Gareth looked back, saw the man draw a sword, come after them. But they had him by ten lengths, and in another two hundred feet would be able to dart into a winding, mazelike alley.

Then Cosyra slipped, skidded on the cobbles, and lay flat, her breath knocked out.

"I have you, shitheel," the man shouted, blade lowered. "Damned footpad that you are, stealing from his lordship's wedding a" "

Cosyra was on her knees, trying to get up, the blade was no more than a few inches from her chest.

Gareth, without needing to think, saw a loose cobble, scooped it up, and threw it hard. The stone smashed into the man's head, and Gareth's stomach roiled as he heard bone smash. The man dropped the sword, skidded on his belly against the curb, contorted twice, and lay very still.

Gareth heard, numbly, shouts from the guildhall, as he helped Cosyra to her feet.

Horses' hooves rang on the stones, and he saw riders galloping toward him.

Fox had stopped, crouched against a building; Labala was running back toward him.

"No," Gareth shouted. "Go on. Better they get one of us than all."

"But a" " Cosyra managed.

"Go, dammit! Or they'll have us all!"

Cosyra worked her lips, then ran, grabbing Labala by the sleeve.

A pistol went off, and a ball ricocheted off the stone near them, then the three were gone.

Four riders were around Gareth, three with drawn swords, the fourth, with a ready pistol, slid out of his saddle. He went to the body, knelt, and turned it over, his eyes and pistol barrel hard on Gareth's chest.

He glanced down for a minute.