The black look Paulis cast Ganfrion sat as oddly on his boyish face as the mustache he was trying to cultivate. Gan- frion, who, with a cut above one eye and puffed and bruised lower lip was likely the most disreputable sort Paulis had ever encountered, merely nodded, simple civility for which Mikhyel was duly thankful.

"It's all right, Paulis," he said. "We're . . . old friends."

Paulis' revised look was one of reverent awe, and too late Mikhyel realized the new heights to which that casual claim thrust him. Not only was Mikhyel dunMheric able to draw on the resources of the Syndicate and the City, but he had contacts among . . . men of dubious honor as well.

The thought lent an appropriately insane note to the up- coming interview.

Mikhyel nodded Paulis to leave, then turned back to the window, waiting until the door closed, then turned to study Ganfrion.

He nodded to the chair; Ganfrion remained standing.

"To whom have you talked?" Mikhyel asked at last.

"Why, I've talked to a lot of people, Suds. I've spent a lifetime talking."

"No doubt. How many people know what passed be- tween us in the prison? Have you talked, man? Because if you have, you're no use to me. And if you lie about that fact, I shall find out and you will regret it. Now, I ask again, to whom have you talked?"

A slow smile just short of a sneer twisted the man's upper lip. "No one. Suds. I'm no fool. If the lads knew I'd consciously kept Mikhyel dunMheric from their hands that first night, I'd be dead. Are you happy?"

"And yet, I understand you were removed from the prison in less than pristine condition."

Ganfrion shrugged. "You got away. I remained. The lads had to take out their frustrations somewhere."

Mikhyel nodded briefly. "I suspected as much. Your hold there was precarious. Now, I had to wonder, once I was out and had time to piece the facts together, why you acted as you did. Why you took such a risk."

"Why? For your pretty gray eyes, Suds. Why else?"

His back stiffened, he frowned, but he controlled the anger and instead nodded again to the chair. Ganfrion shrugged, sauntered first to the side table where the Syndic whose office this rightfully was kept wine at hand to soften his opponents.

It was a challenge, of the simplest sort, and Mikhyel let it pass, accepted the goblet Ganfrion handed him, and even raised it in a silent salute before sitting behind the desk.

Mikhyel made a show of sorting papers that weren't his, leafed through a bound report that was, and signed a blank piece of paper before returning his attention to Ganfrion.

The man had settled at last, his booted legs crossed. No shifting about, no apparent tension, just a sipping assess- ment of the wine that ended when he caught Mikhyel's eyes on him.

"Pritian Valley, ten years tops. Very mediocre. Briandi had better find himself a better bribe than this."

"Briandi?" Mikhyel repeated. "Why do you mention him?"

"Come, come, dunMheric. It's not your office. Not your style at all, and much too far Downhill." Ganfrion lifted his goblet. "Pritian Valley wine, dunGorshi law texts, Persi- tumin pulled-work" he indicated the intricate amirest cover of the chair he occupied, "and a note on the desk to contact Syndic dunSkahtkhi. Who else?"

Astute observations which simply confirmed Mikhyel's suspicions about the man.

"What node?" he asked.

"Briandi? Don't you know? Not much of a Rhomandi statesman, are you?" Ganfrion paused, laughed into the silence Mikhyel left hanging between them. "Originally, dunMheric?"

Mikhyel dipped his head, acknowledgment of Ganfri- on's capitulation.

Ganfrion shrugged. "Take your pick. Most, at one time or another."

"Where were you born? To what City do you owe allegiance?"

"Born? That was a long time ago, my friend. A long . . .

long time ago." He laughed. "Who knows? Perhaps I was hatched."

"Have you loyalties now?"

"Only to freedom."

"Freedom? Not gold?"

"One's not much good without the other, dunMheric."

"And both? How procurable are your loyalties?"

"Prison-bait? Come, dunMheric, let us not mince words."

"I'm not so inclined. You were uncommonly good at avoiding Sparingate before you crossed Anheliaa's path."

"Is this a private trial? Going to put me away forever thanks to that?" Ganfrion nodded to Brolucci's file on himself.

"You've a villainous history. Those who have hired you treated you like a villain. Are you?"

Another shrug, small, contemptuous. "I'm a believer in fair trade. They were villains, both sides. They treated me as one of them. I returned the favor."

And a man raised with better expectations than life had granted him.

"A man who would survive can't always choose his pre- ferred weapons; he has to be ready with a variety of an- swersin any debate."

"You would know. Suds."

"You fought with the options available, there in the prison. You chose your path then. Now I invite you to another."

"I trusted Rhomatum Tower once before."

"I'm not my aunt."

A slow smile.

"No, you most definitely are not."

"I'm prepared to arrange your freedom. I'm prepared to do more for your future."

"Why?"

"Why isn't Deymorin dead?"

The smile pulled, lopsided and wry. "I am that most un- fortunate of creatures: a discriminating assassin."

"Meaning?"

"I prefer to judge my prey before I eliminate them."

"And you judged Deymorin the lesser of two evils?"

Ganfrion shrugged. "If I'd so judged, he'd be dead, Suds.

Evil is evil. I don't quibble over degree."

"Fair trade?"

"Fair trade."

"I thought as much. Your . . . business associates turned you in?"

Another shrug.

Not a man to defend himself. Not one to make excuses.

Take the cards as they fell and play them for the moment.

And yet . . . "Why didn't you recognize him?"

"In the Crypt?"

Mikhyel dipped his head.

Ganfrion shrugged.

"Dark? There'd been imposters already? Take your pick.

Maybe I did recognize him, and didn't give a damn."

"And myself? That first time in the Crypt"

Ganfrion shifted in his seat, and the smile turned sour.

"Brought it on yourself. Suds. Should have played along.

Let me stake a claim right off. One-on's easier."

"Perhaps."

Narrow dark eyes glimmered through a fall of ragged hair. The scarred mouth twitched. "I like my privacy. Suds.

Take you off in a corner, all by ourselves . . . skinny thing that you are, I rather suspect I'd've lost interest fast. No one the wiser."

"Why?"

"Obvious. I wanted out."

"You didn't know who I was. Not at first."

Another shrug.

Mikhyel tapped the file. "You've a record, Ganfrion.

Preferences. Were those others you've claimed too skinny as well?"

Ganfrion was a big man, large-boned and iron-hard be- neath his prison-ragged clothing. But the hand that cupped the wineglass was mostly clean, the nails no worse than prison life would have them. He wore his hair short- cropped, hanging ragged to his shoulders, like most Persi- tumin, and the rest of the Northern Crescent. But that might well be an attempt toward personal maintenance, de- mands of prison life.

There were scars on the backs of his hands, and a scar traced his cheekbone to disappear into his mustache, and pull his mouth into a permanent sneer. Dark eyes stared at him from under heavy black brows.

"Beard's coming back, then. Suds?"

"As you see."

"Interesting. I was raised in the Khoramali, Suds. I don't like to see the hillers persecuted. You've the look about you . . . without the beard."

"And afterward? Once you did know? Once Deymorin was gone? You could have let them have me. You didn't."

Ganfrion scratched his temple idly, then up under his tangled hair with greater purpose. Scraping the grime thus accumulated from under his nails, he wiped his hand clean on his patched breeches and leaned back.

"Don't kid yourself, dunMheric, nephew of Anheliaa dunMoren. I was tempted. At first. I thought you were Anheliaa's. That being the case, the boys would have been a fitting end for you."

"You decided otherwise. Why?"

A long pause, and another of those careless shrugs.

"I was once part of Pasri dunHaulpin's personal guard,"

Ganfrion said at last.

Mikhyel flinched. It was a name he hadn't thought of in years, and wondered how he'd missed it in the file on the desk.

"I thought you'd recognize the name." The scar twitched.

"I didn't tell old Bro about that. It's an association I prefer to forget myself. DunHaulpin's preferences were hardly a secret about the barracks. Rumor held the Rhomandi se- cured dunHaulpin's signature on the Bartishi venture using his son as collateral."

The Rhomandi. Mheric, at the time of the Bartishi plan.

This time, Mikhyel controlled his reaction.

"Barrack rumor also said that same son used the same bargaining power to secure dunHauplin's loyalties to his own cause in the months following Mheric's death. Among the barracks, this was generally considered one of the most audacious bargains ever perpetrated."

Mikhyel said nothing.