Evening had settled over Petgrad while she'd wasted time in the pub. Late summer light grew paler. High clouds were discussing the possibility of rain. Still, autumn was very near, maybe already here. It might be a winter war, depending on how long it lasted.

Insects buzzed out of her way as she emerged from the latrine stall.

She heard footsteps—someone not trying to move stealthily, someone waiting to use the pisser... or waiting for her.

He was turned from the spray of waning sunlight that spattered down into this unroofed nook alongside the pub. The grey hood showed only a solid jaw, the suggestion of lips twisted into something resembling a smile. He stood well, balanced so as to move in any direction, though the stance would appear entirely casual to a citizen's glance.

"The barkeeper asked me to see if you would give him his nose back."

"I dropped it in there. There's a hole in the floor, and it doesn't smell good down there."

"Well, Noseless Solly isn't such a bad moniker."

"Are we going to fight, fuck, or are you going to show me that face, you've been hiding and explain what you want from me?"

She smiled, that same disquieting expression.

He raised his hands, rolled the cowl off his face, and returned the smile. His was quite disarming. His face was what women would call rugged, not handsome. They stared a moment.

The moment lingered.

THE RUGGEDNESS OF his features, which offered soft bewitching blue eyes among hard planes and heavy bones, extended to his body as well. A solid physique, lean but wiry. Snaky muscles that coiled. Dueler's scars on the upper arms. Roughened hands.

Radstac liked how those rough hands handled her. She liked that Deo—so he gave her for his name—enjoyed being handled back. Males who imagined they were the unquestioned orchestrators of sex were the most tedious of partners ... unless they changed their attitudes under her not especially gentle ministrations.

Deo had brought her to this opulent room. Carpeted floors, frivolous and costly looking art on the walls. A monstrously big bed. They had made use of its entire surface.

He wasn't, evidently, a postcoital cuddler. She was glad of that. Being nuzzled and having useless declarations murmured at her once the event had... uncorked—so the

expression went—was irritating enough sometimes to cancel out the pleasure of the whole incident.

Neither, though, was Deo one of those that fled the scene immediately afterward—or, in this case, one that would evict her without delay. Instead, he climbed from the bed, stretched his naked body, pulling taut muscles even tighter, and padded over pale carpeting to a circular stone table where several colored bottles stood.

"What would make you happy?" His fingers lifted a varnished wood cup.

"Water."

He didn't give her a look, poured it, poured something dark purple for himself, and returned to the bed.

She took the cup and swallowed. She guessed him to be about her age, just at the start of his fourth tenwinter. His years hadn't been pampered; so his body attested. This room pointed to wealth, but he wasn't swollen and lazy. Wasn't like those wretched merchants in the pub, too afraid to even consider the possibility that their comfortable positions might be in jeopardy.

Deo had spoken against that one merchant, the one with the face hair. Well, maybe hadn't spoken against; more, he had acknowledged the legitimacy of the war news from the north. She had learned in that pub that Petgrad's military, despite the threat of the Felk, hadn't even been mobilized. Apparently this whole city was under a spell of obliviousness. It was infuriating, not the least because it was going to make it hard for her to find work here. She might have to push on farther north.

"Do you object to the word mercenary ... or should I find another?" Deo asked.

"It's a perfectly fine word. I can never get sell-sword past my lips without lisping it."

He drank. She could smell it. Something alcoholic, but it didn't reek; an undertone of berries to it.

"You've seen more than one campaign."

"And you've outlived a duel or two."

He looked at her scars; some were more dramatic than others. She looked at his, tiny white stripes across his sleek, hard arms. She never minded anyone looking. Some got terribly aroused by the sight of her mistreated flesh. Once one of this particular ilk had turned dangerous. He would never be so again.

Her clothes—everything, armor, boots, her leather glove and its hooks—were scattered from the doorway to the foot of the bed, along with Deo's cowl and underclothing. No weapons in reach. This didn't bother her.

Staying here in the city would be the safe thing to do. That was an article of her personal code, the rules she had devised, the rules that her particular life had taught her. They wouldn't work for others. Most people didn't pay enough attention to their lives, didn't try to understand the sense; they just muddled along, not even aware enough to see how easily it could end. How quickly. How simply.

She sipped more water. It was purer even than the relatively clean supply in the public cisterns. She stretched her supine body on the immensely soft bed, hearing a vertebra pop.

"I like that. The smile. The real one."

She floated her eyes toward him. Do the safe thing. The safe thing was to stay in Petgrad and wait until someone purchased her services. Striking north now was risky. So was crossing over to the Felk side to sell her sword. The Felk didn't need mercenaries, not at this point, not after they'd absorbed substantial troop numbers from their earlier conquests.

"I wasn't aware I was smiling," she said.

"Exactly. I also like your accent."

"We don't have accents. You do."

"Fair enough. It's very subtle. I've met Southsoilers, a lot of them. I've always wanted to hire one as a storyteller, just to hear that enunciation. Wouldn't matter in the least what the story was."

"Must be amusing to be able to afford a ... storyteller."

"Said I wanted to hire one. Didn't say I had the money."

This wordplay was, she thought, almost as enjoyable as the sex. How odd that was. And how fantastically rare. Good lovers almost never made good conversationalists. Deo drank more of his purple drink, lounging back on a few of the bed's abundant pillows.

"What is the matter with these people?" she asked, as if picking up a thread of conversation from earlier. "Those merchants in that pub... don't they realize a Felk onslaught is inevitable?"

"Do you actually think resistance could be successful?"

"I don't know. I don't make it my business to know. I don't hire myself out as an officer or a strategist. I'm a fighter. Personally, I'm quite successful."

"Always pick the winning side?"

Her barking laugh was, she knew, something like her normal smile—disconcerting.

"Hardly," she said. "But wars don't go on until every last soldier is slain. One head of state or the other surrenders or capitulates to terms, usually well before the slaughter gets irreversibly messy. I fight for whichever side hires me. I fight well. I fight till someone says stop. I don't win the wars or lose them. I participate."

His laugh was much warmer than hers. His blue eyes moved over her body again, not lingering on the scars.

"Everyone's afraid," Deo said. "Yes. Everyone. It's war, but it's not war that we recognize. You pointed that out yourself, rather articulately I thought."

"I thought so as well."

"I was in disguise at that pub for the same reason you were there—to sound out the views of the people. I've been doing it a lot lately and keep encountering the same thing."

"How can that be?"

"The people have good Uves here in Petgrad. We've had generations of reasonable prosperity. We like things stable, grounded. Why upset a good thing? This war, these Felk... they'll upset it. Most certainly. But the people won't face it."