The frail-looking man got to his feet. "I am Calain of Ni-moya," he said simply, in a gentle and feathery voice.

Inyanna felt confused, but only for a moment. She had thought the duke's chamberlain had wanted her himself; now she understood that Durand Livolk had merely been procuring her for the duke's brother. That knowledge sparked an instant's indignation in her, but it died quickly away. Why take offense? How many young women of Ni-moya had the chance to dine on the Narabal Island with the brother of the duke? If to another it might seem that she was being used, so be it; she meant to do a little using herself, in this interchange.

A place was ready for her beside Calain. She took it and the Vroon instantly brought a tray of liqueurs, all unfamiliar ones, of colors that blended and swirled and phosphoresced. She chose one at random: it had the flavor of mountain mists, and caused an immediate tingling in her cheeks and ears. From overhead came the patter of light rainfall, landing on the broad glossy leaves of the trees and vines, but not on the diners. The rich tropical plantings of this island, Inyanna knew, were maintained by frequent artificial rainfall that duplicated the climate of Narabal.

Calain said, "Do you have favorite dishes here?"

"I would prefer that you order for me."

"If you wish. Your accent is not of Ni-moya."

"Velathys," she replied. "I came here only last year."

"A wise move," said Durand Livolk. "What prompted it?"

Inyanna laughed. "I think I will tell that story another time, if I may."

"Your accent is charming," said Calain. "We rarely meet Velathyntu folk here. Is it a beautiful city?"

"Hardly, my lord."

"Nestling in the Gonghars, though — surely it must be beautiful to see those great mountains all around you."

"That may be. One comes to take such things for granted when one spends all one's life among them. Perhaps even Ni-moya would begin to seem ordinary to one who had grown up here."

"Where do you live?" asked the woman Tisiorne.

"In Strelain," said Inyanna. And then, mischievously, for she had had another of the liqueurs and was feeling it, she added, "In the Grand Bazaar."

"In the Grand Bazaar?" said Durand Livolk.

"Yes. Beneath the street of the cheesemongers."

Tisiorne said, "And for what reason do you make your home there?"

"Oh," Inyanna answered lightly, "to be close to the place of my employment."

"In the street of the cheesemongers?" said Tisiorne, horror creeping into her tone.

"You misunderstand. I am employed in the Bazaar, but not by the merchants. I am a thief."

The word fell from her lips like a lightning-bolt crashing on the mountaintops. Inyanna saw the sudden startled look pass from Calain to Durand Livolk, and the color rising in Durand Livolk's face. But these people were aristocrats, and they had aristocratic poise. Calain was the first to recover from his amazement. Smiling coolly, he said, "A profession that calls for grace and deftness and quick-wittedness, I have always believed." He touched his glass to Inyanna's. "I salute you, thief who says she's a thief. There's an honesty in that which many others lack."

The Vroon returned, bearing a vast porcelain bowl filled with pale blue berries, waxen-looking, with white highlights. They were thokkas, Inyanna knew — the favorite fruit of Narabal, said to make the blood run hot and the passions to rise. She scooped a few from the bowl; Tisiorne carefully chose a single one; Durand Livolk took a handful, and Calain more than that. Inyanna noticed that the duke's brother ate the berries seeds and all, said to be the most effective way. Tisiorne discarded the seeds of hers, which brought a wry grin from Durand Livolk. Inyanna did not follow Tisiorne's fashion.

Then there were wines, and morsels of spiced fish, and oysters floating in their own fluids, and a plate of intricate little fungi of soft pastel hues, and eventually a haunch of aromatic meat — the leg of the giant bilantoon of the forests just east of Narabal, said Calain. Inyanna ate sparingly, a nip of this, a bit of that. It seemed the proper thing to do, and also the most sensible. Some Skandar jugglers came by after a while, and did wondrous things with torches and knives and hatchets, drawing hearty applause from the four diners. Calain tossed the rough four-armed fellows a gleaming coin — a five-royal piece, Inyanna saw, astounded. Later it rained again, though not on them, and still later, after another round of liqueurs, Durand Livolk and Tisiorne gracefully excused themselves and left Calain and Inyanna sitting alone in the misty darkness.

Calain said, "Are you truly a thief?"

"Truly. But it was not my original plan. I owned a shop of general wares in Velathys."

"And then?"

"I lost it through a swindle," she said. "And came penniless to Ni-moya, and needed a profession, and fell in with thieves, who seemed thoughtful and sympathetic people."

"And now you have fallen in with much greater thieves," said Calain. "Does that trouble you?"

"Do you regard yourself, then, as a thief?"

"I hold high rank through luck of birth alone. I do not work, except to assist my brother when he needs me. I live in splendor beyond most people's imaginings. None of this is deserved. Have you seen my home?"

"I know it quite well. From the outside, of course, only."

"Would you care to see the interior of it tonight?"

Inyanna thought briefly of Sidoun, waiting in the whitewashed stone room below the street of the cheesemongers.

"Very much," she said. "And when I've seen it, I'll tell you a little story about myself and Nissimorn Prospect and how it happened that I first came to Ni-moya."

"It will be most amusing, I'm sure. Shall we go?"

"Yes," Inyanna said. "But would it cause difficulties if I stopped first at the Grand Bazaar?"

"We have all night," said Calain. "There is no hurry."

The liveried Vroon appeared, and lit the way for them through the jungled gardens to the island's dock, where a private ferry waited. It conveyed them to the mainland; a floater had been summoned meanwhile, and shortly Inyanna arrived at the plaza of Pidruid Gate. "I'll be only a moment," Inyanna whispered, and, wraithlike in her fragile and clinging gown, she drifted swiftly through the crowds that even at this hour still thronged the Bazaar. Down into the underground den she went. The thieves were gathered around a table, playing some game with glass counters and ebony dice. They cheered and applauded as she made her splendid entrance, but she responded only with a quick tense smile, and drew Sidoun aside. In a low voice she said, "I am going out again, and I will not be back this night. Will you forgive me?"

"It's not every woman who catches the fancy of the duke's chamberlain."

"Not the duke's chamberlain," she said. "The duke's brother." She brushed her lips lightly against Sidoun's. He was glassy-eyed with surprise at her words. "Tomorrow let's go to the Park of Fabulous Beasts, yes, Sidoun?" She kissed him again and moved on, to her bedroom, and drew the flask of dragon-milk out from under her pillow, where it had been hidden for months. In the central room she paused at the gaming-table, leaned close beside Liloyve, and opened her hand, showing her the flask. Liloyve's eyes widened. Inyanna winked and said, "Do you remember what I was saving this for? You said, to share it with Calain when I went to Nissimorn Prospect. And so—"

Liloyve gasped. Inyanna winked and kissed her and went out.

Much later that night, as she drew forth the flask and offered it to the duke's brother, she wondered in sudden panic whether it might be a vast breach of etiquette to be offering him an aphrodisiac this way, perhaps implying that its use might be advisable. But Calain showed no offense. He was, or else pretended to be, touched by her gift; he made a great show of pouring the blue milk into percelain bowls so dainty they were nearly transparent; with the highest of ceremony he put one bowl in her hand, lifted the other himself, and signaled a salute. The dragon-milk was strange and bitter, difficult for Inyanna to swallow; but she got it down, and almost at once felt its warmth throbbing in her thighs. Calain smiled. They were in the Hall of Windows of Nissimorn Prospect, where a single band of gold-bound glass gave a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the harbor of Ni-moya and the distant southern shore of the river. Calain touched a switch. The great window became opaque. A circular bed rose silently from the floor. He took her by the hand and drew her toward it.