Bison put down the untasted leg of a pheasant. “Two cards to every one of them, Calde?”

Silk nodded, his eyes upon Mucor. “Yes. I hadn’t meant to tell you tonight, Colonel. To be more exact, I hadn’t planned to make my decision until morning.”

Saba began, “I submit—”

“But if Mucor can locate the manteion to which the woman I’ve had her looking for is bringing her offering, I’ll be busy tomorrow. Besides, it’s better that I announce it now, so that Generalissimo Oosik and Generalissimo Siyuf can hear it. We’ll send the volunteers home tomorrow, each with a letter of credit worth two cards at the Fisc.”

“Calde…” Oosik reached across Maytera Mint’s vacant place to touch Silk’s arm. “It will take longer than one day merely to collect their weapons.”

Silk shook his head. “We won’t collect them. They’re to keep whatever they have — those are their weapons now”

Saba looked at Siyuf, and when Siyuf did not speak, said, “That’s unheard-of. It’s folly. Insanity.” Chenille caught Silk’s eye and nodded. “She’s right, Patera. It’s abram.”

He spoke to Maytera Marble, at the far end of the table. “You told me something earlier that weighed heavily with me, Maytera; there’s no one whose judgement I value more, as you know. Would you repeat it for us?”

“I can’t, Patera. I don’t remember what it was.”

Xiphias put in, “Couldn’t you just let them keep their swords, lad?”

“I could scarcely take those, could I? Those are their own property already. Chenille, you agree that I shouldn’t do this. Why not?”

Saba snapped, “Because they’re men, ninety percent of them, and unstable, like all men.” Chenille added, “They’ll kill each other, Patera.”

“Of course they will — they always have.” Silk addressed Siyuf “My manteion is in what we call the Sun Street Quarter. I should explain that our city counts many more quarters than four; a quarter in our sense really means no more than the area served by a manteion.”

If she inclined her head, the motion was too slight to be seen. “Fifty thousand, Calde Silk? All with slug guns?”

“There are more than fifty thousand certainly, but not all of them have slug guns. Fifty thousand slug guns, perhaps, or a little over.”

When she put no further question, he said, “It’s a violent quarter; most augurs would say it’s the worst in the city. It borders on the Orilla, which is what we call an empty quarter — one without a manteion. A few people from the Orilla come to our manteion, however, just as a few from our quarter go into the Orilla to buy stolen goods. What I was going to say is that there’s seldom a week without a killing or two, and there are often three or four. When one man decides to kill another, he does it. If he has a slug gun or a needler, he may use it; but if he doesn’t, he uses a dagger or a sword. Or a hatchet, an axe, or a stick of firewood.”

Recalling Auk, Silk added, “A big, strong man may simply knock down a weaker one and kick him to death. A group of men could clearly do the same thing; and I know of one instance in which a man who had raped a child was killed by a dozen women, who beat him to death with their washing sticks and stabbed him with kitchen knives and scissors.”

Hadale told him, “One woman can kill a man, Calde. It’s common at home, and there’s a woman at this table who’s killed several.”

“It isn’t uncommon here, either, Major; and that bears on the thing Maytera told me that impressed me so much. A woman from our quarter came to see her this afternoon, and Maytera asked if she wasn’t afraid to walk so far through the city when just about everyone has a slug gun or a needler. The woman said she wasn’t, because she had one, too.”

Silk paused, inviting comment, and Saba growled, “They’ll over throw you, Calde, in half a year or less.”

“You may well be right.” He spread his hands. “But not by force, since they won’t have to — I haven’t the least desire to retain this office if our people don’t want me. That’s the chief difference between the Ayuntarniento and our side, really. But I think you’ve hit on something important. The reason the Ayuntamiento didn’t let our people have slug guns or launchers like the one Chenille told me about this afternoon was that they are effective means of fighting soldiers and troopers in armor. The Ayuntanniento believed that if our people didn’t have those weapons it could rule as long as it retained the loyalty of the Army and the Guard.”

“Very sensible,” Saba declared.

“Perhaps, but it didn’t work very well. A few days ago, our people overwhelmed hundreds of Guardsmen and took their weapons. I see I have not convinced you.”

Saba shook her head.

“Then let me say this. Generalissimo Oosik says that he would need more than a day to collect the weapons of General Mint’s volunteers.”

Bison added, “If they’d surrender them.”

“Exactly. The best troopers would give their weapons up when they were ordered to, but the worst would hide theirs — the precise opposite of the situation we’d prefer. Furthermore, it would take at least as long to reissue those weapons, and we may need the volunteers again any day.”

Quetzal, who had been nodding over his untouched plate, murmured, “One hundred thousand cards is a large sum, Patera Calde. Can you afford that much?”

Silk shook his head.

Xiphias exclaimed, “Then don’t, lad! Don’t do it!”

“We can’t afford to do it, Master Xiphias.” Silk smiled wryly. “But we cannot afford not to, either. In the first place, I promised to reward those who fought bravely on either side, and I’ve done nothing thus far. There may be a thousand things we cannot afford. No doubt there are. But the thing we cannot afford above all — the thing we dare not risk — is to have people come to believe that my promises are worthless. So tomorrow, as I say, every trooper that General Mint and Colonel Bison have is to receive two cards, and permission to return to his or her home and occupation. Those who were given slug guns or other weapons are to be told that the weapons are theirs now. No one will be able to complain that those who fought on our side went unrewarded, at least.”

Siyuf smiled. “Like you, Calde Silk, I think we may need the horde of Mint again, and soon. When you call for them they will come, having been rewarded handsomely for the first time.”

“Thank you. Most of our financial troubles result from various businesses—”

Hossaan had entered as he spoke, carrying a huge roast upon a magnificent golden platter. “The people from Ermine’s can see to that, Willet,” Silk told him. “Please get your floater ready — I’ll want it soon.”

Oreb flew up the table, circling warily before perching on Silk’s shoulder. “Bird too!”

“Of course, if you wish.”

“Let me hear the rest, Calde Silk. I am most interested.”

“I was about to say that if the overdue taxes were paid, our city government would be rolling in wealth, Generalissimo. General Mint’s troopers will spend the cards they receive very quickly for the most part, and that should produce a wave of prosperity. If we make forceful efforts to collect the overdue taxes then, we may be able to meet our other obligations.”

Siyuf looked down the table to Saba. “You have tell me he is mad. He is not mad. He is only more clever than you. It is not the same.”

Might not the dead rise and walk again? There were tales of such things, and they flitted through Maytera Mint’s mind as she was drawn up the chute.

I was sacrificed, she thought. I should have realized it when Councillor Potto had Spider bend me over his knee. A drop struck me, too. How wonderful it would be if all the rest could come back up through these the way I am!

The top of the chute was a glaring rectangle above her, light so bright that it seemed to her it must surely be noon, with the whole of Pas’s long sun pouring golden radiance through the windows of the manteion into which she rose. Fascinated, she watched Slate’s metal hands in silhouette as they slowly and steadily hauled her up, each grip succeeded by the next.