When Eliab arose next morning-with the sun, of course-it was to find that the veiled lady had prepared breakfast for him from her own stores and was calmly sharpening his dagger.
"Thank you, Lady," the big caravan master said, with a bow almost courtly.
"Thank you, Caravan Master."
"And will you join me in breaking the night's fasting with this wonderful repast. Lady?"
"No, Caravan Master," she said, rising. "For I could not eat without showing you my face."
"I understand, Lady. And thank you again." He made a respectful sign and watched her glide away, robe's hem on the ground and cloak whipping in the wind that blew worse than chilly, to her own tent. After that he assigned a man to pitch and strike that tent for her. Thus the delegation obtained some result, at that.
At last the cavalcade of humans, beasts, and trade goods reached the tired town called Sanctuary, and the veiled lady detached her three horses and went her way into the dusty old "city." The others saw her no more and soon she was completely out of their thoughts. Neither the big good-looking guard from Mrsevada nor Master Eliab ever forgot her, really, but she slipped easily from their minds, too. The former began flashing his smile and cutting a swath through the girls of Sanctuary, if not the women. As a matter of fact none of them had seen her and so never saw her again or knew if they did, for the veiled lady soon unveiled herself.
In this moribund town of thieves now ruled by weird starey-eyed people or "people" from oversea and un-succored by "protecting" and "Imperial" Ranke, it was easy for the veiled lady to employ a lackey for a few coins and a promise or two. Next she startled and nearly whelmed the poor wight by having him take her to his own home. Within that poorly heated hovel and amid much buzzing curiosity among the neighbors, she effected a change of clothing. That involved removal of all headgear and thus both veils. And that, when she emerged, elicited more buzz, even unto awe.
They were the first outside Suma to see the face and figure of her whose name was not Cleya or Saphtherabah, but Kaybe Jodeera.
She was blessed with beauty, true beauty. It was at once a blessing and a curse. Jodeera knew herself for a beauty. She admitted and understood and accepted the fact. She had learned that it was not a blessing, but a curse. She had lived long with it, and paid the price; several prices. One was that it was not wise for a woman so staggeringly well-favored to travel unaccompanied. Even with a protector and amid the whistling winds of winter, she might well have proven invitation to and source for trouble within the caravan. Jodeera knew this; she had long been beautiful and admitted and accepted it-as curse. Therefore she had chosen to conceal herself utterly. Better to be a source of speculation and gossip than of trouble! (She was neither pregnant nor obese, nor even "overweight," that delicate phrase for people of sedentary habits who were without restraint in the matter of food and drink.)
Furthermore, Jodeera and the sun were not enemies. She was not syphilitic. She was not even pocked.
She stepped forth from the house of her new lackey unveiled and clasping a long amethystine cloak over the azure-and-emerald gown of a lady, and she was breathtaking. She was radiance to challenge the sun; she was Beauty to challenge the goddess Eshi Herself.
And she was looking for a man. A particular man.
She and her lackey-his name was Wintsenay and he was best described as an overage street urchin-returned through town, saw a killing and pretended not to, two blocks farther along stepped carefully around another murder victim not yet cold, satisfactorily answered the questions of a Beysib who looked worse than nervous and ready to draw the sword on its or her back, and came at last to a fine inn. There they installed her.
Oh, but Jodeera turned heads in the White Swan! Nevertheless, she caused herself to be. conducted at once to an available chamber, one with a good bed and a good lock on the door. Though many waited and watched and some of them entertained dreams and pleasant fantasies, she did not return to the common room. She remained in her own rented chamber. Her hireling Wintsenay slept before the door, armed, but nothing untoward befell her at the White Swan.
Word of her arrival in Sanctuary was abroad before she rose next day. Beautiful women did not come at all often to Sanctuary. Not even Hakiem could remember when last one had arrived here alone. Yet this time a true beauty had arrived, and alone, and she was a mystery. Having taken on a low and baseborn servant who was about ten minutes out of the downwind area of Downwind, she had given her name at the White Swan as Ahdioma of Aurvesh, and she was nigh incredible.
As for the lady herself ... "See you this ring?" she asked of the White Swan's day-man, who was trying hard to gather up his lower lip so as to close his mouth while staring at her. He remembered to nod and she said, "When next you see it, it will be sent you, and you will honor it, and my wishes."
He assured her that he would, indeed.
Taking no breakfast and seeming uninterested in the chatter of last night's bloody PFLS activities, she went forth into ratty Thieves' World of the creaking commerce and cracking, peeled stucco and stones leaking their mortar onto the streets and "streets." Its powder freighted the wind that whistled along those streets, disarranging cloaks and scarves while bearing the scent of death.
She was noticed wherever she went in damned Sanctuary. Hair of a dark red, the shining maroon of a rich old wine. Large eyes that were perhaps hazel and perhaps green-it depended upon the viewer, and where she was standing with relation to the sun. A face in which the bones were prominent and the mouth generous. (Some few marked the absence of what passed for dimples and later for creases and were truly smile-lines, and pounced to the conclusion that, incredibly for one of her looks, she had had no happy life.) A figure to turn dry the mouths of men and never mind their ages. A lackey called Wints whose face was washed and who strove to look mean while keeping his hand on one of those dauntingly long Ilbarsi "knives" thrust through a red-and-yellow sash worn over his old brown cloak.
In the Bazaar she crossed a brown, clutching palm with a small silver coin, and was allowed to adjourn to a rearward chamber. She emerged with her hair caught in a plain snood of dull old green. A veil of medium green concealed her lower face. Displayed were ears pierced but not be jeweled, which she knew was unattractive.
She tarried there, in that booth of a seer blindingly dressed in multicolor, while the S'danzo's daughter and the lackey Wints bore the ring back to the White Swan. No, she did not care to be read by the S'danzo. Was the kind S'danzo discreet?-Yes. Then did she perhaps know of a certain man ... And the newcomer, veiled again, mentioned a name and then a description.
No, the S'danzo did not know him; perhaps a reading might help?-No, no reading; there would be no Seeing into the affairs of the veiled lady.
The S'danzo wisely said no more. She assumed that this stranger either was so cautious as to want not even a close-mouthed seer to know aught of her-or wished not to know more of herself and her future's possibilities and probabilities than she already did.
Wintsenay and the nine-year-old returned anon with the veiled lady's three horses. She dispatched them to arrange lodgings for her at the inn suggested by her new S'danzo friend.