"Hold it above the coals. No sense taking chances-I'd rather have the bite of a sword than the bite of a child any day."

The priest didn't wince when the cautery singed his skin, but after the wound was bandaged he used both trembling hands to carry the goblet to his work-table.

"So tell me Hoxa, what sort of a morning has it been for you?"

"The ladies, Lord Torchholder-," the scrivener began, jerking a shoulder toward the door, beyond which a chorus of feminine voices was raised in unintelligible argument. "Your brother, Lowan Vigeles, has been here looking for his daughter and complaining," Hoxa paused, took a deep breath and continued with a credible imitation of Vigeles's nasal twang, "about the lowness of the Rankan estate in Sanctuary, which is still part of the Empire although you have seen fit to conceal the arrival of a coterie of Beysib exiles, and their poorly defended gold, from the Empire, which could put all that gold to good use in its campaigns rather than see it squandered by Wrigglie scum and fish-eyed barbarians."

He took another gasping breath. "And the storm shook the windows loose from the walls. Your Lady Wife's glass from Ranke is ruined and she is in high wrath, I fear-"

Molin rested his head in his hands and imagined Lowan's aristocratic, somewhat vapid face. My brother, he thought to the memory, my dear, blind brother. An assassin sits on the Imperial Throne, an assassin who sent you running to Sanctuary for your life. In one breath you tell me how desperate, how depraved the Empire has become, and in the next you chide me for abandoning it. You cannot have it both ways, dear brother.

I've told you about Vashanka. It will take many years, generations, before the Empire disappears, but it is dead already, and it will be replaced by the people of the new Vashanka. I've already made my choice.

But the priest had said all this, and more, to his brother and would not say it again. "Hoxa," he said, shaking Lowan from his thoughts, "I've been attacked in the streets; I've been to the nursery where the child has killed one of my oldest friends; my arm is on fire, and you talk to me about my wife! Is there anything worthy of my attention in this forsaken pile of parchment before I go fawn at the feet of Shupansea and tell her everything is under control again?"

"The Mageguild complains that we've not done enough to locate the Tysian Hazard, Randal."

"Not done enough! I've poured twenty soldats into our informers. I'd like to know where the little weasel's vanished to! Damn Mageguild: Wait till Randal's here; Randal can do that; Randal fought on Wizardwall-he can control the weather. I could control the weather better than that damned pack of incanting fools! Gyskouras is making the ground move. He's three years old and his tantrums are shaking the stones. We'll have to go to the witch-bitch herself if this keeps up-tell them that, Hoxa, with flourishes!"

"Yes, my Lord." He shuffled the scrolls, dropping half of them. "There's the bill from the metal-master Balustrus for mending the temple doors. The Third Commando asks for a list of warrants against their enemies; Jubal's proxy asks for warrants against Downwinders and merchants; citizens from the jewelers' quarter demand warrants against Jubal's lot and half the Commando; everyone wants warrants on the Stepsons-"

"Any word from the Stepsons' Commander?"

"Straton presented his warrant-"

"Hoxa!" Molin looked up from his writing table without moving his head.

"No, Lord Torchholder. There's no reply from Tern-pus."

The enmity between the priest and the not-quite-immortal commander of the Stepsons had never been expressed in words. It was instinctive and mutual on both sides but now, because Kadakithis had admitted that Tempus was the real father of the tantrum-throwing godlet in the nursery, Molin needed Tempus and Tempus was incommunicado somewhere along Wizardwall.

Torchholder was not, however, allowed the luxury of contemplating the myriad disappointments around him. The door from the antechamber burst open to admit the unhappy figure of his wife, Rosanda.

"I knew you were in here-sneaking around like vermin -avoiding me."

A wife had never been part of Molin's dreams for the future-and certainly not a wife like Brachis had foisted off on him. It was not that the priests of Vashanka were celibate; they had problems enough without such unnatural strictures. Simply put, it was the custom of Vashanka's priests-priests, after all, of the Divine Rapist-to choose rather more casual liaisons among the many Azyunas the temple housed in their cloisters. No Vashankan ever voluntarily plowed the fields with a Celebrant (Hereditary Harridan, in the vernacular) of Sabellia.

"I have affairs in the city which require my presence, Milady Wife," he answered her, not bothering to be polite. "I cannot stand idle each morning while you diddle through your wardrobe."

"You have more important affairs right here. Danlis informs me that no preparations have been made for our Mid-Winter Festival-which, need I remind you, is a mere ten days from now. None of the bitterwood I sent to Ranke for has arrived. Sabellia's sacred hearth will be unpurified and there won't be enough embers for the women to take back to their home-hearths. Now, I know it's too much to think that snake-smitten puppy of a Prince would take his position as Savankala's Flamen seriously enough to attend to these matters, but I would think that you, the ranking Hierarch in Sanctuary, would see that our gods receive proper respect.

"The Flamens of Ils have set their altars up, the Snake-Chanters have theirs. Rashan struggles to honor all the gods without any aid-"

Molin spun the empty goblet between his fingers. "I have no god. Milady Wife, and precious little interest whether anyone scatters scented ashes this winter. Did you feel the ground quiver during the storm-"

"The glass in our bedroom, which you choose to ignore, is on the floor instead of in the windows. You'll have to get that horrid little metal-worker to fix it I won't spend a night with the sea air ruining my complexion."

He paused, thought better of commenting on her complexion, then continued in a softly modulated tone that signaled the end of his patience. "I'll send Hoxa. Now-I have more important matters-"

"Impotent coward. You have no god because you let Tempus Thales and his catamites usurp you. Torch-holder's a True Son of Vashanka,' they told my father. True son of the Wrigglie whore that whelped you-"

The rage Molin had repressed when he looked at Isambard's face burst out. The goblet stem broke with a tiny snap; the only sound or movement in the room. He forced himself to move slowly, knowing he would kill her if she did not get out of his sight and knowing, in a still-sane corner of his mind, that he would regret it if he did. Rosanda edged backward toward the door as her husband pushed himself up from the table on whitened knuckles. She was through the antechamber and barricaded in the bedroom before he said a word.

"Gather my possessions, Hoxa. Move them downstairs while I speak with Shupansea."

Mid-Winter drew closer in a series of dreary days remarkable only for their raw unpleasantness. Gyskouras, still chastened by the death of Aldwist, was almost as reserved as his foster-brother, giving Molin the opportunity to realize that, even without supernatural meddling, the weather of Sanctuary left much to be desired. Not even a blizzard along Wizardwall was as bone-numbing cold as the harbor mists, and no amount of perfume could disguise the fact that the city was filling its braziers with offal and dung.