Ordinarily, Cappen Varra enjoyed this shabby-colourful spectacle. Now he single mindedly hunted through it. He kept full awareness, of course, as everybody must in Sanctuary. When light fingers brushed him, he knew. But whereas aforetime he would have chuckled and told the pickpurse, 'I'm sorry, friend; I was hoping I might lift somewhat off you,' at this hour he clapped his sword in such forbidding wise that the fellow recoiled against a fat woman and made her drop a brass tray full of flowers. She screamed and started beating him over the head with it.

Cappen didn't stay to watch.

On the eastern edge of the market-place he found what he wanted. Once more Illyra was in the bad graces of her colleagues and had moved her trade to a stall available elsewhere. Black curtains framed it, against a mud-brick wall. Reek from a nearby tannery well-nigh drowned the incense she burned in a curious holder, and would surely overwhelm any of her herbs. She herself also lacked awesomeness, such as most seeresses, mages, conjurers, scryers, and the like affected. She was too young; she would have looked almost wistful in her flowing, gaudy S'danzo garments, had she not been so beautiful.

Cappen gave her a bow in the manner of Caronne. 'Good-day, Illyra the lovely,' he said.

She smiled from the cushion whereon she sat. 'Good-day to you, Cappen Varra.' They had had a number of talks, usually in jest, and he had sung for her entertainment.. He had hankered to do more than that, but she seemed to keep all men at a certain distance, and a hulk of a blacksmith who evidently adored her saw to it that they respected her wish.

'Nobody in these parts has met you for a fair while,' she remarked. 'What fortune was great enough to make you forget old friends?'

'My fortune was mingled, inasmuch as it left me without time to come down here and behold you, my sweet,' he answered out of habit.

Lightness departed from Illyra. In the olive countenance, under the chestnut mane, large eyes focused hard on her visitor. 'You find time when you need help in disaster,' she said.

He had not patronized her before, or indeed any fortune-teller of thaumaturge in Sanctuary. In Caronne, where he grew up, most folk had no use for magic. In his later wanderings he had encountered sufficient strangeness to temper his native scepticism. As shaken as he already was, he felt a chill go along his spine. 'Do you read my fate without even casting a spell?'

She smiled afresh, but bleakly. 'Oh, no. It's simple reason. Word did filter back to the Maze that you were residing in the Jewellers' Quarter and a frequent guest at the mansion of Molin Torchholder. When you appear on the heels of a new word - that last night his wife was reaved from him - plain to see is that you've been affected yourself.'

He nodded. 'Yes, and sore afflicted. I have lost -' He hesitated, unsure whether it would be quite wise to say 'my love' to this girl whose charms he had rather extravagantly praised.

'- your position and income,' Illyra snapped. 'The high priest cannot be in any mood for minstrelsy. I'd guess his wife favoured you most, anyhow. I need not guess you spent your earnings as fast as they fell to you, or faster, were behind in your rent, and were accordingly kicked out of your choice apartment as soon as rumour reached the landlord. You've returned to the Maze because you've no place else to go, and to me in hopes you can wheedle me into giving you a clue - for if you're instrumental in recovering the lady, you'll likewise recover your fortune, and more.'

'No, no, no,' he protested. 'You wrong me.'

'The high priest will appeal only to his Rankan gods,' Illyra said, her tone changing from exasperated to thoughtful. She stroked her chin. 'He, kinsman of the Emperor, here to direct the building of a temple which will overtop that of Us, can hardly beg aid from the old gods of Sanctuary, let alone from our wizards, witches, and seers. But you, who belong to no part of the empire, who drifted hither from a kingdom far in the West ... you may seek anywhere. The idea is your own; else he would furtively have slipped you some gold, and you have engaged a"diviner with more reputation than is mine.'

Cappen spread his hands. 'You reason eerily well, dear lass,' he conceded. 'Only about the motives are you mistaken. Oh, yes, I'd be glad to stand high in Molin's esteem, be richly rewarded, and so forth. Yet I feel for him; beneath that sternness of his, he's not a bad sort, and he bleeds. Still more do I feel for his lady, who was indeed kind to me and who's been snatched away to an unknown place. But before all else -' He grew quite earnest. 'The Lady Rosanda was not seized by herself. Her ancilla has also vanished, Danlis. And - Danlis is she whom I love, Illyra, she whom I meant to wed.'

The maiden's look probed him further. She saw a young man of medium height, slender but tough and agile. (That was due to the life he had had to lead; by nature he was indolent, except in bed.) His features were thin and regular on a long skull, cleanshaven, eyes bright blue, black hair banged and falling to the shoulders. His voice gave the language a melodious accent, as if to bespeak white cities, green fields and woods, quicksilver lakes, blue sea, of the homeland he left in search of his fortune.

'Well, you have charm, Cappen Varra,' she murmured, 'and how you do know it.' Alert: 'But coin you lack. How do you propose to pay me?'

'I fear you must work on speculation, as I do myself,' he said. 'If our joint efforts lead to a rescue, why, then we'll share whatever material reward may come. Your part might buy you a home on the Path of Money.' She frowned. 'True,' he went on, 'I'll get more than my share of the immediate bounty that Molin bestows. I will have my beloved back. I'll also regain the priest's favour, which is moderately lucrative. Yet consider. You need but practise your art. Thereafter any effort and risk will be mine.'

'What makes you suppose a humble fortune-teller can learn more than the Prince Governor's investigator guardsmen?' she demanded.

'The matter does not seem to lie within their jurisdiction,' he replied.

She leaned forward, tense beneath the layers of clothing. Cappen bent towards her. It was as if the babble of the market-place receded, leaving these two alone with their wariness.

'I was not there,' he said low, 'but I arrived early this morning after the thing had happened. What's gone through the city has been rumour, leakage that cannot be caulked, household servants blabbing to friends outside and they blabbing onward. Molin's locked away most of the facts till he can discover what they mean, if ever he can. I, however, I came on the scene while chaos still prevailed. Nobody kept me from talking to folk, before the lord himself saw me and told me to begone. Thus I know about as much as anyone, little though that be.'

'And -?' she prompted.

'And it doesn't seem to have been a worldly sort of capture, for a worldly end like ransom. See you, the mansion's well guarded, and neither Molin nor his wife have ever gone from it without escort. His mission here is less than popular, you recall. Those troopers are from Ranke and not subornable. The house stands in a garden, inside a high wall whose top is patrolled. Three leopards run loose in the grounds after dark.

'Molin had business with his kinsman the Prince, and spent the night at the palace. His wife, the Lady Rosanda, stayed home, retired, later came out and complained she could not sleep. She therefore had Danlis wakened. Danlis is no chambermaid; there are plenty of those. She's amanuensis, adviser, confidante, collector of information, ofttimes guide or interpreter - oh, she earns her pay, does my Danlis. Despite she and I having a dawntide engagement, which is why I arrived then, she must now out of bed at Rosanda's whim, to hold milady's hand or take dictation of milady's letters or read to milady from a soothing book but I'm a spendthrift of words. Suffice to say that they two sought an upper chamber which is furnished as both solarium and office. A single staircase leads thither, and it is the single room at the top. There is a balcony, yes; and, the night being warm, the door to it stood open, as well as the windows. But I inspected the facade beneath. That's sheer marble, undecorated save for varying colours, devoid of ivy or of anything that any climber might cling to, save he were a fly.