I rolled to the side, my hand going instinctively for the blade in my sheath, but the sheath, the weapon earlier surrendered at the check point through which I had entered the piazza, was empty. The man adjusted quickly, very quickly. he was fast. he wore a half mask. The blade had cut into the cushion. Before I could rise to my feet he was upon me. We grappled. I caught his wrist, turning the blade inward. Suddenly he relaxed. I left the blade in him. I was breathing heavily. I pulled away the half mask. He was the fellow hwom I had seen at the check point. Too, we had spoken together near the magician's stage.

I rifled through his robes. I could find no identification. Probably he had seen me throw the golden tarn disk to the stage. His motivation, doubtless, had been robbery. Yet I had seen him earilier at the check point. That could have been a coincidence, I supposed. I opened his wallet. It was filled with golden staters, from Brundisium, a port on the coast of Thassa, on the mainland, a hundred pasangs or so south of the Vosk's delta, one reported to have alliances with Ar. Robbery, then, did not seem a likely motivation. I knew little about Brundisium. Supposedly it had relations with Ar. I wondered if this were the fellow who had arranged to meet with me in Booth Seventeen. I did not think Vart, the slaver whose booth this was, was likely to be involved. He had probably just rented the booth. If he was involved he would have been stupid to use his own booth. Too, I suspected he had little love for Ar, and perhaps thus for Brundisium. He had once been banished from Ar, and nearly impaled, for the falsification of slave data, misrepresenting merchandise as to its level of training and skill.

I, too, had once been denied salt, bread and fire in Ar, and banished from the city. I did not think, however, that Marlenus, of Ar, her Ubar, he who had banished me, would be likely to send a covert assassin from Brundisium against me, from Brundisium perhaps to make the coneection with Ar seem unlikely or tenuous. If he wished to have it out with me, presumably he would do so, with his own blade. Marlenus was too direct and proud for such deviousness. Too, we were not really enemies. Too, if he had wished to send an assassin against me, presumably he would have done so long ago. Too, the fact that the stateres in the fellow's wallet were from Brundisuim did not mean that he himself was from that city. Anyone might have paid him in the staters of Brundisium. What enemies did I have? Perhaps, after all, robbery was the fellow's motivation.

I shuddered. I did not understand what had happened. I did not like what had happened.

I looked to the slave. I turned her to her belly on the cushion, putting her head to the side. I was disturbed, shaken and tense. I untied her ankles. Too, I had made a kill. I must calm myself. It is one of the things women are for. She whimpered, pounded, her small hands twisting in the tight leather thongs. I then tied her ankles together again, and then, this time, fastened her wrists to her ankles. I then tied the wallet, filled with the golden staters of Brundisium, about her collar. That would give Vart some consolation, I suspected, for the scandal he would find in his booth.

"Tarl," I heard, a voice speaking softly, outside the curtain. It was the voice of Samos.

"Enter," I said.

"I have been looking all over for you," he said. "I saw Henrius. He suggested you might be here." Samos' eyes opened widely. "What is going on here?" he asked. "Who is that?"

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"No," said Samos, examining the body.

"He tried to kill me," I said.

"Why?" he asked. "The slave?"

"No," I said. "I think perhaps robbery."

"His robes seem rich," said Samos.

"In his wallet were several staters, of gold, from Brundisium," I said.

"That is a valuable stater," said Samos. "It has good weight."

"He knew I was carrying gold," I said. "I had given evidence of this in rewarding a magician in the carnival."

"Even so," said Samos, "it would seem, from what you say, that he stood in no need of money."

"I do not think so," I said. "Yet robbery seems the only likely explanation."

"I do not know," said Samos. "Perhaps you are right."

"You sound doubtful," I observed.

"Thieves, my friend," said Samos, "seldom carry gold on their persons."

"Perhaps he had stolen it this evening," I said.

"No soncdierable therft has been reported this evening," said Samos, "as far as I know. It was not in the recent reports of the guards."

"Perhaps he slew the individual from whom he stole the coins and then thrust the body into a canal," I suggested.

"Perhaps," said Samos. "But his mode of garb does not suggest that of the elusive, quick-moving thief."

"It might make it easier to approach a victim," I suggested.

"Perhaps," said Samos.

"Too, robes would make it easier to get a knife through the check points at carnival," I said.

"Perhaps," said Samos.

"You do not seem convinced," I said.

"I am not," said Samos.

"This booth is closed," I said. "I gather that you did not rent it and close it."

"No," said Samos.

"Henrius," I said, "told me that someone wished to see me here."

"Was that before this fellow saw you throw gold to the magician?" asked Samos.

"No," I said. "Afterwards."

"Perhaps that is the explanation, then," said Samos.

"I do not think so," I said. "It was really not very long after I left the magician's platform that I saw Henrius. I do not think it likely that the arrangement could have been made that quickly. Too, Henrius, as I recall, did not speak as though he had just been contacted."

"He did not deny it, either, di he?" asked Samos.

"No," I said. "But if the fellow was a stranger, a common thief, how would he be likley to know my name, or of any connection between myself and Henrius, or others?"

"That is true," said Samos.

"The booth, too, presumably would have to be rented, and the slave drugged," I said.

"I see," said Samos. "It seems likely then, if he is a common thief, that he would have merely followed you here, and is not the fellow who spoke to Henrius, or who would be connected with the booth in some way."

"Yes," I said. "but then who would have rented the booth, who would have wanted to see me here?"

"What have we there?" asked Samos, gesturing to the girl, bound hand and foot on the cushion, the wallet tied at her dollar.

"A drugged slave," I said.

"Was she unconscious when you entered the booth?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then she probably would not be able to give helpful witness," he said.

"She might know who drugged her," I said.

"Presumbably she would only know that it was some fellow in a mast," said Samos. "Too, it may bery well have been done to her by her master, Vart, whose booth this is, he doing this under instructions."

"We could contact Vart," I said.

"The fellow to whom he rented the booth would presumably have been masked," said Samos. "It is, after all, carnival time. I doubt that Vart would be able to help us. Besides he is not noted, anyway, for his excessive concern for scrupulosity in his business dealings."

"What, then, do you think?" I asked.

"The signs, it seems to me," said Samos, "suggest a calculated ambush and one in which your friend here was probably implicated."

"I agree," I said. "You are thinking, then, in terms of a carefully planned robbery?"

"Not really," said Samos. "All things considered, such as the coins in his wallet, robbery sems to me, at least, to be a very unlikely motive for this attack."

"What could have been the possible motivation then?" I asked.

"I do no know," he said. "Who do you know who might wish to hav this done?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said. "What did you wish to see me about?"