Besides, the boy had made a liar of me, and I am a stubborn man. I said, “We have some empty rooms, yes, but they are unfit for you, the rains got into the walls last winter. Try the convent, or go on into town, you’ll have your choice of a dozen inns.” Whatever you think of me, hearing this, I was right to lie, and I would do it again.

But I would do it better a second time. The black woman still smiled, but her hands, as though twitching nervously, fidgeted at the long cane she carried across her saddle. Rosewood, very handsome, we make nothing like that in this country. The curved handle twisted a quarter-turn, and a quarter-inch of steel winked cheerfully at me. She never glanced down, saying only, “We will take whatever you have.”

Aye, and didn’t that prove true enough, though? The swordcane was the end of the matter, of course, but I tried once again; to save my honesty, in a way, though you won’t understand that. “The stables wouldn’t suit a sheknath,” I told her. “Leaky roof, damp straw. I’d be ashamed to put horses as fine as yours in those stalls.”

I cannot recall her answer—not that it makes the least difference—first, because I was looking hard at that boy, daring him to say other and second, because in the next moment the fox had wriggled out of the brown woman’s saddlebag, leaped to the ground and was on his way due north with a setting hen by the neck. I roared, imbecile dogs and servants came running, the boy gave chase as hotly as if he hadn’t personally brought that animal here to kill my chicken, and for the next few moments there was a great deal of useless dust and clamor raised in the courtyard. The white woman’s horse almost threw her, I remember that.

The boy had the stomach to come sneaking back, I’ll say that much for him. The brown woman said, “I am sorry about the hen. I will pay you.” Her voice was lighter than the black woman’s, smoother, with a glide and a sidestep to it.