“Your Chapter’s got more gelt than any of us,” Eschar remarked dryly.

“Not mine, hey? Custodian-um-solely.” The sweet salt wind ruffled his hair, making him look at once foolish and blessed.

Blazingstar spoke first to you, Nettle; then to me. “We are the five people who have jockeyed most successfully for money and power, that’s all. We wanted them, we five, and we got them. Now here we are, begging you two to keep us from cutting our own throats.”

“Not, um-”

“He’ll deny it,” she told us, “but it’s the gods’ own truth just the same. Our money belongs to us, mine to me, Gyrfalcon’s to him, and so on. Patera here is going to insist that his isn’t really his, that it belongs to the Chapter and he only takes care of it.”

“Brava! Quite-um-ah… Precisely the case.”

“But he’s got it, and as Eschar said he’s probably got more than any of us. He’s got bravos, too, buckos to break heads for him whenever he wants.”

Stubbornly, Remora shook his own. “There are many men of- ah-high heart amongst the faithful. That I, um, concede. However, we-ah-none-”

“He doesn’t have to pay his,” Blazingstar explained. “We pay ours.”

Eschar asked Remora, “If it isn’t so, what are you doing here?”

Marrow rapped the table again. “That’s who we are. Do you understand now?”

You looked at me then, Nettle darling, inviting me to speak; but all I could think of to say was. “I don’t think so.”

Marrow said, “You don’t know why we’re here, naturally. We haven’t told you. That will come soon enough.”

Gyrfalcon snapped, “New Viron needs a caldé. Anybody can see it.”

You nodded then, Nettle darling. “It’s become a terrible place.”

“Exactly. We came here to escape the Sun Street Quarter, didn’t we? The Sun Street Quarter and the Orilla.” Gyrfalcon chuckled. “But we carried them with us.”

“It isn’t just crime,” Blazingstar declared, “though there’s much too much of that. The wells are polluted and there’s filth everywhere.”