This Cantanzaro heard as he spurred through the gate, cursing the ill-fortune that dogged his steps. It happened every time, at the moment of triumph. Those old crones, the Fates, must have developed an abiding hatred for him.

Decraehe shrieked like an old woman. Antonisen poured into the streets the warning swifted ahead; Cantanzaro reached the Harlequin Gate only to find it already closed. He swung into a side street, switched back and forth till he had gained a momentary lead, then eased up to the first inn he encountered. To the stableman he called, "Return this animal to the home of Ablan Decraehe immediately," and tossed a solus. The man's eyes grew huge. It was a small fortune to one of his station.

"Instantly, my lord."

Five minutes later, from a rooftop, Cantanzaro watched the protesting stableman being hustled to an archway. "Hornbostel! Hornbostel!" the crowd chanted.

Grinning, Cantanzaro waited till night, then went over the wall.

He kept on grinning till, in Venverloh, he tried spending one of his remaining forty-nine soli, all of which proved to be lead thinly surfaced with gold. The one he had checked by biting, which Decraehe had given for that purpose, had been the one he had tossed to the stable worker.

They had low black archways in Venverloh too.