“Rodvard! How did you come here?” The fat woman shuffled in the background, and he:
“No matter now, it can wait. We must go quickly.”
She stared at him like a sleepwalker. “Where?”
There were no more words between them at this time or place. Lalette turned in the feeble light to make a package, but the fat woman said; “Nah, my perquisite,” so she only snatched a cloak. The beldame addressed Rodvard; “Now you use your knife on the lock to show where it was picked, then leave it. Then they know my story is true, a man was here.”
He hacked at the brass plate that held the keyhole for a moment, and fortune favored by letting one of the screws come loose with a snap, and the fat woman clawed his arm to indicate that was enough. She led the way down the stair, Rodvard could see no eyes, and he and Lalette were suddenly out the door.
She turned to face him under the dead tree.
“You do not want me any more. How did you find me? Where did you come from?”
(He thought: out of one pattern-dance of compulsions and into another.) “I do want you or I would not have come. I could not help it. Did you not receive my letter?”
“I suppose you have some story to cover your utter desertion.”
“I swear I left with Dr. Remigorius a letter for you, telling how I was called to Sedad Vix on the most urgent of affairs; and then things happened. I will tell you.”
“Then it is true. You are one of the Sons of the New Day.” (The eyes were hidden, but the tone told clearly how deep was her anger and despair.)
She uttered a bitter little laugh. “It is somewhat late, my friend. I am one of the licensed whores they call Myonessae, and now an attainted criminal.”
“I know—and so am I for bringing you from there.”
She took three steps in silence. “Where are you taking me?”
“A tavern.” (He had not thought, this was part of the plan he had been too excited to make.)
“Do you lodge in it?” (The voice was so small that he knew something lay behind the words.)
“I have been working in the office of account, and learned of your trouble there,” he said, inconsecutively.
She turned toward him in the dark street, where far down, someone walked with a light, the hand on his arm trembling a little. “Oh, Rodvard—they would have put me in that prison for instruction and then turned me into the street without an obula.”