taken time to make herself clean. She had pushed on to this confrontation, and would not be cheated of it.
‘Rhesus!’ she bellowed. Her voice echoed strangely. The man behind her scurried away down a side corridor, as if he did not wish to be present when his master found a madwoman loose in the house. Ki padded down the hallway. She heard a sudden rustle of clothing and a woman’s voice raised in a whisper of alarm. She stepped to the doorway of that room, but Rhesus himself suddenly filled it. His pudgy hands danced nervously up the front of his loosened shirt. His fat spider body jounced upon his skinny legs.
‘Ki!’
All the answers rattled across his graying face. It sagged flabbier as she smiled at it. From inside her shirt she drew the small leather pouch, tumbled the gems out onto her hand. Her eyes did not leave his face as she held them out for his inspection. ‘All there, Rhesus. And no doubt fully as lovely and priceless as when I left Vermintown with them.’
‘No doubt,’ he agreed nervously. But he reached no anxious hand to seize them. Ki shifted her hand, let the stones tumble about in her palm.
‘I shall not bore you with the perils I encountered on my way here. You know I have never raised my price because I found a road more difficult than I had bargained it to be. That is the business of a teamster – to know the roads well enough to strike the bargain beforehand. And it is the merchant’s business to know what he can afford to pay for such a job.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He glanced back nervously at the room he had just left, then stepped forward suddenly to indicate another door. Ki watched him quickly gather up the reins of control, saw his face tighten as he convinced himself that she suspected nothing. Already he was regaining his aplomb, taking control of the situation. ‘Would you care for food, Ki, a little wine perhaps? I have ripe fruit from …’
‘No,’ Ki cut in. ‘Money, and a little talk. That would satisfy me best, Rhesus.’
He nodded quickly, his nervousness baring itself again in the tremble of his jowls. He trotted a few steps down the hall toward the doorway he had indicated before. Ki did not budge. She did not care if it troubled him to have her so near his nest. She casually held up one of the gems between a thumb and finger, looked at it critically. ‘I know very little of gems, Rhesus. Of that I am sure you are aware. Where would a person of my background find the opportunity to become a judge of such things? But I have an eye for beauty. Look at it, Rhesus. Blue as the sky. No, bluer than that – blue as a diving Harpy. How shall we value a gem such as this? Worth a woman’s life, or shall we say a man’s blood?’
Rhesus saw it all sliding away from him. His thin legs were trembling under his bulk, threatening to collapse. His pale face went green, in contrast to his gaudy clothing. Ki met his eyes calmly, her face as untroubled as a spring day, her mouth smiling sweetly. She watched his plump face ripple with emotion. But he would retain his bluff to the last coin.
‘This way, Ki. Let us settle our accounts.’ There was a tremble to his trot as he hurried her down the hallway. He led her into a plain room that understated the wealth of the house. The floor was tiled a deep, rich brown. Tapestries of feasts and huntings draped the walls. No window admitted natural light or spying glances. A tall cupboard stood in one corner, its shining dark wood matching the table in the center of the room. The table was littered with scrolls and counters, while several slender brushes rested in an upright stand beside pots of variously colored inks. There was a single, ornately carved chair at the table and a bare, low bench set a distance before it. Ki had played this scene before with Rhesus. Always he sat in the tall chair, protected by the table, and played with counters and talked of increasing expenses, while Ki sat silent on the low bench before him, her legs stretched uncomfortably in front of her until her silence extracted from him the previously agreed-upon price.
But today, when Rhesus let her precede him as guest, Ki crossed the room with a sure stride, pulled out the chair, and sat in it. She watched the last hopeful doubt drip away from Rhesus’s face. His body caved in on the low bench. Sweat broke out in tiny, shining beads on his upper lip.
‘I am, as you say, a merchant,’ he began.
‘I did not know you trafficked in blood,’ Ki interrupted his apologetic tones. ‘Or my prices would have been higher. But seeing that you do, we shall make our settlement now. First, the remainder of what you owe me for these “priceless gems.”’
Ki boldly took up a stack of counters, measured out what was due her in a stack on the table. ‘That is correct, is it not?’
Rhesus scarcely glanced at the pile. ‘It appears to be,’ he mumbled.
‘Certainly it does. But appearances can be deceiving, Rhesus. Let us consider a philosophical question. Goods can be paid for with money. But how shall blood be bought?’
The plump jowls trembled a moment, became suddenly firmer. Rhesus drew himself up straight on the low bench. Watching, Ki was reminded of a toad puffing himself up to croak. But she would have trusted a toad’s yellow eyes more than the round, piggish eyes that fixed on her now.
‘Do you threaten me, Ki? With what? Kill me by your own hand, and you shall not escape the justice of this town. They value me here, for the trade I generate. Shall you bring charges against me? Who listens to a wandering Romni? What evidence do you have? You have not been killed. I see no mark of wounds upon you.’ He folded his fat hands on his knees and met her eyes as if he had made a point.
‘An interesting philosophy.’ Ki slid down deeper in her chair. Her dust-stained boots rose to rest on the corner of the shining table. She gave a slight kick to get more comfortable, and Rhesus flinched as her heels scored the wood’s luster. ‘Surely if you are dead, Rhesus, it will make small difference to you if I am punished for your murder or not. But it might inconvenience you in a small way if a certain Romni driver and his family stopped smuggling perfume jewels into Coritro for you. Although they are illegal there, I have heard they still bring you a good price. It might be an even larger problem for you if all the Romni stopped doing carting for you. But I am not threatening you, Rhesus. I am only showing you that I know how to threaten you. I do not want your blood. I do not consider it of equal value to the blood that was shed. Nor do I want your money, other than what you owe me for the delivery.’
Ki watched with narrow eyes as the plump little man shifted about on the bench. His fat fingers were squeezed by narrow rings, making them look like sausages. The sausages met and tangled together. His little round eyes rolled about the room, looking everywhere but into Ki’s. Ki continued to stare at him silently. His mouth worked in and out.
‘So what do you want of me? Here, I will pay you your money for the delivery, and then you will go.’
He rose and bustled across the room to the cabinet. He fished in his pocket for a small key and unlocked one of the drawers. Ki heard the chink of coin and the shutting of the drawer. He hurried back, to stack before her the silver minteds he owed. No more and no less. Ki nodded and scooped them toward her. She let the gems fall from her hand onto the table with a rattle like gravel.
‘And now you will go,’ he said. His eyes glistened as he watched Ki leisurely transfer the stacks of minteds from the table into her own personal pouch. His lower lip jutted out plump and wet as he considered the scatter of trinket gems he was receiving for it.
‘You needn’t look so bitter,’ Ki said softly. ‘I doubt that you are taking a loss.’
‘That’s my business,’ Rhesus snapped.
‘Exactly. The business of a merchant who trafficks in blood. I have no experience of how such a fee is set. Tell me, Rhesus, how much was my life bought for? And by whom?’
He moved briskly to the bench before the table, sitting as alertly as a begging dog. A pink slug of tongue wet his lips. ‘Is that what you would have from me, Ki? It will cost you.’ He settled himself with a wiggle of satisfaction at finally taking control.
Ki could not find the anger she needed to deal with him. Only a weary disgust filled her. She let him rant on.
‘You