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Kerwin dropped his own knife, flung himself on the struggling bodies, and
forced Auster s hand back. Auster struggled briefly, then his hand relaxed and
he dropped it, sanity coming slowly back to his eyes. There was a long slash
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on his cheek Kerwin didn t know from which knife and his eye was
darkening, blood streaming from his nose, where Jeff s elbow had smashed at
him.
Rannirl picked himself up, wiping the blood from his forearm. The knife had
not gone into him at all; it was a cut less than skin deep. He stared down at
Auster in shock and horror. Auster started to get up and Kerwin made a
menacing gesture. For two cents he d have kicked Auster s ribs right in. Stay
right where you are, damn you.
Auster wiped blood from his nose and mouth, and stayed where he was.
Kerwin went to the window and looked into the dirty courtyard. Ragan, of
course, was gone. There wasn t a chance they d find him again.
He walked back to Auster and said, Give me one good reason I shouldn t kick
your brains out!
Auster sat up, bloody, but not beaten. Go ahead, Terranan, he said.
Pretend we owe you the protection of our codes of honor!
Rannirl stood over him, menacing. Do you dare call me traitor? he said.
Kennard accepted the challenge; you did not speak to it then. And I have
given this man my knife; he is my brother. By rights, Auster, I could kill you!
He looked ready to do it, too.
Kennard gave him the right
To murder his accomplice, so that we d never know the truth! Didn t you see
he was set to kill the man before we could question him? Didn t you see that
he recognized him? Oh, yes, he put on a good show for us, Auster said.
Damned clever; kill him before any of us could get at the truth. I wanted to
take him alive, and if you d have the sense of a rabbithorn, we d have him,
now, for questioning and telepathic interrogation!
He s lying, lying, Kerwin thought hopelessly, but doubt had begun to cloud
even Rannirl s face. As usual, Auster had managed to confuse the issue, to put
him on the defensive.
Come on, he said wearily, we might as well get back. He felt weary and
anticlimactic; his arm was beginning to ache where Ragan had stabbed him.
Help me get this shirt off and stop the bleeding, will you, Rannirl? I m
bleeding like a summer slaughterhouse!
There were more people in the streets now, and more to stare at the three
Comyn, one with his face smeared from a bloody nose, and one with his arm
pinned up in an improvised sling from Rannirl s undertunic. Kerwin felt all
the weariness of a night spent at matrix work descending on him; he felt as if
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every step was his last effort. Auster, too, was staggering with weariness. They
passed a cookshop where workmen were clustered, eating and drinking, and
the smell of food reminded Kerwin that after a night in the matrix screens
they had eaten nothing and that he was starving. He glanced at Rannirl and
with one unspoken movement they went into the shop. The proprietor was
awed and voluble, pouring out promises to set his finest before them, but
Rannirl shook his head, caught up a couple of long loaves of fresh hot bread
and a pan of cooked sausages, flung some coins at the cook and jerked his
head at his companions. Outside he broke the bread, handed a portion to
Kerwin and, glaring, one to Auster; they strode on through the streets of
Arilinn, munching at the coarse food with wolfish hunger. It felt like the
tiniest of between-meal snacks, a dainty morsel for a small and finicky child,
but it did restore his strength somewhat. When they reached the Tower, and
passed through the Veil, the faint stinging seemed to drain the last of
Kerwin s strength.
Jeff, said Rannirl, I ll come and bandage that for you.
Kerwin shook his head. Rannirl looked exhausted, too, and it hadn t even
been his fight. Go and rest awkwardly, he added brother. I ll manage.
Rannirl hesitated, but he went, and Kerwin, relieved to be alone, went into his
own room and flung the door shut. In the luxurious bath he ripped off sling
and shirt, awkwardly raising his arm with a grimace of pain. Rannirl had
crudely stanched the bleeding with a heavy pad from his torn shirt; he worked
it loose and examined the wound. A flap of skin had been sliced away, skin
and flesh hanging down like a bloody rag, but as far as he could tell the wound
was simply a flesh one. He stuck his head into the fountain; raised it, dripping
but clear-headed.
The furry nonhuman who served him glided into the room and stood
dismayed, green pupilless eyes wide in consternation; he went quickly and
came back with bandages, some thick yellow stuff he smeared on the wound;
and deftly, with his odd , thumbless paws, bound it up. That done, he looked
at Kerwin in question.
Get me something to eat, Kerwin said, I m starving. The bread and
sausages they had shared on the way back had only begun to fill the vast
crater of emptiness inside him.
He had eaten enough for three hungry horse-breakers after a fall round-up
when the door opened, and Auster came, unannounced, into the room. He
had bathed and changed his clothes, but, Kerwin was gratified to see, he had a
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