Dvorak looked up at him with black, watery eyes. Dradin could smell the strong musk of river water and silt on the dwarf, mixed with the sharp tang of an addictive, ghittlnut.

Dvorak said, “Must I tell you that she is only an image in a window? She is no more real to you. Seeing her, you fall in love. But, if you desire, I can find you a woman who looks like her. She will do anything for money. Would you like such a woman?”

“No,” Dradin said, and would have turned away if there had been room in the swirl of people to do so without appearing rude. Dvorak’s hand found his arm again.

“If you do not wish to buy her, what do you wish to do with her?” Dvorak’s voice was flat with miscomprehension.

“I wish to … I wish to woo her. I need to give her this book.” And, then, if only to be rid of him, Dradin said, “Would you take this book to her and say that it comes from an admirer who wishes her to read it?”

To Dradin’s surprise, Dvorak began to make huffing sounds, soft but then louder, until the River Moth changed course across the whorls of his face and something fastened to the inside of his jacket clicked together with a hundred deadly shivers.

Dradin’s face turned scarlet.

“I suppose I will have to find someone else.”

He took from his pocket two burnished gold coins engraved with the face of Trillian the Great Banker, and prepared to turn sharply on his heel.

Dvorak sobered and tugged yet a third time on his arm. “No, no, sir. Forgive me. Forgive me if I’ve offended, if I’ve made you angry,” and the hand pulled at the gift-wrapped book in the crook of Dradin’s shoulder. “I will take the book to the woman in the window. It is no great chore, for I already trade with Hoegbotton & Sons, see,” and he pulled open the left side of his jacket to reveal five rows of cutlery: serrated and double-edged, made of whalebone and of steel, hilted in engraved wood and thick leather. “See,” he said again. “I peddle knives for them outside their offices. I know this building,” and he pointed at the solid brick. “Please?”

Dradin, painfully aware of the dwarf’s claustrophobic closeness, the reek of him, would have said no, would have turned and said not only no, but How dare you touch a man of God?, but then what? He must make acquaintance with one or another of these people, pull some ruffian off the dusty sidewalk, for he could not do the deed himself. He knew this in the way his knees shook the closer he came to Hoegbotton & Sons, the way his words rattled around his mouth, came out mumbled and masticated into disconnected syllables.