Amber walls and amber drapes, interrupted by two great windows, each of a hundred pieces of thick-colored syrupy crystal set in a frame of heavy leading, the eastern one of which now threw a fantastic shattered patchwork of flame and shadow onto the marble flags. Having pointlessly tried the door, I investigated these windows on a sort of ironic reflex, but was not surprised to see that the city streets lay far below. Even if I could have breached glass and frame, the leap would have cost me a whole spine.

Against the south wall lay a sleeping couch, wide enough for two, or three had you the mind for it, with thick pelts spread for comfort. Several narrow tables and benches littered the body of the room. The floor was warm from the slave-manned hot pipes, a delicate reminder, perhaps, of my punishment if I thwarted my owner. A bathing cell led off the larger chamber. It had a bizarre marble latrine that might be flushed by a bronze faucet, and brazen lions’ heads spit water into the bath.

I had not been long in the apartment before two men with brown cloth faces entered through the recalcitrant door.

One was a barber with razors and a pot of scented grease. He bowed to me, making me curious as to what rank Tuvek the slave might have been promoted, then set about shaving me, dexterous as Kortis’ man had been the day before. The other cloth-mask laid out a fresh set of clothes and city linen.

When they were gone, having acquired a taste for the Eshkirian bath, and with nothing more pressing to attend to, I took one and presently dressed. I kept the black garments I had got from Zrenn’s prank, all but the tunic that he had sliced to ribbons. The color of the new gear was Erran’s, an extra branding I could have done without. Yet he had left me the chain of gold links and the arm-ring of jade; only the black ring was gone, sent back to Kortis as proof of my capture, probably.

As I was belting on the tunic, the door opened again and in stepped a satin-masked girl with a tray of food. She set this on a table, and fled.

It was bronze wear on the tray. My master had ostentatiously promoted me, no doubt of it. On the bronze, an average meal of bread and meat and autumn fruit, good enough, but not suited to the surroundings. This was not his condescension, but the poverty of the city showing itself like the cracks in the plaster and the mouse-holes under the drapes. Only the wine was princely, as clear as the crystal that contained it.

All this while I had been amused, irritated, impatient, and at a loss. I was Erran’s pet, his fierce beast with a dubious pedigree. I could see no method of escape, but I had vowed to observe and to prepare against the hour when some chance would come. It did not occur to me that, I, too, should be observed, or that any immediate trap would be laid for me.