“Her name’s Stephan. She’s a fifty-three-year-old cloth merchant with a wife and eight children. He gives me protection and beautiful clothes, and I give him sex.”

“Oh.” Suddenly the whore’s muttering about hoeing the other row made a lot more sense. “Are you happy here, Jarl?”

“Happy? What the hell kind of question is that? Happy doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jarl laughed bitterly. “Where’d you get your innocence back, Kylar? You said Azoth was dead.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you going to leave now that you know I’m a bugger?”

“No,” Kylar said. “You’re my friend.”

“And you’re mine. But if I hadn’t seen you nearly kill Gerk just now, I’d wonder if you really were a wetboy. How do you kill people and keep your soul intact, Kylar?” He gave the name a little twist.

“How do you keep your soul intact and whore?”

“I don’t.”

“Me neither,” Kylar said.

Jarl went quiet. He studied Kylar intently. “What happened that day?”

Kylar knew what Jarl was asking. A tremor passed through him. “Durzo told me if I wanted to be his apprentice, I had to kill Rat. After what he did to Doll Girl . . . I did it.”

“Easy as that, huh?”

Kylar debated lying, but if anyone deserved the truth, it was Jarl. He’d suffered more at Rat’s hands than anyone. After holding back about Doll Girl, he couldn’t do it again.

Kylar told him the whole story, like he hadn’t told anyone since Master Blint.

The description of the gore and how pathetic Rat had been didn’t move Jarl. His face remained passive. “He deserved it. He deserved it and then some,” Jarl said. “I only wish I’d had the nerve to do it. I wish I could have watched.” He dismissed it with an effeminate wave of his hand. “I’ve got a client coming, so listen,” Jarl said. “Khalidor is going to invade. Different parts of the Sa’kagé have been mobilized, but they’re mostly smoke screens. Probably only the Nine know what’s really happening, maybe only the Shinga. I can’t even tell which side we’re going to take.

“The thing is, we can’t afford for Cenaria to lose this war. I don’t know if the Nine realize that. The Ursuuls have put forward claims on Cenaria for generations, but several months ago Godking Ursuul demanded a tribute of some special gem and free passage, claiming to be more interested in taking war to Modai than here. King Gunder told him where he could go—and it wasn’t across the king’s highways.

“A source told me the Godking vowed to make us an example. He’s got more than fifty wytches, maybe many more. I don’t think King Gunder can field ten mages to stand against them.”