As a second act, Curvis juggled burning torches, catching them behind his back, Nela and Bertran told funny stories—at least, stories the Curward sailors had assured them were funny, though many of them seemed pointless to the twins—and Danivon went about sniffing at people, either whispering or trumpeting his smellings as he went. “You are in love,” he whispered. Or “Your lost flail is lying under a pile of chaff on the threshing floor,” he said loudly. The crowd cheered, becoming larger the longer they performed.
“All we need is cooch dancers,” Nela said, giggling, almost happily. “And a bearded lady and a contortionist and a lightning calculator.”
“I don’t think these people would care about lightning calculators or cooch dancers,” said Bertran, who was finding the joyous naiveté of the audience irresistible. “We seem to be doing well enough as we are. They certainly accept us as an amusement!”
“Have we attracted any people from Thrasis or Beanfields yet?” Nela asked.
“There, crowded around Fringe’s machine,” said Curvis, indicating various outlanders with Danivon already sniffing among them like a hound on the trail. After a time he beckoned to his colleagues, and they concluded their performance with many bows and congratulations to their audience.
When they had put their heads together, Danivon reported:
“None of the Thrasian or Beanfields people have had any disappearances or funny air or any of that. The men from Thrasis have seen dragons, creatures taller than men but not huge, of various colors, who have been seen to carry things, perhaps tools. Sometimes they wear clothing, and they are always seen at a distance, never up close.” He was speaking to Fringe, as though she were the only one present, a fact that Curvis noted with distaste. “The women of Beanfields have seen them only rarely, though they assert that Mother-dear has decided the dragons are friendly.”
“Friendly?” asked Curvis in a sneering tone. “How would she know?”
“How do Mother-dears know anything?” Danivon shrugged, annoyed, though whether at Curvis’s question or his manner the others couldn’t tell. “Maybe she merely means inoffensive.”
“The fact they have been inoffensive where the local people are concerned doesn’t mean they will be with us,” drawled Curvis. “They may find us offensive. Or rather, you, Danivon. You have some history of being offensive, do you not?”
Danivon said stiffly, “If you’re referring to the reaction of the Inner Circle when I denounced old Paff….”
“Old Paff?” asked Fringe.
Curvis drawled, “A member of the Inner Circle. He had a nasty habit of picking up children from places like Molock or Derbeck and using them to satisfy certain personal desires.”
“What did you do?” Nela asked Danivon.
“I stood on the stairs in the Great Rotunda and denounced him, as I was taught to do in cases of abuse of power.”
“What happened?” Fringe was suddenly interested despite herself.
“Paff killed himself, shortly before I left Tolerance.”
“I don’t understand how you could have offended anyone,” cried Nela. “They should have been glad you uncovered such wickedness.”
Curvis gave Nela a long look that changed from annoyance to amusement. He turned to Danivon to say jeeringly, “It seems you have not explained our ways to our guests, Danivon.” He turned back to Nela. “The Inner Circle already knew about old Paff. Had known about him forever.”
“Please,” cried Nela. “I don’t understand this. You are saying your ruling circle knew this man was a child killer. It did nothing. What kind of a place is this? Where is your law?”
“Here,” said Fringe, tapping her chest.
“You are the law?”
“Enforcers are the arms and hands of the law,” she said. “I am, and Danivon and Curvis. And the Council is the voice of the law. If there is a situation that needs attending, we Attend the Situation!”
Another silence, interrupted when Nela said in a tiny voice, “So, the three of you are what? Executioners?”
“I rather imagine,” said Bertran in a distant voice. “Hit men. Hit women.”
“Enforcers,” said Fringe stiffly, detecting the brittle dismay in their voices, hurt by it, but not in the least understanding it. “It is an honorable thing to be. And we have honor to maintain.” She badly wanted the understanding no Enforcer would ever beg for.
Nela ignored her tone. “Where does honor enter in?”
Fringe stiffened. “Honor enters in in that we are not skulkers. We do not kill unless we must. Even then, we do not maim, we do not torture. If we kill covertly, we do it only to save apprehension or disorder. When the circumstances require it, we go face-to-face. Honorably.”
“Oh, goody,” said Nela angrily. “High Noon.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You shoot it out, you and whoever? To see who’s the fastest gunslinger. Is that it?”
Fringe felt herself growing angry at this slighting reference to the sanctity of Guntoter. In Enarae, one did not say “gunslinger” in that scornful tone! “If Council Supervisory has ordered it, yes.”
“So you’re only following orders,” said Bertran.
Fringe wiped all expression from her face and regarded them both coldly. “You seem to have become unfriendly toward me, but I don’t understand why.”
Nela shook her head. “What Bertran means is, in our time there were evil men who did some extremely nasty things, and when they were brought to trial, their defense was that they were only obeying orders, or if not orders, then the wishes of their superiors. It was a cliché in our time, to excuse all crimes.”
“But if they obeyed orders, they did not commit crimes and the men were not evil,” Fringe objected hotly. “If proper authority says we are to do something, and if, as sensible men, we have acquiesced to proper authority, why then—”
“I gather it was not so in your time,” interrupted Danivon curiously.
“No,” Bertran asserted, patting Nela’s shoulder to calm her. “At least not entirely. We did have a good deal of disagreement about what constituted proper authority. It was
