“That wouldn’t be what I’d call easy for me, Patera. Thirteen thousand I’ve laid out for your place, and I’d never see a card of it again. But I’ve thought of a way we can be friends that will put money in my pocket, and I always like that. You’re a common thief. You’ve admitted it. Well, so am I.” Blood rose from his chair, stretched, and seemed to admire the rich furnishings of the room. “Why should we, two of a kind, circle around like a couple of tomcats, trying to knife each other?”
Musk stroked Silk’s hair; it made him feel unclean, and he said, “Stop that!”
Musk did.
“You’re a brave man, Patera, as well as a resourceful one.” Blood strode across the room to study a gray and gold painting of Pas condemning the lost spirits, one head livid with rage while the other pronounced their doom. “If I had been sitting where you are, I wouldn’t have tried that with Musk, but you tried it and got away with it. You’re young, you’re strong, and you’ve got a couple of advantages besides that the rest of us haven’t. Nobody ever suspects an augur, and you’ve had a pretty fair education—a better education than mine, I don’t deny that. Tell me now, as one thief to another, didn’t you know down in the cracks of your guts that it was wrong to try to steal my property?”
“Yes, of course.” Silk paused to gather his thoughts. “There are times, however, when one must choose among evils. You’re a wealthy man; stripped of my manteion, you would be a wealthy man still. Without my manteion, hundreds of families in our quarter—people who are already very poor—would be a great deal poorer. I found that a compelling argument.” He waited for the crushing pain of Musk’s knuckles. When it did not come he added, “You suggested that we speak as one thief to another, and I assumed that you intended for us to speak freely. To speak frankly, I find it just as compelling now.”
Blood turned to face him again. “Sure you do, Patera. I’m surprised you couldn’t come up with just as good a reason for shooting Hy. These gods of yours did worse pretty often, didn’t they?”
Silk nodded. “Worse superficially, yes. But the gods are our superiors and may act toward us as they see fit, just as you could clip your pet’s wings without guilt. I am not Hyacinth’s superior.”
Blood chuckled. “You’re the only man alive who doesn’t think so, Patera. Well, I’ll leave morality to you. That’s your business after all. Business is mine, and what we have here is a very simple little business problem. I paid the city thirteen thousand for your manteion. What do you think it’s really worth?”
Silk recalled the fresh young faces of the children in the palaestra, and the tired, happy smiles of their mothers; the sweet smoke of sacrifice rising from the altar through the god-gate in the roof. “In money? It is beyond price.”
“Exactly.” Blood glanced at the needler he still held and dropped it into the pocket of his embroidered trousers. “That’s how you feel, and that’s why you came out here, even though you must have known there was a good chance you’d get killed. You’re not the first who’s tried to break in here, by the way, but you’re the first who got inside the house.”
“That is some consolation.”
“So I admire you, and I think we might be able to do a little business. On the open market, Patera, your place is worth exactly thirteen thousand cards, and not one miserable cardbit more or less. We know that, because it was on the market just a few days ago, and thirteen thousand’s what it brought. So that’s the businessman’s price. You understand what I’m telling you?”
Silk nodded.
“I’ve got plans for it, sure. Profitable plans. But it’s not the only possible site, so here’s my proposition. You say it’s priceless. That’s a lot of money, priceless.” Blood licked his lips, his eyes narrowed, their gaze fixed on Silk’s face. “So as a man that takes a lily profit wherever he can find one but never gouges anybody, I say we split the difference. You pay me twice what I paid, and I’ll sell it to you.”
Silk started to speak, but Blood raised a hand. “Let’s pin it down like a couple of dimber thieves ought to. I’ll sell it to you for twenty-six thousand flat, and I’ll pay all costs. No tricks, and no splitting up the property. You’ll get everything that I got.”
Silk’s hopes, which had mounted higher with every word, collapsed. Did Blood really imagine that he was rich? There were laymen, he knew, who thought all augurs rich. He said, “I’ve told you what I have; altogether, it wouldn’t bring two hundred cards. My mother’s entire estate amounted to a great deal less than twenty-six thousand cards, and it went to the Chapter irrevocably when I took my vows.”
Blood smiled. “I’m flash, Patera. Maybe you’d like another drink?”
Silk shook his head.
“Well, I would.”
When Musk had gone, Blood resumed his seat. “I know you haven’t got twenty-six thousand, or anything close to it. Not that I’m swallowing everything you told me, but if you had even a few thousand you wouldn’t be there on Sun Street. Well, who says that just because you’re poor you’ve got to stay poor? You wouldn’t think so to look at me, but I was poor once myself.”
“I believe you,” Silk said.
Blood’s smile vanished. “And you look down on me for it. Maybe that made it easier.”
“No,” Silk told him. “It made it a great deal harder. You never come to the sacrifices at our manteion—quite a few thieves do, actually—but I was setting out to rob one of our own, and in my heart of hearts I knew that and hated it.”
Blood’s chuckle promised neither humor nor friendship. “You did it just the same.”
“As you’ve seen.”
“I see more than you think, Patera. I see a lot more than you do. I see that you were willing to rob me, and that you nearly brought it off. A minute ago you told me how rich you think I am, so rich I wouldn’t miss four old buildings on Sun Street. Do you think I’m the richest man in Viron?”
“No,” Silk said.
“No what?”
