TODAY

At last the dividing frame was in place. Now was my chance.

I wasn't accustomed to children. All these years of doing it out in the open in conjunction with the jibes of my fellow mercenaries and I'm developing a shy streak.

My lips were burrowing into Sevein's neck bones just underneath her hair, I was totally oblivious to those hairs tickling my nose, and I hoped Naomi was fast asleep.

"..darling..." Sevein murmured, and I detected a smile in the word. I carefully fitted my aging body against her exquisite rump and wrapped my arm around her waist, in order to get at her breasts. My own nipples hardened as I squirmed against my responding wife, lover, woman, forsworn companion, my flower.

This was exactly why I'd had the little frame erected right THERE, and the exorbitantly priced little piece of decorative drapery tacked to it. Sweet Naomi was on the other side, and hopefully Emilia with her.

All these years in the free swords and now if possible I want a little privacy when I'm with my woman. I'm getting dotty in my old age.

Outside, the snowfields in the stable yard yielded a little pale almost-light through the small narrow windows. Barely enough to offset the darkness in our room.

Suddenly I was on top, and a wriggling Sevein was bringing the blankets back over us. Holding the blankets in place with one hand, her other caressed my head, my back, sneaking between to tweak my own breasts with her own.

We kissed, before one insistent hand was urging me to travel down her body, to feast upon her and love her.

Soon her sighs and giggling were all I heard. Apart from the roaring in my ears as I opened her thighs with my mouth. My feet got cold, for they were sticking out the other end of our cocoon of blanket and female, but they've been cold before.

We were late risers this morning. A perfect beginning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was still dark out, of course, but 'Voyager' was already busy. A line stretched back on either side of the door as our poorer tenants made use of the four free Sanitary Boxes sitting outside. Chilly and elevated seating, perhaps, but it was free to our guests. To be animalistic in their rooms meant immediate eviction, and the snow was drifting high this winter.

Most rooms have multiple occupants, and for a week's free rent their companions would gladly reveal the culprits in any such misdeeds.

Most gingerly carried buckets, large pots and suitable containers, for none wished to be out in those drifts if they didn't have to be.

Some craftsmen were up and out already, as well as more than one laborer, and a few working souls were just arriving.

The Dandy Kapitan Riker put a possessive hand on my butt, whispered a slightly obscene word in my ear, and quickly backed laughing when I swung on him with my fist.

"Pardon, sweet lady, I have made a terrible mistake in recognition." he cried. "I thought such a beauty as has blinded me could be only Sevein, who all know as the stately and Imperial Princess wrongfully stolen at birth, replaced by a commoner sort, and now set before us as a shining example of perfect womanhood!"

Sevein had an arm suddenly around his throat from behind, her arm lock and smile lighting my morning. He feigned choking, but instead backed into her large giving body.

"You are perfectly correct, ruthless mercenary that you are," she said. "She is indeed a beauty, an Imperial Princess, and a shining example of womanhood. Unfortunately you laid a hand on a part of her more customarily the property of her wife, and off bounds to males of any ilk."

By now none were unapprised of our love and marriage. The High Priestess of the Temple of Gogorol, Belanna, had given us proper public rites Winter Solstice, we paid the City fee, our names were written in the City Registrar for tax purposes, and she then shared a glass of wine with us, and was very sure to kiss both brides, many, many times. In public and later, in private. She had given both of us double strophium of creamy silk for us to hold our large and soft breasts, then tried them on, and then took them off.

I was a wife now, and feeling very vulnerable.

It was the third marriage for both of us, none of our husbands having survived the next war or the next battle, but such was life in the mercenary forces. Hers had been with men in the Black Company, as were mine in the White Company. We had been Free Swords in varied mercenary armies, those amongst them. The Black Company was disassembled after their near destruction during the Battle of Aschelion, and fate had then delivered up Sevein to me.

Now I was hostage to outside forces.

Riker sat at my table, once he'd gotten a bowl of Lwaxana's potato soup for breakfast. The poorer sort had already garnered the three-for-a-farthing loafs of yesterday's baking.

Come Spring the Masons were to add another hearth and an oven, made of good fieldstone and kiln brick. It would be an unsightly bulge into the Stable yard, probably. But certainly necessary. We had yet to find a Baker, and add him or her to the vast Empire of the Kitchen which our cook Lwaxana already ruled as tightly as a snake did a mouse inside its stomach. The baker was already being sought. It might make it ultimately a little crowded in the kitchen, but I preferred to think of such an arrangement as cozy.

Lwaxana had appeared a tad flighty when she began work for Samantha, but she'd created an independent and armed Grand Duchy out of the kitchen. Unless the new Baker were rebellious, he would submit to the higher authority. Her ongoing campaign of conquest regarding Publican Bashir appeared even more certain, but I had my doubts. The additional hearth would warm the Inn better, and increase my business costs with the woodcutter.

I felt so very rooted it scared me.

Breakfast came with his small private room, I'd told Riker, and he was gracious enough not to doubt my word.

His latest work partner had not appeared, he noted, and he'd had to do the job of guarding Tuvok's warehouse all alone again. It wasn't the first time. Tuvok on his part now kept black rock 'coal' for his office hearth and told Riker to scatter the residue outside for traction upon the ice. He didn't try to keep my one-armed ex-mercenary friend out of the office. Tuvok simply mentioned he wanted Riker to leave it clean and warm, for his sons when they arrived in the morning.

A quad of barges had arrived after the end of season, and the barge owner was slowly ridding himself of the contents of black 'coal' rocks as the winter progressed. At scandalous prices, true, but the 'coal' rocks were ready to hand, and the wood seller perhaps a little unsure in his deliveries, down there in the center of the Free City. Instead of having to rely on a seller to carry in brush and logs from the forest, there now existed this temporary source of fuel.

"Mistress Mouser," he asked, "did you know you had a man hidden in a corner outside watching your place?" he asked in a conversational tone. To all intents and purposes 'Voyager' was my place now, mine and Sevein's. I felt a little pang inside at the transition.

"Had something lumpy under his cloak?" I asked.

"Crossbow, maybe," Riker supplied. "Problem?"

"Problem being solved."

At Riker's unspoken question I explained. "Jhaake got me up early yesterday to show me the two stable hands selling horse's grain to strangers. Dismissed them on the spot." Sad memory.

"Now Jhaake is Stable Master, at least temporarily, and I've been recommended this ex-Watchman as a guard for the premises. It struck me as much more than probable that the two hands might be back soon for a little revenge in the form of arson."

"You could have sent them to the Throne to have their skin publicly Peeled in Sathridin Square," he pointed out.

"For a few bags of oats? Besides, 'Voyager' is large enough now to need a permanent Arm." He looked about the crowded Commons and nodded an agreement into his stroup of porter.

"Ex-Watch?" he asked then. "And feisty to boot," I returned. "Didn't want to do a few things most Watch didn't have any problem doing for their masters. But then I don't seem to have much trouble with men with a little iron in their spine."

Not mentioning Emil had said he'd been let go rather than murdered for his differing views. Personal Honor not an attribute to be found in all ex-Mercenaries, but appreciated by Sevein and I.

I am comforted by the bustle, the usefulness of my labor, the love of my wife, my children (even if one is a ghost), and the hectic placidity of the place. I am also trapped. Here I am vulnerable.

I will not yield to fears, but conquer.

A very snowy Odo then entered the Commons from the kitchen. I believed his face got the way it is from boiling pitch or water from some Gate's energetic defenders. The Empire is littered with such refuse of its many wars and quarrels. Being disfigured didn't make him any less useful, or less of a man, was my way of thinking.

Odo saw me, and edged his way to my table. Once here he put his foot in the front goat of his arbalest, and released the ratchet with a twang. The square-headed quarrel was already in his side quiver.

Riker made a few words of admiration at 'my' new Arm, my ex-mercenary and ex-Watch; most particularly the crossbow he was carrying. Riker inspected it with the eye of a professional, eyeing carefully the plates of engraved ivory on the stock of the weapon.

Without any further prompting Odo shucked his cape over a bulky chair and put his foot again in the front loop. He stuck a quarrel in the grooved slot, and used the other thick hooked wire goat's foot to pull back the bow, setting the string in the catch, and presenting it to Riker's remaining hand. Resting it on the table Riker flipped out the two cranks, working the string back a little more. Fully back, a cranked arbalest quarrel would go clean through a set of front-and-back armor, with a man in between.

"Mistress Mouser," Odo said, "I have need of the morning."

"You have it," I said, wondering what he intended doing.

He waited a moment before continuing.

"I may not be back until afternoon."

My head nodded and I said that was fine. He paused again, and then bowed a fraction of a centimeter and said a polite 'Thank you' and left, by way of the kitchen.

When he was gone, Riker commented that there was fresh blood on the right sleeve. I said I'd noticed. He also commented on the fact I had not questioned the ex-Watch with the disfigured face as to what he meant to do.

I asked him how well did one have to trust one's own housekarl?

He knew the answer was totally.

Naomi came out during a break in the kitchen and teased Riker, sitting in his lap and telling him little stories and adventures Emilia and her had experienced. She was wearing a sprig of Thyme in her dress collar, I could tell by the tiny blue flowers. No doubt a gift reluctantly given out of Lwaxana's kitchen horde. As for Riker, the poor man was obviously groggy, after his stomach had been fed; but more the effect of a night up than anything else.

Suddenly the Commons was nearly empty. He pulled himself away, kissed Sevein's hand on his way out to re-visit the Sanitation Boxes. He would be a-bed shortly.

Emilia sat down and I chased her away from the dregs of Riker's porter. I had my little thousand-year-old-dead ghost on a strict beer rationing, and those few of the staff who could see her, knew it. Bashir saw her, as did Ezri, and Lwaxana tried mightily to get work out of her, but failed in that endeavor.

Naomi appraised the moving Riker as he hurried to a comfortable stuffed pallet in a frame, and more than a few blankets.

"I'm not at all sure I want to marry Kapitan Riker," she said out of the blue.

I looked a question at her. She looked me in my eyes and sniffed her dried thyme flowers.

"I watched you and Sevein this morning making love, and it was really nice, and I think I'll have myself a wife like her when I grow up and get married. Or like you, perhaps. I can't have but the one wife, can I?"

I tried not to raise my eyebrows.

"I know you'll say I don't know yet about such things, and I guess I don't. But you really enjoyed a lot what she did to you and I know a few other girls, we talk, and their mothers or sisters they don't usually get much pleasure from their men.

"Women are probably better."

Gods above and Demons below. What? Seven? Eight? I should also cease my new-found cursing, even if it is only in my own mind.

"Sevein and I love each other very, very, very much, Naomi, and we married only a month ago and some, and maybe you shouldn't use us as a comparison."

"I should wait?"

I nodded agreement, working furiously not to smile at all this serious calculation on her part. "You should wait."

"Will you and Sevein marry me off to someone I don't like? Most everyone I know, their parents married them off and that was that."

What to say? At least Sevein, Belanna, and I, we won't be packing her of to some ugly or stupid prince or margrave far, far away, in order to bolster the dynasty. But yes, we'll arrange her marriage when it is time. Certainly wait until she has her full growth and not too quickly even then. Certainly years after she has acquired her flows and breasts.

The truth would be best.

"We, Sevein and I, and Belanna, we'll probably look at a number of future husbands…"

"Wives. Don't forget that. I may decide I like a wife, like you and Sevein."

Gods above and Demons below.

"…But we'll try not to even look at anyone you don't like."

"I can't decide for myself?"

Meaning like the way I did, and three times to boot.

"It'll be years and years yet and we don't really know what things will be like then. But yes, Naomi, we're your parents now and we'll be deciding who you are given to be wed." As if it's likely anyone ignores completely their children's wishes. Over-rule them, yes, but not ignore.

Thoughts of a future without us prompted a spasm of fear in her, recalling with sharp edges how fast and how far things can change. Adults know change and death comes. Children do also. But it's different for them, and during most of her life until recently Naomi hadn't really conceived of the notion Samantha might not be present for her, since she'd always been there before.

Naomi rode my hip for the next quarter hour before Sevein rescued me and took her off to perform the morning inspection of the many rooms in 'Voyager' Inn. Naomi carried both of our real forged steel hammers, and the cloth bag of precious expensive nails and metal wedges. Sevein carried the saw, a few thick lengths of wood and an air of brooking no argument from any quarter.

They would be re-setting inside bars across a few doors which still lacked them, or had experienced damage since. Also inspecting the rooms for other damage and animalistic voidings.

Some wished us not to enter their space, and cunningly let down the bar behind them with thin shims of metal. They reckoned without Sevein's skills in using a thin steel blade of great strength to get in spaces most knives cannot. Our first and second floor guests, in the bigger rooms, had locks on their doors and thus a modicum of privacy. Sevein didn't even bother carrying a set of keys; her skills at entering were so profound.

The kitchen still smelled of fresh plaster, as did the entire building of fresh cut timber. While I was in the kitchen cutting carrots, potatoes and onions, the Tax man bustled in. Lwaxana sent the new scullery girl over, and she cut whilst I concentrated on the City factor. He was a new man, accompanied by a giant housekarl positively round underneath his layers of clothing. We stayed in the kitchen, the hearth fire maybe too warm, but he'd need some time to lose the frost on his beard and moustache.

I admitted to a well outside, now unused in winter, one pump in the stable, and three pumps inside the inn, two inside the kitchen. I showed him the immense salt boxes, all with the proper City Tax stampings on the bags piled behind them. The Commons license chit and the beer and wine taxes were also up to date. The City Sanitation slaves came around once a day in their wagon for our slops and the contents of our Boxes.

There'd been no Dancing Plague, Black Death, Spotted Fever or any other common pestilence in Tar-trigon the entire summer. Maybe the beastly things were of use after all.

"You have four Sanitation Boxes now," he said, "for which you pay the Free City one gold Half-Quadregga a week each, am I correct?"

I looked up at him suddenly, detecting an odd tone to his voice. He had an even odder look to his eyes.

"Because it is strange, but I see by my records that you are only blessed with two, instead of four."

Meaning we could work a deal if need be. The others could disappear off the records and we could split the difference.

And some fine day I could wind up hailed before the Sathridin in an attempt to explain the difference. No thank you.

"No," I explained carefully, "there are four. We need that many for our custom. I shouldn't want to cause any bother or fuss, but I shouldn't want to be thought delinquent in my paying of proper City taxes." The ENDLESS Free City taxes, I thought to myself.

He was not happy at that correction, and I thought furiously.

"While you're correcting the forms, here, why not pull a stool up to the breading table, do it in comfort?

"For being a brave soul and riding through all this snow, could I get you and your housekarl something to eat and drink? We've a few better wines these days, and you'd probably appreciate one of them. We have both white and dark. And we don't enhance the wine with opium or Hemlock, so you've safe vintages to drink here.

"Let me get you a small belt skin to take with you, and we have the roast done if you're a mind to sit for a spell and chat and warm up. Or you can even have your wine hot?"

He looked out towards where the snow was and settled back on his stool. Hot wine would be acceptable. He chooses our thick sweet dark Falerian. His big housekarl remained standing.

Soon I brought over a tiny cloth purse with his bread and slice of beef, saying there was the tax, in silver coins of the Empire, and could I have a stamped chit please?

He counted out the coins, than again.

"You've overpaid by - "; then suddenly stopped talking. The extra silver coin disappeared, and he smiled broadly after that, obviously managing to enjoy his breakfast with genuine gusto. He even smacked his lips over our best unwatered wine. He gave me my little stamped clay chip and I was paid until next time.

He knew the silver Groat for a peace offering, and accepted it as such.

Later, Lwaxana, who saw everything, said I could have paid him a third as much and still have left him happy. She also said the Tax Collector's housekarl had been appreciative of a woman of some substance and maturity. The old doxie had been as busy seeking information as any Dungeon Questioner.

The new Taxman had paid too much for his position and sought diligently to make up his loss, Lwaxana said the housekarl had mentioned. Well, the Tax Collector had gotten my silver Groat, but he'll have to go elsewhere for the difference.

I reflected that I had eight hundred gold Quadregga in four bags buried underneath my Sanitation Boxes, and I was begrudging a few silver pieces.

But I was not supposed to be rich, or hold still greater wealth safe in the keeping of the Thieves Guild. With the result that Sevein and I were not a target of thieves; or the Sathridin who might inquire suspiciously how we came by such gold.

I turned my attention back to the vegetables. They didn't bring worries to my brow.

Eventually Naomi came back, Emilia trailing 'their' rag doll in her wake.

Naomi set to making pie dough. Lwaxana was a good cook, and only stole a little bit, no more than was expected of a servant in her position. However Sam had been known far and wide for her hot meat pies in the glazed pottery bowls. Such pleasures were missed on cold mornings. Lwaxana's were passable. But Naomi knew, somehow, how to recreate her dead mother's tasty creations. She had also made similar pies with sliced apples cooked in them. She added sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and created a thing of joy.

Sugar made from cooked watered honey was difficult to create, and spices and boughten beet sugar were terribly expensive, but the pies sold for stiff prices to the better sort. And I always had to shoo Emilia away from them. Only ghost I ever heard of with a sweet tooth.

Sevein came down with a few splinters embedded, and I took out her little pointed knife and eased the wood out of her fingers.

Jhaake brought the cold in with him when he came through the kitchen door.

"Three men are here for the stable hand's jobs," he said. Word had evidently spread quickly of 'Voyager's' need.

Looking down at my wife's poor scarred fingers, I told Jhaake to talk with them, or give them all a chance to prove their worth, or do as he saw fit.

"Don't you want to talk with them?" he asked.

"You're the Stable Master here," I replied. "You handle it as you see fit. But we do need another pair of pairs of hands out there. You know the work that needs doing."

He lingered, trying to say something. At my questioning look he finally came out with it. "One only has one hand. Arm."

I worked very hard to keep my face neutral until I could say; "If you are unsure, I would say give them all a chance. Just remember that when dealing with horses a fine hand is required, not two stupid ones." He smiled at my ancient homily and Sevein hid her grin. A happy Jhaake left, puffed up with his new responsibilities and eminence.

I had, of course, accepted Sevein's estimate that Jhaake was good with horses, seeming to know their needs with only a hint from herself or the beasts themselves.

"Old wives sayings now?" Sevein asked.

"From an old wife," I grimaced, feeling my joints suddenly.

For which words I suddenly found myself held tight by a young woman.

I shall conquer. I must.

It was while Ezri and I were out in the Commons cleaning, that I observed the Dwarf. Not many dwarves seen in Tar-trigon. Certainly not in winter season. I thought they hibernated, like the badger or the bear or the skunk.

I looked up from my Whitestone, cleaning the tables, and saw this little red pointed hat apparently moving by itself across my field of vision. Bashir had come around the bar, following the progress of the little fellow. Blue tunic, high boots, thick red cloak, all the usual garments.

I moved to view what the Dwarf was doing myself. He spied me, gave me a nod, mumbled a "Mistress", and took his pointed little knife to the first booth. He seemed only to touch it, and I hurried over to it, to survey any damage. By touch I could barely find the sliver he had nicked off a corner.

He touched knife to the side of my new square table, and turned to me with a sweet little smile.

"I gave you no leave to damage my Inn or anything in it," I glowered down.

"My pardon, lady," he said, doffing his hat in respect. "I meant no harm to you or yours. I but need a splinter, the merest part of your fine new furniture, in order to keep the City up to date."

A madman. Mad dwarf. Give him respect for novelty.

"Well, I'll be having you know that I shan't allow you in again if you're going to be damaging my property. Having given fair warning, I shall ask you to leave."

"But they're already grown back," he pleaded. Feeling instantly foolish and gullible my hand reached for the affected corner and my fingers found smoothness.

It had not been my imagination, I'd felt the splinter gone.

"Magic", I breathed.

"Not truly," he returned. "All trees try to repair themselves, and for the seconds of my nearness they are living things again. I am a Dwarf of the Weald."

"What are you?" I demanded.

"Just a Dwarf."

My face told him to continue.

"There are over five hundred septs and races of dwarves on this world, Mistress, and mine is most akin to the Forest Kinnae. Naiads, Greentooths, Quicksteps, that apiece of thing."

"Naiads," I said. "Hopefully not TOO close to Greentooths?" Those were the rumored beasts that relished the flesh of men.

"Things of and wedded to the tree, Mistress. And we are wedded in spirit to trees as are they."

I finally asked; "Why here? The city, then?"

"I build the cities."

Ambitious. Not too proud, either.

"Me thinks you've help, then," I ventured.

He shook his head in a no. "Just for the - the simulacra of it." He kept circling his head about, obviously looking for something. Finally I pointed a finger at him and asked what he sought.

"You see me,' he softly explained, "and as you've a touch of the White magic to you, that's easily enough explained. Control animals, do you? Small ones?"

I looked about, noticing Bashir and Ezri were watching, but were probably unable to hear.

"That sort of wild talk could see someone hurt, little man, and yourself pitched out in the snow. You know, they still have a Witch Board to regulate such Acts, in this City," I bit at him.

"And it minds to me that such divining itself falls under such laws." Warning him. No one wants to be Questioned by the City.

"My apologies, Mistress," he bowed. Continuing in a lower voice, he stuck his head closer for a secret's passage.

"Usually when a Dwarf is about his business in a place filled with mankind, he wears his glamour, to hide him from men's eyes.

"I came in here with my glamour on and naught feeling amiss but I find myself visible. As stated, you yourself could possibly see me. Someone in touch with the Gods might also.

"But your Publican and the serving girl?

"For a commonality such as this, undoubtedly there are also shades or spirits abroad.

"Do you ever have the feeling in this place, of unseen presences, of things happening as they should not, of colds in a place of warmth and heat in a room cold freezing?"

"Ghosts?" I asked. He nodded a yes.

"As a matter of fact here my ghost is right now," I said.

Emilia trailed in from the kitchen, but abruptly stopped when she espied the Dwarf. The two viewed each other warily, until Emilia came scampering to hide behind my dress.

"Your ghost," he observed, "is behind you right now."

"Her name is Emilia," I returned with a smile, "and she is the shade of a child who sacrificed herself for the good of her religion and city in far Nomurea a thousand years ago."

I reached out for her shadowy head and urged her forward. There seemed little malice in this small bearded male, and someone who was astonished by my little clinging ghost, for some reason, brought me pleasure.

The dwarf bowed. In return Emilia gave a most uncommon curtsey, and the Dwarf held out a forefinger, which Emilia briefly clasped before retreating behind me again. Though her head reappeared on my other side soon enough.

"Remarkable," the Dwarf murmured.

I indicated the new square table and edged onto one of my stools. He sat with me, being companionable, his legs dangling, melting snow dripping off his thigh-long boots onto my new wooden floor. "So long as you're here," I pointed out, "do you wish anything but slivers of my furniture?"

He took a stroup of ale, smacking his lips loudly over the flavor. There was little sourness to Sisko's beer or ales. Sisko, and his "Golden Red" brewery built alongside 'Voyager' Inn, were becoming known throughout the City of Tar-trigon.

The Dwarf paid with a tiny silver coin I'd never seen before. Quite thin, square, and with a fearsome image (possibly dwarvish), glowering full face on one side. I estimated it was a silver penny worth, and he took four brass farthings for change.

"A pleasant Inn," he said. He left the four farthings on the table and finished his cup of brew. Bashir took two farthings and the leather cup and refilled it, his dubious looks having tapered off as the Dwarf and the Mistress conversed.

It developed that the Dwarf was named Roxesdaduenamamanoff. I think. He accepted as how humans could call him Roxdew. I asked him what he did, and he said he kept the living city.

"I have a large room in my own insulae," he said, "and I keep models of everything in it that is built in the City of Tar-trigon."

His eyes twinkled, and I knew he was japing me about something he'd just said. Fair enough. I'll jape him back.

"I'm surprised you are not busy instead pulling gold and diamonds out of the earth, like most dwarfs do," I commented. Common legend said they wrested wealth from the bowels of the earth as no others could. Or was that Kobolds?

He produced another of those little silver pennies and I allowed him Free City brass for change. With the remaining two farthings from his previous silver Penny, he began on his third ale. I hoped I shouldn't soon have a tipsy Dwarf on my hands, and wondered if they'd get sick from indulgence, as humans did. He sipped this one slowly, and accepted a thick slice of bread from the morning's loaves. I shooed Emilia away when she would have sneaked a drink from his cup.

"You have heard of us dwarves being able to find treasures in the earth, yes?" he smiled. Probably another dreadfully inaccurate legend, I assumed.

"I can," he admitted, "but with me it is a very small skill, for I have nothing like the talent that other races of dwarves have. My skill is with wood, living and dead. Yet, with your little friendly ghost here, I feel the Draw Rising."

He looked around a little. "The Publican has a string of gold pieces in cracks underneath the bar," he noted. Any fool knows a Publican maintains a few coins for change, but hides them from theft.

"There are four large accumulations of gold in the stable yard, past that wall," he added, "all buried well." He indicated where the Sanitation Boxes stood, and my close at hand hoard buried underneath them.

I think I kept my face clean from surprise or sudden suspicion.

"There is another much smaller bag buried underneath the kitchen windows there," indicating the stable yard again. "Three paces straight from the wall."

Samantha's hoard.

It had to be Sam's own small hiding of coin. Something put away for unforeseen need. All people had their small treasures, some pitiable, but all hid a tiny treasure if they could. Samantha Wildman had died suddenly and violently, but all believed she had a small handful of coins hidden somewhere. Her tiny secret treasure, her ready cash to hand when need arose. It had never been found, and I had a feeling I now knew where to dig.

When the ground was not frozen, perhaps I could pretend to find a much richer bag of coin, and I could begin laying in a few fine cloth dresses for Naomi, and maybe one of the porcelain-headed dolls. Like a fine ladies child did. I had always known I'd wished such a fine thing when I was a child. But I'd wanted many things, when I was young and a child in heart.

It suddenly struck me Naomi had the making of a fine beauty. And she was growing up, as well, like a weed. For a bare moment I had dreams of marrying her off to better than she now was.

Foolishness on my part. We were all base born, and life was always too unsteady a twig to hold to.

I continued as smoothly as I was able. Emilia went in search of Naomi and I asked more of the Dwarf.

It developed he owned a large multi-story building all his own, closer to the Maze, and kept his models in his insulae there. I'd never heard of such foolishness as a small fake Free City in all my life, though I'd viewed tiny constructs when some Generals had models built by magic and craft, to ease his conducting a siege or campaign.

The Duke of Windfire inherited a grand representation of his Grandfather's realm, and still kept it carefully tucked away in one of the rooms in his Town Palace, in Brumere. Exquisite it was thought of by viewers, and he had a cloth carefully fitted to a frame and levered to the side when he wished to view it or show it off to guests. The cloth helped keep it from damage and accumulated dust. Purportedly all the major streams were there, the bridges and the towns, the villages and castles. The City of Tar-trigon was represented there, it was said, as well as much else that was not part of the Grand Duchy. Whether the Duke had ambitions to include much in his realm, or was just being accurate, was not known. The Empire sometimes had trouble restraining the disputes and greed of its realms. Windfire was no exception.

Under urging, he described the miniature city as including the land about it, for such adjoining fields and villages and byways indeed were included as part of the legitimate patrimony of the Free City, granted by one Emperor or another, or boughten from one of the two Duchies. He explained the Free City had been originally less in extent, but it had slowly spread its small borders outwards with the generations.

His little city, he said, showed each building in the city. He said if I wished, he would show me his treasure, though he would have to swear me to silence about it. I presumed he meant a spell would be used to seal my lips. Other souls would not be as benign as me, he said, and his treasure was rightly the property of the race of dwarves, rather than just himself.

The thought of seeing this miniature Tar-trigon suddenly fascinated me.

"My girls," I asked, "could they come with us to see it?"

"They would tell, and I should have to move."

"A secret may be held by them, and besides, Emilia speaks only to Naomi. And include my wife in the showing as well." Gods Above and Demons Below, she was certainly holding secrets at this very moment, even as I was.

He hesitated, and I knew I had won my point.

"Can you carry them in the snowy streets? The girls? There and back again?" he inquired.

"Twenty leagues and ten," I said.

"I can put them under a sleeping geas, and as I said it is on the edge of the Maze. It would be a short journey.

"You understand I should have to lay another geas on your lips, yours and your wife's, to keep my secret place unknown. If you object, I cannot indulge you."

He was eager now to unfold his treasure before admiring eyes.

We had encountered a Monk once, who was building a picture of stones, a mosaic, to his God of Winds. He had no talents for singing or writing, and was looked down on by the others in his Temple. But he was creating a visual paean of praise to his God, and he was breathlessly eager to show Sevein and me his creation, once we had expressed a genuine interest in his art.

It had been composed of uneven stones, it was not finished, not all the colors were true, and the proportions were askew. However, it was one of the most beautiful things either of us had seen for years.

I heard later the roil of war had washed over his province again, and wondered whether he had ever been permitted to finish his mosaic, and how it appeared when finished, and whether the other monks appreciated it when it was done.

The Dwarf also saw himself as an artist, and he wished to show his work. Very well, I shall view his efforts. At worst I should have wasted a few hours and my feet would complain of the snow they walked through. I expected to see a map with a few small lumps on it representing great buildings.

Yet, let us be off. I wished to be out of here, and to take my swelling brood to something unexpected.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Naomi rode Sevein's ample hip, Emilia mine. We two cloaked figures hurried in from the cold, through two sets of doors, and another one composed of hanging drapes. Inside was darkness broken by hearths glowing warm. Two more dwarves in gowns of forest green appeared and remonstrated with Roxdew, uneasy about human visitors. I watched their beards waggling, taking in the immense platform laid before us at thigh height.

The room was large, and all but the sides of the room were filled by this platform. Shapes were visible upon it, and the hairs on the back of neck began to lift in anticipation.

Sevein shivered, shaking her spine suddenly, and I knew we were about to view a spectacle never before seen by the likes of us.

The two green-clad dwarves came to take our cloaks and coats, and bit by bit warm whitish Wizard lights burst into their small glories near the close roof of the hall.

We eased the girls down as we relieved them of their own coats and cloaks, and Roxdew touched their eyes to awaken them.

It were a Glory. A wonder to take our breath away! Magic! And yet my nerves were not edged with the shrill warning of its proximity, nor did my steel daggers in my belt ring in the distress common to their nearing Wizardry.

The Free City was laid out before us. Not some painted carvings and a few irregular splinter-and-glue approximations. The Free City itself lay before us. It was awash with detail far beyond the ability of mere mortals to construct. And crafted throughout on a scale that made me seem I was a giantess kilometers high, in comparison to it.

I bent to view a tiny village at the verge, and saw the huts, the stables and dwellings. Little roads drifted in miniature snow hooded them and softened their angularities. Trees, bare for the most part, studded the landscape, with an ordered few proclaiming their being an orchard in other seasons.

My eyes lifted from the edge and I followed the road until it met and merged with another, leading inexorably towards the stone curtain walls of Tar-trigon.

Lines of trees marched along the way, as well as stands of timber, such as oak and maple, elm and pine, poplars and ash, willows and linden. Tiny pebbles were giant boulders in this landscape, and elderly maples tiny twigs.

I saw rolling fields with a ghostly mist of stubble and snow, and the orderly ditches of rice paddies in the flatter ground. There were small streams and large, small bridges and culverts, all were there.

My eyes gazed in wonder on the ramparts of the Free City. In increasing wonder I viewed the open city gates, the minute Gate Guards sentry boxes, the infinitesimal steel-weaved portcullis visible in a gateway arch, the finials and battlements of the periodic towers of metropolitan defense.

There was the city within.

There was a steel framework about the City model here, and I gingerly laid my hands upon it, testing its strength. I expected some give, for it was only a frame, but it had the feel of a single giant and solid block of metal. There was no wobble, or give, or tremor. Naomi leaned against it with all her weight, her eyes the size of target shields, her mouth showing the pink warmness of her inner mouth.

"It is the work of a God," Sevein murmured in my ear.

"Not so," Roxdew replied as he stood alongside her. "The work of dwarves."

I sat down. I had to.

With my legs underneath me, the perspective changed and I could more clearly see the mild ups and downs of landscape leading to the nut of black granite upon which so much of the Free City of Tar-trigon was built. From here I could see the needles which were the flagstaffs and pennons upon which flew the banners proper to the City. They always flew the standards of the two adjoining Duchies on their walls and gates, and I could tell the tiny dots of color of Windfire, scarlet, and of Kleinboggen, and its golden yellow.

Then the hair on the back of my neck stood stiff and away.

On a tiny road leading away from a tiny village at the edge, a tiny, tiny cart moved.

I could not tell if it was powered by mule, horse, or ox, but it moved. I watched it slowly pass by a stand of match-like trees.

"It is alive!" I cried.

"No," Roxdew corrected. "It is only a simulacra. It represents faithfully what is in the real world. A mimicry, a playlet in miniature, a pretend. A bit of Dwarf magic to be sure, but only a pretend."

"This cart," I said, pointing with a finger. "Does this cart move as right this instant a real cart moves, out there, far from the city gates?"

"An exact simulacra, a copy, a pretend. It is only a pretend."

Meaning yes, it mimics reality.

Roxdew held out his hand and I managed to struggle to my feet without falling down again.

"Mama Sevein," Naomi asked, "can I touch the little houses?"

"No!" she said in unison with all three dwarves, and myself.

She drew back a step in dismay, her finger quickly in her mouth instead of about to caress the delicate creations spread before us. Emilia looked about and then entered the miniature City landscape. Passing right through solidity, of course.

For a few minutes we watched her bent head view the City, her eyes level with the buildings as her head passed through the walls surrounding. Of a sudden I knew Emilia could spend days, weeks, studying this fantastic treasure.

I knew I could. And from the awe on her face, Sevein as well.

Naomi had found paradise. A paradise out of reach, but a paradise none the less.

The dwarves beamed under the concentrated awe we females bestowed upon their creation. Hedge Magic. White Magic. Dwarf magic. Certainly Magic.

Most people studied magic, the Thamumagratical Arts, for one purpose only. To find and grasp Power, and wealth, and Respect. Fear if nothing else. They seek the elevation of themselves, nothing more.

Magical Healers of whatever rank from Emil and his nostrums to Great Wizards of medicine, are of a differing sort. For their fame is uncertain, and their wealth is often gained through the sweat of their own constant labors. But it might be fairly said they usually gained some renown and wealth in the process. Power they held little of, excepting that of granting surcease to the injured and ill, and for that benediction usually gold came their way. But the power of more customary Wizards, with their Flying Carpets and great castles? No.

This was White magic. Magic held for purposes of other than self. Well, to be honest, these dwarves obviously pleased themselves with this marvel, but it was not the satisfactions an ordinary (and untrustworthy) Wizard gained with his Powers.

No Nobles begged of them, no rich merchants pleaded with them, no lowly such as us begged their lives of them.

Wizards wanted to be bullies. Rich bullies, but bullies. The strong pushing and squashing as they wished.

Of course OTHER Wizards pushed back, which is the nature of the balances in this world today. No Wizard lacks his rivals, no Witch lacks the holder of antidotes to her spells, and no Warlock lacks the adversary who can unchain his enchantments.

This was, therefore, a White magic, which explains why my nerves were NOT on edge, and my steel did not sing to me of Wizard's Bane nearby.

"We will view the City more closely," Roxdew said. With that cryptic statement he scampered off to a side door and re-emerged with an armload of nothing.

A fourth Dwarf appeared, all in white, adjusting a wide-brimmed flat-crowned white hat on his head. Roxdew motioned us back and he unrolled nothing that we could see upon the frame before us, guarding his simulacra City.

Obviously there was SOMETHING there, but Naomi earned a series of harsh rebukes when she made to test it with her finger. Sevein practically put her nose to the nothing being spread over the frame. Somehow it was stretched by dwarvish arms, and made to fit. They stepped back, sweating, obviously well pleased with themselves and their business. Then the little man in the white hat eased the nothing onto the frame tightly, and turned his back. He removed his hat and never looked back as he retreated to his unseen niche.

There were short boards against the walls, and the dwarves threw some half dozen of them unceremoniously upon the air above the City.

They seemed to have no problem apparently lying upon the vacant air, but one had to presume there was SOMETHING across the frame about the miniature City. All the boards glided easily a small distance and Roxdew grunted as he hoisted himself into mid-air above the models.

"Well?" he asked. "Climb aboard one of the lengths of wood and visit the Free Imperial City of Tar-trigon to your heart's content." He put action to his words walking out on air and then by lying full length upon a segment of board.

He smiled, and using but a finger against the invisible surface easily pulled himself about. He glided at will, with but a simple exertion sufficient to proper him as if a skilled skater upon smooth ice.

Naomi was instantly up and lying on a board, and Sevein up before I made my own decision. I laid down on one and saw Naomi careening hither and yon with the use of her hands, skimming over the roofs of this great City at some speed. She bumped the frame, and fell off her board, but was soon back on it and keening with joy.

"Mama Mouser," she said when she stopped. "It's 'Voyager' Inn."

In a second all of us were gazing down on our massive home and Inn, and the Stable, and the Brewery linked to us by a bridge.

Little wisps of smoke poured out of the chimneys, and blew away in a rising wind.

Emilia's eyes were level with the stable yard, and she was watching something intently. It was so small it was hard to tell, but I think a person was walking down a horse, circling it around and about, coaxing it through the cold until the blown animal could be brought inside and cared for.

"Would you wish to view?" Roxdew handed me a magnifying glass procured somehow from inside his blue tunic.

It was a one-armed man. One of those Jhaake had newly hired for the stable. I could tell he lacked his right arm, whereas Riker had lost his left.

Ezri, I think, came out of the kitchen, her arms tight about herself in the cold. Jhaake moved with a certain amount of youthful grace past the one-armed man, giving him a pat on his arm.

Jhaake and Ezri kissed, or at least wrestled, and held it for some moments, before Ezri retreated again within the kitchen.

Gods Above and Demons Below. Sisko won't be terribly happy to hear of his only son being with a mere servant girl. He was a vaunted Master Craftsman, and he had great plans to apprentice his son, I was sure.

Still, maybe this was but a fling. We'll see.

Sevein took the glass next, and surveyed 'Voyager' with her mouth and eyes open. Emilia beckoned me over, and I beheld the modest Temple of Gogorol. Naomi showed us Sathridin Square, and Sevein carefully eyed the two twin Fangs, the jails of the Free City. From above we viewed the homes of the rich, inside their courtyards and circles of Gargoyles, Guards, Wizards, Imps and ferocious dogs. In the center of the Free City the lofty spire of Chakay's temple soared until it almost touched the invisible nothing upon which we glided. The Spire of the Great Temple of The Day's Truth. The gold that gilded it glinted in the light.

I made out the barges stranded by the river docks, the warehouse where I spent so many nights guarding with Sevein, all the many districts of the Free City.

Emilia was observing something on the southeast road, on the far side of the City. I scuttled over there on my board and took the dwarf's glass to a horseman nearing the gates. I think it was such. In any event the horse foundered, falling, and the rider leaped clear as the poor beast collapsed in the cold road. The rider disengaged the saddle from the horse, hefting it on his shoulder. Then he did something to the horse and I saw the spreading dark stain. He had cut its throat, I believed.

The horseman moved on towards the open gate, ignoring the horse dying behind him. A hard man.

Someone had been in a terrible hurry, I feared.

Then the city took me again.

We watched the Markets, especially the Maze Market, teeming even despite the weather. A troop of cavalry rode across the bridges on Old Island to the other side, and a pair of horsemen came to Tuvok's warehouse. There was a procession entering the no-doubt welcome sanctuary of the Wind's Temple. A few mounted and probably desperate travelers were entering by the Northeast Gate. A small building near that gate was smoking, probably afire. Further afield Sevein pointed out a small figure which had appeared on a rooftop, and begun crossing the distances. He was jumping the spaces, keeping his footing on the tiles and shingles and amongst the icy chimneys and stone faces which decorated most eaves. Possibly even Tom Pare on some errand for the Thieves Guild.

A need to void reminded me of the passage of time, and I remembered we should return to 'Voyager'. For a second I felt trapped, needs chaining me to a place. Then Sevein snuggled against my back and reminded me I was bound to much more than walls and duties.

I shall prevail.

Naomi and Emilia wished to stay, but were comforted to know they might someday return to the viewing. We were all given enchantments of silence by the Dwarf all in white, said Dwarf quietly being a Wizard literally of the hedge sort. We viewed such a restriction as a small price for what we had seen, and might see again.

The enchantments were all too necessary, unfortunately. For even I, a keeper of secrets, wished to tell every soul of my acquaintance all that I knew of the wonders in the low-ceilinged hall of the dwarves.

As we trudged home with two sleeping children held under our cloaks, it came to me I had not seen what the Dwarf used my splinters for. Mayhaps most likely it was magic, and we were outsiders there and not properly within their Circle.

I could not help but look above me as I walked, wondering if I were being viewed by a little man in a pointed red cap.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The City slaves were struggling to fill the tanks in the horse-drawn cart when I stuck my head out the door again. Miserable day to be out in it, but again I noticed the way the City made sure their slaves had warm clothes and heavy usable boots, the kind with the leather bottoms and the thick felt tops.

The Sanitation cart had to come by each day, barring the disaster of a genuine blizzard, for 'Voyager' had grown in custom in the short time since Samantha Wildman's murder. Our cheaper rooms were all rented, and many of the others, and our kitchens seemed to feed more people each day. Lwaxana wanted a second full-time scullery maid to supplement the one she already had, as well as Naomi's irregular labor. She continually mentioned how happy she would be when we obtained our own baker.

Odo was observing the slaves as they worked, perhaps taking it upon himself unasked to monitor everything which occurred at 'Voyager'. As he blew seemingly irritated breath in the stable yard, the wood seller hove to. At least on this matter Lwaxana took it upon herself to be sure 'Voyager' got every gram of firewood the Inn paid for. As well as of a fixed quantity of hardwood mixed with the cheaper pines.

This was one of the areas where Lwaxana garnered a tiny kickback, and I saw no reason to begrudge her those few farthings gained. In the cords of wood I saw a quantity of sections of branch with dead acanthus still attached, and I recalled a fine marble villa of some long-dead Magnifico rising into wilderness air, its ruined pink columns replete with the leafy pest. It had been in Barnine, I recall.

The dwarves magical miniature Free City for some reason put me in a retrospective mood, and Sevein noticed my distractions. She took the time to touch the back of my neck and give me a smile before going upstairs again.

Ezri noticed my absent-minded scrutiny, and was made mildly nervous by the look produced by the rumblings my mind made inside my skull. Poor woman dropped a terra-cotta bowl as I watched, and that snapped me out of my reverie.

As I helped her pick the pieces up she fidgeted under my eyes.

"You and Jhaake," I began, and then could not continue. I belabored my mouth for being so nosy and rude, for what she and Jhaake might do was more properly the problem of Sisko than me.

"I have no dowry," she began, and then froze in pain. Of course she had no dowry, anyone working as a scullery maid and general dog's body girl was too poor to have a dowry. She would have to settle for whoever came along, and try to maintain herself intact until she has her man.

Gods above and demons below. She has her man, and he's several years younger than she is. Six years? Seven?

Jhaake is also destined for the secure life of a craftsman if his father has anything to do with it. Sisko would never countenance a dowry-less marriage. Not for the money, but because of the need to place his son well.

I was about to ask her whether they'd been making the beast with two backs, and then realized I already knew the answer.

"Do you know Belanna?"

"The one who married you and Sevein; she's the Priestess at the Green Frog God's Temple." Suddenly the edge of panic retreated a hair from her eyes. She hoped I had a plan.

She was right. I always have a plan, as Sevein has reminded me more than once. This one involved her seeing a good Wizard who would dry up her flows for a while, and purport to do it through the medium of Belanna's Temple and charity. The Wizard would need gold before doing anything, but I recalled the elderly Healer Wizard who had ridden out to the 'Voyager' Inn the night Samantha Wildman had her throat slit.

He had a mildly outlandish name, not so strange for an Issaurian, though. Lenard Makoy, if memory served me right. That he horsed himself and rode to visit his patient at all told much about his obviously patient and forgiving nature. He'd likely be willing to fabricate some story for Ezri's ears, and for a year perhaps, prevent her getting in the Family way. Just until I could work something out.

Sisko should know of this liaison in any event.

Ezri stood close to me and we conversed for some time, with me telling her what good friends Sevein and I were with the lissome morsel who was High Priestess to the Rain God, Gogorol. Which was quite true. Belanna would arrange everything, including the services of a Wizard Healer.

That Ezri had given her heart to a younger man, was true. That she was not seeking to merely better herself and leave the drudgery of this lowly laboring was also apparent to me. If I was deceived, her skill at subterfuge was beyond any I had previously ever known.

She was a Fool, but not a raptor.

Still, I had all those pigs of gold held by the Thieves Guild, and I could afford to be of assistance to the pretty thing. If she lacked a certain amount of common sense, she had by pure chance fallen into generous hands. We'll see what develops.

At that time an odd portly man appeared with red cheeks and a pointed hat. His long tunic overflowed with pockets, and he sought me out.

"Gracious beauty," he began, "You are the owner of this estimable establishment, are you not? If you are it is indeed your lucky day, for I have chosen to bless this most commodious Inn with my unparalleled services."

He did not let go my hand, and he lightly kissed my reddened knuckles with his lips. Charming, but untrustworthy, I judged.

"I am Cyrano Jonas," he explained. Another Issaurian, I thought, if that his name. "I am a musician the likes of which you will never know again. I am improbably gifted bard and a melodic singer of immortal ballads that shall ring for millennia.

"Today, during the limited time I pass through the great and noble Free City of Tar-trigon, I am offering a unique service far and beyond those pleasurable ones already mentioned." He talked with his hands a great deal.

"I shall free this marvelous building of rats."

I calmly stared at him, busily repressing my urge to laugh. With my talents, 'Voyager' was probably the one building in Tar-trigon most lacking in a population of mice and rats.

Normally I called them to me each night, let them crawl into a large stout bag, and tell them to sleep the sleep of the dead.

They never waken.

Their life force slowly goes away, at my command, and by morning their cooling remains go into the slops barrel outside.

Not knowing how it was done, Lwaxana presumed an expensive Wizardly visit. She continually promised me she could find a new Wizard to take over the rodent death magic, and probably at less than what I was now paying. I believed her implicitly. Whether her now Wizard would be worth his cut-rate fee was another matter. He'd surly want silver for his troubles.

As I worked for free, I fended her off and told her I wouldn't dream of dismissing a Wizard (or Witch) who was doing such a splendid job.

With my silence and faint smile, Cyrano was encouraged enough to go on with his sales talk. He pulled a flute from somewhere and waved it at me.

"Here you see the marvelous death sentence for mice itself." He certainly did use his hands a great deal.

"I play on my flute, and the rats swarm to me. They huddle around me and worship my music. I can lead them out of your residence, true. But the needs of an honest Innkeeper such as you would be best served by their destruction. Total and absolute destruction.

"The mice will follow me outdoors and sit enraptured. They will ignore the one-by-one murder of their fellows, and you might receive the satisfaction of sending them to the Ferryman by your own hand."

"Does your music work?" I asked.

I had long since detected the two mice he had hidden in a bag between his pants and his tunic. He was using the same method of transporting mice as I did when I was employing them to spy on a building or Residence. As expected he swore it would work, just you wait and see.

He would give me a demonstration, he said. He bustled about and gave forth a loud "Eureka!" near my booths. He let loose his mice, intending for them to be frightened out of their wits and be seen as they scurried across the floor. Upon which his no-doubt effective Flute would summon them, and coax them outside where their once captured and once enchanted bodies could be crushed by the heels of my boots at my leisure.

I commanded them to hide under the booths.

Cyrano commanded them to appear and follow him.

I again told them to hide. Cyrano kept playing, his face gradually becoming redder than it already was. Come forth, his music bade them.

Stay hidden I told them with my Talent. The matter was complicated when I realized we had attracted three small mice that had but this morning infiltrated the kitchen. They were running across the floor to the Piper. I told them to hide behind the bar.

Bashir tried to stomp on them, but missed. Encouraged by that partial success, Cyrano kept playing.

Long minutes later Cyrano had to break off his piping, having been completely blown by his unsuccessful efforts.

"I don't understand it," he gasped. "I learned this art directly from the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the other side of the Duchy of Kleinboggen. I even know how to call small children to follow my music.

"But never before have I failed to call MICE!"

For his troubles and in partial apology, I gave him a stroup of beer and a tad of yellow cheese, black hard sausage and bread.

Seeing his sad and low spirits, I relented and encouraged him to try his skills again. This time I allowed all the mice, both his and my sneaks new snuck into the kitchen, to go to him. He stared long at his flute, and shook his head, wondering what the problem had been. With a smile, he led them outside and Bashir followed. I let my Publican do the honors of finishing their small lives with his boots. He didn't care for mice or rats. Their gory remains were tail-thrown into the presently empty slops barrel. The Stable cats emerged to investigate the smell of deceased mouse, and discovered the fresh corpses in the bottom of the barrel.

Inside again I declined the services of Cyrano, but gave him a silver Groat for his troubles and the five dead mice.

At this time the muscular Sisko himself appeared, carefully backing a keg of his brew down the stairs. He had taken the convenience of having a covered bridge and immediate access to the 'Voyager' Inn, to fulfill many orders. Bashir, Sevein and he heaved it into position behind the bar, and then I beckoned Brewmaster Sisko over for a talk.

First order of business was that a Dwarf would be by, and he was to let them have for their cart a barrel of his best brew. Or worst. Whatever the dwarves wished. The cost was to be borne by the 'Voyager' Inn.

We were seated in a booth, and he controlled his usual broad smile as he picked up some hint that there was a problem.

Sisko asked how Jhaake was doing as the new Stable Master, and was pleased to find no complaints on my lips regarding that issue.

"You know my serving girl, Ezri?" I asked.

Sisko had a quick mind, and he leaped to the correct conclusion with no more fact than my bare question. I held my tongue while he fumed and then controlled himself.

"She did not strike me a schemer," he allowed, "but rather an uncomplicated wench. Is there a serious problem?"

Meaning was she pregnant. By customary law in the Empire and in most other places, the father must be responsible for the upkeep of a child. The laws demand it. Empire writ probably still ran true in Tar-trigon, or the Free City undoubtedly had its own similar laws in these matters. Such a burden could cripple many heedless young folk.

I evaded a direct answer and reassured him, letting him think that particular matter was under control. It would be, in short order, I thought to myself.

Sisko didn't buy my evasions.

I allowed as how Ezri was going to see Belanna tomorrow, and she would safeguard the young couple from the consequences of their folly.

I showed as much patience as I could, waiting for him to unwrap himself of some of his hot anger.

In the meantime I told him of what I could of the girl. Her sister Jadzia had been murdered alongside Sam Wildman, and I felt responsible for the orphan. She was a hard worker, and sought to maintain a shy smile in the Commons. We both knew the license many males felt they earned by the simple purchase of a little food and ale. I felt strange hands on my body, even up between my thighs, on a constant schedule. Sevein and I carried lead coshes on our belts for such adventurous hands, and more than one finger had been suddenly broken for their mistake of thinking the women here available whores.

We didn't put Hemlock or Opium in the wine to enliven it, and we didn't allow slatterns to ply their trade in the Commons either.

Slowly, I hope, customers here were learning to restrain themselves. Either that or suffer the consequences.

Maybe not. It was depressing at times.

Sisko in his turn stated he hoped Jhaake would follow in the Brewer's trade. He was a touch bitter about my promoting him so suddenly in the Stable area. Sisko felt Jhaake was not making the right decisions. That the boy, man, was enraptured with the horses, far beyond what he should, was apparent. And now we had the problem of Ezri. He thought I should fire Jhaake as Stable Master, and encourage him to return to the brewer's trade. With Sisko and his own new assistant Brewer, he could give Jhaake a proper Apprenticeship, and find him a good wife. Meaning one with a little more status, and a dowry.

It was impossible to argue with him on the quite logical points raised. I had a plan, though. I always have a plan.

Through Belanna's charity Ezri could gain a modest dowry, and Sisko had already admitted Ezri to be an agreeable woman, well disposed, and willing to work. It struck me that Sisko could approve the alliance, despite her being older and much poorer, if he made Jhaake's becoming a Brewer's Apprentice a condition of the match.

We'll see. I might suggest such an arrangement to Sisko once I'd arranged for a dowry.

With the aid of others she could be taught the graces necessary to the wife of a Master and Craftsman. Sevein would enjoy planning the wedding Feast.

I did, however, have the feeling that my family was again expanding. That was a sadness mixed in with a joy.

How could we leave them? Sevein and I.

Calmed down to a great degree, Sisko agreed to let me send Ezri to dear friend Belanna first, and we'll work on the next series of problems later.

For a mercy Sisko was not a violent man, beyond the ordinary. I had never seen Jhaake flinch away from the presence of his father, as I had seen many others do.

Next to the letter Ezri shall carry to Belanna. I'd discovered Bashir was surprisingly a man of some learning, being able to not only cipher his numbers even without his abacus, but to read and write well. Soon he was assisting me in writing a cunning note to Belanna when Odo returned inside. I can read and write quite well, thank you, but we were composing a pleading note to Belanna for her to obtain the services of Makoy (or someone of his reliable nature) and help Ezri.

Ezri could read and write a little, and I wished her to think me a friend rather than conspirator with Belanna. If Ezri read the note I was going to send with her. I presumed she would, and I purposefully left the letter unsealed.

My life was becoming so complicated these days.

I gave Odo dinner and watered wine amongst the before-evening crowd, refusing payment of him for his food. He was an employee, not a customer.

I sent Ezri packing, telling her to stay the night in Belanna's Temple rather than return in the dark.

Sevein eyed me, but trusted me to have a reason for sending Ezri off when the Commons was already half-full of custom.

"So tell me, Odo, just what happened between you and my arsonists?" He was relaxing over his meal's remains, and had evidently been expecting my inquiry.

"Arson was what they had in mind," he commented, and then looked me in my face. "They had four brimstones and piles of trashy kindling in their arms. They were virtually unarmed, so I took the opportunity of drawing short sword and knife and confronting them, instead of sending a crossbow bolt through one.

"The one fool panicked and rushed me and I drove my knife through his hand. The other had more fear or sense." He glanced down at the dark stain of blood on the sleeve of his coat.

"You did rightly," I told him. "You defended my property and acted well. What did you do after?"

"The three of us walked to the Brumere Gate, after I'd bandaged the one's hand. The fool never stopped crying and pleading for mercy. I think he thought I meant to murder him."

He stared me in my eyes. "I've killed before, Mistress Mouser, and probably will again. But not in the cold way I've seen others perform the act."

For myself I had an image of wounded thieves at our warehouse. In great pain and no hope of it getting better for them. That had been an act of mercy, not murder, and I must recall to myself that fact. If Sevein wielded the actual blade then, I was party to it. Here too I was a party to it.

"At the Gate?" I asked.

"I told the City Guard the two were arsonists, and not to allow them back into the Free City. The Guard was full of jeers and threats, but allowed them free passage through. The last I saw of them they were trudging into the snow. The one probably would not survive the night. The other? I cut him between two of his fingers. Just enough to mark him for the City Guards.

"Their gloves still lie in the snow behind the Stables. They will not be able to hide their wounds.

"If they go bandit I know from my days with the Watch that the villages hereabouts are wary of predators debouching from the City, and are both alert and armed well.

"Very likely the fools will seek to re-enter by another gate, but the Guard will most likely not allow the wounded men to enter when they likely were ejected by another gate. The Guardian Imps and Gargoyles at any Gate shall alert the City Guards as to the bloodied condition of either man. The fools will have explanations to make. As well, the stupid men were not dressed for an extensive journey in this cold. The Guard will be suspicious. They shall not return to Tar-trigon.

However, if they do, I shall keep an eye out for either fool. Hopefully, if they re-enter the City, they will avoid 'Voyager' and all of it."

Neither arsonist may make it through the cold night. Yet they shall have a chance. The Gods will decide.

"You did well," I quietly said. "You did as I would have done." He gave me an odd look out of his ruined face.

"I have seen the mighty exercise considerable cruelty simply by the expedient of avoiding the sight of their victims. Any fault in the matter lies with me and Sevein, not with you.

"It was necessary to harm them, and if you had killed either or both that too would have been by my hand.

"MY hand."

What an odd attitude, he was probably thinking. But perhaps not. He had been a mercenary Free Sword, and been made unhappy by casual murder by the Night Watch.

I was certainly gathering an odd assortment of people about myself and Sevein.

I told him not to let Emilia to have a drink of his wine, and he told her to mind her elders. Yes, very odd, and my little ghost was perhaps the oddest.

I went back to work, using my cosh on a straying hand, and noted Odo took his stroup and plate to the kitchen to be dipped in water and re-used.

When he veered to the side closest the Stable, I noticed the red-haired whore for the first time. In winter there is always the problem of slatterns and other sneaks seeking entry, attempting to find some corner where they will not freeze. This one simply sat crouched unnoticed on the floor, probably wondering if she would survive the night.

Her cowl was back, which is how I knew her for woman and red-maned. Odo was quietly remonstrating with her by the time I arrived. Perhaps I should turn around and leave her to him.

Then I saw she was neither whining nor defiant. There was not the visual stamp on her of a life gone irremediable.

Odo saw my interest, and subtle man that he could be, he noticed my face. He straightened and began being inconspicuous. In plain sight he became nothing worthy of a second glance. He must have been a remarkable Night Watch.

I slid down beside her, my back to the wall and sideways looking at her, taking her in. I was noticing she was dirty, but her odor was light and she had made some attempts to clean herself. Despite her broken nose she had prettiness to her.

There was no smell of wine or other evils to her, and she seemed to have all her teeth.

"You do not practice your trade in my Inn," I said.

"I simply wished a little warmth for a little while," she stated in return. It cost her, but her statement was carefully neutral. Not defiant, nor whining. "Nothing more."

What to say? Sometimes a woman had to make unpalatable choices. It struck me she was newly pressed into her new service. Such things happened. The father died, the husband died, even all of the relatives died, things happened.

In her case I wagered she had been a wife until recently.

Besides, underneath her grease and the hideous way her nose had been long-ago broken, she was indeed a comely wench. And not too far gone into her new trade, I guessed.

"What is your name, girl?" I commanded an answer.

"Kira Nerys," she replied, suddenly looking hopeful. Hope. I'd said or done nothing to warrant that look of hope. Yet at times it takes nothing whatsoever to bring hope, if you're desperate enough for the least spark.

Besides which, so long as we conversed, she stayed inside in the warmth.

"Do you like your work?" I gently asked. Her face spasmed for a second before she re-clamped control.

"I gather you have no protector," I noted. Panderer.

"Might you care for scullery work instead?"

Her husband had died recently and she was destitute and desperate, though she made no excuses. I think he did not die in an ordinary manner, for she did not volunteer how he had perished.

Thus it was that my family grew again. Lwaxana was aghast, and I carefully explained to Kira and Lwaxana both that the first sign she was again re-applying her trade, it was out the door for the newcomer. The first time she did not follow Lwaxana's commands, it was out the door for the newcomer.

Kira knew she was on a rein, and a short one at that. By now I had faith in Lwaxana's ability to master Kira without cruelty. The cook would brook no rebellious subjects in her Empire of the Kitchen. Yet she would be fair. Work hard or leave.

Lwaxana was at some lengths concerning a maid's duties. Kira for her part seemed attentive and resigned. Not fearful or sullen. Lwaxana complained of Kira's filthy clothes and filthy Kira, and I promised we would see that right.

I thought of putting her in a room on the third floor, with two women who worked for Sisko sorting grains and hops. Lwaxana asked her about diseases and pests such as lice, and I hastily revised myself.

"Odo," I beckoned him over. "Are you still able to travel at night despite the curfews?"

"So long as I have needful business," he said. "Where do you want me to take her?"

Fast off the mark was my new Arm.

Odo stated he could manage to take her to Belanna, and see to it that Belanna found a Healer Wizard to resolve our new scullery maid's diseases and uninvited tiny pests. If she were free of such I should be surprised. Her trade precluded freedom from such taints.

Lwaxana found a shift in the rags bin that would fit Kira, and handed Kira a bowl of rough gelid soap and pointed towards the second hand pump in the kitchen. A space existed between bags of vegetables and potatoes, and the salt bin.

"Get a bowl and basin and clean yourself some," she commanded, already Kira's Superior Officer. Hopefully she would be given a proper bath at the Temple of Gogorol, but this allowed us to begin inspection immediately. Her breasts were lightly bound in a whole strophium, more to hide two short knives than modesty or anything else. There were a few bruises, but no obvious diseases.

Thus it was that Sevein returned in time to see a woman naked to one side in the kitchen. She looked at her, then at me, and smiled.

"Pretty," she commented. "If she's a sudden gift for me, dearest," she ruefully smiled, "I have to admit I already have all the red haired women I can manage safely, yes I do."

She knew the woman for another charity of mine and kissed me on her way out again. Which reminded me that I had things to do other then admiring naked redheads with no doubt pleasantly soft and large rear ends. Well, I thought it a touch large. Nice, but large. Look at Sevein. I like large.

Bashir kept an extra cloak and he allowed Kira it. It would save trouble for me to purchase it from him, but I'm supposed to be the money-aware Keeper of an Inn, not a highly successful burglar, I must continually remind myself. I mentally promised I'd have it Wizarded for pests before he got it back.

Back in the Commons a voice caught me. "A moment, wench," the voice spoke to my back, "could you tell me where I might find Mistress Mouser or Mistress Sevein?"

Well, I was doing the work of a serving girl, so his mistake was quite pardonable. I turned to face him.

It was Golden Eye. The brother of Datalore, the invincible champion of his brother's wealth and ultimately assassin at his brother's bequest.

The same golden-toned skin, the same gilded agate eyes.

Gods above and demons below. There was a third one, a twin to the one we could not kill.

I kept a smile on my face, and wiped my hands on my apron. "You've found her. I'm Mistress Mouser. Sevein is in the kitchen. What can I do for you?"

He leered a tiny bit, caressing his narrow little moustache.

"I startled you," he said.

"Your brother, the Banker Datalore, was someone I had seen closely a few times before. The resemblance is close enough that I presumed he was your brother. You ARE his brother, aren't you?"

"Datalore was my brother, and I have ridden here from far Nomurea, a considerable feat in the snow."

There returned to me the sight of the rider who had cut his horse's throat by the southeast Gate. The rider had struck me then as cold and uncaring, even as I watched in safety and comfort from above the miniature City the dwarves maintained.

"My brother was struck down by an assassin, and I mean to do something about it."

------------END

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