By sunset I was no wiser than before. Dressed in the latest in Vallonian cape and ruffles, I was sitting with my buddy Cagu, Chief Bodyguard to Owner Gope, at a small table on the first terrace at the Palace of Merrymaking, Bar-Ponderone's biggest community feasting hall. It looked like a Hollywood producer's idea of a twenty-first century night club, complete with nine dance floors on five levels, indoor pools, fountains, two thousand tables, musicians, girls, noise, colored lights, and food fit for an Owner. It was open to all fifty-lash goodmen of the Estate and to guests of equivalent rank. After the back-country life at Rath-Gallion it looked like the big time to me. Cagu was a morose-looking old cuss, but good-hearted. His face was cut and scarred from a thousand encounters with other bodyguards and his nose had been broken so often that it was invisible in profile. "Where do you manage to get in all the fights, Cagu?" I asked him. "I've known you for three months, and I haven't seen a blow struck in anger yet." "Here." He grinned, showing me some broken front teeth. "Swell places, these big Estates, good Drgon; lotsa action." "What do you do, get in street fights?" "Nah. The boys show up down here, tank up, cruise around, you know." "They start fights here in the dining room?" "Sure. Good crowd here; lotsa laughs." I picked up my drink, raised it to Cagu--and got it in my lap as somebody jostled my arm. I looked up. A battle-scarred thug stood over me. "Who'sa punk, Cagu?" he said in a hoarse whisper. He probed at a back tooth with a silver pick, rolled his eyes from me to my partner. Cagu stood up, and threw a punch to the other plug-ugly's paunch. He _oof!_ed, clinched, eyed me resentfully over Cagu's shoulder. Cagu pushed him away, held him at arm's length. "Howsa boy, Mull?" he said. "Lay offa my sidekick; greatest little piper ina business, and a top driver too." Mull rubbed his stomach, sat down beside me. "Ya losin' your punch, Cagu." He looked at me. "Sorry about that. I thought you was one of the guys." He signaled a passing waiter-slave. "Bring my friend a new suit. Make it snappy." "Don't the customers kind of resent it when you birds stage a heavyweight bout in the aisle?" I asked. "A drink in the lap is routine. It could happen in any joint in Manhattan. But a seven-course meal would be overdoing it." "Nah; we move down inta the Spot." He waved a thumb in the general direction of somewhere else. He looked me over. "Where ya been, Piper? Your first time ina Palace?" "Drgon's been travelling," said Cagu. "He's okay. Lemme tell ya the time these pirates pull one, see...."