"Let him see it," a new voice cut in. "Translate it for him, Mr. Ransome." * * * * * It was a woman's voice, cold and contemptuous. Ransome looked up quickly, and at first he didn't recognize her. The gunner never took his eyes from the stack of kiroons on the table. "Let him see how a man murders a woman to save his own neck." "You're supposed to be dancing at Mytor's place," Ransome said. "That's your business; this is mine." He closed his hand over the gunner's wrist as the man reached convulsively for the money, menaced now by the angry woman. "Half now, the rest later." Ransome's eyes burned into the crewman's. The latter looked away. Ransome tightened his grip, and pain contorted the gunner's features. "Look at me," Ransome said. "If you cross me you'll wish you could die by flogging." The woman Mytor had called Irene was still standing by the table when the gunner had left with the note and his money. "Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?" "Certainly. Sit down." "I'd like a drink." She sipped her wine in silence and Ransome studied her by the flickering light of the candle burning on the table between them. She wore a simple street dress now, in contrast to the gaudy, revealing garments of the pleasure house women. The beauty of her soft, unpainted lips, her golden skin and wide-set green eyes was more striking now, seen at close range, than it had been in the smoky cavern of Mytor's place. "What are you thinking now, Ransome?" The question was unexpected, and Ransome answered without forethought: "The Temple." "You studied for the priesthood of the Dark One yourself." "Did Mytor tell you that?" Irene nodded. The candlelight gave luster to her dark hair and revealed the contours of her high, firm breasts. Ransome's pulse speeded up just looking at her. Then he saw that she was regarding him as if he were something crawling in damp stone, and there was bitterness in him. "There are things that even Mytor doesn't know, even omniscient Mytor--" He checked himself. "Well?" "Nothing." "You were going to tell me about how you are really a very honorable man. Why don't you? You have an hour before it will be time to betray the woman from the _Hawk of Darion_." Ransome shrugged, and his voice returned her mockery. "If I told you that I had been an acolyte in the Temple of the Dark One, and that I was condemned to death for blasphemy, committed for love of a woman, would you like me better?" "I might." "Ten years ago," Ransome said. He talked, and the mighty walls of the Temple reared themselves around his mind, and the music of the pleasure house became the chanting of the priests at the high altar. * * * * * He stood at the rear of the great Temple, and he had the tonsure and the black robes, and his name was not Ransome, but Ra-sed.