"You are not a female," said the voice from behind the door, a small, narrow door cut in the left panel of the gate, the eyes peering out from a small sliding hatch in the door.  "Show that you have money!"

I lifted up a copper tarsk.  The fellow inside lifted up small tharlarion-oil lamp to the opening.  I held the coin where he could see it but I did not put it through the aperture.

"Not enough!" he said.

I then held up a silver tarsk.  The door opened.

I entered.

He locked the door behind me.

I then followed him through a high, shedlike tunnel, walled with wood, about forty feet long, to the interior gate.  There he turned about.  "Something for the porter," he said.

"You are paid by the keeper of the house," I said.

"Times are hard," he said.  "And it is late.  I have opened the door late."

"That is true," I said.  I put a tarsk bit into his hand.

"Times are hard," he said.

I put down my pack.  I took out a knife and pushed it a bit into his gut, pushing him back against the inner gate.  He turned white.  I lifted up his purse, on its strings, and, with the point of the knife, opened it.  There were several coins within it.  I could see in light of the small lamp he carried.  "Times are not as hard as you thought," I said.  "How much would you like?" I asked.

"A tarsk bit is quite sufficient," he said.

"You have it," I said.

"Yes, Sir," he said.  "Thank you, Sir."  He put the tarsk bit from his hand into his purse, as I held it, and then took the purse gingerly from me, and, sensing he was permittede dropped it, on its strings, so that again it hung from his belt, on his left.  If one is right-handed, one normally lifts the purse with the left hand and reaches into it with the right.  The weight of the purse, on its drawstrings, closed it.

"It is a violent night out," I said.

"It is, Sir," said he.  "What have you heard from the north?"

"I have come from the south," I said.

"Few go north now," he said.

"Most here, I gather," I said, "are from the north."

"Yes," said he, "and we are crowded beyond belief."

"With folks from Ar's Station?" I asked.

"Not many now," he said.  "Some managed to flee."

"Most were trapped in the city?" I said.

"Apparently," he said.

"What is your latest intelligence?" I asked.

"Little that is new," he said.

"And what is old?" I asked.

"From whence have you come?" he asked.

"From the south," I said.  That I had come from Ar herself was no business of this fellow.

"Only what I hear," he said, "- that the Cosians have invested Ar's Station, on three sides by land, and have closed the harbor, that with a wall of chained rafts."

"Have the walls been breached?" I asked.

"Several times," said he, "but each time the defenders have managed to hold the breach, and repair the wall."

I nodded.  Some terribly bitter fighting takes place at such times.  So, too, it can, in the streets themselves.  "Cosians, as far as you know," I said, "hold no part of the city itself."

"Not as far as I know," he said.

"What are the numbers involved, and your speculations as to the outcome?"