Free Skeen's Leap by Jo Clayton

harrowing at times. She could hear howls a short distance away, once a chopped-off scream as a transient stupid enough to sleep in the street died under the jaws of werehounds. Worse than saayungkas, much worse. She shivered at the thought of deadly, intelligent beasts roaming the streets only a breath away from her, the senses and ferocity of the animals whose shapes they wore, the intelligence of a man directing that ferocity. But they had their patterns and ran them with a bored precision.
    One guard on the wall, asleep in his shelter by the gate. More a porter than a guard despite his mail shirt and crossbow. His snores announced his presence a dozen meters away.
    There were iron spikes and broken glass atop the wall. The spikes had once been sharpened to knife edges, now they were dulled by rust and long neglect; the glass had eroded to abrasive dust. She set the padded grapple on the spikes with a quiet ta-thunk, went up the rope with a few scrapes of boot soles against plaster, a rain of broken plaster to the pavement which she ignored, the sounds lost in the snores of the gateguard.
    She ghosted through the garden alert for traps or prowling werebeasts but it was deserted; a wandering breeze rustled grass and leaves and rattled windows. She slipped the latch on a window and boosted herself inside, feeling as light-hearted as a kid trashing an obnoxious neighbor. It was impossible to treat this with any kind of care though she did keep telling herself not to underestimate them. He won’t be guarded, Telka said, but this was ridiculous.
    A large empty room filled with pale gray light from the waxing moon. She prowled about, flashing a pinlight over any bit of shadow that seemed interesting. She slipped several small carvings and other bibelots into her shoulder bag, then went cautiously out the door.
    After exploring a few more of the groundfloor rooms, she decided the bedrooms were upstairs somewhere and the woman was most likely in the Poet’s bed. Telka said so, and she should know. Plenty more things down here she could pick up, but she had other business tonight. She left the tempting public rooms and started up the graceful free-floating spiral ramp that led to the next floor.
    On the second floor she went more cautiously. The Poet had a family, though the Min knew little about them. So they said. Doesn’t pay to be too mistrustful … they wanted Timka out of this place, the air in the court stank of it. She’d half expected the Synarc to add that she should kill the woman if she couldn’t get her clear, but they didn’t. Just as well, be a cold day on Vatra before she killed for hire.
    She found Timka and the Poet in the third room she visited.
    Big room, big bed in the middle of it. Lots of windows, the moon filled the huge room with its deceptive pearly light, giving her a good look at the sleeping Pallah once she crossed to the bed and stood gazing down at the man, walking ankle-deep in furs tossed about with a calculated abandon.
    He was a lanky soft-looking man with a fringe of sandy hair about a freckled bald spot, a jutting nose that dominated a face with little else to recommend it, long, rather flabby arms, a pot belly that made him took like a stick doll who’d swallowed an orange. He lay curled up as tightly as he could with that pot, his back pushed against a slight figure that had to be Timka. She was darker, tauter, a flow of tangled curls spilled across her face. A close duplicate of Telka as far as Skeen could tell. The little Min lay on her back, snoring now and then, wavery squeaks that Skeen decided would get very irritating if you had to listen to them long. The snoring stopped. Timka moved her arm, made a shapeless grunting sound.
    Hastily Skeen darted her, then the Poet. She clipped pinlights to her sleeves and began searching the room, taking her time, chuckling softly with pleasure as she scooped up brooches, rings for the fingers and ears, jeweled studs,