r before had he touched a squire's woman. She felt as all women
feel, her high caste couldn't be sensed in her body. "I'd sit still a
moment, if I were you." It must be the killing of the globe, he thought;
after that, any crime is possible.

"Who are you?"

"A miner," he mocked, standing. His pick was in his hand, as ever. He
thought, Should I kill her too? No sense to that, when I was only trying
to help. Or was it her body I wanted to touch? "Who's your father?"

"Ewyo of Dolfya, and his hounds will eat you for breakfast tomorrow."

Ewyo was one of the richest squires in this part of the world, and
Jerran's cousin served him. "You're Lady Nirea, then. A fine-looking
wench."

"My Orbs," she gasped, her scorn rattled by his incredible insolence.
"My Orbs above, who are you?"

"A dirty miner, who puts coal into your father's hearth but must warm
himself over smoldering peat. Why would you report me?"

"You _scum_," she said, the snarling hiss of a zanph in her voice. "Do
you remember when a brewer fell over a dog in Dolfya last year and
bumped my sister Jann? He was hunted over twelve miles before the pack
tore him to blood and rags! What do you think _you_ deserve, who dares
address me in that way, and--and fondle me?"

"Lady Nirea, if I fondled you, you'd know it," Revel said. Then, seeing
the hint of a smile on her sensuous lips, he looked up, for she seemed
to be staring over his shoulder.

From the button above them a line of globes dropped, golden globules
radiating bright energy.

_Whom the gods destroy, they first madden._ That was part of the Globate
Credo, wasn't it? Well, Revel had been gradually made mad that day, and
now, by Orbs, he'd show them something before he was destroyed!

As the first descended past him, and wrapped two tentacles under the
girl's armpits to lift her, he lifted his pick to smack it as he had the
supervising deity in the mine. He felt a tug; another globe had a
whiplash arm around his pick. Gritting teeth, he threw his tremendous
brawn into a swing, and the pick tore loose from the tentacle and
sprayed the guts out of the sphere before him. It fell on the grass
beside Nirea, an emptying sack. He slashed a second and a third,
laughing between set lips. What a way to go down--killing gods!

Then he felt a searing pain, a sudden spasm of the flesh, as though a
sword had been heated in a bonfire and laid alongside his ear.
Reflectively he ducked to earth, sprang two steps f