The Venus Throw

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from under his brow and shifted from foot to foot uncertainly. "Their names?" "They wouldn't say." "Familiar faces?"

"I've never seen them before, Master."

"Did they say what they wanted?"

"No, Master."

I pondered this for a moment and stared into the flames of the brazier.

"I see. Two men-"

"Not exactly, Master… "

"Two visitors, you said. Are they both men or not?" "Well," Belbo said, wrinkling his brow, "I'm pretty sure that one of them is a man. At least I think so…" "And the other?"

"A woman-I think. Or maybe not…" He looked thoughtfully but without much concern into the middle distance, as if trying to remember what he had eaten for breakfast.

I raised an eyebrow and looked beyond the flaming brazier, through the narrow window and into the garden, where the statue of Minerva kept watch over a little fishpond. The sun was beginning to lower. Days in Januarius are all too short, especially for a man of fifty-four like myself, old enough to feel the cold in his bones. But the daylight was still strong enough to see clearly, certainly clearly enough to tell if someone at the door was male or female. Was Belbo's sight beginning to fail?

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