"Perhaps a little of both, then, eh?" said his master jauntily as their voices dwindled. "Ah, what a fascinating world we are making…!"

When the two were gone and the house was silent Chert could finally breathe freely, and found he was trembling all over, as if he had narrowly avoided a fatal tumble. "Who were those two men?"

"Hendon Tolly, to give one of the dogs a name," the physician snarled. "The other is the vilest traitor who ever lived-an even filthier cur than Hendon-a man who I thought was my friend, but who has been the Tollys' lapdog all along, it seems. If I had his throat in my hands…"

"What are you talking about?"

"Talking about? He has stolen my dearest possession!" Chaven's eyes were still wide, and it occurred to Chert it was not too late for the royal physician to go dashing out into Southmarch Keep and get them both killed. He grabbed Chaven's robe again.

"What? What did he steal? Who was that?"

Chaven shook his head, tears welling in his eyes again. "No. I cannot tell you. I am shamed by my weakness." He turned to stare at Chert, des¬perate, imploring. "Tolly called him brother because the man who helped him pillage my secrets is one of the brothers of the Eastmarch Academy. Okros, Brother Okros-a man who I have trusted as if he were my own family."

Chert had never seen the physician so helpless, so defeated, so… empty.

Chaven put his head on his arms, sagged as if he would never rise again. "Oh, by all the gods, I should have known! Growing to manhood in a fam¬ily like mine, I should have known that trust is for fools and weaklings."

"Are you mad?" Teloni could not have been more astonished if her younger sister had suggested jumping off the harbor wall into the ocean. "He is a prisoner! And he is a man!"

"But look at him-he is always here and he seems so sad." Pelaya Akua-nis had seen the prisoner a half-dozen times, and always the older man sat on the stone bench as quietly as if he listened to music, but of course there was no music, only the noises of birds and the distant boom and shush of the sea. "I am going to talk to him."

"The guards won't let you," one of the other girls warned, but Pelaya ig¬nored her. She got up and smoothed her dress before walking across the garden toward the bench. Two of the guards stood, but after looking at her carefully one guard leaned back against the wall again; the other moved ex¬actly one step closer to the bearded man they were guarding, which was apparently the solution to some odd little inner mechanics of responsibil¬ity. Then the two guards resumed their whispered conversation. Pelaya wished she looked more like the dangerous type who might free a prisoner, but the guards had judged her correctly-talking to him with her friends and the man's guards around her on all sides was quite enough of an ad¬venture, however she might like to act otherwise.

As she reached him the man looked up at her, his face so empty of emo¬tion that she was positive she could have been a beetle or a leaf for all he cared. She suddenly realized she had nothing to say. Pelaya would have turned and walked away again except that she could not bear to see Teloni give her one of those amused, superior looks.

She swayed a little, trying to think of how to begin, and he only watched her. For a moment the garden seemed very silent. He was at least her fa¬ther's age, perhaps older, with long reddish-brown hair and beard, both shot with gray and a few curling wisps of pure white. Even as she examined him he was surveying her in turn, and his calm gaze unnerved her. "Who are you?" she said, blurting it out so that it sounded like a challenge. She could feel the blood rising in her cheeks and had to fight hard once more against the urge to flee.

"Ah, my good young mistress, but it is you who approached me," he said sternly. He sounded serious, and his face looked serious too, but something in the way he spoke made her think he might be mocking her. "You must

name yourself. I lave you never been told any stories, have you read no books on polite discourse? Names are important, you see. However, once given, they can never be taken back." He spoke the Hierosoline tongue with a strange accent, harsh but somehow musical.

"But 1 think I know yours," she said. "You are King Olin of South-march."

"Ah, you are only half right." He frowned, as though thinking hard about his words, then nodded slowly. "It seems that, in fairness, you must tell me half of your name."

"Pelaya!" her sister called, a strangled moan of embarrassment.

"Ah," said the prisoner. "And now I have received my due, will you, nill you."

"That wasn't fair. She told you."

"I was not aware we were involved in a contest. Hmmm-interesting." Something moved across his lips, fleeting as a shadow-a smile? "As I said, names are very important things. Very well, I will do my best to guess the other name without help from any of the bystanders. Pelaya, are you? A fair name. It means 'ocean. »

"I know." She took a step back. "You are playing for time. You cannot guess."

"Ah, but I can. Let me consider what I know already." He stroked his beard, the very picture of a philosopher from the Sacred Trigon Academy. "You are here, that is the first thing to be pondered. Not everyone is allowed into this inner garden-I myself have only recently been granted the privi¬lege. You are well dressed, in silk and a fine lace collar, so I feel rather cer¬tain you are not one of the pastry-makers gathering mint or a chambermaid on your way to air the linens. If you are either of those you are shirking your chores most unconscionably, but to me you do not have the face of a true idler."

She laughed despite herself. He was talking nonsense, she knew, amus¬ing himself and her, but also there was more to it. He was showing her how he would think about things if he truly meant to solve a problem. "So, we must assume you are one of the ladies of the castle, and in fact I see that you have brought with you a formidable retinue." He gestured to Teloni and the others, who watched her with wide eyes, as though Pelaya had clambered down into a wolf's den. "One of them addressed you by first name, which suggests a familiarity a lady might show to one of her maids or other friends, but since there is a sameness to your features-yours are a

bit finer, more delicate, but I hope you will keep that as our secret-I would guess that the two of you are related. Sisters?"

She looked at him sternly. She was not going to be so easily tricked into helping him.

"Well, then I will declare it so for the sake of my argument. Sisters. Now, I know well that my captor, the lord protector, has no declared offspring. Some might say he was the better for that-they can be difficult creatures, children-but I am not one of them. However much I pity his childless¬ness, though, I cannot make him your father, no matter how I puzzle the facts, so I must look elsewhere. Of his chief ministers, some are too dark or too pale of skin, some too old, and some too much inclined otherwise to be the fathers of handsome young women like your sister and yourself, so I must narrow my guesses to those whom I know to have children. I have been here more than half a year, so I have learned a little." He smiled. "In fact, I see now that your companions are waving for you in earnest, and I must cut to the bone of the matter before they drag you away. My best guess is that your father is this castle's steward, Count Perivos Akuanis, and that you are his younger daughter, while the dark-haired girl there is his older daughter, Teloni."

She glared at him. "You knew it all along."

"No, I must sincerely protest that I did not, although it has become clear to me as we talked. I think I may have seen you once with your father, but I have only now remembered."