She stood very still for a moment, her eyes unreadable—which told him more about what she was thinking than the facile, convenient expressions of a whore.

Slowly, but not seductively, she rebound her hair. When she was finished she had tucked away her potent sexuality as well.

“Very well,” she said. “What would you like to know?”

“Tell me a lie,” he said.

Her eyebrows raised. “A lie?”

“Anything. Tell me that the coverlet is blue.”

“The coverlet is blue.”

Nothing. He felt nothing.

“Tell me it’s green,” he said.

“The coverlet is green.”

He couldn’t tell when she was lying. Just about the only useful thing his magic could do. He opened his mouth to ask her to help him escape, just to see if he could, but no word of his request left his throat.

“Gods take him!” he roared angrily. “Gods take him and eat his spleen while he yet lives.” He turned toward the whore and she flinched away from him needlessly. He had himself under control now. “Tell me about this place, the Passerines, the Secret Path, Telleridge… all of it.”

She took a step back and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, on the far side of the lute. Speaking quickly, she said, “The Secret Path is a clandestine organization of nobles. The rooms that you have seen today and a few others are under an unused wing of the palace. Most of the activities of the Path involve only the young men, the Passerines. The older members and the Masters, the wizards, direct what those activities are. The Passerines are the younger members of the Secret Path. They are brought in between the ages of sixteen and twenty.”

“What do they call the older members?” asked Tier.

“Raptors,” she replied, relaxing a little, “and the wizards are the Masters.”

“Who is in charge, the wizards or the Raptors?”

“The High Path—which is made up of a select group of Raptors and Masters and led by Master Telleridge.”

“What is the requirement for membership?” he asked.

“Noble birth and the proper temperament. None of them can be direct heirs of the Septs. Most of the boys come at the recommendation of the other Passerines.”

“Telleridge is a Sept,” said Tier, trying to put his knowledge into an acceptable pattern.

“Yes. His father and brothers died of plague.”

“Did he start this… Secret Path?”

“No.” She settled more comfortably against the wall. “It is a very old association, over two hundred and fifty years old.”

Tier thought back over the history of the Empire. “After the Third Civil War.”

Myrceria nodded her head, and smiled a little.

“Phoran the Eighteenth, I believe, who inherited right in the middle of the war when his father was killed by an assassin,” he said. “A man known for his brilliance in diplomacy rather than war. Now what exactly was it that caused that war…”

Her smile widened, “I imagine you know quite well. Bards, I’ve been told, have to know their history.”

“The younger sons of a number of the more powerful Septs seized their fathers’—or brothers’ lands illegally while the Septs were meeting in council. They claimed that the laws of primogeniture were wrong, robbing younger sons of their proper inheritance. The war lasted twenty years.”

“Twenty-three,” she corrected mildly.

“I bet the Path was founded by Phoran the Eighteenth’s younger brother—the war leader.”

She cleared her throat. “By Phoran’s youngest son, actually, although his brother was one of the original members.”

“The Path,” said Tier, having found the pattern, “draws the younger sons, young men educated to wield power but who will never have any. Only the ones who are angriest at their lot in life are allowed into it. As young men, they are given a secret way to defy those in power—a safe outlet for their energies. Then, I suppose, a few are guided slowly into places where they can gain power—advisor to the king, merchant, diplomat. Places where they acquire power and an investment in the health of the Empire they despise. Old Phoran the Eighteenth was a master strategist.”

“You are well educated for a… a baker,” she said, “from a little village in the middle of nowhere.”

He smiled at her. “I fought under the Sept of Gerant from the time I was fifteen until the last war was over. He has a reputation as being something of an eccentric. He wasn’t concerned with the birth of his commanders, but he did think that his commanders needed to know as much about politics and history as they knew about war.”

“A soldier?” She considered the idea. “I’d forgotten that—they didn’t seem to consider it to be of much importance.”

“You are well-educated for your position as well,” he said.

“If younger sons have no place in the Empire, their daughters have—” she stopped abruptly and took a step backward. “Why am I telling you this?” Her voice shook in unfeigned fear. “You’re not supposed to be able to work magic here. They said that you couldn’t.”

“I’m working no magic,” he said.

“I have to go,” she said and left the cell. She didn’t, he noticed, forget to shut and bolt the door.

When she was gone, he pulled his legs up on the bed, boots and all, and leaned against the wall.

Whatever the Path was supposed to have been, he doubted that its only purpose was to keep the young nobles occupied. Telleridge didn’t strike him as the sort to serve anyone except himself—certainly not the stability of the Empire.

Thinking of Telleridge reminded Tier of what the wizard had done to him. His magic was really gone—not that it was likely to do him much good in a situation like this. Alone, without witnesses, Tier sat on the bed and buried his head in his hands, seeing, once more, Telleridge’s hand closing on his arm.

Wizards weren’t supposed to be able to cast spells like that. They had to make potions and draw symbols—he’d seen them do it. Only Ravens were able to cast spells with words.

Telleridge had spoken in the Traveler tongue.

Tier straightened up and stared at one of the glowing braziers without seeing it. That ring. He had seen that ring before, the night he’d met Seraph.

Though it had been twenty years, he was certain he was not mistaken. He’d a knack for remembering things, and the ring Telleridge had worn had the same notch on the setting that the ring… what had his name been? Wresen. Wresen had been a wizard, too. A wizard following Seraph.

How had Telleridge known that Tier was Bard? Tier had supposed that his unknown visitor had told the wizard, if it hadn’t been the wizard himself. However, it sounded as if Tier being a Bard was the reason they’d taken him in the first place. No one except Seraph knew what he was—though she’d told him that any Raven would know.

They had been watching him. Myrceria had known that he had been a baker and a soldier. Had they been watching him and Seraph for twenty years? Were they watching Seraph now?

He sprang to his feet and paced. He had to get home. When an hour of fruitless thought left him still in the locked cell, he settled back on the bed and took up the lute absently. All he could do was be ready for an opportunity to escape as it presented itself.

He noticed the tune that he’d begun fingering with wry amusement. Almost defiantly he plucked out the chorus with quick-fingered precision.

A year and a day,

A year and a day,

And the beggar’ll be king

For a year and a day.

In the song, in order to stop a decade-long drought, desperate priests decided that the ultimate sacrifice had to be made—the most important person in the nation had to be sacrificed: the king. Unwilling to die, the king refused, but proposed the priests take one of the beggars from the street. The king would step down from office for a year and let the beggar be king. The priests argued that a year was not long enough—so they made the beggar king for a year and a day. The drought ended with the final, willing sacrifice of the young man who’d proved more worthy than the real king.