Omara looked them over thoroughly. They were as tall as their father, and athletic looking. Within a few years they might approach him in muscle. Their hair was as red as their mother's, and their skin, from the drill field, the same unlikely tan. Their eyes were hazel green. "Sit," she said, indicating two chairs. They sat.

"You know your lineage," she told them. "Strong lineage, very strong. Able. The Dynast hopes for comparable qualities in you, and has decided you should have Outland experience. You are to leave at dawn tomorrow, and travel to Miskmehr for assignments in the embassy there."

The youths watched, their features controlled but their heart rates speeded. Omara took two sheets of paper from her desk, two lists, and gave them to the youths. "Here is the clothing and gear to take with you. Someday, not too distant, you may be carrying out missions for the Dynast herself. Some will be secret. Some will be urgent. So I am treating this trip as a trial and a drill, to see how you do. Do not disgrace yourselves.

"I want you there as quickly as possible without killing your horses. You will have remounts, and travel with an experienced sergeant who knows the route. He will meet you in the vestibule of your barracks no later than first dawn. First dawn. Be there, ready. Do not keep him waiting.

"On your way to your barracks, you will stop at supply and pick up two bundles containing clothing suitable to Rude Lands travelers.

"Say nothing of this to anyone. Not your platoon leader, not your sergeant, not anyone. I will be checking. If I discover you have broken secrecy, it will earn you a reprimand, and go into your records."

She paused, looking them up and down again. "If you have any questions or uncertainties, say so now… No? Good. You are dismissed."

When they had gone, Omara called in her page. "Lolana," she said, "go to the Guards duty office and tell them- quietly! -that I want to see Sergeant Veskabren Arva in the Rose Garden, at once. At once! But do not run. Do not draw attention to yourself. Do you understand?"

The girl nodded. "Yes ma'am," she said, then saluted and left.

In her office, Idri did not sit down. She paced. She needed to make decisions and necessary arrangements, and that required a plan. Think! she told herself. How will Omara handle her part in this? In the Sisterhood, males were little educated. And the twins would be-how old? Surely less than twenty years, and untraveled. Little traveled at best. Omara wouldn't send them galloping off by themselves. Who would she send with them? A Guardsman, of course, who'd been attached to the embassy in Duinarog, and was familiar with the route.

Her basic plan sprang full grown into her mind. A Guardsman attached to the embassy in Duinarog! I have, Idri told herself, the perfect substitute. It seemed a marvelous omen, and with Rillor she could terminate the risk irrevocably.

Abruptly she stepped to her door. "Jaloon," she said to her aide, "come in here. I want you to arrange something for me. Unobtrusively."

Idri looked over the information Jaloon had gotten for her. Omara had listed the twins in the travel book as going to the embassy in Miskmehr. So. They were indeed scheduled Outland. Miskmehr had to be a false destination, the cover story. A Guards senior sergeant named Veskabren Arva was also listed as going to Miskmehr; hardly a coincidence.

They would probably leave at dawn. That was customary for long trips. Now she had arrangements to make with Rillor and Skalvok.

Idri didn't have Koslovi Rillor come to her office. A Guards officer coming into this corridor might well be noticed. And would look odd, for she rarely had official business with the Guards. Instead she met him at the stable, where she was having her mare saddled. She rode at least twice a week, to stay in shape for travel, and because she liked to ride.

They did not speak, but rode separately out the Cloister's open south gate, about a hundred yards apart. The well-beaten bridle trail skirted the mountain stream above the Cloister. Soon the trail entered the forest. When she reached the junction with a side trail, she stopped her mare, and waited till she saw Rillor again. Then she rode out of sight up the side trail, and stopping, dismounted.

A minute later he stood in front of her. He did not reach, however. They were lovers, but on her terms, not his.

Captain Koslovi Rillor was burly, hard-bodied, and well endowed-the physical type that most stimulated her.

"I have a vitally important mission for you," she said. "If done properly, it will remove my single major rival for the Dynast's throne. Our single major rival." She didn't see auras, but she read faces. It was clear he understood. "Do you know a Guards senior sergeant named Arva?" she asked. "Veskabren Arva?"

"Right. We overlapped at the embassy in Duinarog for a couple years. When he was there; he pulled courier duty a lot."

That explains why Omara chose him, Idri told herself. It also gets rid of any doubt about where Varia's brats are being sent. "Ah!" she said. "Look, sweet pole, this evening I'll leave my garden door unlatched. When it's dark, come and see me. I'll have your mission instructions for you then; you'll be leaving the Cloister at dawn."

Rillor raised his eyebrows. "Mission instructions? Is that all you'll have for me? It's been too long."

Idri chuckled. "It's never too long. The longer the better."

He took a short step toward her, but she pressed him away. "This evening," she repeated. "Right now I need to get back. I have further arrangements to make."

They rode back separately, Rillor fantasizing the evening to come. Idri, however, was thinking about another captain-a Tiger captain. As far as she'd seen, Tigers had no scruples or reluctance about killing. They weren't even interested in the reasons. All they wanted was orders.

What they lacked was finesse, and not only in bed. Rillor was definitely the one for his role in this.

Before first dawn, Sergeant Arva quietly shut the door of his barracks behind him and looked eastward. He had an excellent mental clock, and much preferred being early to being late. There were no street lamps, nor any sign of dawn, only a slender crescent moon, still somewhat short of the meridian. Slinging his bag over a shoulder, he started toward the street.

Arva never heard the man step from behind an ornamental hedge, never heard the blackjack descend. He didn't even bleed, except slightly from ears and nose. His murderer dragged him behind some shrubbery, and quickly but systematically searched Arva's pockets, shirt front, and shoulder bag. Finding a large sealed envelope, he stuck it in his own shirt, then squatted beside his victim to wait.

Moments later a team and coach approached. Shouldering the corpse, the killer strode into the dark street. The coach slowed for him but did not stop. As it rolled by, he pulled its door open, heaved the body inside, then got in himself and pulled the door closed. The coach stopped a couple of hundred yards farther on, where tulip trees darkened the street even more. There the killer transferred the body to the coach's luggage boot, covering it with a tarp. That accomplished, he climbed to the driver's seat and showed him the envelope.

"Take me to Guards Barracks A, and hurry," he said. "I need to be waiting across the street before this Rillor gets there. And give him what I found on the carcass." He thumbed toward the back of the coach.