“We are private.” she said. Saidar touched her ward and was gone. Someone had tried to listen in. not the first time that had happened. With so many women who could channel gathered in the palace, it would have been surprising if no one attempted to snoop, but she wished she knew how to trace whoever was making those attempts. As it was, she hardly dared say anything of substance without a ward in place.

“Then I have a little good news,” Mistress Harfor said, shifting her folder but not opening it, “from Jon Skellit.” The barber had been most assiduous about carrying his reports, approved beforehand by Reene, out to Arymilla and bringing back what he could learn in the camps outside the city. He was in the employ of Naean Arawn, but Naean, supporting Arymilla’s claim, would surely share Skellit’s reports with Arymilla. Unfortunately, what he had been able to learn so far had not been much of use. “He says that Arymilla and the High Seats supporting her intend to be in the first party to ride into Caem-lyn. She boasts of it constantly, it seems.”

Elayne sighed. Arymilla and the others stayed together, moving from camp to camp according to no pattern she could see, and for some time great effort had gone into trying to learn where they would be ahead of time. A simple matter then to send soldiers through a gateway to seize all of them at once and decapitate her opposition. As simple as such things could be, anyway. Men would die under the best of circumstances, some of the High Seats might well escape, yet if only Arymilla herself could be taken, there would be an end to it. Elenia and Naean had made public renunciation of their own claims, which was irreversible. That pair might go on supporting Arymilla if they remained free-they had tied themselves to her tightly-but with Arymilla in hand, all Elayne really would have to contend with was gaining the support of at least four more of the great Houses. As if it were easy. So far, efforts in that direction had proven futile. Perhaps today would bring good news on that front, though. But this news was useless. If Arymilla and the others were riding into Caemlyn it would mean the city was beyond the brink of falling. Worse, if Arymilla was boasting. she must believe it would happen soon. The woman was a fool in many ways, but it would be a mistake to underestimate her completely. She had not carried her claim this far by being an absolute fool.

“This is your good news?” Birgitte said. She saw the implications, too. “A hint of when might help.”

Reene spread her hands. “Arymilla gave Skellit a gold crown with her own hands once, my Lady. He turned it over to me as proof that he’s reformed.” Her lips compressed for a moment; Skellit had saved himself from hanging, yet he would never regain trust. “That’s the only time the man’s been within ten paces of her. He has to go by what he can pick up gossiping with the other men.” She hesitated. “He’s very afraid, my Lady. The men in those camps are certain they’ll take the city in a matter of days.”

“Afraid enough to turn his coat a third time?” Elayne asked quietly. There was nothing to say to the other matter.

“No, my Lady. If Naean, or Arymilla, learns what he’s done, he’s a dead man, and he knows it. But he’s afraid if the city falls, they will learn. I think he may bolt soon.”

Elayne nodded grimly. Mercenaries were not the only rats to flee fire. “Do you have any good news, Master Norry?”

The First Clerk had been standing quietly, fingering his embossed leather folder and trying to appear as if he were not listening to Reene. “I think I can better Mistress Harfor, my Lady.” There might have been a touch of triumph in his smile. Of late, it was rare for him to have better news than she. “I have a man I believe can follow Mellar successfully. May I have him brought in?”

Now, that was excellent news. Five men had died trying to follow Doilin Mellar when he went out into the city at night, and the “coincidence” seemed strained. The first time, it had appeared the fellow fell afoul of a footpad, and she thought nothing of it beyond settling a pension on the man’s widow. The Guards managed to keep crime under some control-except for arson, at least-yet robbers used darkness as a cloak to hide in. The other four had seemed the same, killed with a single knife thrust, their purses emptied, but however dangerous the streets at night, coincidence hardly seemed credible.

When she nodded, the spindly old man hurried to the doors and opened one to put his head out. She could not hear what he said-the ward worked both ways-but in a few minutes a burly Guardsman entered pushing ahead of him a shuffling man with fetters on his wrists and ankles. Everything about the prisoner seemed… average. He was neither fat nor thin, tall nor short. His hair was brown, of no particular shade she could name, and his eyes as well. His face was so ordinary she doubted she could describe him. No feature stood out at all. His clothing was just as unremarkable, a plain brown coat and breeches of neither the best wool nor the worst, somewhat rumpled and beginning to show dirt, a lightly embossed belt with a simple metal buckle that might have ten thousand twins in Caemlyn. In short, he was eminently forgettable. Birgitte motioned the Guardsman to stop the fellow well short of the chairs and told him to wait outside.

“A reliable man,” Norry said, watching the Guardsman leave. “Afrim Hansard. He served your mother faithfully, and knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

“Chains?’ Elayne said.

“This is Samwil Hark, my Lady,” Norry said, eyeing the man with the sort of curiosity he might have shown toward an unfamiliar and oddly shaped animal, “a remarkably successful cutpurse. The Guards only caught him because another ruffian… um… ‘turned the cat on him.’ as they say in the streets, hoping to lessen his own sentence for a third offense of strongarm robbery.” A thief would be eager for that. Not only was the flogging longer, the thief-mark branded on his forehead would be much harder to disguise or hide than the mark on his thumb for his second offense. “Anyone who has managed to keep from being caught for as long as Master Hark should be able to carry out the task I have in mind for him.”

“I’m innocent, I am, my Lady.” Hark knuckled his forehead, the iron chains of his fetters clinking, and put on an ingratiating smile. He talked very quickly. “It’s all lies and happenstances, it is. I’m a good Queen’s man, I am. I wore your mother’s colors in the riots, my Lady. Not that I took part in the rioting, you understand. I’m a clerk when I have work, which I’m out of at the moment. But I wore her colors on my cap for all to see, I did.” The bond was full of Birgitte’s skepticism.

“Master Hark’s rooms contained chests full of neatly cut purses,” the First Clerk went on. “There are thousands of them, my Lady. Quite literally thousands. I suppose he may regret keeping… urn… trophies. Most cutpurses have sense enough to get rid of the purse as soon as possible.”

“I picks them up when I sees one, I does, my Lady.” Hark spread his hands as far as his chains allowed and shrugged, the very image of injured innocence. “Maybe it were foolish, but I never saw no harm. Just a harmless sort of amusement, my Lady.”

Mistress Harfor sniffed loudly, disapproval clear on her face. Hark managed to look even more hurt.

“His rooms also contained coins to the value of over one hundred twenty gold crowns, secreted under the floorboards, in cubbyholes in the walls, in the rafters, everywhere. His excuse for that,” Norry raised his voice as Hark opened his mouth again, “is that he distrusts bankers. He claims the money is an inheritance from an aged aunt in Four Kings. I myself very much doubt the magistrates in Four Kings will have registered such an inheritance, though. The magistrate judging his case says he seemed surprised to learn that inheritances are registered.’ Indeed, Hark’s smile laded somewhat at being reminded. “He says that he worked for Wilbin Saems, a merchant, until Saems’ death four months ago, but Master Saems’ daughter maintains the business, and neither she nor any of the other clerks recall any Samwil Hark.”