Palli opened and shut his mouth, swallowed, then jumped to his feet and bowed to them. "Royesse. Lady Betriz. Alas that I must take my leave of you. I return to Palliar this morning."

"We shall regret the loss of your company, March," said the royesse faintly.

Palli wheeled to Cazaril. "Caz—" He gave an apologetic little nod. "I'm sorry I disbelieved you about the Jironals. You weren't crazed after all. You were right on every point."

Cazaril blinked, nonplussed. "I thought you had believed me..."

"Old dy Yarrin was as canny as you. He suspected this trouble from the first. I'd asked him why he thought we needed to bring so large a troop to enter Cardegoss—he murmured, ‘No boy—it is to leave Cardegoss.' I didn't understand his joke. Till now." Palli vented a bitter laugh.

"Will you be—will you not be returning here?" asked Betriz in a rather breathy voice. Her hand went to her lips.

"I swear before the goddess—" Palli touched his hand to forehead, lip, navel, and groin, and then spread it flat over his heart in the fivefold sacred gesture, "I will not return to Cardegoss except it be to Dondo dy Jironal's funeral. Ladies—" He stood at attention and gave them a bow. "Caz—" He grasped Cazaril's hands across the table and bent to kiss them; hastily, Cazaril returned the honor. "Farewell." Palli turned and strode from the room.

The space he had vacated seemed to collapse around his absence, as if four men had just left. Betriz and Iselle were drawn into it; Betriz tiptoed to the outer door and peered around it, to spy the last of his clomping retreat down the corridor.

Cazaril picked up his quill and drew the feather end nervously through his fingers. "How much of that did you hear?" he asked the ladies.

Betriz glanced back at Iselle, and replied, "All of it, I think. His voice was not pitched low." She returned slowly across the antechamber, her face troubled.

Cazaril groped for some way to caution these unintended auditors. "It was the business of a closed council of a holy military order. Palli should not have spoken of it outside the Daughter's house."

Iselle said, "But isn't he a lord dedicat, a member of that council—doesn't he have as much right—duty!—to speak as any of them?"

"Yes, but... in the heat of his temper, he has made serious accusations against his own holy general that he has not the... power to prove."

Iselle gave him a sharp look. "Do you believe him?"

"My belief is not the issue."

"But—if it's true—it's a crime, and worse than a crime. An insulting impiety, and a violation of the trust not only of the roya and the goddess above, but of all who are sworn to obey in their names below."

She sees the consequences in both directions! Good! No, wait, no. "We haven't seen the evidence. Maybe the council was justified in discarding it. We cannot know."

"If we can't see the evidence as March dy Palliar has, can we judge the men and reason backward to it?"

"No," said Cazaril firmly. "Even a habitual liar may tell the truth from time to time, or an honest man be tempted to lie by some extraordinary need."

Betriz, startled, said, "Do you think your friend was lying?"

"As he is my friend, no, of course not, but... but he might be mistaken."

"This is all too murky," said Iselle decisively. "I shall pray to the goddess for guidance."

Cazaril, remembering the last time she'd done that, said hastily, "You need not reach that high for guidance, Royesse. You inadvertently overheard a confidence. You have a plain duty not to repeat it. In word or deed."

"But if it's true, it matters. It matters greatly, Lord Caz!"

"Nevertheless, liking and disliking do not constitute proof any more than hearsay does."

Iselle frowned thoughtfully. "It's true I do not like Lord Dondo. He smells odd, and his hands are always hot and sweaty."

Betriz added, with a grimace of distaste, "Yes, and he's always touching one with them. Ugh!"

The quill snapped in Cazaril's hand, spraying a small spatter of ink drops on his sleeve. He set the pieces aside. "Oh?" he said, in what he trusted was a neutral tone. "When was this?"

"Oh, everywhere, at the dances, at dinner, in the halls. I mean, many gentlemen here flirt, some quite agreeably, but Lord Dondo... presses. There are enough fine ladies here at court nearer his own age. I don't know why he doesn't go try to charm them."

Cazaril almost asked her if thirty-five seemed as ancient to her as forty, but bit it short, and said instead, "He desires influence over Royse Teidez, of course. And therefore desires whatever good grace he can obtain from Teidez's sister, directly or through her attendants."

Betriz's breath puffed out in relief. "Oh, do you think that's so? It made me quite ill to think he might really be in love with me. But if he's only flattering me for his advantage, that's all right."

Cazaril was still laboring to work this through when Iselle said, "He has a very odd idea of my character if he thinks seducing my attendants will gain my good graces! And I do not think he needs any more influence over Teidez, if what I've seen so far is a sample. I mean—if it were good influence, shouldn't we see good results? We ought to see Teidez growing firmer in his studies, clearer in health, opening his mind to a wider world of some kind."

Cazaril also bit back the observation that Teidez was certainly getting that last from Lord Dondo, in a way.

Iselle went on with growing passion, "Shouldn't Teidez be apprenticing statecraft? At least seeing the Chancellery work, sitting in on councils, listening to envoys? Or if not statecraft, real warcraft? Hunting is fine, but shouldn't he be learning military drill with men? His spiritual diet seems all candy and no meat. What kind of roya do they mean to train him to be?"

Possibly, one just like Orico—sodden and sickly—who will not compete with Chancellor dy Jironal for power in Chalion. But what Cazaril said aloud was, "I do not know, Royesse."

"How can I know? How can I know anything?" She stepped back and forth across the chamber, her spine tense with frustration, her skirts swishing. "Mama and Grandmama would wish me to watch out for him. Cazaril, can you at least find out if it's true about selling the Daughter's men to the Heir of Ibra? That at least can't be any kind of subtle secret!"

She was right about that. Cazaril swallowed. "I'll try, my lady. But—then what?" He made his voice stern, for emphasis. "Dondo dy Jironal is a power you dare not treat with anything but strictest courtesy."

Iselle swirled round, and stared intently at him. "No matter how corrupt that power is?"

"The more corrupt, the less safe."

Iselle raised her chin. "So, Castillar, tell me—how safe, in your judgment, is Dondo dy Jironal?"

He was caught out, his mouth at half cock. So say it—Dondo dy Jironal is the second-most-dangerous man in Chalion, after his brother. Instead, he picked up a new quill from the clay jar and began shaping its tip with the penknife. After a moment or two he got out, "I do not like his sweaty hands either."

Iselle snorted. But Cazaril was saved from further cross-examination by a call from Nan dy Vrit, some vital little matter of scarves and straying seed pearls, and the two ladies went back into their chambers.

ON COOL AFTERNOONS WHEN NO MORE-EXCITING hunting party went out, Royesse Iselle vented her restless energy by gathering up her little household and going for rides in the oak woods near Cardegoss. Cazaril, along with Lady Betriz and a couple of wheezing grooms, was cantering in the wake of her dappled mare down a green ride, the crisp air spangled with golden falling leaves, when his ear picked up a thunder of new hooves gaining ground behind them. He glanced over his shoulder, and his stomach lurched; a cavalcade of masked men was pelting down the track. The yelling crew overtook them. He had his sword half-out before he recognized the horses and equipage as belonging to some of the Zangre's younger courtiers. The men were dressed in an amazing array of rags, bare arms and legs smeared with a dirt suspiciously reminiscent of boot blacking.