"Can you kill Dondo? Iselle is in there praying to the Lady to slay either her or Dondo before the wedding, she doesn't care anymore which. Well, I care which. I think it should be Dondo."

"I entirely agree. Look, Lady Betriz. Wait, just wait. I'll see what I can do."

If the gods will not answer your prayers, Lady Iselle, by the gods I will try to.

He spent hours the following day, the last before the marriage, trying to stalk Lord Dondo through the Zangre like a boar in a forest of stone. He never got within striking distance. In midafternoon, Dondo returned to the Jironals' great palace in town, and Cazaril could not get past its walls or gates. The second time Dondo's bravos threw him out, one held him while another struck him enough times in the chest, belly, and groin to make his return to the Zangre a slow weave, supporting himself like a drunk with a hand out to nearby walls. The roya's guards, whom he had scraped off in a dodge through Cardegoss's alleys, arrived in time to watch both the beating and the crawl home. They did not interfere with either.

In a burst of inspiration, he bethought himself of the secret passage that had run between the Zangre and the Jironals' great palace when it had been the property of Lord dy Lutez. Ias and dy Lutez had been reputed to use it daily, for conference, or nightly, for assignations of love, depending on the teller. The tunnel, he discovered, was now about as secret as Cardegoss's main street, and had guards on both ends, and locked doors. His attempt at bribery won him shoves and curses, and the threat of another beating.

Some assassin I am, he thought bitterly, as he reeled into his bedchamber as dusk descended, and fell groaning into his bed. Head pounding, body aching, he lay still for a time, then at last roused himself enough to light a candle. He ought to go upstairs, and check on his ladies, but he didn't think he could bear the weeping. Or the reporting of his failure to Betriz, or what she would demand of him after that. If he could not kill Dondo, what right had he to try to thwart her effort?

I would gladly die, if only I could stop this abomination tomorrow...

Do you mean that?

He sat stiffly, wondering if that last voice was quite his own. His tongue had moved a little behind his lips, as usual for when he was babbling to himself. Yes.

He lurched around to the end of his bed, fell to his knees, and flipped open the lid of his trunk. He dived down amongst the folded garments, scented with cloves as proof against moths, until he came to a black velvet vest-cloak folded around a brown wool robe. Folded around a ciphered notebook that he had never finished deciphering when the crooked judge had fled Valenda, that it had seemed too late to return to the Temple without embarrassing explanations. Feverishly, he drew it out, and lit more candles. There's not much time left. About a third of it was left untranslated. Forget all the failed experiments. Go to the last page, eh?

Even in the bad cipher, the wool merchant's despair came through, in a kind of strange shining simplicity. Eschewing all his previous bizarre elaborations, he had turned at the last not to magic, but to plain prayer. Rat and crow only to carry the plea, candles only to light his way, herbs only to lift his heart with their scents, and compose his mind to purity of will; a will then put aside, laid wholehearted on the god's altar. Help me. Help me. Help me.

Those were the last words entered in the notebook.

I can do that, thought Cazaril in wonder.

And if he failed... there would still be Betriz and her knife.

I will not fail. I've failed practically everything else in my life. I will not fail death.

He slipped the book under his pillow, locked his door behind him, and went to find a page.

The sleepy boy he selected was waiting in the corridor upon the pleasure of the lords and ladies at their dinner in Orico's banqueting hall, where Iselle's nonappearance was doubtless the subject of much gossip, not even kept to a whisper since none of the principals were present. Dondo roistered privately in his palace with his hangers-on; Orico still cowered out in the woods.

He fished a gold royal from his purse and held it up, smiling through the O of his thumb and finger. "Hey, boy. Would you like to earn a royal?"

The Zangre pages had learned to be wary; a royal was enough to buy some truly intimate services from those who sold such. And enough to be a caution, to those who didn't care to play those games. "Doing what, my lord?"

"Catch me a rat."

"A rat, my lord? Why?"

Ah. Why. Why, so that I can work the crime of death magic upon the second most powerful lord in Chalion, of course! No.

Cazaril leaned his shoulders against the wall, and smiled down confidingly. "When I was in the fortress of Gotorget, during the siege three years ago—did you know I was its commander? until my brave general sold it out from under us, that is—we learned to eat rats. Tasty little things, if you could catch enough of them. I really miss the flavor of a good, candle-roasted rat haunch. Catch me a really big, fat one, and there will be another to match this." Cazaril dropped the coin in the page's hand, and licked his lips, wondering how crazed he looked right now. The page was edging farther from him. "You know where my chamber is?"

"Yes, m'lord?"

"Bring it there. In a bag. Quick as you can. I'm hungry." Cazaril lurched off, laughing. Really laughing, not feigning it. A weird, wild exhilaration filled his heart.

It lasted until he reached his bedchamber again and sat to plan the rest of his ploy, his dark prayer, his suicide. It was night; the crow would not fly to his window at night, even for the piece of bread he'd snatched from the banqueting hall before returning to the main block. He turned the bread roll over in his hands. The crows roosted in Fonsa's Tower. If they wouldn't fly to him, he could crawl to them, over the roof slates. Sliding in the dark? And then back to his chamber, with a squawking bundle under his arm?

No. Let the bundle be the bagged rat. If he did the deed there, in the shadow of the broken roof upon whatever scorched and shaking platform still stood inside, he'd only have to make the trip one way. And... death magic had worked there once before, eh? Spectacularly, for Iselle's grandfather. Would Fonsa's spirit lend his aid to his granddaughter's unholy soldier? His tower was a fraught place, sacred to the Bastard and his pets, especially at night, midnight in the cold rain. Cazaril's body need never be found, nor buried. The crows could feast upon his remains, fair trade for the depredation he planned upon their poor comrade. Animals were innocent, even the grisly crows; that innocence surely made them all a little sacred.

The dubious page arrived much quicker than Cazaril had thought he might, with a wriggling bag. Cazaril checked its contents—the snapping, hissing rat must have weighed a pound and a half—and paid up. The page pocketed his coin and walked off, staring over his shoulder. Cazaril fastened the mouth of the bag tight and locked it in his chest to prevent the condemned prisoner's escape.

He put off his courtier's garb and put on the robe and vest-cloak the wool merchant had died in, just for luck. Boots, shoes, barefoot? Which would be more secure, upon the slippery stones and slates? Barefoot, he decided. But he slipped on his shoes for one last, practical expedition.

"Betriz?" he whispered loudly through the door of his office antechamber. "Lady Betriz? I know it's late—can you come out to me?"

She was still fully dressed for the day, still pale and exhausted. She let him grip her hands, and leaned her forehead briefly against his chest. The warm scent of her hair took him back for a dizzy instant to his second day in Valenda, standing by her in the Temple crowd. The only thing unchanged from that happy hour was her loyalty.