The elder dy Jironal must seem a cold and unresponsive companion by comparison. The expedition had apparently left a trail of disruption behind as its inquiries grew rough and ready in dy Jironal's frustration. Worse, dy Jironal, who needed Teidez desperately, was insufficiently adept at concealing how little he liked him, and had left him to his handlers—secretary-tutor, guards, and servants—treating him as tailpiece rather than lieutenant. But if, as his surly words hinted, Teidez had begun to reciprocate his chief guardian's dislike, it was surely for all the wrong reasons. And if his new secretary was taking up any of the abandoned load of his noble education, nothing in Teidez's tale gave hint of it.

At length, Nan dy Vrit bade the young people prepare for dinner, and drew the visit to a close. Teidez walked slowly out through Cazaril's antechamber, frowning at his boots. The boy was grown almost as tall as his half brother Orico, his round face hinting that in future he might grow as broad as well, though for now he kept youth's muscular fitness. Cazaril turned a leaf in his account book at random, dipped his pen again, and glanced up with a tentative smile. "How do you fare, my lord?"

Teidez shrugged, but then, halfway across the room, wheeled back, and came to Cazaril's table. His expression was not miffed—or not merely miffed—but tired and troubled as well. He drummed his finger briefly on the wood, and stared down over the pile of books and papers. Cazaril folded his hands and cast him an encouraging look of inquiry.

Teidez said abruptly, "There's something wrong in Cardegoss. Isn't there."

There were so many things wrong in Cardegoss, Cazaril scarcely knew how to take Teidez's words. He said cautiously, "What makes you think that?"

Teidez made a little gesture, pulled short. "Orico is sickly, and does not rule as he should. He sleeps so much, like an old man, but he's not that old. And everyone says he's lost his"—Teidez colored slightly, and his gesture grew vaguer—"you know... cannot act as a man is supposed to, with a woman. Has it never struck you that there is something uncanny about his strange illness?"

After a slight hesitation, Cazaril temporized, "Your observations are shrewd, Royse."

"Lord Dondo's death was uncanny, too. I think it's all of a piece!"

The boy was thinking; good! "You should take your thoughts to..." not dy Jironal, "your brother Orico. He is the most proper authority to address them." Cazaril tried to imagine Teidez getting a straight answer out of Orico, and sighed. If Iselle could not draw sense from the man, with all her passionate persuasion, what hope had the much less articulate Teidez? Orico would evade answer unless stiffened to it in advance.

Should Cazaril take this tutelage into his own hands? Not only had he not been given authority to disclose the state secret, he wasn't even supposed to know it himself. And... the knowledge of the Golden General's curse needed to come straight to Teidez from the roya, not around him or despite him, lest it take up a suspicious tinge of conspiracy.

He'd been silent too long. Teidez leaned forward across the table, eyes narrowing, and hissed, "Lord Cazaril, what do you know?"

I know we dare not leave you in ignorance much longer. Nor Iselle either. "Royse, I shall talk to you of this later. I cannot answer you tonight."

Teidez's lips tightened. He swiped a hand through his dark amber curls in a gesture of impatience. His eyes were uncertain, untrusting, and, Cazaril thought, strangely lonely. "I see," he said in a bleak tone, and turned on his heel to march out. His low-voiced mutter carried back from the corridor, "I must do it myself..."

If he meant, talk to Orico, good. Cazaril would go to Orico first, though, yes, and if that proved insufficient, return with Umegat to back him up. He set his pens in their jar, closed his books, took a breath to steel himself against the twinges that stabbed him with sudden movement, and pushed to his feet.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ORICO WAS EASIER RESOLVED upon than accomplished. Taking him as still an ambassador for Iselle's Ibran proposal, the roya ducked away from Cazaril on sight, and set the master of his chamber to offer up a dozen excuses for his indisposition. The matter was made more difficult by the need for this conversation to take place in private, just between the two of them, and uninterrupted. Cazaril was walking down the corridor from the banqueting hall after supper, head down and considering how best to corner his royal quarry, when a thump on his shoulder half spun him around.

He looked up, and an apology for his clumsy abstraction died on his lips. The man he'd run into was Ser dy Joal, one of Dondo's now-unemployed bravos—and what were all those ripe souls doing for pocket money these days? Had they been inherited by Dondo's brother?—flanked by one of his comrades, half-grinning, and Ser dy Maroc, who frowned uneasily. The man who'd run into him, Cazaril corrected himself. The candlelight from the mirrored wall sconces made bright sparks in the younger man's alert eyes.

"Clumsy oaf!" roared dy Joal, sounding just a trifle rehearsed. "How dare you crowd me from the door?"

"I beg your pardon, Ser dy Joal," said Cazaril. "My mind was elsewhere." He made a half bow, and began to go around.

Dy Joal dodged sideways, blocking him, and swung back his vest-cloak to reveal the hilt of his sword. "I say you crowded me. Do you give me the lie, as well?"

This is an ambush. Ah. Cazaril stopped, his mouth tightening. Wearily, he said, "What do you want, dy Joal?"

"Bear witness!" Dy Joal motioned to his comrade and dy Maroc. "He crowded me."

His comrade obediently replied, "Aye, I saw," though dy Maroc looked much less certain.

"I seek a touch with you for this, Lord Cazaril!" said dy Joal.

"I see that you do," said Cazaril dryly. But was this drunken stupidity, or the world's simplest form of assassination? A duel to first blood, approved practice and outlet for high spirits among young courtly hotheads, followed by The sword slipped, upon my honor! He ran upon it! and whatever number of paid witnesses one could afford to confirm it.

"I say I will have three drops of your blood, to clear this slight." It was the customary challenge.

"I say you should go dip your head in a bucket of water until you sober up, boy. I do not duel. Eh?" Cazaril lifted his arms briefly, hands out, flipping his own vest-cloak open to show he'd borne no sword in to dinner. "Let me pass."

"Urrac, lend the coward your sword! We have our two witnesses. We'll have this outside, now." Dy Joal jerked his head toward the doors at the corridor's end that led out into the main courtyard.

The comrade unbuckled his sword, grinned, and tossed it to Cazaril. Cazaril lifted an eyebrow, but not his hand, and let the sheathed weapon clatter, uncaught, to his feet. He kicked it back to its owner. "I do not duel."

"Shall I call you coward direct?" demanded Joal. His lips were parted, and his breath already rushing in his elation, anticipating battle. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye a couple of other men, attracted by the raised voices, advance curiously down the corridor toward this knot of altercation.

"Call me anything you please, depending on how much of a fool you want to sound. Your mouthings are naught to me," sighed Cazaril. He did his best to project languid boredom, but his blood was pulsing faster in his ears. Fear? No. Fury ...

"You have a lord's name. Have you no lord's honor?"

One corner of Cazaril's mouth turned up, not at all humorously. "The confusion of mind you dub honor is a disease, for which the Roknari galley-masters have the cure."

"So much for your honor, then. You shall not refuse me three drops for mine!"