Cazaril turned on the second Baocian, whose blade drooped abruptly. Recoiling from Cazaril's step, the guardsman cried hastily, "Castillar, we do this to preserve the life of Roya Orico!"

"Do what? Is Orico in there? What are you about?"

A feline snarl, rising to a yowl, from inside whirled Cazaril around, and he left the daunted Baocian to the Zangre guards, now encouraged to advance. He strode into the shadowed aisle of the menagerie.

The old tongueless groom was on his knees on the tiles, bent over, making choked weeping sounds. His thumbless hands were pressed to his face, and a little blood ran between his fingers; he looked up at the sound of Cazaril's step, his quavering wet mouth ravaged with woe. As he ran past the bears' stalls, Cazaril glimpsed two inert black heaps studded with crossbow bolts, fur wet and matted with blood. The vellas' stall door was open, and they lay on their sides in the bright straw, eyes open and fixed, throats slashed.

At the far end of the aisle, Royse Teidez was rising to his feet from the limp body of the spotted cat. He pushed himself up with his bloodied sword, and leaned upon it, panting, his face wild and exultant. His shadow roiled around him like thunderclouds at midnight. He looked up at Cazaril and grinned fiercely. "Ha!" he cried.

The Baocian guard captain, a twisted little bird still in his hand, plunged out of the aviary into Cazaril's path. Bundles of colored feathers, dead and dying birds of all sizes, littered the aviary floor, some still fluttering helplessly. "Hold, Castillar—" he began. His words were whipped away as Cazaril grasped him by the tunic and spun him around, throwing him to the floor into the path of Palli, who was following on his heels muttering in astonished dismay, "Bastard weeps. Bastard weeps..." That had been Palli's battle-mumble at Gotorget, when his sword had risen and fallen endlessly on men coming up over the ladders, and he'd had no breath for cries.

"Hold him," Cazaril snarled over his shoulder, and strode on toward Teidez.

Teidez threw back his head and met Cazaril's eyes square-on. "You can't stop me—I've done it! I have saved the roya!"

"What—what—what—" Cazaril was so frightened and furious, his lips and mind could scarcely form coherent words. "Fool boy! What destructive madness is this, this... ?" His hands opened, shaking, and jerked about.

Teidez leaned toward him, his teeth glinting in his drawn-back lips. "I've broken the curse, the black magic that has been making Orico sick. It was coming from these evil animals. They were a secret gift from the Roknari, meant to slowly poison him. And we've slain the Roknari spy—I think..." Teidez glanced somewhat doubtfully over his shoulder.

Only then did Cazaril notice the last body on the floor at the far end of the aisle. Umegat lay on his side in a heap, as unmoving as the birds or the vellas. The carcasses of the sand foxes lay tumbled nearby. Cazaril had not seen him at first, because his clear white glow was extinguished. Dead? Cazaril moaned, lurched toward him, and fell to his knees. The left side of Umegat's head was lacerated, the gray-bronze braid disheveled and soaked with gore. His skin was as gray as an old rag. But his scalp was still sluggishly bleeding, therefore...

"Does he still breathe?" asked Teidez, advancing to peer over Cazaril's shoulder. "The captain hit him with his sword pommel, when he would not give way..."

"Fool, fool, fool boy!"

"No fool I! He was behind it all." Teidez nodded toward Umegat. "A Roknari wizard, sent to drain and kill Orico."

Cazaril ground his teeth. "Umegat is a Temple divine. Sent by the Bastard's Order to care for the sacred animals, who were given by the god to preserve Orico. And if you have not slain him, it is the only good luck here." Umegat's breath came shallow and odd, his hands were cold as a corpse's, but he did breathe.

"No..." Teidez shook his head. "No, you're wrong, that can't be..." For the first time, the heroic elation wobbled in his face.

Cazaril uncoiled and rose to his feet, and Teidez stepped back a trifle. Cazaril turned to find Palli, blessedly, at his back, and Ferda at Palli's shoulder, staring around at it all in horrified amazement. Palli, at least, Cazaril could trust to know field aid.

"Palli," he rasped out, "take over here. See to the wounded grooms, this one especially. His skull may be broken." He pointed down to Umegat's darkened body. "Ferda."

"My lord?"

Ferda's badge and colors would gain him admittance anywhere in the sacred precincts. "Run to the temple. Find Archdivine Mendenal. Let no one and nothing keep you from coming instantly to him. Tell him what has transpired here, and have him send Temple physicians—tell him, Umegat needs the Mother's midwife, the special one. He'll know what you mean. Hurry!"

Palli, already kneeling beside Umegat, added, "Give me your cloak. And run, boy!"

Ferda tossed his cloak at his commander, whirled, and was gone before Palli drew a second breath. Palli began to wrap the gray wool around the unconscious Roknari.

Cazaril turned back to Teidez, whose eyes were darting this way and that in growing uncertainty. The royse retreated to the life-emptied husk of the leopard, six feet from nose to tail tip lying limply on the tiles. Its beautiful spotted fur hid the mouths of its wounds, marked by matted blood on its sides. Cazaril thought of dy Sanda's pierced corpse.

"I slew it with my sword, because it was a royal symbol of my House even if it was ensorcelled," Teidez offered. "And to test my courage. It clawed my leg." He bent and rubbed awkwardly at his right shin, where his black trousers were indeed ripped and hanging in blood-wet ribbons.

Teidez was the Heir of Chalion, and Iselle's brother. Cazaril could not wish the beast had bitten out his throat. Should not, anyway. "Five gods, how did you come by this black nonsense?"

"It is not nonsense! You knew Orico's illness was uncanny! I saw it in your face—Bastard's demons, anyone could see it. Lord Dondo told me the secret, before he died. Was murdered—murdered to keep the secret, I think, but it was too late."

"Did you come up with this... plan of attack, on your own?"

Teidez's head came up, proudly. "No, but when I was the only one left, I carried it through all by myself! We had been going to do it together, after Dondo married Iselle—destroy the curse, and free the House of Chalion from its evil influence. But then it was left to me. So I made myself his banner-carrier, his arm to reach from beyond the grave and strike one last blow for Chalion!"

"Ah! Ah!" Cazaril was so overcome, he stamped in a circle. But had Dondo believed his own rubbish, or had this been a clever plan to use Teidez, obliquely and unprovably, to disable or assassinate Orico? Malice, or stupidity? With Dondo, who could tell? "No!"

"Lord Cazaril, what should we do with these Baocians?" Foix's voice inquired diffidently.

Cazaril looked up to find the disarmed Baocian guard captain held between Foix and one of the Zangre guards. "And you!" snarled Cazaril at him. "You tool, you fool, you lent yourself to this, this stupid sacrilege, and told no one? Or are you Dondo's creature still? Ah! Take him and his men and lock them in a cell, until..." Cazaril hesitated. Dondo was behind this, oh yes, reaching out to wreak chaos and disaster, it bore his stamp—but for once, Cazaril suspected, Martou was not behind Dondo. Quite the opposite, unless he missed his guess. "Until the chancellor is notified," Cazaril continued. "You there—" A downward sweep of his arm commanded another Zangre guard's attention. "Run to the Chancellery, or Jironal Palace or wherever he may be found, and tell him what has happened here. Beg him to wait upon me before he goes to Orico."

"Lord Cazaril, you cannot order my guards arrested!" cried Teidez.