Agents of the Brothen Church causing chaos? Why? They were a minority in Khaurene. And across the End of Connec. The border counts whose faith more closely aligned them with Sublime than Immaculate had defected to Navaya, the Santerin dukedom of Tramaine, or Arnhand, already. Navaya's influence continued to wax along the Terliagan Littoral. King Peter did not permit disorder in his realm. Order was what people wanted most.

"We wish you all grace and good fortune, Master," Archimbault said. "But we'll continue to prepare for the worst."

Madam Archimbault said, "My cousin Lettie's son Milias is a varlet at Metrelieux. He sees the Duke all the time. He thinks Tormond is demented. The way really old people get."

Amis Hainteau said, "It isn't badly behaved Brothen Episcopals or the Duke's apathy that worries me. It's the Night I'm scared of."

Brother Candle asked, "There's more bad news?"

Raulet Archimbault nodded. "The Night has begun to stir. It started with mischief. That turned to malice. And now it's getting dangerous to go out after sunset."

"There have been murders." Kedle's manner made it sound like wholesale butchery started up with every sundown.

'Two," her father said. "Blamed on the Night because there wasn't any more obvious explanation."

"Only two," Kedle admitted. "But they were awful. The people were torn to pieces. And parts were missing."

Grim. But ordinary little men, tradesmen, artisans, shopkeepers, were capable of such evil. There were monsters behind a lot of smiling eyes. Quite possibly some of the agents of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.

Brother Candle promised, "I'll find out what's being done."

"Ain't nothing being done!" someone grumbled. An angry murmur followed.

"That may be," Brother Candle said. "But Tormond and I have known each other since childhood. Sometimes he listens lo me when nobody else can get his attention."

Prayers for his success broke out immediately.

Metrelieux, home of the Dukes of Khaurene, stood on a bluff overlooking a bend in the Vierses River. Brother Candle had been in and out many times in his three score plus years. Each time he approached it he thought the place seemed that much nearer surrendering to the seduction of gravity. The old gates would not close anymore. And the same few guards were on duty, now, daily less capable of offering any real resistance to an incursion. No one was there to meet him. He made his way to the privy audience, where he found a dozen others also waiting.

Count Raymone asked, "You take a look at the outside of this place, Brother? The disease has gotten to the stone itself."

Time's bite was even more obvious here inside.

The Raults had not visited before. All they saw was old. Socia Rault was angry and exasperated. She had received strict instructions to hold her tongue, both from her brothers and Count Raymone. The Count had enjoyed Socia's company for several days now and had learned to dread the bite of her sarcasm.

She was too young to be concerned by considerations of consequence.

Count Raymone had developed an interest, in part, Brother Candle suspected, because Socia made it ever more clear that she could not be won through flattery and romantic ballads.

The Count was a fair lutist and managed a workmanlike baritone. For a poet and composer, though, he made an outstanding soldier and indifferent administrator.

Still, he tried, demonstrating the same ferocious determination he had shown in dealing both with Haiden Backe and those Arnhanders he had butchered during the Black Mountain Massacre.

Socia did appreciate his effort. She understood determination. She was determined herself.

Or just bone stubborn if you consulted her brothers.

Brother Candle socialized and observed for half an hour before Tormond's chief herald, Bicot Hodier, materialized, embarrassed. "My apologies, Master. I didn't think you'd arrive on time. Come with me, please."

Hodier led Brother Candle to a small, chilly sitting room with no proper furnishings and no refreshments. It was unpleasant and lonely, not unlike the anchorite's cell it resembled. Moisture collected on the cold walls, then dribbled down to puddle on the floor. The chill was too deep for mold or mildew.

He waited an hour, pacing more than sitting on the room's one damp stone bench. Shivering. His patience waned, a weakness he had not suffered since his ascension to Perfect status.

"Is it getting to you, too, Brother?"

He turned, confessing with a nod, though unsure what "it" might be. "Sir Eardale?" He pronounced it "Ey-air-da-lay," which was nearer the Santerin than most managed.

"Yes. And you want to know why me and why this."

Brother Candle exercised his nod again. Sir Eardale Dunn was not the man he expected to see. Dunn was Duke Tormond's top soldier and adviser. The Perfect Master wondered why he did not return to Santerin. He must like his life here, despite Duke Tormond's tendency to ignore his advice.

Sir Eardale said, "This room is proof against sorcery. The stone came from the Holy Lands, quarried near one of the veils of power. You waited so long because I wanted to make sure nobody noticed me."

"I see." Though he did not.

"No, you don't. Not yet. But I'll explain."

"Please do."

"Something bad is happening here. The Duke hasn't been himself. Not for a long time. Lately, though, he's been getting worse. It's like a wasting disease of the spirit."

"He isn't young anymore." Tormond was just weeks older ihan Brother Candle.

"He has those problems, of course. Complicated by his diet. All meat and wine. But this is something else. It exaggerates those tendencies that make him ineffective."

"Has anyone new moved into Metrelieux?" Having summed the evidence, Brother Candle suspected malign sorcery. But by whom?

"No one significant. There's always turnover in staff and pages. None of them suspicious. It's someone we know. Someone who's been here all along. Who found a new talent recently. Or a new calling."

"Uhm. And this secretive interview is because?"

"Because you have stature and respect and haven't been here to become part of any faction. You're neutral. You care about the Duke and you care about the End of Connec. You might see something the rest of us can't."

"I see." More, probably, than Sir Eardale thought.

The knight from Santerin would not be alone in reaching the conclusions he had presented. Everyone not guilty would be watching everyone else, hoping to finger a villain. The paranoia would be thick.

"I misspoke," Dunn said. 'There is one new face. Father Rinpoche, representing our friends in Salpeno."

"That idiot? I thought he was dead."

"Unfortunately, no. Or, maybe, fortunately. He's too stupid and blindered to be a real danger."

"Why would they send him? Of all people?"

"He's a favorite of Anne of Menand. And Anne is in the ascendant, these days. She's real chummy with the Brothen Church lately, too."

"She always was." The mistress of Arnhand's King Charlve once raised her own band of crusaders to punish the Connec on the Church's behalf. The force fell apart before it did anything but that hadn't been Anne's fault.

"More so, now. I hear she bought the letters of marque that belonged to Haiden Backe. From Bishop Farfog, who managed to salvage them when he got away from Count Raymone. The Bishop, by the way, is now the Brothen Patriarch's chief agent in the Church's effort to tame the Connec."

Sublime seemed to dump all his dimmest and most corrupt agents on the Connec.

Dunn added, "I don't think Rinpoche is here as a true ambassador. He's really a spy, looking for weaknesses. Finding collaborators. And probably not doing well at that. He's too stupid."