They grumbled but they had been listening as well; none disagreed. Moria held the outer door for the men while Shiey gave her cupboards a final inspection.

"Took my best cleaver, didn't he?" She prowled quickly through the cutlery, slipping her favorite implements through the leather loops of her belt. "Here, lady." She spun around and flipped a serrated poultry knife the length of the room. Moria felt the hardwood hilt smack into her palm before she'd consciously decided to catch the knife rather than dodge it. "Ain't nothin' can't be hurt wi' a good knife," Shiey informed her with a grin.

Walegrin shoved the trencher to one side. Whatever the barracks' cooks had thrown into the dinner pot smelled as bad as the smoke he had breathed all afternoon, and tasted worse. He had men still out in the streets-more than a dozen good men, not including Thrusher, who had yet to return from his special private assignment. Maybe the palace had good reason for wanting plague sign splashed over every other color of graffiti out there; he hoped they did. The populace was reacting with predictable panic.

He'd kept his men busy fighting but now the sun was down. A Rankan oar-barge flying Vashanka's long-absent standard had tied up at the wharf, its passengers and cargo under imaginary quarantine. No one had yet seen a disease-slain corpse; rumors were getting wilder and darker with each retelling. So far Walegrin didn't believe any of them, but some of the men were showing doubt at the edges and the night had just begun.

Before he could decide on a course of action, the door to his quarters slammed open admitting one of the veterans who'd been with him for years.

"Thrush's at the West Gate with Cythen. They've got a body between 'em an' they say they won't give it over."

"Bloody hells," the commander exclaimed, crumpling his cloak in one fist. "Watch the pot, Zump. I'll be back."

He went down the stairs at a run. He'd believed in Kama; believed in the mugs of ale she'd downed with Strat and him a scant week ago. He'd believed she hadn't put an arrow in Straton and believed she was smart and wary enough to keep herself alive after it'd happened.

The temporary palace morgue was just beyond the public gallows. It glowed faintly in the late twilight. With plague sign up the gravesmen were taking no chances and had laid a fair carpet of quicklime beneath their feet. Thrush was arguing loudly with his escort as Walegrin approached.

"As you were," he commanded, positioning himself carefully between the gravesmen and the shrouded corpse. "What's the problem?"

"It's gotta stay here," the chief digger said, pointing to the dark object behind Walegrin's feet.

Thrusher sucked on his teeth. "But, Commander, he's one of ours: Malm. He deserves the rites inside-beside the men he served with for the last time."

Malm had died two years back and had never stood high in Thrush's estimation. Walegrin peered into the darkness. His friend's face was unreadable. Still, he'd known Thrusher for thirteen years: if the little man wouldn't leave Kama's body with the gravedigger's there had to be a good reason.

"We tend our own," he told the gravesmen.

"The plague, sir. Orders: your orders."

It was easy for the straw-blond commander to lose his temper. "My man hasn't got the plague, damn you. He's got a big, bloody hole where his stomach used to be! Take him to the barracks, Thrush-now!"

Thrush and Cythen needed no urging to heave the sagging burden to their shoulders and double-time it across the parade-ground while Walegrin dueled silently with the gravediggers.

"Got to tell 'em," the gravesman said, looking away as he cocked a thumbtoward the Hall of Justice dome. "Orders're orders. Even them's that make 'em can't break 'em."

Walegrin ran a hand through the ragged hair that had escaped the bronze circlet on his brow. "Take the message to Molin Torchholder, personally then. Tell him Vashanka's rites -want performing in the barracks-plague or no plague."

The least of the diggers headed for the hall. Walegrin waited a moment, then turned back toward the barracks, quite pleased with himself. Until the gravesman threatened him, he hadn't been certain how he was going to get a message to his mentor without drawing the wrong kind of attention.

"Upstairs-Cythen's room," Zump said as soon as he'd crossed the barracks' threshold. Every one of the half-dozen men in the room was watching him. But at least they weren't thinking about plague or imperial barges. Walegrin forced himself to walk slowly as he climbed the half-flight of stairs to where Cythen, the only woman billeted with the regular garrison, slept.

Thrush and Cythen stood guard outside the open door.

"How is she?" Walegrin asked as they slid the bolt open.

"I'm fine," Kama assured him herself, swinging long, leather-clad legs off of Cythen's bed.

A dark smear covered most of the right side of her face but it seemed mostly soot. She wasn't moving like she'd taken too much punishment.

"I guess I owe you my life," she said uncomfortably.

"I didn't think you'd kill Strat. You'd had too many opportunities before-better opportunities. And you wouldn't care if he was shacked up with the witch."

She scowled. "You're right on the first, anyway."

"Piffles, Chief," Thrusher interjected from the open doorway. "Two of them guarding the cellar we found her in."

Kama stood in front of Walegrin, looking through and beyond him. She had that way about her-even dressed in scratched and rag-tied leather she had elegance and, however unconsciously, the powerful demeanor of her father. The garrison commander never had the upper hand with her.

"Personal?" he stammered.

"Personal? Personal? Gods, no. They saw me with Strat and you. They thought I'd sold out-nothing personal about that," she snapped.

Then why lock her up and put an arrow in Strat? And why Strat and not him?-he was every bit as easy to find. It was personal, all right, as personal as the sharp-faced PFLS leader could make it.

"You've got worse problems," Walegrin told her.

Finally she turned away, watching the lamp-flame as if it were the center of the universe. "Yeah, so they tell me. He used one of Jubal's arrows, didn't he? All hell broke loose, didn't it?"

Walegrin couldn't suppress a bitter laugh. "Not quite. Came close. Seems someone came out of the witch's house an' dragged .Strat back in. Stepsons thought they'd go in to rescue him. Found the place'd been warded: Nisi warded-like you'd remember, I guess. Old Critias lit back for the palace and found out that Roxane'd broken out of wherever she'd been hiding and went there 'cause some slave-apprentice of Ischade's'd stolen a Globe of Power and stashed it there. So, no, hell didn't quite break out-it's sort of holed up there in the old Peres place."

Kama ran her hands through her hair. Her shoulders sagged and when she turned around again she looked straight at Walegrin. "There's more, isn't there." She didn't make it a question.

"Yeah. There's a boat down at the wharf with Vashanka's arrows flying from its mast. They say it's Brachis at the least and maybe our new Emperor as well. Can't be sure because we've told them the town's under plague sign: no one from Sanctuary's been on board; no one's gotten off either. Whatever it is, it's got the whole damn palace fired up. They mean to have the town quiet if they have to kill every known troublemaker before sunrise-and your name's at the top of everyone's list. Word was that you didn't even have to be brought in alive."

"Crit?" she asked. "Tempus?"