"That still leaves us penned in here with a spy." Thero shook his head in disgust. "Ever since I read that letter, I've been wondering how someone could have been spying on us under our very noses. If they'd used magic, I swear I'd have sensed it!"

"Torsin managed to carry on his business without our tumbling for quite some time," Seregil reminded him. "That didn't take any magic."

"But with Klia's knowledge," the wizard countered.

"When I find out who it is, they'll wish for poison!" hissed Beka, clenching a fist against her thigh. "There must be some way of flushing them out."

"I was thinking about that earlier," Alec said. "You're not going to like this, but what about the dispatch riders? It would be easy enough for them to slip a message through, since they're the ones carrying them. They're also the last ones to handle the pouch before it's sealed."

"Mercalle's decuria?" Beka snorted. "By the Flame, Alec, we've been through Bilairy's gate and back together!"

"Not all of them. What about the new ones? Phoria could have turned one of them."

"Or had them placed in Urgazhi Turma before this ever started," added Seregil. "In her place, that's what I'd have done. Knowing Phoria, she'd want eyes and ears anywhere she could get them— especially among Klia's troops."

Beka shook her head stubbornly. "We lost half of Mercalle's decuria during the battle on the way over here. Ileah, Urien, and Ari are all that are left of the new recruits, and they're just pups. As for the rest, Zir and Marten have been with me since the turma was formed. I know them. They've saved my life a dozen times over and I've done the same for them. They're loyal to the marrow of their bones."

"Just let me speak with Mercalle," Alec persisted. "She's closer to them than anyone. Maybe she's seen something, something she didn't even know was suspicious."

But Beka still hesitated. "Do you know what even the hint of this could do to the others? I need them united."

"It won't go beyond this room," Alec promised. "If anything does

come up, Thero can deal with it with total secrecy. But we have to know."

Beka cast an imploring look at Seregil but found no help there. "All right, then, send for Mercalle." She looked down at Klia. "But don't question her here. Not here."

"We can use my room," said Thero. He flicked a tiny message sphere into being and sent it skittering through the wall with a wave of his hand.

The cooler air in the wizard's chamber seemed to clear Seregil's head, enough for him to feel chagrin at not having arrived at Alec's conclusions himself.

Alec had been right all along—and the rhui'auros, too. Since he'd come back to Aurenen, he'd been too wrapped up in his own past, his own demons, to be of much use to anyone. Perhaps it went back even further than that. In rejecting Rhiminee, had he buried the man he'd been there, the Rhiminee Cat? I'd have been dead a hundred times over, or starved for lack of trade, if I was like this all the time.

He sat down in the chair next to Thero's neatly made bed; the others remained standing.

Mercalle entered a few moments later and came to attention in front of Thero, oblivious to the tension in the room. "You sent for me, my lord?"

"It was me, Sergeant," Alec told her, and Seregil could see him rubbing a thumb nervously over the fingers of one hand. Alec admired the Urgazhi and had always been a bit in awe of them. To bring such an accusation against them was a difficult duty, and no less so for being self-imposed.

Once committed, however, he didn't hesitate. "We have reason to believe that there's a spy in the household," he told her. "Someone who's able to get messages back to Queen Phoria. I'm sorry to say this, but it could be someone in your decuria."

The greying sergeant stared at him in shocked silence, and Seregil felt a cold jolt of certainty. Oh, hell, she does know something.

"This is hard, I know," Alec went on. "The idea of any Urgazhi putting Klia in danger—"

Mercalle wavered a moment, then sank to her knees in front of Beka. "Forgive me, Captain, I never thought it would come to this!" Eyes averted, she drew the dagger from her belt and offered it hilt foremost.

Beka made no move to accept the offered weapon. Her face had gone blank, but Seregil recognized the pain in her eyes and fought down the impulse to grab the sergeant by the hair and shake her. Mercalle and Braknil had trained Beka when she'd first joined the regiment. Both had requested to serve under her when she earned her lieutenant's gorget. Between the three of them, they'd forged Urgazhi Turma.

That first betrayal — it's always the worst, the one that never quite heals.

"Stand and explain yourself," Beka ordered.

Mercalle rose slowly to attention. "I'm glad it's come out, Captain. I offer no excuses, but on my honor I hoped it would be for the best. I swear it by Sakor's Flame."

"Just get on with it."

"General Phoria summoned me the night Queen Idrilain gave Klia this mission," Mercalle said. "She believed her mother wouldn't survive to see this out. As heir, she wanted her own informant on the scene."

"But why you?" Beka demanded, and this time there was no mistaking the grief behind the words.

Mercalle stared at the far wall, not looking at her. "Phoria was the first officer I ever served under. With respect, Captain, I came up through the ranks under her before you were born. We saw dark times together—and good ones, too. She was there when I married both my husbands, and when I buried them. I'm not proud of what she's asked of me here, but orders are orders and she was in her rights as High Commander. I thought, 'If not me, then she'll find someone who doesn't feel the loyalty I do to Klia, and to you, Captain. All I was asked to do was to send observations. That's all I did. I never opened any letters entrusted to me, or mislaid any. If what I wrote contradicted them, it's on my head. I only told the truth as I saw it, and tried to put the best light on it that I could for Commander Klia's sake. If I'd ever thought it would come to this—" A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. "I'd cut off my sword hand before I'd willingly bring harm to any of you."

"Did you send word that we knew of the queen's death?" asked Seregil.

"I sent my respects, my lord. I thought you all had." "Then it was you, listening outside the door of Klia's room when we learned of it," said Alec.

Mercalle shot him another startled look. "Just for a bit. Those were orders, too."

Seregil recalled the bit of stable muck they'd found in the corridor outside and shook his head. Bilairy's Balls, it was a good thing one of them had retained some sense.

"Are any of the other riders involved?" asked Beka.

"On my honor, Captain, none of them. How could I order them to do something I found so repugnant myself?"

"Have you sent Phoria word of what's happened to Klia?" Seregil demanded.

"No, Lord Thero ordered me not to, the day she fell ill."

Seregil snorted. "A spy with honor. I just hope you're telling us the truth, Sergeant. You may have doomed us all as it is."

"When did you last send a report?" asked Alec.

"The day before Klia collapsed."

"And what did you say?»

"That the date of the vote had been set, and that no one seemed very hopeful about the outcome."

"We'll speak more of this later," Beka growled. Going to the door, she called in the two sentries on duty, Ariani and Patra. "Riders, keep Sergeant Mercalle under guard. She's relieved of duty until you hear differently from me."

To their credit, the riders didn't hesitate, though they both looked thunderstruck by the order. When they were gone, Beka rounded on Alec. "You knew it was her?"

"I didn't," he assured her. "Not until just now."