Seregil came out of the mourning room looking subdued.

"Well?"

"Go back up to that clearing at first light. Find whatever you can."

Alec opened his mouth to reply but succumbed to a jaw-creaking yawn instead.

"Get some sleep," Seregil advised. "There's nothing else you can do tonight, and tomorrow is shaping up to be a very long day."

"Are you coming up?"

"Maybe later."

Alec watched Seregil cross the darkened hall toward the bath chamber. "I still think Emiel did something to her."

Seregil paused but didn't look back. "Find me some proof, tali," he rasped. "Find me proof."

32 SNAKES AND TRAITORS

Seregil woke groggily to the sounds of an argument. He'd been dreaming of the Cockerel Inn again, but this time he'd been sitting on the roof.

Stiff and disoriented, he sat up and looked around the dim hall to get his bearings. He'd stayed with Klia until Mydri had chased him off, then made a makeshift bed out of two chairs out here. He hadn't expected to sleep, yet here he was with a stiff neck and one leg numb to the hip. The night lamp was guttering, and faint light was showing at the windows.

The argument in question was being carried on in Skalan outside the front door. Limping over, he looked out to find Nyal facing several Urgazhi sentries. Corporal Nikides and Tare were resolutely blocking the door. A few steps below, the Ra'basi interpreter looked tired and apologetic, but determined.

"It's Captain Beka's orders," Nikides was saying. "No Aurenfaie except Bokthersans are to be let in. When she comes back—"

"But the rhui'auros said Seregil sent for me!" Nyal insisted.

"Which rhui'auros?" Seregil demanded, sticking his head out.

"Elesarit."

It wasn't the name Seregil was expecting,

but he played along. "Of course. It's all right, Corporal. I'll take charge of him."

As soon as the door had swung shut behind them, he grasped the Ra'basi by the arm and pulled him to a halt.

"What did this rhui'auros say, exactly?"

Nyal shot him a surprised look. "Only that you required my services."

"And that I'd sent for you?"

"Well, no, now that I think of it. I just assumed—"

"We'll sort that out later. Where have you been?»

"Ra'basi tupa. With all the confusion here, I thought it best to stay out of the way. I left word for Beka with Sergeant Mercalle, in case I was needed."

"She's still out keeping an eye on the Haman."

"Of course. Is Klia—?"

"As far as I know. Let's go see."

They met Saaban i Irais coming out of the bath chamber. He was dressed for riding, and looked as if he hadn't slept much, either.

"A bad night," he told them. "Alec is with her now. My riders and I can leave as soon as he's finished."

The dhima lay like an upended turtle against the far wall. Klia had been moved next to the central bathing pool, and wet cloths were draped across her forehead and wrists. Mydri and Adzriel sat next to her, each grasping one of her hands. Alec and Thero stood over them, hollowed-eyed and solemn.

"Sweating only made her breathing worse," Mydri explained worriedly. "I've purged her, given her herbs, sang the six songs of purification; nothing seems to help."

"By the Light!" Nyal went down on one knee beside Klia and inspected her hands and feet. The discoloration was darker and had spread up her limbs.

"Has she opened her eyes at all, or moved?" asked Nyal.

"Not for hours."

"Then I think you must be wrong about when she was poisoned."

Seregil gave the Ra'basi a sharp look. "What do you know about it?"

Nyal shook his head Wonderingly. "I don't know how it could be, but this has all the signs of an apaki'nhag bite."

"A what?" asked Mydri.

"It's a snake," said Nyal.

"I thought there weren't any snakes in Aurenen!" Alec exclaimed.

"Not on the land. Apaki'nhags are sea snakes. There are a number of different types."

"Apaki'nhag. 'Gentle assassin? " Seregil translated.

Nyal nodded. "So called because its bite is painless, and because the effects of the venom don't appear for hours in most cases, sometimes not even for days. Shellfish divers often grab them by mistake among the weeds, not realizing they've been bitten until they fall ill later. I've seen it often enough among sailors and fishermen to know the signs. It's good you removed that." He gestured toward the dhima. "Sweating only drives the poison deeper into the body."

"A water snake? She was wet when I found her," Alec told him. "Emiel said she'd stopped to drink—"

"No, Alec. Apaki'nhag are saltwater creatures."

"Where are they found?" asked Seregil.

"Along the eastern coast. I've never heard of any south of Ra'basi."

"Ra'basi, Gedre, Viresse, Golinil," Seregil said, ticking likely places off on the fingers of one hand. "And let's not forget Plenimar."

"Plenimar?" said Alec.

"I'm not ready to rule them out just yet. Whether or not they did the actual poisoning, they've raised it to an art and wouldn't be above selling both the poison and the means of best using it. They have as much reason as anyone for wanting Klia to fail."

"If you're right, then she may not have been poisoned by something she ate but by something she touched," said Thero, concentrating on more immediate issues.

"Something that touched her, more likely," Seregil corrected, examining Klia's cold hands. "It's the mark of a two-legged serpent we're looking for. You say the victim doesn't feel the bite, Nyal?"

"That's right. The snake's teeth are quite small, and the venom deadens feeling. Ra'basi healers sometimes use a very dilute form of it in salves."

"A needle or small blade concealed in a ring is a favorite toy among Plenimaran assassins." Seregil pushed the sleeves of Klia's gown back to inspect her arms.

"This venom, Nyal, would it affect someone who's already ill more quickly? " Thero asked.

"Yes, with the old or infirm, it's nearly always fatal within—"

"Torsin!" Seregil exclaimed, looking up at the wizard. "Alec, keep looking for marks."

He and Thero took the stairs two at a time to the envoy's chamber. Cold lamps sparked to life at the wizard's command.

The dead man's face had lost its leaden hue, darkening already to the mottled greenish pall of dissolution. The rigor had passed and someone had straightened the limbs, bound up the slack jaw and eyes, and blanketed the corpse with fragrant herbs. Neither these nor the resinous smoke from the incense pot could mask the heavy stench. A round, salt-glazed urn with a cover of fitted leather had been left on the clothes chest, ready to receive the dead man's ashes for the journey home.

"A not-so-subtle hint that my people don't let their dead linger," Seregil noted, pointing at the jar. "We're lucky he hasn't already been carted out to a pyre somewhere."

"I'm not sure 'lucky' is the word I'd have chosen," Thero replied, recoiling at the smell.

"Damn this warm weather, eh?" Seregil muttered, wrinkling his nose. "Let's get it over with."

He spread the fingers of Torsin's right hand and inspected them. He heard Thero suck air and hold it as he pried open the clenched left fist. Perhaps he wasn't as hardened to all this as Seregil had supposed.

An excited gasp quickly followed, however. "Look at this!" Thero exclaimed, pulling a tangled clump of fine threads free of the wrinkled palm.

Seregil took it and smoothed the strands out on his palm: red and blue silk, knotted into a small tassel identical to the one Alec had found on the envoy's hearth two weeks earlier. "It's from a sen'gai. See here? There's a bit of cloth still attached above the knot."

"A sen'gai? But those are the colors of Viresse!"

"So they are." Seregil returned to his inspection of Torsin's other hand with a sardonic grin. It was still bloated from lying in the water, but with the aid of a lamp he finally located a small puncture wound on the fleshy part of the palm just below the base of the thumb. He pressed the skin, and a globule of dark blood oozed out.