"You arrive at an opportune time," she said, and wondered if he could guess how much she intended to hurt him. Emotional pain, of course, but as deep and as real as any physical agony. "I am about to name my successor."

"My Lady!"

"Be silent!" She didn't look at the cyber.

"But—"

"Enough!" Her thin voice was strong with anger. Eighty years of rule had taught her how to command. "It is my will that he stays! My will that he listens!"

She softened a little at the touch of the girl's hand on her own, the firm, young flesh warm against the wrinkled skin. She softened still more as she looked at Dumarest. It was important that he should understand.

"The Matriarch of Kund," she said gently, "must forego all the normal pleasures of being a woman. She can have no children. She must not be too attached to any one person. She must devote herself, mind and body, to the good of the worlds she rules. It is a high honor. The position commands vast power and vast responsibilities. The person chosen can have no real life of her own. All she does must be for the good of Kund."

Her voice fell a little.

"No husband," she said meaningfully. "No lover. No man to whom she can give her heart. No man whose heart she dares to take." She paused before delivering the final blow. "I have chosen my ward, the Lady Seena Thoth, to succeed me as the Matriarch of Kund!"

His reaction disappointed her. He sat, watching the girl at her side, almost as if he hadn't heard a word she had said.

"Do you understand?" She gripped the soft, warm hand so close to her own. "She, my ward, will succeed me to the throne!"

"Yes, My Lady," he said quietly. "I understand. But that girl is not your ward."

He had expected a reaction but its violence surprised him. There was a moment of stillness as if the very air were stunned by the implication. Then: "My Lady!" Dyne sprang to his feet.

"He lies!" The girl followed the cyber. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with anger. She threw herself at Dumarest, her fingers reaching for his eyes. He rose, gripped her wrists, flung her back against her chair.

"Guards!" The old woman knew how to handle an emergency. As the women poured into the room she snapped a terse command. "Hold!"

She waited until the guards had closed on the others, ready to grip or strike should the need arise. Irritably she sniffed at her pomander. The drugs were too weak. She needed something stronger to sharpen her mind and strengthen her voice. She found it in her anger.

"You!" She rose and glared at Dumarest. "Explain!"

"My Lady!" The girl was oblivious of her guards. "How can you allow such a man to insult me? A penniless traveler to make such an accusation. Men have died for less!"

"As he will die if he cannot prove his statement," promised the Matriarch. She stared at Dumarest, her face cruel. "It will not be an easy death, that I promise. Now. Explain!"

"Yes, My Lady." He paused, looking at the girl, the cyber, the watchful guards before looking back at the old woman. "I can only guess at your reasons for coming to Gath," he said. "But I would imagine that one of them was to arrive at a decision concerning your successor. Would that be the case?"

"You digress!" snapped the old woman, then: "Yes, that is correct."

"It would not be hard for a man trained in the arts of prediction to guess whom that successor would be." Dumarest did not look at the cyber. "Almost anyone, knowing you, your attachment to your ward, knowing too of this journey could have made a similar guess. The worlds of Kund are rich, My Lady?"

"Very."

"Such a prize would be worth a great deal of trouble. That trouble was taken. If the successor of your choice could be replaced by a tool of their own—what then of the worlds of Kund?"

He paused, conscious of the heat of the room, the scent of spice, the rising tension. Conscious too, of the narrow path he trod. The girl had been quick to point out their relative positions. Had the Matriarch been of the same nature as the Prince of Emmened he would be dead by now. But she, of all people, could not dare to make a mistake.

"Continue!" She held a golden pomander to her nostrils; it muffled her command.

"A man named Sime arrived on the same ship as the Prince of Emmened. With him traveled a crone and a man little more than a boy. Sime carried a coffin in which reposed the dead body of his wife, or so the crone told those who were curious. They believed her; why not? Gath is a strange world with strange potentialities was natural for him to have carried such a burden to such a place."

"Why?"

"As a disguise. How else could a tall young woman, attractive, regal, be shielded from view? You were alert, watchful for assassins, wary of anything you could not explain or trust. Once your suspicions had been aroused the plan would certainly fail. But there was nothing to arouse your doubts. A man with a coffin. A poor, deluded creature more mad than sane. How could anyone guess that, beneath the outer shell, rested the twin of your ward?"

"You lie!" The girl lunged forward, sobbed with frustrated anger as she felt the restraining grip of her guards. "My Lady! He lies!"

"Perhaps." The Matriarch put aside her pomander. "If so he will regret it. Continue!"

"The crone was working with Sime. It was she who told the story, circulated the rumors, watched the coffin while he slept. The young man traveled with them by chance. She killed him during the storm. She tried to kill me in the same way but failed. Now she is dead."

Dead at the bottom of the cliff, driven over the edge by the confusion of the winds, dead and taking her secrets with her. Muscles knotted at the edge of his jaw as he thought about it.

"The rest is simple," he rasped. "At the height of the storm the substitution was made. The Lady Seena was lured into a quiet room. This girl had been smuggled into the tents. They changed clothes and the impostor answered your summons. She stands at your side. The person who you would make the next ruler of Kund."

He fell silent, waiting, guessing what the questions would be.

"An ingenious fabrication," said Dyne in his soft modulation. "You will note, My Lady, how much has been glossed over. The Lady Seena lured into a quiet room. The supposed impostor smuggled into the tents. How?"

"I penetrated your guards," said Dumarest. "that I could do, almost unaided, others could do far easier with help." He looked at the Matriarch. "I found the empty coffin. In it, below the empty simulacrum of a dead woman, is a hollow compartment. The girl rested there drugged with quick-time. She left the scent of her perfume. I smelled the same odor in a room belonging, to the cyber's retinue. The girl is wearing it now."

"My perfume?" She was bold, he had to give her that, but how else could she be? "You must know it, My Lady. It is a scent I always wear."

The old woman nodded.

"And how does he know so much?" The girl was triumphant. "He is lying, My Lady. He had no reason to suspect Sime. How could he?"

"Because I am a traveler," snapped Dumarest. "I know how they act, how they feel, how they are after a passage. No genuine traveler could have carried that coffin from the ship. Sime realized his mistake and asked for help. He got it. But later, when I offered him a lift for his coffin, he refused it. That box was heavy; I know, I helped to carry it. Sime was a fake." He saw the expression in the old woman's eyes.

"I have met others of his type before," he said quietly. "They look gaunt, starved and almost dead but they are far from that. Their muscles are more efficient, their metabolism a little different, that is all. Your physician will verify that. Sime was no experienced traveler. My guess is that both he and the crone bribed the handler and rode High. Their companion had to die to seal that knowledge. The stakes were too high for them to take any risk."