“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” Mar said, as Kyn squealed and pages ran up with cloths. “How clumsy of me.”

Gundaron looked up with dismay when the commotion at Mar-eMar’s end of the table drew the attention of everyone seated, even the Tenebroso herself. Worse, from Gun’s point of view, Lok-iKol was now looking at the Lady Mar as well. Gun had been hoping that the Kir had forgotten all about this little cousin, now that they had the far more important Mercenary woman in their hands.

“She has the bowl,” Lok-iKol said, when the servants had finished serving the dessert, his eye still fixed on Mar-eMar. “So the pages tell me.”

“Oh, the bowl in itself proves nothing,” Gun said as casually as he could. He and the Kir had had many conversations like this one-Caids, how many? he thought with a sudden and unexpected twist of nausea in his guts as he pushed the thought away-and he hoped he sounded just as objective and disinterested this time. Most of the Marked that he’d located for Lok-iKol over the past eighteen moons or so had been older, some much older than the Lady Mar. But they probably had families, too. Gundaron let his eyes fall again to his plate, pretending interest in the dessert as his stomach churned. That thought felt familiar, as if he’d had it often, but… he couldn’t remember thinking it before.

“There’s no doubt she’s the right girl,” Lok-iKol was saying, stroking his eye patch with his fingertips. Gundaron came to with a start, realizing with some shock that Lok-iKol was standing. He rose with as little fuss as he could manage. Fortunately, he was on the man’s blind side, and with any luck his lapse of attention would go unnoticed.

“She’s the very image of her grandmother,” Lok-iKol continued. “I remember the wedding very well. The Tenebroso had us all attend, even though she was only marrying…”

Gundaron waited a moment for the man to finish before he finally gathered his nerve and looked Lok-iKol in the face. What he saw almost made him look away again, but his scholarly habit of investigation was stronger than his fear. The Kir’s lower lip had fallen slack, and all the muscles of his face drooped. Only the scarred skin around his left eye was still stiff.

“Lord Kir?” Gundaron put up a hesitant hand; Lok-iKol much preferred not to be touched uninvited. Gun let his hand fall back to his side; he could see that, for all the slackness of the face and mouth, the Kir’s eye was sharp and clear.

And focused on Mar.

What does he see? Gundaron thought, that makes him look like this?

As if Lok-iKol could hear his thoughts, the man turned, oh so slowly, to focus his attention on Gundaron himself. In the slackness of his face Lok-iKol’s right eye was unnaturally bright, almost as though the man had a fever, and Gundaron could swear that instead of a clear blue, the eye glowed a brilliant jade green. Gundaron parted dry lips, about to call for a page, certain the Kir was having a brain storm. Then the green tint passed, the muscles in Lok-iKol’s face returned to normal, and his eye restored to its natural icy blue.

“You were saying?”

Gundaron cleared his throat, throwing a glance around the room. No one else seemed to have noticed anything; everyone’s attention was still at the other end of the table, where Nor-eNor had suddenly burst into tears. “I think it unlikely the Lady Mar will give us any interesting information,” he said, using the euphemism that allowed them to discuss their work in public. “Situated as she was, she would have had great difficulties in hiding it.”

“Nor, in Navra, would she have had reason to, I agree,” Lok-iKol said. “In any case, we need be in no hurry where Mar-eMar is concerned. We can examine her at our leisure.”

Gundaron nodded slowly, unable to explain, even to himself, his reluctance to let Mar-eMar be questioned by Lok-iKol and the Jaldean Beslyn-Tor the way other suspected Marked had been questioned. He looked down the table again and saw her bow to her cousins and walk up the other side of the long table to pay her respects to the Tenebroso before leaving the room. He’d have to think of something. Gun stepped back to allow the Lord Dal-eDal to pass between him and the table.

Of course the interrogation of the Mercenary woman would take some time, Gun considered, as he and Lok-iKol followed Lord Dal from the room. And the longer it took, the more time Gun would have to come up with a plan to help Mar-eMar.

When she awoke, Dhulyn Wolfshead found herself sitting in a heavy carved chair, its knobby, uneven surface tight against her spine. There was a strap around her forehead-though it didn’t seem attached to anything-and someone had tied her arms down at elbows and wrists, her legs at knees and ankles. Not entirely amateurs, then.

Ignoring the throbbing in the back of her head, she tensed first the muscles of her forearms and wrists, then her calves and ankles, without receiving any encouragement. Her bonds were loose enough to let her blood flow, but tight enough to restrict her movements. For certain, not amateurs.

She could tell from the sounds of breathing that there was only one person in the room with her, and that it was not Parno Lionsmane. She let her eyes open the merest fraction.

Standing with his hand on a table a span in front of her was a fair-haired young man in a mixture of Scholar’s and nobleman’s dress, a short dark blue tunic over black hose instead of brown leggings, heeled shoes instead of leather half boots, and a bright enameled brooch where his Library crest should be. Dhulyn let her eyes open another fraction. The hand she could see looked soft and dirty, his tunic was too tight over his middle, and there was an incipient puffiness to his face. There were Shora for Scholars, too, Dhulyn knew, slow motion versions of the Mercenary Shora, designed for use by Scholars as exercise. From the look of him, the young man in front of her hadn’t practiced any for some time.

The sound of the door latch was followed by booted footsteps moving from wood to carpet, but Dhulyn couldn’t see who had entered the room without turning her head.

“My lord Kir, I found her like this.”

“As well you did not release her, the order was mine.” It was indeed the silky voice she remembered from the Tenebroso’s room. She should have known; only the Kir of the House could order two Mercenaries detained.

“I don’t understand…”

“Did you think that a Mercenary Brother would simply answer our questions because we asked them? Ah, your face tells me that you did. Very well. If you find that, after all, this worries you too greatly, you may leave.” Even her limited view showed Dhulyn the boy’s negative response. “I thought not. Shall we begin?”

The Scholar moved directly in front of her, leaning forward and peering into her face. Dhulyn opened her eyes. Behind him, the Kir Lok-iKol was sitting with one hip braced on the wooden table; from the look of its heavily carved legs it must be the match of her own chair. She smiled her wolf’s smile and the boy edged away from her. He licked his lips and lowered his eyelids.

“The One-eye’s name I know,” she said to him, “but not yours.”

The young man’s mouth twisted. He shot a glance at the Kir, but the older man had picked up a goblet from the dark wooden table and was drinking from it. His single eye regarded them over the silver rim of the cup. The Scholar looked back at Dhulyn. His mouth opened and the tip of his tongue sneaked out to poke at his upper lip.

“I am Gundaron,” he almost whispered. “From the Scholars’ Library of Valdomar.”

“I greet you, Scholar Gundaron,” she whispered back. “You are very soft and very puffy and the whites of your eyes are dull,” Dhulyn said with the greatest innocence and truth. “Are you sure you are of the House of Scholars?”