The driver grunted assent, and turned left at the next corner. Deliver the envelope, he rehearsed mentally, then out the north gate and north a mile, across the line into Asmehr. Deliver the body to the guy waiting with a rubbish wagon. Then back here and return the coach before the stars have faded.

He grinned. Nothing to it. He could develop an appetite for jobs like this. They'd keep life interesting.

16 Skin and Bones

In the design and construction of the Cloister, esthetics had been important but not primary. Cost, defensibility, and the efficient use of limited space set the constraints. Thus there was not much room between buildings-enough for narrow lawns, some flowerbeds and shrubs, and street trees. The residences-dormitories and barracks-mostly resembled each other. And of course, there were no street lights, nor any lights at this hour.

Captain Koslovi Rillor's barracks was adjacent to the Administration Building, at the center of the Cloister. Guards Barracks E, on the other hand, was on the East Wall Road. And like most of the Sisterhood, female or male, Rillor's night vision wasn't a lot better than human normal. But familiarity and the sickle moon told him exactly where he was.

Ahead, he recognized the building, and slowed to a walk, scanning about. The man he was watching for emerged from the shadow of a hedge, and stepped into the street to meet him. Rillor had never seen a Tiger out of uniform before, but he knew what he was by his demeanor-his sense of hardness and arrogance.

"Your name," the Tiger ordered.

"Rillor. Koslovi." He said it resentfully. He was, after all, a captain. The man before him might be, probably was noncommissioned. Arrogant!

The Tiger drew a large envelope from inside his shirt and handed it to the Guards officer, then loped off up the street.

Rillor tucked the envelope in his shoulder bag and angled toward the barracks' main entrance. He needed Omara's instructions to Arva, and the official offer to Varia and the Lion. Now, presumably, he had them. He wished he knew the oral instructions Omara had given Arva, and whether the two youths knew the identity of who was to pick them up. He couldn't pretend he was Arva. They might know the man.

You can't have everything, he told himself, stepping onto the stoop. Until he'd read the enclosures, he'd say no more than he had to.

Picking up the two young Guardsmen presented no problems. They were wide-awake and ready when he got there, and being well-trained, accepted his authority without questions. Together, the three had loped the half mile to the courier stable, where horses had been readied for them-three mounts, three remounts, and two packhorses.

Now they rode northward, the Cloister's defensive walls diminishing behind them in the faintly graying dawn. When it was light enough, Rillor intended to open the envelope and read the contents.

Ahead, a team and coach rolled toward the horsemen, and they guided their horses to one side, giving the rig abundant room to pass. Probably, Rillor thought, it carried some Outland trade representative.

Ordinarily, in the Sisterhood, newborns were named by their mother. That became their calling name. However, for routine records, breeding assignments and performance ratings, the breeding stock or lineage designation was used as a surname, and listed first.

But in conversation, the calling name was used almost exclusively, except as necessary to clarify which Rillor or Liiset or Jaloon was meant. Depending on how common it was, one's calling name might be all one's friends knew. In daily affairs, one's lineage was usually not significant.

Thus Macurdy's twin sons were not known as Macurdy. In the breeding record, their lineage was listed as Jesarion 2x5-Jesarion for short. And because of Varia's disgrace, she hadn't been allowed to provide their calling names. The only contact she'd had with them was during the first weeks of their lives, when she'd nursed them. She'd called them after her two Macurdy husbands: the firstborn Will, the second Curtis.

Sarkia had let Idri provide their official calling names. The names she'd listed for them were obscenities, and their nannies had objected to Sarkia in writing. Sarkia had chastised Idri for it, and renamed them Ohns and Dohns. In Old Ylvin, those meant first and second, but in Yuultal they were meaningless. And in any case unique.

Although Ohns and Dohns totally identified with the Sisterhood and the Guards, they'd grown up feeling different from other children, simply by being a two-member clone. Most clones numbered from four to six.

Given the nature of small boys, they'd early been made self-conscious of their peculiar calling names. Ohns? Dohns? What had they done to deserve names like those? Not surprisingly they were unusually close.

When they were ten years old, their clone aunt, Liiset, had told them about their mother: her strengths, her character, and that she'd gotten into trouble and run away. Liiset had not elaborated on the reasons. No less a tracker than the famed Tomm had failed to bring her back.

She'd also told them what she knew of their father's family history. Most of it was anecdotal-stories of the Macurdys related by Varia during her marriage to Will. During those years, Varia had come through the gate to Ferny Cove every two or three years, to give birth. Back when the Cloister had been located in Kormehr, near the Ferny Cove gate.

More interesting to the boys, and much more exciting, had been Liiset's descriptions of their father's exploits during his three years in Yuulith. From slave, to revolutionary, to warlord, to victor over the ylver in only three years! Even knowing who their father was made them special, though they said nothing about it to others.

Afterward they'd imagined what their father was really like, and shared those imaginings with each other. To them, the Lion of Farside was larger than life, a mighty warrior and hero, admired and obeyed in all the Rude Lands, and feared in both ylvin empires.

The personality they imagined didn't resemble their father at all.

From Liiset's explanations of naming on Farside, they'd gathered that their surname there would be Macurdy, and they began privately to think of themselves as the Macurdy boys, each with a calling name of his own. Ohns, being the "eldest" and dominant of the two, claimed Curtis. After a brief argument and scuffle, he agreed that Dohns could be Curtis on Five-, Six- and Seven-Days. On the other four he'd have to settle for being Will. Dohns accepted the compromise.

All that, of course, had been nine years back. But the feelings remained, albeit not much heeded in young manhood.

As the threesome rode westward through the Asmehri foothills, with the newly risen sun on their backs, Rillor read the instructions Omara had written to Arva. Then he told the young Guardsmen their true destination, and what their mission actually was. The boys rode on in stunned silence. They were to actually meet their parents! And hopefully bring them back to the Cloister, to be welcomed by Sarkia herself, and given important jobs.

Omara, in her instructions, had not included the posts Sarkia had in mind for Varia and Macurdy. That, presumably, was in the similar, enclosed envelope, addressed simply to Varia. It was sealed with wax, and stamped with the Dynast's signet, to be given to Varia when he met her.

To Rillor, the sealed envelope was unimportant. From what Idri had told him, he could guess the contents. But they were irrelevant, as Varia's sons ultimately were irrelevant. It was his job to ensure that, and he had no doubt he'd succeed.