"It will… " Her face was stricken. "This will kill him."

"It will if he finds out, perhaps. A few minutes ago you said you loved him. Do you intend to tell him?"

She shook her head.

"Then perhaps you do. Will you tell your father, Mora?"

"No, " Mora said. "I couldn't."

"In that case, neither will I. If we three can keep a secret, there's no reason it shouldn't be kept."

Mora began to speak, but I raised my hand to silence her. "Before you say anything about Fava – it may be we've seen the last of her. Do you realize that? It was why I didn't want you to send her away."

"I hope she's gone. That would make it easier." Mora slumped in her chair.

"Harder, I believe, and certainly less satisfying. She recruited you, isn't that right?"

After a lengthy pause, Mora nodded.

Torda said, "Then Fava is really the Duko's spy?"

"She is-or was-one of two, " I said. "She got Mora to cooperate with her, and I imagine that Fava herself carried their reports back to Soldo."

Fava opened the door as I was speaking. "I did, and I got Mora to tell me things, that's all. I never said anything to her about spying, or telling the Duko. No matter what she's told you, that's all it was."

"That is all I ever thought it was. But after a time she must have realized what she'd been doing. If she hadn't before Inclito told her he thought there was a spy in the house, she certainly must have after that. Nevertheless, she didn't want you to leave."

Mora nodded.

"And she must have been very much afraid that you'd find a way to tell her father after you left-a letter to be found in your room or something of that sort. Most of you can't write, but you can, I know. Since you've been going to palaestra with Mora, it's not surprising."

Mora said, "She wouldn't have."

"She'll say she wouldn't have if you ask her now, I feel quite sure." I watched Fava resume her seat on my bed. "What was it the Duko gave you, Fava? Silver and gold? Cards with which to repair a lander? Not food, you seem to have had no difficulty getting that for yourself."

She shook her head.

"What was it, then?"

"I won't tell you!"

"Yes, you will." I strove to sound ruthless. "I'm giving you a chance to leave alive, but I'll withdraw it if I must."

Sullen silence.

"In a little while, I'm going to have to speak with Torda in private, because I want her to tell me a private matter. Yours is not. You must tell all three of us right now, Mora particularly."

"Torda too?"

"Yes, I think so. It's a bit late to leave Torda out."

I turned and glanced at the window. The Short Sun was rising, illuminating Inclito's broad fields and fat cattle. (Today I watched him stoop and pick up a clod of black earth, which is just now being plowed for winter wheat.) Gesturing, I said to Mora, "All that will be yours someday-no doubt he's told you. Yours, and your husband's."

"Good place!" Oreb assured us, and Mora nodded mutely.

"How did the Duko pay you, Fava, for the information you brought him? What did he give you?"

"Nothing!" She hesitated. "Jewelry, mostly. Jewelry and cards. I gave them away or threw them away."

"I can imagine-gold is heavy stuff. Since you didn't want the Duko's jewels or his cards, what did you want? You must have wanted something."

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"I know, you see, or at least I think I do; and

I'll tell Mora if you don't. It will sound far worse from me."

"You know everything, don't you!"

"Certainly I don't know as much as I need to. I intend to consult the gods again, if I can persuade Mora's father to give me a lamb-"

"No cut!"

"Not you, silly bird. If Inclito will let me have a lamb or something of the kind to sacrifice, I'd like to consult the Outsider. Him, particularly, and perhaps the Mother, the Vanished People's sea goddess, though as far as I know the war brewing here has no connection with the sea."

"Then you'll pretend the gods told you, " Fava declared.

"Certainly not. The gods won't tell people who do that sort of thing anything."

"We've been waiting for it, " Mora explained listlessly. "Some kind of magic or enchantment. We were afraid, but we wanted to see it."

I nodded, and admitted that when I was her age

I would have felt the same way.

Fava said, "Do we still want to talk to him about what we came to see him about, Mora? It will sound inane after all this."

"I don't care, " Mora told her. "If you want to."

"Then I won't."

"I think we need to finish talking about your spying first, " I said. "Mora will feel better when that's over, and so will I. While you were out of the room, I said that if the three of us-Mora, Torda, and I-could keep a secret, there was no reason for anybody else to know. Can you think of one?"

"Not if you can't."

"I can't. You're an intelligent young woman. Can you summarize everything you've told the Duko for me? Briefly, we haven't a lot of time."

"I think so. First there was the ammunition problem. Blanko had a lot of slug guns left over after the last war, but not much ammunition for them. Inclito was able to buy some in Aspis, and he got people from there to come here and show our people how to make it, so now there's a shop making ammunition in Blanko, and the town buys it from them as fast as they can turn it out.

"Then there was a lot of talk about fortifying. Some people wanted to make the town wall thicker and higher, and build more towers, but where was the money coming from? Naturally Inclito was against all that, and so were all the other farmers. He wanted to use the money, or as much as there was, to hire troopers who'd protect everybody, and that was the way it was decided after the farmers said they were going to start taking their produce someplace else."

Mora put in, "My father went around to a lot of the neighbors to get them to do that, and got some of them to go around like he was."

"I see."

"And I told him about you, " Fava continued, "after you came here the first night. Inclito thinks you're a man called Silk he read about-"

"Good Silk, " Oreb assured us.

"In some book. Only I don't think the people in books are ever really real."

"Nor do I, " I told her.

"And that was the last one, two nights ago. I said you were supposed to be this very powerful witch who'd cast spells on him and Soldo so Blanko would win, and I thought there might even be some truth in it. That was because of the story you told us the first night. Then you told that other one tonight, and you got inside mine and started changing things. I told Mora this morning, and she said we should just go and see you and ask how you did it, as friends. I said you were her friend, not mine, but if she wanted to I'd come along."

"He's going to let you go, " Mora told her. "He could get Papa to kill you twice over. You couldn't have a better friend than that."

"Yes, I could. I do."

"Before we talk about stories-"

From my shoulder Oreb repeated, "Talk, talk."

"Before we discuss those, I have a few questions about your reports, Fava. How many times have you gone to Soldo to talk to Duko Rigoglio?"

She muttered to herself, counting on her fingers. "Nine."

Torda burst out, "She said she went there night before last, Incanto. That can't possibly be true. She was here when you and the master went back to town, and here next morning for breakfast."

I nodded. "But let's pretend we think it's true, for the present."

"Nobody can ride that fast!"

"Thing fly!" Oreb demonstrated, circling the room. "Bad thing!"

"Come back, you silly bird.

"I was about to say, Fava, that you must surely have gained some information of value to Inclito on all those trips. How did you give it to him?"

"I couldn't, or not very much. He would have known."