“No. Tell me, Ulvana, why did Naevros create such an elaborate murder plan? Why not arrange something less spectacular, something that might have passed as an accident?”

“Oh, that wasn’t his idea. His partners—his seniors, he called them—they insisted on it. They said they needed to be sure they put Earno out of the way; he was blocking some important task they had in hand. And if an attempt was made and failed, it might draw suspicion.”

“If you strike at the king, you must kill him,” Noreê said, somewhat blasphemously. Ulvana started a little in her chair: she had forgotten the older vocate was there.

Aloê met Noreê’s cool gaze and they both nodded: they were done here.

“Ulvana,” said Aloê, “I’ll consider your case and consult my peers in the Graith. In the meantime, you must be under guard. The thains here, or some others, will take you to the High Arbitrate in A Thousand Towers.”

“I don’t wish to go there. I don’t want to see those people.”

“You must go somewhere, and you can’t stay here.”

“Yes. I see that. I don’t want to stay here, either. Aloê, I’ve answered your questions; won’t you answer mine? What did you discover that led you to Naevros?”

Aloê hesitated before answering. But there was no obvious reason not to tell her.

“It didn’t mean anything to me at the time,” she admitted. “But there was a scent in one of the beds I slept in at your logging shelters—a sort of sweet musk.”

“Oh,” Ulvana said quietly. Then, “I gave him that scent. It was a present.”

“I noticed it on him later when I met him in the city. That was what helped me guess. The proof came later.” Aloê thought of Denynê and frowned at a painful memory.

“He said he would wear it in the city,” Ulvana said. “But I wasn’t sure. . . . I wasn’t sure whether that was only one of his lies.” She looked sharply at Aloê and seemed to be about to speak. Aloê looked straight into her eyes and she flinched.

“Did you always despise me?” she asked plaintively, as Aloê turned to go.

Aloê considered the question fairly. “No,” she said. “No, when I met you again in Big Rock, I sort of liked you. But that wasn’t really you, was it?”

“It used to be,” Ulvana said sadly. “Until a year or so ago.”

Aloê shook her head and strode away through the door. Noreê followed her out, and the thain outside folded the door shut, closing Ulvana in alone.

“I’ll have some of my thains escort her down, if you like,” Noreê said.

“They’re not your thains, Vocate,” Aloê said.

Noreê smiled and nodded: a mere detail to her. “Ommil,” she said to the thain on guard, “take a couple of the others and escort Ulvana down to the High Arbitrate in the city tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Vocate,” said the thain.

“What did you think of Ulvana?” Noreê asked as they turned away and walked into the street.

“Pitiable. But I didn’t pity her.”

“Yes. My long-dead father would have called her a real woman.”

“Oh? Why?”

Noreê shrugged, a gesture that reminded Aloê oddly of Morlock. “That is easier to know than to explain. She lives through her man; that is part of it. He is everything, and she is content to be nothing, if he only notices her. She is completely selfless.”

“I’d say she’s completely selfish.”

Noreê laughed. “You are contrary today, Vocate. How can she be selfish? She gave up everything for that man.”

“For a price. As long as she got what she wanted, nothing else mattered: Earno’s life; Oluma’s life; Denynê’s life—anyone else’s; her principles as a member of the Arbitrate; the safety of those who trusted in her; her independence and fortune, so proudly won over a century of work. She threw all that away to satisfy an urge.”

“You speak unkindly of love,” Noreê said, not as if she disapproved.

“I’m not talking about love at all. Naevros purchased her with a fantasy, the way he might have purchased a meat pie with money. He offered her the pretense of love, which was enough for her. For that she sacrificed everything, not for him.”

“Are you going to talk to him now?”

Aloê nodded.

“Perhaps I should ride with you,” Noreê suggested. “The presence of his two unattainable princesses might unnerve him.”

“What is a princess anyway?”

“A sort of female kinglet, I think. They have them in the unguarded lands. They are much sought after as mates, apparently, and people kill dragons and things to woo them.”

Aloê, who’d had occasion to kill a dragon herself, revolved this notion in her mind. “Odd,” she said. “Yes: let’s try to shake him up.”

They rode down to the city the next morning and arrived at Naevros’ house in the afternoon.

There was a cloud of watch-thains on the street outside Naevros’ little house. Aloê was surprised to see them there. Naevros had been released from the Well of Healing after swearing a self-binding oath to appear before the Graith when summoned. No guards were needed, but here they were.

Plus, they wore different badges, as if they belonged to different graiths. One group had green armbands; another sported red caps; a third wore purple leggings.

She rode Raudhfax through the milling crowd as if they weren’t there, causing a number to jump out of the way. She dismounted and strode toward the front door, ready to throttle anyone who hindered her.

She heard a timid voice say, “Your pardon, Vocate, but you are not allowed to enter.” She turned and prepared to leap at the speaker like a lioness taking down a deer . . . but he wasn’t speaking to her. A herd—no, three distinct herds of thain—were surrounding Noreê, who looked at them curiously with her dark blue eyes.

“Here, you,” Aloê said to them as a body, “get away from her.”

“I’m sorry, Vocate,” said a freckly fellow in purple leggings, “but our orders are that no one shall enter this domicile saving yourself.”

“Ours, too,” supplied a pimply youth with a green armband. “And ours!” chimed in a girl in a red cap, and in general all the cattle mooed the same song.

“Whoever may have given you those orders, and those badges of rank to go with them,” Aloê said, “you can’t suppose that their instructions are binding on us. Stand out of her way.”

“Sorry, Vocate. Orders.”

The herds lowed in unison: orders, orders, orders.

Aloê was about to lay a few of them on the ground using her songbow as a club when another voice spoke, breaking the spell: “Don’t trouble yourselves, vocates. I’ll come down to you.” It was Naevros, standing at the window above his front door.

Neither Aloê nor Noreê responded, but Naevros disappeared, and in a moment the door opened and Naevros stepped out of it.

The thains stood out of his way as if he were carrying a bowlful of plague-infested pus. He was not. He carried nothing: not a sword at his hip, not a cloak on his shoulders against the chill of the summer day. His clothes looked old and ill-matched; there were buttons missing from the shirt and threadbare patches on the trousers. His reattached left hand hung from the end of his arm, barely moving. It had a slightly bluish look to it. He did not offer it, or the other hand, to Aloê or Naevros, but he did acknowledge their presence with a nod and a glance of his green eyes, which is more than he did for the thains.

“Let’s go down to the Benches and have a bite to eat,” he suggested. “I don’t suppose I’ll have many more chances to eat there, one way or the other.”

They agreed and they all walked together down the street to Naevros’ favorite cookshop.

“How’s Verch?” asked Aloê.

“Gone. Forever, this time,” Naevros said. “I fired him. I’d sell the house if I could find a buyer. I’ll need all the money I can get in the unguarded lands. Unless you plan to kill me.”

“You’ll have the option of exile, of course,” Aloê said.