He would find out what happened to Liir after he was last seen some eight years ago, suspected of having holed up for sanctuary in this very mauntery of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows. He would poke around for this and that among the Witch’s effects. Interview a few witnesses.

To what end? Brrr insisted on following the point. Not because he would take it into account-just-because. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but he was a big Cat and had a higher tolerance for curiosity than some.

“Lord Avaric will explain. Case retired.” Miss Eldersdotter closed the file and rubbed her temples. “Before you take up your new assignment, Brrr, I wonder if you could illuminate me about that aspect of your career involving the assessment of antique prints. I inherited a set of moldy old things from my widowed aunt in Tenniken, and I suspect they are worth a pretty bundle.”

All kinds of possibilities emerged. He held his tongue until his thoughts settled in his mind. Then he said evenly, “I am afraid the market has changed so much since I was professionally involved, Your Honor, that I would no longer be qualified to offer a judgment.”

“Well,” she said, “so few of us are.” And she all but leaned back in her chair and kicked up her heels, laughing at her own little self-coronation.

Suppose Miss Eldersdotter’s widowed aunt had been the mother of Jemmsy the foot soldier. That would make the magistrate and Jemmsy first cousins. But if she were so related, Brrr didn’t want to know. Poetic justice could be just that ironic, but why allow it to trounce upon his frailest feelings?

Once the plea bargain had been struck and approved and signed in triplicate, and the copies filed and their receipts stamped in triplicate and themselves filed, he was free to leave his cell. In a brougham, Lord Avaric arrived to collect Brrr at the door of Saint Satalin’s Nook for Petty Criminals. The Margreave proposed luncheon at a respectable establishment, but Brrr said he had no appetite. This was only partly a lie, as he certainly had no appetite to be seen dining in public.

So Avaric took Brrr on a walk along the Ozma Embankment, where they couldn’t be overheard by pedestrians. Avaric had a little device called an air pistol that, when fired, made a sudden bang, and the nearby avian population involuntarily launched themselves into a frenzy. The swans on the canal hammered the water with their powerful wings, thwacking the lilies, splashing themselves airborne. No small winged spies remained near enough to overhear Avaric’s revelations.

“You’re right to ask about your obligations to the Court,” he confided to Brrr. “Secrecy is all very good, but an agent can best do his job if he knows the parameters.”

Brrr pulled the collar up around his ruff. He was furious, but he was free. The Ozma Embankment was in spring bloom. Butterflies, untroubled by the salute of the gun, pasted themselves on the limbs of miniature ornamental quoxwoods. Bees reprised their hymns to the goddess nectar. A street sweeper in leg irons sang, too, some pagan paean to Lurlina. The roses were a week from cresting. His eyes watered at the notion of how swiftly this could have been swept away. The beauty. The bastards.