Ian glanced around again, then took the man’s arm and guided him back to his post.

“M’lord, I—” Dazed, the man shook his head to try to clear it. “What’s happened? What are you . . . ?”

“Never mind, Michael,” Ian murmured, reaching down to his boot top and withdrawing a slim dagger. “You’ll hardly feel a thing.”

As the man saw the flash of steel, he mustered his last reserve of strength, struggling weakly to pull away from Ian’s grip. But it was no use. His resistance was gone. Dumbly, he stood where Ian placed him, watched helplessly as the gleaming blade approached.

With clinical detachment, Ian opened the front of the man’s mail-lined leather jerkin and set the point of his dagger against the man’s chest, just left of center. Then he jammed the blade home with a decisive thrust, slipping the blade deftly between two ribs to pierce the heart.

The man’s eyes glazed, and he sank to the floor with a stifled moan as Ian withdrew the weapon. Blood gushed crimson from the wound, running down his side to form an ever-widening pool beside him. But still the heart continued to beat; the tortured lungs pumped air to prolong the agony.

Ian scowled as he crouched beside the dying man. It had not been a clean kill—a mistake Morgan would never have made. And worse, now he would have to finish the man on the ground.

He chewed briefly at his lower lip, considering, then quickly reinserted his dagger in the original wound and gave it a precise twist. This time when he withdrew the blade, the heart stopped; the lungs ceased their heaving.

With a low grunt of satisfaction, Ian wiped his dagger clean on the edge of the man’s cloak, then turned the body slightly on its side, being careful not to disturb the widening pool of blood. Then, taking the man’s hand in his, he dipped the dead fingers in the blood and smeared a rough outline on the clean stone by the man’s head—the outline of a gryphon.

He stood to survey his work and nodded approvingly, slipping his dagger back into its boot sheath as he checked his clothing for any telltale signs of the deed he had just done. Then he placed the dead guard’s spear alongside the body, surveyed the scene a final time, and turned to make his way away from there.

Now, if some of Morgan’s vassals should just happen to stumble onto the murder later that night—and Ian would be certain that they did—there was little doubt in his mind what they would think. A cold-blooded murder, on top of all the other accusations against the Deryni general, should be all that was necessary to trigger the men to rebel against their lord.

And if Kelson should also fall in the ensuing scuffle?

Ian shrugged contentedly. Ah, how very unfortunate.