“As mad as they are,” he said. He was dismayed to discover sudden cowardice in himself, that he feared another of those blows, and he despised himself that his mouth found it better to answer. He no longer knew for what he hoped. He told himself that his hope was to get to his feet again, and to try again, but his limbs would not, could not, and his heart had discovered a fear to equal fear of his father. “Mad as all the rest,” he mumbled.

“And your father gave you up.”

He failed to answer. The chain came down across his back.

“Yes,” he said.

“And when did you know you had the madness?”

“Years,” he said. “For years.”

“As a boy?”

It admitted a time of helplessness. It opened the door to his father’s house, his mother’s shame, his father’s disowning him after all these years. He said nothing, and knew the blow of the chain would come. Damn them, he thought, and then discovered the limit of his fear, right at the boundary of stubborn, foolish pride.

The chain crashed across his back.

But the lift of a gloved hand had prevented its full force and forestalled another blow.

“Tain knew?” the Ila asked. “Or is Tain Trin Tain mad, too?”

“No,” he said, and caught a breath. “No to both.”

“How many others are mad in your household?”

“None that I know.” It was the question she had asked the others. They were into the safe litany of the others’ questions, and he could let go his breath and cease to expect the blows. He could gather his strength.

“How did it come?”

“As lights. As voices.” The red-robed au’it wrote each answer, sitting on the steps by the Ila’s feet, her book on her lap and her pen moving busily between ink-cake and page.

“And Tain did not at any time know.”

“No,” he said. “Not until the last. I kept it secret.”

“And what betrayed you?” The Ila moved, a whisper of silk like the creeping of a serpent as she leaned her pale chin on a red-gloved, jeweled fist. “Did you fall in a fit?”

“I did,” he said. Shame heated his face. He had fallen at his father’s feet, in front of all the chiefs. He spared himself confessing that part, that moment, all the shocked faces.

“What did your father do?”

“He asked me the truth, and I stopped lying.” The silence hung there, filled with only that. He wanted to move on. “He had heard your men were gathering up the mad. He sent for them.”

“He was glad to let you go.”