“Rockbrother,” she said first, “I need to speak with Arvid awhile, him alone. Will you walk about the garden, or accept a guide around the Hall?”

The gnome looked at Arvid. Arvid shrugged. “Do what you will, rockbrother, while the Marshal-General and I have speech. I will be with you again later.”

“I would see your High Lord’s Hall,” the gnome said, to Arvid’s surprise. “I understand this is to you what our Giver of Law is to us.”

“That pleases me,” the Marshal-General said. “I will send for a guide, one who speaks some of your language, to answer any questions you may have.”

The gnome bowed; soon a young woman in a Marshal’s tabard appeared and greeted him in his language. “Rockbrother, you would see the High Lord’s Hall? May I be your guide?” And off they went together. The Marshal-General sat down across from Arvid.

“Well, now,” she said.

“Marshal-General,” Arvid said. He had not expected to feel anything in particular face-to-face with her—he who had been face-to-face with others in power—but her steady gaze quickened his pulse.

“You are not a stupid man, Arvid Semminson,” she said. “I do not believe you stole the necklace, nor did you entomb those Girdish knights. You would not commit such obvious crimes.”

“Thank you for your good opinion,” Arvid said, past a tight throat.

“So I will hear your story, in your own words, taking as long as you will, and as completely as you remember.” Her mouth twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “I imagine you understand me.”

“You have no scribe here to record—”

“No. If I decide a record is necessary, I can write it myself.”

“I begin with the showing of the regalia, then,” Arvid said. Without naming names, he explained how word of the regalia had passed to and through the Thieves’ Guild.

“Do you know the first date the crown was heard of?” the Marshal-General said.

“Before the coronation? No, only that there was rumor the new Duke Verrakai had a secret crown and would have another try at the prince, then or after he became king. As soon as word passed that Dorrin Verrakai would be the new duke, I would say. Certainly the rumors built in the last few tendays before the coronation itself.”

“I was surprised to find you had left Vérella when I came through.”

“My pardon, Marshal-General, if that was discourteous. I had not visited Fintha for years and thought I might familiarize myself with the land and the city.”

“A tactical talent, then,” the Marshal-General said. “I do not blame you; it merely surprised me. And my Marshals, as well, to find the Thieves’ Guild so quiet with you gone.”

Arvid looked at his nails. “Well,” he said. “You have skilled staff … and so, in my way, do I.”

“So you arrived here and stayed a night at the Gray Fox … but did not await my arrival to present yourself the next afternoon at the Hall. May I ask why?”