“The knights have their own, and so do the paladins and paladin-candidates,” the Marshal-General said. “Why?”

“Would someone instantly notice an extra saddle and bridle, do you think?”

“Not with all the concern focused here,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

Dattur found Arvid’s saddle stuffed into a grain bin in the knights’ stable; Arvid recognized his bridle in a tangle of those awaiting mending in the tack repair area. “Someone is clever,” Arvid said. “He—or she—had limited time to suggest I was guilty … to dispose of my horse, tack, pack in only a few turns of the glass, without being noticed. I wonder, how many non-knights come into this stable? Would the stable help know if someone did?”

“In daylight, certainly. At night, there’s a watch going the rounds, but no specific guard.”

From her tone, this might change. Arvid nodded. “So anyone who knew the watch schedule could come in here, dispose of the tack … What about the guest stables?”

“The same. But do you have any idea where the boys might be, if they weren’t killed?”

“No. I don’t know this city. You’ve tried cisterns, I suppose, and granaries … any place big enough to hold boys and secure enough they couldn’t get out?”

“Not yet. Not all of them.” She looked pale; Arvid realized she must feel responsible for the boys’ safety.

“If I were the thief,” Arvid said, “I’d be busy enough disposing of that horse and my tack—that must’ve been done while the horse-dealer was still up, willing to make a deal. Then finding a hiding place for the necklace. I don’t think I’d waste time putting the boys anywhere difficult … just enough to keep them out of the way while I escaped. It would take a hard man to kill two boys who happened to see him, which is what I suspect happened.”

“Would you?” she asked.

“No,” Arvid said. “I might knock them on the head enough that they’d be silent. Put them in a pantry or something.” He thought a moment longer. “Say the boys were in the School, as they ought to have been, and heard something—saw something—maybe my things being taken from my room. They’re discovered—maybe they didn’t think to conceal themselves. It’s not easy to silence two boys and then carry them any distance. I’ll wager they’re still in the School barracks.”

“Nobody’s reported anything.”

“Let me look.”

As they came into the forecourt, Arvid called over two boys carrying a barrel slung from a pole. “When you don’t want to be found, where do you go?”

They glanced at each other, then at the Marshal-General.

“It’s important,” she said. “We think Baris and Tamis are hurt.”

“Well … there’s the back cellar. We’re not supposed to go there, but Baris found a trap-door.”

“Show me.”

There they found the two boys, bound and gagged, both with bruises suggesting they’d fought hard and unsuccessfully and been knocked unconscious. Tears had left streaky tracks down their dusty, bruised faces.