"In more ways than one," she admitted, stretching languidly. "But your life's not really in any danger from me, Silk - not anymore."

"It wasn't my life I was worried about." Silk grinned.

"That's another matter, of course," she admitted. "Don't forget that you owe me a favor."

"I hunger for the opportunity to repay my debt," he said impudently.

"You're impossible." She laughed, then gestured to her porters, and they lifted her litter to their shoulders. "Good-bye, Silk," she said.

"Good-bye, Bethra," he replied with a deep bow.

"Absolutely disgusting," Durnik said in a voice strangled with outrage as the porters marched away with the litter. "Why is a woman like that even permitted to stay in the city?"

"Bethra?" Silk asked in surprise. "She's the most brilliant and fascinating woman in Tol Honeth. Men come from all over the world just for an hour or two with her."

"For a price, of course," Durnik said.

"Don't misunderstand her, Durnik," Silk told him. "Her conversation's probably more valuable than-" He coughed slightly with a quick glance at Aunt Pol.

"Really?" Durnik questioned in a voice heavy with sarcasm.

Silk laughed. "Durnik," he said, "I love you like a brother, but you're a terrible prude, do you know that?"

"Leave him alone, Silk," Aunt Pol said firmly. "I like him exactly the way he is."

"I'm only trying to improve him, Lady Polgara," Silk explained innocently.

"Barak's right about you, Prince Kheldar," she said. "You're a very bad man."

"It's all in the line of duty. I sacrifice my more delicate feelings for the sake of my country."

"Of course!"

"Surely you don't imagine that I enjoy that sort of thing?"

"Why don't we just let it drop?" she suggested.

Grinneg, Barak, and Mister Wolf returned to Grinneg's house not long after the others had arrived.

"Well?" Aunt Pol asked Wolf as the old man came into the room where they had been waiting.

"He went south," Wolf said.

"South? He didn't turn east toward Cthol Murgos?"

"No," Wolf said. "He's probably trying to avoid a meeting with Ctuchik's people. He'll look for a quiet place to slip across the border. Either that or he's headed for Nyissa. Perhaps he's made some arrangement with Salmissra. We'll have to follow him to find out."

"I met an old friend in the marketplace," Silk said from the chair in which he lounged. "She tells me that Asharak's been involved in the politics of succession. It appears that he's managed to buy the Grand Duke of Vordue. If the Vorduvians get the throne, Asharak's going to have Tolnedra in the palm of his hand."

Mister Wolf scratched thoughtfully at his beard. "We're going to have to do something about him sooner or later. He's beginning to make me just a little tired."

"We could stop over for a day or so," Aunt Pol suggested. "Attend to it once and for all."