‘Van Sennit, you rat,’ Ngiri said softly, still looking at the screens. ‘I’m going to have your hide…’ She looked back at Chetta. ‘I told him not to give that footage to anyone else. I suppose you got to him just before I did? You must have had a powerful hold over him, to get him to ignore a rogue trader’s orders.’ She waved a hand with a whirr of armour servos. ‘Of course, Chetta, of course. If you can get us something to work with, then I’ll have Arctos combing the streets himself, if that’s what it takes.’

‘Good,’ Chetta said shortly. ‘I just hope it won’t be too–’

‘Lady Brobantis!’

She looked around sharply, wincing as her neck cracked. A vox-operator on the far side of the main room was waving at her. It was a grave breach of decorum, but in Chetta’s experience it was generally worth paying sharp attention on such occasions, because it meant someone had encountered something they thought was more important than avoiding the risk of disciplinary action.

‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Has the intruder been found?’

‘No, high lady,’ the woman called back. ‘But there is an urgent communique from Lady Jo’Sin! She’s approaching in a craft and demanding permission to land, else she threatens a trade war of her own!’

Chetta groaned inwardly. Of course, Morandia had seen her boarding Ngiri’s gun-cutter, and even if she hadn’t witnessed what had happened to Vittariel in the press of the action, she’d have realised that her brother was no longer anywhere to be found after Ngiri’s craft had departed. If she didn’t know already, then Morandia was suddenly about to find herself as an only child, with Chetta being the last person to see either of the Brobantis brothers alive. Chetta would be the first to admit that it seemed suspicious. That was the problem with arranging for your husband’s murder: it only needed one more unlikely death to occur in your vicinity for people to start asking awkward questions.

‘We’re going to need my brother-in-law’s body off your ship,’ she told Ngiri. Vittariel would have needed to be interred in the Vaults anyway, but Chetta hadn’t intended to unload his remains until she knew what the situation was in the palace. Now, however, Morandia was forcing their hand.

‘I’ll have Fell bring him out, if your people will be ready to receive him,’ Ngiri replied. ‘You’re intending to let them land, I take it?’