“Rugan.”

“Ah, yes. I remember when she was merely a priestess, but she had a head on her shoulders.” She nodded. “Do the priests still come into the Hive every morning to collect the sacred honey?”

Qinnitan stared, surprised by such a strange, illogical question. Had things changed so much since this woman’s days as a priestess? Then she realized she was still being tested. “No, Mistress Soryaza,” she said carefully. “The priests never come in…except for a few Favored who tend the altar of Nushash, that is. No true men do. And the honey only goes to the priests twice a year.” The amount sent in the winter ceremony was slight, only enough taken from the jars covered with holy seals to symbolize the light of the magnificent, holy sun that would survive the cold months and return again. Then, in summer, the high priestess herself and her four Carriers always took the wagon filled with jars of sacred honey to the high priest of Nushash during the important ceremony of Queening, when the new hives were begun and the weariest of the old hives were sacrificed to the flames. The high priest took that honey and presented it to the autarch, or so it was told: Qinnitan and the other acolytes never saw any of the ceremonies that took place outside the Hive, even one so important as the delivery of the god’s honey.

“And the Oracle?”

“Mudri, Mistress. She spoke to me once.” But that was telling more than she needed to. Fortunately, Soryaza didn’t seem to notice.

“Ah, Mudri, was it? Hands of Surigali, she was there when I was a girl and she was old then.”

“They say she has outlived four autarchs.”

“The gods bless her and keep her, then. One autarch was enough for me, and now I hear there’s a new one who means even less good than his father.”

Qinnitan flinched at this casual blasphemy, so trained was she in the decorous and unthinking autarch-praise of the Seclusion. Still, she thought, I could tell her things about this autarch that would freeze her blood. She felt a small thrill of power even as the memories brought a rush of fear. She had survived—she, Qinnitan, had escaped. Had any other wife ever left the Seclusion except in a casket?

“Well, then, I believe your story, child,” Soryaza said. “I will find work for you. You can sleep with the other girls, those who live here—some stay nights with their families. But you will work, I promise you! Harder than you’ve ever done. The Hive is a dream of paradise compared to the palace laundries.”

“What about my…my brother?”

Soryaza regarded the boy sourly. He straightened up in an effort to look useful, even though from such a distance he could have no idea what was being discussed. “Is he clean? Does he have decent habits—or has he been allowed to run wild like most simpleminded children?”

“He’s not simpleminded, Mistress, just mute. In truth, he’s very clever, and he will work hard.”