“She will tell you herself. Come with me, please.” Beneath the formal manners, the girl seemed a little anxious herself.

“Oh, that is too bad,” old Losa said. “I was looking forward to a chat.”

“You’d better go,” Yazi told Qinnitan. “Maybe a handsome prince saw you when we were wandering around lost today. Should I come with you, in case he has trouble making himself understood when he proposes to you?”

“Stop, Yazi.” Qinnitan just wanted everyone to go away and forget about this, but it was obviously going to be the talk of the dormitory, perhaps for days.

“She is to come alone,” said the girl in the blue dress.

“But what about…my brother?” Qinnitan asked.

“I’ll watch him,” Yazi said. “We’ll have fun, won’t we, Nonem?”

Pigeon liked Yazi, but he clearly didn’t like the idea of letting Qinnitan go away with some stranger. Still, after a warning look from her, he nodded. Qinnitan rose, leaving the comb and mirror for Yazi to return to their owners, and followed the girl out of the dormitory into the cold, torchlit night.

She felt in the pocket of her smock for Pigeon’s carving knife and held it tightly as they walked back across the tiled immensity of the Echoing Mall.

“Who is your…mistress?” she asked the girl again.

“She will tell you what she wishes to tell you,” the little girl in the blue dress said, and would say no more. “

I am not happy,” said her father. Pelaya knew it was the truth. Count Perivos was not the sort of man who liked surprises, and all this had obviously come as just that. “Bad enough that a foreign prisoner should bribe my daughter to send messages to me when I already have so much else to worry on—using her as a…a go-between. But to find he also expects her to arrange some sort of assignation for him…!”

“It’s not an assignation and he didn’t bribe me.” Pelaya stroked his sleeve. The cuff needed mending, which made her heart ache a little—he worked so hard! “Please, Babba, don’t be difficult. Was there anything bad in his letter to you?”

Her father raised his eyebrow. “Babba? I haven’t heard that since the last time you wanted something. No, his thoughts are at least interesting, perhaps useful, and all he asks in return is any news I can give him about his home or his family. There’s nothing wrong with the letter, except that he knows too much. How could a foreign prisoner have so much to say about our castle defenses?”

“He told me he fought here twenty years ago against the Tuan pirates. That he was a guest of the Temple Council.”

“I remember those days, but he remembers where every tower stairway is and how many steps it has, I swear! He must have a memory like a mantisery library.” Count Perivos frowned. “Still, some of his warnings and suggestions show wisdom, and I am willing to believe he meant them in good faith. But what is this madness about a serving girl?”