After several false turnings, one of which led him into a parlor where a surprised group of young women sat sewing—he bowed repeatedly as he backed out—Chert found the inner gardens and made his way across the nearest one to the center of the residence, then back down the main corridor to the offices and official chambers near the front entrance. I would have been better off to let the guards abuse me, he thought in disgust. I have wasted twice as much time this way. Still, he had finally reached the section of the residence to which he had been summoned, so he no longer needed to hide himself whenever he heard footsteps. With the help of a slightly suspicious page he discovered the hallway to the castellan’s chambers, and was about to rap on the beautifully carved and polished oak door when something stung his hand.

Chert cursed and swatted, but his attacker was no hornet or horsefly: instead, something like a long, slender thorn hung from the flesh of his hand. He brushed at it in irritation but it did not come out, and when he at last plucked it painfully from his skin, he discovered to his astonishment that it was a tiny arrow only half the length of his finger, fletched with tiny strips of butterfly wing.

For a moment he could only stare at it, completely befuddled, but when he looked up and saw a little manlike shape clinging to a tapestry just across the hall, Chert finally realized what had happened. But why should the Rooftoppers want to hurt him? Wasn’t he their ally—hadn’t he and Beetledown been something like friends?

The minuscule assassin did not try to escape, but waited as Chert strode toward him. For a moment he was tempted to reach up and, like some terrible giant, simply pluck the little creature from the hanging and throw him down on the floor, perhaps even step on him. But even at the end of a bad morning, late to an appointment and with his hand throbbing, Chert was not the kind of man to hurt another without good cause, and he did not understand yet what had happened.

He leaned his face close. It was a young Rooftopper male, but not one he recognized. At least his attacker looked suitably frightened. “What are you after?” Chert growled.

The little man was hanging from a thread like a mountaineer on a rope. He waved one of his hands and piped, “Quiet, now! Be tha Chert, Beetledown’s companion?”

“Yes, I be bloody Chert. Why did you arrow me?”

“Beetledown—un sent me to say tha beest in danger! Go not inside!” The little man looked terrified now, and Chert considered how he must look to the fellow, a mountain with a frowning face. He leaned a little ways back.

“What do you mean?”

“No time—hide ’ee!” The Rooftopper, as though seeing something Chert could not see, scuttled up the thread to the top of the tapestry and disappeared behind it.