Fingers clasped in Baru’s mind. A Falcresti man had asked the harbormaster to cover up traces of Oriati warships. Could that be Faham Execarne? Cooperating with the Oriati to prevent a greater war?

“You haven’t asked who else was taken,” Xe said.

Little minnows thrashed and nipped in Baru’s stomach. She very badly didn’t want to know: for the other prisoners would be Tain Hu’s dearest, and all of them would mourn the duchess, and in a fiercely stupid selfish way Baru wanted that all to herself.

“Do they want me to know their names?” she said.

“Of course we want you to know. We all swore an oath. All the Vultjagata.”

Vultjagata. Stakhi for fighters of Vultjag. “What oath?” Baru whispered.

“We kissed Tain Hu’s sword,” Xe said, “and we promised her that we would serve you in your work. If you kept her faith.”

Out of sheer pride and grief and gratitude Baru would have burst into tears or (more likely) begun to hurl things, except that the screaming from outside finally overpowered the fiddler’s song.

*   *   *

IT was all over by the time they arrived. A man in the square had recognized Xate Yawa, and followed her a little ways, unsure of his courage. Then he’d taken a snort of mason dust and tried to strangle her to death.

By the time Baru and Ulyu Xe arrived the man was dead on the ground with cut wrists and a slashed throat. His left thumb dangled by a tab of skin. Baru knew those cuts: you put your hands up by reflex, against the knife. But your hands could be cut, too.

Iscend Comprine hummed as she went through his pockets.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been throttled,” Yawa snapped, fending off Baru’s solicitations. “I see the diver lured you out. Good. The damn prisoners insist they must see you, or they won’t speak.”

“This wasn’t necessary.” Xe looked down sadly at the dead man. “I knew him. He would’ve gone quietly.”

“Gone and died of sepsis from those cuts,” Yawa said. “Baru, be a dear and help me up.”

Baru lifted her by her armpits. “Roll your head about. Tell me if you feel any pain.”

“Of course my neck’s in pain. I’m fucking sixty and I write too much.” Yawa extracted herself from Baru and went forward applauding: “Iscend, Iscend, I knew you were magnificent!”

The Clarified woman took a bow and, like an artist, flicked the blood off her knife onto a stone wall in the lee of an overhang, where the scab would last through rainstorms. “All in the service, my lady.”

Ulyu Xe stared at Iscend, too. Baru hadn’t thought anyone devoted to patience and reserve could easily express pure loathing. She was wrong. Xe looked ready to wait forever for Iscend’s messy death.