Tain Hu brandishes her cocky, lopsided grin. She has drawn her sword, too, the tip aimed not at Baru but at the throne behind her. Goodness, Baru thinks, that is a sharp sword; no real sword was ever so sharp, was it?

“Nice doctrine,” Hu drawls. “You sound like my uncle-in-law’s sister. Do you have a word for that in Incrastic pedigree? Your aunt’s husband’s sister? I’m sure you do.”

Look out, Hu! Baru wants to scream to her. I have a lobotomy pick! I’m not in control of myself!

But Tain Hu is perfectly aware that Baru is not in control. She seems to take this as a challenge. Her eyes glimmer black and gold, amused. She mounts the steps up to the Throne.

A man steps into her way.

He is Cairdine Farrier’s stooge, Governor Cattlson. “You brigand bitch,” he says, sulkily, and then he swings his sword at her—a thunderous stroke down from the high arc. But Tain Hu turns the mighty blow so it slides down her own sword and over her shoulder. As she did in the plaza duel, Tain Hu beats him in the head with the back of her sword so he falls. But this time Tain Hu lunges and pierces his heart. An unbelievable yet spectacular geyser of heartblood jets from Cattlson’s chest, paints Hu’s leather tabard, and glistens on her mail rings.

Cattlson says, with frank irritation, “But I’m bigger!”

“I stand for Baru Cormorant,” Hu says, and then, winking, “and she lies for me.”

Baru feels faintly weak-kneed. The ropes of the Throne creak as they correct her posture. The pick in her right hand waits, cobra-poised, for Tain Hu to come in stabbing range.

“Hu,” Baru tries to say, but all she can do is yawn and drool. The Throne does not will her to speak. She never did manage to warn Tain Hu of her own treachery: not until it was too late.

“Hush,” Hu says, “hush, it’s all right: trust me.”

Don’t trust me, Hu.

“I mean it,” Hu says, neither smiling nor winking, but fixing Baru with the plain intensity she often used in field command: a woman who knew death, and trusted it as a companion. “I’m bringing her to you. I know you don’t understand why. But you need her. Trust me.”

Tossing her sword to her other hand (a trick she would never use in battle) she undoes the steel snaps and thong ties of her tabard. It falls off her. Beneath it, she is sensibly dressed, but not modestly. The dancers in Treatymont had a way of walking, foot crossing over foot, that made their hips sway. Tain Hu doesn’t walk like that. She comes up the stairs to the Throne shrugging out of her tabard, padding straight-hipped and barefoot like a curious catamount, absolutely self-possessed.