“It’s very kind of you to hope for his survival, when everyone else thinks he’s dead.” Tau kissed the back of their hand in gratitude, and placed it, gently, on Baru’s shoulder. “But what you learn here could pin the attack on Oriati Mbo. You could make a case for war.”

“Please trust me,” Baru said, desperately, “I don’t want war, not unless I can be sure Falcrest will lose it—”

“We will all lose the war!” Tau cried.

“All right. All right.” Baru didn’t know how to soothe them: probably they would not want to be soothed, with the whole world burning in their heart. “Whatever I learn, I’ll share with you, all right?”

“Swear on your parents.”

“I swear on my parents,” Baru said, and then cringed inside and out. She had to stop making bargains without tallying the price.

“You must be careful, now,” Tau warned her. “If the Kyprists discover you’re talking to the Canaat rebels, they may well kill you.”

Baru tried a smile. She’d dared a little makeup, a masculine touch: she thought it put an interesting shine around her eyes in the mask. “Trim will protect me. Won’t it?”

“Unless you’ve lied to me. Then trim will not protect you at all.”

“Of course I’ve lied, Tau. I’m a cryptarch.”

“Baru.” Tau cupped her masked cheeks. Their upturned face was black and gold and glorious: the honest fear in their eyes as raw and sickly-sweet as oyster. “You must be very careful. There is a terrible power loose on Kyprananoke. Do not provoke it.”

Baru felt a thrill of horror. Of course they’re here, Iraji had whispered, his voice wet with the fluids of his body, particles of grief and fear. Of course they’re here.…

“You’re alluding to,” she said, rubbing her scalp, “the civil war? Principles of discord?”

“No. I mean the epidemic flags in the west. And the power that might have set that epidemic loose.”

“Maybe it’s just a seasonal plague—all the winterlocked diseases have been freed up by the spring winds, to gather here by ship—”

“No, Baru.” Tau’s voice trembled with fear and vulnerable defiant strength. “You know it’s not.”

*   *   *

BARU had read the Kyprist reports. They were exceptional record-keepers, these Kyprananoki tyrants. In the smokehouses their barber-surgeons performed mass autopsies on the corpses headed for the kilns. Some of the dire diagnosis came from these.

The rest came from another method the Kyprists had learnt from Falcrest.