He pulled a lamp closer, as his offices were already well in shadow and growing dimmer by the minute, and he made a careful study of the lines and shapes. Equations and architects’ notes about materials and descriptions of renovation projects apparently done over the many years crowded the page. Little of it meant much to Delivegu. He did, however, tingle with the suspicion that Rialus’s cryptic scribblings had been written after all the rest and had some other import. Half sentences and signs and arrows that could have been meant only as notes to himself, for they confused the diagram more than explained anything. To make it worse, much of what Rialus had written he had later crossed out.

“He makes no sense,” Delivegu complained. “A waste of my time …”

Once again, he nearly tossed the diagram onto the pile of papers rising beside his desk. But if it was a waste of time, why had it occupied Rialus so long? He bent and studied it further. It was a map of secret passageways. Of course it was! That was what the broken lines drawn within the walls were! Yes, it did appear that many of the passageways were no longer usable. Some of them Rialus had scratched out with positively angry motions. Had Rialus kept this document at the queen’s orders or secretly? That Delivegu could not discern, but it did seem clear that the queen had taken pains to eliminate these passages.

“Suspecting some deceit, were you, Your Majesty?” he asked. “Where’s your trust, your faith in your loyal servants?”

If she had suspected treachery, it looked like she had been very effective in sealing the place up. Each time he tried to trace his way in with a finger, he invariably reached a dead end. At least, that was the case until …

“Now, that’s interesting,” Delivegu said. “That’s quite interesting.”

Outside, he stood beside the wall in a quiet area of the palace grounds. He would not be able to say later whether the secret entrance had been missed or whether Corinn had allowed it to stay open. Nor could he ask, of course. He suspected that the tunnel had been effectively sealed off for a time, but it appeared to have come open again when a new door was knocked into a once-closed storage space. Perhaps the queen never knew the change was made. But this was conjecture. What he did know was that it existed. Just as the diagram indicated, there was a narrow slit in the southern buttress of the royal quarters, a fissure between two walls just large enough for a person to slip through. It was the strangest thing, for one could stand a few feet away from it and not see the opening for what it was. Even when he did stick his head in, a facing wall met him, making it seem like the opening led nowhere. That was an illusion of the architecture.