The front doors, ancient, scarred things that looked as though they’d been through a siege, were firmly closed. Iron letters, weeping long stains of rust, proclaimed this to be the Third Church of the Savior Karis’ Mercy. Raesinia pulled back the big knocker, which squealed in protest, and slammed it against the door as though she were trying to break it down.

“Mrs. Felda is a bit deaf,” she said to Marcus when he winced at the sound.

“Who’s Mrs. Felda?” Marcus’ ground-in reticence in the presence of his monarch was warring with his desire to understand what the hell was going on.

“The priest’s wife. She runs this place.”

“And she knows something about gunpowder?”

Raesinia laughed. “Not that I know of. But I have to admit I’ve never asked.”

“Then why—”

The door opened with a drawn-out squeal of desperate hinges, but only wide enough to reveal a frowning face. It was a young man, with a laughably wispy attempt at a mustache on his upper lip, but he was at least half a head taller than Marcus and much broader across the shoulders.

“What?” he said. Then, as he took in his visitors, his big face flickered quickly through expressions. Delight at the sight of Raesinia, replaced immediately by guarded caution at seeing Marcus and the two armed Mierantai. “Raes? Who’s this?”

“A friend,” Raesinia said. “We’re here to see Cora.”

“I suppose that’s all right, then,” the young man said, with the air of someone working out a complicated intellectual puzzle. “Come in.” He opened the door a bit farther, then turned over his shoulder and bellowed, “Mrs. Felda! Raes is here!”

“I thought,” Marcus said as they slipped inside, “we were keeping a low profile.”

Raesinia shrugged, but Marcus thought she was fighting a grin.

Like most of Vordan’s old Sworn Churches, this one had been remodeled considerably. In this case, most of the interior walls had been torn down and the grand altar and rows of pews replaced with a more modest worship space at the far end, beside a grand hearth and a huge table. The rest of the room was full of mismatched bedrolls, with hanging curtains creating smaller semiprivate spaces.

People were everywhere, sleeping on every available inch of floor space, standing around the table eating, or simply slumped against the walls. A flock of old women tended several huge pots suspended above the fire, from which they dispensed bowls of brown stuff that reminded Marcus of the “army soup” of his Khandarai days.

Raesinia was staring around, wide-eyed. Marcus wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this clearly wasn’t it. Before he could ask, a large, heavyset woman bustled over to them, holding up her long black skirt to keep it from dragging on the filthy stone floor.

“Hello, Raes!” she said, her voice loud enough to cut through the babble of many voices.

“Hello, Mrs. Felda,” Raesinia said.