“De castle is onder attack,” the captain said gruffly, his Taifan accent thick. “Is no safe.”

Iome fought the urge to slink away. She did not want to antagonize the captain, yet she felt that it was her sacred duty to bury her mother, show the woman that one last act of dignity. “The castle isn’t under attack,” Iome tried to sound reasonable, “only a few nomen trapped in the woods are under attack.” She waved her hand out over the burned battlefield before the castle. “And if Orden should attack, you would see him coming from half a mile, and he would have to breach the Outer Wall. No one is likely to reach the Dedicates’ Keep.”

The little man listened intently, his head cocked to the side. Iome could not tell whether he understood her. Perhaps she’d spoken too fast. She could have spoken to him in Chaltic, but she doubted he’d understand.

“No,” the little man said.

“Then let her spirit take vengeance upon you, for I am guiltless. I do not wish to be haunted by a Runelord.”

The little man’s eyes flashed in fear. The spirits of dead Runelords were said to cause more trouble than most—particularly if they suffered violent deaths. Though Iome did not fear her mother’s shade, this little Taifan captain was from a land where such things were taken far more seriously.

“Hurry,” the little captain answered. “Now. Go. But take nothing more than half an hour.”

“Thank you,” Iome said, reaching out to touch him in gratitude. The captain shrank back from her touch.

Iome called out to Chemoise, to her Days. “Quickly, we need bearers to carry these litters—and some charnel robes.”

Chemoise ran into the kitchens, brought out some of the deaf and mute bakers, the butcher and his apprentice, kitchen helpers with no sense of smell. In a few moments, two dozen people came to help bear the litters.

The butcher trundled over to the Dedicates’ Hall, came out with an armload of black cotton charnel robes, with their deep hoods and long sleeves.

Each pallbearer donned a charnel robe, so that the ghosts in the tombs would know they had not come as grave robbers, and at the hem of each robe was a silver bell whose tinkling would drive off any malicious spirits.

When they had finished, they went to the litters and began carrying the dead to the portcullis. Iome took the front right handle of her mother’s litter, as was her place.

When they were ready, the Taifan captain and his sergeant put their backs to work, raising the portcullis quickly, and shooed them all from the keep with a warning. “Be back, twenty minutes. No more!”

It would not be enough time, Iome knew, to set the bodies in place, sing the soothing funerary lullabies to the dead, yet she nodded yes, just to put the captain’s mind at ease.