D’Ath spoke from her spot by the window. Yseult frowned at the shiver that ran down her back. What is it I sense? She’s not an evil person; just odd and rare; but . . .

“Lady d’Ath?” the Regent said.

“I got very little information from Lady Mary. She was her usual irritating self; complained about the accommodations, the food, the constant watching.

“She refused to say much about her work with the CUT. She did insist that she was only trying to improve the fortunes of House Liu. She was very clear that what she did was not, in her mind, treasonous.”

“What passes for her mind,” Sandra Arminger said dryly. “A world of its own, where every action of Mary Liu is wise and righteous.”

Tiphaine inclined her head and continued. “She named her initial recruiter as Guelf and stated that Alex Vinton had recruited . . . she used the word ‘converted’ them; Guelf first and then herself. Vinton, she claimed, came to the castle some two or three years after the death of the late Baron Liu, with passwords Lady Mary recognized. He’d been one of Eddie’s embedded spies in the lands where Eddie had tried to set up Duke Iron Rod for us, years ago. Out in northern Idaho.”

“There’s nothing in the records, but there wouldn’t be, if he was running the operation personally,” Sandra said. “We were a little scattershot in those days, scrambling to seize fleeting opportunities while things were fluid. Go on, Lady d’Ath.”

“Lady Mary said that gave him the position of valet to Odard who was just coming of an age to need a manservant. For his consequence, I suppose, and because this Vinton was a competent bodyguard. Odard would have been ten at the time.”

Sandra’s eyes went to the young Lius. Yseult nodded and confirmed it:

“I remember him first coming to Gervais. He became our dancing master, too.”

Huon bowed. “I don’t remember it, I’m afraid, my lady Regent. I was very young, he was a fixture as far back as I can think.”

“Dancing master? What an odd profession for a spy,” Lady Death said coolly. “Of particular interest to me was her stated ultimate reason for treachery. She blamed both the Lady Regent and myself personally for not rescuing her brother, Sir Jason, in Corvallis just before the Protector’s War, and for the shaming Theresa Reddings received being pregnant at the time and betrothed to Jason, who was assassinated by parties unknown.”

Yseult cringed slightly as d’Ath turned to look at her, and then forced herself to stand firmly erect.

“Is that true?” the Grand Constable asked.

“Yes. They were betrothed, but Theresa was very young and Sir Richart had imposed a long betrothal. Theresa delivered of a son that May. He died less than a month later of jaundice. She was ruined and could never marry.”