It had all been done so swiftly that he had been swept along. Now he revolted and his hands went to that panel, determined to be out. Only to discover, too late, that there was no latch on his side and that he had been neatly put into safe keeping, along with Volt’s ax, until the witch chose to have him out again.

His irritation rising, Simon pressed his forehead against the carven screen to gain as full sight as he could of the room. And he kept very still as the woman from Estcarp reentered, to be pushed aside by two soldiers who strode briskly about, flipping aside strips of tapestry.

The witch was laughing as she watched them. Then she spoke over her shoulder to one still lingering on the other side of the threshold:

“It seems that one’s word is not accepted in Kars. Yet when has this house and those under its roof even been associated with ill dealings? Your hounds may find some dust, a spider web, or two — I confess that I am not a notable housewife, but naught else, lady. And they waste our time with their searching.”

There was a faint jeer in that, enough to flick one on the raw. Simon appreciated her skill with words. She spoke as an adult humoring children, a little impatient to be about more important business. And subtly she invited that unseen other to join her in adulthood.

“Halsfric! Donnar!”

The men snapped to attention.

“Prowl through the rest of this burrow if you will, but leave us in private!”

They stood aside nimbly at the door as another woman came in. The witch closed the portal behind them before she turned to the newcomer, who dropped her hooded cloak to let it lie in a saffron pool on the floor.

“Welcome, Lady Aldis.”

“Time is wasting, woman, as you pointed out.” The words were harsh, but the voice in which they were spoken surrounded that bruskness with layers of velvet. Such a voice could well twist a man to her will through hearing it alone.

And the Duke’s mistress had the form, not of the tavern wench to which the witch had compared her, over-ripe and full-curved, but of a young girl not fully awakened to her own potentialities, with small high breasts modestly covered, yet perfectly revealed by the fabric of her robe. A woman of contradictions — wanton and cool at one and the same time. Simon, studying her, could well understand how she had managed to hold sway over a proved lecher as long and successfully as she had.

“You told Firtha—” again that sharp note swathed in velvet.

“I told your Firtha just what I could do and what was necessary for the doing,” the witch was as brisk as her client. “Does the bargain suit you?”