Because it was the dead man’s principal rival at court, a figure in some ways even more powerful, who de Vaux believed had ordered him slain.

You really didn’t want to make an enemy of the Duke de Barratin, he thought. Or level accusations you could not prove. You’d open the gates to so much violence it didn’t bear thinking on. You’d likely die, too. Hanged as a traitor.

But did that mean you looked away? That you told yourself this was too fraught, too perilous? That there were too many powerful pieces on the game board to treat last night as a straightforward murder to be solved?

Straightforward? One could laugh.

What was his proper task, though? Where did he owe allegiance in this moment? Country? King? City? Holy Jad of the Sun? Some idea of justice? His own family?

And what if these pointed in different directions? To different decisions?

He had done things in his years at war he could not be proud of, things he tried to forget, but he had never been a coward, and had never stood down from his duty as he saw it.

Was he to do that now? Stand down? Was it true, as soldiers at campfires or old men in taverns declared, trying to sound wiser than they were, that there’s a first time for everything?

He needed more evidence, the provost thought. But Laurent de Barratin was far too intelligent, and would have had time to plan carefully if this really was of his devising. The provost had sent his newest, impulsively chosen man, the young poet he liked, to the duke’s palace in the hope he might—

De Vaux arrested his own thought. He swore.

He had, he realized, forgotten to do something. There were reasons, excuses. There often were for errors. But someone could die because of this one.

He summoned Medor from the corridor. Gave him orders. The serjeant went out. It was probably too late, the provost thought. The sun was low already. Jad headed down beneath the world. If something was meant to happen, well, it had probably happened already.

He swore again under his breath, then offered a brief prayer, making the sign of the sun disk. Only men who went to sea, Robbin de Vaux often thought, prayed more frequently than soldiers.

—

The streets were too quiet. It wasn’t safe. Thierry thought about it briefly, then broke into a run. He was far enough back west now, knew this part of Orane well, could possibly shake these men off in twilight lanes, if he didn’t slip on the ice. He’d have to elude them, he realized. Because it became clear, when they began running too, that he was being followed.