She knew that the man was mocking her; she dared not comment in case she made even more of a fool of herself. No servant had ever dared speak to her so frankly. Verk was showing her a whole new way of looking at her father and, by implication, at herself.

Up the long sloping bridge to Grand, higher yet to Ossa's Leap, over the masts of a ship to Dead Ringer, then Live Ringer, and steeply down to Temple ...

'And you really have no idea why Father has sent for me?' There had been no hint of the matter in the tablets he had sent her about the new stables less than a sixday ago.

'He did not confide, mistress. Mouths can hold converse but not secrets, they do say.'

'You mean you heard rumors?'

'I did not,' Verk said firmly. 'Not a mouse squeaked.'

So the decision had been sudden. The tablet Father had sent to Kyrn had been cracked, as if fired in haste.

'Yesterday—did anyone come to see Father yesterday?'

After a pause, Verk said, 'None that he had me watch over, mistress.'

The pause felt like a clue. He was coaching her, as if he had been sworn not to tell her something and wanted her to ask the right questions.

'Did you escort him anywhere yesterday?'

'Not I. Nor Uls.'

Then who? 'But he did go out?'

The next pause felt like a refusal. The wheels rumbled slowly the whole width of Eelfisher before the swordsman spoke again.

'They do say so, mistress.'

Frena pondered her next move. How many questions did she have left? 'Without his usual guards?'

'With no guards.'

She thought Aee! It was catching. 'But he never does that!'

Verk chewed his lip for a moment and eventually said, 'Well, he did have the Werists.'

'Werists? Did you say Werists?'

'Wearing satrap's stripes. Brought him back later, no harm done.'

'I'm glad to hear it!' She could not recall the palace ever sending Werists to fetch her father. She doubted very much that Satrap Eide would have had anything to do with that outrage. She sensed the hand of his wife, Saltaja Hragsdor, the real ruler of Skjar and all Vigaelia. 'Was Father expecting them?'

'At dawn? Tearing off shutters? Slaughtering watchdogs? Any other man would have been in bed, but you know the master, never sleeping ...'

'There was a fight?' she cried.

'Aee, no! Swordsmen don't argue with Werists, mistress. It's part of the law—we don't even have to try to fight Werists!'

Verk was shamed, furious. He and the others had been made to look irrelevant. Her father admitted that a man had to be either stupid or very brave to join the guards' guild, for an extrinsic wearing a sword was a red rag to a Werist. And if the Werist turned on the man, a red rag was all he would be.

What had provoked Father's unexpected summons to the palace yesterday and why had it caused him to send for her?

Eelfisher to Chatter Place and then to Blueflower. There Frena was on home ground, amid familiar smells of tar and fish and saltwater, hearing the sounds of rattling oxcarts, wailing seabirds, creaking windlasses. Masts and sails moved between houses. The sparkling crystal freshets that drained the lake had divided and merged, widened and grown brackish, and finally spread out into shipping channels, salt and foul; greasy outlets to Ocean.

Her earliest memories were of her parents' home on Fishgut Alley, on the island called Crab, which faced out directly over Ocean. Her mother had kept house upstairs while her father ran his chandler business downstairs— although by the time her fuzzy childhood images cleared, he was already expanding into adjacent quarters and larger interests. That building had long since been replaced by warehouses.

Year by year Horth Wigson had extended his reach, doubling and redoubling his worth and workforce. Everything he turned his hand to turned to gold. He owned all of Crab now, except for one jetty on the northeastern corner. He owned most of Blueflower, which adjoined Crab on the west so that the two of them enclosed the basin of Weather Haven, a natural harbor secure enough to give him an advantage over all his competitors. Year after year he tore down more hovels, built more warehouses, extended his mansion. Any footprint-size patch of ground in Skjar was precious, yet Horth's windows overlooked a private park. He imported full-grown trees and was planning his own zoological collection. His residence outshone the palace of Satrap Eide.

As the onagers hauled the chariot across the bridge from Blueflower to Crab, Frena broke a long silence. 'You will drop me at the door, Verk, and then go straight back to Uls. He will rest better if you are there.'

Verk shot her a startled look and almost knocked over a woman carrying a water jug on her head. She screamed abuse after him.

'Tomorrow,' Frena said, in what she hoped was the same calm and confident voice, 'you will bring Uls to the Healers on Chatter Place. I will tell Master Trinvar to send someone with gold to wait for you there. And tonight I will tell Father what happened and insist that it was all my fault. I promise,' she told his skeptical expression. 'I think he has a lot more on his mind now than a lost sword and a scrape on my arm.'

'My lady is kind,' Verk said. He did not argue, so she must have found the best solution to their problem.

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