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Tapster and Naghan ti Lodkwara had met over the matter of strayed or stolen ponshos. Now they formed a body of close comrades I came to value more and more as the seasons and the campaigns passed over.
    “You are right. But that stikitche, had he wished to assassinate me, would not have missed. Bring me the shaft.”
    The arrow was brought and I unwrapped the letter attached.
    The message was addressed: “Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.” The salutation, in the correct grammatical form, read: “Llahal-pattu. Majister.”
    I sighed and looked quickly down for the signature.
    The scrawl, in a different hand from the body of the letter, was just decipherable. It read: “Nath Trerhagen, Aleygyn.”
    This assassin and I had met before, just the once. He was Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium.
    This brought up painful memories of Barty Vessler and so looking at the writing I forced unwelcome thoughts away and concentrated on the here and now. Nath the Knife, the chief assassin was called. He wanted to meet me. There was an important matter that had come up. The phraseology was all in the mock legal, written by his pet lawyer he kept tucked up in some lair in Drak’s City, the Old City of Vondium, where, so far, the writ of the emperor’s law did not run.
    “We should go in there and burn the place out,” quoth Larghos Manifer, a Vondian who had been newly recruited into the Sword Watch. His round face fairly bristled. His words met with general approval.
    “Yet the people of Drak’s City held out the longest against the damned Hamalese,” I pointed out.
    “They could fight all the imps of Sicce from there, majister.” Larghos Manifer, because he had been born in Vondium the Proud City, and knew what he knew, held a natural resentment against Drak’s City. “For one who is not a thief or a forger or a stikitche or an Opaz-forsaken criminal of one-kind or another it is death to venture in.”
    “Nath the Knife wishes to meet me in the shadow of the Gate of Skulls. That, I think, indicates a willingness to come forward. We are, in theory, on neutral ground there.”
    So, later on that morning and before we were due to return to eat, we wended our way through the crowded streets toward the moldering pile of old houses clustered behind the old walls that was the site of the very first settlements here, long before Vondium became the capital of Vallia.
    Targon, Naghan and Cleitar sidled their zorcas close to one another and after a brief conversation, Naghan went haring off. I had a shrewd suspicion about where he was going and what he was up to, and when we rode quietly up to the Gate of Skulls my guess was confirmed.
    The usual hectic activity around and through the gate was stilled. The striped awnings over stalls had been taken down. People kept away. The space this side of the gate and the Kyro of Lost Souls beyond were deserted. In a double line ranked two hundred paces back from the gate waited the Sword Watch. This was the handiwork of Naghan and the others. Bowman and lancer alternating, the men sat their zorcas silently. The scarlet and yellow, the gleaming helmets, the feathers, the brilliance of weapons, all made a fine show. I rather fancied Nath the Knife might have a similar if less splendidly outfitted array on his side of the wall.
    And — he had Bowmen of Loh among his scurvy lot. My men were armed with the compound reflex bow of Vallia, a flat trajectory weapon of great power but not a patch on the great Lohvian longbow.
    As a matter of interest as I waited for the chief assassin I made a cursory count of the Sword Watch. I was astonished. There were better than five hundred of them. This was news to me. The rascally members of my original Choice Band, with whom I had campaigned and caroused and fought over Vallia, had been busy recruiting. Well, that could be looked into. Now, Nath the Knife made his presence known.
    Four hefty fellows walked into the