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heads.
    “That wouldn’t signify, if the king came to him ,” Barrett pointed out. “He wouldn’t necessarily have known that the king would seek him out.”
    “Are we reaching for some connection between the king’s presence and Sief’s death?” Dominy asked. “Because I don’t see any. What motive could there be, if there were? From all accounts, Sief had an excellent relationship with the king.”
    Seisyll nodded. “They had been friends for years. So had . . .”
    Speculation kindled in the blue-violet eyes as his voice trailed off, echoed in the expressions that began to animate the faces of the others with him.
    “I see,” said Vivienne, “that I am not the only one to wonder whether we must worry again about Lewys ap Norfal’s daughter.”
    Dominy shook her head, though the vehemence of her denial was at odds with her troubled expression. “What possible worry could there be? Surely you aren’t suggesting that she had a hand in her husband’s death?”
    “Such things have been known to happen,” Vivienne said dryly.
    “Then, it appears that further investigations should be made,” Seisyll replied. “And since I’m the one most regularly at court, the task obviously falls to me.”
    “What will you do?” Dominy asked.
    “Try again, to have a closer look at the body,” Seisyll replied. “The funeral will be from the cathedral tomorrow morning, so he lies tonight in a side chapel there. It is known we were friends. It would be remiss of me not to pay my respects.”
    “The funeral is tomorrow?” Vivienne said. “Does that seem over-hasty to anyone besides me?”
    Seisyll shrugged. “All the more reason to satisfy our curiosity tonight.”
    “And if others interrupt your visit?” Vivienne asked. “Even if others of his friends do not come, the brothers of the cathedral chapter will keep watch through the night.”
    “The brothers can be induced to doze at their devotions,” Seisyll said lightly. “If Michon will accompany me, we can certainly accomplish what is needful.”
    Michon inclined his head in agreement, his gray eyes glinting with faint amusement. “Audacious, as always; but I shall rise to the challenge.”
    Dominy de Laney gave a genteel snort, and Barrett raised one scant eyebrow.
    “I suppose it’s pointless to tell you to be careful,” Vivienne said sourly.
    Even Seisyll chuckled at that, for though Sief’s death left him and Michon as the Council’s senior members, both now past the half-century mark, the pair owned a long history of daring exploits on behalf of their race; Vivienne alone would reckon them reckless.
    “Darling Vivienne,” Michon said with a tiny, droll smile, “we are always careful.”
     
 
LATER that night, as the city watch cried the midnight hour and most of Rhemuth slept, Sir Seisyll Arilan summoned a servant with a torch and made his way quietly down the winding street that led from the castle toward the cathedral. As a trusted royal courtier, he was often abroad at odd hours on the king’s business, so the occasional guard he passed gave little response save to salute his rank and ensure that his passage was uneventful.
    As expected, the cathedral was deserted save for a pair of monks keeping watch beside Sief’s open coffin, there where it rested on its catafalque before the altar of a side chapel. Tall candles flanked the coffin, set three to either side, and the prayers of the kneeling monks whispered in the stillness, offered up in antiphon. After a glance to assess the situation, Seisyll drew his servant back into the nave and bade him kneel in the shadow of a pillar not far from the chapel entrance.
    “Keep watch here, and pray for the soul of Sir Sief MacAthan,” he whispered, also laying a hand on the man’s wrist and applying a compulsion to do just that.
    Satisfied that the man would not interfere, Seisyll made his way silently toward the door to the cathedral sacristy, which lay in the angle of the nave with the south