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she cut eating-sized chunks from the cheese, said, “I do not think you are the kind of man who can be seduced from his purpose.”
    â€œMore flattery?”
    The woman did not answer his question, only shook her head again, unsmiling now. She left the plate and goblet in the center of the table too, so that Justin could choose his own position, and sat down. Justin drew a stool close to the end of the table where she was sitting rather than opposite. He would not be able to see her full face unless she turned her head toward him, but it would be interesting to see how often she looked directly at him and how often she turned away. Seated, Justin took several healthy swallows of the ale. It was soothing to a mouth dry with the aftermath of too much drink, but the worst of his other symptoms were gone, his headache no more than a faint dullness and the queasy heave of his stomach replaced by a faint appetite. He was scarcely famished, but he drew his eating knife and speared a piece of cheese with a fair pretense of eagerness. After all, he was not about to admit that the reason he had not broken his fast was not his passion for justice but because he was too sick to eat.
    â€œYou said before that knowing the worst was better than remaining in doubt,” Justin said, putting down the goblet and taking a bite of the bread. “Does that mean you feared what happened?”
    â€œNo,” Lissa said hesitantly, a worried frown wrinkling her brow. “At least I do not remember being afraid until last night when Peter did not come home. I do not know why—” Her voice quavered and she dropped her eyes, which were suddenly swimming with tears. “But in the past he had told me each time he expected to be out late, and yesterday he said he would be out for dinner but back for the evening meal—and he did not come back.”
    She does know some reason to be afraid Flael would be hurt or killed, Justin thought, but he asked mildly, “It did not occur to you that he met a friend and changed his mind, or that his business took longer than expected?”
    â€œOh yes, but soon after Vespers I had sent Witta to Master Hamo Finke’s house—that was where Peter had dinner—with a message that Master Richard FitzReiner’s servant had come to ask Peter to call on his master. Only Peter was not with Master Hamo. He had left at the same time as the others, about Nones.”
    â€œWhere did he go?”
    â€œI do not know,” Lissa replied, her lips tightening with remembered fear and frustration. “Witta did not ask because I never thought to tell him to ask, and at that time I still expected Peter home soon after dark so it did not seem worthwhile to send the child out again. I did not really begin to worry until Compline, and then when I spoke to young Peter and begged him to ask Master Hamo where his father had gone, he laughed at me and said Peter had had enough of me and had gone back to the woman he kept before we were married. I did not believe him.”
    â€œWhy?” Justin asked, wondering if Madame Heloise could possibly have been jealous.
    It did not seem likely for a young and passably attractive woman to be jealous enough of an old man to have him tortured and killed. Then Justin remembered that Flael had not been tortured; the wounds had been inflicted after his death. He was about to dismiss jealousy as a motive until he noticed that Lissa looked astonished at the question. Justin suddenly realized a woman did not need to care for a man to hate him for wounding her pride by preferring a common whore.
    Neither her reply nor her manner confirmed that theory, however. Smiling faintly and clearly puzzled at Justin’s lack of comprehension of so obvious an answer, she said, “But why should he not simply say that he would be back very late or even that he did not expect to come home at all? He had done that before. Why say he would definitely be home for