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said…sign? Signed?” volunteered the guard. Rima made a faint movement of her hand toward her breast, but lacked the strength to carry it through; the hand fell back. Sif’s eyes narrowed.
    “Did you search her?”
    “No, lord!” said the guard, sounding faintly shocked at the idea.
    Sif had no such scruples. He’d followed the unfinished gesture to where it would have landed, and saw a subtle bulge there that belonged on no woman’s body. Now he reached out and ran his hand over it, not able to suppress a quick grim smile as his fingers met parchment.
    “It’s my guess it was for this she was attacked. ‘Sign,’ she said. Or ‘signed.’ Something signed. What document is this?”
    It was much crumpled and partly stained with Rima’s blood, but it was still legible enough. As Sif tried to make sense of it, Fodrun watched his face change again, sliding into the cold fury only lately quelled. When he looked up, even Fodrun quailed at his icy eyes even though the anger was not for him. Sif spoke to the guard without even turning his head in that direction. “Find me one of those Sighted women; there used to be dozens in the keep. Find me one, now. I want her here within five minutes. Move!”
    The guard, suddenly anxious to depart from Sif’s volatile presence, scurried to obey.
    “My lord?” Fodrun ventured.
    “She wasn’t attacked for this, but for that of which it tells,” Sif spat, tossing the unsavoury parchment to Fodrun, who caught it awkwardly. “She had the council sign a declaration. That’s just a statement of its existence; but that declaration, the original document, is a confirmation of Anghara’s succession, signed by every lord on my father’s own council. I can form a new council, but this, this will bind them, too—this is a legal document, signed by a legal government in its full powers. Anyone producing the original, or proof of its existence, can hold a sword at my throat. This can bury me. I want that document. If none know of it but she and the council, then I can still…”
    “Lord, you wanted…”
    Sif grabbed the dishevelled, elderly woman whom the guard dispatched for Sighted prey had produced, his hand closing round her arm like a vice. Her eyes were round with horror, and she whimpered like a puppy at the new pain. Sif shook her, and she blinked, seeming to start out of deep shock, staring at him in fear.
    “This woman is dying,” Sif said, “and you will read her for me. I want answers, and I can no longer extract them myself. Come on.”
    “The queen…” moaned the Sighted woman, suddenly catching her first sight of the subject she was to probe. “I can’t…”
    “Oh yes, you can,” said Sif grimly. “She was your queen. Right now, I am your king, and you will obey me. What is your name?”
    “D…Deira…”
    “Listen to me, Lady Deira, and listen very carefully. I want to know two things. I want to know where the original is of the document the general is holding. Do you need to see it to know what to ask?”
    She seemed to have lost her voice completely; Sif made an impatient motion and Fodrun handed him the document. Sif thrust it at the woman, who received it almost mechanically. “Look at it!” he snapped, and she did, although it was doubtful she took any of it in. Sif didn’t mind, he would have preferred her never to have seen it at all—if she couldn’t understand what she was holding, all the better, as long as she had the vital link to get the truth out of Rima.
    “The other thing…look at me, woman…the other thing I must know is the whereabouts of her daughter…what is it now?”
    Large round tears rolled out of Deira’s eyes at the mention of the princess. Sif shook her again. “I don’t have much time. What is it? Do you know something?”
    “She was my young lady…my lamb…she is gone…”
    That could have meant a number of things. Sif jerked his captive forward, desperately afraid Rima might yet cheat him of the