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saved—.”
    “You have told me many times that you will neither question nor falter in your duty, no matter what I ask of you. For the honor of your Emperor and your Prince. This is still true?”
    “I would sooner fall upon my sword than fail you, my lord.”
    “Following my instructions to the letter will suffice. You are to take a troop of well-armed guardsmen, and exactly four hours from the next striking of the clock, you are to arrest my attendant Sierge of the House of Mezzrah at his home. The charge is treason. He is to be taken directly to the public square of Capharna and hanged. Without discussion, without announcement, without forewarning to his family. Absolutely without delay of any kind. Do you understand me?”
    “Aye, my lord.” To his credit, the guard captain’s voice did not falter as his sudden pallor might warrant. “I would assume that no word is to be spoken of this, even in the palace itself, until the deed is done.”
    “You are perceptive as always, Mikael. At the same moment that you are arresting Sierge, two of your finest officers will be extending my gracious invitation to our Khelid guest, Korelyi, to witness an event of great import. He will be escorted to the square, where I will await him. I wish him to be at my side to witness this execution before I entertain him at dinner.”
    “As you wish, my lord, it shall be done. May I suggest doubling the watch this night? The House of Mezzrah has a large standing force and owns at least five assassins.”
    “No. No doubling of the guard. We are not afraid of an honorable family of such long and distinguished service to the Emperor. You will make this clear to those at Sierge’s house and to the guard and to all who may inquire or be concerned. I have judged that only the two men, Vanye and Sierge, have been involved in treason. No one else in the family. Even their wives and children will reap no ill harvest from their deeds.”
    “Yes, Your Highness. Four hours from this.”
    “Go with the gods’ protection, Mikael.”
    “You are Athos’ priest, my lord, and his wisdom guides your hand.”
    As the man bowed and left the room, I sincerely wished that I believed enough in a god—whether the Derzhi sun deity or some other—to think he or she was taking an interest in Aleksander’s plotting. The Prince was either an inordinately brilliant strategist or the maddest fool ever to wear a coronet. I suspected the latter. I suspected he was starting a war over an ugly face and a twenty-zenar slave.
    Once the guard captain was gone, I hastily resumed my cleaning, suspended by the extraordinary events I had witnessed.
    “What is your name, slave?”
    I had hoped he would not care to know it. I should have known better than to hope. It was the ultimate expression of subjugation—to be forced to give up the most personal, the most private self to one who had no claim, no right of friendship or kinship or guesting, to one who had no idea of the power of names or the dangerous entry they gave to the soul. “Seyonne, my lord.” No violation of body or mind was so bitter, save the rites they used to strip us Ezzarians of our power.
    “You are a lucky man, Seyonne.”
    I paused with my hands full of broken porcelain and feathers, trying to keep the foot I had just punctured with a shard of glass from dripping blood on the carpet. I kept my eyes averted and tried not to break into hysterical laughter.
    “When I discovered that the contents of my letter had found their way to Khelid ears ... and thus to my father’s ears, I presumed it was you had done it. The death I planned for you was an artwork.”
    I swallowed my rising gorge.
    “But Durgan and his men convinced me that you had been locked up securely since the day you scribed my words, and therefore, of all the inhabitants of this city, only you were proven innocent. Ironic, is it not?”
    “As you say, Your Highness.” It had been half a lifetime since I had considered myself at