"You really should learn to protect yourself. Thy," Sak- hithe continued, as she smoothed an aromatic paste over the cut on his cheek. "You're too small to stand up to the like of that rijhili. Talk to Zeiin. Last year, he won all the festival wrestling matches, and he's not very big. Bigger than you, but..."

"I'm not a fighter, Sakhi," he mumbled around his mug, putting an end to her murmured advice.

He finished the tea, and lay back, willing the herbs to ease his aches, anxious to find sleep among his chaotic thoughts.

Sakhithe sighed, and rested a hand on his chest, arid said she understood, and told him to sleep, now.

But he could tell from her voice, the issue was not yet closed.

The guards called it the Womb. Kiyrstin would wager the ladies interned there had a different name for it.

By any name, Kiyrstin decided, settling onto her assigned cot, it was undoubtedly more welcoming than the Crypt toward which Deymorm and his brothers had descended.

The Womb's central cavern had fairly well swallowed the light of the handful of lamps lining its walls, but had given hints of tables and a variety of amusements: board games, a painting easel, stitching framesdecidedly not hardened criminals in this ward.

Sironi had led her through that cavern and down a tun- nel, past a latrine and bathing facility, and into a honey- comb of small cubby holes containing cots. And then, Sironi had just . . . left.

She was, Kiyrstin decided, at an unpleasant disadvan- tage where it came to information: not her preferred po- sition. One reason she'd put up with being romGaretti as long as she had was that being the wife of the High Priest of Maurii put her in a position to know more than any woman and most men in Mauritum about the forces rul- ing their lives.

She threw herself back into the pillow and swung her booted feet up onto the cot, wishing she had the cloak she'd left lying beside a stack of hay, not to mention the bag of personal essentials she'd somehow hauled out of the carriage. That bastard Sironi hadn't given them a moment to think, hadn't let them gather anything before he hustled them off through the tunnels.

Afraid they'd say something to someone.

A kohl-rimmed eye peeked around a curve of stone.

"Hello," Kiyrstin said.

The eye flitted away. A moment of whispers and sounds of a scuffle, then the eye and its attached young woman came stumbling in. Shoved, Kiyrstin would guess.

She was a rather flagrantly pretty young woman, who clutched an armload of blankets to her ample bosom. From the paint-job on her face, she'd obviously arrived with sub- stantially more personal effects than Sironi had allowed Kiyrstin.

Kiyrstin swung her feet back to the floor and propped her elbows on her knees.

"Can I help you?"

The girl stared, eyes wide. And again glanced toward the door.

"Are those for me?" Kiyrstin tried again, and the young woman inched over to the cot and flung them at the point farthest from Kiyrstin, then backed quickly away.

Kiyrstin tried very hard not to laugh. Miss black-eyes only substantiated her impression of the main cavern, and the quality of her cell mates.

"What's your name?"

"B-Beauvina, sir. Ma'am. M'Lady!" Breathy voice.

Panicked.

"Sir." Kiyrstin glanced down at her leather-clad legs and high boots. "Oh, dear." She smiled, trying to set the girl's fears at ease. "It's all right, child," she said gently, feeling old as Maurii.

The young woman chewed her lip.

"So, Beauvina," Kiyrstin tried again, "what didn't you do?"

A blink.

Kiyrstin sighed. "Why are you in here, child?"

Her mouth made a little oh. "I didn't do nothing wrong."

"Of course not."

"Well, I don't think it was wrong, anyway. But one of m' fellas I'm a legal lady, m'lord. Uh, ma'amm'lady."

"Call me Kiyrsti, child."

Beauvina's shoulders heaved in a sigh. "Yes, 'm. Mistress Kiyrsti. And I'm Vina, if you like."

"I very much like, Vina." Kiyrstin pulled her knees up and crossed her arms comfortably over them. "And what did your fella do, Vina?"

"Give me a . . . well, a real pretty bauble. I shoulda knowed. But I thought it wasn't real, don't you know?"

"Ah. Stole your present from somebody else, did he?"

"I can't say that. Mistress Kiyrsti. Mebbe he bought it from summun who stole it. Can't say, now, can I? Warn't there. And there was lotsa lootin' goin' on, just after th'

lights went off, now warn't there?"

"You've the makings of a lawyer, Vina. So, if someone gave you the bauble, why are you in here?"

" 'Cuz it were stole from one o' my other fellas."

"Ah. And he saw you wearing it and assumed you had taken it."

She nodded vigorously.

"An' he were important, up on th' hill, y'know."

"Ah. And have you many important fellas, Vina?"

Another vigorous nod. "None of 'em as nice as Nikki, though."

"Nikki?" Her attention pricked at the familiar name.

Beauvina's eyes went dreamy. "Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric."

The syllables of Nikki's name floated off her tongue with- out a hint of the common accent that colored her other speech. She must have practiced saying it every day for a month.

"One of the Rhomandis?" Kiyrstin asked.

Her nod this time was more a tilling sway of her head, and Kiyrstin sensed that her mind was about to be distracted.

"Excuse me a moment," she said, and rising from the cot, edged past Beauvina to the opening. Just beyond a curve of stone, a bevy of older women lay in waiting.

"Sent the rookie in to do the work, did you?" Kiyrstin asked.

Glances were exchanged, then one woman thrust her shoulders back and swaggered forward. "Yeah. So?"

"I've no complaints." Kiyrstin let her gaze wander the lot of them. "But I don't speak to hidden audiences. You want to know anything about me, you leave. Now. Beau- vina and I will have a pleasant little chat this evening, and I'll talk to the rest of you in the morning. **1 like what Beauvina tells me about you all. 1 do hope you've been nice to her."

There were grumbles and loud complaints, but the woman who looked to be their leader ordered them away, and with a final under-the-brows glare at Kiyrstin, she left as well.

Definitely the minor delinquents ward: Sironi must have taken Deymorin's warning to heart. Or Sironi knew exactly who he was dealing with and was taking no chances with Garetti's wife, no matter how estranged her relationship with Garetti.

Kiyrstin slipped back into the room. Beauvina hadn't moved.

Kiyrstin took a blanket from the cot, tossed it toward the wall and settled with it cushioning her behind and the smooth stone supporting her back. She waved a hand toward the cot. "Please, Beauvina, sit."

Beauvina glanced toward the door.

"If you want to leave, I won't stop you, but I'd like someone to talk to."

Wide eyes turned to her.

"Of the local options, I definitely prefer my present company."

With a hesitant smile, the girl sat gingerly on the cot, hands folded in her lap.

"You were telling me about Nikki." Kiyrstin reminded her. "What was he like?"

"Beautiful. The most bee-u-tiful creature I ever did see."

"Oh, my," she said appropriately.

"And he writes poetry."

"Oh. My." The girl was making it very difficult to keep the enthusiasm up. "How was he in bed?"

She biinked. "He stood on it well."

"Stood." The concept astounded even her.

"He was a wonderful kisser."

"Oh, that's promising. Did you do a great deal of kissing?"

She nodded, head tilled, eyes misting.

"How many times did you see him?" Kiyrstin prompted.

"Only once. But that once was . . . special."

"How delightful for you."

"It was his birthday."

"I see."

"I was" A heavy sigh, and Beauvina bugged herself gently. "I was his birthday present."

"How lovely. His friends bought you for him?"

A slow shake of the head. "He had no friends." Another sigh. "I was his present to himself." And a sniff. "I think that's very sad."

Oddly enough, Kiyrstin found herself in agreement.

She'd heard about the night of Nikki's seventeenth birth- day, but never from Nikki. Only from Deymorin, who had laughed, and Mikhyel, who had been appalled. For once, she wondered how Nikki felt about it.

"Mostly, he talked."

That figured.

"What about?"

A suspicious look, and tight-pressed lips.

"Come, Vina." Kiyrstin encouraged her. "If we're to be friends, you can't keep such a wonderful time to yourself."

"I dunno if I should say . . ."

"Oh. Did he reveal great secrets to you, then?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing like that. He talked about his brothers."

"Not himself?"

"No. Not really. Except that he wished they would get along, and that Mikhyel would let him do more. And that he loved them very much. He made me cry."

That figured as well.

"He didn't seem at all the way I thought he'd be."

"And how did you think he'd be?"

"Well, you know, talk was, he was more useless than his older brother."

"Mikhyel?"

"Oh, no. Everybody knows Mikhyel dunMheric is so smart nobody can understand him. No, his brother Dey- morin. The farmer, you know."