More trouble-the door to Hogwood's room stood open. She heard Wolf return and appeared in the opening, still in the jade silk dress.

She said quickly, "Don't panic. I didn't come to- What's wrong?"

Wolf removed his cloak and hurled it at a chair. It slid to the floor. "That plaque Lynx's wearing. Its eyes are open."

"No!"

"Yes. Set with amber and obsidian, I'd guess. But it's an active con-jurement and he won't give it up."

She smiled sadly. "Poor Wolf! I do think Lynx's old enough to look after himself. Have the King take it off him tomorrow." She took a deep breath and went back to the prepared speech: "Don't panic. I didn't come to steal your virginity, just to deliver my report. Here." She held out some sheets of paper.They quivered slightly.

He stayed where he was. "What's it about-the raid or me?"

"Both." She spoke in a rush. "I said you carried out your mission flawlessly and I totally failed in mine. I agree with everything you've been saying about the raid. I gave you all the credit. They were from Tlixilia, they may have thought they were attacking Distlain, they may return, and Lady Celeste was taken as spoils of war, not for any personal reason. Baron Roland's talk of eagle and jaguar knights is ample confirmation of your theories.You want to hear what I wrote about you?"

"No."

"May I sit down?"

"No."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "I forgot to mention that your manners are terrible. I did say that you are a reluctant killer, that you would never kill for money, or even to win release from the Guard, no 132.

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matter how much you despise the King. Grand Inquisitor will have to find another assassin. Read it!"

"I don't want to read it." He threw his sword on the bed, scabbard and all."You couldn't make the King release me." He began unlacing his jerkin to see what Hogwood's reaction would be.

"Yes, we could."

"How?"

She smiled. "Suppose the King must choose between you and Sir Vicious? Which one would he keep?"

"Vicious. But how ...?"

"There is no rule that a Blade cannot marry. He does not need per-mission."

Wolf caught his breath. "That wouldn't . . ."Yes, it would.Of course it would!Vicious detested inquisitors with a passion. Rather than have one skulking around Blade married quarters, he would throw Wolf out of the Guard. In a flash. Release! His heart raced. "That raises prostitu-tion to new heights. Or do I mean depths?" He flung his jerkin after the cloak. It slid off the chair, too. "You would sell your body just to please your superiors in the Dark Chamber?"

She had expected him to say something like that. "I told you the Chamber is the only family I have ever known. How many girls accept a husband their parents have chosen because the match is good for the family? I admit the thought frightened me when they told me you were a multiple killer and the ugliest man in the Guard, but they were just warning me.The choice was mine, they said, and now I know you, I like the idea.Truly I do."

He was tempted to tell her to prove that by undressing and getting into his bed. He didn't because he was certain she would do exactly that. This was her last chance to earn her promotion. Fortunately she had taught him how vulnerable he was. He knew that he would crumble like a puff ball at one touch of tenderness. He removed his doublet and this time scored a bull's-eye on the chair.

"You can't keep your eyes shut for the rest of your life."

"Wolf !" She straightened up and stamped her foot. "Forget your face! It's a fighter's face and it was probably a very handsome face once.

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Scars don't worry me.You're not a slobbering lopsided village idiot who will breed deformed children.You've got a strong, attractive body and you're a strong, kind man.Women don't care what men look like on the outside, just what's inside."

He began unlacing his shirt, and there was nothing inside that but him. "Just how often will I be expected to kill?"

For a moment she thought he was serious and beamed. "Probably never. I don't know.You'd have to negotiate that with Grand Inquisitor. The Chamber doesn't slaughter men out of hand,Wolf, only for reasons of state. Just like the Blades."

About to deny the similarity, he saw that the argument would be fruitless and he might even lose it to her slippery inquisitor-talk. How-ever tempting her offer, he kept remembering Inquisitor Schlutter. If the Dark Chamber wanted revenge, this would be a good way to trap him.

"I am not interested and you should not want to be friends with me. That would be much too dangerous!

Keep your report and get some sleep.We've a hard day ahead tomorrow."

She sighed. "Yes, Sir Wolf. I was hoping for a hard night!"

The cruelest thing he could have said then was "How old are you really?" He didn't."Good night, Inquisitor. Sorry about the promotion."

" 'Night,Wolf. I'll be here if you change your mind." She shut the door.

He finished undressing and climbed into a lonely bed. He had to plan his return to Court tomorrow, add the Baron's testimony to his re-port, prepare his expense account for audit.Yet his thoughts kept drift-ing to the salivating prospect Hogwood had dangled-the chance to wipe Athelgar off his boots forever.There was nothing he wanted more, but if he accepted her offer, which of them would be the whore?

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4.Lynx was known to the Guard and tongues would flutter if he ap-peared in the palace without his ward, so Wolf left him at the Pine Tree Inn onThistle Street with orders to await a summons. He still refused to surrender the jaguar plaque, promising only that he would give it to the King in person-which would be no problem if the King would send for him, thank him for his loyal service, and hand him a purse of gold.

That would be regal, but did not sound like the Athelgar Wolf knew and loathed. The stupid cat face had so little real value that he might have convinced even his corrosive conscience to let Lynx keep it as consola-tion for all he had suffered, had he not given Grand Master a receipt for it. Even if it took them five years,Treasury's roach-chasers would notice its absence eventually, and Hogwood would surely babble.

GreymerePalacewas huge. Willow and Sewald were on duty out-side the doors of Chancery, and Wolf wondered what they'd done to deserve that-having to stay brass-button smart like brainless Household Yeomen, no dice, no lounging. From the appraising looks they gave him, he could tell that rumors about his mission were flying, but he nodded and walked on into the anteroom.There, it was said, the sorrows of the kingdom roosted. All the ills that government was prone to, all its errors and misjudgments, its cruelties and neglects, all eventually gath-ered there. As always, the room was packed with suppliants-wealthy burghers, widows and orphans, cripples, scabrous paupers-all come in desperation to the final court of appeal, the King's chief minister. Some might wait for weeks before being spared a few moments of some flunky's time, and only the most fortunate would ever catch so much as a glimpse of the Lord Chancellor himself.

In his case, Orders Had Been Given.The duty clerk almost knocked over his inkwell at the sight of him-the lowliest drudge in the palace knew the King's Killer.

"If you would wait in there, Sir ...er ...um ...Wolf,I will inform His Excellency."

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The door he indicated opened into a library Wolf had never seen before. It contained no chairs, only bookshelves, a high reading desk, and two doors. A moment later the other one flew wide to admit Lord Chancellor Sparrow, all a-twitter.

Wolf bowed and rattled off the gist of his report in almost the exact words Hogwood had used the previous evening, stopping before he reached the marriage proposal. He proffered the written version, sealed and official, and his warrant with it.

His Excellency hissed out a very long sigh of relief. He beamed, rosy-cheeked. "Then there is no immediate danger of further attacks?"

"Not that I can see, but I do not know the reason for the first one.The conjuration potential is serious.They can undoubtedly seize any stronghold in Chivial as easily as they took Quondam. Since they know Quondam and how vulnerable it is, I recommend that either its garrison be substantially increased, or that it be abandoned alto-gether."

"I must notify His Majesty. He may want to hear your report in person."

"I have brought some evidence that he may wish to view."

The little man frowned, carefully opening the seal on the report. "Oh, I doubt that."

"For which I debited the royal treasury thirty thousand crowns."

It was not often one got to see a Lord Chancellor turnthatcolor.

5.Having made himself respectable,Wolf arrived at the Council Cham-ber to find the baggage waiting under the limpid gaze of Inquisitor Hogwood, immaculate in crisp black robes. The two towering House-hold Yeomen who had been set to guard it seemed so desperately glad to see him that he guessed she had been flirting with them. She was a superlative tease, and he was still cursing his folly at not grabbing what 136.

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she had so blatantly offered the previous evening. Lynx's companion must have enjoyed herself, for she had not left until dawn.

"You may wait outside now," he told the Yeomen.

The taller sneered."Our orders are to stand guard in here, Sir Wolf."

"Now they are to wait outside." He no longer wielded the Crown's irresistible authority and the Yeomen usually found Blades extremely re-sistible, so he quickly added, "I must lay out certain secret materials for His Majesty to see.Will you keep him waiting?"

That scared them away and Hogwood went to de-ward the bags. By the time the privy councillors started drifting in, the long table was heaped with feathers and gold, jade labrets and glass-edged swords, a rainbow hodgepodge like wares in some bizarre bazaar. As he was tuck-ing the bags themselves out of sight behind a chair, she whispered in Wolf's ear,"There's one missing.A gold thumb ring with an eagle's head in jade."

Only an inquisitor could have performed such a feat of memory, but now she had told him, he could recall the item and confirm that it was not in sight. It would have been easily palmed-by Baron Roland the previous evening, even by the Lord Chamberlain, who was presently sniffing at the gold collection. Or Hogwood herself.Was this yet another ploy to trap him?

The first councillors to arrive had been the Lord Chamberlain and a couple of dukes.The Earl Marshal was wheeled in and set out of the way. Then came Lord Chancellor Sparrow, closely followed by Grand Inquisitor, who took their favorite place by the window. In swept Mother Superior of the White Sisters, a huge woman like a galleon on a calm day, all canvas set, with her steeple hat as main topgallant. She proceeded majestically over to the exhibit, displaying disapproval wor-thy of the minatory Sister Daybreak.

Commander Vicious entered and glanced around before stepping aside to admit the King. All knelt and were told to rise.

"Speak up, Sir Wolf,"Athelgar said. "Tell us what you discovered."

Wolf did, while everyone listened intently and the King himself poked and scowled at the long table, concentrating on gold and ignor-ing art. He interrupted only once.

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"How much?"

"Not quite, sire.Twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred eighty-"

The royal cheeks flushed. "But those men had no right to any of this! When enemies attack one ofmy castles, the booty belongs tome!"

"With respect, sire, if I had held to that principle, none of the gold you see would be here now. The men accepted Your Majesty's coinage at face value, so the hoard is worth more to your mint than you will pay for it."

A sensitive point! Athelgar grunted angrily. "And what is in this bundle?" He sniffed disapprovingly.

"A human forearm, sire, with a catlike paw in place of a hand."Wolf went to unwrap it. He had packed the grisly relic in salt, but it was def-initely starting to rot.

"Never mind!" the King snapped, stepping back quickly. "Grand Wizard can examine it at leisure. Carry on with your report."

After he finished they all had to ask him questions.Then they started querying one another.

"He doesn't know if they were conjured to a ship waiting offshore," said the Lord High Admiral, who was not as stupid as he looked, "or all the way back to the Hence Lands. Grand Wizard, is such a transporta-tion possible?"

"Not by any means known to me," the old conjurer said unhappily. "Our efforts to move people usually end in pate."

"What do you know about Tlixilian enchantments?" asked a duke.

"No more than what Sir Wolf told us." Grand Wizard wrung bony hands. "I've heard the human sacrifice stories. Rubbish!"

"Well, Mother?" the Chancellor said. "Do you agree with Sister Daybreak's opinion? How many of these articles do you sense are con-jured?"

Mother Superior turned at bay, like an ox mobbed by squirrels. "None of them, but I agree with Sister Daybreak that one cannot have a man-cat chimera without using conjuration. So, like her, I must as-sume that this trash may be tainted in a way I cannot detect." The galleon had run aground and didn't like it one bit.

Wolf said,"One article is . . ." No,twowere missing."In addition to 138.

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these articles, sire, we brought back a mosaic pendant depicting the face of a Tlixilian pard, which Baron Roland called ajaguara. My brother, Sir Lynx, was carrying it and I failed to get it back from him this morning. That one I am certain is conjured, because it has changed its appearance since I first saw it."

The councillors demanded details and lost interest when they heard them.

"So your conclusion is that the attack was not intended specifically to abduct Baroness Dupend?"

Athelgar was pleased.

"That is my personal belief, sire."

"This pin?" Mother Superior declaimed, holding up one of the palm-sized cloak fasteners."Inlaid with turquoise, malachite, mother-of-pearl, and . . . is this pink shell?"

No one spoke.

"Wasn't Baroness Dupend once the Marquesa Celeste?" she de-manded.

The King nodded with a brow of thunder.

Matron Majestic sailed on undeterred."Hers had a cat's face....Do you recall, sire, how some years ago you presented the Marquesa with a pin like this, displaying the visage of a pard?" Athelgar shrugged. "Vaguely." He had given her everything imagi-nable. "It came from the Hence Lands! Didn't it?" Her voice rumbled like surf. "We do not recall!" When the King snapped like that, the subject was to be considered closed.

"I do," Grand Wizard mumbled in his fondly fuddy way. He might not recall what day this was, but he could remember when many no-table mountains had been only molehills."It was a gift from the King of Distlain to His Majesty's honored mother upon her accession. She made some remark about village craft trash ...er, she did not care for it."

"Her judgment is usually sound," Athelgar said threateningly. This subject wasdefinitelyclosed.