Matyev's voice kept echoing through her mind. All his talk of philosophical societies had been nothing but a blind; he was a revolutionary, one of Velemir's "damned insurgents." So, she saw now, was Altan Kazimir.

And what was she? An artist, a freethinker from a country that had deposed its prince and substituted a democratically elected government. Matyev had been right; her sympathies should lie with his cause, not with the aristocrats. And yet here she was, inextricably involved with the ruling family.

And the only man in all Muscobar who could save Gavril had allied himself with the opposing side.

"Madame Andar! You've got to help me!"

Elysia looked up from her packing to see Astasia, back pressed against the door as though to prevent anyone from entering. Didn't anyone knock in the Winter Palace?

"What are you doing? Why are you packing?"

"My work here is finished, altessa. I'm going home."

Astasia ran across the room to her side.

"Madame Andar. I can never love Prince Eugene. I love your son. What shall I do?"

Elysia continued to fold her clothes and place them inside her trunk.

Astasia seized hold of her hand. "Can't you take me with you to Smarna? Can't you smuggle me out, disguised as your maid? Please say you will!"

Elysia gently extracted her hand from Astasia's. "Dear altessa, that kind of disguise only works in absurd romances and operas. This is real. You can't escape this marriage, but perhaps you can make it work to your advantage."

"No!" cried Astasia. "Now you sound just like them them. And I'd thought you were different. Like Gavril . . ."

Count Velemir appeared in the doorway.

"Altessa," he said, "I hoped I might find you here. Your mother is looking for you." He looked weary, his face gray except for the angry gash where the stone had struck him.

"Let her look," Astasia said, and for a moment Elysia glimpsed a little of the Grand Duchess in her daughter's petulant expression.

"It was Madame Andar I came to see," the count said.

"I won't marry Prince Eugene. I can't go through with it! And you can tell Mama I said that." Astasia burst into tears and ran from the room, slamming the door.

"Do you have any coffee?" Velemir said, easing himself into a chair.

Elysia, suspecting he had not just come for coffee, abandoned her packing. "There's still some in the pot. Do you take sugar?"

"Thank you. But no cream." He drank two cupfuls without speaking. "I've been up all night." He drew one hand ruefully over his chin, feeling the stubble. "I apologize for appearing before you unshaven."

"I don't think any of us have been able to get much sleep."

He was silent a moment, studying the coffee grounds in his cup.

"So why did you come to see me, count?"

"To ask you if you would consider changing your plans."

"What, stay here?" Elysia returned to her packing. "To be threatened by revolutionaries, shot at by the palace guard? No, thank you."

He set down his coffee cup and he said, "I have news."

She turned around. "Of Gavril?"

"Of Azhkendir. It is reported by my agents on the northern borders that several nights ago, about sunset, a blue light lit the whole sky over Azhkendir, and the ground shook."

"Winter lightning."

"Or Nagarian lightning."

The folded clothes she was holding dropped to the floor.

"Gavril," she said, stricken. "Oh no. Not Gavril."

"You remember my initial suggestion? That you should go to Tielen? Of course, the official reason for your visit would be to formally present your portrait of the Altessa Astasia to Prince Eugene."

She hardly heard him at first. All she could think was that Gavril, in spite of all she had done to shield and preserve him, had given in to the malign influence of his Nagarian blood.

"I don't see," she said at last, her voice stifled, "how my going to Tielen would help in any way."

"Doctor Kazimir will accompany you."

She stared at him.

"He would never agree."

"Oh, I think he may find he has no choice but to agree." Velemir pushed himself to his feet.

"No choice?" Elysia caught a sinister undertone to his words.

"The good doctor should be more careful about the company he keeps."

"Last night?" she said. "In the square? But he tried to calm the situation, he tried to restrain Matyev."

"I had Kazimir arrested at dawn. The charge is insurrection. Treason. Plotting against the Grand Duke. The usual sentence is death-by hanging."

Elysia stood motionless, staring at the count.

"B-but he is the only one who can help my son."

"It's time," Velemir said, turning toward the door, "to find out if Kazimir is really as dedicated to the revolutionary cause as his friend Matyev thinks." He turned back, offering her his hand. "Come, madame. I need you as witness to this little negotiation."

The count led Elysia through cold subterranean tunnels whose walls were lined with brown bricks, glistening with water.

They emerged in a dark and dingy room that stank of mold and stale urine.

"What is this place? It looks like a prison," Elysia said, staring around her with distaste.

"Hush." He beckoned her through a low, narrow archway.

Elysia reluctantly followed the count and found herself in a little observation chamber with an iron grille set in the wall.

The room beyond the grille was dark and windowless, lit only by one brightly burning lamp. Two men sat on opposite sides of a table. One was writing in an open ledger. The other sat facing the grille. He was drooping in his chair; his arms appeared to be tied behind his back. Lank locks of fair hair hung across his face.

"And the last time you spoke with the insurgent Matyev was in the Tea Pavilion?"

The man mumbled an inaudible reply.

The interrogator raised his pen. This seemed to be some kind of signal, as two men appeared out of the shadows and lunged at the prisoner, tugging his hair and jerking his head back.

Elysia stifled a cry. It was Kazimir. But Kazimir without his glasses, Kazimir with a bruised and bloodied face, peering myopically at his interrogator.

"What have you done to him?" she whispered angrily. But Velemir affected not to hear her, focusing all his attention on the interrogation.

"So why, Altan Kazimir, was it you were seen-by many witnesses-talking with the insurgent Matyev in front of the Winter Palace last night?"

"Not talking, warning-" muttered Kazimir.

"Warning him?"

"That he was a bloody fool," Kazimir said thickly.

The interrogator nodded to the two men standing beside Kazimir. The next instant, one grabbed hold of the doctor while the other hit him across the face. Elysia, outraged, clutched at Velemir's arm.

"Make this stop, Feodor. It's barbaric!"

Velemir turned to her.

"Do you want to save your son, madame?" he asked coldly.

Kazimir sagged in the grip of his tormentors.

"Tell us the truth, Doctor Kazimir," said the interrogator. "Confess. You are part of a conspiracy to overthrow the House of Orlov. Your extremist sympathies are well documented. For some years now you and your so-called philosophical society have been plotting with the rebel Matyev to assassinate the Grand Duke. Why don't you just admit it?"

"I have been in Azhkendir," Kazimir said faintly. Blood trickled down one side of his mouth. "How could I have done all these things so far from Mirom?"

The interrogator took out a pile of documents and began to read aloud.

"'How can we be said to have freedom of speech when the presses are censored? How can our voice, the true voice of the people, be heard when we are gagged? This censorship must end and the tyrants who impose it must be removed from power.'" He laid down the papers on the table and turned to Kazimir. "Your words, Doctor Kazimir? Do you deny you wrote this seditious pamphlet?"

"No, I-I wrote it. . . ."

"'The tyrants who impose it must be removed from power.' Dangerous words." The interrogator moved close to Kazimir, spitting the words in his face. "An incitement to assassination, no less."

"That was not my intent." Kazimir tried to move his head away.

"You'll have to do better than that, Doctor, if you're to escape the scaffold."

"The scaffold?" Kazimir's face twisted, crumpled-and suddenly he began to weep, his shoulders sagging.

Elysia turned to Velemir to protest-and found she was alone behind the grille.

"Well? Do we have the names of the other conspirators yet?" Velemir appeared in the cell.

"Not yet, excellency." The interrogator bowed to the count. "But we have a confession. Kazimir admits he wrote these pamphlets."

"I see." Velemir's face was shadowed, giving no hint of expression. "You can leave me with the prisoner. I shall continue the interrogation alone."

Elysia leaned closer, biting her lip in her agitation.

"You know me?" Velemir said, seating himself opposite Kazimir.

"Count Velemir." Kazimir's sobs slowly subsided. "Spymaster to the House of Orlov."

Don't insult him, you fool! Elysia wanted to grasp the grille and shout aloud. Elysia wanted to grasp the grille and shout aloud. He's here to try to save you! He's here to try to save you!

"Spymaster, if you will," Velemir said, smiling affably, "Foreign Ambassador is my official title. And I'll be going on a little trip soon, Doctor Kazimir, to Tielen. I'd like you to accompany me."

"Tielen?" Kazimir said, sniffling. His face was streaked with blood and tears.

"If you stay here in Mirom, you'll be hanged for a traitor and a conspirator." He leaned toward the prisoner. "My dear Altan, I'm offering you a chance to save your life."

"Why Tielen?" Kazimir said suspiciously.

"Tielen lies adjacent to Azhkendir, and you have unfinished business there, I believe."

"Unfinished? I'm a wanted man there. Wanted for Lord Volkh's murder."

"Tielen or the gallows. It's your choice, Doctor," said Velemir, turning to leave.

Kazimir started up, one manacled hand raised. "W-wait."

Velemir turned back, one brow raised.

"Tielen." The words were scarcely audible. "I'll go to Tielen."

"Well, madame?" Feodor Velemir said. He was smiling. "Have I convinced you? Will you go to Tielen too?"

"Was it necessary to interrogate Doctor Kazimir quite so brutally?" demanded Elysia.

"My dear Elysia, by the laws of Mirom, the man deserves to die. In the circumstances, we treated him with extraordinary civility."