Ruha heard the crunch of heavy boots coming down the path. She backed out from beneath the wax myrtle and saw Jarvis and Vaerana approaching. All thoughts of chiding the Lady Constable about last night's departure quickly vanished from Ruha's mind. Vaerana was limp- ing badly, with one arm hanging slack at her side and the side of her face so swollen it looked as if she had been kicked by a horse. What remained of her tattered jerkin was black with half-dried blood, and even her boots looked as though someone had tried to cut them off her feet.
"What happened to you?"
Vaerana squatted beside Ruha. "Ambush." The word came out mushy and difficult to understand. "They were waiting."
"And I know who told them you were coming." Ruha resisted the temptation to point out that Vaerana could have avoided the beating by awakening her last night.
"The Cult of the Dragon has a spy inside Moonstorm
House."
A murderous glint flared in Vaerana's eyes. "Who?"
Ruha pointed toward the kitchen, where a pair of scullery wenches were just entering the door. "The spy will reveal himself soon enough."
Vaerana's hand drifted toward the blood-smeared hilt of her sword. "What's the sense in waiting? Let's get him now."
Ruha laid a restraining hand on the Lady Constable's arm. "Wait. He is going to lead us to the dragon's lair
That's what I was trying to tell you last night."
Vaerana scowled. "Then why didn't you?"
"Because I would have ruined the trap," Ruha explained. "The traitor was-"
The witch was interrupted by a muffled shriek from inside the kitchen. The door burst open and both scullery wenches came rushing outside. One woman held her hands over her mouth, while the other waved her arms at the door and yelled incoherently. With a sinking stom- ach, Ruha leapt up and raced toward the shed behind
Vaerana and Jarvis. Vaerana pulled the crying wench out of the way and led Jarvis and Ruha into the kitchen.
The room was as dark as pitch, for all of the candles and tallow lamps had been extinguished. The cloying perfume ofylang blossoms lingered in the air, though not heavily enough to disguise a coppery, more familiar scent: blood. A few steps inside the door, the Lady Con- stable suddenly stopped and squatted on her haunches.
"Fetch a light."
As Jarvis left to do his mistress's bidding, Ruha knelt close to Vaerana and ran her hands over the floor. It did not take long to find Silavia's plump, cool body lying face- down on the wooden planks. There was a soft, sticky mess where the back other head should have been.
"Who did this?" Vaerana demanded.
"A cult spy." Ruha no longer felt any joy in her coming vindication, in large part because they were going to find another body in the kitchen and she knew who it would be. "This is my fault. Had I not fallen asleep-"
"This is no time for blaming yourself!" Vaerana snapped. "Just tell me about this spy."
"There were only two people in the kitchen with
Silavia: Tombor and Fowler."
"You think Tusks did this?" Vaerana scoffed. "And I
was beginning to think you might not be such a bungler!"
Ruha bit her tongue. A sharp retort would do nothing to bring Fowler back, and even less to convince Vaerana ofTombor's betrayal. The Lady Constable would realize the truth for herself soon enough.
Jarvis returned with a lit candle, which he promptly used to find and light several tallow lamps. As the flick- ering light illuminated the room, it became apparent that Silavia had been struck down as she fled, for she had left a short trail of bloody footsteps behind her. The rest of the kitchen looked normal enough; there were no tables overturned, the room was not strewn with uten- sils, and the walls were mercifully unspattered with blood.
Ruha took Jarvis's candle and led the way toward the pantry. The oil press was not on the table where it should have been, but she quickly forgot about that as she stepped around the corner of the table and saw Fowler's stout body sprawled on the floor. The captain was lying amidst a pool of dark blood, with the handle of a long butcher knife protruding from the middle of his back. His neck was turned at an impossible angle, and his aston- ished gray eyes were staring straight ahead.
Vaerana slipped past Ruha and crouched down beside
Fowler. "So much for your spy."
"I did not say that Fowler was the spy." Ruha's tone was sharper than she intended, for she was boiling over with anger and guilt. "I was speaking of your friend,
Tombor the Jolly."
Vaerana's jaw dropped. "You think Tombor…?"
Ruha nodded. "He was the only one in the room."
The Lady Constable rose, shaking her head. "Not Tom- bor. He saved-"
"I know; he saved you from the cult's assassins, more than once." Ruha paused, giving Vaerana time to draw her own conclusions. When the witch saw no sudden gleam of understanding in the Lady Constable's eyes, she
said, "The attacks weren't real. They were a trick to win your confidence."
A look of humiliation flashed across Vaerana's face, but it vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. "You don'tknow that."
"Don't I?" Ruha waved her hand around the kitchen
"Where are the ylang blossoms?"
Vaerana's gaze roamed across the chamber, her com- plexion turning as white as alabaster when she did not find the eight bulky sacks. Finally, the Lady Constable whirled on Ruha.
"You knew he would steal the blossoms-and you let him?" Vaerana looked almost relieved to have someone upon whom to vent her anger. "You let him kill Fowler?"
"I did not let him kill anyone!" the witch snapped
Vaerana's words hurt more than they should have, per- haps because Ruha feared there was more truth to them than she would have liked. "I had hoped we could follow him to Yanseldara's staff-which we might have done, had you bothered to awaken me and hear my plan!"
Jarvis interposed his armored bulk between the two women. "Tombor was gone by then. I doubt he stayed much longer than it took him to kill the half-ore and
Silavia."
Ruha turned to the empty table and, seeing no mess upon the surface, nodded. "He was in a hurry to get out of here. He took the oil press with him."
"The press maybe, but not even Tombor could sneak eight sacks of ylang blossoms out the gate," said Vaerana,
"The sentries would ask too many questions. They saw what you went through to bring those sacks to us."
"Perhaps he took them out some other way," Ruha sug- gested.
"Yes, and I think I see how," said Jarvis. The burly guard took Ruha's candle and went to the back wall, where a mass of roofing straw lay scattered around a butchering bench. He climbed onto the table and stuck his head up between the rafters, then raised the candle