Casket of Souls

that there!” the man demanded, coming closer and raising his lantern. “Oh, it’s you, my lord! Whatever are you doing out here in the dark?”
    “I was looking for the garderobe, actually,” Seregil replied, feigning chagrin. “I didn’t want to disturb anyone with a light.”
    “No chance of that, my lord. You’d be lucky not to break your neck. But you know, there’s chamber pots under all the beds.”
    “I can’t abide the things! Surely there is a proper toilet here?”
    “Oh, yes, downstairs. Here, I’ll take you to it.”
    There was no choice but to follow him down, but as luck would have it, they passed the open door of what looked like a study overlooking the garden.
    The toilet was a rank little closet in a far corner of the house. Garderobes were common in Rhíminee, just a shaft down to the sewers below, with a seat on top. With the watchman waiting outside to light him back to his room, Seregil made use of it and allowed himself to be led back to his room.
    “Thank you,” Seregil said, giving the man a silver half sester.
    “Much obliged, my lord.”
    Alec was fast asleep and not so pale. Seregil washed his hands at the basin and went back to the door. There was no sign of the watchman. In no mood for any more surprises, he felt his way to the staircase and made his way back down to the study. If the watchman found him again, he’d just say he was indisposed.
    The room was lost in shadow, but Seregil could make out the furnishings in the faint light from the window. A search of the desk produced only a few letters from the son detailinglife in the Horse Guard and Klia’s actions. From the tone, it seemed he admired his commanding officer. In the one locked drawer—and if you wanted to catch a thief’s attention, one locked drawer was the way to do it—he found an ornate dagger and a leather portfolio containing a report on him and Alec.
    It was written on decent parchment in a rather clumsy hand. It gave in brief detail the tale of how he and Alec had come to be in Rhíminee—the public version, anyway—and a few pertinent details about whom they knew, including Klia, Kylith, Thero, Malthus, most of the names Alec had found on the list in Kyrin’s cupboard, and Duke Laneus. That last was odd, since he’d only met the man once, at the Golden Crane. But that helped him gauge when this report had been written. The main body of the several close-written pages, however, was devoted to their relationship with Klia. Once again, it only contained public knowledge, and nothing about them saving her life that night at Kassarie’s keep, but there was mention of how Seregil had discovered what had poisoned her in Aurënen, and his role in the truce negotiations. This spy had either been there, or talked to someone who had.
    He replaced the report and locked the drawer, then turned his attention to the floor under the desk. As expected, he found a small trapdoor, just like the one Alec had found at the duke’s summer villa. There was another of Elani’s letters, copied out in the same male hand and dated only two days earlier, in which the girl spoke of Duke Reltheus in friendly terms and mentioned receiving a letter from Danos.
    Seregil shook his head as he replaced it. It seemed Reltheus was taking an unreasonable amount of risk just to see if the girl was interested in his son. Or perhaps he was afraid she had other admirers. Then again, having a direct channel to the correspondence of a future queen might be valuable in itself, if Reltheus was taking the long view.
    Next, he saw with a start, was a note from Malthus to Duke Laneus, dated nearly a month ago and written from his summer villa. Or rather, a copy; he knew Malthus’s handwriting as well as his own, and this was someone else’s.Which tended to rule out a forgery. He doubted very much that Reltheus would be so clumsy.
    Korathan insists that all is going well at the front, despite the casualties
, it read.
However, he keeps the queen’s dispatches under lock and key, impossible to see. I fear that even if victory comes, it will come too late for the people, especially since the last raising of the war tax. Rhíminee is becoming a tinderbox
.
    Seregil committed the short message to memory, then examined the remaining documents, which proved to be the most interesting of all. There were three dirty, ragged scraps of parchment with lettering on them that to an untrained eye would appear to be mere gibberish. Seregil, however,