Casket of Souls

just as easily have been sounding you out for Reltheus and his pack. It might be time for your friends to suffer an unfortunate accident.”
    To Alec’s horror, Malthus said nothing to this.
    “Go home, and keep this to yourself,” said Laneus. “I’ll see to the details.”
    “Don’t you think the others should know? We’re all in danger.”
    “He didn’t name any names except yours. Did you have any indication that he thought there were others?”
    “Yes, but not who.”
    “I’ll take care of this, Malthus. Go home.”
    The two men parted company on strained terms. Alec waited until the room went dark, then crept back the way he’d come.
    He was just lighting the lamps when Seregil entered their rooms at the inn and flopped down in one of the chairs by the empty fireplace to pull off his boots. “Not a bad night. How did you make out?”
    “Malthus went straight to Laneus’s house,” Alec told him. “Laneus wasn’t very happy with his news. He suspects you didn’t tell Malthus all you know, and that you might be workingfor Reltheus. And it sounds like he—Laneus, that is—means to have us killed.”
    “Does he really? He’s a sharp one, all right. Anything else?”
    “That’s all you have to say? He means to kill us, Seregil!”
    “Well, he won’t be the first, will he? We’ll worry about that when it happens. What were the exact words?”
    “Only that Laneus said he’d take care of things.”
    “We should certainly avoid eating with him. Not that he’ll dirty his own hands.”
    “What did you say to Malthus to bring all this on?”
    “I made out that I knew more than I did, and gave the idea of assassination a gamble. Malthus went pale, and though he denied it, I’m pretty certain he was lying.”
    “But who? Phoria or Elani?”
    “I don’t know. Both? I did my best to warn him off the idea.”
    “Do you think he’ll listen?”
    Seregil sighed. “I have no idea. If he’s telling Laneus about it, probably not.”
    “I still say you’ve put yourself at too much of a risk, talking to him. They had you safely dismissed. Now they know that you know something. He didn’t come to you to be part of the plot so now you’re a danger to them.”
    “We’ll see.”
    Alec still looked dubious. “I think we should be very careful.”
    “Always, talí.” Seregil reached for Alec’s hand and kissed the back of it.
    Alec sat down on the arm of Seregil’s chair. “Did you send the Cat’s answer back?”
    “I did. Would you like to guess where it alighted?”
    “With Reltheus?”
    “Close. Duke Kyrin. I had a look at what was behind that cabinet in the library. He has a secret room down a flight of rather unreliable stairs.” He held up a hand before Alec could ask and told him the whole of his night’s adventures, including finding the deadly poison.
    Alec shook his head. “I guess we’d better not eat at hishouse, either. So they’ve been gathering information longer than Elani has known Danos?”
    Seregil twisted a dark lock of hair around one finger. “Yes. There may have been more than just Reltheus’s ambition that brought them together at that hunt. Perhaps you could work that into conversation, the next time we see Elani.”

 
    D UTIFUL son, or diligent spy, Danos wrote letters frequently, which were carried back to Rhíminee by the royal courier service, a highly efficient network of expert riders that stretched from the city to the front. Klia and the other higher officers had couriers attached to their camp, but for the rest of them, there was the general courier who showed up irregularly to carry the letters of those of the lower ranks who could write or pay someone to pen a letter for them. When the courier arrived he or she would hang their leather mail bag on a post near the cook’s wagons in a squadron camp and leave it for a day or so, then collect it and ride back.
    Beka and Nyal managed to keep an eye on Danos when they were in camp, and saw when Danos’s servant, Caem, went to the post bag with a letter. It was often Nyal who crept through the shadows to pilfer it, then carried it to Beka’s tent to open and inspect. Most were addressed to his father, with a few to friends and the occasional missive to Princess Elani, but not one of them contained anything suspicious, and no sign of the code Thero had told them of.
    It wasn’t until after the bloody siege of the captured Mycenian river town of Galltree that Nyal caught sight of Caem, tucking