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took all the strength of the Count’s men to hold Harnapos, the larger of the two, for his chest swelled and his throat corded like iron as he screamed himself raw. I daresay he nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets in his struggle.
    My blood beating in my ears, I watched it all in a crimson haze.
    Nicola translated for me, her low voice murmuring D’Angeline my only line to sanity. If the words caught in her throat, still, she kept on without faltering, and for that too, I was grateful. I do not think I could have borne it otherwise. For all that I have played at such things throughout my life, in the end, there is little resemblance between the emulation and the reality.
    I have known the latter, too. And even I do not care to remember it.
    Thus the Carthaginians’ story: They had met a man in Carthage, the Menekhetan slaver Fadil Chouma, and fell to drinking pots of beer in a tavern. He told them there were buyers, mysterious buyers with a dire purpose in mind, that there was a fortune to be made for any man who might procure D’Angelines for sale in foreign markets. Mago was mountain-born. He had friends among the Euskerri. He had a map. He had a plan. They would meet in Amílcar.
    It was as simple as that.
    And Mago and Harnapos had travelled to northern Aragonia, plying on the trade-rights Carthage enjoyed, had evaded the sparse border patrols and gone into the mountains with their map and their plan, crossing into Siovale, picking their prey with cunning. Goat-herds, cowherds, shepherd’s children, picking those who would not be missed, those whose loss would be grieved in silence, abducting them in stealth-they used a leathern baton, Harnapos gasped, weighted with lead shot, to strike their victims at the base of the skull. Afterward, quick flight and a careful erasing of tracks, tactics learned from the Euskerri, and tincture of opium to keep the children compliant.
    It was here that I interrupted, putting my questions, which Nicola translated, to the Count’s enforcer. Where in Siovale? How many children? Where had they been taken? There was a pause, as one of Fernan’s men retrieved the map. Mago pointed with a trembling finger, beads of sweat glistening on his face. Here, here and here. Yes, three children, there had been a third. A boy, yes, a flawless child, fierce as a wildcat, with black hair and eyes of blue, the prize of the lot.
    And where was the boy now?
    Neither wanted to answer, although I think they knew, then, that death was a foregone conclusion. I was unfamiliar with the laws of Aragonia, but I knew to read faces and I saw only death writ in the expressions of Count Fernan’s men, and in the grave countenance of Nicola, who was wife to a King’s Consul. Still, hope is tenacious, and men will cling to it against overwhelming odds. In the corner, Harnapos whimpered, rattling his chains. Mago slumped on the stool, sweat-streaked and panting, raising his head to meet my eyes.
    He was a man, only a man, thoughtlessly cruel and greedy, reduced by his folly to abject pain, his ruined feet useless as lumps of tallow. Caught in the net of Kushiel’s justice, he had walked into it of his own accord. And yet I had been in such a place, once, a terrible prison of stone, where humanity was stripped away by madness. Despite it all, despite his guilt, there was a spark of kinship between us.
    One victim knows another.
    What will you give me, his desperate gaze begged me, for the answers you seek? He did not speak my tongue, but he knew; he had heard my voice ask the questions.
    I felt the presence of Kushiel, bronze wings buffeting-the Punisher of God, wielder of the rod and flail, despised, irresistible; ah, Elua! It was a storm in my head. Through the blood-haze that veiled my eyes, I saw the Count’s enforcer nod, the men take Mago’s arms, the torch lowered to his feet.
    “Wait!” The word emerged harsh; I had spoken in Caerdicci unthinking. The Count’s men knew it, and paused. “A clean death,” I said, drawing a racking breath. “A clean death, if he answers it honestly.”
    It was all I had to give, and at that, not mine to offer. The Count’s enforcer looked at Nicola. To her credit, she never paused, lifting her chin imperiously, addressing him in Aragonian. “The Comtesse of Montrève, favored of her majesty Ysandre de la Courcel, the Queen of Terre d’Ange, has spoken. The King’s Consul of the House of Aragon concurs. Let it be so.”
    Mago exhaled, a long