Rook

Gallows Keep,” she began.
    “Yes, but he assured me that he hadn’t told you anything very useful,” said Grantchester, taking an easy sip.
What?
thought Myfanwy.
Oh, right, the other bodies. Naturally he’s been in contact.
    “Actually, he told me a few things that I found
very
interesting,” said Myfanwy. She felt a jolt of satisfaction as Grantchester’s face turned sour.
    “Indeed?” said Grantchester. “What exactly?”
    “Well, one of the little facts he let slip was that there was another traitor in the Court,” said Myfanwy.
Maybe at the very least I can get Gestalt in trouble.
“And I had no problem believing it,” she added, staring straight into his eyes.
    “I’m not certain I understand.”
    “I’d stumbled across a few things that didn’t make a lot of sense,” said Myfanwy, leaning back in her chair and counting points off on her fingers. “To begin with, there’s a secret training camp for a private army, established under Checquy auspices. Camp Caius.” At her mention of the name, she felt the scaly youth’s hand move on her neck, and the girl behind Grantchester shifted uneasily. “It’s down in Wales, a little remote and a little spartan, but it’s got some very nice medical facilities. And of course, it’s illegal as anything.
    “Second, there is the painfully obvious fact that Gestalt could never work such a complicated piece of administrative flimflammery. Financial sleight of hand designed to drain substantial funds while evading all but the most meticulous of forensic accounting. Legal justifications to acquire children who had absolutely no unnaturalabilities—children expressly outside the purview of the Checquy. Now, we both know Gestalt was elevated to the Court for his outstanding ability to kick ass, not his intellect.
    “Then I had a little tête-à-tête with a high-up from the Broederschap. He tracked me down, despite the fact that I departed secretly from the Rookery through an underground passage. Someone must have tipped him off.
    “And
then,
well, there’s the tiny little matter of the attack on me. Not the attack this afternoon, you understand, though that was a complete bitch too. The delightful incident in Bath was not particularly pleasant either. But I’m talking about the attack that ended with me standing in a park surrounded by the corpses of Retainers and with no memory of who I was.”
    “And you were going to tell this to the entire Court?” Grantchester asked.
    “Well, I was hoping to keep the memory issues to myself,” said Myfanwy. “But I was willing to disclose them if it meant bringing you down.” Grantchester was staring at her, his handsome face expressionless.
    “Anyway, while Gestalt could not possibly have pulled the strings,” she continued, “you could have, easily. You were Rook for many years, with dominion over finances. You and I have both set up enough covert operations to know how it’s done. You could have established a little school and maintained it once you rose to the rank of Bishop. After all, you were responsible for revamping the finances of the whole organization. All sorts of things could have been concealed during that restructuring.”
    Grantchester regarded her with level eyes, his hands forming a pyramid on his desk, but Myfanwy continued, undeterred.
    “Gestalt also said that I was placed on the Court deliberately, that the Grafters wanted it. But I’ll bet you put the idea forward. You, with your reputation for making unorthodox promotions that prove to be brilliant. You, who can measure people’s strengths and weaknesses. You knew I would make an excellent Rook. That I’d keep the organization running smoothly. And that I’d compensate forGestalt’s obvious lack of ability in that regard. That I’d be kept far too busy to investigate any inconvenient anomalies and that I was too reticent to stand in your way even if I did stumble across one.
    “Now, when it came to the meeting between me and Graaf Gerd de Leeuwen, well, I’ll confess that I thought it was Bishop Alrich who had set me up. I mean, I was in a nightclub with some friends, and there he was, looking for a few hot bodies to drain. We ran into each other, and then immediately afterward I was surrounded by a bunch of large, uncoordinated Belgians. I figured Alrich had drained his date and then made a quick call to a Belgian mobile phone.
    “It may also interest you, Conrad, to know that after I was attacked two weeks ago,