They didn’t take me to the city jail, or even to a guardhouse. The burly soldiers who captured me led me down a maze of streets, away from the library complex, towards the Cliff Gate and the more disreputable side of town. They were bundled up in fur-lined robes. Little puffs of breath escaped the scarves that covered their mouths. They did not care that I was shivering.

  We entered the shell of a burnt out house and there were other people waiting there. Not members of the guard. I would have thought that they were cutpurses if I met them on the street. They collected me silently and took me onward, walking casually, but fanned out around me in a way that told me there was no escape. We approached an inn, the kind of bug-ridden place that poor travelers stop at when entering our fair city, and I thought that I might at least be allowed to have a drink. I wasn’t. They took me through a back door and up a flight of creaking steps and into a low-ceilinged room. The room was strangely familiar.

  There was a woman waiting in it. She was in her middle years, a little plump, but handsome, and something about her filled me with embarrassment. The kind of embarrassment you feel when meeting an old village granny who was there at your birth and who cleaned your bottom as you mewed in your crib. She smiled at me in a familiar way that I didn’t like.

  “Very good,” she said to the people who had brought me. “Wait outside the door.”

  We were left alone. She had a tea kettle hanging over the fire, and a little stool by the fireplace so that she could mind it. The wood she was burning was fragrant. Not the twigs and sticks you’d expect in a disreputable wayside inn. She was wearing plain robes and her bronze hair had streaks of verdigris. I stood there, observing her, as she made the tea.

  I was very grateful for it. I felt as if my whole body had been turned to ice, and as I clutched the cup that she gave me I felt some feeling come back into my fingers.

  “You could sit, if you like,” she told me, nodding at a little stool, so I pulled it up to the fire and sat. We both gazed into the flames for awhile. Then she hummed a little ditty, and I nearly dropped my cup.

  “You!” I said.

  “Me?”

  “We have met before. You gave me a bath.”

  “I did. You needed it. I thought, as we talked on that occasion, that there was some possibility that you’d have no memory of our conversation. So I decided that we must talk again, and I must give you some extra incentive.”

  “What incentive did you give me the first time?”

  A little smile. “I appealed to your better nature. Unfortunately, your better nature wasn’t much in evidence that evening.” She paused. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said. “His death was necessary.”

  I almost dropped my mug. “You killed him?” I whispered at her, and she raised her eyes and gave me the hard, appraising look that Moesebai sometimes gives me when I’m being particularly stupid. “I mean,” I said, “did you have him killed?”

  “Yes. As I said, I needed to offer you another incentive.”

  “You’re going to blame his death on me?”

  A little shrug, a little quirk of her mouth. “Perhaps, if you had remembered our initial conversation, and done what we asked, he could have lived. Perhaps not. He was a marked man from the moment we realized that you were too feckless and innocent to be our enemy, or even in our enemy’s camp.”

  “Me!”

  “Yes, you. There were two scholars from Haunts and Scribbles who were in attendance at certain parties and left before the ghost with the cleft-palate appeared. Yourself and Lewibindi Jaestis. It could have been either of you. But in truth I’m glad it was him. He was quite an arrogant young man. You are only a foolish young man, and that I can work with.”

  “You want to work with me?”

  She sipped her tea, found it too hot, and blew on it. Her nose was slightly pitted with acne scars. She would have survived in Adakhuehan II’s court. “It is more that you want to work with me,” she said.

  “I do?”

  “You were found by the city guard, standing over the corpse of your rival. I would rather not see you hang for his murder.”

  “My rival? We weren’t rivals.”

  She shrugged. “It’s easy to assume that two young men from the same tower are rivals in something.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Yes, I know. I already told you that I was responsible for that. But people will believe that you did.”

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  “The Sasturi will speak to his ghost. My innocence will be proven!”

  “The Sasturi are easily bought.”

  “Then I’ll say that you did it.”

  Her mouth quirked into a smile. “And who am I?”

  My hands had begun to shake. The tea was slopping in my cup. I set it down on the floor. “So that’s it? You’re framing me, and if I don’t do what you say, I’ll go to the gallows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather just pay my bar bills instead?”

  She froze for a moment, then lifted her eyes and studied me. There was something very familiar about her face, even more familiar than my drunken memory of bath time and intimidation. “Has someone paid your bar bills?” she asked.

  I was clever enough not to answer that directly. “They’re always in need of paying.”

  “And you can be bought so easily?”

  “I like to think that I know how to exercise the virtue of prudence.”

  “Prudence?”

  “Knowing how to act at the right time.”

  “Ah. You are a philosopher. Well, this is the right time, and the right way to act is for you to return to Haunts and Scribbles and report on the actions of Lianahndra Shishoghun.”

  “Lianahndra?”

  My incredulity made her laugh. “Truly, it was absurd of me to ever think that you were part of the conspiracy.”

  “What conspiracy?”

  Silence for a moment. Not so that she could gather her thoughts. So that she could make me squirm. She took a poker and jostled a few logs on the fire. At last she said. “There is a cabal among the scholars, a group dedicated to keeping the palace from being built. They hope that they can cause enough destruction that the king will be discouraged, and choose to make his capital in some other city.”

  “And Lianahndra has something to do with it?”

  “Lianahndra has everything to do with it. We believe that she is the mastermind.”

  “Lianahndra?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lianahndra the Drudge?”

  She smiled again. “If that’s what you call her.”

  “And Lewibindi was working with her?”

  “Yes. There must be others in Haunts and Scribbles as well. And in the other towers. They could not have caused the avalanche on their own. They must have many helpers.”

  I found it hard to look at her face. I looked into the fire instead. After a moment I picked up my tea cup. My hands had stopped shaking. “Well,” I said, “I don’t care if the king builds his palace here or not.”

  “No. You were not born in Libreigia.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “You are immune to all of this silliness. I’m afraid that your friends fill their minds with many foolish ideas. They are willing to risk their lives for a mere idea. The idea of what this city should be. In their minds, Libreigia is a place of freedom. Of independence. A place where ancient traditions can continue without molestation from any outside power. But only very comfortable people would care about such a thing. Only people who feel that they should be in power, because of an unspoken birthright. They will never say that out loud. They will pretend to a kind of altruism, pretend that they are acting for the good of other people. In truth, they are only angry that the king is challenging their authority. The fact that their authority is small and easily disregarded only makes it worse.”

  She said all of this with an air of exhaustion. Her manner was that of a woman who had been encountering resistance movements for a very long time. It was clear that she found idealism wearying. I didn’t like her attitude, and I found myself wanting to defend Lianahndra. But I didn’t. It didn’t matter if I disliked this woman. I had no intention of hanging.

  “What do you need me to do?” I asked.

  “Keep watch over Haunts and Scribbles. Every evening you will take a walk, and make contact with one of my people.”

  I saw an opportunity. “I do take walks every evening. I walk to the Dust and Pen. Sometimes the Bird and Baby.”

  Her lips twitched into a cynical smile. “Yes, that will do. It will be better if your behavior doesn’t change.”

  “It does cost me some coin to go there, of course,” I said, pressing my luck.

  She nodded. “That bar bill seems to cause you some distress.”

  “I get criticized for it occasionally.”

  “Go to the Dust and Pen every evening, and my friend will buy you a drink.”

  “That would be very pleasant. What kind of thing does your friend want to hear?”

  “Tell them about the people who come to see Lianahndra Shishoghun. Report on her moods. If she scribbles any little notes, try to see the notes. If she leaves the tower, search her chambers.” She took another sip of her tea and looked from the fire to my face. “Try not to get caught.”

  I attempted to stare her down, but couldn’t. She had a gaze that could break rocks. “What happens if I get caught?”

  “If Lianahndra catches you, I imagine that she will torture and then kill you. If you’re caught by anyone else, and you happen to babble that you’re working for me, you will hang.”

  I put the tea cup back down on the floor. “I seems that we’re not going to have a very cordial relationship.”

  “There is very little friendship among spies.”

  She stood up and went to the door. I stood to follow her. “Tell me,” I said, as she began to open it, “did I just happen to stumble over Lewibindi’s body?”

  I was standing very close to her, and I caught a scent that I recognized. The cold, talcy odor of face powder. She glanced back at me but didn’t seem to notice my surprise. “Of course not,” she said. “He was placed there for you to find.”