I sprang up and rushed out of the study, almost tripping over Justin. He sat, legs outstretched, with his back against the wall. He looked drunk. I knew better. He was half-stunned by the push Verity had given him. I brought myself up short and stared down at him. I knew I should kill him. The poison I had composed for Wallace so long ago still rode in a pocket in my cuff. I could force it down his throat. But it was not designed to act quickly. As if he could guess my thoughts, he cowered away from me, scrabbling along the wall.

For a moment longer I stared at him, striving to think calmly. I had promised Chade to take no more actions on my own without consulting him. Verity had not bid me find and kill the spy. He could have, in less than an instant of thought. This decision did not belong to me. One of the hardest things I have ever done was to force myself to walk away from Justin. Half a dozen strides down the hall, I suddenly heard him blurt, “I know what you’ve been doing!”

I rounded to confront him. “What are you talking about?” I asked in a low voice. My heart began to thunder. I hoped he’d make me kill him. Frightening to know suddenly how badly I wanted to.

He blanched but did not back down. He reminded me of a braggart child. “You walk like you are the King himself, you sneer down at me, and make mock of me behind my back. Don’t think I don’t know it!” He clawed his way up the wall, staggered to his feet. “But you are not so great. You Skill once, and think you are a master, but your Skilling stinks of your dog magic! Do not think you will walk so proud always. You will be brought down! And soon!”

A wolf clamored in me for instant vengeance. I leashed my temper. “Do you dare to spy upon my Skilling to Prince Verity, Justin? I did not think you had the courage.”

“You know I did, Bastard. I do not fear you so that I must hide from you. I dare much, Bastard! Much more than you would suppose.” His stance showed him growing braver by the minute.

“Not if I suppose treachery and treason, though. Has not King-in-Waiting Verity been declared dead, oh loyally sworn coterie member? Yet you spy upon me Skilling to him, and you express no surprise?”

For a moment Justin stood stock-still. Then he grew bold. “Say what you like, Bastard. No one will believe you if we deny it.”

“Have the sense to be silent at least,” Serene declared. She came down the hallway like a ship under full sail. I did not step aside, but forced her to brush past me. She seized Justin’s arm, claiming him like a dropped basket.

“Silence is but another form of lying, Serene.” She had turned Justin about and was walking him away from me. “You know that King Verity still lives!” I shouted after them. “Do you think he will never return? Do you think you will never have to answer for the lie you live?”

They turned a corner and were gone, leaving me to seethe silently, and curse myself for shouting so blatantly aloud what as yet we must conceal. But the incident had pushed me into an aggressive frame of mind. I left Verity’s study and prowled the Keep. The kitchens were abustle and Cook had no time for me, other than to ask if I had heard that a serpent had been found lying before the fire on the main hearth. I said doubtless it had crawled into the firewood to shelter for the winter and come in with a log. The warmth would have brought it to life. She just shook her head and said she had never heard of the like, but that it boded evil. She told me again of the Pocked Man by the well, but in her story, he had been drinking from the bucket, and when he lowered it from his spotted face, the water that ran down his chin was red as blood. She was making the kitchen boys bring water from the well in the washing courts for all the cooking. She’d have no one dropping dead at her table.

On that cheerful note, I left the kitchen, with a couple of sweet cakes I had light-fingered from a tray. I had not gotten far before a page stood before me. “FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry?” he addressed me cautiously.

His wider cheekbones marked him as probably being Bearns stock, and when I looked for it, I found the yellow flower that was the Bearns sigil sewn to his patched jerkin. For a boy of his height, he was wretchedly thin. I nodded gravely.

“My master, Duke Brawndy of Bearns, desires that you wait upon him as soon as you handily may.” He spoke the words carefully. I doubted he had been a page long.

“That would be now.”

“Then shall I show you to him?”

“I can find my way. Here. I should not take these up there with me.” I handed him the sweet cakes, and he received them doubtfully.

“Shall I save them for you, sir?” he asked seriously, and it smote me to see a boy put such a high value on food.