Ragged the eagle was, and slow, and cranky at being roused early, but the pair took their distance easily and circled over Olossi soon after dawn. Every Assizes Tower was required to maintain a perch for eagles, and space enough for flight in and out, but Olossi's council had always begrudged Argent Hall their due. First he thought of landing outside the walls, but then he'd have to walk. He had made this turnaround and steep approach enough times that he knew how to bank the turn just right and give a last hop of height in the landing, just before the gap of Assizes Court opened below. They made it, even if the landing was hard. He left Tumna hooded on the perch and commandeered a pair of young guards to escort him to Master Feden's compound, always difficult to find in the twisting streets of Olossi.

After a bit of confusion at the compound gate, he was led to a spacious courtyard and seated at a low table shaded by a cloth awning. Platters of fruit and soup and porridge and dried sourfish were brought. A slender slave girl poured khaif and leavened it with a spicy tincture of moro milk. He gave her a good look-over, but she wasn't anything compared with the Devouring girl, hardly worth mentioning. He set to without waiting.

It was a reasonably good feast, not perfect. The sourfish had a proper bite, but the flat cake was bland. The nai porridge was sharp with kursi, but the soup hadn't any cut to it at all and only a pair of trifling leeks when any decent cook would have layered them on to give a morning kick. Still, the fruit was ripe, moist with juices.

"Good to see you enjoying the food, Reeve Horas," said Master Feden, entering.

"Couldn't eat last night," said Horas as he pulled the tough strings from a globe-fruit and gulped down its sweet pulp.

"I'll join you." Master Feden gave a command, and a small, wiry-haired dog whose coat was a mixture of gray, white, and black settled down, its gaze fixed on its master. Seating himself on the only other pillow, Feden took his khaif without milk or spice and dismissed the girl. "How can I aid you this morning? Is there a message from Argent Hall?" His hand trembled as he lifted the cup, but after he sipped at the hot khaif, the trembling eased and he set down the cup with a firm hand.

"Uh." Horas swallowed the last of the luscious globefruit and licked the sticky sap off his lips. "Just need to make sure the mercenary company departs for the south. Master Yordenas isn't wanting any trouble with them."

"I shouldn't think they're likely to give any trouble." Master Feden glanced across the courtyard as he said it, but there wasn't anyone over there except a pair of guardsmen loitering under the arcade, out of the sun. "Have more khaif?"

"Can't eat too much." Horas took a good long look at the abundance of food, and levered one more sourfish off the platter. Popping it in his mouth, he savored its bitterness, the sting it brought to the eye. That was good. "I'll have to catch them up. When did they leave?"

Feden looked startled. He snagged a round of flat cake, cut it in half, cut the halves into quarters, and tossed one of those eighth pieces to the dog, which caught the treat in its mouth and gulped it down without rising. He put a piece to his own lips, but lowered it again.

"The report's not come in yet." He beckoned, and one of the young guardsmen trotted over. "Find Captain Waras. I'll need his report."

"I'll go out myself and look."

"A strange thing," said Feden. "That Devouring girl asked about you, after you'd left."

That was something to make a man burn brighter, even better than the sourfish. "Did she, now? How was that?"

"She came back to report to me, rather later in the night, if you take my meaning."

Thinking of the imprisoned reeve from Clan Hall, Horas nodded.

"It was strange. She must have known you were going, but she asked again if you'd happened to stay the night. Said it was late enough when you left the council hall that maybe you'd had second thoughts about flying back to Argent Hall." Then the merchant smiled. "Seems you roped a bit of interest there. She's a little too-whew!-spicy for my taste."

Horas looked at the pieces of untouched flat cake placed on the master's platter, and made his own judgment about the merchant's tastes. Casually, he dabbled his fingers in the cleansing basin. "She still around?"

"Nay, she left at dawn with a packhorse and a spare, off to fetch some hired man she mislaid on West Track, so she said. I got to wondering if it was a lover she was going after, she was that eager to get out of town."

"Hierodules don't take lovers." But after all, she was out and about, and she had shown an unusual concern for the man she'd left behind on the road. Now he got to thinking about it, maybe she was hiding something from the temple.

"Lots of things we say we don't do, that we do do," agreed Master Feden with a hearty chuckle.

That got Horas to thinking about what she had promised, and why the hells hadn't he gotten what he wanted when it was offered? Was he crazy? Surely it must have been something he ate, to make him feel all woozy and beaten down yesterday when it was there for the taking, all the sweet juicy flesh, just like the globefruit, only better.

He patted his fingers dry on a cloth and tossed it back on the table, where its edge lapped over his platter and one corner dipped into the unfinished soup.

"That mercenary troop ought to be gone by now. Let me get out to see them."

"I've some fresh redberry juice. Are you sure you don't want to wait for Captain Waras? He'll know what's up." He called over the slave, sent her off with a slap on her hindquarters, a good clout that got Horas to biting his lip for it did make him think of what he might get up to with the Devouring girl if only he could catch up to her before she got lost one way or the other, or killed by accident, now that he thought about it, which was the likely outcome if she came across the strike force who would act first and say sorry for it later.

"I'll just head out," he said.

But after all, the guards who had escorted him to the compound had vanished, and there was some fuss over finding a guide to replace him since Horas was quite sure he would lose his way in the confusing labyrinth of streets. Master Feden jabbered, and there came Captain Waras with a snarl on his face and a surly attitude that would have gotten him whipped in Argent Hall.

"I've got my hands full rousting that mercenary troop," he informed Master Feden.

"What! What? They were meant to leave at dawn!"

"Seems they're negotiating with some merchants from town, who won't be budged. I don't want a fight on my hands, not if I can avoid one."

"Negotiating for what?" asked Horas. "I thought the council ruled they were to leave immediately and without hiring themselves out here."

"I was just about to send a troop of riders to set them on their way. Would you like to come? Is that redberry juice, Master Feden?"

"So it is. Just uncanted this morning. So sharp you'll cry."

"Might I-?"

Down the captain sat, right on the carpet, and the slave was sent to bring a third pillow and a third cup. It transpired that the captain was a devout follower of the game of hooks-and-ropes, as Horas had been back at Iron Hall when he had followed league play in Teriayne. Olossi had teams, as did many of the surrounding villages, and there had been a particularly good scandal last season having to do with a hookster and a very cunning bribe, which Waras explained in entertaining detail. They drained the pitcher of redberry juice, and as promised Horas had to wipe tears off his face. His tongue had gone numb.

"Best we go out," he said as he blinked away the last bitter tear.

AFTER ALL MASTER Feden would come, and then there must be a procession, because council masters did get all twisted up if they weren't given a chance to parade before the lesser, as Horas's old grandmother was used to say.