Ulvana sighed. “He said he and his allies had a plan to save the Wardlands, but that it was risky, and not all of the Graith would be willing to take the risk. He said that he was to eliminate the Summoner Earno, and perhaps others if it came to it. He said—he said—I was the only person he could trust!”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Are you? Are you? I wish I could be. I had timber lodges near the Road, and he knew it. I knew the lands all around here, and he knew it. I was Arbiter of the Peace, charged with investigating murders hereabouts, and he knew it. But I think he trusted me, too. Don’t you think so?”
“He must have, to let you so deeply into his counsels.”
“Yes. Yes, exactly!” Ulvana’s reply was frantic—so frantic that Aloê wondered if she was also worried about the alternative: that Naevros told her so much because he planned to stop her mouth with death when he was done with her.
“What did he tell you about Oluma Cyning?”
“Nothing, except that he had corrupted a necrophor and that she would assist in the investigation of Earno’s murder. Or do you mean afterward? When he. . . . When he. . . .”
“Tell me about all of it.”
“Well—he told me what I told you. When the necrophor—”
“Oluma?”
“Yes, her. When she came to town she told me what she knew about the plot, and warned me not to trust the healer—”
“Denynê.”
“Yes, her. The necrophor warned me not to trust the healer, as Naevros had been unable to get at her.”
“Seduce her, you mean?”
“I suppose. I suppose that was what she meant. She laughed when she said it.”
“Oluma herself succeeded at that, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” Ulvana wrinkled her nose in matronly disapproval. “She bragged about it to me—thought it was funny. That’s what the whole business was for her; a grim sort of, of lark.”
“But Oluma didn’t manage to drag Denynê into the conspiracy?”
“As far as I know, she didn’t try. She wasn’t that interested; it was just one more game in all the games she was constantly playing. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Naevros had to kill her.”
“But you were surprised?”
“Yes, it. . . . I was surprised, yes.” And frightened, too, Aloê thought, looking at Ulvana’s face now and remembering it then, when they had found Oluma in the corpse-house. Frightened that Naevros was getting rid of his fellow conspirators: that was Aloê’s guess. Ulvana lived simultaneously with two different versions of Naevros: the hero of her love-romance, and the cold-hearted seducer and murderer.
“What was your role in all this?” Aloê asked. “What did he want you to do?”
“I showed him the . . . the lay of the land, I suppose. He spent some time at my old lumber camps. He wanted me to report to him how the investigation went. And, of course, he stayed with me after it, after the thing.”
“After he had murdered Earno.”
“Yes, that. He could not afford to be seen—there was a simulacrum of himself he had left in the North to give himself an alibi. So he was with me for a number of days. That was. . . . That was a good time.”
Because she’d had her beloved all to herself, Aloê thought. And, of course, he would have been at his most charming; his plan depended on keeping Ulvana happy.
“Did you attempt to mislead me at any time?” Aloê asked.
“Only by omission. Naevros warned me about that in a letter, as soon as he found out that you would be the Graith’s vengeancer. He said I should act as I would if . . . if I were not involved. He said you would know if I did not. He rates your cleverness very highly. More highly than he does mine. And he’s quite right, of course. I still don’t understand what you discovered in our journey together. Was it something you saw in your vision? He said he had a way of concealing his talic imprint from a seer. Did it fail him?”
“No. Tell me, Ulvana, why did Naevros create such an elaborate murder plan? Why not arrange something less spectacular, something that might have passed as an accident?”
“Oh, that wasn’t his idea. His partners—his seniors, he called them—they insisted on it. They said they needed to be sure they put Earno out of the way; he was blocking some important task they had in hand. And if an attempt was made and failed, it might draw suspicion.”
“If you strike at the king, you must kill him,” Noreê said, somewhat blasphemously. Ulvana started a little in her chair: she had forgotten the older vocate was there.
Aloê met Noreê’s cool gaze and they both nodded: they were done here.
“Ulvana,” said Aloê, “I’ll consider your case and consult my peers in the Graith. In the meantime, you must be under guard. The thains here, or some others, will take you to the High Arbitrate in A Thousand Towers.”
“I don’t wish to go there. I don’t want to see those people.”
“You must go somewhere, and you can’t stay here.”
“Yes. I see that. I don’t want to stay here, either. Aloê, I’ve answered your questions; won’t you answer mine? What did you discover that led you to Naevros?”
Aloê hesitated before answering. But there was no obvious reason not to tell her.
“It didn’t mean anything to me at the time,” she admitted. “But there was a scent in one of the beds I slept in at your logging shelters—a sort of sweet musk.”
“Oh,” Ulvana said quietly. Then, “I gave him that scent. It was a present.”
“I noticed it on him later when I met him in the city. That was what helped me guess. The proof came later.” Aloê thought of Denynê and frowned at a painful memory.
“He said he would wear it in the city,” Ulvana said. “But I wasn’t sure. . . . I wasn’t sure whether that was only one of his lies.” She looked sharply at Aloê and seemed to be about to speak. Aloê looked straight into her eyes and she flinched.
“Did you always despise me?” she asked plaintively, as Aloê turned to go.
Aloê considered the question fairly. “No,” she said. “No, when I met you again in Big Rock, I sort of liked you. But that wasn’t really you, was it?”
“It used to be,” Ulvana said sadly. “Until a year or so ago.”
Aloê shook her head and strode away through the door. Noreê followed her out, and the thain outside folded the door shut, closing Ulvana in alone.
“I’ll have some of my thains escort her down, if you like,” Noreê said.
“They’re not your thains, Vocate,” Aloê said.
Noreê smiled and nodded: a mere detail to her. “Ommil,” she said to the thain on guard, “take a couple of the others and escort Ulvana down to the High Arbitrate in the city tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Vocate,” said the thain.
“What did you think of Ulvana?” Noreê asked as they turned away and walked into the street.
“Pitiable. But I didn’t pity her.”
“Yes. My long-dead father would have called her a real woman.”
“Oh? Why?”
Noreê shrugged, a gesture that reminded Aloê oddly of Morlock. “That is easier to know than to explain. She lives through her man; that is part of it. He is everything, and she is content to be nothing, if he only notices her. She is completely selfless.”
“I’d say she’s completely selfish.”
Noreê laughed. “You are contrary today, Vocate. How can she be selfish? She gave up everything for that man.”
“For a price. As long as she got what she wanted, nothing else mattered: Earno’s life; Oluma’s life; Denynê’s life—anyone else’s; her principles as a member of the Arbitrate; the safety of those who trusted in her; her independence and fortune, so proudly won over a century of work. She threw all that away to satisfy an urge.”