Varallo Thray, unruffled by the waves of embarrassment radiating from the Prince Silenio and the smug satisfaction drifting from the Emperor, pressed on, as though he had not just deliberately needled Silenio enough to bait his father into his beloved pastime of belittling anyone in his presence and his children most of all. "But the Mourthias were not quite extinguished, were they, your Majesty?"

The Emperor frowned at Varallo Thray and Silenio presently abandoned his own simmering pool of shame. Bringing up arcane alumni who had escaped the purge was usually a surefire way to provoke Somilius Deyn's blackest ire. But in this Varallo was often permitted leeway, perhaps because, if the rumors were true, he was a survivor of the purge himself, or perhaps simply because no one else was so adept at reminding the Emperor that the matter needed to be discussed from time to time. "What do you mean, Varallo?"

"Senrich had a son. One who followed him into his trade, if I recall?"

"Oh, Ammas? He was no seer-magistrate. He went into the cursewrights. They never had the power of the seer-magistrates. You know that."

"But they were much more colorful. More . . . vivid in the public imagination. Ammas was."

The Emperor waved a fat hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, the Lady Terazla and her haunted eyes, so romantic, so absurd. Ammas never reached those heights."

"But he made his name in Munazyr. Helped deal with the Yellow Death."

"He was a boy then, gods help us. What is the point of this, Varallo?"

"Oh, I suppose I have no point, your Majesty, forgive my rambling. Finding a book by his father simply put me in mind of the cursewrights who might still be out there."

Silenio took the opportunity to return to the conversation. "I still can't believe no one's collected the bounty on him. His father was right in the heart of the conspiracy to take the Throne."

"Now Prince Silenio, surely you of all men don't believe a son ought to be held responsible for his father's misdeeds?"

The entire table fell silent, and for a few moments Carala forgot Tacen and everything she had done with him. Every eye was fixed either on Varallo Thray and his thin smile or on the Emperor, who was staring at his Grand Chancellor positively wide-eyed. Every member of the Imperial family was thinking the same thing: none of them had ever expected to see the end of Varallo Thray, yet he had apparently just signed his own death warrant.

Then the Emperor burst into loud, cheerful peals of delighted laughter, his bloated face reddening with mirth, laughing so hard and so long that tears began trickling from the corners of his beady hazel eyes. The entire table breathed again, except for Varallo Thray, who had never stopped. "You see, Silenio, you see?" The Emperor continued to chortle, wiping his tears away with his thick fingers. "Ah, gods, Varallo, I should have appointed you his tutor. There, my dear son, there, that is what I have been trying to press into your thick skull since you were a boy: words can cut deeper than any blade. I despair of you ever learning it, alas, not at your advanced age. Perhaps Perseun has learned it in the Sultan's court."

"I should be most honored to serve as Prince Silenio's tutor, your Majesty. It would be a comfort in my own advanced age."

"My dear Varallo, do not err too far on the side of cheek."

"Of course not, your Majesty." Varallo sipped his wine as the Emperor's laughter continued to bubble up from time to time, Silenio staring daggers at the Chancellor as he cut his meat. The women at the other end of the table were far more relaxed, though. No one had a gift for tickling the Emperor's humor as the Grand Chancellor did, and they all knew that, barring some dire news, Somilius's mood might remain relatively pleasant for days. "I do wonder about Ammas, though. If he still lives, if he returned to Munazyr or if he found his way to Losris Nadak."

"The Kerrells would never give him succor, never, Varallo."

"I happen to agree, your Majesty."

"He might have died in some far corner of the world, or even here in the Anointed Realms," Silenio offered in a more subdued tone.

"He might have, my son, he might very well have, but if he did, then his body was never found. For even a friend of the Mourthias would seek to curry favor with the Throne by presenting us with his remains."

"And the bounty, father? It's quite high now, isn't it?"

"Ten thousand gold talents, my son. A fortune enough to make a new house all on its own."

"If I may be frank, your Majesty -- "

"It seems clear I cannot stop you from that, Varallo."

"Well, if I may be frank, I do not think that bounty will ever be collected."

"No, likely not. For my own part I think he died, yes, long ago. Perhaps trying to recapture his boyhood glory of fighting the Yellow Death, lost in the tunnels under Munazyr."

"But Meryk Orveil -- his might be collected."

"Perhaps. He is quite brazen after all."

"Brazen how, father?"

Somilius Deyn's laughter seemed to have banished his pique at his son, and his manner was almost avuncular as he answered Silenio. "The rolls of the Academies Arcane may be split into three groups: the dead, the missing, and the ones we know to be alive. There are a few in Munazyr. A few healers tending their Doge. A seer-magistrate serving their constabulary. But it will be a sunny day in the pit before I tangle with the gods-damned Argent Council again, oh no, I simply haven't the patience for their vanity. I leave that matter to -- why, to whoever succeeds me."

He fixed Silenio with a sly expression.

"But the ones in Munazyr, the ones in the Sultan's court, the ones on lonely islands in the Azure Sea: they are wise enough not to rock the boat, very wise. They stay quiet. They make the Argent Council or the Sultan happy. They do not venture into the bounds of the Anointed Realms unless they have no other choice, and they keep their heads down when they do. I do not like it, oh, no, not at all, but they have no means of rebuilding their schools and they are certainly no longer plotting revolt, and so I can turn a blind eye. To a point." The Emperor plucked up his quail and began to tear it into chunks with his bare hands, devouring the delicate fowl with hungry chomping sounds. When he spoke again grease glistened below his mouth, shreds of meat clinging to his blotched skin. "But Meryk Orveil not only openly plies his trade in Summervale, he is thriving. Wealthy. Wealthier than some of our own houses, the Houses of the Throne! Carala?"

The princess jumped up, startled, unaware her father had even remembered she was there. Perhaps he had caught her eavesdropping. "Father?"

"Did you know a gods-damned cursewright serving the Neguses and the cat folk of Summervale is richer than your husband to be?"

She shook her head. "No, father."

"Well, he is, he is, may his eyes rot from his head. Worse, he openly denounces me! Preaches the vilest slanders against the Malachite Throne you can imagine!"

"Maybe it's time we reconsidered just how loyal the Neguses are," Silenio ventured.

"Oh no, my dear son, that is a war I will not provoke. If you thought the invasion of Losris Nadak was a trial, this would be far worse. Unimaginably worse. The Neguses continue to send tribute, very rich tribute indeed. Let them have their pet cursewright. I imagine with the wicked sorceries the cat folk practice they must need him." The Emperor gnawed on the draggled remains of his quail, breaking the frail bones and savoring the marrow within.

Silenio frowned. "But if you won't go to war with them, father, how might the bounty be collected?"

While his sovereign continued to loudly suckle at quail marrow, Varallo Thray answered the prince. "The Neguses occasionally send Meryk Orveil abroad as a member of various embassies. Never here, of course, or if they have the traitors accepting his visit have never been caught doing so. But he does sail with some regularity to the Ocean Kings and the Sultan's court. Your brother Perseun has actually met him several times."

"And is there some reason he didn't stick a knife in his throat when he did?"

"Because he prefers not to be executed by the Sultan, who I will remind you is his host, your highness."

"Oh let the boy be, Varallo." Varallo stiffened in an uncharacteristic expression of open distaste, and Carala thought she knew why: now that her father's mood had shifted, the stupid blowhard which he usually considered his secondborn son was now a boy to be let be, even though the "boy" was almost forty. But the Chancellor was not unused to such whims, and the expression fled his face so quickly it might never have been there. Carala wondered if she had been the only one to glimpse it. "He's not suited for the ambassador's life like Perseun is, no, not at all, but he has other gifts, and he uses them well. Don't you, my dear son?"

Silenio flushed with pride. "I try to very hard, father."

"In any event," Varallo continued, his tone as polite and unctuous as ever, "while invading Summervale for the sake of a single cursewright, however wealthy, would be a foolish course of action, some success might be found catching him unawares at one of his ports of call. There are some reports his security has become rather lax. A sign, no doubt, that he feels quite comfortable in his position with the Neguses."

Silenio argued that it did no good to kill a traitor without making a spectacle of it, which the Emperor appreciated but allowed was not always feasible, and the conversation moved to the topic of another possible surviving cursewright in Gallowsport. But the Emperor laughed and said that one he knew to be dead, though he didn't say how, and Silenio seemed puzzled there was no official record of it.

From there they moved on to surviving astrologers, forgewrights, and healers, these last having been given amnesty with the Graces under the stipulation they never leave their cloisters or temples. But Carala heard little of it, allowing herself to be drawn back to the salon her sister was now eagerly discussing with their mother. She wished they had mentioned the name of the cursewright in Gallowsport, or that her father had not seemed so certain he (or she, Carala supposed) was dead. Gallowsport was much easier to send a message to than Summervale or Munazyr, and upon hearing the men at the table discuss the topic of living cursewrights she had felt a brief surge of hope that she might contact one to request aid with this awful mess she had gotten herself into. But they all seemed beyond her reach, either on the other side of the ocean or on the other side of the grave.