“I took the, um, responsibility? The — ah — presumption of, er, tidying him up. On his back now, eh? Folded the arms, prior to calling you.”

Potto lay almost at her feet, his arms crossed in such a way as to hide the wound Sand’s slug had made just below his sternum. The graying hair that he had worn long trailed over Blood’s lush carpet, and Maytera Mint found herself muttering, “He looks surprised.”

“Doubtless he — ah — was.” Remora cleared his throat. “Caught unawares, hey? Shot by one of his own. All in a, um, trice. So my prothonotary tells me. He — ah — Incus is his name, General. Patera Incus. He has, um, fallen prey in some — ah — wise to the notion that he’s old Quetzal—”

She knelt beside the corpse, traced the sign of addition, and opened its card case.

“Mad, I fear. Deranged. Bit of rest, eh? He’ll come to himself soon enough. General — ah — ?”

In the first place,” Maytera Mint explained, “there may be papers of value in here. In the second, there’s money, ten cards or so, and we need that very badly.”

“I, ah, see.”

Cards and papers vanished into her wide sleeve. “Where’s the blood? Did you clean up his blood before you called to me, Your Eminence?”

“Through the heart, eh?” Remora’s nasal tones sounded slightly strangled. “Not much bleeding then, eh? So I am — ah — apprised.”

Gently at first, then with increased vigor, Maytera Mint rubbed the councillor’s cheek. “This’s a chem!”

“I — um—”

She looked up at Remora. “You knew.”

“I — ah — suspected.”

“You rolled him over, you said, Your Eminence. You folded his arms. You must have known.”

“Then? Oh, yes, I — ah — confirmed, eh? I had, um, and — ah — Quetzal, eh? Old Quetzal. Wouldn’t tell. Asked him once. More, actually. He, ah, er, wouldn’t. Confides in me, eh? Nearly everything. Very, ah, delicate points. Sensitive matters, finances. Everything. But he — ah — wouldn’t.”