lobster - wishing, irrelevantly, that it were not still intact, so she mightsnatch a morsel without being detected. The writing writhed into new patternseven as she tried not to notice.

Then Melilot was back, resuming his chair, sipping from his half-full wine cup.

'You're astute, you little weasel!' he said in a tone of grudging admiration.'Are you quick-witted enough to know precisely why neither he nor I - nor you! can read that writing?'

Jarveena swallowed hard. 'There's a spell on it,' she offered after a pause.

'Yes! Yes, there is! Better than any code or cipher. Except for the eyes of theintended recipient, it will never read the same way twice.'

'How is it that the captain didn't realize?'-

Melilot chuckled. 'You don't have to read and write to become a captain of theguard,' he said. 'He can about manage to tell whether the clerk who witnesseshis mark on the watch-report is holding the page right side up; but anythingmore complicated and his head starts to swim anyway.'

He seized the lobster, tore off a claw, and cracked it between his teeth; oilran down his chin and dripped on his green robe. Picking out the meat, he wenton. 'But what's interesting is how he came by it. Make a guess.'

Jarveena shook her head.

'One of the imperial bodyguards from Ranke, one of the detachment who escortedthe Prince along the Generals' Road, called to inspect the local guardhouse thismorning at dawn. Apparently he made himself most unpopular, to the point that,when he let fall that scroll without noticing, Aye-Gophlan thought more ofsecreting it than giving it back. Why he's ready to believe that an imperialofficer would carry a document in Old High Yenized, I can't guess. Perhapsthat's part of the magic.'

He thrust gobbets of succulent flesh into his mouth and chomped for a while.