and his
holdings and position handed to him in view of Jotan's continued
absence.

And then there was Rhoa--Heglar's young and beautiful wife ... and
Vokal's mistress. He had not seen her since the day her husband had made
the attempt on Jaltor's life. This was agreed upon between them for
safety's sake; the understanding was that once Heglar's death was known,
Vokal could court and win her in the usual manner.

But what had been foreseen as only two or three days of separation had
lengthened into eleven and still no word of Heglar's fate. Long before
this those thousand tals paid to Heglar should have come back into
Vokal's hands, accompanied by Rhoa herself. Vokal was becoming
increasingly uneasy about those missing tals; let enough time elapse
before he could take Rhoa as mate and she might reconsider, refuse Vokal
and keep the thousand tals for herself. There would be nothing he could
do about it, either. To threaten her or use force could anger her into
betraying him.... Vokal shuddered. Only this morning she had sent word
to him that she was tired of this uncertainty, that something must be
done to learn what had happened to her husband.

Another thing: Ekbar and his men should have returned before
this--returned with word that Jotan, Garlud's son, was dead and no
longer in a position to step into his father's sandals as first ranking
nobleman of Ammad. What was delaying the man?

Well, Vokal told himself doggedly, he could wait no longer. There were
ways to get at the truth--ways that would not betray his interest in the
matter. For instance, there was Sitab, an officer in Jaltor's own palace
guard....

But first would come another plan at breaking that wall of silence. This
same morning, Vokal had remembered a case involving a merchant whose
shop was on the boundary line between Vokal's territory and the
neighboring district belonging to Garlud. A moon or so before, one of
Vokal's collectors had informed Ekbar that this merchant was claiming
allegiance to Garlud, even though his shop was not in the latter's
territory.

It was a minor matter and as a rule a nobleman did not complain to
Jaltor about these single isolated cases. It was only when there was
evidence of some systematic raid by a neighboring nobleman that a
complaint was filed. Clearly Garlud had not ordered any such raid, but
enough evidence was there at least to bring the matter to Jaltor's
attention, thus making it necessary for Garlud to de