"Oh were you," she said, frowning. "Does that have something to do with why I'm here?"

"I fear so, lady," I said.

She sighed. "Then we will discuss it." She summoned a Servant to her side with a flicker of her fingers. "Take the osulkedi to the study and have tea and a small meal sent there. I will join him once I've seen my brother."

The Servant bowed and I went with him, as I must. As I followed, I considered the situation in every possible wording, and in every possible style—florid, with historiated initials? Stark and bald, without decoration?—wondering how to explain in the most truthful way possible, without giving offense. Should I share the speculation as well as what was known? When the speculation was so unthinkable, and was unsubstantiated? The lady would not thank me if I told her that her brother might be in the beds of aunera... that was the sort of accusation that required proof, for his Correction would be grave. The act might even be beyond Shame's authority... and the only authority after his in that arena was Thirukedi's.

And really, what did we know for certain? Almost nothing!

The Servant left me in the study: from the neatness of the desk and the lack of any papers, I guessed this was the lady's for when she visited. I sat across from the desk and looked out the inevitable windows at the gardens; the room was upstairs and in the back of the house, and had a superb view of the plot the House kept at the Gate-complex, both for pleasure and use. I imagined there was some sort of trellis up the walls also, as there were climbing vines trained around the windows: a flower we call "formals" because their blade-like petals and white and black stripes recalled the crossed layers of robes we wear at our throats. Staring at them, I thought suddenly of Kor, and had this strange mad urge to paint him with them. Black and white, and black and white, and maybe a drop of red somewhere, or would that be too gauche—

The lord's sister interrupted my reverie, sweeping into the room and seating herself with the abruptness of a closed book. She startled me so obviously that she couldn't help but laugh. "Apologies, osulkedi," she said. "I did not mean to surprise you. But it has been a disturbing walk I've just made, and I do not like the looks of my brother." She lifted her brows. "So now, perhaps you will tell me what has gone on here."

"Lady," I said slowly, tasting the words in my mouth, "I wish I could tell you. The truth is... we are not certain yet."

"Well then, what you know," she said, waving a hand. She paused as the tea tray arrived and poured herself a cup. She offered me one with a gesture, but I declined in kind.

"The lord requested the aid of an osulkedi in the matter of the chief observer," I said, "who needed Correction. When we arrived—"

"—we?" she interrupted.

"I am accompanied by Shame, who is currently indisposed or he would also be here," I said.

Her ears flattened. "Continue," she muttered.

"When we arrived, we found the lord had attempted Correction," I said. "Following it, the chief observer became tsekil."

Her frown was growing more distinct, but she did not interrupt.

"Here it becomes more nebulous, lady," I said, using my most studiously courteous language. I imagined flourishes on the initials and very plain letters behind, painting out the words as I chose them. "We are not certain what was between the lord and the observer to occasion the Correction, though his staff reports that the observer was deeply distressed with some request of the lord's. The lord himself went through the Gate on business. When he returned, he met with Shame, and following that meeting, the lord became tsekil also. Shame developed a fever before we could ask over the matter—not a soul-sickness, but virulent nevertheless."

"So you mean to tell me that my brother and the observer made each other sick, and the priest cannot tell us why?" the lady said.

"That is... correct, yes," I said, ears falling. "Everything else is supposition."

She sighed. "Well, then, we will have to wait for the priest to wake. Or my brother, or the observer."

"Yes, lady," I said.

"Very well," she said. "Or at least, as well as can be managed at this point. You may go."

I rose and bowed, and left her to the meal. And on the way down the corridor wondered if it was a determination to see that all parties were treated justly and without slander that had motivated me to withhold the Decoration's accusation... or cowardice.

I stopped at the suite after my interview with the lady and found Shame's condition unchanged: both his fever and his attendant. I asked Ajan if he would like to have a moment to rest and he declined, as I perhaps should have expected. I left them there, then, and went to find my Qenain council, as I had begun to think of them. The physician would not be moved from the lord's chambers, so I sent a Servant for Seraeda and a different one to fetch something to eat. As we waited, I studied the lord's slack face.

"No change here either," the physician said. "My assistant is waiting on the observer now, as the fathrikedi is sleeping. As well she should, for she has been louring over her lord like some desperate lover from a ballad. I did not want to add her sickbed to my rotation."

"Do you think—"I began, alarmed.

"No, no," the physician answered, testy. "No, she is young, and not likely to suffer from a few sleepless nights. But one must take precautions."

I looked uneasily at the lord, then went to answer the Servant with the tray.

Not long after, then, we three met at the table in the lord's antechamber, in the sullen light of a midday gone patchwork with clouds and shimmery with humidity. I found the alternating glare and shadows mazing and pulled the cloth panels across the glass panes before seating myself with the other two.

"So," the physician asked, reaching for the pot. "How did the interview go?"

"About as one might expect," I said. "I told her that the observer and the lord had made each other tsekil, and that Shame who alone might know what went on, was not yet available."

"That's it?" the physician asked, arching a brow. "Nothing about the aunera?"

"We do not know that is the aunera who have caused the issue between them," I said, ears flattening. "And did I say it was, without proof..."

"Then who knows what the lady would have done, is that it?" the physician said, shaking his head. "I suppose you have the right of it. To be accused of false witness would have severe repercussions. I would not want to treat you for being bled in wine."

I shuddered at the thought. "I thought such things only happened in histories."

"Oh, it still happens," the physician said, tired. "Rare, though. I have treated it once, and only because I happened to be in the exact right place at the exact right time. It is a rough piece of work, though I suppose the wine's antiseptic properties make my duties a little easier."

"Well I said nothing of it," I said, not wanting to linger on the image. Accusations of perversity and wrongdoing are inimical to a social people, if they are wrongful. The punishment for false witness—for punishment it was, and not Correction—was a public whipping until bloody. "We will have to wait for Shame to wake, and perhaps he will put things right."

"Perhaps," the physician said, though he sounded skeptical. Before I could ask at his tone, however, he said to Seraeda, "You are quiet."

"Yes," she said. She stopped pleating her napkin. "I suppose I am."

"Because?" I asked, more gently.

"I am concerned about the lady's effect on our work," she said at last. "She swept through the laboratory after seeing the lord and I misliked her demeanor." She drew in a long breath and expelled it slowly through her month. "Too, I... went into Baran's locker."

The physician's brows rose. I glanced at her also.

"I was looking for evidence that might explain the problem," she said, ears wilting. "I felt it was my duty. We cannot leave the mystery unexplained. So I looked. There were notes there, and a refrigerated sample box, with several serums." Having given up napkin-pleating, she was now toying with the lid of her tea-cup, tracing it with nervous fingertips. "If his notes are correct, the aunerai flower, when combined with meadowchoke, may have a beneficial effect on the elderly."

Now we were both looking at her. She lifted her hands, palm out, and said, "I don't know yet. But the results are suggestive."

"And you think this may have something to do with their argument?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "On the surface, I can't imagine how finding an efficacious medicine would result in a disagreement. It's the purpose of our work in Qenain, to do so."

"Have there been other medicines based on aunerai flowers?" I wondered.

"Some," the physician said. "But from colony worlds, or dead ones. I don't know of any based on flowers from aunerai worlds." He looked at Seraeda. "Am I wrong?"

"No," she said. "We have traded with aunera before for flowers, but only from dead worlds. It is only recently that we have made deals for flowers from worlds where they live."

"So," I murmured. "This is new."