“The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara,” she said. “And this is their command to you⁠—that you deliver to me to bring before them three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him there who plots with Lugur”⁠—she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw Yolara start⁠—“they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!”

There was honeyed venom in the last words.

Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice revealed her wrath as she answered.

“And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, choya ?”

This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant, approximately, “kitchen girl,” “scullion.” Beneath the insult and the acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla’s ambered ivory skin.