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"What did you say, Lord Rallyhorn?" asked Emlar.

The flattery was all that was needed to make the youth continue. "Princess Tanalasta knows how to rob the ghazneths of their power. She and Alaphondar have been working on it for more than a month. All they need is some help from us to catch them."

"Is that so?" asked Lady Calantar.

Trying to ignore the angry look her mother flashed her, Tanalasta sighed and half-nodded. "After a fashion. We know how to weaken the ghazneths temporarily, but with the spy on the loose we have not been able to get close enough to the monsters to put our knowledge to use." The princess did not need to explain which spy she meant. The entire royal court was abuzz with speculations about the identity of the ghazneth's informant. Tanalasta furrowed her brow at Orvendel. "The ghazneths know every trap before we set it. Orvendel knows this."

Orvendel was too caught up in his moment of fame to heed her warning. He turned to Emlar Goldsword. "What I know is that if you weren't such a coward, Princess Tanalasta would have troops to put everywhere, then it wouldn't matter if the ghazneths had a spy."

Emlar gave him a cobra's smile. "We can see that you need never fear the princess's assassins."

"Actually, neither do you," said Queen Filfaeril. "These assassins belong to Princess Tanalasta no more than they belong to you. I can assure you of that personally."

A stunned silence fell over the room as the nobles worked through the implications of Queen Filfaeril's words. Even Tanalasta found her head reeling at what she thought she heard her mother saying. For the queen to know who did not control the assassins suggested she knew who did. If that were so, Tanalasta could only guess at the reason her mother had kept the knowledge secret.

Emlar seemed to reach his conclusion before everyone else. "You are to be commended for defending your daughter's reputation, Majesty," he said.

Filfaeril's pale eyes grew icy. "Do you call me a liar, Goldsword? Or perhaps you think me irresolute enough to let such behavior go unpunished." The queen leaned back and looked past Ildamoar Hardcastle to Korvarr Rallyhorn, who had been assigned to stand guard over Emlar personally. "Lord Goldsword has impugned the dignity of the queen. Execute him."

"What?" Goldsword's face grew stormy and indignant, and he braced his hands on the table so he could stand and look toward the queen. "You can't-"

Korvarr cut the objection short by catching Emlar by the hair and pulling him off-balance to the rear to prevent him from defending himself. For a moment, Tanalasta thought the lionar would stop there, but then he jerked his captive's head back and pressed his dagger under Lord Goldsword's quivering jaw.

"Wait!" Tanalasta cried.

Korvarr cast an inquiring glance at Filfaeril, who raised one finger to delay the execution. "You have something to say before we proceed, Princess?"

Tanalasta started to say that her mother could not simply have a man executed, but of course she could. The princess swallowed, then said, "If Lord Goldsword were to apologize, perhaps he might be excused for challenging your claim, Majesty. I myself doubted I understood you correctly until I considered The Rule of Law-particularly the passages relating to Time of War."

The icy hint of a smile crossed Filfaeril's lips, and Tanalasta knew with a sudden hollowness that she had guessed right. While Iltharl the Abdicator's treatise The Rule of Law was not exactly the law of the land, it had been quoted as precedent for more than a thousand years and was certainly the foundation of Cormyrean common law. The particular passage Tanalasta referred to stated that during Time of War, any royal representative of the crown had complete authority to punish crimes against the crown. While it might be argued that execution was a rather severe penalty for affronting the queen, the treatise stated explicitly that during Time of War, the punishment was at the representative's sole discretion