Chapter sixteenAffairs in Princess Didi’s province of Urn Vennar were going from bad to worse. A spate of unsolved murders, the nazabni dismissed, the new nazab foully murdered on his way to take over. Oh, yes, by Vox, affairs in Urn Vennar were in a pretty parlous state.
What, then, of my promise to Didi? You may well appreciate my feelings of resentful frustration. Every which way I turned brought no easy solutions. As for the chief pallan, he’d taken to his bed with his nerves shredded after the assassination attempt. That a trusted servitor of Nath Verunder could prove so base knocked the whole structure of trust between master and servant to pieces. Nath Swantram shivered between the sheets and was not available to anyone.
The traitorous servant, Nath the Pinion, as he collapsed, dy
