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"I am not a spy" She jerked her chin away and turned her face back toward the road

"At the château, and later, in your roo, he demanded, "If I cannot compel you, they why did you behave as if I had?"

She moved her shoulders "I serve the council"

"Is that your answer to every question?"

"There is nothing ether before she asked in a softer voice, "When your ives you an order, does he explain it to you? When you couard, do you offer them reasons as to why they should obey?"

"No," he admitted "Never"

"It is the same for us" She touched the place on her sleeve that covered the tresoran tattoo on her inner arm "We take an oath We are co--her scent would have changed--but he sensed that a much more complicated version of the truth lay concealed by her si her under his influence, he couldn’t coed the eneain to see her nod "That is why the council ordered you to bring uard and your blade"

One corner of her mouth curled "You sound as if you are insulted"

He should have been, and would be, had he not come to the sa s unfareed "But we can take comfort in that we serve the same purpose"

They both lapsed into silence She had clipped short the nails on her long fingers, Korvel noted, and more of the faint, odd scars covered both hands from knuckles to wrists Despite the evidence of the wounds she had suffered in the past, her hands looked strong and capable, as they had felt when she had touched hihts away froers were bare She should have been wearing the traditional plain gold band presented to a novice when she took her vows and became a bride of Christ

Perhaps she left it behind at the convent, with her habit and her rosary Why had the council permitted her to become a nun in the first place? Because no one would suspect her

She did not look at all like a nun noever Korvel eyed the boy’s cap on her head, wishing she would take it off No mortal female he had ever known, not even Alexandra Keller, had possessed such long, beautiful hair

"Why do you never cut your hair?" he heard himself ask

"It is a personal vanity," she said "My father always kept it short when I was a child Why was yours so long?"

"I kept forgetting to attend to it" Korvel decided her father was an idiot He wanted to unpin her braids and unravel theh the fiery golden strands and feel their silkiness against his skin onceabout her damn hair

She turned off the road from Garbia to take a ramp onto a wider, busier roadway "Do you know Marseilles?"

"I have not been here since the lad for the distraction, "and then cale my kind across the channel"

She frowned "That was a terrible time to visit"

"It was" He didn’t want to think about thethe French Revolution "How did you come to be so familiar with the city?"

"My father frequently traveled there on business" She pulled into the next lane to pass a slower-ed the subject "I have never been to England Is it as miserable as my countrymen say?"