The Ambassadors Table
The invitation to the ambassador's dinner came the following morning, on paper of a weight she had not held in twelve years, and it did not come to Master Denier's niece. It came to Reyna Halleth, by that name, laid on the table of her room above the tallowchandler's by the boy with the sprats, who had arrived a full two days earlier than Illo had said he would, and who had set the basket down by her door and said, without smiling, "The basket is not mine, lady."
"It was my mother's," she said.
"Then read this, and burn it after, and be at the water-gate of the Crescent House at the second bell of the evening. A chair will be waiting. You will not be named. You will be fed. You will be looked at. You will say nothing that has not been asked of you twice. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"The Warden bids me say this: the woman who spoke to you last night at the wall is Chancellor Vayn. She did not come to you by accident. She came because someone told her where to look."
"I had worked that out."
"Good. The Warden also bids me say: do not assume it was the Denier."
The boy left. Reyna burned the note at the tallow lamp and washed her face in cold water and sat for a while at the crooked table, and she thought about the sentence *do not assume it was the Denier*, and she thought about the sentence *someone told her where to look*, and she dressed.
The Crescent House was a