"Greetings, Princess Irayan, daughter of King Kroydon, ruler of Stanyshaul. I bid ye welcome back to yer home," he said with as much sincerity as he could muster, "although I pray that the circumstances could be more enjoyable."

"Master Theobold," she addressed him without warmth and he thought he could detect a subtle sneer in her voice. "Still the same glib tongue, I see."

He attempted a weak smile. "The princess remembers me fondly, I trust?"

"The word 'trust' is a strange word to hear issue from yer lips, priest," she said, and this time there was no mistaking the distaste she obviously felt for the old man.

The meeting was not going at all well, Theobold decided. He was intensely uncomfortable under the glare of her many bodyguards and he felt that he had already lost points with Irayan. "How may I be of service to ye, princess?" he finally asked.

"Ye can mayhap help me identify something," she told him, then motioned to one of the guards behind the dais. He bent down and lifted something from a sack that had been hidden behind the throne and tossed the object to the floor at Theobold's feet.

The priest stifled a scream and jumped back as the thing landed with a wet thud and slid across the stone floor, leaving a trail of green slime behind it. Long and narrow, the once shiny scales now grey and dull, Theobold realized with a start that it was the head of his Creotin spy; the yellow eyes were now glazed over and the creature's black tongue was lolling from its mouth. To his amazement, in death, the beast smelled even worse than when it had been alive. Theobold put a hand to his face in a futile attempt to block the stench.

"Would this belong to ye, priest?" Irayan asked. She and her guards did not appear to be bothered by the noxious stink the severed head gave off.

"Why, I...I, that is, I am sure I have no knowledge of this, princess," he tried to explain, not being able to gaze any longer at the thing on the floor.

"My guards found yon creature skulking about outside me quarters last night," she said, looking down at the head with no sign of regret. "I would have liked to have taken it alive, but it put up quite a fight for something so small. The guards had to kill it to protect themselves." She looked up at Theobold, again. "Ye claim no knowledge of this creature?"