That would be quite sufficient for his plans. Accordingly he wrote:
Arkilu The Beautiful:
Send word how I can see you after the performance. But beware of Jud.
Cabot The Magician.
This note he folded up, placed it in the palm of Quivven, and closed her golden fingers over it.
Whereat she sprang back with, “Don’t you dare touch me like that!” and rushed out of the house, sobbing angrily.
Really, he must be more careful with this delicate creature; for although her intense hatred furnished him considerable amusement, yet it was possible to go too far. He must at least be polite to the sister of his benefactress.
But there was no time to be given over to worrying about Quivven’s sensitive feelings; for the note had been sent merely to give him a slight respite from her prying eyes, in order that he might sneak out for a conference with Jud; of course he had no intention of any secret tryst with Arkilu. Heaven forbid, when he loved his own distant Lilla so intensely!
So he hurried to the quarters of the Vairkingian noble, who received him gladly, being most interested in learning whether there was any rational explanation to be given to the various magic tricks of the evening before. But Myles blocked his inquisitiveness by the flat assertion that all were due to mystic spells and talismans alone, and then got rapidly down to business, for there was no time to be lost.
Myles told Jud of the note from Theoph the Grim requiring his presence at the royal palace, and how he suspected that Princess Arkilu was responsible. Also, he related his discovery that his maidservant was Quivven the Golden Flame; but he had the decency to refrain from implicating the head of Jud’s ménage.
“I shall have her removed at once,” the Vairking asserted.
“No, no,” Myles hastily interposed, “that would never do; for now that we know she is a spy, it will be easy to outwit her. But a new one we never could be sure of.”