The third novella in the life of Penric sees him settled in his life as a divine and on a secret covert mission that fails as soon as he goes ashore. Things work out in the end and you find out what has happened to him in the years previously. The nice thing is the story does wrap up everything but you also know there is more that could possibly be written about him in the future. Wonderful storytelling as usual for Bujold and the plus with this one and the other stories about Penric if you read them out of order you are not completely lost.

Penric and his resident demon, Desdemona, have moved positions. They are no longer in the court of the archdivine in Martensbridge. On her death Penric has been sent into the service of a duke. Penric and Desdemona are sent on a secret mission to contact a general who is about to defect. Unfortunately it's a put-up job. The general never intended to defect to Penric's people in the first place and Penric is caught up in a trap for the general, brought down by manufactured evidence. So upon arrival Penric is thrown in jail, not a nice, cosy straw-carpeted jail cell, but an oubliette. The general - outmanoeuvred politically - is arrested, blinded, and sent home in disgrace, possibly to die. When Penric finally escapes and finds the general he finds that his simple courier job has become much more. Can he heal the general's eyes (one of Desdemona's previous hosts was a physician) and if he does, can he bring the general round to defecting? I like Penric. His solutions are always positive and in a violent world he truly seeks to do no harm. Bujold's writing is always smooth and engaging. A good addition to the Penric cycle of novellas in the world of the Five Gods.