“When I woke from the oblivion Shin-La had dragged me to, I found I had a new sensation burning in my soul.” He turned to Vaelin, an odd glint in his eye, like a man recalling his own madness. “Do you know hate, brother?”

Vaelin thought of his father disappearing into the morning mist, Princess Lyrna’s tears and his barely suppressed urge to break the king’s neck. “Our Catechism of Faith tells us hate is a burden on the soul. I have found much truth in that.”

“It weighs on a man’s soul true enough, but it can also set you free. Armed with my hate I began to take note of the meetings Lol-Than had me attend, to write down what was said with meticulous care. I began to conceive of just how vast his dominions were, to learn of the thousand ships he owned and the thousand more in which he had an interest. I learned of the mines where gold, jewels and ore were hewn from the earth, of the vast fields in which lay his true wealth, the countless acres of wheat and rice that underwrote every transaction he made. And as I learned I searched, pouring over my papers for some flaw in the great web of trade. Four more years passed and I learned and searched, barely distracted by the comforts of the court, left to my efforts by the guardians I now knew to be my gaolers who saw no threat in my new-found studiousness, and all the time the truth of my song never wavered and I faithfully related to Lol-Than all it told me, every deceit and every secret, and his trust grew with every plot or fraud uncovered so that I became more than his truth-teller. In time I was as trustworthy a secretary as a man such as he could have, given more knowledge, more strands to the web, all the time searching, waiting, but finding nothing. The Merchant King knew his business too well, his web was perfect. Any lie I told him would be swiftly uncovered, and my death would follow swiftly after.

“There were times when I considered simply taking a dagger and sinking it into his heart, I had ample opportunity after all, but I was still young and though my hatred consumed me, I still lusted for life. I was a coward, a prisoner whose captivity was made worse by his knowledge of the vastness of his prison. Despair began to rot my heart. I fell to indulgence again, seeking escape in wine and drugs and flesh, an indulgence that would have seen me dead before long, had not the foreigners arrived.

“In all my years in Lol-Than’s palace, I had never seen a foreigner. I had heard stories, of course. Tales of strange, white or black-skinned people who came from the east and were so uncivilised their very presence in the Merchant King’s domain was insulting and only tolerated because of the value of the cargoes they carried. The party that came to treat with Lol-Than were certainly strange to me with their odd clothes and impenetrable language, to say nothing of their clumsy attempts at etiquette. And to my amazement, one of them was a woman, a woman with a song.

“The only women allowed in the presence of the Merchant King were his wives, daughters or concubines. In my homeland they have no role in business and are forbidden from owning property. Through the interpreter I was given to understand that this woman was of high birth and to refuse her admittance would be a grave insult to her people. The likely profits from whatever proposal these foreigners intended must have been great indeed for Lol-Than to allow her entry to the audience chamber.

“The interpreter continued but I could barely follow his words, the woman’s song filled my mind and I couldn’t help staring at her. This was a beautiful woman, brother, but beautiful in the way a leopard is beautiful. Her eyes glittered, her black hair shone like polished ebony and her smile was one of cruel amusement as she heard my song.

“‘So the slant-eyed pig has a Singer of his own,’ her song said, the hollow laughter that coloured it making me tremble. She was powerful, I could sense it, her song was stronger than mine. Shin-Lah may have been able to match her but not I, the rat had met a cat and was helpless before it. ‘What can you tell me, I wonder?’ she sang in my mind, the song plunging deeper, reaching into memory and feeling with brutal ease, dragging up all my hate and my scheming. My intended betrayal seemed to make her exultant, fiercely triumphant. ‘And the Council told me this would be difficult,’ she sang. Her gaze lingered on mine for a moment longer, ‘If you want the Merchant King dead, tell him to reject our offer.’” Then it was gone, her intrusion into my mind withdrawn, leaving behind a chill of certainty. She was here to kill Lol-Than if he refused whatever they proposed, and she wanted to kill him, the outcome of the negotiations meant nothing to her. She had travelled across half the world for blood and would not be denied it.”

Ahm Lin’s face was tense with remembered pain. “Sometimes the song lets us touch the minds of others, in all the years since I must have touched thousands, but never have I felt anything to compare with the black stain of that woman’s thoughts. For years afterwards I had nightmares, visions of slaughter, murder practised with sadistic precision, faces screaming or frozen in fear, men, women, children. And visions of places I had never seen, languages I couldn’t understand. I thought I was going mad until I realised she had left some of her memories with me, either out of indifference or casual malice. They faded over time, mostly. But even now there are nights when I wake screaming and my wife holds me as I weep.”

“Who was she?” Vaelin asked. “Where did she come from?”

“The name spoken by the interpreter was a lie, I sensed that even before I heard her song, and the memories she left gave no clue as to name or family. As for where she was from, it meant nothing to me at the time but the delegation presented greetings from the High Council of the Volarian Empire. What I’ve learned of the Volarians since leads me to conclude she would have been most at home there.”

“Did you do it? Did you tell the Merchant King to reject their proposal?”

Ahm Lin nodded. “Without a moment’s hesitation. Shocked as I was, my hatred was undimmed. I told him they were full of lies, that their scheme was an attempt to spend his treasure and save their own. In truth I had barely any understanding of what they had proposed or if their word was true. As always, however, he trusted my verdict implicitly.”

“And did she keep her word?”

“At first I thought she had betrayed me. Lol-Than gave them his answer the next morning after which they boarded their ship and sailed away. He appeared to be in fine health, and gave every impression of remaining so. Disappointment and fear crushed me. For the first time I had lied to the Merchant King. Surely, I would be discovered and an ugly death would follow. A month passed as I worried and fought to conceal my fear, and then Lol-Than slowly began to sicken. It was nothing at first, a small but persistent cough that of course no one would dare to mention, then his colour became paler, his hands began to tremble, within weeks he was coughing blood and raving in fits. By the time he died he was a wasted bundle of bone and skin that couldn’t remember its own name. I felt no pity at all.

“He had a successor, of course. His third son Mah-Lol, the two older brothers having been quietly poisoned in early manhood when it became clear they lacked their father’s acumen. Mah-Lol was truly his father’s son, highly intelligent, exceptionally well educated and possessed of all the cunning and ruthlessness needed to sit on a Merchant King’s throne. But, to my great delight, he knew nothing of my gift. Lol-Than’s illness had left him in no state to enlighten his son as to the nature of my role at court. To Mah-Lol I was simply an unusually trusted secretary, and he had his own man for that. I was consigned to a bookkeeping position in the palace stores, moved from my fine quarters and paid a fraction of the salary I had received before. Apparently, I was expected to kill myself in shame at my fall from royal favour, as many of Lol-Than’s now redundant servants had already done. Instead, I simply left, telling the guard at the palace gate that I had an errand to run in the city. He barely glanced at me as I walked out. I was twenty-two years old and a free man for the first time. It was the sweetest moment of my life.

“Freedom brought a change in my song, made it soar, seeking out wonders and novelty. I followed its music across the breadth of Mah-Lol’s kingdom and beyond. It guided me to a stonemason in a small village high in the mountains, who, lacking sons or apprentices, agreed to teach me his craft. I think he was disturbed by the speed with which I learned, not to say the unusual quality of my work, and he seemed relieved when it became clear he had no more to teach me and I moved on.

“The song guided me to a port where I took ship to the east. For the next twenty years I travelled and worked, from city to city, town to town, leaving my mark on houses, palaces and temples. I even spent a year in your realm carving gargoyles for a Nilsaelin lord’s castle. I never wanted for anything, in lean times the song guided me to food and work, when times were fraught it sought out peace and solitude. I never questioned it, never resisted it. Five years ago it guided me here, where Shoala, my most excellent wife, was struggling to keep her late father’s shop going. She had the skills but richer Alpirans don’t like to deal with women. I’ve been here ever since. My song has never signalled a need to move on, for which I am grateful.”

“Even now?” Vaelin wondered. “With the Red Hand in the city?”