‘I used the wrong word for “smiling”, right?’

‘I’d say so, yes.’

The pretence of learning a new language provided the queen and her entourage with a great deal of leisure time. The official functions and entertainments they were obliged to attend usually took place in the evening, and that left the days generally free. They passed those hours in idle conversation – conducted for the most part in Tamul. The spell Sephrenia and Zalasta had woven gave them all a fairly complete understanding of vocabulary and syntax, but the smoothing out of pronunciation took somewhat longer.

As Oscagne had predicted he would, the prime minister threw obstacles in their paths at every turn. Insofar as he could, he filled their days with tedious and largely meaningless activities. They attended the openings of cattle-shows. They were awarded honorary degrees at the university. They visited model farms. He provided them with huge escorts whenever they left the imperial compound – escorts that usually took several hours to form up. Pondia Subat’s agents put that time to good use, clearing the streets of precisely the people the visitors wanted to see. Most troublesome, however, was the fact that he severely restricted their access to Emperor Sarabian. Subat made himself as inconvenient as he possibly could, but he was unprepared for Elene ingenuity and the fact that many in their party were not entirely what they seemed to be. Talen in particular seemed to completely baffle the prime minister’s agents. As Sparhawk had noticed long ago, it was quite nearly impossible to follow Talen in any city in the world. The young man had a great deal of fun and gathered a great deal of information.

On one drowsy afternoon, Ehlana and the ladies were in the royal apartments, and the queen’s maid, Alean, was speaking as Kalten and Sparhawk quietly entered.

‘It’s not uncommon,’ the doe-eyed girl was saying quietly. ‘It’s one of the inconveniences of being a servant.’ As usual, Alean wore a severe dress of muted grey.

‘Who was he?’ Ehlana’s eyes were like flint.

‘It’s not really important, your Majesty,’ Alean replied, looking slightly embarrassed.

‘Yes, Alean,’ Ehlana disagreed, ‘it is.’

‘It was Count Osril, your Majesty.’

‘I’ve heard of him.’ Ehlana’s tone was frosty.

‘So have I.’ Melidere’s tone was just as cold.

‘I gather that the Count’s reputation is unsavoury?’ Sephrenia asked.

‘He’s what’s referred to as a rake, Lady Sephrenia,’ Melidere replied. ‘He wallows in debauchery of the worst kind. He boasts that he’s saving God all the inconvenience of condemning him, since he was born to go to hell anyway.’

‘My parents were country people,’ Alean continued, ‘so they didn’t know about the count’s reputation. They thought that placing me in service to him would give me the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s the only real chance a peasant has for advancement. I was fourteen and very innocent. The count seemed friendly at first, and I considered myself lucky. Then he came home drunk one night, and I discovered why he’d been so nice to me. I hadn’t received the kind of training Mirtai had, so there was nothing I could do. I cried afterward, of course, but all he did was laugh at my tears. Fortunately, nothing came of it. Count Osril customarily turned pregnant maids out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. After a few times, he grew tired of the game. He paid me my salary and gave me a good recommendation. I was fortunate enough to find employment at the palace.’ She smiled a tight, hurt little smile. ‘Since there were no after-effects, I suppose it doesn’t really matter all that much.’

‘It does to me,’ Mirtai said bleakly. ‘You have my word that he won’t survive my return to Cimmura by more than a week.’

‘If you’re going to take that long, you’ll miss your chance, Mirtai,’ Kalten told her almost casually. ‘Count Osril won’t see the sunset of the day when I get back to Cimmura, I promise you.’

‘He won’t fight you, Kalten,’ Sparhawk told his friend.

‘He won’t have any choice,’ Kalten replied. ‘I know any number of insults that no man can swallow – and if they don’t work, I’ll start slicing pieces off him. If you cut off a man’s ears and nose, he almost has to reach for his sword – probably because he doesn’t know what you plan to cut off next.’

‘You’ll get arrested.’

‘That’s no problem, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana said, grimly. ‘I’ll pardon him.’

‘You don’t have to do that, Sir Kalten,’ Alean murmured, her eyes downcast.

‘Yes,’ Kalten replied in a stony voice, ‘as a matter of fact, I do. I’ll bring you one of his ears after I’ve finished with him – just to prove that I’ve kept my promise.’

Sparhawk fully expected the gentle girl to react with violent revulsion to her protector’s brutal offer. She did not, however. She smiled warmly at Sparhawk’s friend. ‘That would be very nice, Sir Kalten,’ she said.

‘Go ahead, Sephrenia,’ Sparhawk said to his tutor. ‘Roll your eyes and sigh. I might even agree with you this time.’

‘Why should I do that, Sparhawk?’ she asked. ‘I think Sir Kalten’s come up with a very appropriate course of action.’

‘You’re a savage, little mother,’ he accused.

‘So?’

Later that afternoon, Sparhawk and Kalten had joined the other knights in the gleaming great hall of the counterfeit Elene castle. The knights had put aside their formal armour and now wore doublets and hose. ‘It wouldn’t take very much,’ Sir Bevier was saying. ‘The walls are really very sturdy, and the fosse is already in place. The drawbridge is functional, though the capstans that raise it need some grease. All we really need to finish it off are sharpened stakes in the fosse.’

‘And a few barrels of pitch?’ Ulath suggested. ‘I know how much you Arcians enjoy pouring boiling pitch on people.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Vanion said disapprovingly, ‘if you start reinforcing the defences of this place, our hosts may take it the wrong way.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘It might not hurt to quietly lay in a goodly supply of stakes, though,’ he added, ‘and maybe a number of barrels of lamp-oil. It’s not quite as good as pitch, but it won’t attract so much attention when we bring it inside. I think we might also want to start unobtrusively bringing in provisions. There are quite a lot of us, so concealing the fact that we’re filling storerooms shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s keep it all fairly low-key, though.’