In spite of all the rest, this at least was welcome news, if true. Though with Einar gone, it felt like a bitter victory. But whatever Erlan felt, the mood across the First Hill was euphoric. The Augustaion was lit with a hundred flares and swarming with people: monks, shopkeepers, soldiers, patricians, house-slaves, senators – all laughing and drinking and dancing together. He pushed through them all, wanting to run but unable, wanting to scream, to clear a path, to draw his stolen sword and hack his way right through them. Anger squeezed tighter and tighter in his throat.

But even he had wit enough to recognize the battle-heat still in him. So his sword remained sheathed and he put his shoulder forward and hurried through the throng as best he could.

Yana led them through the palace gardens, keeping stride with the sentinel and at such a pace that the other women hardly had breath to talk. Although Anna tried. She kept asking Lilla whether she thought her mother would be all right but Lilla had little to reassure her. Of course, she had her own reasons for hoping the empress would recover.

Yana raced up another flight of steps, urging on the sentinel, up to the platform terrace where the Golden Hall stood. Its bulbous dome rose above them, a black shadow against the midnight blue of the sky. Reaching the top, Yana looked back down to check the other women were following.

Why Yana? thought Lilla suddenly.

Why would the empress send such a lowly servant to fetch them and not one of her ladies-in-waiting, or else another palace guard? Lilla reached the top of the stairs. She was about to call Yana’s name when several shadows peeled away from the bushes.

‘Stay where you are!’ exclaimed the sentinel. ‘Declare yourselves!’ But even before he could level his spear, two of them had sprung forward. There was a hack, a groan, a ripping noise, and the sentinel slumped to the pavings without another murmur, blood puddling quickly around his lifeless body.

‘The perils of protocol,’ said a voice that chilled Lilla to the marrow. ‘It does so slow one up.’ Katāros stepped out of the gloom and peered down at the sentinel’s leaking corpse.

‘You,’ Lilla scowled. ‘What hole did you crawl out of?’ She glanced over her shoulder for an escape but the other men had already circled around behind the women. The eunuch smiled, his face pale as the moon. He was dressed in soldier’s garb and looked altogether different. Manly. Almost war-like. The others were dark, but all were armed with swords.

‘Lilla.’ Anna clutched for Lilla’s hand. ‘What’s happening?’

‘This is the man who betrayed the city. He’s a traitor.’

‘You murdered Alethea,’ snarled Gerutha. ‘She was innocent, you bastard. They were all innocent.’

‘Please,’ he scoffed, ‘who is ever innocent, really?’