But the thrown objects had no weight, bouncing off the roof and sides of the palanquin, and neither the guards nor the bearers paid any attention to the missiles or the throwers. Whatever they were hurling, it was soft and harmless. Clariel saw one missile bounce onto the road near her and partially unfurl.

‘They’re throwing scrunched-up paper?’

‘Petitions,’ said Valannie, with a sneer. ‘They hope to get their petty grievances to the King. Don’t worry, the guards at the gate will pick the papers up and record the names on them for later attention.’

‘To address their wrongs?’ asked Clariel, but even as she asked the question she knew that would not be the case.

‘No! To make further enquiries, to see if they are troublemakers,’ said Valannie. ‘It is a small set of rabble-rousers causing all the problems. Most folk are loyal to the Governor.’

‘You mean loyal to the King,’ said Clariel, but Valannie didn’t answer, nor would she meet Clariel’s gaze.

It wasn’t her problem, thought Clariel. Let others politick and plot and counterplot. She would be away from the city soon enough, and in the Great Forest within a week. If the Borderers continued to exist, then she would join them in a year or two, when she had proved herself as a hunter and guide. If by some stroke of governmental foolishness the Borderers were disbanded or discontinued through lack of funds, then so be it. She would remain a hunter and try to carry out some of the good work the Borderers did on her own account, tending to the woods, its animal inhabitants and the men and women who lived or travelled there. ‘Tending’ being a word that covered all manner of activity, from clearing overgrown paths, protecting young deer from poachers, travellers from wolves and bears, culling populations of animals that threatened the balance of the Forest …

A shadow fell across the palanquin. Clariel reacted to it instantly, her head going up, her nose sniffing the air. She knew the shape and feel of that shade, she could smell the great tree that cast it. Ignoring Valannie’s decorous and ineffectual attempt to stop her, she leaned forward and pulled the curtain open.

They were in the Palace gardens, being carried along a gently rising road that ran straight as a blade between great oaks, whose branches intermingled above them to form a canopy of green, the occasional crunching sound underfoot from the treading of fallen acorns.

There were lawns behind the oaks, and stands of other trees, silver birch and rowan, ash and beech, interspersed with beds of white flowers, bordered in red brick, a warm and welcome sight compared to all the cold stone of the city.