‘Holds dear? Me?’ asked Clariel. ‘Mother wouldn’t even notice!’

‘I think you’ll find she would,’ said Roban. ‘Any mother would.’

Not my mother, thought Clariel. She has been lost in her craft my entire life.

‘There is one … other matter … milady,’ said Roban hesitantly. He was watching her carefully now, no longer looking down.

‘Yes?’

‘Begging your pardon, but I’ve seen berserks before, and …’

‘What?’

‘I think you might have the fury, milady. It is oft found in the royal blood, and you’re a cousin …’

‘The fury? Me, a berserk? I’m not old enough to be anything!’

‘Age is of no import,’ said Roban carefully. ‘May I suggest you talk to Gullaine, the Captain of the Guard. The rage can be shepherded, kept in check, and she knows about such things.’

Clariel wrinkled her forehead. ‘I do get angry sometimes, but I’ve never … almost never … completely lost my temper. I’m sure I’m not a berserk.’

‘As you say, milady,’ said Roban. ‘By your leave, I’ll be away to my bed.’

Roban quietly slipped away down the stairs, leaving Clariel to think about many things. She wanted to dismiss the suggestion she was a berserk. They were rare fighters, almost monstrous in their rage, which fuelled them to great feats of arms, shrugging off blows and wounds, exhibiting the strength of several men and the like. And they were always men, as far as she could remember, from the tales she’d heard or read. Clariel had never seen an actual berserk.

But she had experienced a similar feeling of uncontrollable anger years before, when she had been surprised and attacked by a wild sow. It had slashed her leg through her leathers and got her on the ground, which was the worst place to be. Clariel remembered the sudden onset of the fury, starting from a moment of intolerable exasperation at letting herself get in such a predicament. Then the anger blew up like a forest fire. The sow had swung around to come back and attack again, and the next thing Clariel knew she was standing over its dead body, gripping a trotter in each hand, having literally torn it apart. And she’d still been so angry she’d thrown the pieces down, ripped up a sapling and whipped the remains until suddenly coming to her rather appalled senses, followed soon after by a great weakness, not to mention a feeling of revulsion.

So she couldn’t dismiss the notion she was a berserk as easily as she wanted to …

Roban’s other suggestion, that Kilp was sending a warning to thwart her mother’s ambition, was easier to disregard. Clariel very much doubted her mother could have changed so drastically without her noticing. Surely if Jaciel was plotting to become Guildmaster of the Goldsmiths, and Governor, and then Queen, she would have stopped making things, or at least would be less fanatical about her art.