Five heads turned towards her, and the conversation stopped. Four of the heads belonged to people roughly her own age, somewhere in the vicinity of sixteen to twenty years old. There were two young men and two young women. The women wore the layered tunics of differing length in their Guild colours, and had their scarves tied around their necks rather than on their heads. The men had sleeves cut to show the inner lining of different colours and were bareheaded. None of them wore swords or daggers, or carried any obvious weapons at all.

The fifth person was much older, perhaps fifty, and reminded Clariel of a crane, for he was very tall and thin, his nose was long, and he had tufts of grey hair that departed his head at angles that made them reminiscent of wind-ruffled feathers. Wearing a long coat of banded white and cream, clearly the colours of the Academy, he immediately stepped forward and gave a middle bow to Clariel and said, ‘Welcome. You are the last to join us. I am Master Dyrell, and this class is The Serving of Tea. Before we begin, we shall practise polite introductions. You have entered the room, therefore it is to you that we look to begin.’

‘My name is Clariel,’ replied Clariel, speaking to the room at large, without really looking at anyone other than Dyrell. ‘Daughter of Jaciel High Goldsmith and her consort, Harven.’

‘No, no, Lady Clariel,’ said Dyrell. ‘One at a time, one a time, beginning with the person of the highest order in the room.’

‘Who would that be, then?’ asked Clariel. ‘And how am I supposed to know?’

‘It will be a trifle difficult before you have met many people,’ admitted Dyrell. ‘But you can begin by looking at the indication of Guild, which will narrow the possibilities. Here, you see, there is but one High Goldsmith other than yourself, so naturally that person will be of the highest –’

Clariel interrupted him with a kind of snort that would not have been out of place coming from a disturbed boar, as she properly looked at the person in the white and yellow of the Goldsmiths. A young, handsome man with fair hair and strikingly blue eyes. Familiar eyes, that had winked at her the day before, just before the young man had made his escape after the mummery of his supposed attack upon her.

‘You!’ she said, following the snort.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ said the man, with a smile that was nearly a smirk and, very annoyingly, the shadow of a wink. ‘I am Aronzo, son of Kilp, Guildmaster of the High Goldsmiths and Governor of Belisaere, and his consort, Marget.’

‘You see, that is how it is done,’ said Dyrell, with a curious glance at Clariel and then back at Aronzo. ‘Then we have –’