It was quiet too, but it was only a relative quiet. Though it was an hour yet till dawn, Clariel could hear carts further down the hill, and voices raised in complaint or irritation carrying in from somewhere lower down and to the northeast.

‘Let’s go,’ said Roban. He set off, walking a little more slowly than he would during the day, his head carefully turning from side to side as he watched the doors and openings ahead. Clariel noted that he held his sword drawn at his side, the blade darkened with soot so that it did not catch the light. She wished she’d thought to do the same with her falchion, but settled with loosening it in its sheath, and kept her hand upon the hilt.

Magister Kargrin was waiting outside his house under the sign of the hedgepig, accompanied by a woman who wore a knee-length hauberk of gethre plates and a surcoat dappled with the golden castles on scarlet indicating the Royal Guard. The sign above their heads was swaying slightly, as the dawn breeze had just begun its whispering journey into the city from the east, and there was already the faint glow of the rising sun on the horizon, and the sky was noticeably lighter. But apart from their own small group, the street was empty and still.

‘Clariel, this is Captain Gullaine, who commands the Royal Guard.’

‘What’s left of it,’ said Gullaine, her mouth quirking up in something that was not quite a smile. She wore a mail coif close around her face, as well as a helmet, so it was difficult for Clariel to guess her age, but she thought she must be forty, perhaps older. The Captain took off one glove, parked it under her elbow, tilted her helmet back and pushed the coif up, to show her forehead Charter mark. ‘Lady Clariel, if I may test your mark, and you do likewise?’

Clariel moved closer and briefly touched Gullaine’s mark, as the guardswoman returned the gesture. After her lesson yesterday, mostly just refamiliarising herself with simply connecting to the Charter, it was easier, but still the vast flow of marks threatened to overwhelm her, so she was glad that the contact only lasted a second or two.

‘Best to be careful,’ said Gullaine. She stepped back and looked over Clariel’s outfit, her expression indicating some unhappiness.

‘I wish we had a coat of gethre plates for you,’ she said. ‘If it comes to fighting, they resist the stuff of Free Magic better than leather or iron.’

‘I trust Clariel will not be getting so close,’ said Kargrin. ‘If we are wishing, I would wish for the particular robes the Abhorsens wear when handling such creatures. But we have neither the robes nor an Abhorsen.’

‘I believe we will have the next best thing,’ said Gullaine, with a smile. ‘Once or twice removed, perhaps.’