‘No idea. Irrelevant. Importance lies solely in the deeds done, the goals achieved. Time is preparation, nothing more. One prepares for as long as is required. To do this is to accept that planning begins at birth. You are born and before all else you are plunged into shadow, wrapped inside the holy ambivalence, there to suckle sweet sustenance. I live to prepare, Trell, and the preparations are nearly complete.’

‘Where is Icarium?’

‘A life given for a life taken, tell him that. In the library. The nuns left but a handful of books. Tomes devoted to pleasuring themselves. Best read in bed, I find. The rest of the material is mine, a scant collection, dreadful paucity, I am embarrassed. Hungry?’

Mappo shook himself. The High Priest’s rambles had a hypnotic quality. Each question the Trell voiced was answered with a bizarre rambling monologue that seemed to drain him of will beyond the utterance of yet another question. True to his assertions, Iskaral Pust could make the passing of time meaningless. ‘Hungry? Aye.’

‘Servant prepares food.’

‘Can he bring it to the library?’

The High Priest scowled. ‘Collapse of etiquette. But if you insist.’

The Trell pushed himself upright. ‘Where is the library?’

‘Turn right, proceed thirty-four paces, turn right again, twelve paces, then through door on the right, thirty-five paces, through archway on right another eleven paces, turn right one last time, fifteen paces, enter the door on the right.’

Mappo stared at Iskaral Pust.

The High Priest shifted nervously.

‘Or,’ the Trell said, eyes narrowed, ‘turn left, nineteen paces.’

‘Aye,’ Iskaral muttered.

Mappo strode to the door. ‘I shall take the short route, then.’

‘If you must,’ the High Priest growled as he bent to close examination of the broom’s ragged end.

The breach of etiquette was explained when, upon entering the library, Mappo saw that the squat chamber also served as kitchen. Icarium sat at a robust black-stained table a few paces to the Trell’s right, while Servant hunched over a cauldron suspended by chain over a hearth a pace to Mappo’s left. Servant’s head was almost invisible inside a cloud of steam, drenched in condensation and dripping into the cauldron as he worked a wooden ladle in slow, turgid circles.

‘I shall pass on the soup, I think,’ Mappo said to the man.

‘These books are rotting,’ Icarium said, leaning back and eyeing Mappo. ‘You are recovered?’

‘So it seems.’

Still studying the Trell, Icarium frowned. ‘Soup? Ah,’ his expression cleared, ‘not soup. Laundry. You’ll find more palatable fare on the carving table.’ He gestured to the wall behind Servant, then returned to the mouldering pages of an ancient book opened before him. ‘This is astonishing, Mappo...’

‘Given how isolated those nuns were,’ Mappo said as he approached the carving table, ‘I’m surprised you’re astonished.’