‘Indeed, you can only crush such a creature with knowledge superior to her own. Or the sweeter cut that is common sense. However, should a theory be easily shredded by an utterance of the obvious, then you’ll have made a lifelong enemy. Be warned of that, husband.’

They had slowed their mounts, as the cobbles were slick, the slope treacherous. ‘Hedeg Lesser wears the smile of the punch-drunk,’ Jureg observed. ‘I wager she describes the origin of every carnal position, and finds heat not in the act, but in the deluge of words beneath which she drowns all spontaneity. In her husband’s eyes there is the dulled despair of the defeated: a victim of explanations.’

‘Have you only pity for Hedeg, then?’

‘He stirs to life in her absence, but it takes work. I’ve yet to decide the effort’s worth.’

‘Well, we will share their company for some days yet, in our yielding to Hish Tulla’s invitation.’

The track levelled out momentarily, and then swung round into the final descent, and at this point they found themselves close enough to discern the three riders in detail.

‘Ah,’ murmured Degalla.

Her husband said nothing.

Close to the keep’s gate, Lady Manalle and her husband, Hedeg Lesser, had edged their mounts some distance from the Vanut Houseblades, sufficient for the pair to speak without being overheard.

Below, their hosts picked their way down the slick track.

‘I swear,’ muttered Manalle, ‘if I must witness yet one more exchange of knowing looks between those two, I will weather the curse of murder, guest-named or not. Worse, I may well descend into torture, out of sheer malice.’

Her husband tugged at his close-trimmed, greying beard. ‘Careful, beloved. That’s not a curse thinned by blood or years. Would you truly consign our family to everlasting condemnation?’

‘I am tempted. It is the selfish pleasure that most easily forgets consequence.’

‘Then there is her venal brother to consider. Lord Vanut would delight in a blood feud.’

‘Wretched family,’ muttered Manalle.

Her husband nodded in commiseration, and then asked, ‘Who are those riders, do you think? Emissaries from Urusander?’

‘I doubt that. Such would bear a standard, bold and diffident as befits both their vulnerability and their arrogance.’ She glanced over and was pleased to see her husband’s appreciative smile. There had been no accident in the inversion of her last statement. Diffident arrogance and bold vulnerability – what sweeter descriptive for emissaries of the Legion, coming among the highborn with belligerent promises of peace and preening threat? ‘Perhaps,’ she ventured, ‘survivors from the Wardens.’ A moment later she shook her head. ‘I still cannot fathom Ilgast Rend’s stupidity.’

‘If word of the slaughter at Andarist’s estate had reached him, Manalle, might you not forgive him his outrage?’