‘And you can be sure you may rely upon me, Legyl,’ said Rise Herat. ‘So, as you say, there are some things that can well be known. But tell me – did not the city seem alive to you?’

‘I could see everyone. In the streets. They were tiny!’

Taking her hand, he led her back to the trap door and the steep steps leading down to the level below. ‘Fleas from the mud, mites and ticks burrowing into the hide.’

‘It was buildings and stuff. Not a river turtle at all.’

‘I have shown you the city and to look upon the city is to look upon your own body, Legyl. And this Citadel … why, the eyes are set in the head and the head upon the body. This morning, you became the Citadel’s eyes. Is your body not flesh and bone? Is it not a place of heat and labour, the beat of your heart, the breath you draw? Such is wise Kharkanas.’

At the bottom of the steps she pulled free her hand. ‘Cedorpul’s a better teacher than you. He makes sense. You don’t.’

He shrugged. ‘I forget the narrow perch of the child’s mind. In pragmatism there is comfort, yes?’

‘I’m going to play in my room now.’

‘Go on,’ he said, gesturing her along.

The temple’s lone hostage scampered off, down the inner stairs to the next floor below. Rise Herat hesitated, and then turned about and made his way back up to the tower’s platform. His morning ritual, this private contemplation of Kharkanas, might still be salvaged. Cedorpul had ambushed him in the corridor outside his chambers, thrusting this young student into his care. Hasty words regarding lessons and then the young priest was gone.

More rumours, more agitation to rush up and down the hallways of the Citadel. The sanctuary of the Old Tower was Rise Herat’s place of strength amidst all this nonsense. Instead, he found himself left in charge of a girl he saw as almost feral and possibly simple-minded, so vast the temple’s neglect. Ever passed on to the next, scores of teachers and no lessons ever returned to, Legyl’s was an education of fragments, delivered in haste and out from airs of distraction. When he had looked down at her, however, he had seen sure intelligence in the large eyes staring back up at him.

As the court historian, he decided that history would be the lesson he delivered. Such ambitions proved short-lived, as her breathless scatter of comments and observations left him confused. She listened to his words as one might listen to a songbird in the garden, a pleasant drone in the background. Whatever she took in seemed randomly selected; but perhaps it was that way with all children. He rarely had any contact with them, and generally preferred it that way.