They stepped outside into the courtyard, strode into the shadows cast by the thick, high walls. Off to one side, an ox-drawn cart had delivered ingots of raw iron outside the smithy and the smith’s apprentices were busy unloading the stock. Unmindful of these efforts, the handler and the keep’s cutter were digging a tick out from behind the ox’s left ear, and the insect’s stubbornness was attested by the blood running down the side of the ox’s neck, while the animal lowed plaintively, hide rippling as its muscles flinched.

‘Where are we going?’ Osserc asked as they crossed the compound towards the High Gate.

‘Down into town,’ Hunn Raal replied. ‘Your father will be in a dark mood at the table tonight, assuming he shows up at all. I’ve never seen a man so eager to put down his sword, and all for a trunkful of Forulkan cylinders – and half of those broken. If those white-faced fools had any thought worthy of admiration, it did them little good against Tiste vengeance.’

Osserc was silent for a moment, as they approached the gate, and then he said, ‘It is his abiding fascination, Hunn. The laws of governance. The compact of society. We are in need of reformation, and proof of that is plain enough in all the troubles now coming home to roost.’

Hunn Raal grunted, feeling his face twisting. ‘Draconus. The troubles you’re talking about begin and end with that upstart.’

It had been a weighted comment on Hunn’s part, and he made sure not to react to Osserc’s sudden look, simply continuing on. ‘There is no history, no precedent. The family of Dracons was ever a Lesser House. And now some dubious heir to its thin blood stands beside Mother Dark. This is the threat and it has nothing to do with reform. Ambition, Osserc, is a poison.’

‘Well, my father has none of that.’

Inwardly, Hunn smiled, and it was a triumphant smile. ‘Just so. Who better to govern, then? She doesn’t need a damned Consort, she needs a husband.’

They emerged on to the first of the switchbacks leading down into the town. There was no traffic coming up this late in the day, but a cluster of carts heading down formed a logjam at the second turn, where the back end of a long-bedded wagon was being lifted by a dozen or so haulers to swing it clear.

‘If Draconus is a commoner,’ said Osserc, ‘so too is my father.’