He passed through Toll Ramp Gate and made his way along Marble Slope Road, where the first merchant estates appeared, pushed back from the cobbled street, half hidden by courtyard walls. The foliage of gardens joined their lively colours with brightly painted walls; the crowds diminished and private guards were visible outside arching gates. The sweltering air lost its reek of sewage and rotting food, slipping cooler across unseen fountains and carrying into the avenue the fragrance of blossoms.

Smells of childhood.

The estates spread out as he led his horse deeper into the Noble District. Breathing-space purchased by history and ancient coin. The Empire seemed to melt away, a distant, mundane concern. Here, families traced their lines back seven centuries to those tribal horsemen who had first come to this land from the east. In blood and fire, as was always the way, they had conquered and subdued the cousins of the Kanese who'd built villages along this coast. From warrior horsemen to horsebreeders to merchants of wine, beer and cloth. An ancient nobility of the blade, now a nobility of hoarded gold, trade agreements, subtle manoeuvrings and hidden corruptions in gilded rooms and oil-lit corridors.

Paran had imagined himself acquiring trappings that closed a circle, a return to the blade from which his family had emerged, strong and savage, all those centuries ago. For his choice, his father had condemned him.

He came to a familiar postern, a single high door along one side wall and facing an alley that in another part of the city would be a wide street. There was no guard here, just a thin bell-chain, which he pulled twice.

Alone in the alley, Paran waited.

A bar clanked on the other side, a voice growled a curse as the door swung back on protesting hinges.

Paran found himself staring down at an unfamiliar face. The man was old, scarred and wearing much-mended chain-mail that ended raggedly around his knees. His pot-helm was uneven with hammered-out dents, yet polished bright.

The man eyed Paran up and down with watery grey eyes, then grunted, 'The tapestry lives.'

'Excuse me?'

The guardsman swung the door wide. 'Older now, of course, but it's all the same by the lines. Good artist, to capture the way of standing, the expression and all. Welcome home, Ganoes.'

Paran led his horse through the narrow doorway. The path was between two outbuildings of the estate, showing sky overhead.

'I don't know you, soldier,' Paran said. 'But it seems my portrait has been well studied by the guards. Is it now a throw-rug in your barracks?'

'Something like that.'

'What is your name?'

'Garnet,' the guard answered, as he followed behind the horse after shutting and locking the door. 'In service to your father these last three years.'

'And before that, Garnet?'

'Not a question asked.'

They came to the courtyard. Paran paused to study the guardsman. 'My father's usually thorough in researching the histories of those entering his employ.'

Garnet grinned, revealing a full set of white teeth. 'Oh, that he did. And here I am. Guess it weren't too dishonourable.'