Whiskeyjack watched the guests create a space on the terrace, lining up on either side. 'Check with Hedge and Fiddler,' he ordered, eyes lingering on the Tiste Andii. 'Make sure they've got something handy, in case it all comes apart. This estate's got to burn then, hot and long. We'll need the diversion to set off the intersection mines. Give me the nod telling me they're up to it.'

'Right.' Quick Ben moved off.

Whiskeyjack grunted in surprise as a young man stepped round him, dressed as a thief, complete with face mask.

'Excuse me,' the man muttered, as he walked into the crowd.

The sergeant stared after him, then glanced back at the garden. How the hell had that lad got past them in the first place? He could've sworn they'd sealed off the woods. He loosened his sword surreptitiously in its sheath.

Crokus had no idea what kind of costume Challice D'Arle would be wearing, and he was resigned to a long hunt. He'd left Apsalar at the garden's back wall, and now felt guilty. Still, she'd seemed to take it well – though in a way that made him feel even worse. Why did she have to be so nice about things?

He spared barely a thought about the crowd's strange formation, looking as he was for a head somewhere at chest level to everyone else. As it turned out, that proved unnecessary, for Challice D'Arle's costume was no disguise.

Crokus found himself between two burly house guards. Across from him, twenty feet away with no one to block his view, stood Challice and an older woman Crokus took to be her mother. Their attention was held unerringly on a tall, severe-looking man standing at one end of the cleared space and speaking with another man, who was strapping on a duelling glove. It slowly dawned on the thief that a duel was but moments away.

Squeezing between the two guards, Crokus craned his neck to find the other duellist. At first he thought him the giant with the dragon mask and two-handed sword. Then his gaze found the man. Rallick Nom. His eyes snapped back to the first duellist. Familiar. He nudged the guard on his left. 'Is that Councilman Turban Orr?'

'It is, sir,' the guard replied, an odd tightness in his tone.

Crokus glanced up to see the man's face wet with sweat, trickling down from under his peaked helmet. Strange. 'So, where's Lady Simtal?' he asked casually.

'Nowhere in sight,' the guard answered, with obvious relief. 'Otherwise she'd stop this.'

Crokus nodded at that. 'Well,' he said, 'Rallick will win.'

The guard's gaze was on him, the eyes hard and piercing. 'You know the man?'

'Well—'

Someone tapped his back and he turned to find a cherub's face smiling mindlessly at him. 'Why, Crokus lad! What an inventive costume you're wearing!'

'Kruppe?'