“I wish that our House had produced some swordsman more worthy of our glory days,” said Ortus meditatively, who always found enthusiasm for alternate histories where he was not pressed into service or asked to do anything he found difficult. “I wish that our House had not been diminished to ‘those who are fit but to hold their blade in the scabbard.’”

Harrowhark congratulated herself on not pointing out how this lack of production was directly due to three things: his mother, himself, and The Noniad, his ongoing verse epic devoted to Matthias Nonius. She had a vile suspicion that the quotation, around which he had somehow contrived to pronounce quotation marks, was from that very same verse epic, which she knew was already on its eighteenth book and showed no signs of slowing down. If anything it seemed to be gaining momentum, like a very boring avalanche. She was composing a rejoinder when she noticed that a serving sister had arrived in her father’s library.

Harrow had not noticed her knocking, or her passage in; this wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the sister’s ashen paint was decorating the lovely dead face of the Body.

Her palms felt wet. In this scenario, either the sister was real and her face was not, or the sister was herself unreal. One couldn’t simply gauge all the osseous mass in the room and do a best guess; bones in meat generated so much deceptive soft thalergy, only a fool would try. She flicked her eyes over to Ortus in the faint hope that he would betray her reality one way or another. But his gaze was still levelled at the ground.

“Our House has received good service from ‘those who are fit but to hold their blade in the scabbard,’” said Harrowhark, keeping her voice even. “Which is not a line that scans, just so you know. Nobody will be surprised to find you a laggard.”

“It’s enneameter. The traditional form. Those who are fit but to hold their blade in the scabbard—”

“That’s not nine feet of anything.”

“—never to draw it forth for the battle.”

“You will train with Captain Aiglamene for the next twelve weeks,” said Harrowhark, rubbing her fingers back and forth, back and forth, until the pad of her thumb felt very hot. “You will meet the very minimum that is expected of a Ninth House cavalier primary, which is now, fortunately, that you be as broad as you are tall with arms that can carry a weight. But I need … significantly more from you … than the edge of a sword, Nigenad.”