Harrowhark knew from experience that no what-for was in the offing. Matthias Nonius never did battle in The Noniad (Matthias hight Nonius his Deeds and Accomplishments) without a significant amount of talking first. He generally spent at least fifty lines destroying his opponents in speech before he began to destroy them physically, wading through the giblets of the immoral for another two hundred or so. This part was no exception. It was hardly to be borne that Ortus would launch into The Noniad in company; she had been subjected to so much of it herself because she knew he hoped that one day she would be deeply moved by it, release him from the duty of cavalier primary, and make him a Ninth bone skald. The idea that he would give a public reading ought to have been a whipping offence.

Now he stood, wide and black and shadowy among all the brushed-steel shelving. The necromancer and the cavalier of the Fifth sat at a table spread wide with books, and fragments of delicate loose-leaf paper safely slipped into plex covers, and browned-out flimsy, and pens. The necromancer looked entertained, and the cavalier looked beside himself. The necromancer, the woman who had been so delighted with the idea of independent research, a grown woman with a very even smile, did not put Harrowhark in any good humour. Even she had heard of Abigail Pent.

“Lady,” said Ortus, and, sorrowfully: “Forgive me. Nonius has heroic standing among the priests and anchorites of our House,” he added to the others. “Perhaps I do him wrong by making poesy of the sacred mysteries.”

“I never realised that Nonius had passed into cult worship,” said Pent.

“He has not,” said Harrowhark shortly, and then was forced to admit: “Or, at least, the idea is passé.”

“Heroes are passé, you see,” explained Ortus with heavy sadness.

She did not murder him. It was a very near thing. Sir Magnus Quinn, that perambulating white-toothed smile, intervened quickly: “Have you made use of this space yet, Reverend Daughter? We prefer it for the moment to the idea of going downstairs. We’re taking up the biggest table, I am afraid—my wife found an annotated copy of The New Necromancer—my only contribution was that in the gentleman’s restroom, I found what is almost certainly an ancient theoretical epigram. That is how we got Ortus the Ninth onto the subject.”

“An epigram?”

He hesitated. Pent said mildly, “Magnus is being amusing. It reads as a dialogue between magicians from the schools of flesh, spirit, and bone magic, the punchline being: Yes, but my bone expands when I touch it, which at least proves that joke is as old as the Nine Houses themselves.” Before Harrowhark could take this prompt to make a hasty exit, the necromancer of the Fifth said without transition: “Are you interested in Lyctoral materials?”