'I must return to the Halls Martial, your Majesty,' said Varuz. 'Arnault's Wall is breached. It will not be long until the Gurkish try to push through once again. They would already be at the Middleway if it hadn't been for that charge of yours, though, eh? I see now how you won your reputation in the west! As noble a business as I ever saw!'

'Uh.' Jezal watched the dead being dragged away. Three Knights of the Body, one of Varuz' staff and a page-boy no older than twelve, the last with his head hanging off by a flap of gristle. Three men and a child he had led to their deaths. And that was without even considering the wounds the rest of his faithful entourage had gathered on his behalf. A noble business indeed.

'Wait here,' he snapped at Gorst, then he threaded his way through the sweating workmen towards the First of the Magi. Ferro sat cross-legged nearby on a row of barrels, her hands dangling loose, the same utter contempt she had always shown him written plainly on her dark face. It was almost comforting to see that some things never changed. Bayaz was glaring grimly down into the pages of a large black book, evidently of great age, its leather covers cracked and torn. He looked gaunt and pale, old and withered. One side of his face was covered in scabbed-over scratches.

'What happened to you?' asked Jezal.

Bayaz frowned, a muscle trembling under one dark-ringed eye. 'I could ask you the same question.'

Jezal noted that the Magus had not even bothered with a 'your Majesty'. He touched a hand to the bloody bandage round his skull. 'I was involved in a charge.'

'In a what?'

'The Gurkish brought down a section of Arnault's Wall while I was surveying the city. There was no one to turn them back, and so… I did it myself.' He was almost surprised to hear himself saying the words. He was far from proud of the fact, certainly. He had done little more than ride, fall, and hit his head. Bremer dan Gorst and his own dead horse had done the majority of the fighting, and against meagre opposition to boot. But he supposed he had done the right thing, for once, if there was any such a thing.

Bayaz did not agree. 'Have what little brains fate saved for you turned to shit?'

'Have they…' Jezal blinked as the meaning of Bayaz' words soaked slowly into his consciousness. 'How dare you, you meddling old turd? You are talking to a king!' That was what he wanted to say, but his head was pounding, and something in the Magus' twitching, wasted face prevented him. Instead he found himself mumbling in a tone almost apologetic. 'But… I don't understand. I thought… isn't that what Harod the Great would have done?'