At last, she rounded the corner and passed beneath the winged serathi of the chapel’s arched doorway. “Viktor!”

The Black Knight froze in the act of swinging the two-handed workman’s mallet. He stood, naked to the waist and streaming with sweat, in a shallow, rough-edged pit ringed with cracked tile and broken stone. The shroud-covered altar lay perhaps six paces behind. Its statue of Lumestra regarded the sacrilege with lofty disapproval.

“Ah, Calenne.” He let the hammer slide through his fingers until its haft struck the floor. “Thank you for coming.”

“You appear to have dug a hole in the chapel floor.”

“Not just the floor, but the foundations.” He shrugged. “And no one was using it.”

“And if Lumestra takes offence?”

“I’m assured she’ll take no action.” He spoke the words with a small smile, but the joke – if there was one – was lost on Calenne.

Viktor took advantage of the brief silence to whirl the hammer anew.

Crunch!

Calenne flinched at the clamour. A fist-sized chunk of stone shattered to dust.

“I swear, if you do that once more, I’m going back the way I came.” Had she just threatened the Black Knight? “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“To repay a favour owed?”

“I did that yesterday when I spoke for you before my brother.”

He set the hammer aside. “Then I suppose I’ll owe you a favour.”

Interested despite herself, Calenne held her ground. “For what?”

“Is there a sculptor in Eskavord? One who works with clay?”

“I imagine so . . . Elda will know.”

Viktor squatted. He scooped a handful of dust from the pit and trickled it carefully into a small leather pouch. He did so twice more, and tugged the drawstring closed.

“Take that to the sculptor and have him fold it into fresh clay. A lot of fresh clay.” He stepped out of the pit and dropped the pouch into Calenne’s hand. “And have him clear his workload for the day. He’ll be well compensated.”

She lifted the pouch and glowered at it. “Get one of your soldiers to do it.”

“My soldiers, few as they are, have labours of their own. You do not.”

Calenne grimaced. It would be nice, just once, to have a conversation where she didn’t end up feeling like a spoilt child. But she supposed the key to that was not behaving like one in the first place.

“All right. For a favour yet owed.”

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Two

The guest-bell chimed early at the Kiradin mansion. Earlier than respectable sorts were about their business. But Marek would never have considered himself a respectable sort. Lady Ebigail’s wishes were paramount. Chief among them was that any business that presented itself before the hour of eight without benefit of the Council seal was business safely left in Marek’s hands.