‘You wouldn’t dare – oh, all right, you would. Come no closer. I will be civil. I promise.’

Both turned at the sound of the temple doors squealing open.

‘Aai!’ Rath’Shadowthrone whispered. ‘Who is that?’

‘My friend, Murillio.’

‘No, you idiot – the other one!’

‘The one with the swords, you mean? Ah, well, he works for Hood.’

‘And is Rath’Hood aware of this?’

‘You’re asking me?’

‘Well, has he paid a visit?’

‘No.’

‘The brainless idiot!’

Coll grunted. ‘Is that a quality all your acquaintances share?’

‘So far,’ Rath’Shadowthrone muttered.

‘Those two,’ Coll said, ‘what kind of masks are they wearing under those cowls?’

‘You mean, do I recognize them? Of course I do. The old man’s Rath’Togg. The older woman’s Rath’Fanderay. On the Council we use them as bookends – in all my years in the Thrall, I don’t think I’ve heard either one say a word. Even more amusing, they’re lovers who’ve never touched each other.’

‘How does that work?’

‘Use your imagination, Daru. Ho, they’re being invited inside! What bubbles in this cauldron?’

‘Cauldron? What cauldron?’

‘Shut up.’

Coll smiled. ‘Well, I’m having too much fun. Time to go inside.’

‘I’m going with you.’

‘No, you’re not. I don’t like spies.’ With that, Coll’s fist connected with the priest’s jaw. The man dropped in a heap.

The shadows slowly dissolved to flickering torchlight.

Coll rubbed at his knuckles, then set off for the temple.

He closed the door behind him. Murillio, the warrior and the guests were nowhere to be seen. He strode to the entrance to the chamber of the sepulchre. One of the doors had been left slightly ajar. Coll nudged it open and stepped through.

Murillio sat close to where they had laid out a cot for the Mhybe – the burial pit remained empty, despite the undead warrior’s constant instructions to place the old woman within it. The sword-wielding servant of Hood stood facing the two masked councillors, the pit between them. No-one was speaking.

Coll approached Murillio. ‘What’s happened?’ he whispered.

‘Nothing. Not a word, unless they’re jabbering in their heads, but I doubt it.’

‘So . . . they’re all waiting, then.’

‘So it seems. Abyss take us, they’re worse than vultures...’

Coll studied his friend for a long moment, then said, ‘Murillio, were you aware you’re sitting on a corner of Hood’s altar?’

The land beyond Coral’s north wall was forested parkland, glades divided by stands of coppiced trees that had not been trimmed for at least three seasons. The trader road wound like a serpent through the parkland, straightening as it reached a two-hundred-pace-wide killing field, then rising in a narrow stone bridge over a steep, dry moat just before the wall. The gate was a massive construction, the track through barely the width of a wagon and overhung with abutments. The doors were sheeted bronze.