The Foreigners’ Cemetery stood in a grove of trees beside the Avenne. High stone walls, built in the previous century, had begun to crumble and fall. Weeds grew in profusion amongst the neglected graves: rose bay willowherb, with its drifting white down, and red valerian.

The Contesse Fiammis counted out fifty courons in payment to the gravedigger Asper and his apprentices. Then in the hushed Sulien evening, she stood and watched as they lowered Acir’s body into the grave.

No Allegondan wooden coffin could be commissioned in time; a simple white Sulien shroud had sufficed.

Fiammis found wild roses growing in profusion over the western wall of the cemetery, perfuming the twilight with a sweet fragrance.

She had pricked her hands and wrists trying to pick a spray. Now, as the first earth was thrown in, she dropped to her knees at the open grave and cast the spray of roses on to Acir’s breast. The pale petals were stained with spots of her own blood.

‘It won’t be long now, miu caru.’ she whispered.

She did not feel the pain of the thorns. She felt nothing. The light had been extinguished from her life. Without him, there was no point in continuing. She was weary of subterfuge, weary of killing.

There was just one thing more she must do.

Spadefuls of the soft, dark red earth fell softly on to the shrouded body. High on the broken wall, a speckled thrush began to pipe a shrill, lonely threnody into the coming night.

The garret door opened; Khassian, startled, looked up to see Dame Tradescar had just let herself in.

‘Well?’ he said tensely.

‘The body was collected before I arrived.’ She lowered herself into an armchair with a sigh; in the twilight her face looked grey with tiredness.

‘Collected? By the Commanderie?’

‘No, a woman. She’s buried him in Sulien. I called at the Foreigners’ Cemetery. Old Asper was filling in the grave.’

‘A woman?’ Khassian said, puzzled.

‘She wouldn’t leave her name… but she paid Asper very handsomely. He was well pleased with the arrangement.’ Jolaine sat forward a little, reaching for the decanter of pommerie on the table. She poured herself a glass and drank it in one gulp.

‘And Orial? Is there any news?’

‘I stopped by the Sanatorium. There’s been no change in her condition. She’s sleeping, Cook says. Maybe that’s for the best.’

Feelings of frustration and fear from the time of Fania’s final illness returned to haunt him. It was happening again. If only there was some way he could stop the nightmare…

‘Where is this Foreigners’ Cemetery?’

‘On the far bank of the Avenne beyond the gardens. Outside the city walls.’

Khassian reached for his – Cramoisy’s – coat. He felt trapped in the garret apartment.

‘It’ll be dark by the time you get there,’ Jolaine said, pouring another glass of apple spirit. ‘Wait till morning, dear boy.’