‘Amar!’ Cramoisy exclaimed, one hand fluttering close to his rose-painted lips.

‘How do I know?’ Khassian repeated, ignoring him.

‘You must excuse him, Celestion.’ Cramoisy put his hands on Khassian’s shoulders. ‘Can’t this wait till tomorrow? Valentan needs sleep.’

‘I have to know.’

‘I can’t prove anything to you,’ Valentan said, his voice faint with weariness. ‘All I can tell you is that to see you both here, alive, has given me hope again…’

Khassian still stared at his haggard face, the half-closed eyes, lids drooping with exhaustion. He wanted to believe him. But since the fire, he had become wary of everyone, even those he had once called his friends.

‘We’ll talk,’ he said finally, ‘in the morning.’

Acir Korentan sat up late into the night in his lodgings, reading his worn copy of the Vineyard Verses by the light of a single candle. Girim nel Ghislain had given him the book when he first joined the Commanderie and he had carried it with him ever since.

‘The Way is choked with thorns, yet bleeding, torn, I must go onwards into the darkness. I must bear the torch of Your word to set the hearts of the people aflame.’

He scarcely needed the meagre light to see the words; he knew them by heart. When alone and shivering in the Enhirran desert night, he had repeated them again and again to comfort himself.

Oh, to relive those glorious days of the desert campaign when he had followed Girim’s banner and fought to drive the infidel Enhirrans from the Poet-Prophet Mhir’s birthplace! The Princes of Allegonde had neglected to garrison their distant desert citadel – and the holy place where the Prophet was born had fallen to the Enhirrans. The young Guerriors of the Commanderie fought a bloody and bitter campaign to relieve the citadel… and to the glory of Iei’s name, had eventually driven the infidels out. Tears still stung Acir’s eyes when he remembered singing lei’s praises with his confrères in the birthplace shrine; exhausted yet exultant from battle, they had raised their voices in a paean of praise.

He was a soldier, first and foremost. He had no skills as a negotiator. His eyes kept straying to Girim’s latest letter.

‘Stop this rebellion before it starts. If he will not come to us of his own volition, then you must take action of a different kind.’

Kill Amaru Khassian.

He took up his pen and began to write.

‘Give me longer, just a little longer. These are delicate matters and take time –’

Begging words. Demeaning for a Guerrior to have to beg.

He slashed the words out and crushed the spoiled paper in his first.

He had no truck with assassination. He had always fought his adversaries face to face, blade to blade. He would not skulk in dark alleys, stalking his victim like a thief.