As he rose to cross the wide curve of the Crescent, he noticed a woman, elegantly dressed, also staring curiously up at Mistress Permay’s house. It was the brightness of her hair that caught his eye, a brightness that made his heart stop.

Gold of sun on marigold meadows in distant Allegonde…

‘Fiammis,’ he murmured. It must be coincidence. It must be a trick of the sunlight. And yet he had heard it rumoured that Fiammis assumed many disguises in her work for the Cause.

The woman was coming nearer unhurriedly, strolling across the cobbled street as if to gaze at the smooth lawns and the green hills beyond. Acir turned his head away.

‘Good day to you, Captain Korentan.’

He gave a little gasp as if he had been shot.

‘It is you.’

She nodded. She seemed as cool, as self-controlled, as he remembered her. And as perfect. To look on her heart-shaped face, translucent skin as pale as narcissus petals, tore open a deep wound he had thought healed long ago.

‘Fiammis.’ He heard the tremor in his voice, struggled to control it. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Taking the waters, dear Acir. Why else does one come to Sulien?’

The Contesse Fiammis. Girim’s secret agent.

‘He’s sent you, hasn’t he?’

‘Did I take you by surprise, Captain? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

A ghost from my past, the past that might have been.

He was seized with a sudden irrational urge to go in and warn Amaru Khassian.

But all he said was, ‘This is my mission, Fiammis,’ with as much dignity as his damaged pride could permit before another sneeze threatened to explode. He fumbled for his handkerchief to smother it.

‘Dear me. What a nasty cold. But then, you shouldn’t go river-bathing at this time of year.’

She took out a folded newspaper from her reticule and showed it to him.

‘Haven’t you read the Sulien Chronicle? “Heroic rescue in swollen Avenne. Man swept away by flood waters rescued from drowning. The selfless rescuer, a visitor from Allegonde, modestly refused to reveal his name but was thought to be one Acir Korentan, a Captain of the Commanderie.” ‘

Acir silently handed her back the Chronicle.

‘Maybe Girim will see it as good publicity for the Cause, Captain. Or maybe… he will wonder why you did not let Amaru Khassian drown?’

Khassian lay watching golden motes slowly spiralling in a thin shaft of spring sunlight. The darkness of the curtained room by day suited the darkness of his mood; he shunned the sunlight, preferring to hide from its brilliance in his room.

A debilitating lassitude had overcome him; he had awoken from a night of troubled dreams to a feeling of dread and hopelessness. His breakfast tray lay untouched, his favourite cup of mocha cold, with a thick skin congealing on the top.